The Cult that Cultivated Salmonella
10 February
The Rajneeshee bioterror attack is the topic this week, orchestrated by the followers of Rajneesh. Joe talks about the dangers of brushing your teeth too hard, and Sandra confuses a deadly disease with a group of Roman soldiers.
Joe got his information from:
- Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium. Skills To Succeed in the Host: Virulence and Regulation, by Anna Fàbrega and Jordi Vila
- Wikipedia
- Bacteremia, by Paul M. Maggio
- The photo of Rajneesh driving one of his Rolls-Royce in Rajneeshpuram can be found here. Photo by Samvado Gunnar Kossatz.
- Photo of poster with Rajneesh (later known as Osho) with the text "prophet or profiteer?", can be found here.
Sandra got her information from:
- Blog post, by Dickon Kent
- Article in The Conversation, by Marion Goldman
- Article in The Atlantic, by Scott Keyes
- Article in Atlas Obscura, by Dylan Thuras
- Article in Gizmodo, by Matt Novak
- Wikipedia
Audio transcript
Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.
What are we? Are we generation x? Or millennials? No, millennials are the ones that are born in the noughts.
Yeah. I don't know what we are. Miserable.
We're some kind of generation, but I don't know which one. So every time people insult one generation, I'm like: "I won't take that personally, because that's probably not mine", and it probably is. I think I googled it one time because I was like: "does this apply to me?". It was the use of the laugh cry emoji, that they were like: "everyone in this generation overuses this emoji", and I was like: "that's probably my generation, because I use it all the time". And then it was my generation, and I was like: "huh. Makes sense". People were like: "nobody laughs that much", which is also true, when I send the emoji I'm like mildly amused. But also, beats the other emojis I guess. Why do we use the laugh cry emoji?
i don't know
i do laugh cry sometimes but not that
often
oh i don't think i have a g do you not
laugh cry no
maybe your tear canals are damaged just
like your
burst canal oh yeah that's wrecked
okay should we start maybe you
wanna do we don't have that many beers i
feel like maybe we should
get the show on the road so we don't dry
out
like our laugh cry emojis
that's what i think the love cray emoji
represents
that's probably more accurate to be
honest
oh god oh god
see there you go
for any of you listeners that are not in
england we're in like
months four or 18
of lockdown
so
it's wednesday which means that it's
time to talk about crime you're
listening to
midweek murders and i'm your host sandra
and i'm joe this week we're going to
talk about the rosh nishi
bio terror attack the largest
bioterror attack that has ever happened
in the us is it still
the largest you know what i'm not
entirely sure but i think so
for all you ravenclaws out there i dare
you to contact
us please too i'm so lonely
looking at you jim
i would be inclined to say it was the
largest bioterror attack
at the time because i think anthrax
might have overtaken it
okay might be might not be question mark
i got my information from wikipedia a
blog post by dick and kent
an article in
token is it dickon i don't know what
your source is
it's dick and then o-n
beyond then wouldn't it not in
poor ken chucking dicks in him a blog
post
by dick on kent
that just makes it worse
oh god no it's just on him
an article in the conversation by marion
goldman
an article in the atlantic by scott keys
an article in atlas obscura by dylan
soros an article in gizmodo
by matt novak i got mine from the wiki
wiki
an ncbi article and msd
manuals what is msd i think it's an
american website
okay right fine okay yeah you don't even
know your sources but already then i'll
take your word as gospel
sorry stick on or is dick in
i'll take your word as gospel just like
they did in this instance
with the cult leader's word
narrator nobody like that not even
we pause here to watch the tumbleweed
fly by
after sandra's failed joke
oh okay there was an election coming up
in
wasco county oregon in 1984
an area where tensions had been running
high
as the plot of land formerly known as
big
muddy ranch excellent name had been
bought by a cult
this cult had named the 64 000
acre plot rash nish param
and it was a community that strived to
be completely self-sufficient
and for many symbolized an opportunity
to lead a different life the community
was centered around the worship of one
person
and his teachings a guru by the name of
rashnesh
maybe i should tell the listeners that i
tried to
read up on the teachings of rashnesh
and what i took away from that was
that he mixed famous
philosophers i'm kind of guessing that
the draw was a combination
of western philosophies and eastern
philosophies
but it's not clear and it's also not
consistent
so i have no idea why this person became
a famous cult leader and i think
that i have a skewed perception of him
because i saw him in an interview saying
that
i've had the most sex any man
has ever had in the history
of this earth more or less that's not a
direct
quote but i was like okay what are you
11 years old and then genghis khan
burst in from the back room and was like
don't mean
and then instead of it being a mic drop
it was an axe drop
and just walked back out again [ __ ]
true but also
what the [ __ ] kind of weird flex is
that is he 11 years old
i think some of his philosophical
