The New Predator: Spiritual Teacher Padma Aon Prakasha Accused of Abuse
Fifteen women and two men have come forth with accusations of abuse against spiritual teacher and self proclaimed “child prodigy” Padma Aon Prakasha. They include allegations of physical and emotional abuse and manipulation. While on spiritual retreats, women who spoke against his tactics were often told they had “satanic contracts” or were under the influence of the “Twisted Sisterhood” — discarnate female spirits who are angry at men. Marriages or partnerships were ended at Padma’s direction and he would suggest sexual partners for members. A spiritual pilgrimage in Egypt turned into a hunt for dark aliens in the pyramids and culminated in Padma claiming to channel the Anti-Christ into a woman’s womb for transmutation while she laid naked on a sarcophagus. In 2011, he told his group the end of the world was near and they needed to move to Australia where they formed the “Aon Sphere” community.
In 2015 Ashley Ray (not her real name) arrived in Hawaii for a Womb Wisdom retreat based on the teachings of Padma Aon Prakasha. It was being taught by the mother of his child and core instructor of his work, Shekinah Zorenski. Ashley had already read his books and been enrolled in his 6-month online course which Padma oversaw. After meeting in person for the first time in Hawaii after the retreat he messaged her and told her that she could be a great teacher of his work but needed a “healed masculine presence” first. He then visited her at the retreat center Ashley was staying at. She describes what happened when Padma was in her room one evening:
“He then kissed me and quickly moved himself on top of me…The way he placed himself onto me was overwhelming and I could feel pain shooting inside my mouth as he kissed me with intense vigor…I was so surrendered and even though it hurt, I didn’t have enough within me to tell him to stop. I was powerless and weak underneath him…The next morning I woke up with swollen and bruised lips and a gut feeling that something was not right.”
Just before moving himself on top of Ashley, Padma told Ashley that they had been Egyptian lovers in a former lifetime. It began after dinner when Padma touched her thigh and “energy shot through” her “entire body.” He then brought her to her room to share a story about how he was a Priest and she was a Priestess in a past life. “He kept telling me I was his ‘soul mate.’” She even felt “special and exalted in his presence” she says. He also told her that he was Judas and she believed him. Ashley said she was “shaken at the core and so entranced” that such a powerful spiritual figure had come onto her. She was 24 at the time and Padma was 40.
Padma would later have sex with Ashley and they then became lovers on and off. She said that she was in a very vulnerable state at the time and viewed him in extremely high regard having previously read his books. While Padma wasn’t teaching that first retreat she was on, he did teach part of the second retreat she participated in. She viewed him as her teacher and he eventually told her that he was her teacher. He also slept with other women who were followers of his work according to these women.
Another student spoke up against Padma as she was aware of the relationship with Ashley:
“It began when I decided to message Padma and express my feelings of anger and concern for Ashley, and that I did not feel it was okay for a ‘teacher’ to be intimate with a student in the way I had witnessed them. His response was that I was having feelings from a past life arise, that this was all because of something that Ashley, him and I had been through in Egypt.”
Padma also intentionally kept the relationship secret. The same student continues: “No one other than Ashley, myself and the guides knew about Padma relating with Ashley. I’m sure others may have suspected, but we were not allowed to speak to it to anyone.”
Speaking Out
According to the numerous women who have come forward, Padma Aon (real name Vikas Sharma), has used spiritual teachings about the divine feminine to exploit and abuse women for nearly 15 years. One former member says he’s “on a pathologically, psychopathically, narcissistically, driven mission to bed as many women as he can possibly seduce, under the twisted guise of ‘empowering’ and ‘sexually healing / activating’ them.” His quest has taken him from Bali to Egypt where he’s led retreats called “Womb Wisdom,” “Wounds of Love” and “The Seven Gates” among others about feminine wisdom. The retreat schedules were arduous. One former follower describes them:
“Lots of chanting, sounding, breath work, transmissions and deep deep states. Teaching schedule is all day and often into the night. It’s very intense with practices that are difficult to endure. Lots of challenging postures (like squatting ) for prolonged periods of time which result in all kinds of breaking down. All done to release spirits, dispel curses and spells… it’s nothing but one cathartic process after the other. He has no training what so ever — making it up as he goes along.”
In an effort to maintain control, Padma and his former partner Shekinah would often tell women that some women had “satanic contracts” on them. They also used a term Padma coined called “Twisted Sisterhood” which meant “Discarnate female spirits who are angry with men.” If a woman spoke up against Padma’s abuse he would tell her she “did not know her own mind because she was terribly possessed.” One woman describes when she found out the reason she was banned from the group:
“I later found out that the reason for me being banished from the course and all work with the ‘team’ was due to having a ‘satanic contract.’ There was a list sent to Jamie which she shared with me that I was on this list. At the time I was really broken by this, I felt horrified at the depths of my darkness, that I could be so dark.”
“One practice we did we were in prayer and Shekinah began to tell one woman that she had invited Satan into this space, that she had made a dark contract and should feel why she was now inviting this energy into the space. This woman wept as the rest of the sisters looked on.”
On many occasions the women were asked to break off long-lasting friendships, partnerships and even marriages at Padma’s direction. One person was even told to abandon their children because “it was God’s plan.”He also told some women with children that they were less spiritually evolved because of their kids. One woman describes how difficult it was for her to separate from her husband:
“While living in Australia he asked my husband and myself to get separated for the second time. I left the group the following morning after crying out all night and that moment of separation was awful for me…He asked me to go to an Osho ashram in Puna (India) for nearly 3 months and said it would be good I had a sexual experience over there. We were again not allowed to have any written or oral exchanges between my husband and myself. Under influence we accepted. That was again a very difficult time for me.”
It was common for Padma to also suggest or assign sexual partners for members, telling them they needed to explore new experiences.
Many women who had read Padma’s books and went on spiritual retreat with him were enamored and awestruck by him just as Ashley was. And he used many of the same manipulative tactics on all of them, including telling several of the women they were married in former Egyptian lives. Searching for healing and growth, they believed him when he told them he was the only path to God. Padma told one woman she had the sign of Christ in her third eye and that she could be one of his special teachers. He said that she was “sphere 2” but would have to grow another sphere to be considered as a teacher.
Padma would exploit the women’s trauma and vulnerability to maintain power and fulfill his cult ambitions. As one former follower explains:
“The underlying truth in all the sacred journeys that I arranged with Padma was his manipulation in weaving history, mythology, and fantasy into something that supported his ‘powerful’ connection to greater beings and the ‘Source’ of creation. And we all fell for it.”
And Padma would engage in some very strange practices to achieve his goals.