Be grateful for this beautiful home that we have.
Let's continue to take care of it and to nurture it
so that it can grow more and more beautiful in his grace.
No, we're not going to be victims.
If you're going to come at us with the big artillery,
we're going to play your game.
And that was unsettling to a lot of us, but it was also...
Brought a sense of security in some bizarre way.
I didn't have a gun here until they bombed our hotel.
I didn't even have a single weapon here.
But I don't believe in turning the other cheek.
We learned how to shoot a Smith & Wesson.
And I came to recognize that if I truly went into a meditative stance,
I could hit the target.
And that it was all about my breath and it was all about my awareness.
I had already had experience with guns because my dad had a gun.
We used to go and shoot rabbits. And Sheela was very pleased about that.
She used to run around telling everybody, "Oh, Shanti B is a really good shot."
And when we showed them how good training we had...
they were shocked.
The people of Oregon knew then that we were armed,
that we could use our weapons well...
and that we were prepared to use those weapons if push came to shove.
In the northern part of Oregon, there used to be
a little town called Antelope.
Yesterday the voters in Antelope decided to change the town's name to "Rajneesh."
It is a political victory for followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Change has been coming, and today Antelope awoke to a red dawn.
They changed the name to the city of Rajneesh.
They renamed everything, of course. They have to put their brand on it.
They had a majority of the residents
and held an election and took over the city council.
A guy that had been on the council
and was fighting the Rajneeshees, Don Smith...
came to me and said, "We can't get anybody to put their name on the ballot.
We know they're going to win this election,
but, you know, we don't want to just hand it to them.
Could we put your name on the ballot?
Would you volunteer, you know, to get your ass kicked?"
And I said, "Okay. Why not?"
You know, I didn't care.
The Rajneeshees, they didn't want to seem like they took over everything.
So, they voted three of theirs and two of ours.
They voted me and this other guy.
Well, soon as the other guy saw that, well, he was out of town in like two days.
He was gone.
There is now only one non-Rajneeshee on Antelope's city council.
They didn't scare me.
Sometimes, you know, keep your enemies close.
You know what I'm saying?
You learn a lot more being nice. Um...
You learn a lot more being nice.
Apparently, everything the Rajneeshees did to take over this small town was legal.
The question is, was it right?
The new Rajneesh-controlled city council passed an ordinance
reserving this weed-covered city park for nude sunbathing.
There were a lot of weird things that happened.
At night up here, you can hear everything that goes on
because there's no background noise. It's not like a city.
And you could hear them going all night.
It's like you're in the same room with them, you know?
And my aunt was not pleased with that,
sharing her bedroom with these people,
listening to their goings on,
which they were, they were going on.
And, uh...
I couldn't see them, but could hear them.
And it was the noises and things were...
It sounded like animals.
There is a sense of lustiness and sexual obsession there
that I have never known of anywhere.
You can hear people having orgasmic experiences all day and all night.
They weren't somebody you wanted to have for neighbors.
I had gone to help my cousin move cattle to the summer range
and came home and my wife said, "They've got guns up there."
I said, "No way! They're... They claim they're nonviolent people."
They've sat up there just above my field all summer long,
armed with what appear to be semi-automatic rifles,
and about half of us feel that before this is over,
some of us are going to be killed.
They watched our house from across the river
with some kind of an automatic assault weapon.
They sure weren't BB guns.
They had a police force in Antelope
that patrolled the streets all night long,
cars with lights on them and the lights would be flashing
going through town while people were trying to sleep.
They called it the Peace Force.
And it was not a Peace Force.
It was a harassment force.
They met legal requirements to make these people cops,
and they made them cops.
They were there with guns.
When you came into town, they'd be stationed at either end of it.
The occupying force had landed.
As we talked to the few non-Rajneeshee residents who remain,
our car was followed, our movements noted
by both marked and unmarked Rajneeshee police cars.
One longtime local resident frustrated at what was happening to his town
started repeatedly picketing.
Jim was a little hotheaded...
and he made a sign...
and he trolled back and forth in front
of the Rajneeshee establishment there in town.
And about nine o'clock that night, they came in and arrested him.
Rajneeshee police arrested him for, quote, "menacing"
and took him to Wasco County jail.
They had to handcuff him in front because he couldn't get his arms behind him,
he was so arthritic.
That kind of changed it for me.
We knew Antelope was shot at that point.
It's just throwing gas on the fire almost.
Gun sales in neighboring towns have skyrocketed.
People call in wanting to know prices of guns and what we have
for more of a protection weapon than a hunting weapon,
with a lot of older people calling, worried, scared.
