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Cults and cult leaders can be a disturbing topic to delve into, but it's crucial to expose these manipulative figures and their actions. Tough topics are always a little easier with a friend by your side and that's why we're joined by Ash from TSFU! This episode takes you on the first half of a dark and twisted journey, that of a notorious figure and his devoted followers. We strip away illusions, exposing the shocking truths, some omitted from the Netflix documentary covering the infamous group and the path of destruction that followed. The Bhagwan (or Rajneesh) proves a puzzling spiritual leader, rejecting traditional religious structures and amassing symbols of wealth. Rajneesh's story is also one of both fame and scandal marked by a number of allegations, and many acts of wrong doing. We’ll explore the controversial habits, and often contradictory beliefs to begin to chip away at one of the key questions regarding the case, how did a man so contentious rise to power & influence? The Rajneeshees would leave an unmistakable trail of violence, abuse, and scandal in a small, rural community of Antelope, Oregon. Part 2 will cover how this group left an indelible mark on Wasco County as well as many surrounding areas of the Pacific Northwest. So, brace yourselves as we unravel the secrets of one of the most extreme cults in the Pacific Northwest.
Exposing the dark underbelly of these spiritual gurus highlights the danger of manipulation and the seductive power of spirituality, underscoring the importance of awareness and vigilance in recognizing the signs of coercive groups, as well as the potentially destructive effects they can have on individuals and communities. Many cult leaders use spirituality as a weapon to control and exploit their followers. By understanding their tactics, we can better equip ourselves to recognize and combat such manipulation, preventing further victimization and ensuring a safer, more informed society.
Today we shared a promo for the podcast They Don't Stay Dead!
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Hi Ashley, hi Caitlin, hi creepy people, I snuck that one in. Oh hello, hello. That's exactly what I usually do. Is the Mrs Doubtfire, hello?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I had like a ghost thing in my mind, but either way, good stuff Either way yeah, and you guys are probably wondering if you're listening to PNW, who the fuck is Ashley? I'm Ashley Richards. And if you're listening to TSFU, you're probably like who the fuck is Caitlin? So this is Caitlin.
Speaker 1:This is PNW Hansen Homicides where, as the title might suggest, we focus on local crimes, primarily here in the Pacific Northwest, and also spooky stories, little bit of the witchy shit, kind of a little mishmash of everything creepy and weird.
Speaker 2:And this is that's so Fucked Up, a podcast about cults, murder and other generally fucked up stuff. Yeah, we duped ya. The title was, you know, just a regular episode title, because, listen, we know you guys, we know you don't like change.
Speaker 1:We know you're like featuring who.
Speaker 2:I don't want to listen to her. I don't know who that is. No, we get it. Change is scary, but this is gonna be good.
Speaker 1:I mean it better be. I've got a lot writing on this.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, now I'm nervous, but it's gonna be yeah, no, I think it's gonna be fun. This is like probably one of the craziest cults I know of.
Speaker 1:I mean it's definitely gonna take the cake, I think, for me, because this is like shit that happened where I live. Oh, right. This is local.
Speaker 2:This is PNW. Yeah, pacific Northwest for the uninitiated. Yeah, or yeah. So you know also what's up. Worldwide people.
Speaker 1:Exactly, they're like what is that?
Speaker 2:You know, I guess probably if they don't listen to your show. I'm sure if they listen to your show they know what the fuck it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, my God, I hope so. Now, at this point, they're like I love this PNW. Hansen homicides. No idea what the PNW stands for yeah, I don't know what that is. It's a weird choice, but okay.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know what People they want to know, what they want to know, yeah, and there have been so many things that I've been like I could Google that really easily right now. I'm just going to continue wondering, though, for the next decade, yeah. Every time it comes up I'll think huh, I wonder yeah, and then I'll go about my day.
Speaker 1:Well, your phone was probably five feet away, which is like four feet further than you were willing to reach, so that makes sense. And yeah, I usually have a co-host. Cassie said to be sure to say hi and sorry that she can't be here. And she said very sarcastically I'm so sorry that I won't be there for all of the murdering. I said well, jokes on you, because there's almost no murder involved in this one.
Speaker 2:Does she not like murder?
Speaker 1:No, she's not a fan. Yeah, she picked a really weird podcast to co-host.
Speaker 2:No, you know what I don't like? Murder that much either. I definitely there are some very crazy ones, but I think I find well, just you guys know me the fucking weird shit. Just I don't know shark attacks and mysterious islands and I don't know. I feel like I like the most random stuff.
Speaker 1:Like I'm just like.
Speaker 2:my interests are so all over the place, but the thing that I am least interested in the world of true crime and fucked up shit is murder.
Speaker 1:I think that's fair. It's pretty self-explanatory.
Speaker 2:Well, and there's not a lot we can do about it other than try to understand the psychology about it, and then even then you have to be at a certain level to do something about that. But I really am super interested, more so in what we're talking about today, which is cults and cult psychology. Really, any high control coercive group, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean it fits the bill.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about. Let's talk about sex, baby. Oh boy, which is actually so fitting for today.
Speaker 1:It really is and I hate that. I really do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. I was making a joke, not so much about the sexual abuse right, more about the fact that they called him the sex guru Right, and the roles Royce guru. Oh boy, which is also. I don't think I need to follow a guru with either of those names.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Who are we talking about today, caitlin, in case nobody read the title Fair, you know, just in case reading is hard, it is. Talking's hard yeah.
