Cult Research - Rajneeshpuram
Wild Wild Country - 2018 Netflix limited series on the Rajneesh cult in Oregon. **Note that a lot of the footage in this docuseries is real archival footage from the cult or from the local news station in Antelope.
Episode 1 Notes:
Small town of Antelope - like 50 people. Had a cafe, a post office, a school house, and a church. Everyone knew everyone and everyone got along. Community parties and bbqs. All working class people trying to live in peace and quiet.
“Some rich guru” bought a ranch in Antelope. 80,000 acres of rocky hillside. Called themselves an agricultural commune, but the land was not farming land. They wear only shades of red.
Cult started by having the roads closed leading to the ranch so they were not accessible to the community of Antelope.
They brought in mobile homes and building materials. “Didn’t seem like they were building a ranch” lol
All of this happened over the course of like 2 weeks
“Largest poisoning case” / “largest wiretapping case” / “largest immigration fraud” in the united states.
They claimed they just wanted to farm, be good neighbors, and follow their religion. “The problems started when Sheela got here”
She was the spokesperson for the cult leader - described as cunning, charming, intelligent, a great organizer, knew how to operate a commune. She came up with the idea to borrow money from “Sannyasins” (the cult members) and they set up their own bank with a card system. She came to America from India at 17 to go to college. She had been part of the cult for a year.
She describes the cult as an “opera” where she’s a soprano (humble lol), Bhagwan is a tenor, and the cult is the setting. And she says operas always have tragic endings, like that’s acceptable and just the way things go???
The cult was worth millions of dollars
Meditation was the product. They sold tickets to attend practice and his speeches, and this money was the financial backing to do what they wanted to do.
She was the business side of things. She didn’t like to meditate lol. Their goal was to make money as part of the commune. They wanted to be rich to live the life they felt they needed.
She went into hiding after this all went down.
She says she was under threat because she’s powerful. She’s in interviews in this docuseries now because she says she has nothing to hide and nothing to lose.
Her father took her to meet Bhagwan when she was 16. Her father told her this man would be the second coming of buddha. “I saw Bhagwan and that was the end of me.” She’s still reverent in the interviews, she still speaks of him like he’s her savior.
Bhagwan Rajneesh, later known as Osho - wearing a white shawl and a lungi, chest exposed. She cried when she first saw him, he smiled and hugged her and she says her “whole head melted”. Felt her life was fulfilled in meeting him. Again, she was 16 lol.
Was fashionable and appealed to intellectuals. His target group was people who were sick of working the daily grind.
Found followers initially by going to speak to small groups of people. Taught dynamic meditation. Started publishing his own books
Dynamic Meditation: 1. Breathing quickly to fast music (hyperventilating) 2. Scream and release emotion 3. Jump with hands up and chant “hoo” 4. Lay in corpse pose and be quiet and still. Crying. (two minutes hateeeeee lol)
Was filling stadiums. 20,000-30,000 people would stand in the rain to hear him speak on spirituality, capitalism, sexuality
Goal was to orchestrate an international commune where he could create an “energy field” through meditation.
“It was a necessity to be near him. His physical body was so important to us.” / “Bhagwan, he was porcelain. Very fragile. Very precious. Millions of years old. And I was lucky enough to have the responsibility to transport him from one country to another. It was the adventure of my life.” - Sheela
In the beginning he wore a long white robe with a long beard, “he looked the part of the sage”
He claims he is a no one. Only “I was asleep and now I am awake.” His goal was to help people "be awake". “The awakened man will be the new man.” He will not be part of any religious group or cultural group, only an awakened being. Goal was to create a “new man” who lives in harmony with nature and one another.
Says the east has not evolved because it is following fake spirituality and is behind in technology, the west has not evolved because it has chosen materialism. Everywhere, man is empty. Each group has it half correct, his goal was to bring them together.
Speaking about sex - says there are two choices. To reject it or transform it. Says creation, creativity, and sex are all the same. Seems like sex is a big part of his belief system (unsurprising lol, who doesn’t want more sex and a better understanding of how to enjoy it fully. Easy way to lure people in). Lots of footage of people sitting in a circle naked and singing / meditating, footage of people naked in tantric positions. Talking of demystifying and removing shame from nudity and sexuality.
He speaks about the small truths in all religions, brings together ideologies in saying that each has their own grain of truth.
“Materialist spiritualists” (he had a white armored rolls royce lmao)
Presented itself as a classless society but in reality there were people who had roles, a ranked hierarchy.
Wanted people who would be part of a community, not people just looking for mental exercise.
