A fascinating female psychopath is how Ma Anand Sheela evidently comes across in Netflix’s Wild Wild Country documentary six parter. It tells the tale of the war between an Oregon town and the Orange followers of the Indian guru Bagwan Shree Rajneesh who set up a commune there on 64,000 acres in the 1980s. Combining eastern mysticism and western capitalism, he urged devotees to explore sex as a path to enlightenment and acquired a great many Rolls Royces,
The Rajneeshees fought the war with mass poisonings, drugs, rigged elections, attempted assassinations, and an arsenal of assault weapons they practiced with on their land.
‘Bhagwan was their leader, but Sheela, his tiny cherub-cheeked, foul-mouthed secretary, was pulling the strings.’ She was a master of manipulation; overthrew his other secretary to become his righthand, and instructed a young disciple to murder Bhagwan’s doctor. The woman obeyed, though she wasn’t successful.
Bagwan was later deported, while she pled guilty to attempted murder and a bio-terror attack in poisoning local people with salmonella; and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, paroled after 29 months. She later moved to Switzerland, where she married, and purchased two nursing homes. And was later convicted by a Swiss court of “criminal acts preparatory to the commission of murder” in relation to a plot to kill US federal prosecutor Charles Turner in 1985 but served no time.
Born 28 December 1949 Baroda, India, she has a Capricorn Sun opposition Uranus square Mars in Libra – ambitious, rebellious, explosive; with a pro-active Aries Moon possibly conjunct her North Node. Not short of initiative with all those Cardinal planets or aggression. Her Jupiter Venus is in freedom-loving Aquarius with passionate and manipulative Pluto in Leo opposition her Venus.
Bagwan, 11 December 1931 5.13pm Bhopal, India had a stellium of five planets in Capricorn with Mars, Mercury conjunct and Venus, Moon Saturn in his 8th – ambitious, indulgent, secretive, cold. His Moon Saturn was in a bleak opposition to Pluto in the 2nd – money was his god, with sex a close second. He also had an entrepreneurial Fire Grand Trine of Uranus trine Jupiter in flamboyant Leo trine his Sagittarius Sun.
Deeply unpleasant the pair of them and yet they enticed a whole tranche of hippy dippies to throw up their lives, hand over their money and worship at his shrine.
The Rashneesh stuff had to be the blueprint for what’s going on now. Albeit with a much less cheery atmosphere this time around.
Apologies – I’m a very amateur astrologer and my observations are probably rather obvious, but I keep seeing Jupiter/Pluto in the charts of people caught up in leadership positions in cults. I notice Baghwan has the semisextile. Jim Jones had the conjunction in Cancer in the 7th house. Sangharakshita of the controversial FWBO has the opposition, T-square to Venus – he also sexually exploited his followers.
There is nobody more vile and dangerous than a Capricorn gone bad.
I’m looking for the signifier for his ability to dupe so many into thinking he was a spiritual master, and worship him as a near god. Is that the Neptune in Virgo in a trine to Mercury, the ruler of his ascendant? So many of his followers in the movie still speak of him with such reverence, even after all that happened.
I see Sun trine Jupiter / mutual reception. Lots of godlike-seeming power in that.
Most Oregonians from that region – and era – were quite easily duped. His followers were not necessarily Oregonians but were lost Summer of Love wanna be’s.
Been a long time since I’ve read about him.
This is a very fascinating documentary series, with loads of contemporary footage. I watched it in two evenings. It seems that if anyone was bamboozed, it was the National media. From the documentary, it seems The Antelope Residents – all 150 of them – were very much against the commune from the get go. However, Rajneeshees had considerable media and entertainment industry ties, giving Sheela an opportunity to depict locals as closeminded hilliebillies everywhere including Johnny Carson show. They even recruited Leo Ryan’s – for younger generation, the congressman murdered by People’s Temple at Jonestown – daughter to tell Rajneeshees were not a cult. And that narrative stuck for quite a while. A local Congressman who raised allarm early on was ridiculed. So were journalists from “Portland Sentinel”.
If the documentary is anything to go by, the locals only started getting heard when the cult recruited homeless people from big cities to make numbers at county elections. Since most homeless people at the time had mental issues (many were Vietnam vets, too), things got rowdy. Rajneeshees had to dump some of that people on streets in nearby towns. Also, law enforcement got interested in arranged marriages between American and Canadian, Australian and European Rajneeshees. Charges against Bagwan were actually based on visa fraud (a genius move from Oregon State and Federal AGs, who went to make a brilliant careers afterwards, I think one or another even made it to The US AG).
Much of what we know about poisonings etc. emerged after Sheela and Bagwan fled and the commune was raided. They had tapped the premises. Many people involved made plea deals.
And, I’m not saying the locals can’t be duped. I think this was very much Trump County in 2016 Elections. However, they were right here, and media should have done their work better from the start. German media had someone undercover at Bagwan’s Asram in India in the 1970’s. The US media did nothing of the kind, even if it would have probably been very easy.
Solaia – you hit the nail precisely on the head. What you described brought it all back from the dark closet of my memory. The Rajneeshees had to “outpopulate” the locals by shipping in the dregs from the region, so as to tip any election results toward the Rajneeshees.
Forgot to mention, Rajneeshees also served the homeless people they brought in two pints of beer every evening. The beer was spiked with tranquillizers.
European Rajneeshee also practically founded the rave culture in the 1980’s. They had discos and dance therapy there. Since staying in Asrams was costly, many started carrying MDMA and amphetamine to Europe from India.
It truly messed up the life of many people. Bagwan of course went to become Osho. I remember Osho being used as an example of false spirituality at my Relgious Studies Class back in the early 1990’s. I always found Osho appalling, auras are very real to me, and his seemed murky.That said, I already was interested in Buddhism and Meditation, and thrown back on how all these movements were depicted. But looking back, most Communities here at the day were in fact recruiting for cults, since there are probably dozens of similar scams based on drawing gullable Westeners and their money in India. Even as recently as 10 years ago, I had trouble finding even a yoga teacher whose school wasn’t questionable in some way.