Rajneeshpuram

File:OshoRajneesh.jpg

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Rajneeshpuram, Oregon was an intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, briefly incorporated as a city in the 1980s, which was populated with followers of the religious leader then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

History

The city was located on the site of a 64,000 acre Central Oregon property known as the Big Muddy Ranch, which was purchased for USD $5.75 million (nearly 30 times its assessed value). Within three years, the ranch had turned from an empty rural property into a city of 7,000 people, complete with typical urban infrastructure, including a fire department, police, restaurants, malls, a 4,500 foot airstrip, and a reservoir.

However, the city soon ran afoul of many in the state. Oregon Attorney General David B. Frohnmayer maintained that the city was essentially an arm of a religious organization, thus its incorporation violated the principle of separation of church and state, enshrined in both the Oregon and United States constitutions. 1000 Friends of Oregon, an environmentalist group, maintained that the city violated state land-use laws. Followers of Rajneesh have long maintained that religious intolerance, rather than any legitimate legal or environmental objection, was the cause of opposition to Rajneesh and his followers.

A lawsuit was filed by the State of Oregon to invalidate the city's incorporation in 1983, and many attempts to expand the city further were legally blocked, prompting followers to attempt to build in nearby Antelope, Oregon—which was briefly named Rajneesh when sufficient numbers of followers of the Bhagwan were able to register to vote there and win a referendum on the subject.

The Rajneeshees largely left Oregon late October 1985 when several leaders of the group, including Rajneesh's secretary Ma Anand Sheela, were indicted and convicted of several crimes, including immigration fraud, wiretapping, first and second degree assault (poisoning) of two public officials, and the attempted murder of Rajneesh's personal physician. Sheela was imprisoned for these crimes, as well as for her role in infecting a salad bar in The Dalles (the county seat of Wasco County) with salmonella, sickening over 750 (including several Wasco County public officials) and sending 45 people to the hospital; the incident is regarded as the largest germ warfare attack in the history of the United States.

Rajneesh himself was accused of minor immigration violations, to which he entered an Alford plea. He was subsequently deported and eventually returned to Pune, India.

In 1985, after appeals to the Attorney General's lawsuit were exhausted, Rajneeshpuram was disincorporated. The Big Muddy Ranch was sold, and as of August 2006, the property is occupied by a Christian youth camp.

See also

• Osho movement

Bibliography

• Lewis F. Carter, Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram: A Community without Shared Values (American Sociological Association Rose Monographs) 1990 ISBN 0521385547
• Frances FitzGerald, Cities on a Hill: A Journey Through Contemporary American Cultures (Simon & Schuster) 1986 ISBN 0-671-55209-0 (includes a section on Rajneeshpuram previously published in two parts in The New Yorker magazine, Sept. 22 and Sept. 29 1986 editions)

External links

• 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)
• Information on Antelope, Oregon
• John Cramer, "Oregon suffered largest bioterrorist attack in U.S. History, 20 years ago", Bend (Oregon) Bulletin Oct 14, 2001