animals Archives - The Sociable

vr, ar, zoo, girl wearing vr glasses with fish

Will AR, VR kill zoos or is it time for zoos to tech up?

11.5K

As immersive technology such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) bring viewer and viewee virtually closer to each...

Technology

3D printing can end poaching, flood market with indistinguishable counterfeits

Sam Brake Guia4 years ago

3.28K

It is fair to say that animal lovers are unlikely to be advocates of the Trump administration, given his complete...

Mobile

Animal welfare groups enlist animojis to spread endangered species awareness

Nicolas Waddell5 years ago

2.19K

The International Fund for Animal Welfare has teamed up with Bare Tree Media to spread awareness about endangered species using...

Meme

Dublin’s snow covered penguins become big web-hit in the #bigfreeze

Piers Dillon Scott11 years ago

2.24K

The snow might be causing chaos for commuters but there are 14 residents of Dublin for whom the snow is a little bit more welcome, the penguins of Dublin Zoo. The Irish Times’ Róisín Ingle reports that Irish workers are logging on in huge numbers to view the live video feed the penguins.

Brains Byte Back

We explore how our brains, psychology, and society are impacted by the ever-evolving technology that surrounds us. If you want to be better prepared for the new information age, have a healthier relationship with technology, and get more out of life using top technology and psychology hacks, this is the podcast for you! Every other Friday we bring you interviews with leading experts in the fields of technology and psychology combined, with past guest speakers such as New York Times journalists, MIT Professors, and C-suite executives of top tech companies.

You may have heard of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers, commonly known as Rajneeshees or sannyasins, from the incredibly popular Netflix documentary “Wild, Wild Country.”

Well in today’s episode we speak with a former follower of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cult to get a better understanding of how this society functioned, what it was like to live in normal society as a member of the cult, and what it was like on the famous Oregon ranch.

With our guest, Annie (who has asked to remain anonymous but showed her mala that she wore during her time as a Rajneshee to prove her affiliation with the cult), we find out how she first find out about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the Rajneeshees, and what inspired her to join their cult, where she goes into great detail about how she found them when she was 16 at an Alcoholics Anonymous event.

She also shares why life as a Rajneeshee was difficult off the ranch in normal society, as society often treated them with a mixture of suspicion, curiosity, and fear. In fact, she was fired from all of her jobs due to her membership in the cult, but she also explains how she saw this as a positive, “a trial by fire” as she claims.

Annie also goes into detail about what it was like visiting the ranch in 1983, when, she believes, much of the footage used in the documentary was filmed. She talks about the important role meditation played in being a Rajneeshee and what a normal day was like on the ranch.

She also shares her thoughts on how accurate the documentary was, how close she came to meeting Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and finally, how she left the cult in the end.

Overall, Annie explains why she doesn’t see the following as a religion or cult, but instead as a community and how this community had such an overall, lasting positive experience in her life.