[Weaver] In the U.S. Attorney's office, all you need to do,
all you ever need to worry about, is being good.
You have a luxury...
of making yourself the best trial lawyer you can possibly be.
And so if you have it within you, that is-- That place--
And I'm pointing back over my shoulder to the courthouse.
That place is the best place to grow up as a trial lawyer.
That's all I can say.
The Rajneeshee case, the scope of this was enormous.
To move the ashram from Poona, a small town,
lock, stock, and barrel to the United States,
and in the course of that commit thousands of felonies.
So, our goal was to find out who the architects of that would be.
Clearly a target was immediately Sheela.
- [man] Did the guru-- - Let me just finish my statement.
This was not motivated by greed.
This was-- This was evil.
[Sheela] I remember we came to Oregon...
People saw with the magnitude of the ranch,
what is happening is historic.
It was heaven on earth.
It was heaven.
[Jane] I was woken up early and told to get ready.
You need to go and buy clothes that will be okay in America
like jeans, and still in orange, but get pants and shirts.
I would be flying on to Oregon.
I didn't even know-- I think I didn't even know where Oregon was.
I mean, I was-- It was all a big blur for me.
It's like this.
We're in the geographical center of nowhere, you know? [chuckles]
It's like nothing.
There was nobody else there. Nearest town was 19 miles.
Village of Antelope.
And there I didn't even see five people walking around.
[Jane] And when we left Antelope, this sleepy little town
and started going to the ranch,
I was a bit overwhelmed because it was just so wild,
so... rugged.
But vast.
Really wild country.
[Niren] I got picked up by a guy in a bus and drove out to the ranch.
It's a really windy road, narrow two-lane road.
And as you come down, you're seeing the valley, you know?
And it's beautiful.
[Sheela] And I stood over Big Muddy and you see these thousands of hills.
It was size of Manhattan.
Sixty-three thousand acres.
They told me, look as far as you can see,
that everything you can see belonged to you.
It was so clear we arrived at the promised land.
In northeastern Oregon, the followers of an Indian guru
are now only a vote away from establishing and controlling Oregon's newest city.
[helicopter whirring]
We decided to have self-government.
A hundred and fifty U.S. citizens can create their own city.
This provision... it's a fundamental right.
[male reporter] One hundred fifty-four registered voters at the ranch
went to the polls and voted unanimously to incorporate Rajneeshpuram as a city.
In the state of Oregon, any group of people living in a community
have the right to incorporate. It's called home rule.
You have the right to create your town,
and it's embedded in the United States Constitution,
freedom of assembly...
freedom of association.
The first city council meeting of the City of Rajneeshpuram
will now come to order.
- Great. - All right!
[cheering and applause]
[Jane] A city was going to be needed.
The community itself could issue its own building permits,
could have its own law enforcement.
It could be independent.
I'm here in one of the largest ranches in the northwest.
One hundred square miles of Oregon.
Used to be known as the Big Muddy Ranch.
Today it's Rajneeshpuram
because a prominent Indian guru and his followers bought it
hoping to turn it into an oasis for their guru, the Bhagwan.
A very beautiful city, a city, one which has never existed on the universe
where people live in harmony, people live in love.
Beautiful city, example for the universe.
I don't think there has ever been a city that's been laid out and built like this.
A city that would be based on love and compassion and sharing,
rather than ownership and greed and anger.
And we...
The people who lived there...
actually knew they were building that.
I went because I thought it was going to be really exciting to build
a community from the ground up.
We're going to be at the ground level
of the most historical community that ever was in this country.
Well, what we're doing is trying to build
a shrine for Bhagwan while he's still alive.
[Sunshine] I was working in press relations.
We were opening our doors to the press
because we were proud of what we were doing and who we were
and what we were creating.
It's probably the first attempt by mankind
to put advanced technology to use,
where we could live in harmony with nature together.
We had a job ahead of us.
Lazy people, we don't want.
Meditators... later priority.
Now is the time for work.
[Jayananda] Knowing many Sannyasins over the years,
we knew who we could call on for expertise.
We would bring in experts to instruct, teach, and develop our own potential.
[female reporter] These Sannyasins, skilled architects, scientists, planners
have renounced the comforts of contemporary America
to be self-sufficient.
Taking the most creative people from your whole pool
and being able to brainstorm and come up with really innovative stuff.
We were in a grand experiment to create something from scratch. From scratch.
It was a huge effort, especially those first few months.
The people who were there were really very, very enthusiastic.
They were ready to do anything.
We worked day and night, in three shifts,
four shifts, whatever it required.
We just constructed, constructed till body got tired.
People were working their asses off and were happy.
People were working their asses off and are all laughing and joking.
