Wild Wild Country (2018): Season 1, Episode 3 - Part 3 - full transcript
Sheela emerges as a provocative spokeswoman. As Election Day approaches, the Rajneeshees recruit thousands of homeless people to fortify their ranks.
Be grateful
for this beautiful home that we have.
Let's continue to take care of it
and to nurture it
so that it can grow
more and more beautiful in his grace.
No, we're not going to be victims.
If you're going to come at us
with the big artillery,
we're going to play your game.
And that was unsettling to a lot of us,
but it was also...
Brought a sense of security
in some bizarre way.
I didn't have a gun here
until they bombed our hotel.
I didn't even have a single weapon here.
But I don't believe
in turning the other cheek.
We learned how
to shoot a Smith & Wesson.
And I came to recognize that if I
truly went into a meditative stance,
I could hit the target.
And that it was all about my breath
and it was all about my awareness.
I had already had experience
with guns because my dad had a gun.
We used to go and shoot rabbits.
And Sheela was very pleased about that.
She used to run around telling everybody,
"Oh, Shanti B is a really good shot."
And when we showed them
how good training we had...
they were shocked.
The people of Oregon
knew then that we were armed,
that we could use our weapons well...
and that we were prepared to use
those weapons if push came to shove.
In the northern part
of Oregon, there used to be
a little town called Antelope.
Yesterday the voters in Antelope decided
to change the town's name to "Rajneesh."
It is a political victory for followers
of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Change has been coming,
and today Antelope awoke to a red dawn.
They changed the name
to the city of Rajneesh.
They renamed everything, of course.
They have to put their brand on it.
They had a majority of the residents
and held an election
and took over the city council.
A guy that had been on the council
and was fighting
the Rajneeshees, Don Smith...
came to me and said, "We can't get anybody
to put their name on the ballot.
We know they're going
to win this election,
but, you know,
we don't want to just hand it to them.
Could we put your name on the ballot?
Would you volunteer, you know,
to get your ass kicked?"
And I said, "Okay. Why not?"
You know, I didn't care.
The Rajneeshees, they didn't want
to seem like they took over everything.
So, they voted three of theirs
and two of ours.
They voted me and this other guy.
Well, soon as the other guy saw that,
well, he was out of town in like two days.
He was gone.
There is now only one
non-Rajneeshee on Antelope's city council.
They didn't scare me.
Sometimes, you know,
keep your enemies close.
You know what I'm saying?
You learn a lot more being nice. Um...
You learn a lot more being nice.
Apparently, everything the Rajneeshees did
to take over this small town was legal.
The question is, was it right?
The new Rajneesh-controlled city council
passed an ordinance
reserving this weed-covered city park
for nude sunbathing.
There were
a lot of weird things that happened.
At night up here, you can hear
everything that goes on
because there's no background noise.
It's not like a city.
And you could hear them going all night.
It's like you're in the same room
with them, you know?
And my aunt was not pleased with that,
sharing her bedroom with these people,
listening to their goings on,
which they were, they were going on.
And, uh...
I couldn't see them,
but could hear them.
And it was the noises and things were...
It sounded like animals.
There is a sense of lustiness
and sexual obsession there
that I have never known of anywhere.
You can hear people having orgasmic
experiences all day and all night.
They weren't somebody
you wanted to have for neighbors.
I had gone to help my cousin
move cattle to the summer range
and came home and my wife said,
"They've got guns up there."
I said, "No way! They're...
They claim they're nonviolent people."
They've sat up there
just above my field all summer long,
armed with what appear
to be semi-automatic rifles,
and about half of us feel
that before this is over,
some of us are going to be killed.
They watched our house
from across the river
with some kind of
an automatic assault weapon.
They sure weren't BB guns.
They had a police force in Antelope
that patrolled the streets all night long,
cars with lights on them
and the lights would be flashing
going through town
while people were trying to sleep.
They called it the Peace Force.
And it was not a Peace Force.
It was a harassment force.
They met legal requirements
to make these people cops,
and they made them cops.
They were there with guns.
When you came into town,
they'd be stationed at either end of it.
The occupying force had landed.
As we talked to the few
non-Rajneeshee residents who remain,
our car was followed, our movements noted
by both marked
and unmarked Rajneeshee police cars.
One longtime local resident frustrated
at what was happening to his town
started repeatedly picketing.
Jim was a little hotheaded...
and he made a sign...
and he trolled back and forth in front
of the Rajneeshee establishment
there in town.
And about nine o'clock that night,
they came in and arrested him.
Rajneeshee police arrested him
for, quote, "menacing"
and took him to Wasco County jail.
They had to handcuff him in front because
he couldn't get his arms behind him,
he was so arthritic.
That kind of changed it for me.
We knew Antelope was shot at that point.
It's just throwing gas on the fire almost.
Gun sales
in neighboring towns have skyrocketed.
People call in wanting to know prices
of guns and what we have
for more of a protection weapon
than a hunting weapon,
with a lot of older people calling,
worried, scared.
Sheela was holding Antelope...
- Hostage. And they said so.
- ...hostage.
The Bhagwan's top aide
says the Rajneeshees will leave Antelope
if the state grants a zoning change
permitting the Rajneeshees
to set up their own city on their ranch.
We have never had interest in Antelope
before and now, except for our survival.
We want our city to be developed,
and if this city goes,
then of course
we will have Rajneeshpuram.
Either way, we are the winner.
There's a lot of people that would
have loved to have shot Sheela.
I'd like to have choked her to death
a couple times myself.
That woman is the closest thing to Hitler
that I've ever seen in my life,
and I have seen people
coming out of Buchenwald.
I've seen them come out of Dachau.
The only thing she don't have yet
is the ovens.
As you can see, the relationship between
the Rajneeshees and the townspeople
is going downhill fast,
and there is a possibility
that it will come
to a very big crescendo very soon.
Last July,
the 40 residents of Antelope learned
they were about to acquire
some new neighbors,
several hundred followers
of the spiritual leader,
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
First we're gonna hear
from the Rajneesh Foundation.
And it's a fascinating story. Would you
welcome its president, Ma Anand Sheela.
Media is expensive and one should not miss
an opportunity for free publicity.
When we come back,
we'll talk with the spokesperson
for the Rajneeshee sect, Ma Anand Sheela.
- Ma Anand Sheela.
- Ma Anand Sheela.
From Washington, Crossfire.
She's the personal secretary
of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
who is the head of this...
- Religion.
- Religion. Thank you.
Bhagwan told me
to be very, very strong in the media.
I had to be provocative.
I had to provoke.
Isn't your leader the free sex guru?
Free sex? We don't charge for it,
if you meant that.
Right.
We are the only community
which has no venereal diseases,
no crime, no drugs, no alcoholism.
And I'll tell you about one more thing,
that we are the only people
who enjoy sex fully.
"How could you do that? How could you...?"
I said, "Don't tell me. I'm doing my job."
That's it.
Sheela, whatever your plans are,
we don't want the Rajneeshees,
we don't want
the orange people in our town.
What can I say? Tough titties.
It was that fearlessness...
was a very special quality.
No, I'm not running for cover, mister.
I don't run for cover.
And person like you
make me run for cover?
- Oh, that's a joke.
- Well...
She learned to be outrageous.
But there was a part of her nature
that could adapt to that really easily.
You seem to be enjoying it,
almost giving them your finger.
Merv Griffin called and
they asked if I would go on the program.
I said, "Sheela's gotten
way more publicity than she deserves."
And she was extremely arrogant
and she was off the maps, I tell you.
The Bhagwan has
from four to 13 Rolls Royces.
- Let me add it is 17 Rolls Royces.
- Seventeen. Wonderful.
On the second,
there will be 20 Rolls Royces.
Everybody was like,
"Who is this guy? And who is she?"
- That was one thing, but let me--
- You are full of shit.
You don't know anything about--
In that case,
we'll cut the microphone off right now.
Thank you very much,
all of you, for joining us.
Good shot, Sheela. You're up
to your good old-- Same old tricks.
These people are distorting and twisting
the laws to use to their own advantage.
- If it's legal doesn't mean it's right.
- Oh, you.
All right, you got one in, Sheela.
You got your dirty word in.
You get one per show.
Certainly,
the more press we got,
the more books we sold internationally.
And so seekers around the world
would be interested
in not just the mundane story,
but who is Rajneesh.
Everywhere Bhagwan was spreading.
The Bhagwan commissioned
the most loyal of his supporters
to go to the four corners of the earth
and establish Buddha fields.
In Europe, that meant establishing
Rajneesh centers from Copenhagen to Italy
and from England to West Berlin.
Almost everywhere in the world,
Bhagwan's communes were functioning.
We had communes in India,
Australia had a number of communes.
Italy many communes.
In Germany,
Amsterdam,
Switzerland.
Portugal had a commune.
And all communes were self-supporting
with different activities,
like construction companies,
bistros, discos.
Official number working Sannyasins
were about 30,000.
When you include Bhagwan's followers
who are not Sannyas...
500,000.
And we were not afraid to show his vision
in physical world.
The new commune is now global.
It is a global community.
There are thousands and thousands
and thousands of Sannyasins.
And in Europe,
believers work year-round
for the pleasure of a trip to Oregon
in July for the annual festival.
Out of this money, we can go all
to Rajneeshpuram, to the celebration,
to the festival, to see Bhagwan.
