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. Additionally, the town was known for its World Celebrations which drew thousands of visitors a year.
Settlement
Following a bombing over land use in their ashram in Pune (formerly Poona), 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.
Rajneeshpuram was on the site of a central Oregon property then-known as the Big Muddy Ranch, near Antelope, which was purchased by Sheela's then-husband, John Shelfer (also known as Prem Jayanada), in 1981 for $5.75 million ($ in today's dollars). Within a year of arriving, the commune's leaders had become embroiled in a series of legal battles with their neighbors, primarily over land use. They had initially stated that they were planning to create a small agricultural community, their land being zoned for agricultural use, but it soon became apparent that they wanted to establish the kind of infrastructure and services normally associated with a town.
Within three years, the neo-sannyasins (Rajneesh's followers, also termed Rajneeshees or sannyasins in contemporaneous press reports) developed a community, 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, and a post office with the ZIP code 97741.La rivoluzione interiore , Osho, Edizioni Mediterranee, 1983, page 219 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., reprinted in
Tensions and conflict
The town of Antelope, Oregon, became a focal point of the conflict. It was the nearest town to the ranch, and had a population of under 60. Initially, Rajneesh's followers had purchased only a small number of lots in Antelope. After the activist group 1000 Friends of Oregon became involved, Antelope denied the sannyasins a business permit for their mail-order operation, and more sannyasins moved into the town. In April 1982, Antelope held a vote to disincorporate itself, to prevent itself being taken over. By this time, there were enough Rajneeshee residents to defeat the measure. In May 1982, the residents of the Rancho Rajneesh commune voted to incorporate the separate city of Rajneeshpuram on the ranch., reprinted Apart from the control of Antelope and the land-use question, there were other disputes. The commune leadership took an aggressive stance on many issues and initiated litigation against various groups and individuals.
The June 1983 bombing of Hotel Rajneesh, a Rajneeshee-owned hotel in Portland, by the Islamist militant group Jamaat ul-Fuqra further heightened tensions. The display of semi-automatic weapons acquired by the Rajneeshpuram Peace Force created an image of imminent violence. The Peace Force was heavily armed with Uzi Model B carbines, Galil rifles, Ruger Mini-14 carbines, M1A rifles, CAR-15 carbines, Ruger Model 44 carbines, and Smith & Wesson .357 revolvers. Rumors arose of the National Guard being called in to arrest Rajneesh. At the same time, the commune was embroiled in a range of legal disputes. Oregon Attorney General David B. Frohnmayer maintained that the city was essentially an arm of a religious organization, and that its incorporation thus violated the principle of separation of church and state. 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. The governor's office sought to stay impartial from the outside perspective, and not directly involve the governor, while keeping a close eye on and attempting to mediate the rising tensions between those in Rajneeshpuram and their neighbors in Antelope. In 1982, after dealing with leaks to the media about the Rajneeshee crisis, the concern of the governor's office being bugged was raised. The governor's offices and other government buildings were swept and ultimately came up with nothing, however, members of the Governor's office still took precautions and began to speak in code when using unprotected telephone lines to try to prevent leaks. The governor's office was also concerned with the lack of separation between church and state in Rajneeshpuram. Atiyeh, Thompson, and Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer believed the incorporation of Rajneeshpuram to be invalid due for this reason. Additionally, after the Rajneeshees took control of the Antelope public school district in 1983, Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction, Verne Duncan ruled that the school lacked separation of church and state, banning religious articles such as images of the Bhagwan in the public school. By 1984, Thompson became increasingly involved in coordinating and communicating with federal and state organizations including the INS, DEA, IRS, FBI, Oregon National Guard, and Oregon State Police who were investigating the Rajneeshees and allegations of illegal activity.
Another event that led to tension between Oregonians and the Rajneeshees was their treatment of the homeless during their Share-A-Home program. Through this program, which began in September 1984, the leaders of Rajneeshpuram began bussing upwards of 4,000 homeless people into the commune. 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. Through their efforts to influence the election, over 3,000 new voter registration forms were filled out by those in Rajneeshpuram. This led to broader concerns by Oregonians and calls for the government to step in to prevent election tampering and voter fraud. This happened directly after October 10th, when Oregon Secretary of State Norma Paulus suspended all new voter registration for Wasco County, leaving new voter registration to be decided at hearings. This ultimately proved successful in preventing Rajneesh influence as only 15 Rajneeshpuram residents appealed, and no Rajneesh candidates won county seats. 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.
The Rajneeshpuram residents believed that the wider Oregonian community was both bigoted and suffered from religious intolerance. According to Carl Latkin, Rajneesh's followers had made peaceful overtures to the local community when they first arrived in Oregon. As Rajneeshpuram grew in size, heightened tensions led certain fundamentalist Christian church leaders to denounce Rajneesh, the commune, and his followers. Petitions were circulated aimed at ridding the state of the perceived menace. Letters to state newspapers reviled the Rajneeshees, one of them likening Rajneeshpuram to another Sodom and Gomorrah, another referring to them as a "cancer in our midst." In time, circulars mixing "hunting humor" with dehumanizing characterizations of Rajneeshees began to appear at gun clubs, turkey shoots and other gatherings; one of these, circulated widely over the Northwest, declared "an open season on the central eastern Rajneesh, known locally as the Red Rats or Red Vermin."
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. She did little to defuse the conflict, employing a crude, caustic, and defensive speaking style that exacerbated hostilities and attracted media attention. On September 14, 1985, Sheela and 15 to 20 other top officials abruptly left Rajneeshpuram. The following week, Rajneesh convened press conferences and publicly accused Sheela and her team of having committed crimes within and outside 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.