6-part series, about an hour per episode ...

I guess I was a little too young to remember this, occurred through the mid-1980s. I'm through the first four episodes and wow ... what a trip.

Essentially, a "guru" from India forms a new movement that blends spirituality with capitalism in the late 1960s. As the US moves through the age of free love and Viet Nam, the movement takes hold in the US. In the early 1980s, the commune buys a massive amount of land in Oregon and attempts to build a city based on their beliefs.

At that point, the local government steps in ... and all hell breaks loose. The commune literally takes over the local municipal government by outnumbering the residents. They run for office and win control of the city council. Things continue to spiral out of control as the commune attempts to take over the county government ... but who is really running the show and what lengths is he or she willing to go to?

I binged on this over the weekend. Fantastic documentary, loved their use of dramatic music. I don't remember this story either, but it is a lot more crazy than Waco. I was amazed how they built a complete city from the ground up, and even had a casino, disco, pizza parlor, airstrip and legalized police force.

One of the most interesting bits is how they went around the US and loaded up homeless people with a promise of utopia. They took great care of the homeless just to get their votes at elections and then coldly dumped them out later.

It's kinda surprising that there hasn't been a large real social experiment type movement since then.

I remember this. It didn't really hit the news until it was all over with. The guy had dozens of gold Rolls-Royces that were auctioned off by the government. A couple of them ended up in Oklahoma. Thanks for the tip, I will definitely watch this.

dvdjunkie — yeah, the homeless stuff was crazy. What is sad was that it seemed as if it really was making a difference in the lives of some of them. You will always have mental health issues (which is what it seemed the Rajneeshi (sp?) leaders were unprepared for. That put them to the test and showed what they (the leaders, not the commune) were really made of.

I guess that could be said of anybody who joined them though.

It seemed to me Sheela really took control of the day to day operations while the Bagwan was kept doped up and away from everybody. Then the internal power struggles really kicked in and she became a scape-goat who thought she was doing the right thing. It would be interesting to see more on the internal aspects of this.

Sounds a bit like Far Cry 5 was inspired by this. I'll watch... I love a good documentary.

Could this be made into a theatrical feature?

I remember this very well (too well).
It happened not far from me.
The story went on for years and years here in Oregon.
Even to this day, it occasionally comes back in the news.

I mean anything "could" be made into a theatrical feature. Why would they?

The other thing that blew me away was they built their own electrical system and power plant. Truly amazing that they were able to completely build a self contained city in the middle of nowhere. Yeah the homeless seemed really happy there and finding purpose again with the commune. They even became vocal defendants of the group.

It makes me wonder why there never has been a major attempt of a social experiment like this in our generation. They had some highly educated people there and was running a mega million dollar operation.

Do you know if any of the original buildings on the site still exist? I wonder if they torn it all down. I know it's big Christian youth camp now.

Easy to do when you have that much money being funneled into a project. Interesting, in the end it wasn't self sustaining at all, which I thought was the whole point.

I'm confused about why the group was so antagonistic. I get the locals didn't want them around initially. But they should have played the long game and become good neighbors.