Speaker 1:It's. It's a lot harder than it looks.
Speaker 2:I struggle yeah.
Speaker 1:Our outtakes make it abundantly clear. So today we are talking about Shandra Mohan Jane.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that that motherfuckers real name?
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm, call him by his name yeah.
Speaker 2:Fucking bog one. A motherfuckers like the least enlightened I think so. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of sketchy ones.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest but he was bad. He's pretty bad in a race to the bottom. He is still really. He's one of those circling the drain type of dudes I feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I watched Wild Wild Country like six times. I swear to God, I was obsessed. And what I found out later is that there was actually rampant fucking sexual abuse going on in the commune. That was totally not fucking touched on whatsoever in the documentary. So it's kind of like fuck that. So I was watching this other documentary this morning because I covered him in episode 20 of my podcast, which was Wait back when, when you were a baby podcaster.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:It's like 130 episodes ago almost, or 120 or something. So I was I was really excited to talk about this again, especially going back and learning some new information, and it's just so much worse than I even thought, and that is with these people having done the first like bio terrorist attack in America. It's so much worse than I thought, knowing that. So yeah yeah, have you played Colpingo ever?
Speaker 1:Well, listening you know what I haven't, because I'm usually at work and I'm usually trying my best to be doing something with my with my hands, usually writing an email that's work related, because you know that's, that's sort of the unspoken agreement.
Speaker 2:So I'm not really a fan of the bullet focus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:For you, yeah, um, but let's play Colpingo. I was going to say we might need to because, as I was watching, I was just like, oh my God, yes, x marks the spot. Mm, hmm, yup, it's all there. That one Check, Check. I was like this motherfucker is lighting this up like a Christmas tree. So everybody, go to TSFU, the podcastcom. Click on, play with us there. You can either join our discord, which is a super fun thing to do, caitlin, mm, hmm, it's free. It's a really fun community. And the other option there is to play bingo. So click bingo for now, and then we. You will see a selection of murder, cold and fucked up bingo. So today we're going to play Colpingo and you and I are just we're going to race to get there, because one of us is going to get there for sure. Yeah, it's just who's the quickest? That's what she said.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm fair. This is. This is perfect, though, cause I actually played regular regular as bingo yesterday, and it was far less satisfying than I have a feeling this, this particular game, will be, so this makes even the most sad, aggressive and abusive cults a hoot Perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I realized that I say shit was such deadpan humor and just move along sometimes that I'm like I should clarify that I'm joking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was joking.
Speaker 2:You guys, some people don't know, but we're you know.
Speaker 1:It is a way that we can compartmentalize and that helps us to not just absorb the yuck.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's why I have. I would like to change it to true crime light instead of true crime genre. I think the genre needs a rebrand cause. True crime light means just like, delivered in a less intense manner. And yeah, we do that because soaking in the pain of hundreds of thousands of people while simultaneously dealing with our own without throwing a couple of defensive circles, it's kind of a drag. Yeah, I can't, I can't just like get super depressed.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I already have enough of that. Just you know, floating around at all.
Speaker 1:I've got my own stuff, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't take on, but I do think that the most beneficial thing that we can do in the true crime genre is talk about cults and coercive groups, because whether it's an MLM oh boy, troubled teen industry, you know boarding schools and camps, fucking cults, just coercive groups in general, they're everywhere. Hey, what's up, hey girl. So just hey, what's up, hey, what's up, hey what's up, hey, what's up, hey, what's up hey, what's up, hey, what's up, hey, what's up, hey, what's up. One of the most important things I think we can do is talk about them and just let people know. It's like spread information.
Speaker 1:The awareness Knowledge?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely the star the more you know the rainbow, yeah so, oh, my God, I'm dying. I already like see fucking bingo in my goddamn head. But even though we know all the information, we can only hit the bingo squares as they are touched upon in the story.
Speaker 1:Well, we're off to. Yeah, I mean, I could already have bingo as well but Exactly so.
Speaker 2:that's why we have to have that rule.
Speaker 1:Our story begins in India, where one of our main protagonists, which he's the only one we've talked about so far Chandra Mohanjain, was born on December 11th of 1931 to Jane parents, which I didn't really know a lot about the Jane faith, but if I'm being honest, it sounds like a much cooler pluralistic philosophy than what this guy ends up cooking up. So there's that.
Speaker 2:Oh, he goes nutty dude yeah. So I mean, maybe should have stuck with the Jainism.
Speaker 1:Just the thought this young boy would grow up to become a philosopher, become a philosophy teacher himself, though later he would become something much more significant. Significant not necessarily in a positive context, just in case that wasn't clear.
Speaker 2:No, no, I mean, he was definitely victimizing Indians before he was victimizing a whole bunch of fucking white hippies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's go international with this franchise. This, if you will.
Speaker 2:Oh, he was on his way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, many would come to think of him as a New Age thought leader. But first let's talk about some of the building blocks of the eventual heavy air quotes. New man, okay.
Speaker 2:Also can we just say really quick that anytime, like we have like. New Age thrown in the title like be weary okay, yes, like we're fucking New Age teal swan okay. Like just New Age is just eastern fucking philosophy wrapped in Western packaging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just cultural appropriation that we've decided is acceptable in isolated incidents.
