Rajneeshpuram - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Rajneeshpuram, Oregon was an intentional community

Intentional community

An intentional community is a planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They...

in Wasco County

Wasco County, Oregon

Wasco County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. The county is named for a local tribe of Native Americans, the Wasco, a Chinook tribe who lived on the south side of the Columbia River. In 2010, its population was 25,213...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, briefly incorporated as a city in the 1980s, which was populated with followers of the spiritual teacher Osho

Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)

Osho , born Chandra Mohan Jain , and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following.A professor of philosophy, he travelled...

, then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

History

The city was located on the site of a 64229 acres (25,992.6 ha) Central Oregon

Central Oregon

Central Oregon is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Oregon and is traditionally considered to be made up of Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. Other definitions include larger areas, often encompassing areas to the north towards the Columbia River, eastward towards Burns, or south...

property known as the Big Muddy Ranch, which was purchased in 1981 for $

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

5.75 million ($ in 2010 dollars). Within three years, the neo-sannyasins (Rajneesh's followers, also termed Rajneeshees 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

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

, restaurants, malls, townhouses, a 4200 feet (1,280.2 m) airstrip

Big Muddy Ranch Airport

Big Muddy Ranch Airport is a private airport located 13 miles southeast of Antelope in Wasco County, Oregon, USA on the grounds of Big Muddy Ranch, known in the mid-1980s as the site of Rajneeshpuram.-External links:*...

, a public transport

Public transport

Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...

system using buses, a sewage

Sewage

Sewage is water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as wastewater, it is more than 99% water and is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains...

reclamation plant and a reservoir

Reservoir

A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...

. The Rajneeshpuram post office

Post office

A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...

had ZIP code

ZIP Code

ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

97741.

Within a year of arriving, the commune leaders had become embroiled in a series of legal battles with their neighbours, the principal conflict relating to land use. Initially, they had stated that they were planning to create a small agricultural community, their land being zoned

Zoning

Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...

for agricultural use. But it soon became apparent that they wanted to establish the kind of infrastructure

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

and services normally associated with a town. The land-use conflict 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 following years.

The city of Antelope, Oregon

Antelope, Oregon

Antelope is a city in Wasco County, Oregon, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 46.-History:The Antelope Valley was probably named by members of Joseph Sherar's party who were packing supplies to mines in the John Day area. Sherar became known as the operator of a toll bridge...

became a focal point of the conflict. It was the nearest town, located 18 miles (29 km) from the ranch, and had a population of under 50. Initially, Rajneesh's followers had only purchased a small number of lots in Antelope. After a dispute with the 1000 Friends of Oregon

1000 Friends of Oregon

1000 Friends of Oregon is a private, non-profit 501 organization that advocates for sustainable communities, protection of farmland and forests, and conservation of natural areas and resources in the U.S. state of Oregon with a focus on land use laws...

, a public-interest group, Antelope denied the sannyasins a business permit for their mail-order operation, and more sannyasins moved into the town. In April 1982, Antelope voted 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. 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 bombing of Hotel Rajneesh, a Rajneeshee-owned hotel in Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, by the Islamist

Islamism

Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...

militant group Jamaat ul-Fuqra in June 1983 further heightened tensions. The display of semi-automatic weapons acquired by the Rajneeshpuram Peace Force created an image of imminent violence. There were rumours 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

Oregon Attorney General

The Oregon Attorney General is a statutory office within the executive branch of the state of Oregon, and serves as the chief legal officer of the state, heading its Department of Justice with its six operating divisions. The Attorney General is chosen by statewide partisan election to serve a term...

David B. Frohnmayer

Dave Frohnmayer was the 15th President of the University of Oregon. He was appointed president on July 1, 1994. His last day as president was June 30, 2009. His tenure as president is the second-longest after John Wesley Johnson. He is the first native of the U.S. state of Oregon to run the...

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

Separation of church and state

The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

. 1000 Friends of Oregon

1000 Friends of Oregon

, an environmentalist

Environmentalism

Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...

group, 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

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

on the subject.

