Ma Anand Sheela Is The Reason You’re Gonna Want To Watch Wild Wild Country

It’s pretty hard to get your head around the complexities of cults. Yes, we’re talking cults. Or communes, if you will. Those typically controversial gatherings of people bound by their devout belief in some guy (it’s normally a guy, right?) and his word. Tales and rumours of the Manson Family and Heaven’s Gate tell us that its, messy, terrifying business. As for setting one up and seeing it through? Netflix’s new and astoundingly captivating documentary Wild Wild Country, shows how erm, wild, that side of things are too.

The story is unreal, and on watching it you'll probably spend most of the six hour-long episodes wondering how TF you hadn't heard about it before. But here it goes, here's the madness that you've missed.

There was a guru called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also later known as Osho. He became a big deal and in the 1980s, he amassed a huge following in India. People would flock from all over the world to be in his presence and learn to live life with an 'elevated consciousness’ and endure his elaborate meditation techniques. It involved lots of jumping, screaming, shaking and dancing, followed by some silent time.

Watch The Wild, Wild Country Trailer

Amid growing tensions between him and the over in India government, he decided to up sticks and relocate the whole operation to the United States. They say that his vision was to build a community of 100,000 followers and a huge vacant range in Oregon had the space to facilitate that.

They bought the ranch and Bhagwan sent his followers ahead to turn it into a legitimately hospitable living space. We're talking about the construction of their own electricity network, an airport, a meditation centre big enough to hold 10,000 people and all sorts. They named it Rajneeshpuram.

This was by no means a casual, incidental nor subtle relocation. This was the start of something bigger than anyone could have envisioned.

The move over to America and 'management' (you'll understand why I use that term skeptically in a little while) of subsequent dramas of the Rajneeshees was for the most part spearheaded by Bhagwan’s right hand woman, Ma Anand Sheela. ‘America was land of promise. It was my conviction we would have no problems’, she explains in the first episode. Let's just say that she was his secretary and then some.

How did Sheela see herself? Well, when we're first introduced to this calm and charismatic woman in the programme, she had this to say: ‘With every crown comes the guillotine. Without the guillotine you cannot wear the crown. And it was my fate. But why does one have to put someone under the guillotine? Because of their strength. They want to destroy their strength. And in spite of guillotine, they haven’t killed me yet. They haven’t killed my spirit yet. No matter where I go, I will always wear a crown. I'm not afraid of being under guillotine.' Yeah.

Who is Ma Anand Sheela?

Ma Anand Sheela, now 68-years-old, lived a pretty normal life in the early days. In the documentary we find out that she was living in the States before devoting herself to Bhagwan. He kindly allowed her to stay in the US after meeting him in India, though. She got a degree and married a nice Jewish man called Mark who sadly died not long after.

After Mark's death, she tells us she asked doctors to put her to sleep for three days and when she awakes, Bhagwan tells her 'that chapter of your life is over. Now you can throw yourself into the work.' A creepy and distressing scenario, yes. But boy did she throw herself into it.

From there she became Bhagwan's personal assistant and then his secretary after low-key overthrowing his previous one, Laxmi. She became his righthand woman. She was the public spokesperson for pretty much any and all occasions - talk shows, interviews, the works - as Bhagwan wasn't really into being in the spotlight beyond the perimeters of his fleet of almost 20 Rolls Royces. She was a badass and she became known for her assertive, forthright comments in media appearances. When she was asked what she thought about the local residents who didn't want the Rajneeshees around she replied: 'What can I say? Tough titties.'

Sheela was the one who managed the commune and orchestrated a lot of the madness that unfolded in the run up to her eventual incarceration.

Why Was Ma Anand Sheela In Jail?

So this cult was responsible for what's frequently referred to as the 'biggest case of immigration fraud in US history'. If you can think of the most outlandish, ridiculous and headline grabbing scenario, it probably happened. There was a bombing, rifle patrols and a case of mass poisoning for which Sheela eventually went down for.

'If I didn’t take measures to protect our community, no one else would do it’, she tells us in the documentary. Those measures got pretty extreme. In the midst of increasing conflict between the Bhagwan followers and the residents of the neighboring town of Antelope, Sheela wanted to seise control and win a couple of seats in the 1984 county election. To do so, she first shipped about 600 homeless people into Oregon and tried to register them as voters. That didn't work, so her next move was apparently to orchestrate the mass poisoning of Antelopians so that they'd be too ill to vote. Food at ten local restaurants were infected with salmonella and some 700 people got sick. Yeah, we said it was wild.

In 1985 she pleaded guilty to attempted murder and assault and was given a 20 year jail sentence.

Where Is Ma Anand Sheela Now?

Sheela now lives in Switzerland. After serving a couple of years of her prison sentence she fled there and now works at a nursing home that we think she owns. She got married and now goes by her husbands last name - Urs Birnstiel.

In case you're wondering, Sheela does approve of how the documentary turned out although, she tells First Post, 'it is impossible to include all dimensions of that rich experiment'.

MORE: Here Are All The Other Great Things To Watch On Netflix This Month

Follow Jazmin on Instagram @JazKopotsha

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.