Wanted to create a society that could serve as an example to the world of what was possible. “Buddhafield”. That’s what they were looking for land for. They wanted enough space for 10,000 people.
Group was at odds with the Indian prime minister. There was an assassination attempt on Bhagwan. They decided to go to the USA because of the religious freedom afforded to American citizens.
In 1980, there came a point when Bhagwan said he wouldn’t be speaking anymore. He also wasn’t seeing anyone. Sheela became his spokeperson. This was to protect him from the law. She was given power of attorney.
She told the group to keep their move to America a secret.
She went to get a visa for herself and Bhagwan
The two of them left in the middle of the night to fly to America. They flew out on a 747 that they bought out. They drank champagne on the flight, these people had MONEY. This was his first time leaving the Ashram (his community in India) in 4 years. The people that lived in the Ashram were essentially abandoned. News got out that he was in Oregon.
Roger and Jane Stork married in 1966 in Australia. She was unhappy in the marriage and wanted to make a change. She was told to see a psychologist. They met a psychologist who taught her meditation, a man wearing an orange robe with a beaded necklace. Everyone else is wearing orange clothes too. Large photos of Bhagwan on the walls.
She wanted to go meet Bhagwan in India. “I developed this need to sit at the feet of my master.”
“From the very beginning I was completely overwhelmed” - the sensory overwhelm of visiting India to see him. Reaching the place where Bhagwan was soothed her because it was quiet, green, people meditating in orange clothing. She describes this as being like a mecca. Video footage shows people laughing, talking, eating, quiet slow music, everyone in yellows and oranges and reds.
She describes watching him walk as if his feet don’t touch the ground. He glides.
She found herself sitting at his feet and he spoke to her
She asked for work in the group and she was given the task of cleaning toilets for the first year. “I came all of this way to clean?” lmao so she was looking for salvation but salvation is bigger than cleaning toilets I guess.
She took her husband and two kids with her to India and then was left there when Bhagwan moved to America. She says they waited years for him to return and he never did.
Next guy is Swami Prem Nerin, born in the US in the 40’s. Grew up and went to law school, had a great career and was successful but dead tired and overworked. A friend shows him tapes of Osho and his “life was changed.”
He went through a divorce and wanted to overhaul his life. He was drinking too much, eating too much, overworked, never taking breaks. Seems like this cult was the solution to the problems in his life.
He sold his partnership in the law firm he was part of and went to India. Left behind a hugely successful business to start over.
He visits India and is amazed by the paradise Osho created. A sea of people wearing maroon robes. “I felt like I had arrived. I felt like after a life of being somewhere I felt I didn’t belong, including my family, I felt like I’d come home”. He says he was a “nobody” in the back watching Bhagwan speak and it was “so powerful”.
He’s crying in the interview, saying they truly felt they were “the chosen people”. He’s clearly mourning the loss of what he genuinely believed they had. Unclear if he sees that he was part of a cult, or if he feels the glory days are over.
Jayananda - Had a financial background and worked on wall street. Created a business to support the flow of goods and finances to India.
Starts by explaining that the American Dream failed him and other people of his generation. He was looking for fulfillment in rejection of what he was raised to be (The Human Potential Movement).
Observations:
Leader - at first is very accessible to the followers, then less so as time goes on. Eventually stops speaking and visiting with followers. Creates image of him as being ascended, they are not worthy of him. They worship him, see him as a savior, and he promotes this by giving them ideology to follow but denies them by saying he is nothing special. Mixed messaging here conveys the sense that he is just an average joe who found enlightenment and they can too, except somehow they are not as “ascended” as he is, so he clearly is something special and someone to worship. They claim he is special so he is. He allows them to define him as special rather than telling them he’s special.
Spokesperson - she doesn’t meditate or follow the doctrine. She runs the business and manages the people. She’s who they go through, not him.
Followers - all people who felt they had done everything they were supposed to do in life and it wasn’t fulfilling. They went to school, they got married, they had kids, they landed successful careers, and life felt empty. They were people looking for mental stimulation and purpose. They were looking for a community of others who felt outcast. Plus Bhagwan was giving them permission to be sexual in ways that felt off limits to them in society. So he created community, philosophy to follow, places to discuss life’s purpose and meaning, and also the freedom to have loootttsss of sex and the people who felt life was boring were sold.
Episode 2 Notes:
Starts with lawyer explaining that thousands of felonies were committed in moving the ashram from Poona to Oregon, and Sheela was the obvious target for who to investigate. Lawyer says it was not motivated by greed, it was evil.
