Interesting observations Roosh. I haven't watched this yet. I'll get around to it at some point.
I have a bit of a unique perspective on this, which is interesting to me at least. I'll start at the beginning. Actually, no, I'll start in the middle, then get to the beginning later.
A few years ago when I moved out of London and in to a small rural town, I met this strange old bloke with a long grey beard. Bit of a hippy type. Bit brain-damaged from probably too many drugs. But when you talked to him he was quietly lucid and was quite deep in a real way - none of that hippy-dippy bullshit platitude stuff. He was kind and soft and gentle, but most of all he was genuine, if not a little guarded and 'private'.
I came home a couple of times to find him in our kitchen or sitting on our sofa eating a cheese and pickle sandwich he had made for himself from our fridge. Now, not only had he let himself in (our door was usually open), he had raided the fridge to make himself a little light breakfast. In anyone else this might have been annoying, but in 'Sol' it was rather endearing and only made me more fond of him.
When we first met I helped him out with some software and it turned out that he had quite a decent little project studio in his house. He had just moved from London as well, but had been there for some years.
I ended up giving him music lessons / producer lessons / engineering lessons. He was a performance artist as well as a real artist. He specialised in Glossolalia - you know - speaking in tongues - that kind of thing. He would give impromptu performances in the middle of the pub, the street, the library (where he would usually astutely ignore me for some reason). But it was never attention whorish, just spontaneous. I introduced him to the school of Glossolalia and bands like Dead Can Dance, and he was eternally grateful.
When I was in his house and his studio room, I noticed lots of photos on the wall of him and this strange 'Indian' looking bloke. The 'Indian' bloke seemed oddly familiar, but I never could place the face. I never asked who this guy was, who he had so many photos of - just him and the fella together - in many different situations and scenes.
I thought no more of it.
We made some great music together, and even better, he made some great music by himself. I had taught him well. Even with his learning difficulties (not the typical ones). I fixed up some of his computers. He paid me well. He always bought pastries for us to have with coffee in the middle of our music lessons, on our break.
He was the only friend I made in that place. Then I moved away to where I am now when my mum got Cancer. She has her final test in a couple of days funnily enough, the one that tells her she is all clear and won't need any more tests. Till the next time...
Sol came to visit me a couple of times here. Then life caught up quickly with him. He told me of this thing in his stomach that he could feel. That had been growing and wouldn't go away. I was concerned for him and advised him to go to the doctor straight away.
Some time passed. We drifted apart. Life caught up with me as well. I got a phone call one day to say that he had died of Cancer. He had gone to one of his 'hippy' friends in Spain to die. It was peaceful apparently. He had told me nothing.
Just as he thought nothing of letting himself in and raiding the fridge for a snack, he also thought nothing of mentioning he was dying.
He was the son of a 'street walker' as he called his mother. He never knew his father. He never really knew his mother either. Sol was a good old soul as we used to call him. But a very lost soul as well. We shared some of those moments that sometimes two people can have the privilege to share in this life. It was enough. It's never enough. I still have his xmas cards on my wall here right now. Looking at them in fact. One day I'll take them down.
Fast forward.
One day I am reading the news on the internet or something (I forget) and what face do I see on my computer screen? Why, if it isn't that strange 'Indian' bloke that was in all those photos from my now deceased mate.
Alarm bells going off.
Then I hear his name: Osho!
More alarm bells going off again (we need to go to the beginning of the story for the reason why).
So, this was the bloke in all the photos. Sol had never once mentioned his name and I never did ask.
He had obviously been a major part of what was going on there. I know he had spent a lot of time in Germany (where Osho had a setup for a while iirc). His 'street walker' mother was German. Not sure if any connection.
Maybe Osho took a lot of time out to have many different photos taken of him with his 'disciples'. I really don't know.
I was in touch with the hippy lady who had a place in Spain as well as the UK (and who was German as well), and I think from the few emails we exchanged that she was definitely part of that setup. No mention of Osho. All very hush hush.
She sent me several SJW 'sign this petition' kind of shit to my email, but was very tight-lipped about his death overall. I wanted to know what had happened to all of his stuff, to his music studio equipment. Not for any selfish reasons (I have more than enough studio equipment myself), but for personal reasons - hard drives, stuff that we had done together, stuff that he had done by himself.
She stopped sending me mails when I stopped responding to her. It's all a bit vague. She was nice but I took a bit of a dislike to her with her shitty/bitchy attitude to all things lefty. And keep in mind I was a lefty myself back then. But she was 'militant', shall we say. No matter.
Anyway, I was reading about this Osho bloke. Cult, poisoning, wanted by the Feds, brain-washing, sex-case! It was too funny.
And now to the beginning of my story.
The extra alarm bells went off in my head after seeing his face (the strange 'Indian' bloke in the photos on the wall), but this time because of his name: Osho!
Just before leaving London I got to know some other people quite well. Also music related. Kind of hippy types again. But obvious charlatans.
This name 'Osho' had been bandied about quite a lot. Apparently, apart from having a setup in London at the time, he had something going in Amsterdam as well.
I visited Amsterdam at the time it was still happening, but they said 'no room at the inn'. It was obvious they had something going on there but it had become closed to 'newcomers'.
Apparently it was the archetypal hippy commune. People were fucking each other left, right and center. That wasn't why I was trying to get in. I was just about to be made homeless and it was a potential avenue for me.
Osho, his place in London and his place in Amsterdam were quite the conversation piece on occasion. There were friends and friends of friends who had been there. You had to pay gibs. You had to bow down to the master (Osho). But if you just went along with things you could fuck a lot of otherwise very fuckable women that you might not elsewhere get the opportunity to do.
My so called 'friend' was a sexual predator. Not in the rapist sense. But he was a sleazeball and slimeball of the highest order. He was a sex-addict. He was also a hypocrite. He had 'infiltrated' not just the setup Osho had in London but the one in Amsterdam as well.
So, this bloke on the wall with all the photos?
This 'guru' who ran a free for all 'eat-as-much-pussy-as-you-can' buffet at these exclusive squats?
That was Osho?
Right!
Ok.
That's about it.
I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't read the news that day on my computer? Well, I suppose I would just tune in to RVF and see this thread. To be fair, it's been on the news a bit again lately with his face and name bandied about like it was before, just with greater ferocity.
I have no idea about the bloke that is 'Osho'. I'm sure he was a charlatan. No doubt highly charismatic in the flesh. Maybe even some of his 'teachings' made sense.
I just know him from that 'bloke on the wall' and the one that run the 'hippy communes' where people would get fucked out of their minds on drugs and fuck each other senseless as much as they could possibly get away with. I make no value judgements of the man.
Still, there seems something a little fishy about why his story is being told and the way it is being told. Is it a warning to others? An allegory?
Oh btw, I have more dirt on other cults as well. This time people who live underground and make be-jeweled cities from the carved out rocks.
This one is called 'Damanhur' but I'll leave that for another thread.
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I had an 'interview' with them once. But if you wanna play, you gotta pay, you know what I mean?
Strange lot cults.