Speaker 2:For some reason, Cult leaders love it though.
Speaker 1:They really do.
Speaker 2:They love it, especially the ones who lean the more kind of like yogi route Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Well, and here's the issue that I take with it. Okay, this is, first of all, one of the ridiculous things that you'll hear in the documentary and in almost any piece that's covering this guy, but it's how he wants to literally build society anew, man along with mankind. And to me I just say well, listen, if it's so easy, don't you think that there's at least one generation of women that would have put that idea into practice?
Speaker 2:Wasn't there something that in his little booklet about you know, his first book was called like sexuality to spirituality.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:He was totally like capitalizing on sex from the beginning.
Speaker 1:Hello sex cells, mm-hmm. No, I mean the thing that just comes to mind for me when we're going through this section of kind of his history and the philosophy and everything I'm literally picturing. There's a specific movie scene and it's Catherine Heigl and her character just completely self-righteously, and she's so flustered and she's just the most Catherine Heigl that she's ever been in this moment and she says you know, for men, self-improvement ends with toilet training and I'm like so how exactly are you bringing about this whole new man thing?
Speaker 2:Well, it definitely it wasn't eugenics, but it was like, hey, let's breed the best people possible. Which I think is eugenics, but they used a different word Right.
Speaker 1:Eugenics has like such a negative connotation. Yeah, let's rebrand it.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry.
Speaker 1:She's like I'm going to Google it. I'm like I. Yeah, okay so anyways continue. Yeah, I mean at the risk of sounding like we're coming in a little hot for the patriarchy today, it just really angers me when you've got a fake feminist, cult guru, capitalist selling machine who's rising to power. It's just, it's a lot of really conflicting energies that are kind of battling it out for yeah, Was it genetic engineering?
Speaker 2:Oh, it might have been. No, I don't know. I got to move on.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's actual genetics necessarily that they're looking to manipulate. So that's where it maybe differs from genetic engineering or from eugenics.
Speaker 2:Which is for anybody not familiar, is the breeding out of undesirable traits. Yeah, it's a super nice way to put it. Yeah, hitler was super into it.
Speaker 1:Tends to be pretty problematic.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you think in his kind of cleansing or whatever, it was more of a spiritual eugenics?
Speaker 1:Yeah, unless I completely misunderstood the point, which I'll admit. You know that's a viable option, that's possible yeah. Yeah, okay. So he was the oldest of 11 children, which in my life personally, you do you, but that's 11 too many, oh my God thought jinx, because I was literally going to say that.
Speaker 2:I swear I didn't read it on the paper. I don't know if it says that, but that was just. That is so funny. That was my immediate thought.
Speaker 1:I was like hmm, 11 too many at least, yeah, so when his parents inherited a family business after his paternal grandmother's death, he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents, which to me just seems like kind of a. That's a rough way to go in life. You know, your parents take on a family business and they're like okay, we don't really have time for you. Bye, yeah.
Speaker 2:Feels a little I don't know. I don't have a hard time conjuring up too much sympathy for him because he's a terrible person and while neglecting children is not okay.
Speaker 1:Well, at least he wasn't truly neglected in the sense that.
Speaker 2:He's with his grandparents.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, he's been given to other caretakers. So, yeah, don't, don't break your back trying to bend over the opposite way to.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's interesting information, I suppose. But I'm not, like I'm not crying, yeah.
Speaker 1:World's tiniest violin. I'm inclined to agree. So when he was a small child and he's living with his grandparents they actually brought a top astrologer at the time to do his birth charts, and he was predicted to die very young. He was supposedly doomed to die before age seven, and so the astrologer said that he would have to redo his chart again when he reached the magical age of seven assuming that he lived that long, which doesn't already breed a lot of confidence in this prediction, because he's saying well, if he lives to seven, I'll redo the chart. I should hope so and not at an additional fee, I assume, sir.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty heavy diagnosis to throw on somebody at age of fucking four or whatever it was, yeah, exactly Exactly.
Speaker 1:As a child he struggled with asthma, which same can confirm. It's probably not going to make you start a cult, though it's scary, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't care for it, but Lacking oxygen, not ideal.
Speaker 1:No, it's not great, but to date, zero cults in the bag for me, so I feel like that's where our paths totally diverge. Spoiler alert he did not die young, despite teenage dramatics about a near death experience. I'm not going to even get into it, but suffice to say for a guy that should have died twice already, he is still very much alive. He did end up, not now. No, not at this point. He's dead as fuck now. Yeah, super dead. He suffers from chronic deadness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's like way dead, you guys.
Speaker 1:Don't worry.
Speaker 2:Soob's dead. I actually do worry, though, because there are still people around the world just like worshiping his philosophy. So worry you guys. No, don't worry, Just educate yourselves. Thanks for being here. You're doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just remain vigilant.
Speaker 2:Don't worry, that's a waste of energy. People tell me.
Speaker 1:It's not good for your heart health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't be hyper-vigilant, but vigilant, yeah, vigilant, yeah. Keep your eyes open.
Speaker 1:Who's this guy in the?
Speaker 2:weird robes, telling me he knows everything.