The Rajneeshpuram residents believed that the wider Oregonian community was both bigoted and suffered from religious intolerance

Religious intolerance

Religious intolerance is intolerance against another's religious beliefs or practices.-Definition:The mere statement on the part of a religion that its own beliefs and practices are correct and any contrary beliefs incorrect does not in itself constitute intolerance...

. According to Latkin (1992) Rajneesh's followers had made peaceful overtures to the local community when they first arrived in Oregon. As Rajneeshpuram grew in size heightened tension lead certain fundamental 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 Gomorrha, 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

Ma Anand Sheela

Ma Anand Sheela is a former follower, secretary and spokeswoman for the Indian mystic and spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, now commonly known as Osho...

(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

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

.

Sheela was extradited from Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

and imprisoned for these crimes, as well as for her role in infecting the salad bars of several restaurants in The Dalles

The Dalles, Oregon

The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is...

(the county seat of Wasco County) with salmonella

Salmonella

Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...

, poisoning over 750 (including several Wasco County public officials) and sending 45 people to the hospital. Known as the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack

The 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the food poisoning of 751 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon, United States, through the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella...

, the incident is regarded as the largest germ warfare attack in the history of the United States

History of the United States

The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, although its territory was inhabited by Native Americans since prehistoric times and then by European colonists who followed the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The...

. These criminal activities had, according to the Office of the Attorney General, begun in the spring of 1984, three years after the establishment of the commune. Rajneesh himself was accused of immigration violations, to which he entered an Alford plea

Alford plea

An Alford plea in United States law is a guilty plea in criminal court, where the defendant does not admit the act and asserts innocence...

. As part of his plea bargain

Plea bargain

A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...

, he agreed to leave the United States and eventually returned to Poona

Pune

Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. His followers left Oregon shortly afterwards.

The legal standing of Rajneeshpuram remained ambiguous. In the church/state suit, Federal Judge Helen J. Frye

Helen J. Frye

Helen Jackson Frye was an American judge and attorney in the state of Oregon. Born in Southern Oregon, she served as an active federal district court judge in Portland, Oregon, for 15 years and as a judge for the Oregon Circuit Court for nine years...

ruled against Rajneeshpuram in late 1985, a decision that was not contested, since it came too late to be of practical significance. The Oregon courts, however, eventually found in favor of the city, with the Court of Appeals determining in 1986 that incorporation had not violated the state planning system's agricultural land goals. The Oregon Supreme Court

Oregon Supreme Court

The Oregon Supreme Court is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States. The OSC holds court at the Oregon Supreme Court Building in Salem, Oregon, near the capitol...

ended litigation in 1987, leaving Rajneeshpuram empty and bankrupt, but legal within Oregon law. The Big Muddy Ranch was sold. Currently, a Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

youth camp, Washington Family Ranch, operated by Young Life

Young Life

YoungLife is a worldwide, non-profit, Evangelical Christian organization. YoungLife consists of many branches of ministry , but most commonly the name "YoungLife" refers to the outreach arm of the organization directed toward high school students...

, and the Big Muddy Ranch Airport

Big Muddy Ranch Airport

are located there.

External links

The Way of the Heart: A 1984 documentary on Rajneeshpuram - Rajneesh International Foundation; on youtube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
Rajneeshees in Oregon – The Untold Story. Select government documents, along with a 25-year retrospective by Les Zaitz. The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

, April 2011.
Google map of the Big Muddy Ranch property
University of Oregon video on The Rise and Fall of Rajneeshpuram
The Rise and Fall of Rajneeshpuram in Ashé Journal of Experimental Spirituality:
Religious Movements: Osho (or Rajneeshism)
John Cramer, "Oregon suffered largest bioterrorist attack in U.S. History, 20 years ago", Bend (Oregon) Bulletin Oct 14, 2001
Photographs of the "First Annual World Celebration" in Rajneeshpuram, 1982
Photos of Rajneeshpuram aircraft at Big Muddy Ranch Airport
Building Oregon: Images of Rajneeshpuram

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

See also

External links