Sheela Take a Bow: Wild Wild Country on Netflix

Because we were filling up the Netflix thread with talk of this show.

very good title, thank you

Grabbing some of the discussion from the other thread:

Wild Wild Country: I don't know why, because it's something I should have been all over, but this was a totally new story to me. And getting towards the end of ep 6, very well told indeed and compelling watching.

As I said, because I knew nothing about it I thought after the first couple of eps that it might be an expose of a stitch up - all the Cult members are pretty convincing, especially when the talk turns to possible offences being the blurring of church and state and their lawyer guy says "hey, nobody ever looks into Utah".

But then there's a point where it tips you and a part in ep 4 sums up my opinion:

<state prosecutor tells a story about a conspiracy to do with water supply> "I don't know whether that's true or not but it was told to me by someone who was there."
<cuts to other talking head>
"Yup, those people are crazy."

― Bimlo Horsewagon became Wheelbarrow Horseflesh (aldo), Monday, March 19, 2018 2:31 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

At the very end, does Sheela's rest home come off a bit like a Dignitas place that she does as a hobby because she likes it?

― Bimlo Horsewagon became Wheelbarrow Horseflesh (aldo), Monday, March 19, 2018 5:03 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A friend's mother was in that cult for a while and he actually lived there for some period of time when he was a kid, though he didn't really remember much about it. I imagine he's going to want to watch this.

― joygoat, Monday, March 19, 2018 5:24 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not sure you'd want to find out what kind of sex rituals your mom was probably getting up to when she left you at daycare

― mh, Monday, March 19, 2018 5:28 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xxp yeah, but maybe a combination of her liking it and some kind of penance

it is odd that this story hasn't persisted the Jonestown and others have, it also means that there are spoilers in the discussion, maybe should move to catch-all cults thread if such a thing exists

― motorpsycho nightmare winningham (Hadrian VIII), Monday, March 19, 2018 6:09 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the *way* others have

― motorpsycho nightmare winningham (Hadrian VIII), Monday, March 19, 2018 6:09 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember being aware of the Rajneeshie thing going on while I was in junior high. Specifically, I remember me and my nerds seeing one of his books at b dalton or w/e and being all haha look there’s a book of that weird cult! (‘the orange book’ iirc). And me buying it with my paper route money to be obnoxious. And then we were on the city bus from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis with that book out and making jokes about it and an older fellow on the bus saw it and delivered a very stern very concerned lecture to us about how we were playing with fire and reading that book was a danger to our souls. And the next day I started getting freaked out about his speech and furtively tossed the Rajneesh book down a storm drain.

― when worlds collide I'll see you again (Jon not Jon), Monday, March 19, 2018 11:06 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I lived in The Dalles, OR during this period and it was extremely surreal (straight down to Bill The Cat joining the Rajneeshi). There was a great 99 PI on this so excited for doc.

Because I live far away and was a clueless teenager while all this was going on, I kind of can't believe it, even though I'm watching it. I keep waiting for it to turn out to be some War of the Worlds type thing, some really clever fakery.

― trishyb, Tuesday, March 20, 2018 10:35 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sheela really gets this increasingly megalomaniacal look in her eye in the archive footage the more episodes I watch

― mh, Tuesday, March 20, 2018 10:41 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've been wondering how this story just sort of evaporated after a few years (nationally anyway) and all I can come up w/ is maybe there was some kind of burnout on communes and cults by the end of the 70s?

― motorpsycho nightmare winningham (Hadrian VIII), Tuesday, March 20, 2018 10:44 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup, speaking as someone who was there (commune kid)

― sleeve, Tuesday, March 20, 2018 11:51 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Icarus (the netflix doc that won an oscar this year) is really good. I barely care about sports and it was very interesting and timely (Russia).

― Yerac, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 1:31 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry to anyone who relates to the people in the doc or has a link to anyone in a group like that in the Wild Wild Country doc. I was being flip, but there's a lot to digest there

my favorite interviewee might be the local guy who is wearing coveralls in the interviews who never comes off as completely critical, just wondering why this all happened in his area. the comment toward the end about the christian youth camp that now uses the space being "a different kind of cult" made me think: yeah, this is my guy

― mh, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 2:19 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to clarify, I have no link w/the Rajneesh folx, I'm an East Coast kid, I was just talking w/ my wife about how these folks represent the dead end of certain evolutionary threads of commune culture, but several of the groups my parents were involved with 40+ years ago are still going strong and seem to be healthy

I'd love to see a documentary on the successful groups from that era...

― sleeve, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 2:31 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kind of a different thing entirely, but by the end I was thinking of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Started a school instead of a disconnected commune, it still exists, does a decent job of blending with the community, has support of David Lynch and a bunch of others. Still rolling.

― mh, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 2:40 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So I was at a Christmas party a few years back I was explaining that I lived in The Dalles for three years and that it was famous for being the only town in the US that had a The in its name and also where a bunch of people got poisoned in the largest domestic bioterror attack in US History (as I frequently do). One of the people I was talking to immediately started shushing me as it turned out the mother and stepfather of person whose house it was were both ex-Rajneeshi.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 3:44 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:0

― sleeve, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 3:55 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

several of the groups my parents were involved with 40+ years ago are still going strong and seem to be healthy
I'd love to see a documentary on the successful groups from that era...
― sleeve, Tuesday, March 20, 2018 10:31 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This speaks to my only real criticism of the series, which is its failure to focus on any rank-and-file members. The commune was obviously a failure (crisis, even) for the lieutenants, but in a community that large there of course thousands of individual success stories—people who got busted out of bad patterns, who met their partners for life and had families, who got unblocked in some ways that made the lifestyle attractive in the first place.

― motorpsycho nightmare winningham (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:06 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it’s hard to get those ppl to participate though, unless you have a legit inside connection.

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:09 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You mean because they're ashamed? Or hard to track down? I wld think there would be plenty of people who would be happy to talk about it. Then again they had such crazy access to the main players I can see how it would get crowded.

― motorpsycho nightmare winningham (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:26 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I say this assuming from what I saw that the movement has crossed over into something less cultish—sort of franchised along the lines of TM or ISKCON or whatever

― motorpsycho nightmare winningham (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:33 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i meant ppl who had positive experiences tend to be more suspicious of these projects bcz there’s already a decided-upon narrative & they dont want to be a part of a teardown/expose etc. usually the only way to get perspectives that aren’t critical is by having the involvement of a well-respected group member

but i may be misinterpreting yr point

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:35 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that Source Family doc did what I'm talking about, got to some people who just sort of drifted in and remember it mostly fondly. Then again those people didn't try to poison a county.

― motorpsycho nightmare winningham (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:46 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've still got two episodes to go, but all the way along I have been a bit "oh, the irony!" at white Americans complaining about their way of life being overwhelmed by these invaders from outside, who disturb their peace, take over their land, don't adhere to their laws, and then poison them.

The commune itself reminds me a lot of modern tech bros and libertarians, who, rather than engage with current problems in society and try to solve them, just decide to get the hell away from society as it stands and create their own society. "Why can't we just live at Burning Man all year round, you guys?"

I agree that there are two important viewpoints missing from this doc: ordinary members of the community (but they might not want to come forward because the doc heavily implies that the whole thing was some crazy pyramid scheme, not remotely self-sustaining, and they might still feel the sting of having been duped by it all), and those homeless people who were able to use the community to build some stability for themselves. Although maybe they'll interview someone like that in the last couple of episodes.

― trishyb, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 11:49 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

spoiler: they don't

the quick montage of the group currently using the former rajneeshee ranch (christian youth!) is haunting me

― mh, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 3:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

watched episode one of wild wild country...early 70s cult stuff is so my jam this is gonna be addictive

― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:17 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the old footage in that first episode is so cool. worth watching just for that. also i don't know if i would have followed osho in the 70s but i might have followed a cult led by sheela in the 70s. she was cute!

still haven't watched the rest yet.

― scott seward, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:50 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

best autobio title too:

― scott seward, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 4:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My favorite title for a cult autobio is an old one they had at my highschool library 'Dark Side of the Moonies'

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, March 21, 2018 5:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there should really be more adorable cult leaders. they always have to have those piercing hypnotizing eyes that put the fear of god into you.

― scott seward, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 5:30 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

by the end I realized Sheela really reminds me of an ex-girlfriend's mom, who coincidentally considered herself really close friends with a catholic bishop

― mh, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 5:59 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I still feel like there was a lot of stuff glossed over in the end. What happened to Bhagwan's money? I want Michael Lewis to pick up this story.

I would also like more investigation into Bhagwan's knowledge of Sheela's dirty dealings

I do give him props for his pronouncement that (paraphrasing) "for the first time in the world a religion is dead." I was left with the impression that yeah he knew what was up to a certain degree, of course he was a salesman, but that he was genuinely troubled by what happened, and that (like Gurdjieff) he really did want to be recognized as a teacher, not a deity

still need to finish this. i'll be back.

For a doc it was kind of odd how uncritically some of the things were presented.

On the other hand, the casual sniping about cults (see my "sex ritual" comment) that people lean on really seemed mean when applied to the rank and file members! And the generalization of the entire group as culpable for the food poisoning, which is the impression I've gotten over the years, when most people had no knowledge of that.

Not sure if this has been posted, but here is a link to the 20-part series on the Rajneeshees from The Oregonian.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2018/03/read_the_oregonians_original_2.html

kudos on the thread title, excellent

xp cool, thanks!

started this yesterday so dont want to read too much; the first like 20 mins of ep 1 are wildly compelling & well-done

Aye,thread title is a winner.

Since we're way into Spoiler territory, the event I was referring to in the first quoted post was the attempt to poison the water supply and specifically The Blender Incident.

I am on episode two. And I’m enjoying it tremendously, especially the quality of the archival footage. Where/how did the filmmakers find all of the stuff from inside the cult ceremonies (esp. in India)? It seems incredible.

my guess is that the rajneeshees were really into home movies, possibly for eventual editing into promo videos

it might have also had to do with advent of camcorder in the early 80s, cheap new toy boom

It looks like they were semi-established in Pune in '74, and didn't move to the US until '81

I was an adult, living in Portland at the time of the Rajneeshees. The source of all their problems was massive, unadulterated arrogance. My guess is that the primary source of that arrogance was that the cult's followers were almost entirely drawn from the wealthiest 10% of western societies, who were used to getting whatever they wanted.

They parachuted into a community they did not know or understand, which they care about and didn't think they needed to care about. That community and its laws and norms became a nuisance to them. They responded by trying to expunge it. They failed, because they greatly overestimated themselves and underestimated the community they despised.

which they didn't care about

just finished
all in all what an incredible saga
though even after six episodes I wish I knew more about how complicit Bagwhan was... he remains a cipher until the end

how are they getting all this money ?! only two episodes in but feel like it’s really glossed over that point. we must be talking SERIOUS sums here

They do talk about that later, but not enough, I don't think.

reeled in a few big fish iirc

I remember news coverage of Rajneesh from when I was in maybe 9th grade.