Sheela was holding Antelope...
- Hostage. And they said so. - ...hostage.
The Bhagwan's top aide says the Rajneeshees will leave Antelope
if the state grants a zoning change permitting the Rajneeshees
to set up their own city on their ranch.
We have never had interest in Antelope before and now, except for our survival.
We want our city to be developed,
and if this city goes,
then of course we will have Rajneeshpuram.
Either way, we are the winner.
There's a lot of people that would have loved to have shot Sheela.
I'd like to have choked her to death a couple times myself.
That woman is the closest thing to Hitler that I've ever seen in my life,
and I have seen people coming out of Buchenwald.
I've seen them come out of Dachau.
The only thing she don't have yet is the ovens.
As you can see, the relationship between the Rajneeshees and the townspeople
is going downhill fast, and there is a possibility
that it will come to a very big crescendo very soon.
Last July, the 40 residents of Antelope learned
they were about to acquire some new neighbors,
several hundred followers of the spiritual leader,
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
First we're gonna hear from the Rajneesh Foundation.
And it's a fascinating story. Would you welcome its president, Ma Anand Sheela.
Media is expensive and one should not miss
an opportunity for free publicity.
When we come back, we'll talk with the spokesperson
for the Rajneeshee sect, Ma Anand Sheela.
- Ma Anand Sheela. - Ma Anand Sheela.
From Washington, Crossfire.
She's the personal secretary of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
who is the head of this...
- Religion. - Religion. Thank you.
Bhagwan told me to be very, very strong in the media.
I had to be provocative.
I had to provoke.
Isn't your leader the free sex guru?
Free sex? We don't charge for it, if you meant that.
Right.
We are the only community which has no venereal diseases,
no crime, no drugs, no alcoholism.
And I'll tell you about one more thing,
that we are the only people who enjoy sex fully.
"How could you do that? How could you...?" I said, "Don't tell me. I'm doing my job."
That's it.
Sheela, whatever your plans are,
we don't want the Rajneeshees,
we don't want the orange people in our town.
What can I say? Tough titties.
It was that fearlessness...
was a very special quality.
No, I'm not running for cover, mister. I don't run for cover.
And person like you make me run for cover?
- Oh, that's a joke. - Well...
She learned to be outrageous.
But there was a part of her nature that could adapt to that really easily.
You seem to be enjoying it, almost giving them your finger.
Merv Griffin called and they asked if I would go on the program.
I said, "Sheela's gotten way more publicity than she deserves."
And she was extremely arrogant and she was off the maps, I tell you.
The Bhagwan has from four to 13 Rolls Royces.
- Let me add it is 17 Rolls Royces. - Seventeen. Wonderful.
On the second, there will be 20 Rolls Royces.
Everybody was like, "Who is this guy? And who is she?"
- That was one thing, but let me-- - You are full of shit.
You don't know anything about--
In that case, we'll cut the microphone off right now.
Thank you very much, all of you, for joining us.
Good shot, Sheela. You're up to your good old-- Same old tricks.
These people are distorting and twisting the laws to use to their own advantage.
- If it's legal doesn't mean it's right. - Oh, you.
All right, you got one in, Sheela. You got your dirty word in.
You get one per show.
Certainly, the more press we got,
the more books we sold internationally.
And so seekers around the world
would be interested in not just the mundane story,
but who is Rajneesh.
Everywhere Bhagwan was spreading.
The Bhagwan commissioned the most loyal of his supporters
to go to the four corners of the earth and establish Buddha fields.
In Europe, that meant establishing Rajneesh centers from Copenhagen to Italy
and from England to West Berlin.
Almost everywhere in the world, Bhagwan's communes were functioning.
We had communes in India,
Australia had a number of communes.
Italy many communes.
In Germany,
Amsterdam,
Switzerland.
Portugal had a commune.
And all communes were self-supporting with different activities,
like construction companies,
bistros, discos.
Official number working Sannyasins were about 30,000.
When you include Bhagwan's followers who are not Sannyas...
500,000.
And we were not afraid to show his vision
in physical world.
The new commune is now global. It is a global community.
There are thousands and thousands and thousands of Sannyasins.
And in Europe, believers work year-round
for the pleasure of a trip to Oregon in July for the annual festival.
Out of this money, we can go all to Rajneeshpuram, to the celebration,
to the festival, to see Bhagwan.
It's the high point of the year.
World festival was a magical time...
for all Sannyasins.
It was an event.
People would mark their calendars, save their money and come.
Buses were moving back and forth,
filled with Sannyasins from all over the world.