It's the high point of the year.
World festival was a magical time...
for all Sannyasins.
It was an event.
People would mark their calendars,
save their money and come.
Buses were moving back and forth,
filled with Sannyasins
from all over the world.
Is the Rajneesh movement growing in Japan?
Yeah, sure.
Many, many people
are taking sannyas in Tokyo.
In just three years, this has become
one of Oregon's
biggest summer tourist events.
Yet for most of these people,
this is a visit to a state of mind.
- What brings you here?
- Adventure, love.
I want to dance.
I want to celebrate. I want to sing.
My heart wants to just sing.
Anywhere you go,
people were just celebrating.
You have a beer tent, you got
a gambling casino, and you got a disco
and you've got food
and people are buying stuff.
The world festivals
were making lots of money.
I mean, it was just
an explosion of activity.
Rajneesh is an avowed capitalist.
The commune boutiques offer
a variety of ways to see the light,
materially speaking, or to surround
the inner self with scanty spirituality.
Yes, Rajneesh seems
to have his mug on everything.
And the Rajneeshees
are making money, lots of it.
Rajneesh Foundation International:
19 million.
Rajneesh Investment Corporation:
31 million.
And finally, there is the commune itself:
assets 15 million.
The amount of money
that came in during those festivals
really sustained us
and allowed us to grow.
But all of this is no laughing matter
down the road in tiny Antelope.
Here in the town of Antelope,
they're not celebrating this weekend.
There are no parades here,
no town picnics,
and the only fireworks are verbal ones.
We've got a concentration camp up there.
It's not a small, rural, quiet place
to retire anymore.
It's dark and damp on the eve
of the first world celebration
of Rajneesh.
You didn't make a special request
for this weather for the festival?
You bet I did.
I think every person in town is--
Was hoping that it rained.
Through our celebration, they get jealous.
- You think so?
- Absolutely.
Look at it, which rancher is
as successful as this community?
They're jealous.
Only one other message I'd like to say,
and that's to the people...
that would like to destroy this city
because they're jealous and ignorant
and stupid: up yours.
For me, the whole energy was like a feast.
A feast for the eyes,
a feast for the ears,
a feast for smile.
It was a feast of colors.
There were 15,000 lovers of Bhagwan.
Many of them were going to see Bhagwan
first time in their life.
And Bhagwan
in his beautiful clothes and jewelry...
presented like a king.
He would get the energy moving.
"Come on, give me more than that.
That's all you got?"
And he'd get 10,000 people
really rocking it.
He was a rock star.
And I was like,
"You want to rock and roll?"
Because he went like this, you know?
And I went, "Okay."
So, I was in his face
and I was doing it back to him.
The crowd was going absolutely nuts.
I also saw that he was a man
and he was a human and he wanted to play
and that he wanted to play with me.
And that was my best moment.
There's really something special about
Bhagwan, and it's hard to put into words.
We're just all glad
to have him here physically.
Always when I see him, I must cry.
So, it's so... emotionally for me.
And yeah, I love him.
There are fireworks and parades
going on inside of us.
It was an experience to live.
You have no idea.
You can never capture it again.
Well, I'll tell you this story,
and I shouldn't probably tell you.
I've never told it in public.
They didn't know it, you know,
when I was spying on them.
We used to have a little city dump.
So, I was just taking
the garbage up there one day,
and there in the garbage
I could see stuff they'd thrown in.
A poster.
I thought,
"Oh, that'd be kind of cool to have."
So I just jumped right in the dump.
Went over there
and grabbed the poster and...
there's a lot of other stuff.
I started looking at it,
thought, "Oh, this is pretty interesting."
And find these things in there,
says, "Shred this.
Shred this document after the meeting."
And I went through that stuff
for quite a while,
taking all I could grab.
Had my buddy watching lookout,
see if anybody is coming up the hill.
And there were
incriminating things in them.
Internal committee minutes
about what was going on at the ranch.
There were instructions
about censoring the mail...
making sure everything
is read before it goes out.
There were documents
about arranged marriages.
I mean, there was a vast array of crap.
And they had a big leak
and they didn't even know it.
At that point, you know, I was not dealing
with people that I hadn't known for years,
because I didn't trust anybody.
Dave Frohnmayer, he was attorney general.
I'd known him for years,
being at the University of Oregon,
and we'd known each other for a long time.
Told him, "Let's get together."
And I slipped him
some of these minutes from their meetings.
Well, that was the first time
that their smokescreen was penetrated.
They'd got caught lying
about what was going on out there.
In mid-1983, Dave Frohnmayer
made his first appearance in this play.
He was the attorney general
of the state of Oregon.
The Frohnmayer family,
we have been close to for my entire life.
The Frohnmayers and the Bowermans,
we got together every year.
And I knew Dave from the time he was born.
Dave was a remarkable guy.
He was a Harvard undergrad,
Rhodes Scholar, Boalt Hall law.
Ran for attorney general in 1980,
Dave got elected.
He was uniquely suited for the job.
I have the objective of building
the finest Department of Justice
in the United States of America.
I can't think
that Oregon deserves any less.
You need integrity because
of the importance of that position
to carry through the mission
of the Constitution
and laws of the state of Oregon.
Frankly, you need courage because
many decisions you make are unpopular.
When Dave became attorney
general, my father and I were writing.
I could fire off a letter to Dave and say,
"Hey, here's what's happening."
We were doing our best to communicate
to Dave that we had a problem here.
Maybe as a favor to our family,
Dave's investigation began.
And once they got the bone in their teeth,
they weren't going to let go of it.
Rajneeshpuram's strongest legal challenge
comes from the office
of the state attorney general.
Dave Frohnmayer filed suit on behalf
of Oregon residents claiming the city
violates the constitutional separation
of church and state.
When you have a religion
exercising the power of a government,
then you have an intermingling
of church and state
which is such
a fundamental civil liberties issue
that it has to be addressed
and we couldn't avoid it.
There was a question
of whether the city of Rajneeshpuram
was a legitimate government entity
or whether it was a government entity
that was effectively
controlled by a religion.
The problem that we identified
was that the two were inextricably linked.
The city of Rajneeshpuram were allowed
an official law enforcement agency...
and they were allowed access
to the law enforcement data system,
criminal information and backgrounds.
It is the most sensitive information the
government possessed about its citizens.
And to carry weapons that private citizens
wouldn't have been allowed to carry.
And there were questions about the school.
Is the public elementary school in the
town of Rajneesh truly a public school?
There's been argument over this
for some time now.
Can teachers wear religious garb
when they are teaching in a public school?
The school
is permeated with religious symbolism.
It did not look, sound
or feel like a public school.
Our case was based on the fact
that the religion
was controlling the government,
that the Bhagwan was deciding
who would be the mayor,
the city councilors were selected
by either Sheela or the Bhagwan,
and then they staged elections,
but it was all a show.
And the city existed purely
for appearances.
This is a fundamental issue
which is so serious
that it must be resolved
in our judgment by a court.
We were aware that what we decided
was going to have profound ramifications
and could potentially affect
many individuals' constitutional rights.
I remember vividly being struck
by the fact that this was big stuff.
This was-- This was important.
And I remember thinking,
"I sure hope we're right."
The AG is full of crap.
One sentence sums up the whole thing:
the AG...
is not acting as an attorney general,
he's acting as a politician.
I can't find words harsh enough
in my vocabulary,
certainly that I could say
in front of you people,
that would describe
my feeling towards a man...
that would use politics and legalities to
try and throw people out of their homes.
Frohnmayer writes an opinion,
and what he asks
is to have the city
declared null and void...
because its very existence violates
the Establishment Clause
of the Constitution,
which says that Congress shall
make no law establishing a religion.
It requires a careful analysis...
because they're two sides
of the same coin, right?
Freedom of religion...
and avoiding an establishment.
There's a lot of establishment cases.
Usually, they're about some town
put a crèche scene
on the courthouse steps.
Some teacher allowed students to say
a prayer before the beginning of class.
Essentially, always
the order is don't do that.
You never had a city destroyed
because of the Establishment Clause.
You correct the problem.
So, it's injunctive.
You say stop doing that.
Cities that have
a majority of a particular religion
are very, very common.
If you look at our history...
If you look at Catholics in Boston,
were a huge majority
and totally ran the government.
Utah, Mormonism, that's a whole state.
But certainly in the city
of Salt Lake City, even today...
nobody tells those people
that they can't have a city.
Nobody thinks that they can't have a city.
Nobody ever even raised the issue,
until us.
To have it be something as significant
as destroying the community
of a religious minority...
so that it cannot exist...
which affects
fundamental rights of assembly...
speech, religion, association,
powerfully impacting on those rights
in a negative way.
I mean, screw religious freedom, right?
Do we really care?
Let's have a simple test...
where the government
can just do what it wants.
And minority religions
we don't really care much about.
By now, Rajneeshpuram had been licensed
as a police force.
Everybody knew that their loyalty
was not to their badge,
their loyalty was to Bhagwan.
So, they had semi-automatic weapons,
tear gas grenades.
You had the mayor of Rajneeshpuram
threatening civil war.
What I see here today as I look out
is the beginning of a civil war
in this county.
If that's what you want, fine.
So, yeah, it was a huge problem.
We were not out to get the leadership
just to get the leadership.
We were looking for the architects
responsible for this very broad scheme
of deceit
against the United States government.