outlook might have been influenced by
freud
and when you said that he mixed up his
philosophies all i could think of
was him saying something like the
definition
of insanity is trying the same thing
over and over again
and then having sex with your mum
a bit of einstein bit of freud mix it up
i like that that should be our new
slogan maybe we will get
following i don't want to have sex with
my mom
so what happened in russia
it just 100 smooth
over that brain lag that
so what happened when you wanted to live
in rosh nesh
puram was that you had to give
all of your earthly possessions to the
cult
and then you worked for free but
you were kind of paid back i assume
by the fact that you were living without
choice
which some people kind of like that you
don't have to decide about what kind
of job you would want to have or
applying for jobs
and you don't have to decide about if
you're going to
buy a property because you got lodgings
and you got a job handed to you so you
didn't have to worry about anything
so i guess that was the draw probably
wasn't any council tax either
probably not although you did hand over
all your money
i'd hand over all my money if i didn't
have to pay council tax
fair enough and also i think one of the
biggest draws was
that it was a kind of sex for all
you didn't have to be married to have
sex
you could be married and not divorced
and have sex you know
it was a bit of a sexually liberated
environment so one person who lived at
the ranch
answered this to the question of why
rajneesh
was so adored for me he was a well-read
university professor who was very good
at combining eastern mysticism
philosophy elements of religion and good
jokes to create a compelling
message that resonated with the people
looking for something different
sounds like me
you're so into that eastern mysticism oh
yeah
he had a good brand and i'm not saying
this cynically
he put together a good package at the
right time to appeal to many many people
this is undeniable more and more people
came to see him in india and i think he
got swept up in the fame and adoration
of
all that attention and again i would
like to say
that this is the man who said i have had
more
sex than any man in history
of this earth does that sound like a
professor or
does that sound like an 11 year old you
can choose
sounds like a professor of life
i want to read more of his teachings
i can't take it seriously but the ranch
had required construction
permits to house the growing population
of rashnesh param
and had successfully taken over
political
control of the nearby town of antelope
which had a population of 50 people side
note
by winning the majority of the city
council
suits this is funny though in the town
of
antelope they raised property taxes
to get more money for their compound
and named the recycling center
the adolf hitler recycling center
probably a different one so
why did the people of antelope have
less than warm feelings about the
compound
i can guess why i feel like he kind of
set up
like a mini state of communism
where he was the dictator although his
teachings
are against socialism and
communism and for capitalism
but he still made a mini state in oregon
with communism kind of where he was the
sole beneficiary
i'm confused because if they read his
teachings
and then they were like but why are we
then
living in kind of communism
everybody who lives in a communist state
either
can't talk out against it or don't even
realize
and it kind of sounded from the
interviews of the people who lived there
that they didn't realize what it was
but i'm surprised that like why are you
worshiping this man
who teaches the exact opposite of what
you
are living for him because he has so
much sex
that is an exact description
of what happened with trump
because trump said that he had a lot of
sex and people are like oh this man
must be looking out for my interest and
then he did the exact
opposite of their interest and they were
like he's
great oh
life it's funny isn't it funny enough
kind of way in a laugh cry emoji
kind of way yes but to obtain the
building permits
they had set their sights on a political
takeover of wasco county as well
as they didn't have the advantage of
outnumbering the citizens
in this instance as the ranch dwellers
constituted a mere
ten percent of the population of west
coast
county i don't know how that is actually
pronounced
wacko county wacko
let's go with wacko
so what did rashnesh do
what any said group of fanatical
followers
of a man owning and flaunting 98
rolls royces would do they decided to
poison the county's
citizens and the number of rolls-royce
is ranging from 60 to
a hundred i'm not sure about the exact
number
i just went with the large number
because it felt
funnier to me i mean any more than
one is what i would call excessive
he would also ride around in his rolls
royce
with all of the other rolls-royces and
he would be like
look at all of these people chanting my
name
i've taken all of your money spent it
on the exact copy of the
same car and i'm riding around in it
to show you how [ __ ] stupid this
whole thing is and then pops his head
out
like hello i'm in this one give me more
money
drive drive boys are coming drive
give me more money it's not like i spent
it on
frivolous things the ride in a rolls
royce is
very smooth so if they didn't have the
budget to fix the roads
then rose is probably the best choice
okay