If they worked a 16-hour day, nobody complained.
There was nothing, you know--
Like we're doing something really great here.
Construction here at Rajneesh is marching full steam ahead.
Roughly a hundred of the Bhagwan's followers now toil,
they call it worship, from dawn to dusk.
If you can imagine building a city,
we built everything you would have to build.
We built infrastructure.
We built our own electric power
that would be sufficient for 10,000 people.
[Niren] Put in plumbing,
pipes going all over the ranch.
There was a huge push to put in roads.
[Niren] They were the biggest bulldozers made.
You see these guys get on the D-9's and push tons and tons of earth.
They're actually up there like this,
carving away at the side of the canyon.
I mean, it scared the shit out of me.
The women had a very special part in building Rajneeshpuram.
They felt they are equal to the men and they want to also be a truck driver.
They enjoyed getting into the mud and dirt.
Hi, Mom.
[Niren] It was city planning on a level that nobody had ever seen,
to build something of this size and scope.
The work was going beautifully.
I couldn't believe it, because where before there'd be nothing,
now there were whole settlements.
We built small A-frames.
And then a shopping center was built.
[Niren] We had a banking operation.
A pizza parlor.
A boutique.
The color range was a bit limited.
There was a meditation hall.
And it was big. It could hold 10,000 people.
We built our own airport.
We built a very big dam.
It is a monument we created there.
And you feel so good being young and seeing that you're doing something
that is so creative, so constructive.
[laughing]
We feel so proud that we had all this done.
You know, unless you see it, you don't get it.
[laughter]
I say this is Shangri-la that everyone dreamt of.
Everybody wanted to be part of that Shangri-la...
but never made it.
[birds chirping]
[Niren] Understand, when we bought the ranch, it was all... not usable land.
So, in addition to all the building, we built the farms.
It was the cutting-edge of environmentally conscious,
land reclamation, low water use, intelligent farming.
We wanted to take land that had been abused,
that had been neglected, and reclaim it.
And we feel, through a lot of hard work and love, that it can be reclaimed.
[Niren] So, very early on,
we could develop resources like solar power, irrigate.
We could heal the land. We could feed the people in a holistic fashion.
We are going to be creating farmland
where there hasn't been farmland here before.
We're going to have a community which can be self-sufficient.
We are producing most of the food, most of the milk, most of the cheese
by ourselves within our own community.
[Niren] We completely rebuilt this whole series of check dams.
We were literally turning the desert green.
And as it was recovered, wildlife were coming back
because it was being rebuilt.
[Sheela] We brought back nature.
We make this land alive with our sweat and our hard work.
They should have offered us a Nobel Prize.
I felt so proud of not just me, proud of whole community.
That we could present this to Bhagwan.
I felt like a newly married bride
preparing to receive her husband on the first night.
We rolled out 4,000 square feet
of green lawn carpets around his house.
And the people at the ranch who are preparing,
they want to make sure it is spotless.
We brought animals, like peacocks.
Little music welcome.
It was like a beautiful Fellini movie.
And Bhagwan comes and he sits in his chair.
Looking at the people in silence...
And to see this Bhagwan smile and his beard flowing in the wind...
Such a-- Such a reflection of love from his eyes towards me.
[female reporter] Antelope, Oregon: population 40.
Until recently a town where the biggest issue
was the rotting floor in the fire station.
Then the strangers arrived.
It's just-- It's just too strange to get your mind around really.
Where did all this nonsense come from?
[Rosemary] That was worse than the red clothes, that malla was.
I don't know what you'd call it, kind of-- A bad sign, let's put it like that.
It just didn't seem right.
They all had something that we referred to as "the look."
Almost like under the influence.
It just was a look in their eyes that we all noticed.
I thought it was, you know, weird. I thought they were weird.
You know, he was a hypnotist before he ever came to the U.S.
The first thing I was taught was cross your arms,
and that throws a signal to them that it's not going to work.
And it worked pretty good.
Crossed your arms when they start doing that stuff and they backed off.
[male reporter] Everyone in Antelope mistrusts Rajneesh
and hates the steady stream of Sannyasin who travel through town.
Well, it's new to me.
I don't know nothing about it. I just worry about the unknown.
[man] They're strangers to us
and their mode of living is different than we're accustomed to.
[woman] We're really not ready for them because it's been a sleepy little town,
retirement town, and it's too much activity.
I think everybody should go through down there
and see just what they are doing.
And as far as I'm concerned, they're not doing this country any good.
[male interviewer] Your quiet lives are pretty much gone?
Oh, absolutely. Just really destroyed.
[male reporter] Well, like it or not, they're here by the hundreds.