Is the Rajneesh movement growing in Japan?
Yeah, sure.
Many, many people are taking sannyas in Tokyo.
In just three years, this has become
one of Oregon's biggest summer tourist events.
Yet for most of these people, this is a visit to a state of mind.
- What brings you here? - Adventure, love.
I want to dance. I want to celebrate. I want to sing.
My heart wants to just sing.
Anywhere you go, people were just celebrating.
You have a beer tent, you got a gambling casino, and you got a disco
and you've got food and people are buying stuff.
The world festivals were making lots of money.
I mean, it was just an explosion of activity.
Rajneesh is an avowed capitalist.
The commune boutiques offer a variety of ways to see the light,
materially speaking, or to surround the inner self with scanty spirituality.
Yes, Rajneesh seems to have his mug on everything.
And the Rajneeshees are making money, lots of it.
Rajneesh Foundation International: 19 million.
Rajneesh Investment Corporation: 31 million.
And finally, there is the commune itself: assets 15 million.
The amount of money that came in during those festivals
really sustained us and allowed us to grow.
But all of this is no laughing matter
down the road in tiny Antelope.
Here in the town of Antelope, they're not celebrating this weekend.
There are no parades here, no town picnics,
and the only fireworks are verbal ones.
We've got a concentration camp up there.
It's not a small, rural, quiet place to retire anymore.
It's dark and damp on the eve
of the first world celebration of Rajneesh.
You didn't make a special request for this weather for the festival?
You bet I did.
I think every person in town is-- Was hoping that it rained.
Through our celebration, they get jealous.
- You think so? - Absolutely.
Look at it, which rancher is as successful as this community?
They're jealous.
Only one other message I'd like to say, and that's to the people...
that would like to destroy this city
because they're jealous and ignorant and stupid: up yours.
For me, the whole energy was like a feast.
A feast for the eyes, a feast for the ears,
a feast for smile.
It was a feast of colors.
There were 15,000 lovers of Bhagwan.
Many of them were going to see Bhagwan first time in their life.
And Bhagwan in his beautiful clothes and jewelry...
presented like a king.
He would get the energy moving.
"Come on, give me more than that. That's all you got?"
And he'd get 10,000 people really rocking it.
He was a rock star.
And I was like, "You want to rock and roll?"
Because he went like this, you know? And I went, "Okay."
So, I was in his face and I was doing it back to him.
The crowd was going absolutely nuts.
I also saw that he was a man and he was a human and he wanted to play
and that he wanted to play with me.
And that was my best moment.
There's really something special about Bhagwan, and it's hard to put into words.
We're just all glad to have him here physically.
Always when I see him, I must cry.
So, it's so... emotionally for me.
And yeah, I love him.
There are fireworks and parades going on inside of us.
It was an experience to live.
You have no idea.
You can never capture it again.
Well, I'll tell you this story,
and I shouldn't probably tell you.
I've never told it in public.
They didn't know it, you know, when I was spying on them.
We used to have a little city dump.
So, I was just taking the garbage up there one day,
and there in the garbage I could see stuff they'd thrown in.
A poster.
I thought, "Oh, that'd be kind of cool to have."
So I just jumped right in the dump.
Went over there and grabbed the poster and...
there's a lot of other stuff.
I started looking at it, thought, "Oh, this is pretty interesting."
And find these things in there, says, "Shred this.
Shred this document after the meeting."
And I went through that stuff for quite a while,
taking all I could grab.
Had my buddy watching lookout, see if anybody is coming up the hill.
And there were incriminating things in them.
Internal committee minutes about what was going on at the ranch.
There were instructions about censoring the mail...
making sure everything is read before it goes out.
There were documents about arranged marriages.
I mean, there was a vast array of crap.
And they had a big leak and they didn't even know it.
At that point, you know, I was not dealing with people that I hadn't known for years,
because I didn't trust anybody.
Dave Frohnmayer, he was attorney general. I'd known him for years,
being at the University of Oregon, and we'd known each other for a long time.
Told him, "Let's get together."
And I slipped him some of these minutes from their meetings.
Well, that was the first time that their smokescreen was penetrated.
They'd got caught lying about what was going on out there.
In mid-1983, Dave Frohnmayer made his first appearance in this play.
He was the attorney general of the state of Oregon.
The Frohnmayer family, we have been close to for my entire life.
The Frohnmayers and the Bowermans, we got together every year.
And I knew Dave from the time he was born.
Dave was a remarkable guy.
He was a Harvard undergrad, Rhodes Scholar, Boalt Hall law.