they decided to poison the county
citizens
so because of the building permits
they tried to murder the county
commissioners
who visited the ranch by offering them
water with salmonella in it
one of whom would have died without
medical treatment
the salmonella was kind of
special because we could be treated with
antibiotics which a lot of strains of
salmonella can't
is that correct i don't think it was
that special
okay there's two branches of salmonella
to start
with one can cause typhoid which we
discussed with
old typhoid mary yeah and then the other
branch is non-typhoidal so you can't get
typhoid from it
this bioterror attack used a
non-typhoidal
type of salmonella yeah and then under
that category there are two types so
pretty much only america get salmonella
typhimurium
and then the rest of the world get
another one
okay but it's not particularly special
a lot of salmonella is becoming
resistant to antibiotics
but probably wasn't at the stage we're
at now
back in the 80s okay so in early
september
in 1984 the largest bio
terror attack in the us history began
when a woman sprinkled a brown
liquid into a salsa bucket at taco time
what time is it it's time to talk about
tacos
i was weak it's funnier to me when you
don't laugh
that probably says something about me
psychologically
i made a funny oh it wasn't funny
that's funny is how i imagine your brain
is going probably
i'm gonna keep trying which
also says something about me
psychologically
oh we're back to that old definition of
insanity
yeah you try the same thing over and
over again
expecting different results and then
have sex with your mum
she also squirted some of it into the
salad dressing
that she did after this they poisoned 10
additional salad bars in the area by
splashing it onto the produce
and poured it into water but not the
water supply
they had hoped that this would keep the
citizens of glasgow county from voting
but alas despite 751 people
falling ill and 45 being hospitalized
the locals turned up to vote against the
rosh nishi
candidates as they had their suspicions
of a political coup
as the cult had driven around in a jeep
with a 30 caliber machine gun mounted
on it around town which would make
me suspicious of a political coup
i mean why didn't they do it on a rolls
royce you're going to get a much better
ride and therefore a better aim
it's probably more difficult to mount a
machine
gun on a rolls royce i might be wrong
i don't know anything about cars you're
wrong
either way i find it highly disturbing
and i'm guessing the citizens of wasco
county also found it
highly disturbing they also had a peace
force
in quotes who walked around with oozies
i don't actually know what an uzi is but
i'm guessing it's
semi-automatic machine gun
you didn't even google that you were
like i am
easily mountable on the roof of a
rolls-royce
hashtag just saying fun fact about
rolls-royce
you fun fact about rolls-royce
yeah wait for it he'll be impressed you
can drive
a rolls-royce and the ride is so smooth
you can have a cup of water on the
engine
and not spill a drop
okay maybe we should take a minute to
talk about
the poison crime
yeah so salmonella bad stuff nasty nasty
bug
according to cdc figures around
40 000 cases of salmonella poisoning
are reported in the u.s per year they
think that it's probably about threefold
higher than that but a lot of people
don't get diagnosed with it because
it usually goes away by itself so from
those 40 000 infections there's around
400 deaths per year
the reason there's so many deaths is
because
if you have an underlying health
condition
the severity of your infection
can be a lot worse so anybody who's
immune compromised
including hiv aids anybody who's got
diabetes
so side effects of infection
are fever cramping abdominal pain
diarrhea nausea vomiting you know
food poisoning symptoms comes out both
ends it typically has a
0.1 fatality rate
in the developed world so it's not
a massively serious thing
and treatment for it is usually just iv
fluids
unless you are one of the aforementioned
vulnerable groups
then you'll probably get a dose of
antimicrobials
or antibiotics nowadays like you said
about 50 percent of salmonella
typhimurium
is multi-drug resistant so it's now
a lot harder to treat with antibiotics
and antimicrobials than
it was it's kind of developing into a
bit of a
superbug one of the reasons that it can
become
deadly or fatal is it can lead to a
condition called
bacteremia which is basically just a
bunch of bacteria in your
blood now here's a fun thing for all of
you hypochondriacs out there
you can get bacteria from brushing your
teeth too hard
what no [ __ ]
i brushed my teeth so hard yeah
oh god to the point where you bleed most
often not but it happens
yeah so a lot of the times bacteremia
will clear up by itself
and you will be symptomless so things
like brushing your teeth too hard
is not really anything to be concerned
about can also come
from practices like having a dental
hygienist clean your teeth for you
can it come from that or can it be
prevented from that
it can come from that what so the
bacteria
on your gums and teeth and in your
saliva
can get into your bloodstream when you
cause damage to your gums by brushing
too hard
or a dentist sticking their dick in it
or something i don't know what they do
i've never had dentists clean their
teeth
it can be prevented by antibacterial
mouthwash
i do use that sometimes so that's good