Watching the documentary, at least some of my response aligns with trishyb:

"oh, the irony!" at white Americans complaining about their way of life being overwhelmed by these invaders from outside, who disturb their peace, take over their land, don't adhere to their laws, and then poison them

Yeah "these people are just moving in and changing our way of life and there are so many of them that they can just vote themselves into power and there's nothing we can do about it!"

...is literally the story of America. I speak as a Virginian. That's basically our origin story.

My other takeaway is watching the undisguised glee on the faces of the media anchors, talk show hosts. Donahue etc. pretending to be shocked but clearly loving it; it's fucking ratings GOLD and they know it. Which made me a little sheepish about our current cultural moment. I see parallels to Trumpism and coverage thereof. "How can these awful people believe this awful thing? Let's ask our reporters on the ground to ask the awful people more about how awful they are, so we can continue to "study" this phenomenon. Objectively, of course.

The third takeaway is something that harks back to a discussion here:

Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

Basically I said that nothing about Mormonism or Scientology (or whatever) is inherently weirder than "guy with a beard asks us to eat him weekly." jon not jon answered, "it's not the beliefs that make a cult a cult obv, but the dynamic between its elect and its members."

Phil Donahue is weird in that he was a huge part of the culture that seems to be largely forgetten.

I kept thinking whenever they interviewed the Antelope folks that each and every one of those fuckers voted for Trump.

maybe not my fave, overalls guy. I hold out hope for him

yeah he was charming

Stephen King Lawyer was still such a true believer

I often wonder what I would do if I were in such a situation. Like, if my cousin or someone said, "hey, I hear things about this Bhagwan guy, let's go and see what that's all about, for the laugh, like." I wonder if I would get swept up in it all? Because, looking at him on television, I did not get it at all.

lol @ Stephen King Lawyer, very accurate description

Yeah "these people are just moving in and changing our way of life and there are so many of them that they can just vote themselves into power and there's nothing we can do about it!" ...is literally the story of America. I speak as a Virginian. That's basically our origin story.

If the ratio of Rajneeshees to Oregonians had been as lopsided as the ratio of white settlers to Native Americans, then the Rajneeshees would have easily prevailed. As it was, they badly misjudged their power and numbers relative to those who already lived here. They treated it like a war and then lost that war rather quickly.

xxp I think that was part of the documentary that seemed surreal — for a while I assumed there was no good footage of Bhagwan from that time, but he really was silent to the majority of the group for several years, the core of their north american tenure!

I guess the core group that was really spreading the enthusiasm had bought in back in the early days? and I am assuming the sexual liberation guru actually had some sex himself at some point, but apparently never with Sheela?!?

There is a novel by John Updike called S., which is intended as a retelling of the Scarlet Letter from Hester's perspective, but set in a commune clearly modeled on Rajneeshpuram (obviously the story was still fresh in 1987-88). I may be alone in this but I think the title character, Sarah, is at least partly modeled on Sheela.

as far as I can gather they get their money from selling books, selling meditation, and loans from the conscripts. doesn’t seem like that would add up the c$50m they start talking about in episode 3 in relation the cult’s assets

maybe rich people were gifting land/buildings to be used as centers? real estate could add up quick, esp like that house the Hollywood crew bought him

One of the investigators said that they had massive debts and implied that some shady financial dealings were going on, but maybe he genuinely just wasn't used to an organization where, as you say, rich converts gift massive amounts of money on a regular basis.

I guess I should read the Oregonian series linked above.

in one clip on tv, two of the main Hollywood crew say they've given a "few hundred thousand dollars" personally, which means they actually gave way more (like when I say I had a "couple" beers)

that one Hollywood party looked packed so who knows how much they were raking in?

bhagwan mustve been hanging dong

i love this so much. i hadn't heard of it at all, but i was either not born or a baby when it happened. bhagwan is so creepy. i hate the way he ssssss every word.

I kind of want to hear his ideas, tbh having a following but not actually having to talk to them or do anything for a few years seems pretty aspirational

I really liked this, but there’re a few bits of the story that weren’t addressed:

- Osho was extremely anti-social. If this happened in 2018, we’d probably describe him as autistic. A number of people have speculated that he was probably a virgin. He talks about sex like he’s in that scene from 40 Year Old Virgin.
- The sex he endorsed during the time of the documentary was bizarre. He was extremely afraid of AIDS. He mandated that everybody wear rubber gloves when having sex! Kissing was also forbidden.
- Most of their money came from Indian organized crime (drug trafficking, embezzlement, slavery, etc.). They addressed this in passing but I wish there was more.
- John Silvertooth is a chill bro (and certainly didn’t vote for Trump)! The dump reveal was huge for everyone interested in this story!

hahaha what

He also talked during his period of silence. He just didn’t talk to the press or at events.

yeah I got the impression he talked to small groups and definitely his secretary — secretaries? — hard to tell what his relationship with that one lady who spoke very adoringly of him was

Allen... how do you know this stuff?

I havent seen this yet but I have a clear memory of all this in the 80s, cause Sheela was interviewed on 60 Minutes here and her "tough titties!" reply to some question was a bit of a proto-meme back in the day!

lol yeah that killed me

I lived in Portland. I was obsessed with the story and read pretty much everything written about it that was in English.

wow yeah locally that must've be so huge

I've made it through 4 episodes and am finding it kind of boring, primarily in terms of giving too much time to Sheela, the lawyer, the dimwitted true believers and the residents of Antelope. I grew up in Western Australia and have a number of friends whose parents were Sannyasins and their stories were fascinating. In many cases their descriptions of life growing up in this environment were fairly sordid but often with a kind of conflicted view about whether their experiences could be categorized as good or bad. Ultimately I found this documentary a bit empty & the hazy filtered cinematography & soundtrack were just annoying.

Also this is probably obvious but I think people who were into the Rajneesh are today's antivaxxers

Also this is probably obvious but I think people who were into the Rajneesh are today's antivaxxers

I did not think of this, but it makes a lot of sense now you say it.

They addressed this in passing but I wish there was more.

I agree with this, and with badg. Overall I enjoyed the programme because I knew nothing at all about any of what happened, but six hours to tell only that particular strand of the story was too long. But maybe that was how they secured the cooperation of such key figures - by not dragging the whole belief system through the mud.

yeah really recommend the oregonian series which goes into the tax evasion in india, analysis of it as a cult including consideration of conditions for the rank and file etc

Also this is probably obvious but I think people who were into the Rajneesh are today's antivaxxers

I would think directly the opposite. Anti-vaccine people are more likely to be conservative and pro-life. Rajneesh was v pro-choice, also an advocate of euthanasia, in general believed in science as a benefit to humankind.

- John Silvertooth is a chill bro (and certainly didn’t vote for Trump)! The dump reveal was huge for everyone interested in this story!

my fave part of the story, he was wonderful.
and the way he summed up the whole thing as just being a way to con rich white folks looking for something ..
i really really began to hate the lawyer bloke who welled up every time he thought back.
became a little too showbiz for me every time he came on.

i hate the lawyer, too. i can see why people would think this is boring, especially if you know something about it already. it's refreshing to see a story about something big that seems so forgotten now, to me. i will read the oregonian thing.

Anti-vaccine people are more likely to be conservative and pro-life.

The parents of Marin County would argue differently.

Sheela is a two michelin star restaurant in Marin county known for its grilled bananas.

i did like the idea that should i ever decide to go on such a journey of self discovery and enlightenment,
i will still be able to swear like a fucking trooper.

favourite moment: osho gingerly retreating to backstage, closely followed by a couple of fully armed sannyasins in full-on jodorovsky style.

Anti-vaccine people are more likely to be conservative and pro-life.

this doesn’t square with my experience at all, most anti-vaxxers I know are very liberal, pro-choice etc

This includes a handful of Ramtha followers, so badg otm ime

this is a pretty interesting look at it

https://theconversation.com/anti-vaccination-beliefs-dont-follow-the-usual-political-polarization-81001

Now it is only the very conservative who are more likely to think that it should not be mandatory: they are twice as likely as moderates to think that it should be a parent’s choice. Liberals are now more likely to think vaccination should be required: Compared to moderates, liberals are 43.5 percent less likely to think it should be a parent’s choice and those who are very liberal are 14.2 percent less likely.

Whatever the case Rajneesh himself does not appear to have been anti-science or hold views consistent with anti-vaxxers

I think some of the sexual health paranoia mentioned upthread is a different strain of counter-scientific thought but not that different

they infected some live beavers, but couldn't squeeze them into the water tank. so they killed and blended the beavers and poured that in? the whole thing makes me question whether the beavers were even necessary.

According to Knapp’s FBI testimony, he alleged “Sheela told him during a trip to India which they took in 1985, that she had injected her first husband with an injection that caused his death.” He added, “Sheela said that Puja furnished her with the instrument which she used to inject Silverman, and after the injection he died,” and it occurred “June 11 and 12, 1980, at the Krishna House where Silverman and Sheela resided.” Knapp claimed that Sheela had “discussed this plan of the ‘mercy killing’ of her husband with Bhagwan and that Bhagwan had referred to Silverman in one of his discourses just prior to Silverman’s death.”

Lots of stuff here speaking to question of Bhagwan culpability + more poisoning and murder plots (!)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/wild-wild-country-the-most-shocking-reveals-from-the-sex-cults-fbi-informant?ref=home

Sunny's bio on this page has some omissions, for sure
https://www.hawaii.edu/offices/op/csw/2013speakers.html

omg she has a youtube channel

author of the bio does not seem to believe it, e.g. "Dr. Sunny Massad says that she has always been an unconventional thinker."

i dont love the lack/absence of investigative inquiry in this.

sheela, sunny, the stephen king lawyer; and the attorney general & antelopens; they all get so much camera time but there’s no-one outside these inner circles saying “ok cool but ... why? what do you mean etc”

i kinda hate this style of documentary. you get two very set points of view & there’s no air between them for any real daylight. it feels very misleading

and i agree with badg that it’s def kinda boring. i get that the only way sheela wd participate is if it’s The Sheela Show diaguised as a well-rounded documentary but jfc

haven't read the thread yet as only a couple of episodes in but I was amazed that I hadn't heard of this. I asked my parents whether they knew of it at the time in England (I was only young) - they didn't, because we were in our own commune and apparently weren't reading newspapers or watching tv...

The documentary is kind of annoying me at the moment cos there're loads of questions I would want to ask but they don't seem to be asking them.

or what vg said!

Agree ^^^ I am finding it very boring as well. 2 episodes in and I am thinking of dropping it.

there are interesting moments, it’s not a total waste. but they’re so inlove with their souce material it comes off more as an art piece than anything informative

and i fkn hate the overuse of music in this, it makes it too glib

for a shorter, funnier overview The Dollop podcast did a pretty good recap
http://thedollop.libsyn.com/acharya-rajneesh

Something about interviews...maybe it's the slow editing.