That's the only way
that was going to stop.
It was very clear that all agencies,
Thousand Friends of Oregon,
Frohnmayer,
Governor Atiyeh,
and rest of the politicians
were making difficult for our existence.
The governor
has made no secret of his feelings
about the followers
of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
and has said repeatedly that, personally,
he'd rather they just leave.
Oregon legislature introduced three bills
that would repeal the city charters in
both Rajneeshpuram and Rajneesh-Antelope.
Legislation was a tool
to destroy the community.
My personal favorite
is the initiative petition,
"Expel the Rajneesh cult from Oregon."
I really wonder what they had in mind.
I'm both shocked and amused
by the stupidity of Oregon politicians.
Oregon is developing an international
reputation as a backwater of bigotry.
There was a task force
that had been organized,
addressing the Rajneesh problem...
and how to deal with it.
On the afternoon of September 26,
a whole variety of state
and federal officials converged
in a conference room in Salem.
They were there to discuss
the Rajneeshees,
but the press was not welcome.
The meeting took place
behind closed doors.
Well, when's the last time
you heard about a problem,
a Jewish problem, a Rajneesh problem?
What kind of nonsense is this?
What's going on in this state
is what I'd like to know.
It used to be the legislature
was called a circus.
Now I call it a zoo because at least
in a circus the animals are trained.
We had every branch,
federal, state, county, local,
organized and united.
Your attorney general,
your county commissioners,
have made many policies
behind closed doors against Rajneeshees.
Go to them now.
Don't come to me about reconciliation.
For somebody like Sheela,
she was driven
out of a real sense that the community
was going to be destroyed.
Those were accurate perceptions.
Persecution must stop.
Persecution of all people, all race,
all religion must stop.
Unless this state is ready to do that,
Rajneeshees are not going to stop.
Sheela, over a period of time,
she became the focus.
And it was almost by-- By accident.
Bhagwan stepped back into his house,
so we didn't see him.
And Sheela stepped forward.
And so with time, I just became
more and more devoted to her.
I was-- My devotion to Bhagwan
kind of swapped over,
and it included not just Bhagwan,
but also Sheela.
You never know, Sheela is never, um...
She's very spontaneous.
She's extremely spontaneous.
And she moves with the moods.
She moves with the wind.
She moves with the time of the day.
I mean, it's funny, you--
All of you see me in one position
or another as a spokesperson,
but you don't know me personally.
Because personally,
people can't figure me out.
I'm not the same person you think I am.
Jesus Grove was Sheela's house.
As time went on,
it was added to and added to.
It became a very big living complex.
And Sheela moved into her house
people who were of use to her.
But if you lived in Jesus Grove,
you were at Sheela's beck and call.
Jesus Grove was
kind of where the important people
that were making important decisions
were hanging out.
Call them Sheela's lieutenants.
She had this insular group
that hung on every word
because she would go up
and meet with Bhagwan every night.
There's
one appointment Sheela never breaks,
her nightly meeting with Rajneesh.
No one is permitted to accompany her
when she meets with Bhagwan.
They reportedly discuss religious matters
and other affairs
that concern Rajneeshpuram.
And it became
a kind of a ritual in the evening
when Sheela came back
from being with Bhagwan,
and she would tell us stories,
if you like.
She would tell us
about what Bhagwan was saying,
what he wanted of us,
what we were going to do next,
why we were going to do it.
And I was swept away.
It was beyond my wildest dreams
to ever imagine
that I would fill one of these positions
to be so close to Bhagwan.
At some point, I was woken in the night.
Eleven o'clock, I was fast asleep in bed
and told to come down to Jesus Grove
right away and to bring my wax.
And Sheela wanted me to wax her legs,
so I did.
And not long after that,
Sheela moved me into her house.
We confronted situations always as a unit.
How can we solve the problem?
The more creative we were,
the more destructive the politicians
were against us.
It was their hate
that forced us to take these steps
for self-preservation,
self-protection, self-survival.
I understand
that you have an announcement
that is in the offing.
- That's correct.
- That everyone is waiting patiently for.
Um... Can you maybe give us some idea
of when we should expect to hear that?
Everybody is waiting patiently.
I would say the same thing.
You need to wait patiently too.
Any indication of the magnitude
of that announcement?
It's going to be...
probably the first project
world has ever carried out.
- Could you repeat that? I'm sorry...
- It's probably one of the first project
that anybody in the world
will carry out, is us.
It will be a world project.
People started meeting in Sheela's room,
and a scheme developed
of bringing people in.
What's the best time
to come here tomorrow?
What you'd have to do is we have tickets
right here, right now for the bus.
I was down in Phoenix and in San Diego,
going around to homeless shelters
and standing with an open door
to a Greyhound bus,
saying, "Come join us."
There's a beautiful city in Oregon
which is blossoming.
And it's happening and it's a city that's
not happening anywhere else in the world.
- Ain't no drugs there, right?
- No drugs.
- You can't drink?
- Well, you get two beers a day.
- Two beers a day.
- Yeah.
All aboard, Rajneeshpuram!
Didn't matter whether you were
a woman or what color your skin was,
whether you're a vet,
any person were invited.
- Where have you been?
- All over the place.
New York, Chicago, um... Texas.
The east coast, west coast,
south coast, and everywhere.
I would say, "The bus is here.
If you want to come, load up."
I decided to go.
I'm sick of living on streets.
It's all I've been doing
for the past six months.
So, what evolves
is a steady stream of people
coming from cities all over America.
Political battles and court cases.
It hasn't exactly been a state
of nirvana in the state of Oregon
since an Indian guru and his followers
settled there in 1981.
The latest controversy is a program to
recruit the down and out, the homeless.
Where we getting tickets at?
Just what happens
to the homeless people after they arrive
at the Rajneesh complex here
remains a Rajneesh secret.
We were taking care of these people.
These rejects from the society
we had invited to be our guest.
In India, a guest comes,
they can be a form of God.
What we did with them is to clean them up,
clean their open wounds,
or give them free dental work,
check their eyes.
We gave them back their self-respect.
Up till now, society had abused
these people all their lifetime,
and I wanted to create a situation
the world has never experienced before.
Jesus Santos finished a six-year term
at the Colorado State Penitentiary
last month.
It provides a sense of community,
and it provides me
with people who care for me.
That's something I haven't had in my life.
I think that's something
not only people need,
but I think it's the world in general.
I'm just a city boy,
you know, but this is, you know,
what I always wanted to do
since I was little, you know?
Beautiful.
I love it. Definitely. No doubt.
I don't know,
there's really nothing else out there.
You know, it's really beautiful here.
And I decided to follow Bhagwan
because it just...
It was a feeling, you know? It's like
a feeling everybody gets, I guess.
What's so beautiful about it here?
Well, you don't have no crime.
You don't have to worry about walking down
the street and getting stabbed or shot.
You know?
It's hard to explain.
And I saw some dramatic changes
in those people
in a very short period of time.
It sort of blew me away.
They just changed. They opened up.
They actually started
to discover themselves spiritually.
So, all the press is here, Isabel?
People that you call them street people,
people who have been accused
that they have been derelicts
or criminals or winos,
that they are not that
and they are respected human beings.
You offer them respect
and they respect you ten times more.
The recruiting goes on in every major city
in the United States.
Those efforts are getting
plenty of nationwide attention.
In Washington D.C., the Rajneeshees
continue to recruit street people
with the promise of food and shelter
and a free bus ride to Oregon.
The homeless continue to pour
into Rajneeshpuram.
...continue to pour into Oregon.
A spokesperson at Rancho Rajneesh
says five more busloads of the homeless
arrived there today.
Thirty-five hundred
homeless to Rajneeshpuram in 39 days.
By sometime next week,
the homeless may outnumber the Rajneeshees
by two to one.
All of them will be part
of the new Rajneeshee community,
united in a single trusting conviction,
they believe they are no longer homeless.
America has lost its heart.
Its heart is right here
in Rajneeshpuram now. It's not out there.
Rajneeshpuram is now saying to America,
"Bring us your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to be free."
And we won't humiliate them
on Ellis Island.
We won't put them in factories
in Chicago and New York
and make them work 12-hour days
like slaves.
We'll treat them with respect.
We'll give them beautiful homes.
We'll give them beautiful clothes to wear.
We'll give them a new life.
And that's what I've got.
If anything is-- Phew.
If anything is American and democratic,
it's Rajneeshpuram.
It's not the outside world.
This is home. I love it. Thank you.
Antelope started to change
when the ranch doubled in size.
You know, they had hundreds or thousands
of homeless people and nobody knew why.
Two weeks ago
street people began arriving
at the city of Rajneeshpuram,
and today the question on the minds
of many Wasco County residents is,
"What's going on?"
I don't know what they might do.
The unknown is what we fear.
And, it's... I just don't know
what they'll do next.
It was kind of a mystery,
but people just thought they were crazy.
These homeless people
were just kind of showing up.
And they'd be sleeping
in vacant lots or people's garages
or under a car or something.
It was a magnet
for crazy people, you know?
And people had no idea, you know,
what they were really doing.
The offer is one a lot of Wasco County
residents think is too good to be true.
They're asking themselves why their
Rajneeshee neighbors to the south
are suddenly so generous and open
with their city.
Six thousand of them
from all over the country.
