In the previous episode, Providence served as an example for discussing the basic characteristics, methods, and principal aims of cults. Here we turn to another new religious organization: the Rajneesh, or Osho, movement.

The Rajneesh movement entered public view through an experiment involving utopia, democratic institutions, and freedom of belief. In 1981, Osho led many followers to Oregon in the United States to build an ideal city in the wilderness. Within a few years they constructed roads, an airport, a hospital, and a community, while becoming embroiled in local elections, a poisoning attack, political conflict, and judicial investigations. A faith organization ultimately became a public crisis involving state, institutions, and power.

With the documentary Wild Wild Country, we review the Rajneesh movement’s development and also discuss Aum Shinrikyo, the Peoples Temple, and other cult organizations. We invite you to consider:When a faith organization enters a modern state, how does it collide with democratic institutions, procedural justice, and freedom of belief?

 

- How was a utopia built in the wilderness?

- Sheela: why must women’s power always be realized through men?

- Why is God always silent? How does interpretive authority become supreme power?

- From city-building to poisoning: why did the utopian experiment spiral out of control?

- Democracy, procedural justice, and separation of church and state: how did the United States respond to a crisis of faith?

- Once a religion forms, it is difficult for it truly to disappear

- Why does apocalypticism continually return? What kind of new world do people await?

 

- Oppenheimer (2023) (film)

- Wild Wild Country (2018) (documentary)

- The White Lotus, Season 3 (television series)

- The Godfather (1972) (film)

- Haruki Murakami, Underground (book)

- Satya Bharti Franklin, The Promise of Paradise: A Woman’s Intimate Story of a Perilous Life with Rajneesh (book)