I loved the music in this, but I also love Bill Callahan's music.

this is an unexpected first hit from searching for this guy:
http://www.oregonlive.com/playbooks-profits/index.ssf/2014/08/jon_bowerman_son_of_nike_legen.html

I will admit to being one who assumed he had some Nike money

yeah wow

VG saying a lot of what I felt. This was probably one of the most dissatisfying docs I’ve ever seen. I didn’t come away from it feeling like I really learned anything. I didn’t trust any of the subjects except Silvertooth, so then I didn’t believe anybody. Osho came across like a total nobody and it was never really explored why he was a famed guru - it was just a lot of “he’s so beautiful and amazing “ with nothing to back it up.

Sheela came across as a sociopath.

I feel like they came up with the angle (Sheela’s heavy-handed tactics versus the locals) early in development or filming and rolled with it. Fair, but it’s a frustrating thing to follow when every tangent seems more tantalizing and we’re left wondering whether that was really the truth of what was going on and we can’t grasp the real dynamic inside the group

agree this was really unsatisfying

its insane to me that the investigative reporter for the Oregonian is introduced in ep 5 & is maybe used three or four times total. He should be the thread pulling this nonsense together & helping provide context throughout!!!

I think the storytelling was satisfying. Seeing this stuff for the first time, I enjoyed the large amount spent with the weird characters. Had a good time guessing who was full of shit and by how much.

agree this was really unsatisfying

it was rather unrewarding to live through, too.

Is there any sort of theme to each episode or is it all just meandering until the end?

Rajneeshpuram and what happened, chronologically

I might give one more episode a try. The subject matter is so interesting, but I just can't get into it.

Despite all the hair raising details, they did seem like they could throw a goid disco party/orgy.

*good

I like how so far they just put in 2-4 second clips/mentions of the orgies and that's it.

I'm starting to get into this a bit more. Shella is ice cold. I kind of like that. This also makes me want to watch The Last of Sheila again.

Episode 4. I am sure it takes a bad turn but as of now, Sheela should be on t-shirts. If she had stopped here...amazing.

Maybe it's because I already knew her story before I saw the doc but I don't get the love of Sheela. She just seems like such an awful self-aggrandizing manipulative human being.

I mean, to me Sheela and Bhagwhan are just the two heads of the same snake eating its own tail.

I guess in the current climate, I'm impressed by her (a brown woman in the 80s) ability to completely turn Oregon upside down and out their bigotry in such a blatant way. And she laughs at them. Of course she may not have been the soul mastermind. My spouse watched parts of it and kept asking why Bhagwan never talks. He and I both have no memory of any of this (he was born '73 and me '78). i need to re-read this entire thread once I am done with the series.

I'm still going with this
the blended beavers story though

the amount of video footage is amazing though

welp glad to see that sheela has found fulfilling employment umm caring for vulnerable adults

It was really admirable how, aside from being a repeated attempted murderer, Sheela had hundreds of homeless people thrown back on the street at gunpoint the minute she was through exploiting them. Really taught those Oregonians a lesson about bigotry.

You see the same level of shamelessness and sociopathy in her present-day comments chiding America's treatment of its veterans. Have been curious to know how those vulnerable adults apparently in her care at the moment are actually treated.

First read a then-comprehensive account in Frances Fitzgerald's Cities On A Hill (1987), which the publisher eventually disfigures with subtitle subtitle A Brilliant Exploration of Visionary Communities Remaking the American Dream---truth in advertising, but very un-FF to have such heavy-breathing hype in your face like that, like Boomerbait book jacket from 60s--orig sub on title page is just "Journeys through American cultures." She's our sharp-eyed, sociable, studious, nosy, thoughtful correspondent in the fields and streets, especially Castro; also goes to Liberty Baptist complex, HQ of the Moral Majority; Sun City, the definitive retirement community of an era starting wayyyback; and climatically placed saga of Rajneeshpuram (before final section, "Starting Over," which somebody always does).

Also a couple things I came across this weekend (not intended as endorsement):

https://www.glamour.com/story/my-mom-left-me-to-join-wild-wild-country-cult

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/04/wild-wild-country-netflix-cult-documentary-interview-bhagwan-shree-rajneesh-antelope-oregon-sheela-rajneeshpuram

Coming off the netflix thread, agreed with the end comments. WWC wasn't boring, but I was bored with the direction it was taking. It just seemed lazy and that they let the interviewees kind of just ramble with no purpose. They made Osho seem like the most boring, bitchiest guru ever.

I've already said a lot about this on Facebook but I'm agreeing with both sides here. Had strong reservations about/aversion to the Duplass brothers' influence and felt ambivalent about Sheela, though eventually realised she was really very cunning, a shrewd yet overweening personality with little to no scruples about getting her own way. Now she speaks very serenely and lucidly but she's still a sociopath.

Not enough about Osho either, like what was his background? Where were the non-biased or non-resentful insights about him? He comes across as very one dimensional and stoned asf.

It strikes me as yet another example of a Netflix doco stretched out to several episodes that should have been tightened to feature length. Even though there was a wealth of material, it seemed excessive and poorly edited, and it had wishy washy Togetherness vibes, where it feels as though the Duplass brothers are sort of uncritical and extraordinarily sympathetic towards delusional, privileged, self righteous spiritual questers. Also smug and pretentious about the subject material, thinking it would reveal some deep truths or something by just letting it all just play out, and that it deserved that many episodes. I know they were only exec producing but this seemed to have their fingerprints all over it. It's the same really annoying and dumb thing that they do with their hipstery, kind of bland soundtrack choices on Togetherness. I mean at times the whole thing seems almost in service of playing some faux-deep Smog song over archival footage, and just by virtue of presenting some kind of subject matter it's supposed to be interesting, but they seldom have anything interesting to say. I sort of lost interest near the end, but I'll probably go back and finish this, even though I'm p much sick of hearing what Sheela and Stephen King lawyer have to say at this point.

Stephen King lawyer

lolz

super otm

i read an interview with the directors & they were all “oh yeah sheela was super cooperative, didn’t even want the questions in advance” and I’m like yeah no shit because she’s a fuckin narcissistic looney tunes

I mean, it’d be like doing a 10 episode doc on Edmund Kemper or Ted Bundy if he was still alive. Of course they’ll cooperate because THEY get to tell YOU what happened AT LENGTH and the less you talk to the ppl who were actually negatively AFFECTED by their actions the better it is for them.

It’s profiling 101 and it annoys me to no end when ppl like the directors don’t fully grasp this idea & how distasteful it is when it’s ignored

I can't take credit for Stephen King lawyer unforch, I think that was VG upthread? I was trying to place it while watching though.

I feel as if the documentary makers may have been hedging by going for a sympathetic antihero vibe with Sheela, and in a certain light she does seem kind of refreshing and righteous, her brazen antics in interviews presented as the underdog standing up for herself with frank and sassy quips, serving it back to the bigoted and hypocritical media and American public as good as she gets. Except she's so much of a callous hypocrite and out for herself that it seems such a calculated gesture. It's where you can easily be charmed by her, precisely because she's such a narcissist. I don't think they're entirely uncritical of Sheela, but they're almost pushing for a kind of balance or ambiguity where it seems pretty clear to anyone with a conscience that Sheela and her cronies went way too far in service of their agenda, and their justifications were so flimsy. Totally agree that they need more of the Oregonian investigator to give some #realtalk about the situation. There's so little remorse or insight from any of them, I mean that Australian woman and Stephen King lawyer too, they're not apostates at all. One's just sad and probably because her life isn't as exciting now and she had to go to jail, while the other is stubborn and because of all of the perceived injustice and hypocrisy. The way they film them too, the seemingly hapless Australian woman surrounded by books as if she's a learned and gentle soul and not a willing assassin, Stephen King lawyer in some kind of homely log cabin, all warm and genial even though he was and is a melodramatic attention seeker. Sheela in a flattering glow as if she's fuckin Gaia in some spiritual retreat. All gentle and warm compared with the cool, drab, grey tones of the establishment figures. Embarrassingly biased.

I say hedging because I think if they're criticised for being too sympathetic to the sannyasins, the filmmakers can say oh no we wanted to show you how you could be charmed and sympathise with these people, before you're blindsided with these revelations about their true natures. Like do you see, you could have been one of them too! But it's disingenuous and manipulative, crafting it in such a way without much perspective or credibly different views until later, and even then you're left confused when it should have been clearer about what went down and whose word could be trusted.

*stubborn and affronted because of all of the perceived injustice and hypocrisy

agree 100%

I mean at times the whole thing seems almost in service of playing some faux-deep Smog song over archival footage, and just by virtue of presenting some kind of subject matter it's supposed to be interesting, but they seldom have anything interesting to say.

"Drover" is a great song for this series. I'm not sure what's faux-deep about it. On the surface, the song is about a drover herding cattle over a long distance, struggling occasionally to keep the animals moving in the right direction. But it's also a song about Bill Callahan's relationship with his songs ("cattle"), as he takes them from town to town out on the road. Many of his songs, I presume, are sourced from his own mistakes, doubts, fears, pain, etc. Writing and performing the songs are methods for driving these feelings outward. It's a therapeutic process for him and his audience. But there's always the danger that his "cattle turn on (him)", because the sources remain personal. The danger is heightened in the slow-life and isolation of the boonies. So he has to struggle while out on the road to drive these painful sources out once more. He is a "drover double fold."

You can find so many "drovers" in the documentary. There's Osho, pedaling his non-religion, Sheela herding the whole cult to america, the people of Oregon trying to drive the cult away, etc. Each handled the cattle turning on them with varying degrees of success. There's also these interviewees performing their stories for the documentary in isolation. And so many of them are lying. The documentary has laid their horrible actions bare (I didn't see so much sympathy as others in the way this thing was put together), and yet they still refuse to accept the reality reflected back to them. They make themselves feel better with these stories they share. It can be interpreted as protecting some worthwhile ideal or as harmful escapism in both the documentary and Bill's song.

It was fun to spend time with the many-fold drovers. A person would buy a ticket for that.

osho *peddling obv

Ok that was a good post and here's where I confess I just find Smog really really boring and most of his fans kind of insufferable

“Drover” is also the best song of the last decade and if you’re looking for 100% condemnation of anything, there’s Twitter.

Ok that was a good post and here's where I confess I just find Smog really really boring and most of his fans kind of insufferable

I turned on him after I went to see him at ATP and he played an utterly shambolic set with his back to the audience, mumbling half-heartedly through the songs. It made me feel like he had no regard at all for people who liked him or might have travelled to see him, and I stopped listening to him for a long time as a result. But I've come back to him a bit because of this series.

One of the things I've liked in all the discussion so far is that nobody has bought the LA faction's assertion that Sheela's actions were the result of sexual jealousy. Certainly, when they made that accusation, I thought, well, that's Hollywood people for you. Can't imagine a motive for a woman's actions beyond jealousy.

Bill was pretty professional and did a real nice mix of stuff last time i saw him (last year i think). you probably caught him on a bad day.... good setlist too:

Jim Cain
Spring
Ride My Arrow
Ex-Con
Matty Groves
America!
Rock Bottom Riser
Bathysphere
I'm New Here
Say Valley Maker
Drover
River Guard
Too Many Birds
Riding for the Feeling

Ha, glad to see I’m not the only one peeved by that Smog diss.