Almost from the outset, they raised some concerns amongst the locals.
There was a lot of talk as folks here in Antelope
watched their new neighbors arrive.
Then curiosity turned to concern when an ad appeared in a national magazine.
"Search the nooks and corners of your sexuality,"
a suggestion that makes townspeople nervous.
This is the downfall of our civilization,
the free love and this sort of thing that I disapprove of.
We believe in marriage...
and raising a family, and they believe in raising a family,
but I'm not sure about the marriage part of it.
[male interviewer] Tell me about open marriage?
What do you want to know about open marriage? [chuckles]
[laughs]
Um...
Everyone's marriage here is
whatever the people that are involved in that marriage wants it to be.
There are no taboos. There are no guidelines.
There are no suggestions
of how anyone should have their relationships with each other.
As soon as the reality of us came in...
people hugging on the streets,
people kissing on the streets,
people laughing and dancing with no music,
and all of the stuff coming in about the sex cult and the sex guru...
Then the idea that we might have a city out there.
Um, they got really scared.
These are by and large conservative Christian people.
Like, that kind of person, when they get scared, they get tight, you know?
[man] Okay, Margaret. Come ahead.
The position of mayor in Antelope was just who got stuck with it.
It passed through everybody because there was nothing happening in Antelope.
It just happened that Margaret Hill happened to be in the hot seat
when all this nonsense started.
When they first came, they were truly welcomed to the community.
They were different, and anyone who's different is looked at a lot.
Uh, we were interested in them,
but basically it wasn't until they really started throwing their weight around.
It's not a pleasant experience at all.
She was strong enough to stand up to somebody
and it definitely turned out to be necessary.
She was the right person,
but she was real close to being overwhelmed real quick too.
Oh, yes.
Should some-- a group of people of like persuasion
be allowed to enter an area
and literally wipe out the culture that is there?
I was talking with Margaret and she said, "How come you're not doing anything?"
And Kelly and I just kind of sat back thinking,
"Well, you know, we don't know what's going on yet... Nothing much...
We'll just wait and see."
Margaret said, "Come by. I wanna show you what I've got."
And I read through literature that she had about them,
articles that she had about them,
and letters from various people talking
about what had happened with their children.
It was a very eye-opening experience.
[male reporter] One letter from India
calls the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ruthless warriors.
Another from New Zealand is from a distraught mother
looking for her daughter.
Hill says she knows the letters are only hearsay,
but feels they're cause for concern, nonetheless.
[woman] We're hearing about violence,
the so-called therapy, which took many forms
and which resulted in some broken bones and black eyes and this kind of thing,
according to the press and the letters which I received.
One of the things that has-- We have found most irritating
is their habit of not really telling the truth.
Even though you catch them in a lie,
they very blandly act as if nothing had happened.
They felt that we weren't real smart.
We weren't very well educated and they were going to show us
what would be the perfect society, so to speak.
They just assumed they were moving in with a bunch of yokels
that wouldn't know anything, wouldn't be able to figure a thing out
and they were just so much smarter than what they were.
There's a difference between being real smart and having common sense.
They were educated beyond their intelligence.
People were more resilient
and a little more apt to understand what was going on than what they expected.
[Gary] Being in the Department of Justice,
every single problem that confronts the state government
crosses the desk of the Attorney General.
The work we were doing was really God's work.
It was important,
and we believed that that kind of government service was noble.
This was in-- In--
You know, Jonestown had happened not that long ago,
and we openly worried
about whether a Jonestown-type event was possible
because when people completely surrender their free will
to some leader like the Bhagwan, uh...
it opens the prospect
that they can do things that seem completely inexplicable.
We were worried about that.
[helicopter whirring]
[male reporter] We're interrupting our special broadcasting
to bring you this special report
on the People's Temple mass suicides in Guyana
and the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan.
[woman reporter] It was the religious cult known as the People's Temple
that brought California congressman Leo Ryan
to Jonestown, Guyana in November 1978.
[male reporter] Just as they were about to be taken to the airport,
a man with a knife tried to kill Congressman Ryan.
[Ryan] Yeah, he said something about rob and choke and kill,
or what he said was he intended to kill me.
[male reporter] All of this happened just moments before the ambush began.
[gunshots]
[woman reporter] It was one of the followers of cult leader Jim Jones
who murdered Ryan, setting off the mass suicide that took 917 lives.
Tonight we have a story about a cult and one of its followers
that in an eerie, and some may find frightening, way
began with the Jonestown massacre.
[woman reporter] One of the mourners at Ryan's funeral
was his daughter Shannon.
Today, Shannon calls herself Pritam...
a name given her by the spiritual leader in India she herself now follows.
