The Naked Cult Of Rajneesh – And Oregon Establishment
In the early 1980s, a guru with an ashram in Pune, India relocated to an 80,000-acre ranch outside the minuscule town of Antelope, Oregon. What ensued was socio-political disruption amongst the believers of the cult and local authorities, both trying to find necessary, sometimes violent ways to the promised utopian world.
Wild Wild Country is ostensibly the story of how a group led by the dynamic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh purchased 64,000 acres of land in central Oregon in a bid to build its own utopian city. But, as the series immediately reveals, the narrative becomes darker and stranger than you might ever imagine. It’s a tale that mines the weirdness of the counterculture in the ’70s and ’80s, the age-old conflict between rural Americans and free love–preaching city folk, and the emotional vacuum that compels people to interpret a bearded mystic as something akin to a god. In true and simple forms of forming a cult, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh uses ideas and ideologies into his ranch of followers at which touch upon the crux of attached living. And in an age of industrial revolution and economic disparity, Rajneeshpuram becomes the heavenly abode of peace, equality and attainable tranquillity.
What Makes Wild Wild Country Stand Out
To put it plainly and spoiler free, the story arch of Wild Wild Country follows the path which Rajneeshpuram takes in the disruptive mechanism of the society built on capitalism and industry. Although initially, the teachings of Shree Rajneesh come across as challenging and norm defining, four months into the establishment, the cult watches itself metamorphose into human collectives of organised chaos. The series heavily depends on the narratives of Cult participants, local authorities and Sheela Silverman ((Ma Anand Sheela), Rajneesh’s personal secretary.
The series’ directors, Chapman Way and Maclain Way, have access to a wealth of news broadcasts, archival footage, and videos recorded by the Rajneeshees themselves. The first few minutes alone offer scenes of the group arriving in Oregon in their all-red outfits, members grinning vacantly, playing the flute, and dustbusting a red carpet for Bhagwan Rajneesh to walk on when he steps out of one of his Rolls-Royces.
The Story Of Rajneesh
Rajneesh, the eldest of 11 children living in a small village in India, claimed to achieve spiritual enlightenment in 1953 at the age of 21, sitting under a tree in Jabalpur. During the 1960s, Rajneesh espoused a vague philosophy of meditation and sexual freedom as the road to harmony on Earth. His message, which aligned neatly with the free-love movement happening in the West, gained him a devoted following during the 1970s, when he established an ashram with money donated to him by one of his acolytes, a Greek shipping heiress. As his journey to Oregon state unfolds, the inexplainable wealth falls into his lap, (a fleet of Rolls Royce’s not to mention), and thousands of free-love followers in his cult crave for a better world, Rajneesh comes to be hailed as a God by many. Beneath all the riches and rebels, the series manages to push out a broader commentary upon the eternal clash between established authority and new reforms, the old world fighting to survive the new one, and religion swinging its sword upon its own roots of Cult establishments.
Wild Wild Country is, therefore, a series which demands you to sit down and take the journey through maddening times, and perhaps even ponder upon the role of philosophy and religion in our lives. All while, being extremely gripping, with enough twists and turns to make your jaw drop. Catch It On Netflix.