I feel some of qiq’s criticisms. Though I came away feeling the group and their spokespeople were way more scummy, full-of-shit, and unsympathetic than the townspeople, so idk.

I do believe this story coulda been tightened up considerably too.

I also don't want to imply that I completely disagree with qiq, VG, et al.'s criticisms. It's interesting to think about this series' similarities to The Jinx, Mindhunter, and other projects about murderous sociopaths. The Jinx maybe fails in the same way that Sufjan Stevens' song about John Wayne Gacy fails because there's nothing worthwhile about a wider audience spending time in those dudes' distorted realities. Or if there is, It is a big jump and kinda gross to entertain their mindset for a time, gawk, and then only take away something like "but aren't we all lying to ourselves?" The cost of that insight seems too high.
But I think there is a distinction in this project's subject matter, where you can see an ideal that might actually be worth defending. Or you can see how those people who want to crush that ideal might be hypocrites or at least compromising themselves in some way. Also, Sheela did so much evil stuff that cannot be excused, but her evil still seems to spring up from something more human, more a mixture of diligence, loyalty, self-delusion, and yes ego. She is a useful soldier in the flawed system that she exploits to help herself and hurt others. She's a more relatable example of the kind of monsters capitalism creates or at least fosters. She's also the worst of the group. I'm more forgiving of how much time they give to the sociopaths because the bridge to ourselves, our country, etc, isn't quite as twisted or long as it seems to be in the other examples. And the insights to be gained seem to be greater than just "wow, these loonies really are charismatic?"

Can't help it if some of you get butthurt about a Smog diss. It's the same kind of thing with Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits dudes.

Finding someone's music boring isn't 100% condemnation fyi.

Sufjan I was thinking about Mindhunter too, esp how Groff's character gets corrupted by stepping into their shoes, gaining very little insight for the price he pays. There's definitely a distinction in the subject matter though.

I agree about the ideal being something worth defending, and I don't see any great insight from the other folks about how they might be compromised, or any concessions, but then is that because they don't feel that way, or because they're edited to seem uncompromising and parochial? It's also only with the benefit of hindsight that you can see how they may have solidified their hostility to Sheela et al, because after what they did, and with omissions about, or only brief allusions to, the methods used by the Rajneeshees to gain control over the town, and how they behaved, you can't necessarily get a really strong idea about what it was actually like to be subject to their control. I mean there was bad behaviour on both sides, and the Rajneeshees justified it as retaliation necessary to uphold their values, but the cult were very much into intimidation with guns, constant surveillance, the kind of stuff that would make most people really nervous and afraid.

I certainly wouldn't wish to dehumanise Sheela or characterise her as innately evil. Obvs she has her human side and you want to believe she's fighting for something righteous, and it would be simplistic to write her off as merely an aberrant psycho, because she does have some valid things to say about hypocrisy and oppression, but she's still screwy. I'm not sure what the greater insights are either.

America is def one of the worst Bill Callahan songs

It’s been a couple weeks since I watched it but wasn’t the entire explanation for why they left India that, oh you know, it was the bad ol days, Indira Gandhi was in power and there was a crackdown on religious liberty. No mention of smuggling, immigration fraud, tax fraud, etc, all the stuff that could provide context for the shenanigans in Oregon. I can’t fathom why you would choose to leave that info out or deemphasize it, unless you were trying to go easy on the Osho brand, or are just in thrall to your interview subjects, irresponsibly so imo. Maybe I’m misremembering, maybe they did mention this stuff, but it was at the least passed over pretty quickly.

I certainly wouldn't wish to dehumanise Sheela or characterise her as innately evil.

repeatedly plotting murder is a step above "screwy" I would say

xp

They left it out of the first episode so it could be revealed later on when the journalist started digging into their history.

They're not going to say oh yeah the reason they left India was actually to commit immigration fraud and smuggle guns etc into the community. The filmmakers aren't necessarily buying the Rajneeshees' side of the story, but they certainly take their time with the context or counter claims. I mean maybe they did leave because they felt persecuted, maybe there was more to the story and they were persona non grata because of criminal ties and dodgy activities. The documentary makers don't go far enough or really much at all into how they were perceived or treated by Indian people or the Indian government at the time. Also they had utopian ideals, they really believed they had figured out the best, most liberating way of living, and they were probably competing against too many contemporary gurus and competing belief systems/cults in India, plus America is full of gullible, existential, comparatively wealthy devotees in waiting. I don't think they take it at face value, but there seems to be some sympathy for their cause. I can see the filmmakers coming around to their way of thinking at times, thinking maybe these people really were hard done by and misunderstood, they had to flee, they were persecuted everywhere they went, and they seem so nice and principled! But later on it seems clear enough that to achieve their ends they were willing to behave militantly and illegally, and the filmmakers don't neglect to mention this. Depending on your view it's either treated glibly (e.g. Australian woman describing a gun smuggling trip as if they were going on a fun road trip) or is more subtle so you don't get someone didactically telling you about what went down. You have to dig deeper to learn about the specifics of the immigration fraud, but I don't think it's really necessary for much time to be devoted to explaining this, although it could have been interesting to know why. Afaik it may have been for multiple reasons: voting power, strength in numbers for any conflict, obtaining skilled workers, retaining hard workers, possibly other reasons that Sheela either isn't asked about or won't tell the truth about. I can't remember the specifics of what they say about the immigration fraud in the documentary.

I just realised maybe you mean crimes committed in India. Is that right? xxp Also, what Moodles said

That depends on your definition of "screwy". I acknowledge it can have a particular meaning in the US, but I was meaning it in the sense of "crazy, insane", even though I don't think it's very helpful to characterise Sheela that way. I don't think she would qualify as criminally insane. She's more of a calculated, deliberate type. It's difficult finding the right word to use to describe her, but as for her actions, I mean it's repellent for sure. xxp

It's difficult finding the right word to use to describe her, but as for her actions, I mean it's repellent for sure.

As for her actions, the adjective you are reaching for is "criminal". The noun would be "felonies".

Wow, thank you. Instructive for sure.

I live to serve.

As for your actions, the adjective I am reaching for is "tiresome". The noun would be "bore".

At least I'm not repellent. That would put my crimes on an equal footing with Sheela.

Yeah I was talking about the crimes in India. I kept waiting for the Oregonian journalist to come to the fore, to be given more of a voice in the narrative as these past crimes were revealed, but they kept him on the margins throughout. Said this on the Netflix thread but I’m really curious to hear his reaction to the doc.

At times it felt like watching one of those bowdlerized reruns of Friends or Buffy that you get on daytime TV. Every now and again, something important gets skipped over and you realise you're missing an important detail.

Another thing that seemed to come across was that the whole Oregonian adventure seemed like a bit of a game for a lot of people, and when it finished, they just kind of went back to their middle-class lives and picked up where they left off. What a privileged position to be in, and how different to the experiences of the homeless people who were dumped in Portland with nowhere to go. I don't know if this is actually the case, but that was what came across to me.

Oregonian series is so great

Films provided the guru's main diversion. Because he had stopped reading, Rajneesh became an avid movie buff. Milne and other former sannyasins said several disciples were dispatched along the West Coast to collect videotapes to satisfy the guru's new hobby -- one that rivaled his past penchant for books. "Patton" and "The Ten Commandments" were said to be his favorites.

Ex-sannyasins said that shortly after he saw a film about Nostradamus, Rajneesh made his most apocalyptic predictions. Although he has repeatedly claimed no knowledge of temporal matters, Rajneesh became convinced that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

I don't think Sheela was a sociopath, unless we want to call leaders of megachurches, extreme sects sociopaths. Then that fits.

I don't know if the doc would've been better served if they had a narrator to smooth over all the gaps and jumps and to make them cut down all the pointless rambling in interviews. That Stephen King lawyer was the worst.

Someone mentioned above that she reminded them of a friend's mother...she reminds me of a lot of asian mothers.

She seems like a sociopath to me. The glib, easy charm, the willingness to take the most extreme measures to remove a human obstacle from her goal path

i just finished watching a few hours ago, and i loved it. i can understand some of the criticisms upthread. just tossing some of them out that i remember - that they didn't provide enough information about osho, that they didn't focus on individual members enough, they they didn't provide enough investigative detail, that they left certain threads hanging at the end, that sheela was presented in too sympathetic of a light.

i thought WWC did a great job of showing how so many people ended up falling under his (and later, Sheela's) spell. someone mentioned that bagwhan looked stoned af all the time. fuck yeah he did. so did everyone else in the film. the footage in the first episode is just straight up trippy (i say that realizing that they almost certainly applied some post-fx to amplify the vintage feel). fuck, **I** was stoned af when i was watching it for the first time. ok, maybe that's why it seemed so trippy, now that i think about it. but i don't think i completely imagined that amazing episode, and the absolute magnetism of bhagwan even as his words were so vacant. all of the smiling faces and dancing and giddiness, as he stands stone still outside of his car with his hands pressed together in front of his face.

I don't think Sheela was a sociopath, unless we want to call leaders of megachurches, extreme sects sociopaths. Then that fits.

uh, i want to call leaders of megachurches sociopaths, as well as Sheela. she was magnetic as well, of course, and so charming. it is so easy to imagine being swept up in it all. many intelligent people are very good at telling themselves believable lies. and some of them were just tripping out all the time, they must have been. the footage of those orgies, holy shit. that was intense and otherworldly. they didn't focus too much on individual members outside of the inner-circle, but i thought they seemed very...happy? or at least occupied with the idea of happiness, which might be the same thing?

anyway, tl;dr yet again sorry, but many of the criticisms i saw upthread are more easily accepted if you're not seeking a complete investigative expose but instead just an extended glimpse into the fervor of it all.

signed,
osho

you cant spell OSHO without O_O

sh = _
O_o

xpost ha, I am not religious at all so yeah, I kind of think most religions are like what was shown in WWC (sociopathic) but I was trying to give leeway.

Again, I am probably biased because she reminds me of soooooo many asian mothers. I've seen my mom pull some sheela shit in my day.

I really hope you mean that your mother got some Australian lady to hypo someone in the backside.

She oversaw hippie orgies and disco parties

She's smart enough to get other people to do her dirty work, so likely.

xpost Break out the karaoke machine and give her a little schnapps.

sh = _
O_o

VG for some reason i'm really paranoid that this came off like i was shushing you - i definitely wasn't! i doubt anyone really thinks that but i just have to get that out there

Can't help it if some of you get butthurt about a Smog diss

yo is it true some of you got butthurt after a Smog beef

xpost LOL i totally didnt take it that way, we’re good I promise!!

Totally agree with VG and Justine on this. Super dissatisfying for the same reasons they mentioned.

Don’t want to armchair diagnose here, but fuck if Sheela isn’t a sociopath of some degree. Poisoning, planning murder, the creepy secret rooms she had built in her house, zero remorse, seemingly zero empathy.

Like “she reminds me of Asian mothers I know” is kind of glossing over some important details.