The cult created their own city, they just needed 150 United States citizens, according to the freedom of assembly and freedom of association. They named it the City of Rajneeshpuram. By making it their own township, they can manage their law enforcement, building permits, etc.
They had people of all expert backgrounds in the cult, so they had lots of innovation and knowledge to get this off the ground (electricity, plumbing, laying roads, etc.) Worked day and night to build this city. Honestly a very cool concept. I can see the appeal of being part of something like this.
They had a clothing shop / a pizza place / a grocery shop / a bank / meditation hall that could hold 10,000 people / an airport / farms using modern tech to reclaim previously unusable land. All built and run themselves. It was an entirely independent community.
Bhagwan arrived in 1981 after the community was established and this work was done (lol)
They put an add in the newspaper suggesting that people who wanted sexual freedom should come to this city. They put forth ideas about polyamory that the local Antelope community was offended and threatened by.
People of Antelope said that all of the people in this “city” seemed under the influence. They believed the Sannyasins were hypnotized. They felt their quiet town was ruined.
Families of cult members were reaching out to the leaders in Antelope to see if their missing loved ones could be located. Rumors started that there was violent therapy and abuse happening in the city.
Jonestown was a recent event and the people of Antelope were concerned about that happening here. Shannon Jo Ryan, daughter of Congressman Leo Ryan (whose assassination was the catalyst for the mass suicide at Jonestown), was a member but claimed this was not a cult. WILD.
The Sannyasins were offended by the term “cult” and said that this implied “one leader, strict rules, priority for the group over the individual” and went on to say that “this better applies to the US Army” than the Rajneesh cult
Alright. By THEIR perspective they just live in a city they built with their own hands and they’re proud of and where they can define their own rules for life. By the outside perspective they are a free love sex cult who is controlled by a mentally unstable leader who may instruct them to become violent towards others or themselves. The cult was incredibly secretive so it was hard to get information.
A documentary was created with the cult’s permission and then shown in Antelope. The person who filmed was sympathetic toward the cult so they expected that the documentary would make them look good. The cult then claimed that the footage was taken on a “secret camera” in a group therapy session and was a violation of the therapy patients’ privacy. There is a picture of the camera, it’s huge lol. No way it could be secret.
Yeah that footage shows that this is clearly a cult. They’re naked and hitting each other, screaming at each other, chanting, sobbing, fighting, and then singing and dancing and holding hands, looks to be an orgy at the end. They lose self control during these “therapy sessions” and then are brought back to calm by their belief in Bhagwan. It’s literally the two minutes hate from 1984.
1000 Friends of Oregon became the group to fight for the removal of the cult, their foundation being that the cult originally claimed to be an agricultural commune and it clearly wasn’t that.
Sheela then decided to BUY Antelope. Holy shit. She used the law against them and moved the business part of the City of Rajneeshpuram into the town of Antelope itself. They lawfully purchased land and businesses in the town.
This became a Satanic Panic situation and local vigilantes decided to take matters into their own hands. There was a bombing in the cult’s hotel.
The cult then armed themselves and told the media they were prepared to defend themselves in anyway necessary. Episode ends with footage of cult members following Bhagwan with guns, acting as body guards.
Observations:
Cult began as a community of people who wanted to live outside of the rules of society, found freedom in connecting with people who also felt like social norms weren’t right for them. When society at large became threatened by a group who wanted to live outside of social norms, both sides escalated the conflict and it became violent.
Cult IS hiding things from outsiders. There ARE violent things happening in these “dynamic meditations.” Their choices about sexuality are theirs to make, but it isn’t clear if they have communication about autonomy and boundaries. During the video footage of the “therapy session” there seems to be a clothed man forcing a naked woman to the ground and laying on top of her. Looks like sexual violence.
The conflict builds here because the town of Antelope is a god fearing community who doesn’t know how to accept outsiders who live differently AND the cult is taking advantage of members’ need for connection and community. They are two extremes who are both in the wrong and neither has interest in finding the middle ground.
Episode 3 Notes:
Episode starts at a gun range on the commune. They are learning to shoot and are legitimately trained.
The cult also put forth their own people to be on the city council in Antelope and overwhelmingly won. The people of Antelope said they were being held “hostage” by the cult. Some of the cult members go to the police academy and become cops in Antelope.
They got a lot of media attention and Sheela was directed by Bhagwan to be aggressive and provocative. This sold them a TON of books.
They started to establish self supporting communes all over the world. They had about 30,000 working Sannyasins. They had 500,000 people who were part of their religion total.
They had a 1983 World Festival in Oregon. At this point the cult was worth over 70 million dollars.