But she insists it is not a cult.
[male reporter] Shannon used the money inherited from her father's life insurance
to join Rajneesh.
A lot of people would wonder what your father would feel about you living here.
I feel if my father came to see this he would see that there's just--
They're exact opposites as far as I can see.
I mean, I'm sure anybody that was here could see that.
I mean, if he had been to Jonestown and survived that and come here,
he'd have seen they're different as night and day
and he would have been totally supportive.
Ryan's daughter, she herself explained it is different here.
If they saw it correctly, they would see that we were no threat to anybody.
Oh, we've got the daughter of the guy that went to do the Jonestown story.
I was like, "What does that have to do with anything?"
But it was an angle. It was tying Jonestown to us.
But it had nothing to do with us. I mean that story of Jim Jones--
I mean, Jim Jones knew nothing about Eastern mysticism,
knew nothing about meditation.
He was a Christian.
He had more to do with them than he had to do with us.
It's a ridiculous comparison.
Our way is of living, not of suicide.
We are life affirmative, not life negative.
This whole angle of the cult was what the Christians could use.
I mean, just the word, because of Jonestown...
it conjured fear.
I think particularly since the Jones thing,
everyone is a little fearful of cults.
And then I have a feeling that cults control you,
rather than you controlling yourself.
Rajneesh is, Biblically speaking, an anti-Christ
that the Christian Church should be aware of
and prepared to answer with the truth.
I just want to be an example and a testimony
to these Rajneesh people and to this world that's living in darkness.
When you approach a person who is a member of a cult,
stand straight on your own Christian faith,
but in Christian love deal with them.
The designation of cult, the press latched onto this.
Every day they line up at two o'clock
to watch a 52-year-old man drive by in a Rolls Royce.
Why do they do it? What do they believe in?
[Jayananda] And most of the time, as you can see in the news,
it's negative things that sell newspapers.
Well, Marcia, we've been looking at how this self-proclaimed god
arrived from India, how the cult has grown,
how the tension in the area has escalated as well.
And tonight, are the Rajneeshees dangerous...
not only to their neighbors, but to all of us?
[male reporter] Today Jim Jones is gone,
but his spirit, his raging paranoia lives on,
reborn not in the jungles of South America,
but in the gently rolling hills of Oregon.
If Rajneesh wanted to have a Jonestown,
essentially he does have a Jonestown out in Oregon,
and if he commanded his followers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid,
do you think they would or...?
One would hope that they wouldn't try it. He has a tremendous amount of control.
Doctor, what about the group we've been looking at tonight,
the Rajneesh group? What do you make of them?
When you have a basically unstable personality,
coupled with tremendous power over enormous numbers of people,
- you have a potentially lethal situation. - [male reporter] All right.
[Niren] These anti-cult experts were hilarious
because they'd give definitions of what a cult was, you know?
It was like rule-oriented and one leader
and supporting the group over the whole,
which applied better to the U.S. Army than us.
We were a group of crazy individualists who just happened to be organized enough
to build this community because we wanted to do it.
We didn't like being told how to believe, how to pray, how to live.
We wanted to be free.
And the anti-cult people, who could-- Who said we were conditioning people,
in fact, were terrified of individual freedom. Terrified.
[Silvertooth] At that time, it was very hard
to get any information about the Rajneesh.
Even reporters I talked to, trying to find stuff...
You know, it was, you know, pretty secretive.
That movie, Ashram in Poona, it was, you know...
[clears throat]
It was a shock to the system.
Obviously, it would be, you know?
I think anybody that would see that
would be alarmed that these are the new neighbors.
The encounter was filmed by a young German director, Wolfgang Dobrowolny.
He's a sympathizer with the cult of the guru Bhagwan Rajneesh.
And it was only because of this
that he was allowed to film and record aspects of Bhagwan's cult,
to which the BBC and others would never have been allowed access.
This Wolfgang, he takes the hidden camera in one of the therapy group,
which is a violation of the group individuals.
I don't know if it was taken secretly or whether it was done openly.
I have no idea.
But there is some film footage of Teertha's encounter group in Poona.
In those early days, everything was allowed.
[male reporter] The movie opened to a packed house tonight.
Some of the moviegoers came here from Antelope
to get their first glimpse of life with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers.
People in and around Antelope get to see this
and that is presented as who we are and what we're going to do there.
[male reporter] What follows is unpleasant to watch.
Nothing's been added for effect or sensation.
I went to India to see for myself, and this is what I found.
[film reel whirring]
[screams]
[all yelling]
[groaning]
[man] Come, come, come.
Shh, shh.
Shh.