Homeless people brought in here
and we're going to give you food,
we're going to give you a roof
over your head,
and all you have to do is vote.
The elections of '84
felt like a conspiracy
to shut down Rajneeshpuram.
Politicians were planning to elect
Republican anti-Rajneeshee commission.
So, Bhagwan told Sheela
it was time to take over Wasco County.
We were to have three Rajneesh
representatives on Wasco County,
and he was pushing her really hard.
At that point,
if we didn't protect ourselves
with what law allows
to bring these homeless people,
uh... it would be stupid on our part.
Tonight for the first time,
the Rajneeshees are openly admitting
that they plan
to enter their own candidates
for the two Wasco County
commissioners' seats up for grabs
in the November election.
After weeks of denials,
Ma Anand Sheela has now admitted publicly
that the Rajneeshees' goal
is to take over Wasco County.
She says the takeover
is for her community's self-protection.
So you want to control Wasco County?
Absolutely, now I do.
And I will be the first person
to campaign.
It needs to be at a boiling point,
so once and for all it can evaporate.
But a boiling point
implies someone is going to get burned.
So what?
For humanity, a little burn here or there,
it's worth it.
The shipments of homeless continue
to arrive here every day.
So, just how many Rajneesh votes will be
cast may not be known until Election Day.
All veterans!
All veterans to the desk, please!
This is a Rajneeshee videotape
of last night's community meeting.
Rajneeshees say 7,000 were there,
Rajneeshees and street people alike.
We have come home,
and we have done the right thing.
The master has brought us home
to protect us
from the neo-colonial,
imperialistic, technocratic society
of the United States of aggression.
There's a lot of people out there
that are supposedly Christians.
That have not given us
this opportunity that you've given us.
They told me they wouldn't have me.
We got a home. Let's keep it.
And the ones that don't want it,
get the hell out!
The fact that they had brought
all these people in,
6,000 of them from all over the country,
suddenly opened eyes
to the fact that, okay,
they took over Antelope,
that's Antelope's problem.
They're going to take over Wasco County.
That might be a little bigger deal
than just Wasco County's problem
because they get the county,
are they going to get the state next?
Good evening. People in Wasco County met
tonight trying to fight the Rajneeshees.
It was the biggest ever
anti-Rajneesh rally, about 2,000 people.
They are angry, frustrated, and fearful.
They see recent developments
at Rajneeshpuram as a threat to them,
their friends, their state.
There were so many people here tonight
they spilled out into the hallways
of The Dalles High School.
Inside speakers told the people
of Wasco County why they should be voting
and why they should be outraged.
They brought these people to take over
the central part of the state of Oregon.
Now, I want to tell you folks that there
is no way that we can stop them,
when you have counties that only
have 570 and 800 voters.
I think it was a done deal.
If all 6,000 of them had voted as a block,
they couldn't beat them.
When they've made statements
that within the next 15 years,
before the year 2000,
they'll control of the state.
I think that's a very great threat.
And the way our voting laws are, I'm--
I'm scared about it really.
If they can field
six or 7,000 votes,
they'll come on strong
with some write-in candidate.
They're a group of people
that don't like to be defeated.
Is it possible for
the Rajneeshees to take over Wasco County?
They could very easily
take over Wasco County, yes.
We became concerned working
with the secretary of state
that we needed to take steps
to make sure that only people
who were legitimate voters in Oregon,
people who were in Oregon and intended
to be residents of Oregon would vote.
How is it legal for people
to step off a bus and literally vote?
As long as you're a U.S. citizen,
18 years of age on election day,
and a resident of the state of Oregon
for 20 days, you can register to vote.
There were very few tools available
to us or the secretary of state
because Oregon then and now
was in the forefront of easy voting.
Let's assume
that your worst fears are correct,
that all these people
are now going to go and vote.
As I said before, you helped pass the kind
of legislation that makes it possible.
Maybe they don't like you,
they vote you out of office,
that's the American way, isn't it?
It's ironic that in looking
through the statutes now
and watching buses roll by,
Oregon law, at this point,
will not prohibit that.
American way is that Constitution
should be upheld
and anybody who wants to vote
should be allowed to vote.
Today it was
Republican Donna Zajonc on the offensive.
Not only does she want
to challenge voter registration,
but she wants the attorney general to see
if allowing recently arrived street people
to vote in Wasco County,
might be unconstitutional.
Anyone who violates election laws
will be prosecuted
if it comes to our attention,
and we're taking every step possible
to ensure that we'll be
in a position to prosecute successfully.
There's no crime.
That's what I said, there is no crime.
It is residing with intent to vote.
I mean, it's simply no crime.
Sure. They moved in,
they were brought there,
they were sympathetic
to the community, of course,
so they wanted to vote.
As soon as these people came,
maybe they haven't voted in years,
but when they heard their right to vote
was being threatened, they all said,
"Hell with it, I'm gonna vote."
They try to say I'm a street person,
a derelict. They try to take my rights.
That's my birthright, I can vote. I come
here and they try to say I can't vote.
I'm going to go down there and vote.
We're Americans here!
And all...
And all of us have a right,
a birthright to vote.
Next Monday,
the anti-Rajneesh group
plans to march on Salem
to ask Governor Atiyeh
to declare a state of emergency
because of Rajneesh activities.
Our America is being destructed,
is being sold by people
who do not fear God
and who care only about money.
Amen!
But I want to tell you,
the freedom that we have
was not paved with money.
It was the blood of the pioneers.
We now call upon the governor
to proclaim that Rajneeshpuram
be put in its proper place
as a non-existent city
and to disarm this cult's army now.
You tell your governors,
you tell your attorney general
and all your bigoted pigs outside,
they touch any of our people,
I will have 15 of their heads,
and I mean business.
I tell you the county is so fucking
bigoted, it deserves to be taken over.
A major development
involving the Rajneeshees
and voting in Wasco County.
- Good evening, everybody, I'm Kim Singer.
- And I'm Gary Hill.
Today, the Rajneeshees took a bus load
of homeless people to The Dalles
to register them in Wasco County to vote.
But they were in for a surprise.
Rajneeshee street people
arrived in The Dalles
to register as voters.
They were met by Sue Profit,
Wasco County clerk.
Okay, I'm going to read
a statement. Can you all hear me?
- Yes.
- Okay. Please listen very carefully.
"Because I have reason to believe
there are organized efforts
to fraudulently register people
in Wasco County to vote
in the November general election,
I have decided to do a blanket rejection
of all new voter registrations
in Wasco County."
A busload of 30 Rajneeshees
and homeless men were turned back
at the door of the Wasco County
clerk's office in The Dalles this morning
as they tried to register to vote.
The county suspended the right to vote.
One of the few times
that's ever happened in the United States,
in one of the most arrogant
and powerful ways I had ever seen.
That really--
I mean, I got fired up about that one,
about how these people might as
well be stomping on the Constitution.
You make these people
spend their whole day coming here
and you're rejecting people
from their right to vote.
That is a gross misinterpretation
of the law and you should know it.
We have contributed
to America to its fullest.
We intend, because we are Americans,
to participate in this political system
and exercise the inalienable right.
The inalienable right.
I don't know what's going to happen,
but it's-- It's not going to be good.
It was really as though a bomb
went off in the middle of the community.
The county refused to register
any of these people as voters.
It was a catastrophe.
We had literally thousands
of homeless people causing complete chaos.
It became clear
that we had a hornet's nest
right in the middle of the community.
One of them, a very big man...
was just completely crazy,
rampaging around,
breaking things, screaming and shouting,
stopping cars,
pulling open the driver's door,
pulling out the drivers,
throwing them on the ground.
And Sheela heard what was happening.
She came down from her house
and went right up to him and spoke to him.
And he was foaming at the mouth.
Took me by my throat,
and he wanted to kill me.
He grabbed her by the neck, lifted her up
off the ground and shook her violently.
And the whole Peace Force,
no one can move a step forward.
I was certain I was going to die that day.
By this time, one of the doctors had come.
They sedated him,
put him in a car,
drove him off Rajneeshpuram,
off the ranch and set him
out on a park bench.
In an effort to reduce the chaos,
it was decided that the way
to deal with this situation
was to sedate all of the homeless people.
So, Haldol, a sedative,
was put into the beer
that was served to the homeless people
with their evening meal.
Nobody asked them if that was okay.
They did not know
that they were being drugged.
I'd like to say one thing
into this camera right now.
You've got some good beer here.
We had all of these attacks going on,
and it didn't look good.
By then, they had screwed us a few times.
And Sheela wanted to hurt them back.
Sheela called different people to her room
to discuss other possible ways...
to win the election.
The conversations were
taking a very bizarre turn.
Sheela described herself
this night as the mother of these men.
What followed was a pep rally
in the familiar style of Sheela.
That woman, that bitch,
has made the worst mistake in her life.
You know why?
Because she's afraid,
she's scared shit.
And I'm pointing fingers at them
that they could not do it.
They didn't have the courage
to accept you as people,
and you fought for them!
You fought for them!
I'm going to fight for you!
That devotion to the master,
devotion to building that city
in the wilderness,
led some people...
to allow Sheela...
to mislead them
into doing things
that ought not to be done.
Now, instead of...
trying to trick your way through
or shout your way through
or force your way through
to get what you wanted,
now it was different.
Now there was talk of killing people
to get what you wanted,
to get them out of the way.
I was holding my breath
and hoping this wasn't real.