**Will say, from an outside perspective, it is REALLY hard to fault them for trying to live a life of banging whoever they want, living off the land, and protecting themselves from harm. The cult is good at protecting their image, there doesn’t seem to be skeletons in their closets. Their only slip was the documentary that showed the violence in that one group “therapy session” that Sheela explained away as an isolated incident.
A guy from Antelope started to find their stuff in the dump (here we gooooo lol)
Meeting minutes from the commune that say “SHRED IMMEDIATELY AFTER USE” and were never shredded
Documents of arranged marriages
Directives to read and censor the mail before it leaves the commune
Oregon Attorney General got involved at this point because the city of Rajneeshpuram was run by a religion, and that violates the separation of church and state. Also came about that the school in the town was an outpost of the cult because posters of Bhagwan were in the classroom, the teachers wore religious garb while teaching, etc.
Sheela became the person in charge of the cult, Bhagwan was essentially a figurehead. She met with him alone once a day, in the evening, and then recount what they talked about.
She had a living complex called Jesus Grove where she lived with people she found useful. Jane - the woman from Australia who moved to India with her husband and children - was moved into the complex because she could wax Sheela’s legs.
They started going to recruit homeless people from major cities and bring them to Rajneeshpuram. They would not disclose what life looked like for these people after coming to the commune. Sheela claims they cared for them, cleaned them, and gave them medical attention. This was a plan to bring people in to Wasco County, give them an address on the commune, and get them to vote in an upcoming election. This is blatant manipulation. Taking advantage of a vulnerable group.
The county suspended all new voter registration as a result. This doesn’t sound legal, although totally understandable why they felt this action was warranted lol.
There was a riot in the commune. The solution was to sedate ALL of the homeless people that were brought there. (wttfffffffff) Haldol was put into the beer served to them at the evening meal. That’s HELLA culty.
Sheela then called a meeting to discuss “other ways to win the election.” Surprise - that includes killing people.
Observations:
The cult is really hard to discredit from the outside perspective, originally the only people who didn’t like the cult are are religious conservatives who are scared of sexual freedom. The cult was really good at hiding their intentions and immoral practices. Secrets only got out because someone was looking through the garbage they brought to the dump.
Totally limiting access to the cult leader made it easy for the spokeswoman to take control of the cult without taking ownership or accountability for the choices made.
They preyed on vulnerable members of society to meet their own ends, and when those individuals were no longer useful to them the cult abused them. This became a slippery slope of violence.
Episode 4 Notes: **This episode was hard to follow. There wasn’t a linear path for this segment, lots of disjointed reports and time jumps
The county sent a tax assessor to the commune in 1981 to check out the buildings and the cult had blocked the road with a “traffic accident” so the county employees couldn’t get through. Then, when leaving, the assessor noticed three single wide structures and asked to see them. The mayor of the commune said the buildings were just janitorial supplies and it was locked and he didn’t have the key so there was no way to get in even if they’d wanted to. The sheriff escort and the county employees left but felt uneasy. The commune was completed in 1981, this was before all the other nonsense. The documentary starts the episode by explaining those structures were the commune’s lab.
All the local restaurants seem to be have a Salmonella outbreak. Headaches, diarrhea, nausea, etc. 750 people were effected. Even the CDC got involved and no one could make sense of what happened. The official statement was that it was improper food handling, a chain of transmission across restaurants because it was a small town and people lived in close quarters. It could not be linked to the cult, but it is widely believed they were responsible.
A new group had come to Rajneeshpuram, The Hollywood Crowd. The ex-wife of Al Ruddy was one of them. Their Hollywood mansion became a place for the group to party and recruit wealthy people to the cult. This group had money and would buy lavish gifts for Bhagwan, and so had direct access to him. They were a threat to Sheela’s authority. He was going to give two of these newcomers a corporation to run. Sheela didn’t love that lol.
Bhagwan started to talk about a doomsday scenario and request that underground dwellings be built to protect the Sannyasins. They would be safe after this event. He only told this to her, he was not speaking to the group at large.
Sheela says here that Bhagwan was getting drugs from the Hollywood group and that was what inspired his radical new thoughts.
Not sure if I believe her. There’s no way to confirm that he was going downhill on his own and that she had no part of it. Seems like her authority was in jeopardy and she saw herself becoming insignificant. If she could discredit Bhagwan she may be able to take over.
Immigration investigation started in 1981. Bhagwan wanted to change his visa from visitor to religious leader. He was denied and ordered to leave. The cult fought back, Niren spearheading the legal battle for them. In February of 1984 he was granted the visa he applied for as religious teacher and leader.