Ran for attorney general in 1980, Dave got elected.
He was uniquely suited for the job.
I have the objective of building
the finest Department of Justice in the United States of America.
I can't think that Oregon deserves any less.
You need integrity because of the importance of that position
to carry through the mission of the Constitution
and laws of the state of Oregon.
Frankly, you need courage because many decisions you make are unpopular.
When Dave became attorney general, my father and I were writing.
I could fire off a letter to Dave and say, "Hey, here's what's happening."
We were doing our best to communicate to Dave that we had a problem here.
Maybe as a favor to our family, Dave's investigation began.
And once they got the bone in their teeth, they weren't going to let go of it.
Rajneeshpuram's strongest legal challenge
comes from the office of the state attorney general.
Dave Frohnmayer filed suit on behalf of Oregon residents claiming the city
violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
When you have a religion exercising the power of a government,
then you have an intermingling of church and state
which is such a fundamental civil liberties issue
that it has to be addressed and we couldn't avoid it.
There was a question of whether the city of Rajneeshpuram
was a legitimate government entity or whether it was a government entity
that was effectively controlled by a religion.
The problem that we identified
was that the two were inextricably linked.
The city of Rajneeshpuram were allowed an official law enforcement agency...
and they were allowed access to the law enforcement data system,
criminal information and backgrounds.
It is the most sensitive information the government possessed about its citizens.
And to carry weapons that private citizens wouldn't have been allowed to carry.
And there were questions about the school.
Is the public elementary school in the town of Rajneesh truly a public school?
There's been argument over this for some time now.
Can teachers wear religious garb when they are teaching in a public school?
The school is permeated with religious symbolism.
It did not look, sound or feel like a public school.
Our case was based on the fact
that the religion was controlling the government,
that the Bhagwan was deciding who would be the mayor,
the city councilors were selected by either Sheela or the Bhagwan,
and then they staged elections, but it was all a show.
And the city existed purely for appearances.
This is a fundamental issue which is so serious
that it must be resolved in our judgment by a court.
We were aware that what we decided
was going to have profound ramifications
and could potentially affect many individuals' constitutional rights.
I remember vividly being struck by the fact that this was big stuff.
This was-- This was important.
And I remember thinking, "I sure hope we're right."
The AG is full of crap.
One sentence sums up the whole thing: the AG...
is not acting as an attorney general, he's acting as a politician.
I can't find words harsh enough in my vocabulary,
certainly that I could say in front of you people,
that would describe my feeling towards a man...
that would use politics and legalities to try and throw people out of their homes.
Frohnmayer writes an opinion, and what he asks
is to have the city declared null and void...
because its very existence violates
the Establishment Clause of the Constitution,
which says that Congress shall make no law establishing a religion.
It requires a careful analysis...
because they're two sides of the same coin, right?
Freedom of religion...
and avoiding an establishment.
There's a lot of establishment cases.
Usually, they're about some town
put a crèche scene on the courthouse steps.
Some teacher allowed students to say a prayer before the beginning of class.
Essentially, always the order is don't do that.
You never had a city destroyed because of the Establishment Clause.
You correct the problem.
So, it's injunctive. You say stop doing that.
Cities that have a majority of a particular religion
are very, very common.
If you look at our history...
If you look at Catholics in Boston,
were a huge majority and totally ran the government.
Utah, Mormonism, that's a whole state.
But certainly in the city of Salt Lake City, even today...
nobody tells those people that they can't have a city.
Nobody thinks that they can't have a city.
Nobody ever even raised the issue, until us.
To have it be something as significant
as destroying the community
of a religious minority...
so that it cannot exist...
which affects fundamental rights of assembly...
speech, religion, association,
powerfully impacting on those rights in a negative way.
I mean, screw religious freedom, right? Do we really care?
Let's have a simple test...
where the government can just do what it wants.
And minority religions we don't really care much about.
By now, Rajneeshpuram had been licensed as a police force.
Everybody knew that their loyalty was not to their badge,
their loyalty was to Bhagwan.
So, they had semi-automatic weapons, tear gas grenades.
You had the mayor of Rajneeshpuram threatening civil war.
What I see here today as I look out
is the beginning of a civil war in this county.
If that's what you want, fine.
So, yeah, it was a huge problem.
We were not out to get the leadership just to get the leadership.
We were looking for the architects responsible for this very broad scheme
of deceit against the United States government.
That's the only way that was going to stop.
It was very clear that all agencies,
Thousand Friends of Oregon,
Frohnmayer,
Governor Atiyeh,
and rest of the politicians
were making difficult for our existence.