The fear! I can't find it. Where it is? [sobs]
[all yelling]
[grunting]
[all yelling]
[disco music playing]
[Rosemary] And that tape makes you concerned about what kind of people
these people are going to be.
There was a lot of evil things going on out there.
I think it's that Edmund Burke quote that I mentioned way back when
that "All that's necessary for evil is for good men to do nothing."
That's true. You do have to do something sometimes,
even though this is nothing you've planned in your life,
that there are things that you have to do.
[Bill Fay's "Thank You Lord" playing]
♪ Thank you, Lord ♪
♪ For the sky above me ♪
♪ Thank you, Lord ♪
♪ For the earth below me ♪
♪ Thank you, Lord... ♪
[Bowerman] Well, the Bowerman history in this region goes back to about 1869,
when my great-great-grandfather ultimately ended up founding the town.
♪ I don't ask much for myself... ♪
Well, my father, he never set out to be rich.
He never set out to be famous.
[Silvertooth] Bill Bowerman in Eugene was kind of like Queen Elizabeth in England.
I mean, he was the man.
♪ Tonight... ♪
He did serve in the military.
Went to Italy and fought in the Apennine Mountains.
Actually went behind German lines towards the end of the war,
got the entire German Eighth Army to surrender.
♪ I don't ask much... ♪
[Bowerman] So, he received several decorations for that.
♪ For the ones I love... ♪
Then went on to the University of Oregon.
He developed a team that people wanted to come watch
because they were starting to have some success.
♪ Thank you, Lord ♪
[Bowerman] He won four collegiate national championships
and national champions in 12 of the events.
He was the Olympic coach in 1972.
He was there for Munich, for the disaster that happened.
♪ I don't ask much... ♪
[Bowerman] That really took a lot of heart out of him.
And so six months later,
after he got through coaching in the Olympics, he retired.
At the same time, he noted that American shoe companies
were making really crummy track shoes.
He started experimenting.
One day he got a little round waffle iron, about six inches in diameter,
some retread rubber and he made these rubber soles, and glued them
to an old pair of shoes that the bottom had pretty well worn off of.
And, um, Nike became the result.
[male reporter] Nike the brand was born in 1971.
Bill Bowerman, Knight's college track coach,
designed the famous waffle shape sole.
Together they spotted the jogging boom,
and helped turn a non-essential product into a mainstream necessity.
[male reporter 2] The shoes became enormously popular, the in thing.
It's gone from jogging to aerobics to walking.
Millions of people wear Nikes today. It's big business.
Three billion dollars' worth.
When Nike went public, all of a sudden my father became very wealthy.
[Greenfield] When we first got involved with the Rajneeshees,
Bill Bowerman, who actually is the co-founder of Nike, contacted us.
He owned a ranch out right near the Big Muddy.
We also got contacted by Kelly and Rosemary McGreer,
who also owned farmland, again, right next to the Big Muddy Ranch,
and were looking at us to represent their interests.
When they first came, they talked about a farming commune.
That was fine because we would like to see it well-farmed.
But now they're talking about a city with a hotel that will have 500 rooms,
which is the size of the downtown Portland Hilton.
There are talks about manufacturing.
None of those things have to do with the ranch.
What they really wanted was a city
and they talked about having 10,000 people there,
and they wanted it in a very remote part of Oregon.
So, yes, here we were faced with the situation of, well,
what are the impacts on the adjoining properties?
What are the impacts on land use?
These, of course, were questions that 1000 Friends of Oregon
was already addressing in other contexts, but nothing like the Rajneesh context.
My name is Bill Bowerman. The Rajneesh--
They came in and represented they were going to have
a nice agricultural unit on Mud Creek Canyon.
They call it the Big Muddy Ranch.
They have been in violation of our ordinances.
They've been in violation of our laws.
So, it became apparent that they were really not an agricultural group.
I-- I feel very strongly about this.
[Bowerman] My father didn't like the Rajneesh.
He felt this was a fight worth fighting.
Well, we were very fortunate that my father
donated to 1000 Friends of Oregon.
The 1000 Friends of Oregon was one of our biggest helpers.
They wanted to keep Oregon, Oregon, so to speak.
[Rosemary] Bill and 1000 Friends came out and talked to us and asked us
if we would sign on the original lawsuit that involved the ranch.
[Kelly] We didn't know anything about lawyers or courts or anything.
So, it was a big education in a hurry.
You're going to set a terrible precedent here.
You're gonna pave Wasco County with trailer houses, communes, and cities,
whether they be religious or just strictly financially based.
One Thousand Friends was probably the only organization
that would file a lawsuit to challenge the Rajneeshpuram.
One Thousand Friends basically took the entire burden on its back...
and brought the fight.