Speaker 1:Just be wary. Yeah, you know, maybe you write down a list of follow-up questions and you just keep those in your back pocket.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So he did end up getting a philosophy degree, despite being a very disruptive and argumentative student. So he was just a dick. He really was.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. He was just like I know better than you teachers.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is a thousand percent the energy that this guy brings, which is what's the paul?
Speaker 2:dick energy.
Speaker 1:I was literally going to say that is the opposite of BDE.
Speaker 2:for anyone who we are on the same page my friend.
Speaker 1:If you know, you know.
Speaker 2:If you have to talk about how cool you are and how much you know, you're not cool and you don't know shit. Yeah, but you know what. Then he gets all silent and is like that means that I do know stuff. That was just a really tricky way also to not know shit. No, he was a sly bastard. He really is. He really is. He's slippery fuck yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean, this dude just sounds like a literal nightmare, and apparently so much so that at a certain point, they started exempting him from classes, so all he had to do was sit for exams, and this was actually in deference to the other students, so that he wouldn't be so disruptive during their courses.
Speaker 2:Why didn't they just kick him out? Was his family really rich or powerful, or something?
Speaker 1:You know, I didn't find any indication of that. I don't know why this seemingly very preferential and very undeserved treatment was Like, why, why?
Speaker 2:Listen, I've only run a couple universities, but for me that would be an immediate expulsion.
Speaker 1:Right, what the fuck this guy?
Speaker 2:again. I know, listen, I'm going to the principal's office, you're out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's enough of that. I do have to say, maybe you get this like oh, I was supposed to die and then I lived a little bit. You start getting like feeling a little bit of God, complex and then you go to school and you're like you know what, I know more of these people. The ego keeps building a little bit more. You're like I can say and do whatever I want. They're like no, that's cool, you can do that. We'll still give you a fucking master's in philosophy, because you're just like so smart and awesome and you can do whatever you want. So I can see how. It's reinforcing that bad behavior For some reason yeah, those around him have been like, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:They're like this is fine. Yeah, we like that. We like that in men. You know, god forbid, you were a female student and we'd probably have you beheaded, but yeah, the audacity of you trying to read a book and share your opinion about it. Yeah, wow, it's too much. So Blah, blah, blah. He's done with school. Like, really really done. Like as if he didn't even do school in the first place, like, yeah, kind of sucked at it he didn't even go there. Yeah, he didn't even go there. I.
Speaker 2:Literally, could make that reference in every episode, I don't know. Yeah, always applies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if you find a killer Movie quote or catchphrase like why bother saying anything else?
Speaker 2:That's kind of original. Yeah, when you could just rip off other people's.
Speaker 1:I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel here.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're smarter, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. So he would become known for teaching dynamic meditation, which literally seems like the opposite of what you want to do if you're trying to meditate. It's a whole thing and I'm gonna circle back to it. Okay, but I'm I'm not gonna make you wait for his thoughts on Gandhi, because it's it's fucking obnoxious and rude and You're gonna hate it, I have a feeling. So he's invented this new kind of meditation that is pretty wild. But that's not all. He also has these really loud and kind of counterintuitive opinions, like he constantly criticized Gandhi and lauded Capitalism, which is kind of pretty much the opposite of Gandhi, right, oh?
Speaker 2:dude. Yeah, his obsession with capitalism and the mixture of that with spirituality was yeah, weird, it's a little. It seems a little unhealthy look, I don't want to come off as totally uninformed, but I Mean Gandhi. I don't know exactly what I did, what he did. I just know he was.
Speaker 1:The hunger is really peaceful, yes, yes, peaceful.
Speaker 2:The hunger strike. Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that.
Speaker 1:So so you can see that clearly, I too am Very well-informed?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I I do know peaceful. He lived in India, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean super peaceful, dude Peaceful.
Speaker 1:Indian guy living in India and trying to be peaceful. For this context, it's really just about that, gandhi was very much like he, okay sure. It's you know, he did wear a robe. Yes, it's living sort of an impoverished type of existence that you know you are trying to serve others.
Speaker 2:But you, I could tell you what's also what's really up, because I googled it.
Speaker 1:Give it to me he was.
Speaker 2:He was also a lawyer and an anti-colonial Nationalist. Yeah, we use nonviolent resistance. Not a fan of the Brits, this guy. No, it was against the British, you know, see, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like, yeah, come on, how much context do you need? So you know, other than hating on Gandhi, who just was like hey, don't maybe be a dick and like rich people kind of suck, and also so do the British a little bit kind of. He was really big on sexual liberation, but Therefore the sex guru. Yeah. I'm exactly, but don't throw him a big parade yet, ladies, because he was definitely trying to butter some people up when he was expressing I Think he referred to it as sort of the superiority of women right, and didn't he?
Speaker 2:uh he, he Said that sex was the first step towards Super consciousness. I don't know about you, but that sounds even better than consciousness.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm super conscious.
Speaker 2:So he's like fuck away you guys.
Speaker 1:That's how you get enlightened right, that's what you want to do. And I mean, here's the other part where I'm like, damn, this guy might have had me for a minute. Okay, might have had me going. He felt that women's ability to have multiple orgasms led men to try to control and oppress them out of fear and in need for dominance, which is so close to something resembling self-awareness about, like your gender. But, trust me, like he's just going to become very sexually coercive and he's gonna make some really terribly problematic comments about rape, amongst other topics that I'm just not going to repeat. None of us is gaining anything by learning what this fuck bag of a human thinks about rape.
