I'm surprised a huge wildfire didn't break out with the rubbing of all that bush.
I'm surprised a huge wildfire didn't break out with the rubbing of all that bush.
n a 1980 article in a British psychology journal called Energy and Character, an ex-Rajneesh follower named David Boadella wrote as follows:
At a well-known religious community in the East ... sannyasins are selling their bodies on the open market to secure the money to gain a home for their souls in the spiritual community. This may take the form of earnings from masturbation shows, or prostitution, and is tacitly encouraged by the community in question, where the immoral earnings are discreetly referred to as "getting sweets." At the same community there is an official policy that actively discourages or prohibits drug taking. Unofficially, however, an active drug run organized by sannyasins flourishes with or alongside the community, and people in need of money to buy a place in the community are put in touch with it covertly by high-ranking officials there. Five or six kilos of cannabis are secreted in false-bottomed suitcases and are smuggled by plane via Amsterdam and Paris to Montreal, where they are sold for £9,000 (approximately $20,000). The drug ring collects £6,000 (approximately $13,000), and the person who smuggles the drugs collects £3,000 (approximately $6,500) toward his tickets to heaven. Several sannyasins are currently serving jail sentences for participating in the drug run. Two them used "brainwashing" as a defense at their trails, in order to get a reduced sentence.
Boadella also quoted the chief inspector of the Pune police as saying: "Prostitution by the cult's girl disciples reached disgraceful proportions. It became epidemic."
Professor Johannes Aagard. He gave the following testimony:
Aagard: In Pune, Bhagwan and his people, not least his group of high-ranking officers, have established an alternative world ... . He gives them a mala with his own picture on it, and they get a piece of his hair, connecting their reality with his ... . From the beginning the aim is to do away with the mind, the personality, the memory ... . You end up being nobody. You have to give up your ego. You have to empty yourself totally to surrender to Bhagwan. "Total surrender" are the key words. This is done by a series of humiliating acts where you are forced to do what you hate to do in the group. You lose the identity feeling which is connected with certain acts, certain reservations, certain sexual inhibitions. In a number of those workshops promiscuity takes place in the most rude and horrible ways. Male persons are allowed to do whatever they like with females, and vice versa, and it aims at bringing down the consciousness connected with the individual in order that a new consciousness connected with Bhagwan and his ideology take its place.
Kristina had told her the following about her experiences in a Tantra group: "Kristina was commanded to have sexual intercourse with every man in the group in turn, in order to 'kill her ego.' The group leader, a woman, shouted at her: 'If you are to surrender to Bhagwan, you must surrender to anybody here, to any man although the mere thought of it makes you sick—you are not to think—just let it happen!'"
But that's not all. There was also discovered a top-secret research project called Moses Five, whose objective was to cultivate a live AIDS virus. Rajneesh had predicted that two thirds of the world's population would die of AIDS, and the first question was: If Puja could have produced such a virus, might Rajneesh possibly have used it to make his prediction come true? In his book on Aum Shinrikyo Destroying the World in Order to Save it, Robert Jay Lifton introduced the concept of "action prophet" to describe a cult leader who "aggressively sought to bring about whatever he predicted." "What made Asahara an action prophet," he explained, "was the inseparability of prophecy and action, of what he imagined and what he did."
We don't really know all the kinds of shit the town people were involved in, because the documentary only shows their bigotry, xenophobia, hostility, hypocrisy, political chicanery, and implicit threats of violence, which is plenty repulsive enough. However, since all those things you just listed (or most of them, at least) have persisted for thousands of years under the shiny veneer of white populations like this one, we can't really rule them out. The current political climate certainly demonstrates the sort of heinous shit these "good ol' country folk" are willing to stoop to with just a little encouragement from the powers that be.
I think it's stupid as fuck to even equate the two at all. What did they say that was so bad? They were terrified of a weird group and were correct to have that feeling. The cult was made up of even more privileged white people anywayI dunno, some of us don't have the luxury of seeing these old white bigots as Grandma and Grandpa. (For that matter, nearly all of my relatives are old white bigots, so I know first hand what kind of terrible people they are.)
I find it amusing that everyone here is able to see that the documentary is trying to make the cult sympathetic, but can't guess that the documentary might also be trying to make you think that the townspeople were stereotypical backwards racists. Both sides give their postmortems as 'The other side were pieces of shit from the start and we knew it!' because they have complete hindsight and be vindicated in whatever they say. They were obviously a cult and people at the time reacted accordingly.
