Cult Time: Footage of Rajneeshpuram at its peak, from ‘Gods of the New Age’ (1984).
In 1981, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho) purchased Big Muddy Ranch, an enormous 64,000-acre former cattle ranch near Antelope in north-central Oregon, for about $5.7 million. His Rajneeshee followers, largely led by his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela, constructed roads, housing, farms, an airport, restaurants, shops, a medical center, sewage and water systems, and enormous communal meeting facilities like this one in the video.
In this footage Rajneeshpuram was flourishing, but soon afterward it began to collapse spectacularly amid a political war with the surrounding communities. Leadership began bringing in thousands of homeless people from cities around the country in what was presented publicly as a humanitarian program, but whose main objective was to register them to vote in local elections. Then some members cultured Salmonella in a laboratory and deliberately contaminated local restaurants as part of a strategy to incapacitate voters before election day, marking the first modern bioterror attack on U.S. soil. Investigations soon uncovered other crimes in the inner circle like illegal wiretapping, immigration fraud, arson, poisoning plots and attempted murder.
Rajneeshpuram collapsed in 1985, when Sheela fled to Europe, before being extradited to the U.S. and imprisoned. Today the former commune is an active Christian youth camp called Washington Family Ranch, and the air strip is still there and operational. It’s private property and they say they do not offer historical tours.