Speaker 2:But can you still tell that while that is like, while that statement is clipped in Female empowerment, he's still saying that this is why men Hurt you, right? Yeah, I mean, it's still make them feel inferior with all your fucking coming like you get to come over and over and it makes them feel inferior. Yeah so it's? It's not at all. It's like cult leaders and leaders of curse of grips are so good at mixing up words, salad that just like sounds tasty and fresh and crispy, and then, when you like deeply, look at what they're saying like wait, no, that's bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's basically like you know you can be successful, but don't be too successful, because that's threatening for you know those of us that are proud owners of penises, right, yeah, no, I mean, that's very much what it is it's. You know, it sounds like boys will be boys. It's right there. It's oh man. Okay, here's the other part. So I I mentioned that there are some other topics that he has, some I don't know some thoughts and feelings that I Don't even want to say that they haven't aged well, because I I would like to think that there were people at the time saying, hey, that's not super cool, but he was really only into the sexual liberation and you know, you shouldn't be sexually repressed, but Only if you're a chick that happens to be into boning dudes. He's not into that gay stuff. What about?
Speaker 2:lady on lady action. None of that either you know it doesn't.
Speaker 1:I don't know that. I got a clear-cut answer on that. I'm not sure that he's given his hot take on girl, on girl specifically, but you know, we feel like there can be a real double standard there.
Speaker 2:Oh, can there ever but you know what he was cool with though? Pedophilia, so that's fun. I mean, fuck the gaze. But if you want to fuck kids, you're cool, come on in, it's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean actually liberated here.
Speaker 2:Why not? We're set You're sexually liberated to fuck kids, but not Assholes if you have a dick or what like really don't like that. That's. That's a. I hate those rules.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not for that idiot, idiot. So we've got, you know, and actually now we've got an extra box to check. Ash brought that in, so thank you for pedophilia.
Speaker 2:Into it today because, because I had heard, you know whispers.
Speaker 1:I don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, in the documentary that I watched, but they didn't go into it. So it's like they don't.
Speaker 1:I gotta dig into this like and you do have to dig for that. That's not something. No, you have to dig.
Speaker 2:I had to like specifically be like child sexual abuse at Rajnees Purim, not just like it. Sexual abuse did not just like. I had to specify and Then came the information. It's like why is this not made More, yeah, relevant information, considering that these communities are still Like going on?
Speaker 1:worldwide. It's almost like they don't want people to know.
Speaker 2:Bitch. I have almost gone to an eclectic dance thing which I don't know if you know, but is one of his like types of meditation, just rebranded Mm-hmm. You heard of this.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I heard about this club, but you just go like.
Speaker 2:I mean, I just read about it on a flyer, it's like wow, your local yoga center or something. It definitely. Maybe it had a quote from Osho or something you know and I was like well, cool, you just go like, dance it out. Like I Was so close so many times and like I've said before, I think my alcoholism did put me in a little cult for a little bit. Well, I think, without it I might have ended in like a real worse, like a real real bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:I was too busy, like drinking at home by myself, to go do the things that I was like. This sounds kind of cool. Little blessings, hey, silver linings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, exactly, so we can check the box for misogyny.
Speaker 2:Homophobia. I gotta check in the bingo here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just did that. I'm checking the boxes for let's see misogyny, pedophilia, now homophobia.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Um, there's a lot of stuff that we haven't gotten to yet here. That is Like this whole thing's gonna be lit up. We just haven't fucking gotten it, yeah we're gonna get that.
Speaker 1:We gotta keep rolling, exactly, okay. Well, honestly, it's like he was created in a cancel culture lab to be canceled.
Speaker 2:He's really no better than.
Speaker 1:Keith Ranieri.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's at their same level.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's why I created Colt Bingo, because the more I talked about Colts, the more I was like, well, aren't these motherfuckers just all the same Like they just copy? Oh which? One of the bingo tiles that I just clicked is cherry picked.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Cherry picked different. You know philosophies and fucking this and that from other religions and Colts and stuff. So oh yeah, you guys are playing that and you've got that on your. That was gonna say your tic-tac-toe board. That's not this. This is bingo. Bingo Click that bingo button.
Speaker 1:Get her. So even at that, all of these boxes checked, which is still just a fraction of all of the box checking that we need to do we're still decades away from all of the shit that made the nightly news and the newspapers, which, if we have any Gen Z listeners, it'll probably be quicker If you just Google those things or ask your parents. We don't have the time.
Speaker 2:Most of my listeners are millennial or the next step.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Gen X, I'm like there are legitimately people that could start what's up my ladies in their 40s.
Speaker 2:Hey girls, hey and 50s. I know you're there. No, she's in your game.
Speaker 1:So the base here we've all. We've got it under control. We know what a newspaper is. That's a relief I do. So. We already know that he did not care for Gandhi, which I feel like is a somewhat unusual stance for an Indian born man who didn't necessarily come from means or a powerful and or British family. He disagreed with Gandhi's insistence on extolling the virtues of poverty that he believed would never allow the people of India to elevate their circumstances in any meaningful form or fashion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember this. He said you can only make a man rich in his mind of. Everything else is purposeless and it's like OK, and that's why one of your goals was to get a Guinness World Record for having the most roles Royce's. Yeah, that was literally one of his goals. Like that's that while you're telling people that worldly riches do nothing? Yeah, I don't know, it feels weird.
