The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

[steve_bank]

Here is another cult.

I was in Portland Or in the 80s when an Indian 'guru' bought a ranch outside of Antelope Oregon. His followers mostly from Europe came to labor on the ranch and have sex. They dressed in red around Portland wearing a picture of the leader. He was one of a number of 'gurus' who exploited the New Age/counter culture for profit. Another was the Maharishi and Transcendental Mediation.

The guru had fled India for tax evasion. He had a fleet of expensive cars he'd drive around the ranch in.

The big thing was his followers moved to Antelope just before an election and managed to take over the town. The residents trisd to disincorporate but it was too late.

Rajnechees controlled schools, government, and importantly the police. It gave then legal access to automatic weapons. They patrolled te ranch bradishing weapons.

Tensions were high. Locals let armed volunteers patrol hte border on their land bordering the ranch, and it was not unwaranted.

His second in command secretly got off the ranch and poisened food at a local buffet. I think she eventualy got extradited back to the USA and prosecuted. The Bhagwan was deported.

Rajneeshpuram - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Rajneeshpuram was a religious intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988. Its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees, followers of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh,[1][2][3][4] later known as Osho.[5] 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 then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon.

Rajneesh - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh,[2] Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh,[1] and later as Osho (/ˈoʊʃoʊ/), was an Indian godman,[3] mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement.[1] During his lifetime, he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and a mystic Guru. He rejected institutional religions.[4][1][5] Rajneesh emphasised the importance of freethought, meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity, and humour—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious dogmas and traditions, and socialization. In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality[6] he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex guru".[1][7][8]

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In 1984, 751 people suffered food poisoning in The Dalles, Oregon, US due to the deliberate contamination of salad bars at ten local restaurants with Salmonella. A group of prominent followers of Rajneesh (later known as Osho) led by Ma Anand Sheela had hoped to incapacitate the voting population of the city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections.[2] The incident was the first and is the single largest bioterrorist attack in United States history.[3][4]

Having previously gained political control of Antelope, Oregon, Rajneesh's followers, who were based in nearby Rajneeshpuram, sought election to two of the three seats on the Wasco County Circuit Court that were up for election in November 1984. Fearing they would not gain enough votes, some Rajneeshpuram officials decided to incapacitate voters in The Dalles, the largest population center in Wasco County. The chosen biological agent was Salmonella enterica Typhimurium, which was first delivered through glasses of water to two County Commissioners and then, on a larger scale, at salad bars and in salad dressing.

As a result of the attack, 751 people contracted salmonellosis, 45 of whom were hospitalized, but none died. Although an initial investigation by the Oregon Public Health Division and the Centers for Disease Control did not rule out deliberate contamination, the agents and contamination were confirmed only a year later. On February 28, 1985, Congressman James H. Weaver gave a speech in the United States House of Representatives in which he "accused the Rajneeshees of sprinkling Salmonella culture on salad bar ingredients in eight restaurants".[5]

At a press conference in September 1985, Rajneesh accused several of his followers of participation in this and other crimes, including an aborted plan in 1985 to assassinate a United States attorney, and he asked state and federal authorities to investigate.[6] Oregon Attorney General David B. Frohnmayer set up an interagency task force, composed of Oregon State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and executed search warrants in Rajneeshpuram. A sample of bacteria matching the contaminant that had sickened the town residents was found in a Rajneeshpuram medical laboratory. Two leading Rajneeshpuram officials were convicted on charges of attempted murder and served 29 months of 20-year sentences in a minimum-security federal prison.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Here is another cult.

I was in Portland Or in the 80s when an Indian 'guru' bought a ranch outside of Antelope Oregon. His followers mostly from Europe came to labor on the ranch and have sex. They dressed in red around Portland wearing a picture of the leader. He was one of a number of 'gurus' who exploited the New Age/counter culture for profit. Another was the Maharishi and Transcendental Mediation.

The guru had fled India for tax evasion. He had a fleet of expensive cars he'd drive around the ranch in.

I remember Rajneesh. I was a member of the Assembly of God church in the 1980s when he was in the news. At that time I, like you, referred to Rajneesh and his followers as a "cult." It wasn't too long until I realized that I was in a cult and for that matter realized that all religions qualify as cults. "Cult" is a term invented by religious people to distinguish their supposedly good and true religions from bad and false religions, the latter invariably being the religions that other people belong to.

 

[steve_bank]

Here is another cult.

I was in Portland Or in the 80s when an Indian 'guru' bought a ranch outside of Antelope Oregon. His followers mostly from Europe came to labor on the ranch and have sex. They dressed in red around Portland wearing a picture of the leader. He was one of a number of 'gurus' who exploited the New Age/counter culture for profit. Another was the Maharishi and Transcendental Mediation.

The guru had fled India for tax evasion. He had a fleet of expensive cars he'd drive around the ranch in.

I remember Rajneesh. I was a member of the Assembly of God church in the 1980s when he was in the news. At that time I, like you, referred to Rajneesh and his followers as a "cult." It wasn't too long until I realized that I was in a cult and for that matter realized that all religions qualify as cults. "Cult" is a term invented by religious people to distinguish their supposedly good and true religions from bad and false religions, the latter invariably being the religions that other people belong to.

I went to RCC schools but it never really took root, so I never had an awakening or de conversion experience.

 

[bilby]

I went to RCC schools but it never really took root

I think you honestly and genuinely believe that.

But it did. The fundamental underpinnings of our understanding of reality are immutably formed before we reach puberty; We can never escape them.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I went to RCC schools but it never really took root, so I never had an awakening or de conversion experience.

The actual scientific part of my RCC experience definitely took root. It was the woo part that didn't. When scientific observation contradicted religious dogma I was always presented with the "it's a mystery" defense. That got old fast.

The peddling of religious woo is a business with the law of supply and demand operating like any other business. Lots of people like paying for woo and religious entrepreneurs cash in.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I went to RCC schools but it never really took root, so I never had an awakening or de conversion experience.

I never really liked the Catholic religion much. Even as a young schoolboy I saw some obvious problems in it like the violent and abusive nuns. They could be terrors! I finally decided to get out of it completely when its evil became transparent.

I wasn't done with Christianity yet, though. About seven years later I got involved with some Pentecostal churches hoping they would be better. If anything, they were worse than Catholicism! I got ripped off by their fake healers. I had had enough of religion, and I got out.

Now for those who frown on our saying bad things about religion--what is it about truth and goodness that you object to?