Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh drives by his followers at Rajneeshpuram in one of his many Rolls Royces in A festival held at Rajneeshpuram in The A-frame tent structures on the right were described as temporary housing by Rajneeshpuram, but they were wired for heat and electricity.
Yet within just a few years, the movement went quickly off the rails and finally collapsed amidst a stunning array of criminal activities. These included one of the largest wiretapping operations in U. However, as I have argued in my recent book, Zorba the Buddha , Rajneesh and his movement represent something far more significant than just another curious anecdote from the Reagan era.
Rather, they provide a critical window onto some of the most important religious, economic, and political trends of the past 50 years, highlighting the complex transnational flows between India and the United States and the strange spiritual logic of global capitalism. This spring, Rajneesh and his fascinating religious experiment have also been brought back to public attention through the new Netflix series Wild Wild Country. Directed by the brothers Maclain and Chapman Way, the series blends vintage film clips with personal accounts and contemporary recollections from members, local residents, and journalists.
I went to a park in Miami, and this fellow came up to me and he had a tracheostomy, so he had to speak through a device in his throat. He came up to me and he handed me this newspaper article about us getting people and taking them to the ranch, and he wanted to come. He was an older fellow. He went to the ranch and I saw him many, many times. In fact, this fellow left long after many of us were gone. He stayed until the very end.
I was not frightened of Sheela. I respected her, and in fact, I loved Sheela. I would go and say hello and give her big hugs. But some people were frightened of Sheela. Things very much changed from the security standpoint after the hotel was bombed.
We actually then could just really feel the danger that was there. For the outsider, a really important thing to understand is Sheela and her group were charged with creating this community. The people inside [the commune] had no idea of what forces there were that were trying to stop the community from existing at all. Sheela and her people, their work was to protect the ranch, and of course she had her own desire for power and wanting to keep power. It was simply problem-solving that got crazier and crazier.
Many of us will look back and say we lived ten lives at the ranch because it was so intense and so packed with so many opportunities to see your own ego at play. Retired nurse, lives in Atlanta with her husband Prem.
Lived on the ranch for three years. My time at the ranch was completely not involved with any of the overall administration, it was just working and being with friends. I really was not very aware of the darkness until after it was very, very close to the end. But, there was one thing I had to do which that I had difficulty doing.
I was one of the people who went out to invite homeless people to come back to the ranch. I was asked by somebody in an office in Oregon to ask two people to leave the bus when we were partway on our journey back to Oregon. They were two people that I felt were very, very vulnerable and I felt very uncomfortable dropping them off away from home. I called several times to see if I could get a different answer, but they were very insistent I do it, so eventually I did.
I think that from the film I got a better understanding of what she was facing. So, you can see all these forces amassed against Sheela, and even though obviously she made some very, very strange choices, you could see that she was trying to do what she thought would work. I grew up in the East End of London, a very congested area with no greenery around, and now suddenly I was in the cowboy set — this was Oregon, this was John Wayne country.
It was so wonderful for me to be out in the wide open spaces. I was working the hour days and I used to run to work. I had no idea just how far Sheela and the group around her were prepared to go to. The other big thing that shocked me is, it sounded like the FBI and other big law enforcement organizations were getting ready to actually attack the ranch with machine guns and helicopters.
I had no idea how it might be coming close to sort of bloodbath, that was even more shocking than anything else. Sheela was an unusual Sanyassin. For the first time I was in meetings, which, instead of just being sort of a silent bunch of meditators, were becoming like political rallies with Sheela trying to enthuse the people on the share-a-home program.
The share-a-home thing was quite something. I ended up with two guys and we really created a friendship between us. Read The Oregonian's part series on the Rajneeshees in Oregon. All rights reserved About Us.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Ad Choices. Skip to Main Content. What happened to the Rajneeshees' Oregon paradise?
Photos show decay, rebirth Updated: Aug. Published: Mar. Subscriptions The Oregonian Email Newsletters. Mobile iPhone, Android apps Tablet apps. During his subsequent trial, Rajneesh pleaded guilty of immigration charges, realizing that a plea bargain was the only way he'd be allowed to return to India. After pleading guilty, Rajneesh returned to India, where he found the number of his followers had significantly decreased. In the coming months, he searched unsuccessfully for a place to reestablish his ashram.
He was denied entry into numerous countries before returning again to India in During the next few years, he continued to teach and renamed himself Osho, but his health began to decline. On January 19, , he died of heart failure at one of his few remaining communes in Pune, India.
Following his death, the commune was renamed the Osho Institute, and then later the Osho International Meditation Resort, which is currently estimated to attract as many as , visitors a year. Osho's followers also continue to spread his beliefs from one of the hundreds of Osho Meditation Centers that they have opened in major cities across the globe.
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Jim Jones was best known as the cult leader of the Peoples Temple who led more than followers in a mass suicide via cyanide-laced punch known as the Jonestown Massacre.
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