The governor has made no secret of his feelings
about the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
and has said repeatedly that, personally, he'd rather they just leave.
Oregon legislature introduced three bills
that would repeal the city charters in both Rajneeshpuram and Rajneesh-Antelope.
Legislation was a tool to destroy the community.
My personal favorite is the initiative petition,
"Expel the Rajneesh cult from Oregon."
I really wonder what they had in mind.
I'm both shocked and amused by the stupidity of Oregon politicians.
Oregon is developing an international reputation as a backwater of bigotry.
There was a task force that had been organized,
addressing the Rajneesh problem...
and how to deal with it.
On the afternoon of September 26,
a whole variety of state and federal officials converged
in a conference room in Salem.
They were there to discuss the Rajneeshees,
but the press was not welcome.
The meeting took place behind closed doors.
Well, when's the last time you heard about a problem,
a Jewish problem, a Rajneesh problem?
What kind of nonsense is this?
What's going on in this state is what I'd like to know.
It used to be the legislature was called a circus.
Now I call it a zoo because at least in a circus the animals are trained.
We had every branch,
federal, state, county, local,
organized and united.
Your attorney general, your county commissioners,
have made many policies behind closed doors against Rajneeshees.
Go to them now. Don't come to me about reconciliation.
For somebody like Sheela, she was driven
out of a real sense that the community was going to be destroyed.
Those were accurate perceptions.
Persecution must stop.
Persecution of all people, all race,
all religion must stop.
Unless this state is ready to do that,
Rajneeshees are not going to stop.
Sheela, over a period of time, she became the focus.
And it was almost by-- By accident.
Bhagwan stepped back into his house, so we didn't see him.
And Sheela stepped forward.
And so with time, I just became more and more devoted to her.
I was-- My devotion to Bhagwan kind of swapped over,
and it included not just Bhagwan, but also Sheela.
You never know, Sheela is never, um...
She's very spontaneous. She's extremely spontaneous.
And she moves with the moods.
She moves with the wind. She moves with the time of the day.
I mean, it's funny, you--
All of you see me in one position or another as a spokesperson,
but you don't know me personally.
Because personally, people can't figure me out.
I'm not the same person you think I am.
Jesus Grove was Sheela's house.
As time went on, it was added to and added to.
It became a very big living complex.
And Sheela moved into her house
people who were of use to her.
But if you lived in Jesus Grove, you were at Sheela's beck and call.
Jesus Grove was kind of where the important people
that were making important decisions were hanging out.
Call them Sheela's lieutenants.
She had this insular group that hung on every word
because she would go up and meet with Bhagwan every night.
There's one appointment Sheela never breaks,
her nightly meeting with Rajneesh.
No one is permitted to accompany her when she meets with Bhagwan.
They reportedly discuss religious matters
and other affairs that concern Rajneeshpuram.
And it became a kind of a ritual in the evening
when Sheela came back from being with Bhagwan,
and she would tell us stories, if you like.
She would tell us about what Bhagwan was saying,
what he wanted of us, what we were going to do next,
why we were going to do it.
And I was swept away.
It was beyond my wildest dreams to ever imagine
that I would fill one of these positions to be so close to Bhagwan.
At some point, I was woken in the night. Eleven o'clock, I was fast asleep in bed
and told to come down to Jesus Grove right away and to bring my wax.
And Sheela wanted me to wax her legs, so I did.
And not long after that, Sheela moved me into her house.
We confronted situations always as a unit.
How can we solve the problem?
The more creative we were,
the more destructive the politicians were against us.
It was their hate that forced us to take these steps
for self-preservation, self-protection, self-survival.
I understand that you have an announcement
that is in the offing.
- That's correct. - That everyone is waiting patiently for.
Um... Can you maybe give us some idea of when we should expect to hear that?
Everybody is waiting patiently. I would say the same thing.
You need to wait patiently too.
Any indication of the magnitude of that announcement?
It's going to be...
probably the first project world has ever carried out.
- Could you repeat that? I'm sorry... - It's probably one of the first project
that anybody in the world will carry out, is us.
It will be a world project.
People started meeting in Sheela's room,
and a scheme developed of bringing people in.
What's the best time to come here tomorrow?
What you'd have to do is we have tickets right here, right now for the bus.
I was down in Phoenix and in San Diego,
going around to homeless shelters
and standing with an open door to a Greyhound bus,
saying, "Come join us."
There's a beautiful city in Oregon which is blossoming.
And it's happening and it's a city that's not happening anywhere else in the world.