There's darkness in all of us.
All of us have our dark side.
That's just the nature of being human.
It doesn't make you a bad person.
for this beautiful home that we have.
Let's continue to take care of it
and to nurture it
so that it can grow
more and more beautiful in his grace.
No, we're not going to be victims.
If you're going to come at us
with the big artillery,
we're going to play your game.
And that was unsettling to a lot of us,
but it was also...
Brought a sense of security
in some bizarre way.
I didn't have a gun here
until they bombed our hotel.
I didn't even have a single weapon here.
But I don't believe
in turning the other cheek.
We learned how
to shoot a Smith & Wesson.
And I came to recognize that if I
truly went into a meditative stance,
I could hit the target.
And that it was all about my breath
and it was all about my awareness.
I had already had experience
with guns because my dad had a gun.
We used to go and shoot rabbits.
And Sheela was very pleased about that.
She used to run around telling everybody,
"Oh, Shanti B is a really good shot."
And when we showed them
how good training we had...
they were shocked.
The people of Oregon
knew then that we were armed,
that we could use our weapons well...
and that we were prepared to use
those weapons if push came to shove.
In the northern part
of Oregon, there used to be
a little town called Antelope.
Yesterday the voters in Antelope decided
to change the town's name to "Rajneesh."
It is a political victory for followers
of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Change has been coming,
and today Antelope awoke to a red dawn.
They changed the name
to the city of Rajneesh.
They renamed everything, of course.
They have to put their brand on it.
They had a majority of the residents
and held an election
and took over the city council.
A guy that had been on the council
and was fighting
the Rajneeshees, Don Smith...
came to me and said, "We can't get anybody
to put their name on the ballot.
We know they're going
to win this election,
but, you know,
we don't want to just hand it to them.
Could we put your name on the ballot?
Would you volunteer, you know,
to get your ass kicked?"
And I said, "Okay. Why not?"
You know, I didn't care.
The Rajneeshees, they didn't want
to seem like they took over everything.
So, they voted three of theirs
and two of ours.
They voted me and this other guy.
Well, soon as the other guy saw that,
well, he was out of town in like two days.
He was gone.
There is now only one
non-Rajneeshee on Antelope's city council.
They didn't scare me.
Sometimes, you know,
keep your enemies close.
You know what I'm saying?
You learn a lot more being nice. Um...
You learn a lot more being nice.
Apparently, everything the Rajneeshees did
to take over this small town was legal.
The question is, was it right?
The new Rajneesh-controlled city council
passed an ordinance
reserving this weed-covered city park
for nude sunbathing.
There were
a lot of weird things that happened.
At night up here, you can hear
everything that goes on
because there's no background noise.
It's not like a city.
And you could hear them going all night.
It's like you're in the same room
with them, you know?
And my aunt was not pleased with that,
sharing her bedroom with these people,
listening to their goings on,
which they were, they were going on.
And, uh...
I couldn't see them,
but could hear them.
And it was the noises and things were...
It sounded like animals.
There is a sense of lustiness
and sexual obsession there
that I have never known of anywhere.
You can hear people having orgasmic
experiences all day and all night.
They weren't somebody
you wanted to have for neighbors.
I had gone to help my cousin
move cattle to the summer range
and came home and my wife said,
"They've got guns up there."
I said, "No way! They're...
They claim they're nonviolent people."
They've sat up there
just above my field all summer long,
armed with what appear
to be semi-automatic rifles,
and about half of us feel
that before this is over,
some of us are going to be killed.
They watched our house
from across the river
with some kind of
an automatic assault weapon.
They sure weren't BB guns.
They had a police force in Antelope
that patrolled the streets all night long,
cars with lights on them
and the lights would be flashing
going through town
while people were trying to sleep.
They called it the Peace Force.
And it was not a Peace Force.
It was a harassment force.
They met legal requirements
to make these people cops,
and they made them cops.
They were there with guns.
When you came into town,
they'd be stationed at either end of it.
The occupying force had landed.
As we talked to the few
non-Rajneeshee residents who remain,
our car was followed, our movements noted
by both marked
and unmarked Rajneeshee police cars.
One longtime local resident frustrated
at what was happening to his town
started repeatedly picketing.
Jim was a little hotheaded...
and he made a sign...
and he trolled back and forth in front
of the Rajneeshee establishment
there in town.
And about nine o'clock that night,
they came in and arrested him.
Rajneeshee police arrested him
for, quote, "menacing"
and took him to Wasco County jail.
They had to handcuff him in front because
he couldn't get his arms behind him,
he was so arthritic.
That kind of changed it for me.
We knew Antelope was shot at that point.
It's just throwing gas on the fire almost.
Gun sales
in neighboring towns have skyrocketed.
People call in wanting to know prices
of guns and what we have
for more of a protection weapon
than a hunting weapon,
with a lot of older people calling,
worried, scared.
Sheela was holding Antelope...
- Hostage. And they said so.
- ...hostage.
The Bhagwan's top aide
says the Rajneeshees will leave Antelope
if the state grants a zoning change
permitting the Rajneeshees
to set up their own city on their ranch.
We have never had interest in Antelope
before and now, except for our survival.
We want our city to be developed,
and if this city goes,
then of course
we will have Rajneeshpuram.
Either way, we are the winner.
There's a lot of people that would
have loved to have shot Sheela.
I'd like to have choked her to death
a couple times myself.
That woman is the closest thing to Hitler
that I've ever seen in my life,
and I have seen people
coming out of Buchenwald.
I've seen them come out of Dachau.
The only thing she don't have yet
is the ovens.
As you can see, the relationship between
the Rajneeshees and the townspeople
is going downhill fast,
and there is a possibility
that it will come
to a very big crescendo very soon.
Last July,
the 40 residents of Antelope learned
they were about to acquire
some new neighbors,
several hundred followers
of the spiritual leader,
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
First we're gonna hear
from the Rajneesh Foundation.
And it's a fascinating story. Would you
welcome its president, Ma Anand Sheela.
Media is expensive and one should not miss
an opportunity for free publicity.
When we come back,
we'll talk with the spokesperson
for the Rajneeshee sect, Ma Anand Sheela.
- Ma Anand Sheela.
- Ma Anand Sheela.
From Washington, Crossfire.
She's the personal secretary
of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
who is the head of this...
- Religion.
- Religion. Thank you.
Bhagwan told me
to be very, very strong in the media.
I had to be provocative.
I had to provoke.
Isn't your leader the free sex guru?
Free sex? We don't charge for it,
if you meant that.
Right.
We are the only community
which has no venereal diseases,
no crime, no drugs, no alcoholism.
And I'll tell you about one more thing,
that we are the only people
who enjoy sex fully.
"How could you do that? How could you...?"
I said, "Don't tell me. I'm doing my job."
That's it.
Sheela, whatever your plans are,
we don't want the Rajneeshees,
we don't want
the orange people in our town.
What can I say? Tough titties.
It was that fearlessness...
was a very special quality.
No, I'm not running for cover, mister.
I don't run for cover.
And person like you
make me run for cover?
- Oh, that's a joke.
- Well...
She learned to be outrageous.
But there was a part of her nature
that could adapt to that really easily.
You seem to be enjoying it,
almost giving them your finger.
Merv Griffin called and
they asked if I would go on the program.
I said, "Sheela's gotten
way more publicity than she deserves."
And she was extremely arrogant
and she was off the maps, I tell you.
The Bhagwan has
from four to 13 Rolls Royces.
- Let me add it is 17 Rolls Royces.
- Seventeen. Wonderful.
On the second,
there will be 20 Rolls Royces.
Everybody was like,
"Who is this guy? And who is she?"
- That was one thing, but let me--
- You are full of shit.
You don't know anything about--
In that case,
we'll cut the microphone off right now.
Thank you very much,
all of you, for joining us.
Good shot, Sheela. You're up
to your good old-- Same old tricks.
These people are distorting and twisting
the laws to use to their own advantage.
- If it's legal doesn't mean it's right.
- Oh, you.
All right, you got one in, Sheela.
You got your dirty word in.
You get one per show.
Certainly,
the more press we got,
the more books we sold internationally.
And so seekers around the world
would be interested
in not just the mundane story,
but who is Rajneesh.
Everywhere Bhagwan was spreading.
The Bhagwan commissioned
the most loyal of his supporters
to go to the four corners of the earth
and establish Buddha fields.
In Europe, that meant establishing
Rajneesh centers from Copenhagen to Italy
and from England to West Berlin.
Almost everywhere in the world,
Bhagwan's communes were functioning.
We had communes in India,
Australia had a number of communes.
Italy many communes.
In Germany,
Amsterdam,
Switzerland.
Portugal had a commune.
And all communes were self-supporting
with different activities,
like construction companies,
bistros, discos.
Official number working Sannyasins
were about 30,000.
When you include Bhagwan's followers
who are not Sannyas...
500,000.
And we were not afraid to show his vision
in physical world.
The new commune is now global.
It is a global community.
There are thousands and thousands
and thousands of Sannyasins.
And in Europe,
believers work year-round
for the pleasure of a trip to Oregon
in July for the annual festival.
Out of this money, we can go all
to Rajneeshpuram, to the celebration,
to the festival, to see Bhagwan.
It's the high point of the year.
World festival was a magical time...
for all Sannyasins.
It was an event.
People would mark their calendars,
save their money and come.
