380: What if you had a spontaneous awakening?
This Is Actually Happening
Wondery
4.6 • 9.9K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
Growing up in the notorious commune of Rajneeshpuram, and haunted by abandonment and addiction, a woman’s spontaneous awakening reveals that every wound was a doorway to remembering who she truly is.
Today’s episode featured Anonymous. If you’d like to reach out to her, you can email her at [email protected].
To learn more about the Rajneeshee movement and the events at Rajneeshpuram, check out the Rajneesh Artifacts and Ephemera Collection in the Oregon archives, which includes documents and memorabilia from the commune’s time in Oregon Archives West. The Oregon Historical Quarterly’s retrospective article Revisiting Rajneeshpuram offers a sharp, scholarly review of the commune’s rise and fall Oregon Historical Society. For the bioterror episode tied to the group, the CDC’s official report A Large Community Outbreak of Salmonellosis Caused by Intentional Contamination remains the definitive source CDC Stacks. Finally, Netflix’s Wild Wild Country has made the story accessible and vivid, combining interviews, archival footage, and local perspectives en.wikipedia.org+1.
Producers: Whit Missildine, Andrew Waits, Aviva Lipkowitz
Content/Trigger Warnings: Child abandonment, Emotional neglect, Parental alcoholism, Drug use and addiction (heroin), Homelessness, Prostitution, Domestic abuse / emotional abuse, Narcissistic relationship dynamics, Spiritual / psychological crisis, Religious cult involvement, explicit language
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Intro Music: “Sleep Paralysis” - Scott Velasquez
Music Bed: Ambient Themes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to exclusive episodes of This Is Actually Happening |
| 0:05.0 | by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:09.6 | This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. |
| 0:13.9 | Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode |
| 0:17.0 | and for more information about support services. |
| 0:31.5 | Hi listeners. Today's storyteller speaks about growing up in Rajneeshpuram, which was the center of the religious Rajneesh movement in the early 1980s, and today is widely considered to be a |
| 0:37.3 | cult. |
| 0:38.0 | The cult attracted thousands of followers that began as an intentional community |
| 0:42.3 | centered on meditation and spiritual liberation. |
| 0:45.3 | But over time, it devolved as outside community conflicts escalated and nefarious activities |
| 0:50.0 | surfaced, including widespread sexual abuse, arson, attempted murder, and bioterrorism. |
| 0:55.7 | Our storyteller today touches on only a few aspects of this cult from her perspective as a child. |
| 1:01.1 | But the activities of the cult were extensively detailed in the phenomenal 2018 Netflix |
| 1:05.8 | documentary series, Wild Wild Country. So if you haven't already, please check out that documentary series |
| 1:11.7 | if you want to learn more. And if you'd like to read more about the Rajneeshis, we've also put some |
| 1:16.1 | pertinent links in the show notes. And now on to today's episode. What if you had a spontaneous |
| 1:22.2 | awakening? My eyesight was like brand new. |
| 1:30.3 | I could see details in every little thing, like the trees, I could see them breathing. |
| 1:37.3 | I could see them talking to each other. |
| 1:40.3 | I felt this whole new level of understanding that we were all connected. |
| 1:55.3 | From Wondery, I'm Whit Misseldine. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. |
| 2:05.6 | Episode 380. |
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