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.

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.