Buses were moving back and forth,
filled with Sannyasins
from all over the world.
Is the Rajneesh movement growing in Japan?
Yeah, sure.
Many, many people
are taking sannyas in Tokyo.
In just three years, this has become
one of Oregon's
biggest summer tourist events.
Yet for most of these people,
this is a visit to a state of mind.
- What brings you here?
- Adventure, love.
I want to dance.
I want to celebrate. I want to sing.
My heart wants to just sing.
Anywhere you go,
people were just celebrating.
You have a beer tent, you got
a gambling casino, and you got a disco
and you've got food
and people are buying stuff.
The world festivals
were making lots of money.
I mean, it was just
an explosion of activity.
Rajneesh is an avowed capitalist.
The commune boutiques offer
a variety of ways to see the light,
materially speaking, or to surround
the inner self with scanty spirituality.
Yes, Rajneesh seems
to have his mug on everything.
And the Rajneeshees
are making money, lots of it.
Rajneesh Foundation International:
19 million.
Rajneesh Investment Corporation:
31 million.
And finally, there is the commune itself:
assets 15 million.
The amount of money
that came in during those festivals
really sustained us
and allowed us to grow.
But all of this is no laughing matter
down the road in tiny Antelope.
Here in the town of Antelope,
they're not celebrating this weekend.
There are no parades here,
no town picnics,
and the only fireworks are verbal ones.
We've got a concentration camp up there.
It's not a small, rural, quiet place
to retire anymore.
It's dark and damp on the eve
of the first world celebration
of Rajneesh.
You didn't make a special request
for this weather for the festival?
You bet I did.
I think every person in town is--
Was hoping that it rained.
Through our celebration, they get jealous.
- You think so?
- Absolutely.
Look at it, which rancher is
as successful as this community?
They're jealous.
Only one other message I'd like to say,
and that's to the people...
that would like to destroy this city
because they're jealous and ignorant
and stupid: up yours.
For me, the whole energy was like a feast.
A feast for the eyes,
a feast for the ears,
a feast for smile.
It was a feast of colors.
There were 15,000 lovers of Bhagwan.
Many of them were going to see Bhagwan
first time in their life.
And Bhagwan
in his beautiful clothes and jewelry...
presented like a king.
He would get the energy moving.
"Come on, give me more than that.
That's all you got?"
And he'd get 10,000 people
really rocking it.
He was a rock star.
And I was like,
"You want to rock and roll?"
Because he went like this, you know?
And I went, "Okay."
So, I was in his face
and I was doing it back to him.
The crowd was going absolutely nuts.
I also saw that he was a man
and he was a human and he wanted to play
and that he wanted to play with me.
And that was my best moment.
There's really something special about
Bhagwan, and it's hard to put into words.
We're just all glad
to have him here physically.
Always when I see him, I must cry.
So, it's so... emotionally for me.
And yeah, I love him.
There are fireworks and parades
going on inside of us.
It was an experience to live.
You have no idea.
You can never capture it again.
Well, I'll tell you this story,
and I shouldn't probably tell you.
I've never told it in public.
They didn't know it, you know,
when I was spying on them.
We used to have a little city dump.
So, I was just taking
the garbage up there one day,
and there in the garbage
I could see stuff they'd thrown in.
A poster.
I thought,
"Oh, that'd be kind of cool to have."
So I just jumped right in the dump.
Went over there
and grabbed the poster and...
there's a lot of other stuff.
I started looking at it,
thought, "Oh, this is pretty interesting."
And find these things in there,
says, "Shred this.
Shred this document after the meeting."
And I went through that stuff
for quite a while,
taking all I could grab.
Had my buddy watching lookout,
see if anybody is coming up the hill.
And there were
incriminating things in them.
Internal committee minutes
about what was going on at the ranch.
There were instructions
about censoring the mail...
making sure everything
is read before it goes out.
There were documents
about arranged marriages.
I mean, there was a vast array of crap.
And they had a big leak
and they didn't even know it.
At that point, you know, I was not dealing
with people that I hadn't known for years,
because I didn't trust anybody.
Dave Frohnmayer, he was attorney general.
I'd known him for years,
being at the University of Oregon,
and we'd known each other for a long time.
Told him, "Let's get together."
And I slipped him
some of these minutes from their meetings.
Well, that was the first time
that their smokescreen was penetrated.
They'd got caught lying
about what was going on out there.
In mid-1983, Dave Frohnmayer
made his first appearance in this play.
He was the attorney general
of the state of Oregon.
The Frohnmayer family,
we have been close to for my entire life.
The Frohnmayers and the Bowermans,
we got together every year.
And I knew Dave from the time he was born.
Dave was a remarkable guy.
He was a Harvard undergrad,
Rhodes Scholar, Boalt Hall law.
Ran for attorney general in 1980,
Dave got elected.
He was uniquely suited for the job.
I have the objective of building
the finest Department of Justice
in the United States of America.
I can't think
that Oregon deserves any less.
You need integrity because
of the importance of that position
to carry through the mission
of the Constitution
and laws of the state of Oregon.
Frankly, you need courage because
many decisions you make are unpopular.
When Dave became attorney
general, my father and I were writing.
I could fire off a letter to Dave and say,
"Hey, here's what's happening."
We were doing our best to communicate
to Dave that we had a problem here.
Maybe as a favor to our family,
Dave's investigation began.
And once they got the bone in their teeth,
they weren't going to let go of it.
Rajneeshpuram's strongest legal challenge
comes from the office
of the state attorney general.
Dave Frohnmayer filed suit on behalf
of Oregon residents claiming the city
violates the constitutional separation
of church and state.
When you have a religion
exercising the power of a government,
then you have an intermingling
of church and state
which is such
a fundamental civil liberties issue
that it has to be addressed
and we couldn't avoid it.
There was a question
of whether the city of Rajneeshpuram
was a legitimate government entity
or whether it was a government entity
that was effectively
controlled by a religion.
The problem that we identified
was that the two were inextricably linked.
The city of Rajneeshpuram were allowed
an official law enforcement agency...
and they were allowed access
to the law enforcement data system,
criminal information and backgrounds.
It is the most sensitive information the
government possessed about its citizens.
And to carry weapons that private citizens
wouldn't have been allowed to carry.
And there were questions about the school.
Is the public elementary school in the
town of Rajneesh truly a public school?
There's been argument over this
for some time now.
Can teachers wear religious garb
when they are teaching in a public school?
The school
is permeated with religious symbolism.
It did not look, sound
or feel like a public school.
Our case was based on the fact
that the religion
was controlling the government,
that the Bhagwan was deciding
who would be the mayor,
the city councilors were selected
by either Sheela or the Bhagwan,
and then they staged elections,
but it was all a show.
And the city existed purely
for appearances.
This is a fundamental issue
which is so serious
that it must be resolved
in our judgment by a court.
We were aware that what we decided
was going to have profound ramifications
and could potentially affect
many individuals' constitutional rights.
I remember vividly being struck
by the fact that this was big stuff.
This was-- This was important.
And I remember thinking,
"I sure hope we're right."
The AG is full of crap.
One sentence sums up the whole thing:
the AG...
is not acting as an attorney general,
he's acting as a politician.
I can't find words harsh enough
in my vocabulary,
certainly that I could say
in front of you people,
that would describe
my feeling towards a man...
that would use politics and legalities to
try and throw people out of their homes.
Frohnmayer writes an opinion,
and what he asks
is to have the city
declared null and void...
because its very existence violates
the Establishment Clause
of the Constitution,
which says that Congress shall
make no law establishing a religion.
It requires a careful analysis...
because they're two sides
of the same coin, right?
Freedom of religion...
and avoiding an establishment.
There's a lot of establishment cases.
Usually, they're about some town
put a crèche scene
on the courthouse steps.
Some teacher allowed students to say
a prayer before the beginning of class.
Essentially, always
the order is don't do that.
You never had a city destroyed
because of the Establishment Clause.
You correct the problem.
So, it's injunctive.
You say stop doing that.
Cities that have
a majority of a particular religion
are very, very common.
If you look at our history...
If you look at Catholics in Boston,
were a huge majority
and totally ran the government.
Utah, Mormonism, that's a whole state.
But certainly in the city
of Salt Lake City, even today...
nobody tells those people
that they can't have a city.
Nobody thinks that they can't have a city.
Nobody ever even raised the issue,
until us.
To have it be something as significant
as destroying the community
of a religious minority...
so that it cannot exist...
which affects
fundamental rights of assembly...
speech, religion, association,
powerfully impacting on those rights
in a negative way.
I mean, screw religious freedom, right?
Do we really care?
Let's have a simple test...
where the government
can just do what it wants.
And minority religions
we don't really care much about.
By now, Rajneeshpuram had been licensed
as a police force.
Everybody knew that their loyalty
was not to their badge,
their loyalty was to Bhagwan.
So, they had semi-automatic weapons,
tear gas grenades.
You had the mayor of Rajneeshpuram
threatening civil war.
What I see here today as I look out
is the beginning of a civil war
in this county.
If that's what you want, fine.
So, yeah, it was a huge problem.
We were not out to get the leadership
just to get the leadership.
We were looking for the architects
responsible for this very broad scheme
of deceit
against the United States government.
That's the only way
that was going to stop.