And the shots of the books she had stashed away

i was kinda disgusted too at how much rope they gave Sunny
lshe basically confesses to attempted murder & they keep coming back to her sweetly smiling face talking about we went here and there and sang and and I’m like
a) why is she still talking
b) what the fuck

Yep. I spoke too soon about qiq’s criticisms about this, just watched the final episode tonight. And yeah, it’s um, way too sympathetic in one direction.

you watch a documentary and come to the conclusion, rightfully so, that some people in it are awful. It sounds like the documentary makers did their job? Or is the worry that others, less perceptive than you, will be tricked by the gentler handling of the material?

I didn't watch it and I can tell you unequivocally that Sheela is awful. I came to that conclusion even before she conspired to poison hundreds of people.

Right. So if the documentary achieves that same feeling without doing anything to obviously feed the sheela crew persecution rebuttle, it did a good job.

Rebuttal, without all the chenin blanc of course

By design it seemed, at least towards the end, that the filmmakers by choice of time, music, etc. made one side look more sympathetic than the other. So much spent with a weeping woman who was losing her son to a brain tumor vs. a bunch of locals who are glad The Others are gone.

I am going to lose any argument i get into in this shape. But i still feel a heavy hand would've been the wrong approach. Sympathize with the idea of the many not interviewed cult members, the cattle, carrying the load in all this and deserving .ore voice, though

lol, the tumor scene is memorable because she made it entirely about herself

I would’ve loved to hear the lesser cult members! That would’ve given this more dimension. Mostly just get the power players, who are kinda fucking awful.

biggest failure by far was not devoting all resources to the blended beavers story

I wake up thinking about that story

xps i think the criticism is more that doc makers should be obligated to take a more active and responsible role wrt unjust situations. but the errol morris tack of spectacle without judgment is more audience-friendly so...

n.b. i haven't seen this and won't, although i'm familiar with the story. i don't like this kind of thing. an ex really soured me on it, lol. he got off on cult stuff, but it's just stupid and predictable to me.

for the record, I don't think this was without judgement from the filmmakers. The judgement just doesn't come from the oregonian joirnalist narrating the whole thing.

sufjan look at this way

if families of ppl poisoned by Sheela & the Rajneeshis watched that documentary, i think they’d be somewhere between annoyed to outraged that there was so much *unqueried* *unchallenged* screen time for her & her followers

she fucking POISONED them

and she gets 75% of the screen time? to just smile and pretend she’s a kooky aunt or some shit?

I didn't think the screen time was for her benefit, though. And I don't think people watch a documentary that is mostly recap from victims and their families. I thought it was more effective to show sheela and then, for example, the woman recalling that her daughter was pregnant at the time of her poisoning.

i just meant that when the rajneeshis have perpetrated something pretty fucking horrible against innocent civilians, letting them tell their own story without any in-depth interrogation is to pretend that crimes were not perpretrated. Like, to me the makers somehow decided that Sheela’s “humanity” & point of view is a better focus than the actual historical record that shows she was a sociopathic con artist.

that’s my problem in a nutshell.

it’s gilding the lily.

or guilding the sociopath.

i'm with you sufjan

i think the series makes it clear that sheela committed crimes - she totally comes across as a sociopathic con artist to me

that's why i think it was more interesting to show her in a way that highlighted her (real) charisma - in addition to the crimes and the tragedy, you get to see why people were drawn to her as well. dunno, to me that is very compelling

i can appreciate that

Like, to me the makers somehow decided that Sheela’s “humanity” & point of view is a better focus than the actual historical record that shows she was a sociopathic con artist.

I'm not sure they did decide that, though. The more she talks and the more of the story she tells, the creepier she looks. If anything, the doc serves as a warning not to be taken in by kindly looking older people, because you don't know what they've done.

One of the townspeople did mention that they're all tired of talking about it, so it is possible that the makers couldn't secure more interviews from that perspective, whereas obviously the cultists are going to keep on "actually"ing about it all until they die.

that's why i think it was more interesting to show her in a way that highlighted her (real) charisma - in addition to the crimes and the tragedy, you get to see why people were drawn to her as well. dunno, to me that is very compelling

otm

the lack of challenge is infuriating but I guess with sheela and maybe the other main guys, a challenge that actually landed might have jeopardized the rest of their narrative if it got their backs up? Maybe not Stephen King lawyer though, he's just itching to justify everything in great offended detail until the end of time.

Lawyer looks a lot more like Rick Bayless, imo

Someone posted an article above or on the netflix thread about people not even being asked to participate and not knowing about the doc.

Don’t think this has been posted:

http://amp.timeinc.net/time/5238200/wild-wild-country-netflix-way-brothers

The Wild Wild Country Team Knows They Left Out Part of the Story. But They Did it on Purpose

...

Wild Wild Country refuses to establish clear heroes or villains. The Way brothers wanted to let the Rajneeshees’ actions and the complaints of locals unfold without an added layer of condemnation.

...

“We were trying to tap into a conversation about, well, what is the difference between cult and religion? What are religious minority rights? Where is everyone’s line of tolerance where they have to say, ‘Enough is enough, we can’t have these people take over my town anymore?’” says Maclain Way.

...

But the Ways say they did not worry about any potential imbalances in the series because they trusted audiences to judge the Rajneeshees’ actions as negative without having to totally condemn the commune. “We are interested in showing this to a mature audience that would be able to kind of push themselves to then hear from the people who did these things themselves, about why they did it,” says Maclain.

I think my biggest objection to that is just that the question, where is the line between a religion and a cult? seems trite and innapropriate in relation to the material.

sorry to be captain defend a wild wild country here, but that question is also really interesting to me. a lot of the footage of the rajneeshees looked like the footage of the pentecostal church i grew up in. (not the sexy parts. the glazed eyes staring upward in jubilant creepy as fuck glossolalic celebration part). it doesn't seem trite to me, it seems like a question that ruined my life when i was younger.

Maybe I’m too cynical but that approach just feels ... lazy?

I mean, if you’re not really going to drive at ALL then it’s an info-dump with after-effects & cool music.

That’s reductive I know but grrr it just gets under my skin

i’ll stop banging on but I think my objections ultimately boil down to the naivety of the creators. it just feels off-balance for this kind of serious subject matter. I personally feel more rigor is needed & less “room to breathe” etc.

Agreed. ^^^ I have a friend that made a documentary about one of my favorite bands and it was basically an edited data dump. He had access to all sorts of video and interviews and just didn't weave any story together. That's how I felt about WWC.

I’ve brought up Ramtha a few times in part because I have a personal connection to it, but I really do think it’s an instructive counterexample in this case. Another new age group with a charismatic leader invades (much more slowly and gradually) a small, conservative agricultural town only a few hours north of Antelope, attracts followers from all over the world, conflict with community develops, cult accusations fly, there’s some legal issues here and there, all of this contemporaneous with Rajneeshpuram... and yet, here we are, over 30 years later and Ramtha is afaict stronger and more integrated into the Yelm community than ever. That’s a good opportunity to ask the question, where’s the line between cult and religion? Asking the question about Rajneeshpuram (and Osho generally) is, imo, like asking the question about the Family or Peoples’ Temple—the explicitly criminal nature of each either negates whatever justification the word “religion” carries or we end up throwing out that consideration and just call all religions criminal. Either way it doesn’t feel like a useful way into the material, for me.

yeah, i guess we're just fundamentally at odds on this because i thought WWC told a great story. it didn't feel like a data dump to me at all. keep in mind i had no idea about what happened in oregon with the rajneeshees, so as the series gradually revealed what happened it felt very much like a coherent (and gripping) narrative to me.

i can imagine another kind of documentary where the criminality of sheela is established early on, and the bulk of the series is dedicated to interviews with the victims and families of the victims, interspersed with the occasional retort from Sheela, who would be clearly revealed from the beginning as an evil actor. i can see being a good documentary, in its own way! but i also don't think it would be a popular netflix series with an ILX thread. it would just be totally different, and i doubt many people would have watched it tbh. personally speaking, it is much more interesting to me to try to get inside the heads of the perpetrators of the crimes, not the victims. if i'm watching a doc on the manson family, for example, i want to understand what drove the people who were IN the manson family. i might be alone in that.

but really i think the perception of WWC depends on one's previous level familiarity with the entire story, so in some ways i think we really were watching different docs. for me, the essence of the series was soon after the commune was established in oregon, when the exposé doc was shown in Antelope and a lot of the nearby residents learned what was "really" going on in there. that was the point in the series when the questions that Way was talking about are at their most potent: what is the difference between cult and religion? What are religious minority rights? Where is everyone’s line of tolerance where they have to say, ‘Enough is enough, we can’t have these people take over my town anymore?’. i was hooked at that point because i could really put myself in the shoes of the oregon state officials and locals. what do you do when your inclination is to support religious freedom, but you see this crazy film with glimpses of intense orgies that seem to involve violence, but it's not clear whether or not the people involved were consenting or non-consenting to the violence, and it seems that at least some of these people are under the spell of charismatic leaders? those questions were probably moot for WWC viewers who already knew how the story would end, but for a while there it seemed to me that the series would be about that conundrum, supposed "American" values of freedom being severely tested to the breaking point.

but that framing and those kinds of question are effective at that point in the series only if you don't know what's going to happen, i think

ugh sorry for tl;dr

Karl I hear you. Just making stuff up here, but ironically I think a good documentary about Pentecostals could be made in the WWC style, where the filmmakers purposefully ignore a lot of the surrounding context. That could maybe defamiliarize a homegrown “religious” group and help viewers to appreciate how coercive and invasive it can be. Maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, I wasn’t trying to dismiss the question, just evaluate how appropriate it was to this particular group in this particular time and space.

big xp

xpost to sciatica

didn't see your post before i posted! and that's a really good point. it would have been great if they worked in commune/new age "success stories" as well to provide a contrast. but i dunno, i think in the end they focused on the rajneeshees because it's a really compelling story, first and foremost?

KM good post. I think VG and others here are have a solid criticism, but from my perspective as someone pretty well steeped in cult histories I guess I am guilty of appreciating the doc merely as an artifact. IOW I don't think I went into it looking for insight into how these things unfold or how people fall prey to or find happiness in these scenes. I mean I know all those things, we all do, we've all seen them a million times.... I dug the footage of an American spectacle on its merits, e.g. that bizarre welcome-band, red-carpet rollout. Shallow take: I think the film has merit as culture-porn really not so far afield from a lot of Netflix content, and to the extent it was thought provoking (and it was that, too) for me that was all gravy.

I just finished that Heaven's Gate podcast and could say the same thing about it. I "learned" more about DIY castration than I did abt why people renounce their families, and that's okay, it was well crafted.

For the record, despite growing up in the area, seeing Sheela on tv, and hearing bits and pieces here and there, I didn’t know the details of the story or any specifics about how it ended (though I’m familiar with Osho in its present day form). Almost everything in the doc was new to me, most memorably learning why, as a picky kid in the mid-80s, I suddenly wasn’t allowed to eat from salad bars anymore.