Speaker 1:Sort of hard to know where he falls on this one. He's kind of he's kind of all over the place. So he's a big fan of capitalism and he really thought that it would allow people, specifically in India, to strive for more in their existence. And he's kind of one of those rare examples of a spiritual leader who values material possessions and he doesn't see that as problematic. So he's kind of like he's playing both sides of the fence, trying to be this, you know, like we said, new age spiritual leader. He's very picky.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, he's throwing out some you know Eastern philosophy saying I'm sure he's throwing a little bit of like casual, you know Buddhism and then some fucking capitalism. He's all over the place, yeah.
Speaker 1:He's all over the place. He's rejected the typical traditional religious structures and institutions, but he's still really comfortable telling you exactly how you should or should not be living your life. He just didn't feel comfortable taking an oath of poverty himself. And I mean, I certainly haven't. I'm not playing it too.
Speaker 2:Poor people are gross. You look poor. Why do you look like?
Speaker 1:that you should get some.
Speaker 2:Balenciaga. That's what the show was called right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Anybody didn't watch it. Vintyaga Anna, yeah, that was funny.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, why are you look poor yeah?
Speaker 2:So fast forward a few years to about 1966, and he'd been teaching philosophy for a while, but he stopped teaching to be a full time spiritual leader. I believe the people named him Bhagwan right Like he didn't. He didn't take on that name at first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think that was. I mean shockingly. I don't think he like nominated himself as Bhagwan. I mean I could see it playing out that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. So Bhagwan means, I believe, enlightened one, and he was first just saying oh no, I'm just like a lowly. Something besides the Bhagwan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, dude, I'm humble.
Speaker 2:Around 1964, his teachings were really resonating with people and he was starting to accrue followers and lead meditation camps, and this is around the time that he was crowned. Bhagwan you know. So I don't know if that's how it usually works if people declare themselves a spiritual leader or if other people declare it for them, but it was other people that just you know. He was very charismatic.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:And so I think that you know, by the time he got named Bhagwan he was. You know, by the time he got named Bhagwan he was like I'm not going to teach anymore because he'd been doing some assistant teaching and shit. He was like teachings for suckers. I'm a full-time spiritual leader now. Like fuck you guys, and I really. I think it's really interesting too, because in February of 1968, the Beatles went to Rishikesh in northern India to take a transcendental meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and this is, in my opinion, what really led to Westerners flocking to India to find spiritual enlightenment. I think it was the Beatles, they went they came back they were like, oh my God, it was amazing, we're enlightened, now we have a guru, and I think they're really what kicked off this Western obsession with Indian gurus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean Klein, to agree, I mean you go from one day, yeah. I mean, one day you're throwing your panties up, you know, at Paul McCartney on the stage, and then the next day you're not wearing panties because you've joined this, you know movement.
Speaker 2:Yeah which why aren't they wearing panties? I don't know Okay. I was being a smartass.
Speaker 1:Hold on.
Speaker 2:I was like someone was encouraged not to wear underwear at some point recently. Oh, it's later. He would have like secret meetings with ladies where he would you know pass on his powers through sexual molestation and such. And this woman describes being instructed to go in the night wearing like a long flowy robe and no underwear to go see him for like a special meditation session. Just fantastic. He was fucking gross dude.
Speaker 1:He's, I mean beyond gross, beyond gross. And then it's not that long after that you know it's a handful of years later that in 1974, an ashram was built in Pune, india, and you know you've already brought up the fact that he had quite a few Rolls Royces. That becomes sort of his thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is jam yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's around. That time is when he really kind of starts accruing some of those worldly symbols of wealth and the Rolls Royces. That's when we kind of start seeing him collecting those and that's we're getting on that bandwagon around this point.
Speaker 2:So this started in India.
Speaker 1:He had Rolls Royces in.
Speaker 2:India. Okay, and that's probably part of the reason they were like get the fuck out of here, dude. Right, like we smell fish, right, yeah, and it's you. You're fishy, fishy, get out.
Speaker 1:You smell.
Speaker 2:Sheet yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly and that's one of the things that his ever growing group of followers at this point because you said he's really rising to fame and he's being nominated essentially this spiritual leader and this is at a time when some of the spiritual traditions of India were sort of blending with that 1960s, 1970s era, the human potential psychotherapies that were being developed at the Session Institute in Big Sur in California. So it's this very like West Coast, like kind of surfer dude, like drop, an LSD type of energy, and it's basically Americans now being, you know, up to this point uninitiated, and people all over the world. Now we're being introduced to things like primal therapy, encounter therapy.
Speaker 2:And you guys, this is like big violent orgies. I'm not fucking. If you see the footage, there are several members of opposite sex in a padded room, butt, ass naked, literally like mashing and getting into, like really violent, physical, intense situations and like, also like sexual and just like a. Really the energy is really aggressive. So there was also, like you said, encounter therapy and in one session a woman didn't want to have sex with the dude that she was paired with and the fucking whole group attacked her like, ripped off her clothes, slapped her, just fucking, attacked her and left her naked and with a bloody nose.
Speaker 1:Thank you, that's, it's real therapy, that's assault. No, absolutely the big difference. Yeah, this is where we start to see like, whether you know the group was in India or you know, eventually you know spoiler here in the US. There's like this, really dark and aggressive, and like the undertone of so much of what this group is doing is just not okay.
