Rajneeshpuram (also called Rancho Rajneesh) was a religious intentional community in the northwest United States, located in Wasco County, Oregon. Incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988, its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees, followers of the spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho.

The town is notable as some of its citizens and leaders were responsible for launching the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, as well as the planned 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot, in which they conspired to assassinate Charles Turner, the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon among others. The town faced numerous controversies and conflicts with Oregonians and local authorities. the founder of the Rajneesh movement, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, recruited Ma Anand Sheela to leave India to form a new religious settlement in the United States, which seemingly promised religious freedom and better opportunities. Discussions of this new settlement began as early as 1980, but Rajneesh did not relocate until May 1981, when he traveled to the United States on a tourist visa issued for medical purposes. which was purchased by Sheela's then-husband, John Shelfer (also known as Prem Jayanada), in 1981 for $5.75 million primarily over land use. turning the ranch from an empty rural property into a city of up to 7,000 people, complete with typical urban infrastructure such as a fire department, police, restaurants, malls, townhouses, a airstrip, a public transport system using buses, a sewage reclamation plant, a reservoir, It is thought that the actual population during this time was potentially much higher than they claimed, and the neo-sannyasins may have gone as far as to hide beds and citizens during investigations. Various legal conflicts, primarily over land use, escalated to bitter hostility between the commune and local residents, and the commune was subject to sustained and coordinated pressures from various coalitions of Oregon residents over the length of its existence.

Tensions and conflict

thumb|right|The Krishnamurti Lake

The town of Antelope, Oregon, became a focal point of the conflict. Apart from the control of Antelope and the land-use question, there were other disputes. The display of semi-automatic weapons acquired by the Rajneeshpuram Peace Force created an image of imminent violence. 1000 Friends of Oregon, who had seen success in prior land-use suits, fought against Rajneeshpuram's incorporation and claimed that the city violated state land-use laws. In 1983, a lawsuit was filed by the State of Oregon to invalidate the city's incorporation, and many attempts to expand the city further were legally blocked, prompting followers to attempt to build in nearby Antelope, which was briefly named Rajneesh, when sufficient numbers of Rajneeshees registered to vote there and won a referendum on the subject.

Tensions also arose between the commune at Rajneeshpuram and state officials, including the governor's office. The office of Oregon Governor Victor Atiyeh was first made aware of the group in the fall of 1981, and was receiving weekly or even daily updates about the group by 1984-85. Governor Atiyeh assigned his chief of staff, Gerry Thompson, and his legal assistant, Bob Oliver, to be the primary coordinators and representatives on the issue of Rajneeshpuram. One of the main incentives for the migration of homeless people to Rajneeshpuram was to influence the upcoming elections. As Rajneeshpuram struggled to deal with the large number of sometimes disorderly new residents, they resorted to kicking anyone they found issue with from the commune. Additionally, leaders of the group including Ma Anand Puja (a nurse and head of the Rajneesh Medical Corporation) and Ma Anand Sheela were found to have drugged the drinks of unruly Share-A-Home participants in order to maintain control over them. According to leaders like Ma Anand Sheela, they claimed Bhagwan had ordered their guests to be spread throughout Oregon as a type of punishment for challenging the Rajneesh. Leaders of Rajneeshpuram were also criticized for their treatment of homeless Share-a-Home participants after the suspension of voter registration. Hundreds of homeless were bussed into cities including The Dalles, Portland, and Salem. Organizations such as the Salvation Army and Oregon National Guard stepped in to provide aid to these individuals. According to Carl Latkin, Rajneesh's followers had made peaceful overtures to the local community when they first arrived in Oregon.

thumb|right|A cassette tape produced and sold in Rajneeshpuram

As Rajneesh himself did not speak in public during this period, and until October 1984 gave few interviews, his secretary and chief spokesperson Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman) became, for practical purposes, the leader of the commune. The subsequent criminal investigation, the largest in Oregon history, confirmed that a secretive group had, unbeknownst to both government officials and nearly all Rajneeshpuram residents, engaged in a variety of criminal activities, including the attempted murder of Rajneesh's physician, wiretapping and bugging within the commune and within Rajneesh's home, poisonings of two public officials, and arson.

Rajneesh World Celebrations

In July 1982, the Rajneeshees hosted a "World Celebration" within their three ashrams (located in Oregon, India, and Germany). This 5-day celebration had meditation, satsangs, communal meals, and classes of spiritual practice. It was a way to welcome thousands of people into Wasco County. Many of the visitors to Rajneeshpuram were Rajneeshees drawn from other Rajneesh communes. The event was a major tourist attraction and an avenue of income for Rajneeshpuram. Although there was a legal permit for the event, many local residents opposed the celebration. There was fear of an increase in Rajneesh population, cultural influence, security, water, and sewage.

The second annual "World Celebration" was held over a 6-day period at Rajneeshpuram in 1983. This festival of "love, life, and laughter" was a celebration of the presence of Bhagwan and an opportunity for people to experience satsangs from him personally. The admission fee for the festival was around $500 per person. This included three daily meals from their cafeteria, access to boutiques, bookstores, a beer garden, dance floors, a mall, restaurants, pharmacies, and meditation and group therapy provided by the Rajneesh Meditation University.