The SNL spoof last night had a couple of lols. I was surprised they went there.

Growing up in the Wild Wild Country cult

I haven't finished the doc yet, but this is surprisingly high-quality hippie drum circle music:

https://www.nts.live/shows/soundsofthedawn/episodes/sounds-of-the-dawn-28th-april-2018

https://open.spotify.com/track/5LvSmFUCAz9oT4iCKRDU84?si=b1AWOwGJRZ-0y6fwU1C1LA

I think we're ... four episodes in? Anyway, it's well done, but it's such a relentless exercise in burying the lede that it feels like it could/should have been a two-parter, not a redundant six-part epic.

There definitely feels like there's some padding in it, but OTOH I don't tire easily of glassy-eyed, maroon-robed hippies doing the hustle under disco lights.

^ with you

largely with karl itt but i get the counterpoint of VG and others. good thread.

anyway just coming here to say not enough talk here about tubby man in dungarees and former antelope mayor when no one else would be john silvertooth, who has kept a rajneesh poster up in his house, went through all their rubbish to find incriminating evidence, sat on the rajneeshi council to “be on the inside” and generally seems to be a stand up guy with a “helluva story” glint in his eye. i’m only four eps in please don’t tell me he goes all milkshake duck.

He is the best by a mile, I want more of him.

He's my favorite.

I mean, I get why it's padded the way it is. There is so much awesome, incredible footage, they've just got to use it. But they keep talking about federal crimes and mass poisonings and evil on an untold scale, but we're four episodes in and they haven't really accused them of much beyond acting a little like vacillating victims/assholes (on both sides), even though they keep alluding to some of the aforementioned.

i agree with the bury the lede point, but i guess they’re trying to convey an “as it happened” sense of uncertainty, which i think is p successful. also anyone who doesn’t see fairly quickly that sheela is a looney toons sociopathic narcissist in VG’s memorable phrase needs better antennae.

that said she is a BOSS in the ep 2 media appearances with aggressive white men tbf.

Something else weirdly absent is much about the main guy. Again, four episodes in and I'm not exactly sure where he even lives. Also, at one point he took a vow of silence. Did he ever start talking again? I still don't know if he speaks.

Neither did the people at the time in this more or less chronological presentation of the events.

He was an incredibly beautiful man, josh, what else do you really need to know?

He lived in the compound, spent all his time stoned watching movies, and was eventually murdered by his drug suppliers.

Spoilers?

He was an incrediblys beautifuls mans...sssssssssSSSS

Nice high cheek bones and an impeccable silvery beard.

he looked kinda like Kim Thayil a bit

^ ha yes I thought this throughout!

Spoiler- he gets super, super bitchy in one more episode.

I think he throws down with Billy Corgan near the end, too.

What is Billy Corgan but a drover of goodwill away from himself

I'll catch up on this thread when we're done with the doc - we have about 25 minutes to go - but even with it about to wrap up, man, I still have soooooo many questions. There are so many things brought up then sort of dropped or left unexplored!

yeah the through-lines are *really* muddy

Josh go read the epic Oregonian serialized piece

*6 days later, Josh returns, drenched in sweat*

Josh are u ok buddy

Jesus christ, there's a 20 part piece I have to read!?

fuck, josh, do you want the deep dive answers or not?

Josh: I have sooo many unanswered questions.
Jon: Go read this very lengthy piece that answers most, if not all of them.
Josh: Mmmmm.

lol

I documentary is like 7 hours long! There shouldn't be any more unanswered questions!

We still have those last 20 minutes to go, maybe that'll answer everything.

OK, I skimmed the 20 part series (which was sort of erratically written/organized/edited), and ... I still have soooo many questions. Were there kids on the ranch? How many? Was it a freelove commune, with rampant sex everywhere, all the time, as has been claimed? Were there serious crimes being committed beyond white collar crimes like zoning infractions and tax and immigration fraud? The doc gets into attempted murders and there's that alleged poisoning of the town, but ... the prosecution seems largely focused on the white collar stuff, right? Does the doc (or anything else) ever outright confirm they poisoned the town? I don't remember that. And even the attempted murder of the doctor ... how did it fail? And the money stuff ... The Oregonian series goes into the finances a bit more, which is useful, but aside from the material largess of cars and jewelry (which seems akin to contemporary prosperity gospel BS), most of the money seemed to be channeled back into building and sustaining the commune, not for, for example, jetting off to exotic lands to stay in fancy hotels; these people, they're still living on this shitty ranch in shitty prefab summer camp houses buying shitty red bathrobes and avidly, ecstatically listening to this guy not-talk for hours at a time. And in they end the people in charge did build and sustain an actual town for several years, under duress, rather than take the seed money and run. (Better to reign in Hell, etc?)

Which is to say, as far as corruption goes, it seems less brazen than Scott Pruitt, and besides the usual personal pettiness, the cult members seem pretty happy to be there. It's not like they were being abused or locked down or seriously threatened a la some of the more troublesome cults that have warranted government intervention. Something like the Branch Davidians, there were charges of child abuse, and while never proven those charges alone seem more serious than this fraud guru shit. I dunno, it's all so mysterious There's a great line in the Oregonian piece: "They had so much money, so they could certainly afford to be enigmatic." No shit. !

and ... I still have soooo many questions.

great news! there’s a really good six-part netflix series you should watch!

Yeah, maybe I should watch it again. Ugh. I have a feeling the only reason it's that long is all the awesome footage they had, because how could you not use as much of that as you could?

i know, the footage is fantastic. the texture of the doc as much as anything else is part of its appeal i think? KM says the same upthread iirc.

this article is a good summary of the 20 part series, that answers some of those questions

https://newrepublic.com/article/147657/outside-limits-human-imagination

Ah, that one seems like it will do the trick, thanks!

xposts
i don't remember if i mentioned it, but yes i definitely agree. it is very compelling series, visually. some of the footage appears to have been edited/color-corrected, some light effects and stuff, but in general it's a subtle treatment and it makes everything pop. and, i admit to being fascinated (on a visual level at least) with all of the red, the masses of people, their apparent communal ecstasy at times, the presence that both sheela and the rajneesh have. all of that resonates in strong and sometimes uncomfortable ways with me

OK, that New Republic piece was essential and left me angry and disliking the doc even more. I mean, fuck those doc people for eliding over the worst shit in service of a cute "us vs. them" culture clash story. They're as in love with their story as Sheela et al. were in love with themselves.

uh oh, looks like i should read that

the doc puts together all of that great footage and tells the story in a way that doesn't shut down self examination in the way that a wholly "check out this crazy evil cult" presentation might have. we have all arrived at the correct conclusion here re: this cult. Oregonian Guy himself says the doc is good and not propaganda. you can like the doc (or at least resist the urge for righteous condemnation) and also like Oregonian Guy's pieces. they go together and do different, helpful stuff.

I already knew how the story ended, so there's no way I'd watch it innocently thinking the Rajneeshees were anything but a pack of criminals leading a bunch of misguided fools to destruction.

xpost I strongly disagree. The documentary begins with accusations that the cult is outright evil, but then delivers literally or next to nothing to back that up. Or really even much to investigate the claim.

I don't think the documentary is propaganda, and The Oregonian epic is fine. This cult is fascinating and its history is complicated, there are many stories you can tell. The documentary picked the most harmless, victimless version of it. But when there is a history of forced rapes and drug smuggling and prostitution and child abandonment and threats, that seems to be the stuff worth focusing on. But again, even the stuff documentary brings up, from the sex to the poisoning, it barely delves into and often times never resolves. You would never have guessed the cult was already fading internationally, or that people had been arrested for an array of infractions before the events of the documentary took place, or that they were run out of India for at the very least tax evasion but probably a lot more and worse, or that there was a network of former members with horror stories. I didn't even leave the documentary knowing if the people interviewed were even still adherants!

The doc gets into attempted murders and there's that alleged poisoning of the town, but ... the prosecution seems largely focused on the white collar stuff, right? Does the doc (or anything else) ever outright confirm they poisoned the town?

Josh, i love you. but the doc goes into some depth about this. telling a story about how the police nearly stumbled onto the bio terrorism lab where they grew the shit used for this poisoning. part of the drama of an entire episode focused on how a politician, acting on basically a hunch, was confirmed to be correct on this matter. I just get the feeling that you half-watched this thing but still want to have a strong opinion on it.

I watched everything but the last 20 minutes. They never confirm that the cultists poisoned the water, which is why they were not prosecuted for it (right?), just for immigration fraud or some shit. The doc was overwhelmingly God-fearing reactionary local yokels fear the unknown of the kooky cult that may or may not be hiding something, while the US government pursues them on trumped up charges. But my god, the shit it leaves out, from the history of sexual violence to members wearing color coded necklaces that say whether they had been tested for STDs to the suspicion the group may have been trying to cultivate a live AIDS virus to be weaponized!!

The poisoning stuff, it's just elided over in this sort of wink-wink way. I even noted to my wife as we were watching it, aha, here's where the "evil" comes in! But then they never come back to it. I know, because I asked her later if I was crazy and missed something and she said no.

well, fuck man. everyone knows the fact-checking can end at that most distant and independent source: one's own wife. also, a central god-fearing local yokel is presented as the most sympathetic person in the whole thing. I will reiterate that I don't understand how anyone saw a presentation sympathetic to the cult and its crimes. I do think that they held things back and chose to tell things mostly chronologically in order to get viewers to think about how the things which are evil about this cult (again, I think the doc does plenty showing these evil things) could be present in their own communities, countries, etc. It seems weird to me to think that children, abuse, water quality, murder, etc are not also tied up in those matters.

Again I don't think the doc is sympathetic!!!! I just think (and obviously our views differ) that what it doles out to support the early tease of "evil" is pretty minor on the evil scale. There is definitely an aspect of "look in the mirror" that ties it to the present, look in your own community, etc., and that (again) is a perfectly legit story to tell. But I truly do not believe that is the story this doc tells, just one part of several stories it *partly* tells, with too much left out with no explanation. As the New Republic piece puts it:

Where the filmmakers have fallen down on the job is in the area of interpretation. They have not addressed squarely some of the more important issues raised by their film, and have left others out completely. The latter category includes a few of the cult’s most odious practices, as well as the true extent of the threat it posed not only to its immediate neighbors in Oregon, but to the entire world.

(Also, per the chronology, it skips all the worst stuff about their tenure in India, which is the beginning of the story.)

well, there is the true chronology and there's the chronology of information received by the wider public

Watching the doc without knowing anything about the Rajneesh beforehand, I agree with Josh (although I will admit I thought the doc was sympathetic to the Rajneesh). The whole bioterrorism thing seemed like a footnote with an underlying blended beaver rumor. That New Republic piece clears up so much.

I should say, there are sympathetic elements to it, of ecstatic practioners mourning the end of paradise on earth and so on. But I don't think the filmmakers went out of their way to make them look good, only passively, by omission.

