Recent Cult Movies and Documentaries

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ex-l

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Recent Cult Movies and Documentaries

Post02 Apr 2018

Wild Wild Country: One the world's most controversial guru, Osho Rajneesh, attempts to builds a utopian city deep in the Oregon countryside, leading to conflict with the locals that escalates into a national scandal.

A well shot six part atypical and not entirely unsympathetic 'cult documentary', involving many of the original leading figures and original footage.

I wonder if the BKs will ever be able to allow such a mature and relatively objective documentary about BKism ... or whether they would be so honest on camera.

From the BKs' point of view, I suppose they would dismiss the "Orange People" as a "fag end of Kali Yuga" cult and Rajneesh as a two birth "prophet soul" but it's quite impressive what they achieved ... before it all fell apart. I am only a couple of episodes in so I cannot tell why it happened yet.

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Pink Panther

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Re: Wild Wild Country - Cult Documentary (Rajneesh)

Post03 Apr 2018

From the BKs' point of view, I suppose they would dismiss the "Orange People" as a "fag end of Kali Yuga" cult

The BKs will gloat that they are still existing and flourishing where Rajneesh’s group has ended.
But, I bet his books and other media still outsell BK media!

Weren’t the BKs by their own raison d’etre and predictions, supposed to not be existing anymore? Surely every day of their continuation is an embarrassment to them and their teacher!

Maybe some orange person will start channeling Avyakt Rajneesh? :-D
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ex-l

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Re: Wild Wild Country - Cult Documentary (Rajneesh)

Post03 Apr 2018

The six, hour long episode documentary focuses mostly on the during and after lives of 3 leading ex-followers including Rajneesh's attorney and his number 2, the infamous Ma Anand Sheela. Despite it's length, it still only skims over the story and controversies and, one is left feeling makes certain accommodations regarding some of the more serious allegations. Funnily enough, Rajneesh himself does not come off looking too good.

Although there's not the same "big story" to hang individual stories on, I think a similar "before and after" one about early ex-BKs stories would be good.

The controversies are not over, they are still fighting over his will, the one that determines who owns the intellectual property you speak of.

The overall impression I was left with was America or American Conservativism 1 - India 0. Unlike other stories of "disgruntled ex-members" exposing the cult, this was more a story about how a new religion was destroyed by a State, how a religion fighting back became a smaller version of the monster it was fighting, and lost badly. A small question remaining, why it felt so strongly to have to?
Yogesh Thakker, one of Rajneesh's disciples, claims that trustees of the Switzerland-based Osho International Foundation forged Rajneeshs signatures on a fake will to transfer his intellectual property rights in the foundations name.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Wild Wild Country - Cult Documentary (Rajneesh)

Post03 Apr 2018

Ex-I and Pink,

It was not so much the American Conservatism as it was the Vatican using American Conservatism to destroy the Rajneesh Organization. Why? The Vatican fears that one day the truth about Jesus and his family will be revealed for all to see, including non-Christians.
Admin wrote:Admin note:

Off topic posts moved to a new topic on The Vatican (link).
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ex-l

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Re: Wild Wild Country - Cult Documentary (Rajneesh)

Post03 Apr 2018

I cannot comment on how far the Vatican's tentacles reach. In the USA, I would not have thought much further than Boston and the cover up of child sex abuse in a few dioceses. Actually, the documentary - while discussing the lack of separation between church and state as part of the legal wranglings regarding the Rajneeshis was over their purely democratic take over of the local town/city/county, did mention the Catholic influence over Boston government.

The Rajneeshis initial "crime" ... was simply to move in, buy property, and out vote a sleepy almost non-existent community. It was more about "decadent" townies versus "simple" country folk.

The people of Mount Abu are said to voice mainly negative opinions of BKs for similar reasons.

However, I saw the demise of Rajneeshism rather as its vulnerability to being swallowed up by "America" and America's tendencies on a more spiritual or metaphorically level as more and more American or Westerners flooded its ranks with their tendencies.

It was as if Rajneesh's original spirit was not strong enough to resist those American tendencies; everything from consipicuous wealth, consumerism and liberal attitudes towards sex (a post-hippie style 'free love' indulgence) ... to then guns, politics and violent intrigues. Within a few years, they went from "confronting" the established interests of a small conservative "Christian" village ... to the FBI, State Department and even President coming down on them and Rajneesh turning on his most devoted follower/s.

I put "Christian" in quote marks because, obviously, it was not a Christianity Christ would recognise, but more of a "Praise the Lord and Pass the Bullets" kind in which free love and sex were the works of Satan and evil. Bizarrely I thought, even the chief public prosecutor used such words. Obviously good for votes, I guess.

Rajneesh, it appeared to me, was completely out of his depth and went up against a few bigger/better enemy that, in essence, destroyed him. It seems to me that it was the free love/sex aspect that really destroyed him, not the materialistic/consumeristic side, ie what was right for India ... introducing it a little ... went too far swallowed up by America ... that was already doing too much of it. It lost its spiritual balance.