- Ain't no drugs there, right? - No drugs.
- You can't drink? - Well, you get two beers a day.
- Two beers a day. - Yeah.
All aboard, Rajneeshpuram!
Didn't matter whether you were a woman or what color your skin was,
whether you're a vet, any person were invited.
- Where have you been? - All over the place.
New York, Chicago, um... Texas.
The east coast, west coast, south coast, and everywhere.
I would say, "The bus is here. If you want to come, load up."
I decided to go. I'm sick of living on streets.
It's all I've been doing for the past six months.
So, what evolves is a steady stream of people
coming from cities all over America.
Political battles and court cases.
It hasn't exactly been a state of nirvana in the state of Oregon
since an Indian guru and his followers settled there in 1981.
The latest controversy is a program to recruit the down and out, the homeless.
Where we getting tickets at?
Just what happens to the homeless people after they arrive
at the Rajneesh complex here remains a Rajneesh secret.
We were taking care of these people.
These rejects from the society
we had invited to be our guest.
In India, a guest comes,
they can be a form of God.
What we did with them is to clean them up,
clean their open wounds, or give them free dental work,
check their eyes.
We gave them back their self-respect.
Up till now, society had abused these people all their lifetime,
and I wanted to create a situation
the world has never experienced before.
Jesus Santos finished a six-year term
at the Colorado State Penitentiary last month.
It provides a sense of community,
and it provides me with people who care for me.
That's something I haven't had in my life.
I think that's something not only people need,
but I think it's the world in general.
I'm just a city boy, you know, but this is, you know,
what I always wanted to do since I was little, you know?
Beautiful.
I love it. Definitely. No doubt.
I don't know, there's really nothing else out there.
You know, it's really beautiful here.
And I decided to follow Bhagwan because it just...
It was a feeling, you know? It's like a feeling everybody gets, I guess.
What's so beautiful about it here?
Well, you don't have no crime.
You don't have to worry about walking down the street and getting stabbed or shot.
You know?
It's hard to explain.
And I saw some dramatic changes in those people
in a very short period of time.
It sort of blew me away.
They just changed. They opened up.
They actually started to discover themselves spiritually.
So, all the press is here, Isabel?
People that you call them street people,
people who have been accused that they have been derelicts
or criminals or winos, that they are not that
and they are respected human beings.
You offer them respect and they respect you ten times more.
The recruiting goes on in every major city in the United States.
Those efforts are getting plenty of nationwide attention.
In Washington D.C., the Rajneeshees continue to recruit street people
with the promise of food and shelter and a free bus ride to Oregon.
The homeless continue to pour into Rajneeshpuram.
...continue to pour into Oregon. A spokesperson at Rancho Rajneesh
says five more busloads of the homeless arrived there today.
Thirty-five hundred homeless to Rajneeshpuram in 39 days.
By sometime next week, the homeless may outnumber the Rajneeshees
by two to one.
All of them will be part of the new Rajneeshee community,
united in a single trusting conviction,
they believe they are no longer homeless.
America has lost its heart.
Its heart is right here in Rajneeshpuram now. It's not out there.
Rajneeshpuram is now saying to America,
"Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free."
And we won't humiliate them on Ellis Island.
We won't put them in factories in Chicago and New York
and make them work 12-hour days like slaves.
We'll treat them with respect. We'll give them beautiful homes.
We'll give them beautiful clothes to wear. We'll give them a new life.
And that's what I've got. If anything is-- Phew.
If anything is American and democratic, it's Rajneeshpuram.
It's not the outside world. This is home. I love it. Thank you.
Antelope started to change when the ranch doubled in size.
You know, they had hundreds or thousands of homeless people and nobody knew why.
Two weeks ago street people began arriving
at the city of Rajneeshpuram,
and today the question on the minds of many Wasco County residents is,
"What's going on?"
I don't know what they might do. The unknown is what we fear.
And, it's... I just don't know what they'll do next.
It was kind of a mystery, but people just thought they were crazy.
These homeless people were just kind of showing up.
And they'd be sleeping in vacant lots or people's garages
or under a car or something.
It was a magnet for crazy people, you know?
And people had no idea, you know, what they were really doing.
The offer is one a lot of Wasco County residents think is too good to be true.
They're asking themselves why their Rajneeshee neighbors to the south
are suddenly so generous and open with their city.
Six thousand of them from all over the country.
Homeless people brought in here and we're going to give you food,
we're going to give you a roof over your head,
and all you have to do is vote.
The elections of '84 felt like a conspiracy
to shut down Rajneeshpuram.