It might be interesting, and also probably stupid, to think about the kind of documentary you'd want to make if you were going to feed that documentary into a computer that'd be used for recognizing the particular kind of evil present in this cult. If you explained everything, led with how evil the cult is, otherized one side, etc., you'd be in danger of over fitting for this one occurrence of evil and weakening the computer's ability to recognize the more general pattern of this evil. So I think it's possible to see some of the partial telling and leaving out as a choice, and perhaps the right choice, as opposed to a failure of the documentary.

You go to war with the documentary you have, not the documentary you want.

complicating this unwanted thought exercise further, the computer I'm talking about is unknowingly in a cult where they poison, murder, suck, and fuck each other.

and in case it isn't clear: i am a computer.

i am that computer.

Is this turning into the Saturday Night what are you drinking?

KoolAid, clearly. If you get my drift.

lol

The New Republic article nails exactly why I was annoyed by the documentary. Because the group they presented was not the group I knew them to be, and the doc did not give nearly enough weight to the heinous shit they perpetrated. The producers were so in love with the sheer volume of archival footage that they just massaged a half-assed story around *that* instead of digging into what happened that wasn’t show on film that IS documented about them.

ugh. I still get angry just talking about it.

It's interesting that the Oregonian reporter who wrote those Rajneesh pieces now owns the New Republic. I guess the old media have really fallen on hard times. However, I didn't find his piece to shed a whole lot of new light on the story vs what I got from watching the documentary. I mean there was footage in the doc of those disturbing encounter groups with people yelling and punching other people and pulling their clothes off. I don't know how someone could watch that and come away thinking the group was all sweetness and light. The New Republic article seemed to consist mostly of second- or third-hand stories by people who had been convicted of crimes of their own and had an incentive to bad-mouth it to gain leniency or a lot of sententious analysis by "cult experts" with no apparent first-hand experience with the group at all. I thought the first-person stories that the doc did tell, esp. the woman who was involved in the various murder plots, to be a lot more damning. If you have a large enough group of mostly young single people, interested in experimentation, wary of conventional morality, etc. you'd have to expect a lot of weird and sometimes disturbing shit to happen, brainwashing or not. I mean I also recently watched the Grateful Dead doc on Amazon, and I'm sure a lot of the same shit went down with the Grateful Dead "family" on tour too. "To live outside the law you must be honest", as the poet once said, and not everyone is up to it.

Yeah, I also agree that the doc was really soft in comparison with what you read in that article. The whole time I was wondering things like "how exactly did they have this much money in the first place? ... and why exactly did they have to leave India? Just because there were 'some problems with Mrs. Gandhi'?", all of which only seemed like it was briefly touched on in the film. xp

Really, o. nate? To start, I think the New Republic article gets a lot more into the issues of rape, child abuse, and forcing young women into prostitution and drug trafficking than I got from the documentary.

I thought the doc was pretty clear that they had all that money because their members gave it to them. I don't really believe they were running a major international drug-smuggling or prostitution ring, as the article seems to imply, though I can believe that some individual members may have resorted to illegal activity to pay their dues to the organization.

Also, I don't believe, based on the evidence provided, that the group encouraged or condoned rape or child abuse either. It seems again to mostly consist of a few second or third hand reports by people who had ample incentive to bad mouth the group to gain leniency for crimes of their own.

I guess it seemed like a phenomenal amount of money to have been raised from individual donations, if they could build a whole city with an airport, hotel, etc. in that amount of time. (I think they did that even before the big-name Hollywood people were involved?) xp

Well, these were not regular donations, these were people basically giving everything they owned to the Rajneesh. That kind of money adds up pretty fast. I mean the Church of Scientology seems to have plenty of funds too, and no one suspects them of running a drug-smuggling ring.

I suspect it of a lot of new religious movements tbf. I'll acknowledge that the evidence in the New Republic piece isn't always airtight so fair enough. The first time I tried to read it, I stopped because the distinction it was trying to make between a 'cult' and a 'real religion' seemed so bogus. I skipped over that part this time.

I stopped because the distinction it was trying to make between a 'cult' and a 'real religion' seemed so bogus

yeah, that's where I stopped (or paused, really - I plan on finishing) as well.

the distinction it was trying to make between a 'cult' and a 'real religion' seemed so bogus

Cults tend to form around living leaders like Jim Jones, Sun-Myong Moon, or the Bagwhan Shree Rajneesh, who have one set of "teachings" they promulgate to the world at large, but who also deliver a separate set of directives and ever-changing and updated rules that are not captured as a public philosophy, but are more like specifically telling everyone what they will be doing, and where and how they will be doing it. These are delivered as commands directed at the faithful, but are not for outside consumption. Fail to follow the ever-changing whims and commands of the leader, and you are expelled.

All the most cult-like aspects of religions center not on teachings, but on leaders who make demands on the faithful, under pain of expulsion from the group, and claim a higher authority for those demands which are not easy to reconcile with the broader tenets of the religion.

Those are, of course, generalizations, but they fit the known cases fairly well.

Did Scientology and ISKCON graduate to the status of real religions when they continued after their charismatic founding leaders died?

Afaik, most scholars prefer this term now: https://www.britannica.com/topic/new-religious-movement

("Afaik" is doing a fair bit of work there tbf.)

A friend who's a yoga instructor posted one of Osho's pseudo-spiritual quotes on instagram the other day - guessing they've probably not seen Wild Wild Country.

I didn't know anything about this before either - it's weird how prior to this doc, such a bizarre story had mostly been totally forgotten (outside Oregon at least). Osho's just one of your regular New Age gurus now.

My wife's mom had never heard of them (though she's pretty sure she knew someone in the cult in Chicago in the late '60s), but my wife's father in law, a very lapsed Mormon, totally remembered, because he was out west and grew up in a neo-cult himself.

mostly been totally forgotten (outside Oregon at least).

I remember them very clearly from 12,332 km outside of Oregon

imo the documentary's primary weaknesses are its reliance on true-crime storytelling, which values creating drama and sometimes scattering red herrings that are never fully resolved over clarity and insight; and its overemphasis on the people they managed to get interviews with. Sheela obviously deserves the screen time, but a lot of the others are just people who were willing to go on camera, so we hear a lot more about them than about others who were equally or more important players. (Starting most obviously with Rajneesh himself, who is allowed to remain something of an enigma.)

I enjoyed watching it, it's a hell of a story no matter how you tell it, but it definitely leaves a lot out. I feel the same way about the New Republic story, for that matter, which is not very well written but it does serve as a corrective/gap-filler for the series.

OTM

New Republic piece is written with an agenda. It comes from a place of anger and frustration. The doc has no agenda, which is what leaves it balanced "both sides" bullshit.

nothing helps one convince an audience or fosters deeper thinking like a clear agenda

yeah Josh i'm not really with you there. isn't having an agenda going to make them prejudicial to one side, without actually trying to determine whether there's more complexity and ambiguity to the story? granted they may have been a little too sympathetic and selective, but as it unfolds it's pretty hard for the viewer not to reach a conclusion that some Rajneeshnees were pretty fucked up, self serving people. it lets you come to that conclusion though, it doesn't say, ok these are BAD people, and here's why that's ok. i think the makers get sucked in a little by some of the charms of the group and their philosophies, and some of my objections are expressed upthread, but i don't think it would be apt or especially interesting for them to be all angry and frustrated at the group and vent all of that in a documentary. within five or ten minutes most people would be like ok i get it they're reprehensible people that did terrible things, and you're telling me there's six more hours of this shit? it's an interesting argument though, that sometimes balance isn't really what's called for, that one side may not be as deserving of attention despite some principle that both sides should get a fair hearing.

some of the charms of the group and their philosophies

If only their professed philosophies, rather than their arrogance, had guided all their actions, it might have been a much different story about a much more charming group of people. When ecstatic self-stimulation and power-seeking replace compassion, wisdom, balance, or judgment, they are just another dehumanizing delusion, the stuff as monsters are made of.

xpost, it’s not a huge ask though! shows like Frontline & halfway decent documentarians do it ALL the time

I'm one episode away from finishing this and can't say that any of the Rajneeshis have expressed anything resembling a philosophy, including Osho and Sheela. It's all just cult of personality + indulgence/hedonism (w the latter being mostly implied)

Not going to say it seemed ultra-deep but I do think the idea about the need to syncretize Western materialism with (non-denominational) 'Eastern spirituality' was probably somewhat novel at the time (and influential on later new age movements); I can see why it found an audience.

it's definitely innovative. also seems really crass and empty

No disagreement there.

it's like the whole basis of it is "it's okay if an exotic foreigner says so!" (with all of the creepy fetishization and solipsism that that implies)

xp to Sund4r

I've been curious about that as well, the historical context for that syncretism. I suspect the opposite though, that it *wasn't* particularly novel at the time, that for the generation involved the appeal would go back to TM at least (and the general use of non-specific Orientalist spirituality as a money-making enterprise in the west was well over 100 years old at the time). This is just a guess but I don't think the appeal of Rajneeshpuram was its novelty, I think it was a reassertion of the antagonistic attitude of prior groups like Manson and Peoples Temple, that the confrontation with straight, murderous, repressive society was the point for a lot of followers, despite the typical new age rhetoric. There was nothing "eastern" about Peoples Temple iirc but it's the clearest precursor I know for a self-selected elite to use their apocalyptic leanings as justification to settle and dominate a local community. Anyway, this is why it's hard to take the filmmakers' assertion that they wanted to explore the nature of religion or whatever (expressed in the interview linked upthread) seriously; they don't seem to understand the context in which this was happening; I think they happened on a treasure trove of amazing footage, found a couple of key players who would sit down for extensive interviews, and let that shape the project to the detriment of a more informed editorial vision. And by that I don't mean "harangue the viewer," I think they get the tone right by often underselling the crazy, I think they just needed to tighten it up and expand on what happened both before and after Rajneeshpuram.

TM was really getting a second wind in the 80s iirc; I think Rajneesh's appeal to white folks at the time needs to be seen in relation to the Maharishi's.

It flies under the radar because they never murdered anyone I know of but Ramtha was really taking off at the time too, in the same part of the country even. Anyway I disagree any of this was particularly innovative, as I said.

The proud embrace of materialism is the most cynical aspect of the whole (vague) ethos. That's why I brought up prosperity gospel upthread - more or less same idea, the attractiveness of absolving yourself of guilt and responsibility.

Good points, sciatica. I'm really no expert so that helps. I agree that some more context on the ethos itself would have been appreciated.

Or ... any context?

Like, from the doc I couldn't tell you one precept of their religion.

haha yeah I don't agree w many of yr criticisms in general JiC but the latter is otm.

*watches 6 part docuseries where people of one group all wear red the whole fucking time*
"I can't tell you one precept of that group"

lol

yeah, but we never learn: why red?

red = color of joy

color of money!

but yeah, fair enough. red precept.

It's a fair point, Shakey, but wouldn't you consider hedonism a philosophy?