That last be being only my working theory at present ...

Of course, it was the free love/body conscious aspect that *also* got him run out of Mount Abu.

I think it also showed how large groups tend to produce their own "powerful" "ecstatic" (hysterical?) experiences, as the Orange People were also very clearly having theirs ... no Shiva Baba included.
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ex-l

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post04 Apr 2018

'Holy Hell' is a very personal documentary about a small cult in the USA and Hawaii called The Buddhafield.

It highlights the social interplay that happens between highly codependent people who are willing to give pathological narcissists the constant adoration attention they need, and who depend upon him as the source of their self-esteem.

The film maker notes there is a simple mechanism that upon seeing other people devoted, people who appear otherwise rational or attractive, that encourages us to becoming devoted.

In this case, Michel - the "guru" himself, the film maker, and many of the followers were homosexual males and this is reflected in both the cult, the documentary ... and the type of sex abuse that ultimately happened. I suspect many BKs/ex-BKs will find that element and the degree of "body-consciousness" uncomfortable ... The "guru" figure turned out to be an failed actor/ex-gay porn star and much of the symbolism is as camp as heck, and it seems llike only "beautiful people" were encouraged to join.

However, as ever, what is most remarkable about it ... is how similar the dynamics are (again, and again, and again).

It is as if whatever your needs are, there's a group and a leader out there to match and exploit them ... only in California, even cult devotees have to have perfect white teeth.

Perhaps the most touching part is in the final minutes when an advertisement the film maker made for the group when he was an adherent is overlaid with notifications of who left and who stayed; and the personal stories they tell of regaining control of their lives after leaving, and how the post cult or exiting experience ultimately enriched their lives.

The adherents, all shown in whites and "full Godly ecstacy" mode during their cult days ... just as we might have done ... have pretty much now all left.

The guru himself did not reform but just - as with Lekhraj Kirpalani and the BKs - changed his name and changed his location and started up again with a small core group and the same dynamics.

The paradox being that it was the allegedly enlightened one who was stuck and could not change.

The group became established where the Brahma Kumaris started their expansion into the USA ... San Antonio, Texas.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post04 Apr 2018

With respect to Rajneesh, there are some historical facts, which are easily forgotten or deliberately omitted. The events with Rajneesh and his assassination by the United States government and other states, occurred less than a decade after the Jonestown incident in the Guyana jungles. The Regan administration and subsequent presidencies were weary of a similar incident like Jonestown on American soil, though Jonestown was a false flag operation by Deep State to confiscate Soviet nuclear missiles hidden in the jungles of Guyana.

It is ironic that Congressman Ryan, who was assassinated in the Guyana jungles while investigating Jonestown, had a daughter who became a member of the Rajneesh cult. Where were the BKs at that time. There were centers in New York, Simon and Hansa were picking the pieces left by Denise and Chandru to advance and maintain the flotation of the San Antonio center. Denise and Chandru were in San Francisco, establishing service on the West Coast of the USA.

San Antonio is a major military city for the US government. There is a great Hispanic cultural influence; it's famous for the Alamo Fort. I have seen it grow to a major US city from a being small town USA due to the expanding US military industrial complex.
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ex-l

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post04 Apr 2018

GuptaRati 6666 wrote:With respect to Rajneesh, there are some historical facts, which are easily forgotten or deliberately omitted. The events with Rajneesh and his assassination by the United States government and other states, occurred less than a decade after the Jonestown incident in the Guyana jungles.

That's true. Jonestown was a very dark episode.

But I also see similarities in the treatment of William Reich in America, a lesser well know episode involving the same forces, due to its happening before mass media. Reich was one of Freud's original and most vigorous students. As with Rajneesh, part of his work focused on the connections between sexual repression, family structure and authoritarianism, eg read "The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)".

I wonder how he would view BKism as he saw a connection between authoritarian family organization and the traits of the distrust, anxiety, neuroses, perversions, suicide, etc.
“Sexual suppression is an essential instrument in the production of economic enslavement. Thus, sexual suppression in the infant and the adolescent is not, as psychoanalysis--in agreement with traditional and erroneous concepts of education--contends, the prerequisite of cultural development, sociality, diligence and cleanliness; it is the exact opposite.”

- Reich

Does not sexual suppression within BKism play a key part in the ultimate economic exploitation of its adherents? For example, it's just simple accounting to suggest that by removing child rearing from the majority of BKs' lives increases the potential amount of money and free labour the BK leaders can exploit them for. Estimated at the equivalent of $240,000 each in the West.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post04 Apr 2018

The discovery and demonstration of orgone energy by Reich could have contributed to the collapse of the pharmaceutical industrial complex and the oil industry. Reich had to be stopped, but not completely. There is a difference between sexual suppression and brahmacharya. Bramacharya has its benefits for academic, intellectual, and spiritual growth. In BKism, brahmacharya degenerates and is exploited in the form of sexual suppression instead of nurtured into productive creative scholarship and healthy social relationships.