Politicians were planning to elect
Republican anti-Rajneeshee commission.
So, Bhagwan told Sheela it was time to take over Wasco County.
We were to have three Rajneesh representatives on Wasco County,
and he was pushing her really hard.
At that point, if we didn't protect ourselves
with what law allows to bring these homeless people,
uh... it would be stupid on our part.
Tonight for the first time, the Rajneeshees are openly admitting
that they plan to enter their own candidates
for the two Wasco County commissioners' seats up for grabs
in the November election.
After weeks of denials, Ma Anand Sheela has now admitted publicly
that the Rajneeshees' goal is to take over Wasco County.
She says the takeover is for her community's self-protection.
So you want to control Wasco County?
Absolutely, now I do.
And I will be the first person to campaign.
It needs to be at a boiling point,
so once and for all it can evaporate.
But a boiling point implies someone is going to get burned.
So what?
For humanity, a little burn here or there, it's worth it.
The shipments of homeless continue to arrive here every day.
So, just how many Rajneesh votes will be cast may not be known until Election Day.
All veterans!
All veterans to the desk, please!
This is a Rajneeshee videotape
of last night's community meeting.
Rajneeshees say 7,000 were there, Rajneeshees and street people alike.
We have come home, and we have done the right thing.
The master has brought us home to protect us
from the neo-colonial, imperialistic, technocratic society
of the United States of aggression.
There's a lot of people out there that are supposedly Christians.
That have not given us this opportunity that you've given us.
They told me they wouldn't have me.
We got a home. Let's keep it.
And the ones that don't want it, get the hell out!
The fact that they had brought all these people in,
6,000 of them from all over the country,
suddenly opened eyes to the fact that, okay,
they took over Antelope, that's Antelope's problem.
They're going to take over Wasco County.
That might be a little bigger deal than just Wasco County's problem
because they get the county, are they going to get the state next?
Good evening. People in Wasco County met tonight trying to fight the Rajneeshees.
It was the biggest ever anti-Rajneesh rally, about 2,000 people.
They are angry, frustrated, and fearful.
They see recent developments at Rajneeshpuram as a threat to them,
their friends, their state.
There were so many people here tonight
they spilled out into the hallways of The Dalles High School.
Inside speakers told the people of Wasco County why they should be voting
and why they should be outraged.
They brought these people to take over
the central part of the state of Oregon.
Now, I want to tell you folks that there is no way that we can stop them,
when you have counties that only have 570 and 800 voters.
I think it was a done deal.
If all 6,000 of them had voted as a block, they couldn't beat them.
When they've made statements that within the next 15 years,
before the year 2000, they'll control of the state.
I think that's a very great threat.
And the way our voting laws are, I'm-- I'm scared about it really.
If they can field six or 7,000 votes,
they'll come on strong with some write-in candidate.
They're a group of people that don't like to be defeated.
Is it possible for the Rajneeshees to take over Wasco County?
They could very easily take over Wasco County, yes.
We became concerned working with the secretary of state
that we needed to take steps to make sure that only people
who were legitimate voters in Oregon,
people who were in Oregon and intended to be residents of Oregon would vote.
How is it legal for people to step off a bus and literally vote?
As long as you're a U.S. citizen, 18 years of age on election day,
and a resident of the state of Oregon for 20 days, you can register to vote.
There were very few tools available to us or the secretary of state
because Oregon then and now was in the forefront of easy voting.
Let's assume that your worst fears are correct,
that all these people are now going to go and vote.
As I said before, you helped pass the kind of legislation that makes it possible.
Maybe they don't like you, they vote you out of office,
that's the American way, isn't it?
It's ironic that in looking through the statutes now
and watching buses roll by,
Oregon law, at this point, will not prohibit that.
American way is that Constitution should be upheld
and anybody who wants to vote should be allowed to vote.
Today it was Republican Donna Zajonc on the offensive.
Not only does she want to challenge voter registration,
but she wants the attorney general to see if allowing recently arrived street people
to vote in Wasco County, might be unconstitutional.
Anyone who violates election laws will be prosecuted
if it comes to our attention, and we're taking every step possible
to ensure that we'll be in a position to prosecute successfully.
There's no crime. That's what I said, there is no crime.
It is residing with intent to vote.
I mean, it's simply no crime.
Sure. They moved in, they were brought there,
they were sympathetic to the community, of course,
so they wanted to vote.
As soon as these people came, maybe they haven't voted in years,
but when they heard their right to vote was being threatened, they all said,
"Hell with it, I'm gonna vote."
They try to say I'm a street person, a derelict. They try to take my rights.