[female reporter] One Thousand Friends of Oregon have already filed a petition
to have the buildings in Rajneeshpuram torn down.
I would anticipate that Wasco County will go ahead
and have the use of those buildings stopped and to have the buildings removed.
[Greenfield] In the courts, we took the position that farmland is for farming,
ranch land for ranching, they're not for cities.
I said we will come in and seek action to require you to remove those buildings
because they were never legally built.
There are actions in the courts which may, in effect, cancel their city.
I really believe that we're going to see the city go away.
We can go back to living in peace and quiet
and what always was a blank spot on the map of Oregon.
A Thousand Friends of Oregon, which was a poison...
they wanted to demolish the work we had done.
They've gone beyond bigotry
and are looking for senseless destruction.
In fact, the murdering of a thriving community
and all this in the name of, quote, "land use."
In no time at all, millions were being spent.
Sheela was extremely motivated that this Big Muddy project work.
At that point, she really got her back up and it pissed her off.
[male interviewer] Thousand Friends of Oregon says
that their intention is to see this place dismantled.
Good. They can come. They're most welcome. I'll be right on the road.
They need to drive over me, it's their choice.
I will paint their bulldozers with my blood.
And I'll be proud to be under those bulldozers.
Do you think it'll get to that point?
If they are not aware of my determination, I think they're stupid,
they're unintelligent.
[Sheela] Thousand Friends of Oregon,
they only used land use to deny us our rights
and derail us,
but we were also a bit smarter.
The chief of this outfit, Sheela Silverman,
is accustomed to getting what she wants
and if she can't have her own city here on the Muddy Ranch,
she's determined to buy the next best thing: the city of Antelope.
If you don't find the little loopholes in the law,
it is your loss.
We started buying the properties in Antelope
to secure our existence as a city.
And we took over.
[Niren] Antelope had like 40 residents at the time.
Over half of the property in town,
by property I mean houses and such, was for sale, cheap.
So, the easy thing to do
was to buy property and then get all your business operations there.
[Krishna Deva] We are hung up in court
and we have to come to Antelope for things like housing,
for the store that we have, for the print shop that we need.
And until we have a change of zoning or our city on the ranch,
this'll be the position we're in.
We just got to do what we got to do to survive.
And what do they call it?
The takeover of Antelope.
In other national news, Antelope, Oregon,
a town out West where old-timers and newcomers
are locked in the kind of feud that used to be settled with a shoot-out.
[female reporter] Members are moving into the tiny town,
bringing with them a way of life
that isn't deemed respectable by some local residents.
And the Rajneesh plan to stay for a long while.
They're buying everything available.
What happened here in Antelope is they basically came in like a steamroller
and just took it.
[male reporter] Until last month, this was the Antelope Café,
a gathering place for the town's 40 residents.
Then the café was bought by the commune at Rajneeshpuram.
They changed the name to Zorba the Buddha. Now bananas, not bacon fry on the grill.
That was the first one that cracked. The first one they got to.
[male reporter] To many residents,
the café exemplifies what's happening to their town.
I went into that café two weeks ago
and that was the last time I'll ever go in it.
- [female interviewer] Why? - I just don't like them.
It's a combination of two, religious prejudice as well as Mayflower mentality.
I came here before you, therefore you can't be here.
We bought the few housings that were on sale,
and we paid full prices to Antelope people for purchases.
[male reporter] Next to go was the Hicks property right next door.
By the end of March, eight plots of land plus the café belonged to the commune.
[man] Well, they have bought the old green house
and property on the lower end of town which consists of three or five lots,
something like that, and I think seven lots on the other side of town.
I remember this guy up here sitting with his shotgun on his porch, you know,
"I'll never sell to them."
Two weeks later, you know, he's got the check in his pocket.
And you're talking about older people, you know, on a fixed budget,
and Sheela comes in with her gold pens and diamond rings,
and says "I'll write you a check for 50,000 dollars for this place."
And people go, "Well, you know, how can I say no to that?"
and take the 50,000 dollars and run.
Sheela had said, "If they don't sell now, they'll sell later... at my figure."
[Sheela] Homeowners were very happy to sell.
They had their properties for sale for years.
Nobody was buying it. It was a ghost town.
And here finally they have a lucky day where they could sell.
All the politicians are talking about this terrible takeover by this cult...
in this small town of older people.
We bought property that was for sale.
They get control of the city, and what chance have we got?
We're outnumbered already.
And it would be very easy for them to have control of our town.
I don't understand where they get off saying that, "our town."
It is everyone's town.
We have the same equal right as they have.
We, as a rural community
do not like to be taken over by a cult,
which is what's happening.
"We're being taken over. Our community is being destroyed."