The event occurred from July 2nd to July 8th, and the scheduled activities ran from 8:30am until 11:00pm. July 6th was specifically named "Masters Day," as it was anticipated to be the day with the highest number of visitors. Before the event took place, there was already lots of public attention regarding the festival. A Rajneesh news article had published that Governor Atiyeh eagerly accepted a personal invitation from Sheela to visit the annual celebration at Rajneeshpuram. Later it was reported from the Governor that he never visited the ranch or negotiated with Sheela.

In preparation for the festival, the Rajneeshees spent significant money and time on food, materials, and labor. The months preceding they used about twelve hundred gallons of paint and assigned groups to paint their hall and install linoleum flooring. They built a dam on a sloping grass hill, which created a 360 million gallon lake at the commune entrance. The area featured a large Rajneesh logo made of flowers and shrubs. The dam was also accompanied by sandy beaches, canoes, a wooden dock, and a floating pagoda.

Role in 1984 bioterror attack

In 1984, Ma Anand Sheela and several Rajneeshpuram citizens planned, organized, and executed a bioterrorism attack, poisoning the salad bars of ten restaurants in Wasco County with Salmonella bacteria. The attack's purpose was to decrease voter turnout by sickening, terrorizing, and incapacitating voters so the Rajneeshpuram candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections. Although no one was killed, 751 people were sickened and 45 people were hospitalized, including several Wasco County public officials. The Rajneesh bioterrorism attack is the largest biological warfare attack in United States history.

Planning for the attack began in the summer of 1984, when Ma Anand Puja and her assistant began cultivating large quantities of salmonella bacteria in their makeshift private laboratory located in a shed in the commune called the "Chinese Laundry." In August they began with small scale tests at a restaurant and the Wasco County courthouse but did not see the results they had hoped for.

Ironically, the attack backfired by increasing voter turnout. Hundreds of local residents, suspecting Rajneeshee involvement in the attack, went to the polls on election day and voted overwhelmingly against the Rajneeshee candidates. Other former residents also described cases of neglect. They reported that very young children were sometimes left outdoors in winter without adequate clothing and that toddlers occasionally wandered near heavy machinery and vehicles without supervision.

Rajneesh supported sexual freedom and non-monogamy, and former members reported widespread sexual abuse of children in the community. Part of the teachings of sexual freedom is that Bhagwan designates the ages of 7 and 14 as a prime periods of sexual experimenting and understanding. These early stages of adolescence is believed to be the right time to learn about the attachment of sex and love. Other former members attributed the prevalence of child abuse to the commune's culture of surrender, in which members were taught not to question what happened around them and could come to accept harmful conduct as spiritually justified. The relationships between adults and minors were described as an "open secret". When the public started discovering these allegations about the commune, leaders were more concerned about the Rajneeshpurams public image than the children's well-being.

A survivor described sexual acts that started when she was ten years old. She alleged that many teenagers on the ranch were pressured into sexual relationships with adults, which she characterized as statutory rape and child sexual abuse that was tolerated or concealed within the community.

Outcome

Sheela was extradited from West Germany, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for attempted murder, assault, wiretapping, arson, immigration fraud,

  • Voter Fraud: The Rajneeshpuram community attempted to sway local elections in their favor with their "Share-a-Home" program. The Rajneeshees bused thousands of homeless people to Rajneeshpuram, and registered them to vote to inflate the constituency of voters for the group's candidates. The Wasco county clerk countered the attempt by enforcing a regulation requiring all new voters to submit their qualifications when registering to vote. A federal judge upheld the clerk's decision.
  • Currency and Drug Smuggling

The Office of the Attorney General alleged the criminal activity began in the spring of 1984, three years after the establishment of the commune. and was not contested. However, the Oregon courts subsequently ruled in favor of the city; the Court of Appeals ruled in 1986 the incorporation had not violated the state planning system's agricultural land goals.

In 1985, the ranch was listed for sale at over $28M, but was ultimately sold in 1988 at a sheriff's auction for $4.5M to Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, the sole bidder.

Washington Family Ranch

Dennis R. Washington's firm Washington Construction purchased The Big Muddy Ranch for $3.6 million in 1991.

In 1996, Washington donated the ranch to Young Life, a Christian youth organization. Since 1999, Young Life has operated a summer camp there, first as the WildHorse Canyon Camp, later as the Washington Family Ranch.

See also

  • Ecclesia Athletic Association, another contemporaneous Oregon organization which drew comparisons to Rajneeshpuram
  • Wild Wild Country, a 2018 documentary on the Rajneesh disputes.

Notes

References

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Further reading

  • Building Oregon: Images of Rajneeshpuram
  • Photographs of the "First Annual World Celebration" in Rajneeshpuram, 1982
  • Rajneeshpuram – 2012 documentary produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting (1 hour)
  • 2012 documentary produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting
  • . A 2018 Netflix documentary series on Rajneesh, focusing on Rajneeshpuram and the controversies surrounding it.
  • "Rajneeshpuram, An Experiment To Provoke God" 1991 documentary film by M. R. Hilow
  • An Experiment To Provoke God" University library storage and publication listing
  • "Rajneeshpuram, An Experiment To Provoke God", 1991 historical documentary film that traces the origins of Rajneeshpuram and its inhabitants