That's my birthright, I can vote. I come here and they try to say I can't vote.
I'm going to go down there and vote.
We're Americans here!
And all...
And all of us have a right, a birthright to vote.
Next Monday, the anti-Rajneesh group
plans to march on Salem to ask Governor Atiyeh
to declare a state of emergency because of Rajneesh activities.
Our America is being destructed, is being sold by people
who do not fear God and who care only about money.
Amen!
But I want to tell you, the freedom that we have
was not paved with money.
It was the blood of the pioneers.
We now call upon the governor to proclaim that Rajneeshpuram
be put in its proper place as a non-existent city
and to disarm this cult's army now.
You tell your governors, you tell your attorney general
and all your bigoted pigs outside,
they touch any of our people,
I will have 15 of their heads, and I mean business.
I tell you the county is so fucking bigoted, it deserves to be taken over.
A major development involving the Rajneeshees
and voting in Wasco County.
- Good evening, everybody, I'm Kim Singer. - And I'm Gary Hill.
Today, the Rajneeshees took a bus load of homeless people to The Dalles
to register them in Wasco County to vote.
But they were in for a surprise.
Rajneeshee street people arrived in The Dalles
to register as voters.
They were met by Sue Profit, Wasco County clerk.
Okay, I'm going to read a statement. Can you all hear me?
- Yes. - Okay. Please listen very carefully.
"Because I have reason to believe there are organized efforts
to fraudulently register people in Wasco County to vote
in the November general election, I have decided to do a blanket rejection
of all new voter registrations in Wasco County."
A busload of 30 Rajneeshees and homeless men were turned back
at the door of the Wasco County clerk's office in The Dalles this morning
as they tried to register to vote.
The county suspended the right to vote.
One of the few times that's ever happened in the United States,
in one of the most arrogant and powerful ways I had ever seen.
That really-- I mean, I got fired up about that one,
about how these people might as well be stomping on the Constitution.
You make these people spend their whole day coming here
and you're rejecting people from their right to vote.
That is a gross misinterpretation of the law and you should know it.
We have contributed to America to its fullest.
We intend, because we are Americans,
to participate in this political system and exercise the inalienable right.
The inalienable right.
I don't know what's going to happen, but it's-- It's not going to be good.
It was really as though a bomb went off in the middle of the community.
The county refused to register any of these people as voters.
It was a catastrophe.
We had literally thousands of homeless people causing complete chaos.
It became clear that we had a hornet's nest
right in the middle of the community.
One of them, a very big man...
was just completely crazy, rampaging around,
breaking things, screaming and shouting,
stopping cars, pulling open the driver's door,
pulling out the drivers, throwing them on the ground.
And Sheela heard what was happening.
She came down from her house
and went right up to him and spoke to him.
And he was foaming at the mouth.
Took me by my throat,
and he wanted to kill me.
He grabbed her by the neck, lifted her up off the ground and shook her violently.
And the whole Peace Force,
no one can move a step forward.
I was certain I was going to die that day.
By this time, one of the doctors had come.
They sedated him,
put him in a car, drove him off Rajneeshpuram,
off the ranch and set him out on a park bench.
In an effort to reduce the chaos,
it was decided that the way
to deal with this situation
was to sedate all of the homeless people.
So, Haldol, a sedative,
was put into the beer that was served to the homeless people
with their evening meal.
Nobody asked them if that was okay.
They did not know that they were being drugged.
I'd like to say one thing into this camera right now.
You've got some good beer here.
We had all of these attacks going on, and it didn't look good.
By then, they had screwed us a few times.
And Sheela wanted to hurt them back.
Sheela called different people to her room
to discuss other possible ways...
to win the election.
The conversations were taking a very bizarre turn.
Sheela described herself this night as the mother of these men.
What followed was a pep rally in the familiar style of Sheela.
That woman, that bitch, has made the worst mistake in her life.
You know why?
Because she's afraid,
she's scared shit.
And I'm pointing fingers at them that they could not do it.
They didn't have the courage to accept you as people,
and you fought for them!
You fought for them!
I'm going to fight for you!
That devotion to the master,
devotion to building that city in the wilderness,
led some people...
to allow Sheela...
to mislead them
into doing things that ought not to be done.
Now, instead of...
trying to trick your way through or shout your way through
or force your way through to get what you wanted,
now it was different.
Now there was talk of killing people to get what you wanted,
to get them out of the way.
I was holding my breath and hoping this wasn't real.
There's darkness in all of us. All of us have our dark side.
That's just the nature of being human.
It doesn't make you a bad person.