Salmonella, a kind of bacteria, if contacted with food, can cause one of the worst forms of food poisoning. Referred to as one of the most terrible cases of a bio-terror attack in America, in an article by The Atlantic, the Rajneeshees allegedly poisoned half the county’s voters by pouring Salmonella-tainted liquid on items in the salad bars of ten popular restaurants. As a result, they undertook two drastic measures which would later prove fatal for them in a court of law. While tensions had been budding for a while, the crisis reached its peak in 1984, when the Rajneeshees realised that the only way they could secure Rajneeshpuram was by taking over Wasco county in the November elections.Īlthough the Rajneeshees were determined to win these elections, they only made up about 10 percent of the county’s population. Over the next couple of months, what emerged was a kind of civil-war like struggle between the Rajneeshees and the Oregonions. So when the Rajneeshees began to pour into what they considered “their land”, with their free sex, open marriages and alien concepts, the locals began to turn hostile.
These were people who belonged to conservative, Christian families. A simplified way to sum up Osho’s philosophy would be to refer to one of his most famous quotes:Īs shown in Wild Wild Country, the influx of Rajneeshees into Oregon and the establishment of Rajneeshpuram was met with great resistance from the local families of the region. He began to cultivate his own philosophy - one that would later become enshrined in the pages of the Rajneeshee manifesto and would be followed for decades after his death in 1990. However, through this period, he began to grow more disillusioned with existing philosophies propelled by Hinduism and even socialism, calling out their “hypocrisy”. In Charisma and Control in Rajneeshpuram: A Community Without Shared Values, author Lewis F Carter mentions that in the years between 19, Osho held several academic positions, even teaching philosophy at a few universities such as Jabalpur University. As a powerful leader, he managed to influence, control and secure a god-like devotion from billionaire heirs, celebrities, lawyers and farmers alike. Born in a small village in Bareli, Madhya Pradesh, as Chandra Mohan Jain, Osho’s transformation from a young man drawn to hypnosis led him to believe in a transcendental life.
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