One can see this documentary itself is going to be at the intersection of how people look at or study spiritual groups in American culture.
Using Rajneeshpuram this film does quite the good job in a documentary format of touching on a range of separate spiritual groups within American society, showcasing reactionary evangelicals, Eastern, New Age, Jonestown, regional cultures and civil society. Now in a comparison with Fairfield, Iowa the repeating question coming for a long time to those who may have lived in Fairfield will be, “Have you seen the Rajneesh Documentary, what did you think?”. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : An old FF meditator saying of the Rajaneesh documentary, ‘..disturbingly familiar’. Different than with Antelope, Oregon though, the first four years of meditators coming to Fairfield, Iowa the meditators as a group lived physically mostly within the confines of the academic institution, mostly up on campus, in Fairfield. After five years then came an arrival and flow of diverse mostly middling class educated peoples and families as meditators, even moving in to neighborhoods throughout town and in the county alongside locals as neighbors. The 'files' section of FairfieldLife has a survey in it of the meditating community that was done in the early 1990's. The demographic parts of the survey are interesting to look at as profile. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote : A Study in Polarized Communities, yes. A large difference in two stories, between Antelope, Oregon and Fairfield, Iowa is that mostly neither our local Iowans or the incoming TM meditators to Iowa became overtly violent, or physically aggressive with each other. But even with ‘that look’ that can be in the Fairfield meditator community a difference from the outset between the two places is that the meditators who came to Iowa were modestly dressed. Meditators coming to Iowa wearing suits and ties and such, clean shaven, for the most part, and not ‘in red’ like in Oregon. The opinion page of the local newspaper in Fairfield has always run with a lot of hot and even bruising ink written on the subject but fortunately red hot blood was not overtly spilled over the subject. Now nearly 4.5 decades later there has come a better understanding as a detente in how both sides of the community tend to speak about each other as there has become a blending of blood within the whole area community by a living and sharing for long enough in life’s practicalities and raising kids. Possibly it all happened too fast on too large a scale for much smaller Antelope, Oregon to absorb what all happened, like has happened differently in Fairfield, Iowa. Fairfield, Iowa being a liberal arts traditional college town had a different level of education that possibly allowed for a different outcome. However, the posed level of ambient violence that came in to the Oregon story is a frank difference in the narratives. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <skymt...@yahoo.com> wrote : Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLS_OM6Puk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLS_OM6Puk