It was very clear that all agencies,
Thousand Friends of Oregon,
Frohnmayer,
Governor Atiyeh,
and rest of the politicians
were making difficult for our existence.
The governor
has made no secret of his feelings
about the followers
of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
and has said repeatedly that, personally,
he'd rather they just leave.
Oregon legislature introduced three bills
that would repeal the city charters in
both Rajneeshpuram and Rajneesh-Antelope.
Legislation was a tool
to destroy the community.
My personal favorite
is the initiative petition,
"Expel the Rajneesh cult from Oregon."
I really wonder what they had in mind.
I'm both shocked and amused
by the stupidity of Oregon politicians.
Oregon is developing an international
reputation as a backwater of bigotry.
There was a task force
that had been organized,
addressing the Rajneesh problem...
and how to deal with it.
On the afternoon of September 26,
a whole variety of state
and federal officials converged
in a conference room in Salem.
They were there to discuss
the Rajneeshees,
but the press was not welcome.
The meeting took place
behind closed doors.
Well, when's the last time
you heard about a problem,
a Jewish problem, a Rajneesh problem?
What kind of nonsense is this?
What's going on in this state
is what I'd like to know.
It used to be the legislature
was called a circus.
Now I call it a zoo because at least
in a circus the animals are trained.
We had every branch,
federal, state, county, local,
organized and united.
Your attorney general,
your county commissioners,
have made many policies
behind closed doors against Rajneeshees.
Go to them now.
Don't come to me about reconciliation.
For somebody like Sheela,
she was driven
out of a real sense that the community
was going to be destroyed.
Those were accurate perceptions.
Persecution must stop.
Persecution of all people, all race,
all religion must stop.
Unless this state is ready to do that,
Rajneeshees are not going to stop.
Sheela, over a period of time,
she became the focus.
And it was almost by-- By accident.
Bhagwan stepped back into his house,
so we didn't see him.
And Sheela stepped forward.
And so with time, I just became
more and more devoted to her.
I was-- My devotion to Bhagwan
kind of swapped over,
and it included not just Bhagwan,
but also Sheela.
You never know, Sheela is never, um...
She's very spontaneous.
She's extremely spontaneous.
And she moves with the moods.
She moves with the wind.
She moves with the time of the day.
I mean, it's funny, you--
All of you see me in one position
or another as a spokesperson,
but you don't know me personally.
Because personally,
people can't figure me out.
I'm not the same person you think I am.
Jesus Grove was Sheela's house.
As time went on,
it was added to and added to.
It became a very big living complex.
And Sheela moved into her house
people who were of use to her.
But if you lived in Jesus Grove,
you were at Sheela's beck and call.
Jesus Grove was
kind of where the important people
that were making important decisions
were hanging out.
Call them Sheela's lieutenants.
She had this insular group
that hung on every word
because she would go up
and meet with Bhagwan every night.
There's
one appointment Sheela never breaks,
her nightly meeting with Rajneesh.
No one is permitted to accompany her
when she meets with Bhagwan.
They reportedly discuss religious matters
and other affairs
that concern Rajneeshpuram.
And it became
a kind of a ritual in the evening
when Sheela came back
from being with Bhagwan,
and she would tell us stories,
if you like.
She would tell us
about what Bhagwan was saying,
what he wanted of us,
what we were going to do next,
why we were going to do it.
And I was swept away.
It was beyond my wildest dreams
to ever imagine
that I would fill one of these positions
to be so close to Bhagwan.
At some point, I was woken in the night.
Eleven o'clock, I was fast asleep in bed
and told to come down to Jesus Grove
right away and to bring my wax.
And Sheela wanted me to wax her legs,
so I did.
And not long after that,
Sheela moved me into her house.
We confronted situations always as a unit.
How can we solve the problem?
The more creative we were,
the more destructive the politicians
were against us.
It was their hate
that forced us to take these steps
for self-preservation,
self-protection, self-survival.
I understand
that you have an announcement
that is in the offing.
- That's correct.
- That everyone is waiting patiently for.
Um... Can you maybe give us some idea
of when we should expect to hear that?
Everybody is waiting patiently.
I would say the same thing.
You need to wait patiently too.
Any indication of the magnitude
of that announcement?
It's going to be...
probably the first project
world has ever carried out.
- Could you repeat that? I'm sorry...
- It's probably one of the first project
that anybody in the world
will carry out, is us.
It will be a world project.
People started meeting in Sheela's room,
and a scheme developed
of bringing people in.
What's the best time
to come here tomorrow?
What you'd have to do is we have tickets
right here, right now for the bus.
I was down in Phoenix and in San Diego,
going around to homeless shelters
and standing with an open door
to a Greyhound bus,
saying, "Come join us."
There's a beautiful city in Oregon
which is blossoming.
And it's happening and it's a city that's
not happening anywhere else in the world.
- Ain't no drugs there, right?
- No drugs.
- You can't drink?
- Well, you get two beers a day.
- Two beers a day.
- Yeah.
All aboard, Rajneeshpuram!
Didn't matter whether you were
a woman or what color your skin was,
whether you're a vet,
any person were invited.
- Where have you been?
- All over the place.
New York, Chicago, um... Texas.
The east coast, west coast,
south coast, and everywhere.
I would say, "The bus is here.
If you want to come, load up."
I decided to go.
I'm sick of living on streets.
It's all I've been doing
for the past six months.
So, what evolves
is a steady stream of people
coming from cities all over America.
Political battles and court cases.
It hasn't exactly been a state
of nirvana in the state of Oregon
since an Indian guru and his followers
settled there in 1981.
The latest controversy is a program to
recruit the down and out, the homeless.
Where we getting tickets at?
Just what happens
to the homeless people after they arrive
at the Rajneesh complex here
remains a Rajneesh secret.
We were taking care of these people.
These rejects from the society
we had invited to be our guest.
In India, a guest comes,
they can be a form of God.
What we did with them is to clean them up,
clean their open wounds,
or give them free dental work,
check their eyes.
We gave them back their self-respect.
Up till now, society had abused
these people all their lifetime,
and I wanted to create a situation
the world has never experienced before.
Jesus Santos finished a six-year term
at the Colorado State Penitentiary
last month.
It provides a sense of community,
and it provides me
with people who care for me.
That's something I haven't had in my life.
I think that's something
not only people need,
but I think it's the world in general.
I'm just a city boy,
you know, but this is, you know,
what I always wanted to do
since I was little, you know?
Beautiful.
I love it. Definitely. No doubt.
I don't know,
there's really nothing else out there.
You know, it's really beautiful here.
And I decided to follow Bhagwan
because it just...
It was a feeling, you know? It's like
a feeling everybody gets, I guess.
What's so beautiful about it here?
Well, you don't have no crime.
You don't have to worry about walking down
the street and getting stabbed or shot.
You know?
It's hard to explain.
And I saw some dramatic changes
in those people
in a very short period of time.
It sort of blew me away.
They just changed. They opened up.
They actually started
to discover themselves spiritually.
So, all the press is here, Isabel?
People that you call them street people,
people who have been accused
that they have been derelicts
or criminals or winos,
that they are not that
and they are respected human beings.
You offer them respect
and they respect you ten times more.
The recruiting goes on in every major city
in the United States.
Those efforts are getting
plenty of nationwide attention.
In Washington D.C., the Rajneeshees
continue to recruit street people
with the promise of food and shelter
and a free bus ride to Oregon.
The homeless continue to pour
into Rajneeshpuram.
...continue to pour into Oregon.
A spokesperson at Rancho Rajneesh
says five more busloads of the homeless
arrived there today.
Thirty-five hundred
homeless to Rajneeshpuram in 39 days.
By sometime next week,
the homeless may outnumber the Rajneeshees
by two to one.
All of them will be part
of the new Rajneeshee community,
united in a single trusting conviction,
they believe they are no longer homeless.
America has lost its heart.
Its heart is right here
in Rajneeshpuram now. It's not out there.
Rajneeshpuram is now saying to America,
"Bring us your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to be free."
And we won't humiliate them
on Ellis Island.
We won't put them in factories
in Chicago and New York
and make them work 12-hour days
like slaves.
We'll treat them with respect.
We'll give them beautiful homes.
We'll give them beautiful clothes to wear.
We'll give them a new life.
And that's what I've got.
If anything is-- Phew.
If anything is American and democratic,
it's Rajneeshpuram.
It's not the outside world.
This is home. I love it. Thank you.
Antelope started to change
when the ranch doubled in size.
You know, they had hundreds or thousands
of homeless people and nobody knew why.
Two weeks ago
street people began arriving
at the city of Rajneeshpuram,
and today the question on the minds
of many Wasco County residents is,
"What's going on?"
I don't know what they might do.
The unknown is what we fear.
And, it's... I just don't know
what they'll do next.
It was kind of a mystery,
but people just thought they were crazy.
These homeless people
were just kind of showing up.
And they'd be sleeping
in vacant lots or people's garages
or under a car or something.
It was a magnet
for crazy people, you know?
And people had no idea, you know,
what they were really doing.
The offer is one a lot of Wasco County
residents think is too good to be true.
They're asking themselves why their
Rajneeshee neighbors to the south
are suddenly so generous and open
with their city.
Six thousand of them
from all over the country.
Homeless people brought in here
and we're going to give you food,
we're going to give you a roof
over your head,
and all you have to do is vote.
The elections of '84
felt like a conspiracy
to shut down Rajneeshpuram.