In the USA, it is not only children it is also pets, which can shunt money away from the BK bank accounts. Just visit the pet section and baby sections of Target, Whole Foods, or the Vitamin Shop and you'll appreciate the enormity of the pet industry, including the pet health industry. One ex-BK, a veterinarian, told me of his experiences working at a pet hospital in Manhattan where pets were chauffeured to the clinic and the hospital could have easily function as a human hospital.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post05 Apr 2018

Ex-I, your ideas are well taken by me.

We as ex-BK must never loose sight of our personal spiritual heritage, including our personal spiritual growth. When we do not fully study the past and understand its influence on the future, including our future, we can become victimized by a global ruling class and fractions of the global 1%.

The BKs for more than 40 years have been courting organizations of the Illuminati and individuals who are members of the Illuminati. Though I am not a member of any Illuminati organization, my work as a clinician and scientist, with out any details, has enabled me to work with political leaders, including presidents, prime ministers, and mayors.

One of my mentors of my youth was permanently banned from entering the United States. The BKs wanted me to be one of their high profile ambassadors; I refused. My missions in life, my family, my privacy have always taken first place before BKism.

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post05 Apr 2018

The documentary "Wild, Wild Country" was discussed on an American TV show today, "Megan Kelly", along with the 2 directors of the film. I saw some clips of this while in NYC and was very interesting. Was told it's now on Netflix ... when a previous Australian woman deeply into the cult, who tried to murder someone was asked, how did she leave, she replied that it took a great many years.

What she discovered was although she thought she was going to India following her spirituality and then deeply fell into following Rajneesh, upon trying to be honest, said she was running away from something instead. It took her years of being honest; she had to serve prison time, and still had difficulty.

Looking forward to watching this ... thanks Ex-I !!
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ex-l

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post08 Apr 2018

Not so much a "recent" but a recently refound and re-released award winning documentary on Marjoe Gortner, was a child star of the Pentecostal Christian circuit.

If every there was a documentary to underline the connection between religion and pulling in Dollars, this is it. Unique in that it offers a "behind the scenes" look into what was to be his last tour as an Evangelical preacher, documenting how he was wrestling with the need to make money, the easy of making money, all the various rackets the Evangelicals ran and their use of language to describe them.
... the story of an abused child preacher who grows up to become an Evangelical con man, living a double life as a dope-smoking, girl-chasing hippie in LA. The documentary went on to win the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and earned massive amounts of critical acclaim.

Born in 1944, the film's subject, who became an ordained minister at the age of four. (His parents derived his name from a combination of Mary and Joseph.) Throughout his childhood, he officiated weddings, delivered theatrical sermons, and earned his parents an estimated $3 million, none of which he ever saw. Marjoe alleges that he was subject to emotional and physical abuse by his parents, who he says subjected him to a type of waterboarding when he had difficulty memorizing sermons. At 16, he ran away and fell into the blossoming counterculture of 1960s California.

Marjoe returned to the Evangelical tent-revival circuit in his 20s, capitalizing on his adolescent fame. Marjoe admits in the film that he was never a believer in Christ as an adult or a child, and by his late 20s he began to feel guilty for profiting from the hellfire and damnation services he believed were psychologically harmful to people.

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ex-l

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Re: Recent Cult Documentaries (Rajneesh, The Buddhafield etc

Post08 Apr 2018

Sons of Perdition is a 2010 documentary film exploring into the lives of teenagers exiled from their families and community by Warren Jeffs, self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church), notorious for its polygamous practises where its leaders can marry up to 60 wives.

Naturally, in order to do so, they must cast out a significant number of young males in order to keep a balance.

It seems children and women brought up within the cult share many similarities with, say, the most extreme orthodox Jews in terms of renouncing worldliness (one kid in the documentary was confused by the difference between Bill Clinton and Adolf Hitler!), producing children ... families of 10 or 15 children are not unknown, another child not actually knowing how many siblings he had ... and suffering from exile and shaming by their families and community.

"Sons of perdition" is a term used by the FLDS Church to describe former members who have apostatized from their religion and faith. The term is derogatory and intended to convey unholiness, sin and evil.

"Prophet" Warren Jeffs is current serving a jail sentence for of sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault of children including the sexual assault of both 12- and 15-year-old "wives". In December 2012, Jeffs had predicted that the world would end before the year 2013.

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ex-l

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Re: Recent Cult Movies and Documentaries

Post20 Sep 2018

An entertaining, slightly 'noir', slightly comedic, multi-layered movie about cults that, this time, does not follow the usual themes ... 'Faults'. For a change, this time it makes a valid critique of the whole "cult expert" scene.

A young woman is under the influence of a mysterious cult, her parents are concerned and hire a cult deprogrammer. Or is it?


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