Wild Wild Country, the binge-worthy documentary series on Netflix, is a dive deep into the story of Rajneeshpuram. In the early 1980s, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (known later as Osho) moved his controversial religious community from Pune to a rural ranch in the middle of nowhere, in Oregon. Thousands of disciples dressed in different shades of red followed him to form a spiritually-enlightened city on a 64,000-acre ranch. They began building Rajneeshpuram, their utopian commune, from scratch; complete with an airport and pizza parlours. And then things got weird.

Free love, land disputes, one of the co-founders of Nike, an exalted guru, abuse of power, arson, voter fraud, bombings, an obsession with Rolls-Royces, attempted assassinations and the largest bioterror attack on the US soil make up for one of the most gripping stories you’ll see this year. The six-part documentary about one of the craziest chapters in American history is helmed by brothers Maclain and Chapman Way and is produced by another pair of brothers, Mark and Jay Duplass. 

The Way Brothers use a mix of interviews and unfettered archival footage to weave a narrative that constantly challenges the viewer. Wild Wild Country refuses to establish clear heroes or villains.
In a midnight conference call, t2oS spoke to directors Maclain and Chapman Way about their documentary, interviewing Ma Anand Sheela and what details they wish they could have included.  

When did you become aware about Rajneeshpuram?

Chapman Way: While making our last documentary (The Battered B*****ds of Baseball) on the Portland Mavericks, we got to know Matt Cowan, an archivist at the Oregon Historical Society. After we finished that documentary in 2014, he asked us if we knew what we were going to do next. We had some ideas but nothing that we had committed to. He told us that there is a collection of over 300 hours of never-seen-before footage of the most bizarre story that has ever happened in Oregon. 

Maclain Way: We grew up in California and until then we had never heard of Bhagwan Rajneesh or Rajneeshpuram. The first tape I watched was of the 1982 World Festival that is in episode three. I was instantly captivated visually. There were thousands of people dressed from head-to-toe in red, living on a city they had built in the middle of nowhere. The first thing we had to do was digitise tapes and after that we started reaching out to the various talking heads to tell us the different sides of the story.

It’s amazing that you managed to get so much footage of Rajneeshpuram and its inhabitants.

CW: Yes. The interesting thing about the footage is that it was shot for the local nightly news. Apart from the news capsules, we also got all the raw footage that they had shot. Those cameramen got incredible access and interviews with the Rajneeshees. It’s also incredible that no one deleted or taped over these tapes. Without those tapes there would be no documentary.

Was it easy to get the Rajneeshees and Oregonians to participate?

CW: It was difficult to convince people on both sides. Both sides started out being very sceptical because they felt like the media had burned them. They felt like they probably won’t be portrayed correctly once again. The Rajneeshees thought they were seen as members of this brainwashed cult. On the Antelope (members of the community bought properties in this town in Wasco County, Oregon) side, they thought they were stereotyped as racist bigots. 

The series has some very fascinating characters. If you had to pick one, who would it be?

MW: Ma Anand Sheela without a doubt. In the beginning, while we were just going through all the archival footage, she caught our attention. She was feisty, confrontational and very smart. It was clear that she was the person who was integral to the story and that it was crucial to have her. We saw interviews where she took on well-known journalists, like Phil Donahue and Ted Koppel, and there were people who described her as ‘pure evil’, so we were obviously nervous.

CW: During our research, we found an email address for the health centres that she runs in Switzerland. When we first got in touch with her, we assumed that she probably wouldn’t agree to be a part of the documentary but soon it was pretty clear that she felt like she had never been given a platform to explain her side of the story. After the initial conversation on the phone, we took a couple of trips to Switzerland to meet her. Before we started the interviews, we wanted to build a sense of trust. We spent some time getting to know her childhood and her work in Switzerland. Finally, when we sat down for the interviews, which took about five days, it was a very interesting experience. 

Another character I found very fascinating is John Silvertooth, the former mayor of Antelope. Where was he interviewed, because he was surrounded by Rajneeshpuram memorabilia?  

MW: That was the Antelope Museum. There are about 50 residents in the town. In the town centre, there is a collection of Rajneeshpuram memorabilia that Silvertooth collected over the years. 

The late Vinod Khanna left Bollywood and lived in Rajneeshpuram for some time. Did you come across any footage of him?

MW: Not at Rajneeshpuram but we did come across him in Mumbai (then Bombay). There is footage of him picking up Bhagwan at the airport there when he returned to India. 

Rajneesh announcing that he didn’t have sex with Ma Anand Sheela or when the district attorney said that the Rajneeshees ‘blended up the beavers and poured the blended-up beavers into the water supply’, these are some of the weird moments of the documentary. What shocked you the most during the making of this series?

CW: That people would go to such extent to save what they believed in. On both sides, whether it was the people of the town or the cult, they were fighting to save their kind of life. There was no wrong. If you think about it, there are so many similarities between the two sides.

MW: Among the interviews, a really fascinating moment was when Jane (Stork, aka Ma Shanti B) walked us through, in a very clear-headed manner, her murder attempt of Bhagwan’s doctor. She is such a sweet and generous person and she’s a grandmother. It was very hard to reconcile that this person was also found guilty of trying to murder someone. When she actually started talking about it, it was very bone-chilling… to hear her describe the attempt and justification of wanting to protect her guru.  

Was there anything that got left behind on the cutting floor that you wish you could have included?

CW: After Bhagwan left the US, he embarked on what is called Osho’s World Tour. He actually flew to around 30 different countries, including Greece and Uruguay, and the US State Department was calling up these countries and putting pressure on them to not allow him in. 

MW: There was another section that we called ‘The Day in the Life’ which was what life was like for an average sannyasin on the ranch. Separate from all the political and cultural battles, Rajneeshpuram was this kind of real but magical camp for adults. They’d wake up in the mornings, have breakfast with everyone, go to work with friends on the farm or in the legal department and then they’d have dinner and meditate. 

There are two very distinct sides to this story — the Rajneeshees and the Oregonians. Was it hard to keep a balanced view?

MW: Not really. If you read up on Rajneeshpuram, the facts of the story are very straightforward.  There is not a lot of room for debate. We know the Rajneeshees put salmonella in salad bars and there were attempted murders and immigration fraud. What we really enjoy is telling a story that has perspectives from all sides. So when we were editing the documentary, we found this rhythm where we’d spend 10 minutes with a character and switch to someone who is 180-degrees away on the spectrum. It just made for interesting viewing both cinematically and intellectually.