Politicians were planning to elect
Republican anti-Rajneeshee commission.
So, Bhagwan told Sheela
it was time to take over Wasco County.
We were to have three Rajneesh
representatives on Wasco County,
and he was pushing her really hard.
At that point,
if we didn't protect ourselves
with what law allows
to bring these homeless people,
uh... it would be stupid on our part.
Tonight for the first time,
the Rajneeshees are openly admitting
that they plan
to enter their own candidates
for the two Wasco County
commissioners' seats up for grabs
in the November election.
After weeks of denials,
Ma Anand Sheela has now admitted publicly
that the Rajneeshees' goal
is to take over Wasco County.
She says the takeover
is for her community's self-protection.
So you want to control Wasco County?
Absolutely, now I do.
And I will be the first person
to campaign.
It needs to be at a boiling point,
so once and for all it can evaporate.
But a boiling point
implies someone is going to get burned.
So what?
For humanity, a little burn here or there,
it's worth it.
The shipments of homeless continue
to arrive here every day.
So, just how many Rajneesh votes will be
cast may not be known until Election Day.
All veterans!
All veterans to the desk, please!
This is a Rajneeshee videotape
of last night's community meeting.
Rajneeshees say 7,000 were there,
Rajneeshees and street people alike.
We have come home,
and we have done the right thing.
The master has brought us home
to protect us
from the neo-colonial,
imperialistic, technocratic society
of the United States of aggression.
There's a lot of people out there
that are supposedly Christians.
That have not given us
this opportunity that you've given us.
They told me they wouldn't have me.
We got a home. Let's keep it.
And the ones that don't want it,
get the hell out!
The fact that they had brought
all these people in,
6,000 of them from all over the country,
suddenly opened eyes
to the fact that, okay,
they took over Antelope,
that's Antelope's problem.
They're going to take over Wasco County.
That might be a little bigger deal
than just Wasco County's problem
because they get the county,
are they going to get the state next?
Good evening. People in Wasco County met
tonight trying to fight the Rajneeshees.
It was the biggest ever
anti-Rajneesh rally, about 2,000 people.
They are angry, frustrated, and fearful.
They see recent developments
at Rajneeshpuram as a threat to them,
their friends, their state.
There were so many people here tonight
they spilled out into the hallways
of The Dalles High School.
Inside speakers told the people
of Wasco County why they should be voting
and why they should be outraged.
They brought these people to take over
the central part of the state of Oregon.
Now, I want to tell you folks that there
is no way that we can stop them,
when you have counties that only
have 570 and 800 voters.
I think it was a done deal.
If all 6,000 of them had voted as a block,
they couldn't beat them.
When they've made statements
that within the next 15 years,
before the year 2000,
they'll control of the state.
I think that's a very great threat.
And the way our voting laws are, I'm--
I'm scared about it really.
If they can field
six or 7,000 votes,
they'll come on strong
with some write-in candidate.
They're a group of people
that don't like to be defeated.
Is it possible for
the Rajneeshees to take over Wasco County?
They could very easily
take over Wasco County, yes.
We became concerned working
with the secretary of state
that we needed to take steps
to make sure that only people
who were legitimate voters in Oregon,
people who were in Oregon and intended
to be residents of Oregon would vote.
How is it legal for people
to step off a bus and literally vote?
As long as you're a U.S. citizen,
18 years of age on election day,
and a resident of the state of Oregon
for 20 days, you can register to vote.
There were very few tools available
to us or the secretary of state
because Oregon then and now
was in the forefront of easy voting.
Let's assume
that your worst fears are correct,
that all these people
are now going to go and vote.
As I said before, you helped pass the kind
of legislation that makes it possible.
Maybe they don't like you,
they vote you out of office,
that's the American way, isn't it?
It's ironic that in looking
through the statutes now
and watching buses roll by,
Oregon law, at this point,
will not prohibit that.
American way is that Constitution
should be upheld
and anybody who wants to vote
should be allowed to vote.
Today it was
Republican Donna Zajonc on the offensive.
Not only does she want
to challenge voter registration,
but she wants the attorney general to see
if allowing recently arrived street people
to vote in Wasco County,
might be unconstitutional.
Anyone who violates election laws
will be prosecuted
if it comes to our attention,
and we're taking every step possible
to ensure that we'll be
in a position to prosecute successfully.
There's no crime.
That's what I said, there is no crime.
It is residing with intent to vote.
I mean, it's simply no crime.
Sure. They moved in,
they were brought there,
they were sympathetic
to the community, of course,
so they wanted to vote.
As soon as these people came,
maybe they haven't voted in years,
but when they heard their right to vote
was being threatened, they all said,
"Hell with it, I'm gonna vote."
They try to say I'm a street person,
a derelict. They try to take my rights.
That's my birthright, I can vote. I come
here and they try to say I can't vote.
I'm going to go down there and vote.
We're Americans here!
And all...
And all of us have a right,
a birthright to vote.
Next Monday,
the anti-Rajneesh group
plans to march on Salem
to ask Governor Atiyeh
to declare a state of emergency
because of Rajneesh activities.
Our America is being destructed,
is being sold by people
who do not fear God
and who care only about money.
Amen!
But I want to tell you,
the freedom that we have
was not paved with money.
It was the blood of the pioneers.
We now call upon the governor
to proclaim that Rajneeshpuram
be put in its proper place
as a non-existent city
and to disarm this cult's army now.
You tell your governors,
you tell your attorney general
and all your bigoted pigs outside,
they touch any of our people,
I will have 15 of their heads,
and I mean business.
I tell you the county is so fucking
bigoted, it deserves to be taken over.
A major development
involving the Rajneeshees
and voting in Wasco County.
- Good evening, everybody, I'm Kim Singer.
- And I'm Gary Hill.
Today, the Rajneeshees took a bus load
of homeless people to The Dalles
to register them in Wasco County to vote.
But they were in for a surprise.
Rajneeshee street people
arrived in The Dalles
to register as voters.
They were met by Sue Profit,
Wasco County clerk.
Okay, I'm going to read
a statement. Can you all hear me?
- Yes.
- Okay. Please listen very carefully.
"Because I have reason to believe
there are organized efforts
to fraudulently register people
in Wasco County to vote
in the November general election,
I have decided to do a blanket rejection
of all new voter registrations
in Wasco County."
A busload of 30 Rajneeshees
and homeless men were turned back
at the door of the Wasco County
clerk's office in The Dalles this morning
as they tried to register to vote.
The county suspended the right to vote.
One of the few times
that's ever happened in the United States,
in one of the most arrogant
and powerful ways I had ever seen.
That really--
I mean, I got fired up about that one,
about how these people might as
well be stomping on the Constitution.
You make these people
spend their whole day coming here
and you're rejecting people
from their right to vote.
That is a gross misinterpretation
of the law and you should know it.
We have contributed
to America to its fullest.
We intend, because we are Americans,
to participate in this political system
and exercise the inalienable right.
The inalienable right.
I don't know what's going to happen,
but it's-- It's not going to be good.
It was really as though a bomb
went off in the middle of the community.
The county refused to register
any of these people as voters.
It was a catastrophe.
We had literally thousands
of homeless people causing complete chaos.
It became clear
that we had a hornet's nest
right in the middle of the community.
One of them, a very big man...
was just completely crazy,
rampaging around,
breaking things, screaming and shouting,
stopping cars,
pulling open the driver's door,
pulling out the drivers,
throwing them on the ground.
And Sheela heard what was happening.
She came down from her house
and went right up to him and spoke to him.
And he was foaming at the mouth.
Took me by my throat,
and he wanted to kill me.
He grabbed her by the neck, lifted her up
off the ground and shook her violently.
And the whole Peace Force,
no one can move a step forward.
I was certain I was going to die that day.
By this time, one of the doctors had come.
They sedated him,
put him in a car,
drove him off Rajneeshpuram,
off the ranch and set him
out on a park bench.
In an effort to reduce the chaos,
it was decided that the way
to deal with this situation
was to sedate all of the homeless people.
So, Haldol, a sedative,
was put into the beer
that was served to the homeless people
with their evening meal.
Nobody asked them if that was okay.
They did not know
that they were being drugged.
I'd like to say one thing
into this camera right now.
You've got some good beer here.
We had all of these attacks going on,
and it didn't look good.
By then, they had screwed us a few times.
And Sheela wanted to hurt them back.
Sheela called different people to her room
to discuss other possible ways...
to win the election.
The conversations were
taking a very bizarre turn.
Sheela described herself
this night as the mother of these men.
What followed was a pep rally
in the familiar style of Sheela.
That woman, that bitch,
has made the worst mistake in her life.
You know why?
Because she's afraid,
she's scared shit.
And I'm pointing fingers at them
that they could not do it.
They didn't have the courage
to accept you as people,
and you fought for them!
You fought for them!
I'm going to fight for you!
That devotion to the master,
devotion to building that city
in the wilderness,
led some people...
to allow Sheela...
to mislead them
into doing things
that ought not to be done.
Now, instead of...
trying to trick your way through
or shout your way through
or force your way through
to get what you wanted,
now it was different.
Now there was talk of killing people
to get what you wanted,
to get them out of the way.
I was holding my breath
and hoping this wasn't real.
There's darkness in all of us.
All of us have our dark side.
That's just the nature of being human.
It doesn't make you a bad person.