PROPHETS OF DOOM
TERROR IN A RELIGIOUS UTOPIA: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CULT OF RAJNEESHPURAM
Something strange was going on in Oregon in the summer of 1984. Hundreds of homeless people, plucked from doorways and benches all across the U.S., were being shipped by bus to an old ranch in remote Wasco County. They had been promised food, shelter and an opportunity for a fresh start at a farming commune dedicated to enlightenment. To the outside world, this was an act of charitable kindness by a religious community practising what they preached. The residents of Oregon, however, suspected ulterior motives. They held their breath, awaiting the next act in a broiling war, one that would result in the largest act of bioterrorism ever unleashed on U.S. soil.
Born in India in 1931, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh took his first steps into the world of work as a philosophy teacher at the University of Jabalpur in central India. A lengthy career in academia beckoned. And then, at just 21, Rajneesh experienced a spiritual awakening. Retaining his teaching post (he was eventually asked to resign by the university after making a series of controversial speeches in 1966), he started travelling throughout India extolling the virtues of his own movement, Rajneeshism, the key tenets of which entailed meditation, the rejection of mainstream religions and sexual liberation. By 1974, Rajneesh had formed an ashram in Pune, and come the end of the decade he was reportedly attracting 30,000 wealthy Western visitors a year, all of them flocking to India in search of their own spiritual awakening.
They called themselves the Rajneeshees and devoted themselves – and their cash – to Bhagwan (a named he started using in 1971). Francis Ruddy, married to Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of The Godfather, became an ardent follower, as did actor Terrence Stamp and many Bollywood stars. Such famous faces helped the cult to build up enormous wealth.
Inside the Rajneeshees’ religious retreat followers would study the guru’s philosophy of self-exploration with “dynamic meditation”, which involved breathing exercises and releasing emotions in the form of shouting, singing, dancing and laughing. Disturbing footage of these rituals showed people writhing naked in a padded room, shrieking, panting and lashing out at one another.
The Bhagwan also preached sexual freedom, earning him the nickname “the sex guru”. He encouraged “free love” among his
