I have an aversion to bullshit. This is a political blog, and since a lot of politics entails the spewing of half-truths and implausible fantasies to people who might believe the impossible in order to garner votes, sometimes politics is more about calling people on their shit than rational policy. I try not to give into cynicism, but as I’ve grown older my ability to buy into aspects of political and religious idealism which takes the form of fantastical claims about having it all figured out has severely diminished. It’s not I begrudge anyone their beliefs or want to make fun of them. It’s just when I see a self-proclaimed “woke” friend sharing a YouTube video of some white dude in dreads/cornrows talking about how he’s discovered the true nature of the universe, I’m somewhat skeptical.
And whether a conservative Christian sharing the good news, a New Age spiritualist claiming we exist in multiple dimensions as more than matter, or some Trump supporter who has twisted themselves into believing they’re making America great again, there can be a look of bewilderment when someone doesn’t buy in or has questions about things which doesn’t make sense. Those looks can range from astonishment as to how one can’t understand, to a smug sense of believed enlightenment, and a tone of voice which takes on a “you poor, poor lost soul” pity.
To feel lost in life is a horrible feeling. Belief, spirituality, and ideology can offer solace. But the problem with people and their beliefs comes when they can’t conform those beliefs to reality, since the world tends to work better when people can agree two and two equal four and the sky is blue, instead of whatever anyone wants to believe it might be.
Netflix’s latest binge-watching documentary series, Wild Wild Country, produced by Mark and Jay Duplass and directed by Maclain and Chapman Way, tells the tale of how Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (a.k.a. Osho) and his followers built a community on 64,000 acres in the middle of Oregon in the early 1980s. Rajneesh advocated active meditation, open attitudes towards sex and the expression of sex in public (earning him the title of “sex guru”), as well as a bunch of fortune cookie-esque wisdom about the nature of life. However, Rajneesh’s greatest accomplishment seems to have been separating thousands of Baby Boomers from their money in order to buy a fleet of Rolls-Royces, diamond watches, and living the life of Riley mostly in quiet reflection. The group used Oregon law on municipalities to incorporate their own town. A series of conflicts between the Rajneesh movement, nearby residents, the co-founder of Nike, and environmentalists resulted in the group buying up property, taking over a neighboring town, and attempting to control an entire Oregon county. Eventually the situation devolved into immigration fraud, drugging homeless people, and the biggest act of bio-terrorism in American history before it was over.
What I found interesting about the series was not only the delineation of events, but how aspects of it inform current features of American culture. And the result is one where things are not always so clear cut. Sure, a cult of personality existed around the actions of an individual who used his power with supporters and government to exact personal gain. But it was also a situation where mostly older, mostly white, rural residents reacted with bigotry and xenophobia.
From Lincoln Michel at GQ:
The story of the Rajneeshpuram—which begins with the construction of a utopian commune and ends with vote rigging, a cross-country airplane chase, and the largest bioterrorism attack in the history of the United States—is the most fascinating, twist-filled, and compelling documentary on Netflix in a while. The six-part documentary series, which was produced by the Duplass brothers and directed by Maclain and Chapman Way, is an expert mix of talking head interviews, news footage, and unearthed home movie footage. But you feel that almost any documentary about this forgotten but very strange affair would be fascinating. This is a documentary where, when someone says, “[they] poured the blended beavers into the water supply,” you barely blink.
The tale of the Oregon compound begins with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in India, where he daily preached his philosophy of the “new man” and dynamic meditation (basically, meditation plus crazy dancing). He instructed his followers to wear the orange robes of Hindu ascetics—although this is later expanded to maroon and red—but also embraced capitalism, thus the Rolls Royce fleet. Rajneesh’s radical views, which promoted sexual liberation and attacked the institutions of marriage, religion, and ideology, won him thousands of followers and anger from conservative Hindus in India. He decides to move to the United States at the same time as he undertakes a vow of silence that would last for over three years. He also makes that fatal mistake of leaving his personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, in charge.
In a lot of ways, it is Ma Anand Sheela (a.k.a. Sheela Birnstiel) who makes the entire enterprise compelling television. At first glance, in the present day, she’s a little, old, Indian woman who speaks in a measured and prideful tone about the accomplishments of her movement and the community they built in central Oregon, with archival footage showing Sheela telling critics “tough titties” and to go fuck themselves being almost comical. The Rajneeshees tout their new utopia as being a place where crime is non-existent and sex is practiced in its most blissful form. But as things progress, the more disturbed her words and actions seem as Sheela attempts to rationalize the road which eventually leads to massive wiretapping, immigration fraud, drugging homeless people with Haldol, weaponizing salmonella, stockpiling assault rifles, and finally attempted murder.
Trouble begins when the Rajneesh ranch starts encountering resistance from the 40-some-odd residents of nearby Antelope, Oregon. The locals respond to the incorporation of the ranch into a new town full of meditating people fucking in bushes with fear and bigotry in a way not too dissimilar from how some of the pundits on Fox News sound today. Environmentalists, including Nike co-founder and long-time Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman, sue the group over land use. And the Oregon Attorney General takes the group to court for violating separation of church and state in how it conducts itself as a local government.
The Rajneeshees respond to these threats by attempting to expand their control. The group buys up property around Antelope until they outnumber the residents and control the neighboring town by winning a majority on the city council. Antelope’s name is changed to Rajneehspuram. Eventually Sheela and the powers that be start planning to consolidate more power by busing in the homeless from cities around the country in an attempt to pad voter roles within the county. When these new residents get rowdy, their complimentary alcohol is spiked with drugs. Then when it looks like the groups machinations to win at the ballot box might fail, a widespread salmonella outbreak occurs.
As these things tend to do, the religious movement fractured with recriminations, allegations of theft, corruption, and conspiracies to murder rivals and perpetuate the aims of the cult at horrible costs to the public. All of this ultimately leads to an organization with a lot of weapons preparing for a confrontation with the Department of Justice and the National Guard.