Speaker 2:It's like pink in maroon and red and orange and it be dippy sunshine flowers liberation. Yeah, and it was not like that. Underneath that it was like drug trafficking and sex trafficking, sexual assault on women and children, fucking, kidnapping homeless people, oh my.
Speaker 1:God.
Speaker 2:Putting them on the streets and poison in salad bars with salmonella.
Speaker 1:That is a banger.
Speaker 2:Don't be too impressed. That was off the top.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I like it.
Speaker 2:I like it. No I mean not like the fucking Partridge family, Like it was all painted out to be.
Speaker 1:Right, right, exactly. Well, and here's the thing is that you know parents of you know people kind of coming up in this generation that you know, we know, I think primarily as boomers all of their parents were clutching their pearls and they didn't even know about anything. That was really like truly the seedy underbelly Bitch.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie. I would be clutching my pearls. Okay, Well, sure I would be my age today. No, I could be 35 in the eighties, living in Antelope, and I would be clutching my pearls watching these like fucking purple zombie people walk down the street. I'd be judgy as fuck too. I don't, I don't, I'm not like oh, look at those old rednecks being all judgy. I'm like dude. I'd be like shutter the place down, you guys, they're coming.
Speaker 1:That is the benefit of like hindsight is 20, 20.
Speaker 2:Oh man you saw the footage where they're like walking down the street and just like pairs and like ones and just like like all kind of like zombies, just like walking through this tiny town to the forbidden or promised land or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, I guess to me I'm thinking of it from the perspective of like this is like people that are going to be freaked out by, I mean like beat nicks, you know, like, basically like, oh, that guy, he writes too much poetry.
Speaker 2:Obviously we're like what a fucking monster. We're fast forwarding a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um no, I gotta admit I judge these people.
Speaker 1:I judge the hell out of them right off the fucking bat.
Speaker 2:The outfits were pretty weird. Also I might have joined because, like you said, hindsight is 20, 20. And it's like, oh well, I know what I know now, but you know what did I know when I was 20? No, the goddamn thing, no, nothing.
Speaker 1:No, no, that's where they get that phrase Right.
Speaker 2:So people are probably like during that song. They're like what the fuck are you talking about? And we also just like skipped forward to Oregon. So also they might be like what the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1:So sorry, that's my oh. I'm going to connect the dots. Yeah, Okay, yeah yeah. Like Salmonella, solid bars, like I don't know the story yet.
Speaker 2:I know, but the thing is like it's not spoilies, because if you don't know what I was talking about, you still don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:I promise you, you have no fucking idea. It is wild, it's a ride. It's a ride and a half. I think it's certainly more than you bargained for.
Speaker 2:That is literally what I was thinking right then.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:She's like it's more than I bargained for I'm clutching my pearls as we speak.
Speaker 1:So at this time his personal secretary was Lakshmi and he also had an assistant secretary, which like why does one person need so many secretaries? And I'm really glad we've moved away from calling them secretaries on the whole, Dude.
Speaker 2:He was running a very large cold. I understand why he needed so many secretaries. I get it. Listen, I'm here to be on nobody's side.
Speaker 1:Apparently she's like devil's advocate for days over here.
Speaker 2:No, sorry, I'm actually. I'm like with the townspeople of Oregon which we're getting to, yeah we're getting there.
Speaker 1:We're getting there. I'm introducing the major players.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean except for the one, but I also have a weird fondness for Sheila, Like I'm kind of like you know what, you believed in something and you went for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's. That's one of those comments Also, I think she's a psychopath, yeah.
Speaker 2:And a very charismatic one. Yeah, darn it.
Speaker 1:She got me again. No, she does, she does. She gets a lot of people. That's what I found, that's what I found through researching this, and I was like I don't share your feelings, but I see where they're coming from.
Speaker 2:I see you.
Speaker 1:I see you and I am backing away slowly. Hello yeah, so Ma Anand Sheila was the assistant secretary. That dynamic is going to shift pretty quick, so don't let that assistant secretary title fool you. She's going to start running shiz at a certain point.
Speaker 2:This bitch wants power, and she knows how to get it.
Speaker 1:She sure does. Oh boy, she is a motivated lady which normally.
Speaker 2:She acts like she was all the innocent.
Speaker 1:She was like oh, oh, such revisionist history?
Speaker 2:I don't know, sheila.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sheila. Yeah, I was literally just going to say Sheila, you are foolish. Yeah, because Lakshmi is actually given what I feel like is kind of a next to impossible task. And immediately, this dude's parting words were basically don't come back from your travels until you do the thing. Okay, bye. And Sheila's like listen, I'm going to jump all over the opportunity that I feel like has presented itself here. I'm just going to slide right into Bhagwan's DMs and be like look, lakshmi does not have what it takes to do your bidding, but of course she does. I got you Well she does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean she does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's going to prove it. So, to recap, he's becoming extremely wealthy and beloved by his followers, which he is super all for his followers, who, increasingly, have offended the locals in India with their reportedly promiscuous behavior, or that some of them have financed their ashram experiences with drug or sex trafficking If they didn't arrive in India as already wealthy followers. So if you weren't rich and you were going to join up, you had to have a way to find finance some of the things that you're trying to do.