I don't know, maybe "philosophy" isn't the right word, too generous and legitimising and cohesive for their vague beliefs in free love or w/e. I just meant their beliefs.

it's too incoherent and subject to individual's vicissitudes to constitute a philosophy imo. but my larger point is that NO ONE in the documentary comes out, for instance, and says "our philosophy was basically hedonism". It's all just implied by what they say they *aren't* - they aren't an organized religion, marriage is whatever two people want it to be, let's free ourselves from restrictive philosophies, etc. You can kinda fill in the blanks here to determine what they *do* believe, but it's all guesswork really.

And when Osho finally breaks his silence and speaks, we don't get any philosophizing, we get the angry monotonous denunciations of a semi-catatonic jerk.

Doc has no payoff on or confirmation of his pill popping ways, come to think of it.

I assume anyone w delusions of grandeur who speak that slowly and don't blink are cracked out of their skulls

their philosophy is actually a blend of beavers and snakes however only true heads know this

They define themselves as being against jazz iirc

https://youtu.be/mmAo99SW6_E?t=350

well I thought he was a jerk before, but now I'm ANGRY

one of the deleted scenes features Stephen King lawyer revealing how he was forced to relinquish his stash of Kenny G albums

"I said to him, and I remember this clearly, I said "Osho, man you're breaking my balls here but there's no question I'm 100% with you all the way. 100%". And I *voice breaks*, I still remember, *tears up*, I still remember what he said to me. He said, "that'sss...right...bitch, and do not...you...forget it" *wipes away tear*

ha

lol

A Baffler piece provides useful Indian context: https://thebaffler.com/latest/othering-the-godman – also points to this paper blaming neo-sannyasins for Goa trance.

i did enjoy how one of the few things we could actually discern about osho was that he was incredibly tetchy and unchill for a spiritual guru

There's got to be some comedy or skit or something where a monk who has taken a vow of silence finally can't stand it anymore and tells everyone to fuck off.

That was kind of the funniest part of the series. He went from his long vow of silence to becoming mouthy superbitch.

haha otm

And then he laid down that careening, white-hot solo on "New Damage"

hee

You guys are really overselling the Kim Thayil resemblance imo.

Did you make it to the part where he shreds?

I overheard someone at work who had watched this describing the Rajneeshees in admiring tones; now I know for certain she is a sociopath.

Managed to watch 1.5 eps of this finally, and it's quite engaging. The filmmaking is miles above the typical netflix doc and has touches of Morris, Herzog and Lynch (the last one maybe comes to mind just because there's something kind of Twin Peaks-like about Antelope).

Has a special interest for us because H's aunt lived at the ashram in Poona for a few years. Was also fascinated by how much the building of the town in Oregon and its myth resembled the stories of the kibbutz movement and the "pioneers" before the founding of Israel, which is exactly where/how this aunt grew up, i.e. on a kibbutz, in a family of "pioneers" with a utopian socialist vision. Even the whole "making the desert bloom" thing.

I hadn't really known much of the story before, what an immense operation this group was. I had pictured it more on the level of Jonestown but it was closer to something like Scientology.

I also couldn't help but think how much Silicon Valley culture seems to owe to Osho.

J
There's got to be some comedy or skit or something where a monk who has taken a vow of silence finally can't stand it anymore and tells everyone to fuck off.
mitchell and webb did a bit like that once.

I kind of want to read more about the political economy of the whole operation and the commune now, like the nuts and bolts of how it ran. This looks like it might be a good read although not sure if it covers exactly that in depth:

https://www.amazon.com/Zorba-Buddha-Spirituality-Capitalism-Movement/dp/0520286677

BTW, haven't read the entire thread, but did anyone else get the sensation that the "Stephen King lawyer" guy was a low key manipulative piece of shit beneath the mellow act?

He didnt even strike me as mellow! I thought he was being disingenuous and devious.

ok yeah ty, it took me an episode or two but then I started to see the ex-bigshot litigator underneath the soft wool

Most def.

oh yeah 100%

That was the first time..
I ever heard...
*makes eye contact with juror*
tapes of osho

https://a248.e.akamai.net/ib.huluim.com/video/60594012?size=476x268®ion=us
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a sanyasin"

I think about cave man lawyer a lot these days.

never didn't

I think about unfrozen caveman lawyer all the time and wish everyone knew about him so that if I made a reference to unfrozen caveman lawyer they would get the joke.

about two episodes in. these series is fascinating and really well done

it gets better as it goes along

complaints in this thread about how it doesn't go after the cultists hard enough seem a little misplaced. I mean sure I guess they could have come off *worse*, but they still come off pretty bad. Suspenders-dude is the best.

I found this show fascinating for so many reasons, and I'm glad I watched it, but I did myself at something very much like Veg's take above - there needs to be cross-examination of both the ranchers and the Rajneeshees, because everybody lingers only on the parts of the story they want to talk about. Stephen King Lawyer in particular gets to come off very magnanimous and reasonable, talking about the closed-mindedness of the locals and staying focused on the fishier things done by the authorities, but no one ever gets to say to him "um yes but what about the murder plots and poisoning and mass nonconsensual drugging?" I get that juxtaposing all these unreliable narrators is intentional, but I just came away feeling like everybody involved was being allowed to get away with something, and not just the cultists.

The narrative also drops threads constantly. Things get set up as a big deal and never get mentioned again. What was actually in the papers dude found in the trash? Did they feed into the investigation somehow? How? At one point one of the feds is like "for the first few years we couldn't do anything - that all changed at the start of 1983" so you're sitting there waiting to find out what development this is teasing, but it's never explained what he's referring to really. Was it the hotel bombing? If so, why? Wasn't the instigating issue that the land was zoned for ranching, not a new town plan? How did they continue to stay there in blatant violation of this? Did they successfully change this when they took over the government of one nearby town, and if so, why wouldn't it be mentioned? Were they really drugging all those homeless people the entire time? Why weren't they charged for that, instead of immigration fraud?

And - picking up with JiC's reaction: What were they *doing* out there all those years, after the first wave of construction activity? The day-to-day world of Rajneeshpuram never really comes into focus or feels like a real place, and it becomes something of a palace-intrigue story which gets us away from the clash-of-cultures thread even if stuff like the Australian woman jabbing an (apparently ineffective) syringe into the doctor is clearly irresistible drama.

Who the locals really are is also a bit uncleart. At least one is super rich with Nike money.... are the others? How much was this about residents of the town, and how much was it their neighbor ranchers owning thousands of acres or whatever?

For whatever reason tho what I'd most want to change is how every time they use old news footage, they start from the top of the reporter's segment - "The town of Antelope, Oregon used to be a quiet place..." YEAH WE GOT THAT ALREADY, THANKS! Learn to edit!!!

Something I hate about Netflix truecrime docos in general is their tedious over and over reshowing/slow panning/weird pop out effect of the same half a dozen grainy photos they have of the person/story.

So at least this one had much more footage to use!

Garbage documentary. Something about rural Oregon attracts morons.

xxp He is not super rich with Nike money, though

he's not? i recall it specifically coming up that his rich well connected nike-inventor dad was able to move the process forward, call up his old friend the senator, check in with his old friend the US attorney....

iirc, he had enough money to buy a ranch, but I think it was a real ranch, not a hobby ranch. Or maybe he was estranged from his Nike dad? Something like that.

"I'm the only one in the family who doesn't have any Nike stock," he said.

Bowerman says about $1,000 in Nike stock he bought shortly after the company went public in 1980 grew to $25,000 at a time when he needed the money to build his house on his land next to the John Day River.

"If I had not built the house it would have been worth a million or two," he said of the stock.

He says his father left equal amounts of Nike stock to the Oregon Community Foundation in the name of him and his two brothers, Jay and Tom. The three brothers, Bowerman said, consult with the Community Foundation about where their share of money should be donated each year. He said his father also left stock to him. But those shares – valued at nearly $500,000 – went to his second wife in the divorce settlement.

yeah okay but come on, that is a very different background/set of connections than the short-order cook at the shuttered diner.

i just didn't have a strong sense of the economy/lifestyle of the town before rajneesh - we got a vague and cliched cultural snapshot of simple small-town folk but how many of those interviewed lived in the town? worked there? what kinds of jobs? there was a suggestion that there were a lot of retirees just chilling out but then it's also clearly a dying small town that people were moving away from even before a cult (we're told - i believe only by sheela or niren - that a lot of the houses they bought had been sitting on the market for a while, but like everything else this is not contextualized or cross-examined). and some of the people in the file footage were way younger than retirement age. was there some middling local economic base that was slipping? a small tool and die shop that employed ten people but then closed? did they all commute out to the hills to work as ranch hands for the people later interviewed in the doc...? how many people were really left at the end, if so many moved away?

clearly on some level i would just have been better off with a book than with a documentary series, but i do think this one exposes some pitfalls of the "just put them on camera and let all sides tell their version of the truth" format. six hours later, i'm not sure i actually understand anything that happened, nor do i have the tools to sift through and weigh the competing claims in a way i'd trust.

I agree with all the points you made; I kept losing threads and feeling vaguely annoyed that lots of things were getting 'lost' but there was too much 'look at THIS' to remember what was being pushed aside.

I think they tried too much or couldn't resist some of the interview subjects they had. Like for example, if they didn't have Niren and the FBI/US attorney guys, they could get away with "but all along the government had been building a case and then it came down like a hammer." But with so much lawyering sprinkled in, we have the bits and pieces of a procedural, without the... procedure.

This was interesting.

The thing that struck me was the obvious hokiness and cultural crassness of the cult: things like calling the cafe 'Zorba the Buddha', having parts of the commune with ostentatious names like 'Jesus Grove', 'Lao Tzu Annexe' etc. Sheela and Osho's ridiculous presentational style, reaching for gravitas and failing. The fact that he's called Osho because of course he's also a Zen master as well as a Hindu sage; the fact that he's clearly loaded and the 'Bringing spirituality and materialism together' line as a weak cover for that.

The brief flash of the Christian abstinence camp that took over the site was grim also, also crass and hoky, and there again they're advertising their abstinence camp using clips of sexy girls in bikinis diving into swimming pools.

I now think if I was going to start a cult a winning strategy would be to bombard potential recruits with SEX but also SPIRITUALITY and kind of create a cognitive dissonance, I suppose it fries people's brains.

Holy Hell is another very good cult doc, covering a smaller group with more from the escapees.

Back to the whole Jesus plus Zen plus Hinduism plus plus throw it all in 'aesthetic' the Rajneesh lot had going on, I find that really interesting in that they're basically claiming Baghwan has read and digested all these complex, varied and contradictory traditions so you don't have to, now just follow Baghwan's orders and run around with no clothes on.

i could only watch a few episodes of this. just despised the smarmy, oblivious cult fucks too damn much. any people who can come into conflict with PNW conservative hicks and make the latter seem like the good guys are beyond caring about. wish someone would've poisoned them

wish someone would've poisoned them

because turnabout is fair play?

Something about rural Oregon attracts morons.

Late in his career, Les Zaitz, the Oregonian reporter interviewed in the series, did much of the reporting on the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, so, yeah.

Almost none of the occupiers at Malhuer were from Oregon. They may have been attracted, but they came from Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Idaho and similar places.