In the investigation it became clear that the cult was using arranged marriages to bring immigrants to the country and give them status as American citizens. It seems nothing was done?
Sheela started to curate a list of people who were enemies of the commune and those people were to be shot. Jane was going to be the assassin. Jesus. She was sent to Portland to meet a woman who would help her get access to pistols, get her street clothes, and drive her to the workplace of her target. They ended up not seeing their target and discussed luring him to the safe house to kill him. They did not end up committing the murder.
The cult lost the election and the Rajneeshee were ready for war.
They burned the building for the board of planning and sent chocolates to local officials under false names to poison them.
The cult started forcibly removing the homeless people from the commune and dropping them off in neighborhoods, using semi automatic weapons to quell dissidents.
Rumors from the commune about Sheela asking a pilot to bomb the Wasco County Courthouse, Sheela planning the Salmonella outbreak, etc.
Sheela had Bhagwan’s room wiretapped because she had less access to him. She said it was to watch for potential threats to him. She overheard Bhagwan asking his doctor about doctor assisted suicide. He asked the doctor to hide the medications until they’d need them. Later he told Sheela to build a crematorium, and told Sheela that he would die on July 6 (“Master’s Day”?)
Sheela asked a small group to intervene by killing the doctor who planned to administer the medications. Jane said she would do it. She was given a syringe with medicine and told her goal was to keep Bhagwan alive. She felt no anxiety or hesitation about what she was planning to do. She said she felt like Joan of Arc. She sat behind the doctor during a dance in the festival and was able to administer the medicine. She acted like she was concerned for him, asking him what was wrong, and then he staggered off and she left to be alone at Jesus Grove. Sheela left the cult after this, Jane went with her because she knew she’d been changed by the cult and wanted out. **Found out in next episode that the doctor did not die
Bhagwan wanted Sheela to return and threatened prosecution to bring her back. He planned a press conference, the first time he’d spoken publicly in 4 years. He stated that Sheela took advantage of his silence. He said that Sheela and her people tried to kill three people in the commune and neighboring cities. He called her and her people fascists, criminals, and brutally dangerous.
The leaders are turning against each other - seems like he is trying to discredit her and silence her. She must know something wild about him.
Observations:
The cult was doing sketchy shit from the start, even if they weren’t admitting it or acknowledging it in the docuseries. The salmonella thing happened in 1984, and the cult was only established in Oregon in 1981. That would have taken time to orchestrate, plan, and carry out. That concept must have originated in 1982 or 1983.
The cult seemed to escalate in radicalism with the addition of the Hollywood Group. Not sure if this is true because it comes from Sheela’s account. She was competing for Bhagwan’s attention at this point so she may have being trying to discredit him. Or maybe the Hollywood Group really did come in and shake things up because their money made them influential.
Cult started to become violent when they lost the local election for county seats. The group overall was doing violent stuff and individual members were prepared to take on the role of assassin to carry out the cult’s agendas. They were also being violent within the group - cult leaders monitoring each other and planning suicides / murders. When people got overwhelmed and tried to leave the remaining cult leaders / members took aggressive action against them, enlisting the media to fan the flame.
Episode 5 Notes:
Sheela and her people went to Germany and were living there in 1985. Bhagwan “was out to destroy Sheela”. Loyalties in the cult were now split between the two of them.
She went on national tv to say that Bhagwan was both a genius and good person, AND that he exploited people and needed to tell the truth of what he had created. His response was that she was on hard drugs lol. They probably both were.
He says all of this happened because he refused to sleep with her. Kind of find that hard to believe. He then goes on to say that they had a love affair, and that “love affairs never end. They become hate affairs.”
News footage of them going back and forth in interviews slamming each other for the crimes the other committed. The truth has gotta be somewhere in the middle, they both did evil shit.
Bhagwan said that Sheela committed a whole bunch of crimes while at the ranch - plotting to bomb the court house, burning down that county building, etc. This was a dumb move because now the FBI had reason to go into the commune to look around lol.
Stern magazine paid for exclusive rights to Sheela’s story and hid / protected her and her group of 25 people. She posed naked for their magazine coverage of the story. The money earned from this paid for her and the group to survive away from the commune.
The cult is on shaky ground now. They were all lost vulnerable people looking for a savior. They found that in the cult, and now the cult leaders are at odds and attacking each other. They’re like children of a nasty divorce. The cult members are crying even in 2018 talking about this fall out, it truly was traumatic for them.