and by regular
oral hygiene because you know keep your
mouth clean
keep the [ __ ] keen
life advice
the list of problems that can come from
bacteremia
are a lot more serious than those that
you would get
from salmonella poisoning so bacteremia
can lead to sepsis
which is basically a body-wide response
to an infection in your blood rather
than a localized response so
usually fever chills but sepsis
can be fatal so go see a doctor it can
also lead to
meningitis which is an inflammation
on the brain or specifically your
meninges
pericarditis which is the inflammation
of the sac around your heart
yeah your heart lives in a sack that's
fun news for some people
just like your balls endocarditis
which is the heart valves osteomyelitis
which is the bones
and arthritis which is your joints
four out of those five all of them apart
from arthritis
can be fatal so uh see your doctor
oh i had a fun fact about oral hygiene
is it keep your mouth
clean keep the pictures
no that's not a fact it hasn't been
proven
it needs study i am ready to publish in
a peer-reviewed journal but i
fear it might get thrown out
there has been a proven link between
oral bacteria volume
and heart attacks really
high bacterial load in your mouth it
gets into your bloodstream pops its way
down to your heart and then it's like
what are we doing in here let's get out
boom yes
i have anthropomorphized bacteria and
yes
i have simplified the process get over
it
for the general public's enjoyment
so other plants that they had that were
ultimately scrapped
included poisoning the water supply
which i think
one of them might have broken in but
then were unsuccessful
should have done it with legionnaires
whose legionnaires
oh is that not who
no i know what it is but is it a
reference
to assassin's creed no legionnaires is a
roman no that's legionaries
i was like please don't sound stupid in
this episode
and then that's the moment
where i realized goal unsuccessful
legionnaires is a waterborne bacterial
disease that causes
quite bad pneumonia but it's incredibly
hard to pick up on
and can be fatal oh
god and one other plan that they had was
crashing a plane loaded with
bombs into the county courthouse
they did not do that but they also tried
to win the election by promising food
and shelter to
2 300 homeless people
who were coerced into voting for the
rashneshi
candidates at the ranch they were given
beer
drugged with tranquilizers to keep them
compliant well that'll help you go to
the courthouse and
vote for rajnishi okay drink this
although if i were to get to a place and
they were like free beer
i probably would i probably would have
splashed it all over myself which i
almost did
i probably would have drank it free beer
and all the sacks you could need
i don't know why anyone's criticizing
this place
sure there was a bit of poisoning but
you can look past that
we probably would have although we
wouldn't have partaken in
any sex but we would have partaken in
all of the beer even though it was
tranquilized we would have been like oh
yeah i sleep like
a baby yeah i mean at least would have
slept well
yeah i know right although
obviously this is horrible and
deplorable but you know
the audacity the gall also kinda dreamy
just like rajnesh
it wasn't the handsomest of men
but because of this mass voter
registration
secretary of state norma paulus
invoked an emergency rule in wasco
county
that required anyone registering to vote
in the county to personally appear at
the
local eligibility hearing among the
issues to be considered was
whether the applicants had satisfied
oregon's 20-day
residency requirement to vote
which obviously that homeless people did
not
in the forensic files episode that i
watched bio
attack for anyone who wants to watch it
they
said that the rajnishi's
went through with the election but
another source that i read
said that after all of these failed
plans
the rashnessis withdrew its candidates
and announced that they would boycott
the election
one rashneshi resident left when he told
the media that
it was all an elaborate ruth and the
county just
didn't understand their sense of humor
oh those [ __ ] jokers poisoning people
which if it's not correct then i still
stand by my decision
to keep it in
because what in the [ __ ] but after local
and federal
agencies had gotten tips about the cult
being behind these poisonings
they started showing interest in the
goings on
at the ranch ranch dressing
put it on my ribs put it on my
salmonella salad put it on my buffalo
wings what part of a buffalo are buffalo
wings because buffaloes don't have wings
i thought it was a question at first so
i was like what
i digress i prefer to think of buffalo
with wings
but also they'd be a lot bigger so
really
how much buffalo wing are you getting
because they're only little but buffalo
are huge they're only
little i can't even reach up to wheat
don't worry mama buffalo's coming
don't know why the buffalo scottish
that's a good question man sheila
silverman
rashnesh's chief lieutenant or
spokesperson for the
lieutenant lieutenant or
not this old thing again or spokesperson
for the
rashneshi cult or whatever you want to
call it but it is
called call it what it is fled to west
germany
in 1985 rashnesh then started to openly
accuse sheila of the crimes that had
been
committed he also said in an interview
on
wild wild country and mind you this is
like a year
after i actually saw it so i don't