It was a ghost town.
What was happening was life was being brought into that community.
And it's like we're bad people to do that.
[Bowerman] Well, when the Rajneesh tried to take over Antelope,
it was a battle of sorts, no different than a war.
They immediately started pushing, they immediately started claiming
that we had offended them in whatever way.
And to be right honest, after the first year,
at least the people around here didn't want them.
[woman] You're a longtime citizen of Antelope. Give me your impressions.
I don't like anybody who comes in and tries to take over a town.
And that don't set with me.
I believe there's one God, and there's only one God.
And you start bowing down to a man, why, you're just letting Satan push you.
They're run by Satanic power.
Uh...
Get him out of here.
[woman] Would you mind?
And him too.
[Niren] The local ranchers, they were getting really scared.
And they start to do things they might not otherwise not do out of that fear.
Scared. And then angry.
In addition to fear, there is anger in Antelope and surrounding communities.
Talk of vigilantes who may try to seek revenge on the Rajneeshees.
[woman] Are those bullets?
Why, sure, they're bullets, .300 Savage.
Now that just signifies we're going down fighting.
Hey, we're American. You got it?
You betcha. I love America with all my heart.
I can't stand this guy doing this stuff to us.
They're invading. Maybe not with bullets, but with money and with immoral sex.
They wanted literally for us to pack our bags and leave.
[male reporter] Not all challenges to the Rajneeshees have been legal.
Their hotel in Portland has been vandalized twice in a single night.
And we said, "We are not going to leave.
We are here to stay."
I lived in Antelope, and a lot of American flags went up.
And then the first thing that I saw was a "Bag the Bhagwan" sticker.
The atmosphere was hateful.
There were some incidents of ranchers, they shot holes in road signs
or they just let off a few rounds into the sky.
Telling Sannyasins to their face they're going to blow their head off.
Take your gun, go down there, and blow them out. Waste them out.
I mean, this the kind of feeling that they're coming to.
In this part of central Oregon, keep a watch out for deer.
The Rajneeshees keep a watch out for the hunters.
A Rajneesh helicopter spotted a group of hunters on the county road
and hovered nearby.
You get that helicopter and you get that helicopter out of here!
[Jane] It was frightening.
Most people were driving around in a pickup
with a couple of rifles in the back of the cab.
So, these are maybe not such empty threats.
It wasn't that they were asking to be shot.
They were positively begging for it.
You know, there's an old saying that you pick your enemies carefully,
because the way that those enemies fight are who you become.
Almost immediately they started harassing people in Antelope.
They would shine spotlights in our house at night.
My oldest daughter was screaming.
The light was shining right and just going back and forth across the window.
They were a very vindictive group of people.
These elderly people would come out to mow their lawn,
and the Rajneesh would set up a video camera in the street
and video them.
[man] Why do you think they were taking all the pictures?
Form of harassment.
I don't especially care to have my friends photographed and in a rogues' gallery.
Pictures were taken of everything.
[Silvertooth] They'd go around town. They'd film everybody.
They'd film everything.
People got spooked.
These people were terrified and they--
People going around taking pictures of them all day long,
just nothing but harassment.
Now, if that's neighborly love, I'm in the wrong outfit.
After months and months of harassment, it was just more than we could take.
We couldn't take anymore. It's a living nightmare.
Everybody was overwhelmed. You always wondered...
how long it was going to last.
If they were going to last longer than you could last.
We're the ones that have to make sure that evil does not win the battle.
Antelope, Oregon. It's about to be taken over by an Indian guru and his followers,
and the townspeople who don't like this idea at all
have decided that having no town at all is a better alternative.
[female reporter] Caught between the Rajneesh Foundation
and 1000 Friends of Oregon are the residents of tiny Antelope.
Their only defense they decided is to commit municipal suicide
rather than let the religious followers take over their city government.
We tried to disincorporate.
And the idea was, well, if we disincorporate,
then there's going to be no reason for them to want to be here.
The Rajneeshees, they were pissed.
[Niren] The current city council set a petition for disincorporation,
for an election.
These people tried to destroy the city itself, to disincorporate,
so that they could stop those red people from developing in Antelope.
[male reporter] Antelope residents scheduled an election
to dissolve their community before the Rajneeshees could get it.
The motto on one bumper sticker, "Better Dead than Red."
[male reporter 2] Nobody's predicting what the outcome will be,
but one thing's certain: doing battle with a multi-million dollar organization
has taken its toll on the leaders of this tiny city.
[male interviewer] Now, you're a mayor
and you obviously have a position in the political system here,
yet you are advocating giving that up.
That is hard to do.
[weeps] Can't really talk about that.
