Stopping by "New Paradise"

It was the early 1980s and I was on the West Coast for no reason in particular, bumming around after college while waiting for my adult life to start. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and as long as I stayed in motion I didn't have to think about it. It was nothing to hop into a car with friends and drive pretty much anywhere we could afford gas to go to.

On a lark a friend and I drove from Portland, Oregon, where I briefly lived, to the eastern part of that state, which is rugged and barren and arid, completely unlike the verdant western side.

By chance we stopped for lunch in a small town then called Antelope. It was soon to be renamed Rajneeshpuram, as it was gradually taken over by the followers of a cult leader, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The cult had already built housing, tourist shops, and work buildings, and cult members had registered to vote and would soon take over the governing body of the small town.

The cult was just beginning its ambitious plans when my friend and I happened by. On the day before we got there Rajneesh had ordered everyone to cease wearing orange robes and to wear red robes. He didn't give a reason, nor did he need to; everyone immediately dyed their clothes or bought new ones. The old orange ones were thrown in massive piles to be burned. (Later he would reverse his order, and it was back to orange.)

Everything stopped mid-day as his followers lined up along the roadside to have him bless them as he drove by in his Rolls Royce. He smiled beatifically, his index and middle fingers held together in a lazy wave.

Being a follower of Rajneesh meant doing his bidding, not just dyeing your robes but, it was later learned, sexual coercion and violence. The local community and the state fought the cult's expansion and the cult pushed back hard. Members of the cult spread salmonella poisoning at local restaurants, sickening over seven hundred people, and in a few years cult members would be indicted on charges of attempted murder, wiretapping, arson, and voter fraud. A few years after that, Rajneesh would be arrested for immigration fraud and deported to his native India.

My friend and I knew nothing about all that at the time. We had a vegetarian lunch in the cafeteria and browsed the devotional books and unlikely cult-themed t-shirts and tchotchkes in the gift shop. Everyone was overwhelmingly kind and helpful and joyous. They offered us a tour of the property and to stay for dinner, even a place to sleep for the night.

We were broke and considered the offer but somehow understood how easy it would be to lose ourselves in such a warm light of positivity and love, and how, for many cult members, a night's stay convinced them to never leave.

Rajneesh's followers line up in their freshly-dyed robes for the daily blessing as he's chauffeured by in his Rolls Royce. He would eventually own ninety-three of them.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh driving one of his many Rolls-Royces, his lieutenant and chief enforcer Ma Anand Sheela always at his side.

The fascinating and harrowing story of the cult is told in the Netflix series Wild Wild Country.