remember that much about it but
he went on interviews and was like oh
but
sheila she was so angry with me
because i wouldn't have sex with her
that's why she did this sounds
believable
he was like an old man and he was like
oh my god my sex appeal is so
vast that sheila couldn't have sex with
me
and then she decided to murder people i
don't know
oh god i got so annoyed he went out of
his
pledge of silence to do
these interviews and he was like oh she
likes the bad guy
i had no idea what was going on
he's a [ __ ] idiot and also people
in the sect some of them were like
rashnesh could never hurt a person
ever he could never do that he wouldn't
have to fly
unless it was a particularly tasty
fly and he was in a pledge of silence
for a couple of years so some of them
had never even
heard him speak i'm like what do you
know about this person
not one [ __ ] thing wouldn't it be
really funny if
he came out of his pledge of silence to
all of these thousands of people that
never heard him speak in like this grand
procession i'm imagining like
when a new pope is announced and he
stands at the balcony and there's
thousands of
religious zealots beneath him chanting
his praise
and then he's just like
this is what you've been waiting for
i'm not your messiah i'm a very naughty
boy
what if he came out of his pledge of
silence
and sounded like me
are those poor cultists
is this what we've been waiting for this
is what we signed up to
i'd rather go back to living on the
streets
at least people threw cold mcdonald's at
me
i didn't have to listen to that
eight-year-old child's
eyes didn't have to be reminded of my
chronic
tinnitus laugh like a [ __ ]
foghorn but
okay so the fbi was then allowed to
search the
rajneesh param compound following
rashnesh's
allegations towards sheila
mind you and found a lot of guns
chemicals
gas masks and literature on how to kill
and also literature about bio warfare
biochemical warfare technically
biochemical
okay so they discovered that practically
every room
in every building was bugged as well as
36 voice activated audio recorders that
tapped almost every phone in the
community
they also had bugs in the town of
antelope i think
and these microphones led to a secret
room in sheila's home
where she could listen in on everything
and they also led to an administration
building staffed
15 hours a day
a doctor working at the ranch had
purchased
the salmonella bacteria from a medical
supply company in seattle
when this came out sheila was extradited
to the u.s
she said that quote she had talked with
rashnesh about the plot to decrease
voter turnout in the dales by making
people sick
sheila said that rashnesh commented that
it was best not to hurt people
but if a few died not to worry
fair enough it's a good outlook to have
oh god
yeah i mean you're just gonna get
stressed if you worry about if people
are gonna die or not
so by my own hand
oh not to worry she was actually
sentenced to 20 years in prison but
served
only two and a half years before moving
to switzerland which i'm a bit
confused at how that transpired
she was layout early for good behavior
she was like bye bye
it's also crazy two and a half years for
attempted
murder yeah isn't that crazy
but all right rashnesh was charged with
lying to the
ins about his intentions to move
to the united states and also because a
lot
of his cult members had
married to bring people into the united
states
for green cards he pleaded guilty to
that and made a cash payment of four
hundred
thousand dollars and was deported
but i also read that he was only
deported for
five years so they were like you cannot
return to the united states
in five years he was then i think
refused residency in
a lot of countries but i didn't write
down
how many countries he tried to move to
and they were like
nah nah poor guy
and then he changed his name to osho
and then he died in 1990. okay that's
the case
did you have anything else to say about
the [ __ ]
that went down yes and we probably
should have mentioned that
the salmonella that was recovered from
the restaurants
was exactly the same viral strain as the
one that they recovered
in the petri dishes at the ranch and
because
viruses mutate very very rapidly
as we're seeing with kovid it was almost
like a 100
this is the same virus that's been
cultured here that has been used
to poison people yeah yeah true story
yeah it's a story bro scary
yeah a scary oh i peed my pants no i
didn't
because i went to the toilet before
recording and also during the recording
what are you going to do now dance
make a little love get that
good one make the most love that
anyone ever have in the history
of humanity yeah again guess i'm coming
for your record baby
genghis i think you mean rush niche that
was a made-up name
as well i think his name was something
else alan
okay thank you very much for listening
to this week's
episode of midweek murders we'll see you
next week or will we
we'll see you next week there we go less
ominous that way
nailed it like tangus
jing is confucked jengus
genghis khan it's a hard g
this time can you make your mind up
[ __ ] english
just like genghis's dick
you make him my dog not how language
works
yeah bye bye see you talk to you soon
Ciao-pow!
Topics
- Rajneeshee bioterror attack
- Rajneesh
- cults
- 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack
- bioterrorism
- mass poisoning
- salmonella
- Wild Wild Country