It's only a local election in one small Oregon community,
but it's attracting nationwide attention.
The dispute between longtime town residents and members of a local commune
came to a vote today.
The question on the ballot: should this town live or die?
[rooster crows]
[female reporter] It was a vote to abolish their city charter,
a last effort to keep Antelope
from falling under the political control of these people.
The story begins here at the City of Antelope.
Both groups were overwhelmed
by the flood of reporters and cameras who poured into town.
Oh, there was a stream of news media from all over, all over the world.
ABC, CBS, NBC primetime.
It was an experience.
[chattering]
[female reporter] Voter turnout this morning was running 120 percent,
and the number of registered voters
was changing as quickly as the score in a basketball game.
[Rosemary] I'm voting the same way I would anytime.
There's a lot more people here and more congestion,
a lot more things we have to go through than normal,
but as long as the election procedures goes according to law,
that's the most important thing.
I didn't know I was liked so much! [laughs]
[female reporter] Before the polls opened this morning,
the Rajneesh had a comfortable lead.
As of last night, it was 52 to 39.
[female reporter] Two hours later, the townspeople
had reduced their deficit to three.
[man] Hi.
[female reporter] By midday, it appeared a majority
of the more than 90 registered voters were Rajneeshees.
Final tally. Yes, 42. No, 55.
[laughing]
[female reporter] After the results were announced, Mayor Margaret Hill said,
"Antelope residents lost more than the election tonight."
I found it heartbreaking. I don't know why.
I would imagine that... others did too.
The Rajneesh have taken over.
They'll make the state red if somebody doesn't do something to stop them.
And believe me they will.
You know, I thought it was hilarious
because we were accused of using...
the system of government we call representative democracy...
to protect ourselves from being destroyed by those who wanted to destroy us.
And for that, we were pilloried
for having this horrible takeover of this small community by the red people.
[Weaver] And little by little and bit by bit,
the Rajneeshees took over Antelope.
The townspeople were calling every single elected official
and government official that they knew to say,
"When is someone going to do something about these Rajneeshees
and end the misery in my life."
I said, "If, you know, for now,
this is not a case that the U.S. Attorney's Office is going to pursue.
If things change or it becomes something bigger and greater than this,
please call us. I'll be glad to take another look at it."
Now, that's 1982. By 1983, everything changed.
And suddenly I wake up.
I was at a 90 degree, sat in my bed.
I could not sleep.
My whole body was uneasy.
I was... I had these creepy feelings in me.
I don't know what it is, something is wrong.
Four hours pass by...
and we get a call from Portland.
[Sheela] Our hotel has been bombed.
[explosion]
[screaming]
[siren blaring]
In Portland Oregon today, three explosions rocked the downtown hotel
owned by controversial religious cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
[male reporter] First bomb exploded at 1:19 this morning.
What concerns Chief Klum now, there might be more explosives in the building.
Evidently, the explosive device blew a hole in the floor.
Blew the door off the bathroom, blew the door off the room,
and showered the street with glass.
[male reporter] And while federal and local bomb teams
began their investigation,
mystery enshrouded the identity of the man who had come to room 405.
He walked in first, checked in,
and said "I have to go back to my car and get another bag."
He went back to his car, brought in two bags, and then went upstairs.
[male reporter] Then at 2:56, two more bombs went off in the man's room.
So far, there have been no reported fatalities.
More than 60 followers were evacuated from the building.
They stood out on downtown streets all night watching their hotel burn.
This is the kind of thing we've expected because of the kind of bigotry,
the kind of inflammatory things that have been happening.
We didn't expect it so soon, but we did expect some time there would be bloodshed.
[male reporter] Rajneesh and his disciples have been threatened a number of times
since their arrival in Oregon two years ago.
They say this latest action will not force them to leave.
Nothing is going to scare us out of Oregon. We're here to stay.
We love it here. It's that simple.
We're preparing for anything, whether it come by air, by land.
However it comes, we're going to be prepared for it.
And we want everyone to know that.
We want everyone to know that if you're going to use violence,
that we will be ready to take whatever action is needed to protect ourselves.
After the bombing, it was clear.
If I didn't take measures to protect our community...
no one else would do it.
That's when we went out and bought weapons in ranch.
But if you didn't feel that way about your children,
your community, your master...
it would be pathetic.
Bhagwan had said from the beginning...
that, "I'm not Jesus, I'm not Gandhi."
When Jesus says, "You turn your other cheek,"
you take both of their cheeks.
[cheering and applause]
[Marlon Williams' "Dark Child" playing]
♪ Waiting for you ♪
♪ Although the news came as no surprise ♪
♪ I always hoped I'd never have to bury a child ♪