I find it amusing that everyone here is able to see that the documentary is trying to make the cult sympathetic, but can't guess that the documentary might also be trying to make you think that the townspeople were stereotypical backwards racists. Both sides give their postmortems as 'The other side were pieces of shit from the start and we knew it!' because they have complete hindsight and be vindicated in whatever they say. They were obviously a cult and people at the time reacted accordingly.
I also found it pretty telling that the devotees were disgusted by the chaos in India, but loved it when they were able to cross the doors to the Ashram. A curated version of mystical India. It's like an obscene version of cultural appropriation in which they embraced just the parts they liked and were made specially for them.
I liked the lawyer, Niren, a lot - he seemed so sincere, the only one among all the Rajneesh interviewees and other figures like KD, the doctor, and Hasya. But I wonder if he was aware of these atrocities that supposedly happened inside the ranch and this would make him a complete piece of shit (or someone extremely brainwashed).
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I also found it pretty telling that the devotees were disgusted by the chaos in India, but loved it when they were able to cross the doors to the Ashram. A curated version of mystical India. It's like an obscene version of cultural appropriation in which they embraced just the parts they liked and were made specially for them.
Check out Welcome to Leith on Netflix, as well. Production values aren't nearly as high, but it's a 1.5 hour (or less, I think) documentary about a group of neo-Nazis who tried to take over a small (25 person) town. It doesn't reach the highs of Wild Wild Country but is almost more disturbing as it honestly portrays these white supremacists. The supremacists themselves are also completely open about what they want, as opposed to the smoke-and-mirrors of the Rhajneeshees.
Hypothetical actions? Their behaviors already showed the town folk to be awful people. I'm simply pointing out that there could be even worse stuff going on in the lives of awful people that are fueled by bigoted, hateful views, as history has proven.You're losing me. You really want to compare hypothetical actions, based on the history of a certain demographic, against things that actually happened in the real world?
Not disagreeing with that at all.I have no doubt a lot of the opposition was bigoted, racist, xenophobic, etc. Fact of the matter is, though, in this specific situation (I understand the history of shitty behavior by whites), the conservative Antelope populace ended up justified in their fears. It's like a broken watch thing to me, honestly.
Since when does being "right" absolve a group from being assholes? Since when is saying the people of Antelope were bigoted, xenophobic cowards (some of whom were on camera saying the wanted to shoot cult members) the same as saying that they were as bad as a manipulative cult that tried to poison an entire town, abused members, and attempted to engineer biological genocide? Nuance is dead, it seems.I think it's stupid as fuck to even equate the two at all. What did they say that was so bad? They were terrified of a weird group and were correct to have that feeling. The cult was made up of even more privileged white people anyway
These two are pretty good, lots of footage, audio, and interviews:The craziest thing about this documentary was Jonestown; WTF???!!?!? Didn't realise that many people committed suicide!!! And all those murdered children? Harrowing stuff. Are there any good documentaries about this?
These two are pretty good, lots of footage, audio, and interviews:
People also like Paradise Lost but it's actors reconstructing real events.
Watched the whole thing and the documentary was pretty biased toward the Rajneeshis in my opinion. Blatantly. They never even explain why the homeless people were drugged or what happened afterwards. Sheela never talks about any of the bad shit. There's overt stuff too like playing a sombre or uplifting tone while talking about the commune and then playing a dark, ominous music when talking about the government authorities. They go to great lengths to establish why the commune became militarized. I believe what the old dude (silvertooth?) at the end said about Rajneesh was entirely correct, that Rajneesh was a scam artist and duped soulless westerners looking for eastern mysticism (and free sex and drugs) into his cult and raked in millions. He loved living like a king, and he loved adoration. He figured out that if you convince enough idiots, they will give cash hand over fist. 20 fucking Rolls Royce-es, $10m Rolex watch, sparkly ass clothes. Good lord. While his followers were forced to wear cheap tjmaxx maroon pajamas and not wear any jewelery. His followers emptied their pockets for him while he reveled in riches. Also no one talked about this, but Bhagwan means God in Hindi. So the guy thought of himself as a God.
There were number of new age movements after the war ended and this was simply the biggest one.
I kind of feel for antelope though, speaking as an immigrant minority myself who the Antelope residents would probably want deported in an instant, I wouldn't ever want to disturb a community with my ways or just cause unnecessary hardship. Just because the Constitution says it's ok does not mean you can strut around anywhere you want and disturb existing peace. I mean you can, but you'll need to be a real asshat (which the Rajneeshis were). Sheela did a horrible job. She should have picked a spot in a desert patch somewhere and the commune would still be thriving today. She picked it too close to a town and they didn't want any of it.
