They can take a lot of approaches, obviously. How do cult leaders like Rajneesh exert control o ver their followers?
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. I talked with Louis Manza, chair and professor of psychology at Lebanon Valley College about how cult leaders control their followers, when people are most vulnerable to cults, and the difference between cults and religions. All of these groups, and many more less prominent cult organizations, have some things in common. In 1993, in a standoff with government officials, more than 75 Branch Davidians died in a building fire in Waco, Texas, together with their leader David Koresh. In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones urged more than 900 of his followers to kill themselves by drinking poison in Jonestown, Guyana. Rajneesh was just one of many cult leaders who have captivated - and horrified - people throughout history. (For more on Rajneesh and his cult, read The Oregonian’s 20-part investigation from the 1980s.) The Netflix documentary doesn’t show this, but Win McCormack, who wrote about the cult in the 1980s, points out in The New Republic that Rajneesh’s followers were encouraged to get sterilized or have abortions. But his cult also forced members to donate large quantities of money, while creating an isolated community that kept tight control over its members. Rajneesh preached to his followers about the idea of creating awakened people who live in harmony with their surroundings. What are the psychological mechanisms at play? And it doesn’t really address how it’s possible that thousands of people could just give up their lives, wear only maroon clothes, and blindly follow one man. Photo: Netflixīut as Ronit Feinglass Plank notes in The Atlantic, the series doesn’t really explain what the day-to-day life was like in Rajneeshpuram.
Ma Anand Sheela and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Wild Wild Country follows the saga in captivating ways, through historical footage as well as sit-down interviews with Sheela, who effectively ran the cult and was Rajneesh’s spokesperson, and other members who had prominent roles, like Rajneesh’s lawyer Swami Prem Niren. It’s no surprise that the situation snowballed, leading to heated confrontations with local residents, attempted murder, and mass poisoning. In 1981, with the help of Sheela, who became his personal assistant, Rajneesh bought a ranch nearby the tiny town of Antelope, Oregon, and moved his cult there, creating a whole new city named Rajneeshpuram. Rajneesh, who died in 1990, was a powerful spiritual guru who had thousands of followers in India and the West. “My whole head melted,” Sheela says in the Netflix docuseries Wild Wild Country, which discusses Rajneesh and his cult. When Ma Anand Sheela first met the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in his apartment in Mumbai in 1968, she hugged him and cried.
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