The cult members are left with the decision of whether to stay together as a community or disperse. One of the Hollywood Group, Hasya (wife of Bhagwan’s doctor), was chosen to take Sheela’s place. It seems like the people who stayed at the ranch were directed to hate Sheela, and they united in that. Nerin became the new major of the commune, the old mayor fled to California after Sheela left.
Bhagwan says that he loves America and the possibility here, but that American society is misguided and needs to be awakened. He says the cult is responsible for doing “something really big” to shake America into self awareness and actualization. (BUM BUM BUMMMMM)
He tells the cult that he is not their leader and they are not followers. He does not believe in organized religion so he is dissolving all the rules of their commune. They can now wear whatever color they want lol. Note - HE always wore whatever color he wanted lol.
He also says “for the first time in the history of mankind, a religion has died” He’s admitting here that they are a religion. He burned all the books of his “religion” and Sheela’s robes. They announced that Rajneeshism is dead.
FBI Investigation
First thing the FBI saw when they entered the commune was a couple having sex on a public bridge.
The FBI found Sheela’s underground bunker with secret doors and passageways lol. Found all of the wiretapping materials, found books about how to manipulate and injure / harm others. And the cult members are like “this is a complete shock to us! How could anyone in this community keep secrets, let alone secrets this big!”
ugghhhh I believe that they didn’t know but also they were ignorant in putting all their faith in these people. Sheela and Bhagwan are not good people, and the cult members were pawns to them without even realizing it.
The tapes would take more than 2 years of a 40hr work week for one person to listen to all of them.
The cult purchased a bunch of guns and destroyed their own records of the purchases to hide the gun ownership details. These were intended to be used for the assassination plots and when the plots didn’t happen the cult dumped the guns in the lake on their land. (Wouldn’t these records still exist with the gun stores though? I know they said they used multiple different stores but still. It seems like there WOULD still be a paper trail somewhere)
Details came out that they had been planning to murder Charles Turner. They had been stalking his home and family for months, leaving animal entrails, newspaper articles, and notes on their doorstep. They were doing this to other key political targets in the local area as well.
The nurse on the commune, Ma Anand Puja, used poison to control people in the cult. If people were difficult to work with she’d sneak medicine into their food or drink and they’d get sick. She also did this at Sheela’s behest to engineer what seemed like natural consequences for overstepping boundaries with her or Bhagwan.
Found the lab where the cult cultured salmonella and it was revealed that the cult was going into the restaurants and brushing contaminated saline on the food at salad bars to spread the bacteria throughout town.
Theorized that the cult was testing the viability of this plan to see if they could carry it out on election day to keep people home so they wouldn’t vote for the county seat positions. The cult members wouldn’t be ill so they’d be able to go vote, and it would sway the vote in their favor.
Also heard about an attempt to poison the local water system for the Dalles. The cult had heard that beavers carried bacteria, so if they could introduce beavers into the reservoirs they would effectively poison the community at large. They weren’t able to get the beavers into the reservoirs because the county protected them with wire grates over the open water areas that the public had access to, so the cult “took the beavers home, killed them, blended them, and then poured the blended beavers into the water reservoirs.” The law enforcement official that shared this story says he has no way to know if this is true or not, but that it was told to him by someone who lived on the ranch.
The cult started to realize the FBI was amassing evidence to kick the cult out of America and they stopped cooperating.
Cult members protected Bhagwan, saying he had no idea of all the criminal activity. They STILL defend him in this docuseries.
FBI preparing search warrants for commune buildings. 50 agents carried out the raid.
The old mayor came out of hiding and went to the FBI to share everything that happened. Sheela SLAMS him in her 2018 interview lol - “He’s disgusting. He sold himself. I have no lower opinion of any other human being”
Bhagwan and seven people from the cult were indicted on 35 counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States and harboring aliens but the arrests are tricky because they’re in different countries. Sheela and others were in Germany, maybe trying to get to Switzerland, the rest were at the commune in Oregon. And the compound was known to be armed so the cult members were expected to become violent. The police were preparing to mount an assault on the community. The national guard got involved and SWAT from San Francisco.
The cult attempted to negotiate a cooperative surrender of Bhagwan but the police wouldn’t answer questions about whether he would be indicted and they didn’t trust the cult to actually surrender him, so no deal was made.
People on BOTH sides were afraid of the impending violence.
Two Learjets came to the compound to get Bhagwan out, cult members weren’t aware of this plan
Observations:
Fuck, these people are exhausting lol.
Bhagwan stepped right into a trap by saying Sheela did all that illegal stuff on the compound lol. That was a great look at how arrogance and revenge can overshadow self preservation.