"Hitler had great vision."90 Rolls Royces. Didn't sympathize with anyone in the cult after hearing that. Like, that's your amazing dude, huh?
Plus there's court transcript of a discussion he had with Sheela saying it would be okay to kill people. On the same tape he says he's a Hitler fan too apparently, but I guess that's no surprise. I put the link to the transcript below in case anyone is interested.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/73907-ava-avalos-trial-testimony.html#document/p53/a14420
Just finished the last episode. Putting aside the poisoning, eventual attempted murder and assassination plots, I think what ultimately led to the Rajneeshpuram's downfall was how aggressive and greedy they got. Sheela in particular's gleeful antagonism towards the residents of Antelope certainly didn't help the group gain any favor among the populace. She practically signed the group's death warrant the moment she openly proclaimed they want to take over the local, county, and state government and practically told people who don't like that to go fuck themselves. Were the residents judging the group without knowing a single thing about them? Absolutely. There was a lot of "I don't understand them so I don't trust them" kind of attitudes going around based on the interviews. It definitely played into the stereotype of the small-town white country folk who get scared by anyone who doesn't fit their mold of what is "normal" (ie white and Christian).
But when I think about it - if a religious group came into my small town and suddenly started buying up huge swaths of land and property within a span of months or a couple years, began taking over the local government, renamed the town/streets after their group or messiah, and even started taking over local businesses, yeah, I'd probably freak out a little too. Of course there is no excuse for the vandalism and bombing of the hotel - thankfully none one was killed. If Rajneeshpuram had been slower and more methodical with regards to integrating themselves into the community instead of literally taking it over within a span of a couple of years while Sheela gave the locals the finger every step of the way, there's a decent chance that the group would have had a slightly easier time being accepted. Of course, not poisoning the whole town probably would have helped to :P
I'm amazed that I had never ever heard of this story before, it was utterly fascinating.
SeriouslyWhat surprised me the most was just how fucking badass Sheela was. I mean, I don't condone anything she did but my god she's the best character I've seen on TV all year.
The craziest thing about this documentary was Jonestown; WTF???!!?!? Didn't realise that many people committed suicide!!! And all those murdered children? Harrowing stuff. Are there any good documentaries about this?
Sheela was something to be sure. She's like those caricatures of cult leaders you see on television except she's real. After watching the whole documentary, I can totally see how someone could be lured in by her passion, especially those yuppie white people who probably felt disillusioned by corporate America.Just finished watching this. What a ride. I knew Osho from way back, read some of his books and my mom used to be hardcore into him when I was little. I knew nothing of the Oregon commune though, and this whole thing caught me 100% by surprise. I really could sympathize with both sides by the end.
What surprised me the most was just how fucking badass Sheela was. I mean, I don't condone anything she did but my god she's the best character I've seen on TV all year.
He was the most brainwashed of anyone interviewed. The man could not keep from crying every time he mentioned Osho's name. He was still entwined in the cult hivemind 30 years later. There were points during the last episode where I would just blurt out, "then go to church, god damn" every time he mentioned not having that "togetherness" or whatever it was he had with the people in Oregon. He could not separate his reverence of Osho with reality.I liked the lawyer, Niren, a lot - he seemed so sincere, the only one among all the Rajneesh interviewees and other figures like KD, the doctor, and Hasya. But I wonder if he was aware of these atrocities that supposedly happened inside the ranch and this would make him a complete piece of shit (or someone extremely brainwashed).
Will put some thoughts in spoilers even though this is a documentary but lol
Sheela's insane. Blatantly drunk on power and actively tried to murder people, terrorize Antelope, and sedate masses of homeless people because they couldn't treat them like cattle.
One thing that stood out was the incident that brought about the mass sedation of the homeless: the guy who was violent and tried to strangle Sheela.
First off, that's entirely off sheela's account so that's just her viewpoint. The only reason why I call that into question was because she claims her security detail "sedated" the guy to stop him from strangling her. But that's not how sedatives work. Even really strong sedatives used in zoos and shit take minutes on end to neutralize someone.
Just what the hell did they actually do to the guy? "They sedated him" as he was about to kill her? Nah, not that simple. They either shot the dude and killed him, or this is a made up/embellished incident to justify the mass sedation of the homeless population in Rajneesh. Something's extremely fishy there and I'm surprised the documentary just glossed over that.
Lol. I'm now on the part where Sheela's getting jealous of Bhagwan being courted by the Hollywood People. Uh hello, the dude was probably all in it for the shiny and material things from the jump, Sheela!