Speaker 2:So you could either bring drugs with you or have sex with people. What I was seeing was that Sex trafficking can't be the same.
Speaker 1:It is confusing, but that's something that I saw in a number of like different source materials but they don't really explain that fully, and I wonder if, when they say sex trafficking, what they really mean is that some of the followers entered sex work to finance To, yeah, I don't, I'm not really sure. That part's unclear, let us know if you know yeah. Were you there.
Speaker 2:Hey you never know Like these people are not fucking dead a lot of them. They might be listening and maybe we're there.
Speaker 1:Could be. They're like uh listen, I already fell for this one, so I'm gonna listen and see if I can't figure out how to avoid, you know, falling into a second honey pod, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I mean they really pull the rug out from under people. It always starts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, seeing pretty cool. Yeah, I mean I think you probably, if you've listened to any other podcast that's talked about any number of cults, one of the things that they do is they don't specifically target like dumbasses. They go for like really smart people, people that are useful and have a knowledge base or a skill set that you know makes them like these. You know, very highly functional individuals who are at a key moment in time.
Speaker 2:Right and very vulnerable. Yeah and um, so they're driving him out of India because they're like dude, you fucking suck. You're totally not vibing with our jam at all. Like you gotta go. So Lakshmi and Sheila are like now in a war to find. They're duking it out them like a new, you know paradise.
Speaker 1:So Sheila finds this incredible desert ranching paradise in Oregon, sheila, in 1974, the Indian government pulls the tax exempt status of his ashram and sends a notice to the tune of several million dollars worth of back taxes.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's no fun.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. Yeah, that's what I've heard. His health was also failing. So good news. Around this time, sheila and Lakshmi have been kind of duking it out for supremacy and they're, you know, wanting to find where is their new home going to be. It's around this time that Sheila she realizes that the group needs to go to the United States because the US Constitution protects their religious freedom. Right America? Oh yeah, mm-hmm. But first her husband has to die, which is so dark I was like I'm just going to deadpan it and then, yikes, it's terrible.
Speaker 2:Doesn't he die in America?
Speaker 1:He does. I mean they don't start the settlement until after he dies. Oh, okay. I'm kind of confusing because there's a lot of these like events, that sort of like kind of feel like they overlap or like where were they? So they come to America, because Sheila's husband is American. Her husband's name is Mark. He's been battling with Hodgkins for 13 years before he eventually dies. She's a really bad cancer. Yeah right, it's not fun at all. No, he's been really going through it. So he passes away and apparently she's never cried up until after he actually passes, because the Bogwan told her that Mark would be afraid to let himself die if he saw her crying.
Speaker 2:I think I'd be kind of bummed if my partner wasn't crying as I was dying. I'd be like hello, do you not care?
Speaker 1:Like why am I?
Speaker 2:not worth a tear here.
Speaker 1:Just like one time.
Speaker 2:One time though, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean it's really creepy in the documentary because she's literally the most cheerful woman I've ever seen in some of these photos and that's including the ones where they're taking Mark's body to a funeral pyre, and that's a little unsettling that is so classic cult leader telling you how to feel and act.
Speaker 2:Sure is Every goddamn time Jesus.
Speaker 1:I don't even think I've got that one. Where is that? Going back to the bingo. I'm like I am gunning for this one. Oh, yeah, yeah. So after his death, the Bogwan had his doctors put her to sleep for three days, according to Sheila. I don't know that I've seen anybody else substantiate this, but she's apparently sedated for three days and then after that she pours herself into the work, as she put it. So you know nothing controlling or manipulative about that at all.
Speaker 2:She's sedated for three days, not feeling anything about the loss that she just experienced, and then pours herself into work to further avoid feeling the loss of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just compartmentalize and push all those feelings you have, push them down, down and away.
Speaker 2:They hate when you have feelings in cults.
Speaker 1:Well, they are inconvenient, okay.
Speaker 2:So when you say she's pouring herself into the work, you mean like looking for a new place to live because they need to get out of Puna at this point, exactly yeah. And it's like in the States looking for land for them, because the Indian government is like hey, pay us. And they're like we'd rather leave instead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, that's our money. Yeah, we really don't want to. We'd rather not, right? Yeah, so we're just going to leave. Yeah, so she actually starts out by looking for land in New Jersey, because I always wondered, like, how did they end up here In Oregon? And the truth is that this wasn't their first choice at all, which, ouch like, makes us feel a little bit like okay, fine, whatever Second choice, but cool Rude, yeah, I think so. So she didn't have any luck there and we just kind of moved up the list. I guess, and you know, oregon becomes like where they're going to settle.
Speaker 2:They were able to get this like massive piece of property for pretty fucking cheap, right, because it was super cheap, because it was land that was not supposed to be inhabited by humans, like it wasn't super people friendly.
Speaker 1:Right, it's definitely not supposed to be inhabited by humans in the capacity that they had in mind.
Speaker 2:Well, I think they were zoned for six people and they had like 2,000 people living there.
Speaker 1:Oh, zoned for six. See, I don't know that. I heard that specific number, but I know they definitely end up there with 2,000.
Speaker 2:Six, seems really small, but I did hear that in this documentary that I watched earlier. It's so interesting Because I think it's mostly just supposed to be like a ranching land for one family or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is.
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