Lots of conflicting statements from Bhagwan. Example - “We are not a religion. I am not your leader.” and then “This is the death of our religion.” and that wasn’t addressed once by any of the cult members in the interviews, then or now.
Cult members to the end defended Bhagwan and said he had no idea what Sheela had been doing. Her being the spokesperson served two purposes for the cult- she could make decisions without facing the responsibility to defend them, AND later when things blew up he could blame her for it all.
The cult members really were victims in this too. The majority of them didn’t do anything wrong, they just wanted community and support and to feel like life had purpose. They wanted meaning. If they’d continued after Sheela and Bhagwan were gone I wonder if they would have been able to do it properly. But. They didn’t. So that implies that they couldn’t really make it work without the shady shit. Or just that they needed someone to lead them because they still didn’t have confidence in their own autonomy.
Episode 6 Notes:
Honestly, him getting out on a jet is the best case scenario for all parties because now there won’t be violence at the compound. They just have to get his jet and arrest him,
Bhagwan is likely trying to go to Bermuda because he can’t be extradited from there. The FBI figured out where they would be stopping to refuel, set people up to wait at the Charlotte airport.
Expecting the people on the planes to be armed so the police came heavily armed themselves.
The jets didn’t land where they were told to land, the police were able to get to the landing strip where the jets were heading and surrounded them when they were on the ground.
Bhagwan was arrested in Charlotte NC.
At the same time, Sheela and 2 people in her group were arrested by German Secret Police and US FBI agents for the attempted murder of Bhagwan’s physician.
The German officers had naked photos of Sheela that they wanted autographed. She says it was “very weird.”
The FBI agents brought them back to Oregon. Sheela is all smiles, seems like she enjoys being in the spotlight.
FBI said she answered all questions with complete honesty and zero evidence of regret, shame, or remorse.
"much of what she’d done was monstrous. If Sheela had spent the rest of her life in jail that wouldn’t have seemed like an excessive sentence.”
Sheela says she will not throw anyone under the bus. She pled guilty and faced 4.5 years in prison, fines of $469,000, and agreed to leave the US after her sentence was served.
Jane pled guilty for the attempted murder of the doctor and spent 10 years in a federal prison. Her son still lived in Rajneeshpuram. (But she LEFT with Sheela. She took her daughter and LEFT. So she just left her son?? She took her daughter and left her son?!) She says she realized she was brainwashed when she understood that she’d abandoned her son.
When she got out of jail she rebuilt a life in Germany, met her husband, reconnected with her parents, and started a business. (There was never any mention of what happened to her first husband after she said they moved to India early in their marriage)
She still had an international warrant out for her arrest because she had attempted and planned to kill Charles Turner. She was safe as long as she stayed in Germany.
Her son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, so she went to America to seek permission to visit her son in Australia. There was the possibility of the court sentencing her to life in prison. The judge heard her statement and she was sentenced to time served. The people in the courtroom were happy for her, FBI agents shook her hand, she was not a criminal. There was empathy for the crisis her family was facing in her son’s illness. She was able to be with her son when he died.
Sheela said in jail, a year later, that she doesn’t feel sorry for anything that happened. “People get sick all the time, why should I feel sorry?”
She has no comment now on what happened, only that she did her time in jail and she expects to be seen as an American citizen, not a criminal.
She says she feels after all of this that she has “the upper hand".
She now works with elders and the infirm, caring for them and trying to instill the peace that she sought for when she was in the cult.
“I have to live with myself, and to live with myself I have to look inside. Who am I? What am I? Why am I? It is not good and bad, right and wrong, black and white. Of course, when I die, I don’t know whether I’ll go to hell or heaven, but where ever I go I will create my own paradise.”
Her final statement to the Sannyasins is to remember the failure that was the Oregon experiment. Bhagwan wanted to create a new society, and to erase what happened in Oregon from his biography is to erase his attempt at creating that society. She says it was a scandal, and every single person who followed him was involved.
Footage of both Bhagwan and Sheela in the back of cop cars in different parts of the world show them both smiling after their arrests. They’re cut from the same cloth.
Bhagwan is reported to be a great prisoner - well behaved and polite. Nerin is the only Sannyasin allowed to visit him because he’s his lawyer. Bhagwan still insists he’s done nothing wrong and that the American constitution will support him and his commune in the end.
He was charged with immigration fraud for orchestrating the fake marriages. The remaining charges had more to do with Sheela than him (is what his lawyer says lol). If found guilty of all charges he faced 175 years in prison and $350,000 in fines.
The cult members are calling the arrest “government sponsored kidnapping". His arrest and the media coverage showing him in handcuffs with flashing lights just serve to make him a martyr for his cult.
He was moved from jail to jail over the course of 3 weeks while law enforcement officials worked out the details of moving him back to Portland jurisdiction. The cult said this was all a ploy to wear him down until he surrendered.
Niren advised him to negotiate a deal to leave the United States. Bhagwan says if he were younger and had more energy he would have taken this all the way to the Supreme Court because he felt he wasn’t being given the rights afforded to him under American law. But he felt too old to do that now. lol alright buddy.
Niren cried while recounting this in 2018. This clearly still has an impact on him.
Bhagwan pled guilty to immigration fraud charges and agreed to leave the country. He said “I never want to return to the United States again.” (did he get to take all his wealth with him?!?)
He left the country with like 12 cult members. The rest of the commune in Oregon dissolved and left.
He ended up back in India and had followers there that waited for him at Poona. He requested he be called “Osho,” Japanese for teacher or mentor / master, to separate from the name Bhagwan. He stopped speaking publicly, he would only greet people and bow his head to them with his hands in prayer, like blessing them.
Osho died and his personal physician recounted his final words, “I leave you my dream.” His body was brought out for his followers to view and pray over. His doctor said that he died peacefully and gracefully. His followers brought his body to a funeral pyre and burned him.
His death was later speculated to be an overdose - that he was murdered by his physician. Maybe it was doctor assisted suicide like they had planned before, no idea.
Osho asked Niren to write a book about what really happened to “clear his name” in America. (lol is the book to be written about Osho or Bhagwan, then?)
There are still communes throughout the world and his books are still being sold.
“People want to believe, they want to belong. They want to think ‘me having sex all day is really going to send me to heaven’.” lol that comes from one of the people of Antelope. Sounds like something someone who never gets sex would saayyyyyyy. lmao but for real, yeah I think this cult was designed to lure in people who were lonely and felt outcast. Which is kind of what all cults are, at their core, right?
The ranch was bought and sold to Young Life, a Christian group who made it a summer resort.
Final thoughts on what it was like to live at the commune:
“Being loved and accepted totally for the first time in my life.”
“It was a town. We actually did, in the end, build this incredible city that was truly joyous. It was real people living real lives.”
“I loved Osho very much and was committed to the community. And we were committed to working really hard to manifest his vision of the transformation of the planet.”
“He remains the master of masters. Start the journey to him. It’ll change your life.”
“Bhagwan has taught me strength”
Final thoughts on what it was like to leave the commune when the cult dissolved:
“I had deep grief. I felt misunderstood.”
“To walk away from the garden, the houses, the lakes that we built. I remember everyone was in a good mood always, and a lot of laughing. And to recognize what an incredible gift it was to be alive on this Earth.”
“I felt I had failed in not reaching enlightenment with him.”
Observations:
He had all these ideas about sexuality but was never seen to have romantic relationships. Not sure what to make of that. He also wasn’t shown doing any of the meditation or screaming / crying in the archival footage.
It’s interesting to me that there are so many ways for people to seek fulfillment and meaning in life, but no roadmap for how to do it right. The people who followed Bhagwan saw peace and contentment in him and wanted that for themselves, so they worshipped him thinking they would figure out how to engineer that happiness too and they never did. His followers in recent interviews for this documentary still cry over his death.
He seemed to truly have been a deeply content and unshakeable person. That doesn’t make him right or good, but he was at peace with himself regardless of his actions and their consequences. I think that’s what everyone is looking for. So, people who don’t know how to access that feeling for themselves look for other avenues to access, and for his followers that meant joining a cult.
They would have ended up on a different misguided path if they hadn’t found Bhagwan, he didn’t create the yearning in them. He just took advantage of it and they were looking to be soothed at any cost.
When you don’t know how to feel at peace in yourself and your life you’ll do anything to achieve it, especially when the person giving you directions seems to have figured it out for themselves. When someone like Bhagwan feels comfortable exploiting and manipulating others, his unshakeable peace seems to his followers to be evidence of his trustworthiness rather than evidence of his lack of empathy and compassion.
At the end, Jane was forgiven and not seen as a criminal, but Sheela was not forgiven and is still seen as a criminal. Jane was remorseful, Sheela was not. Jane seems to be at peace, Sheela is clearly still angry and self righteous. I don’t think the cult changed who they were, just showcased it. Jane was someone who needed help figuring herself out, Sheela was someone who needed to be in control to feel like life had meaning.
