Rajneeshpuram facts for kids
Rajneeshpuram was a religious intentional community in the northwest United States, located in Wasco County, Oregon. Incorporated as a city between 1981 and 1988, its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees, followers of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh, later known as Osho.
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 United States Attorney for the District of Oregon.
Settlement
The city was located on the site of a 64,229-acre (25,993 ha) Central Oregon property known as the Big Muddy Ranch, which was purchased in 1981 for $5.75 million ($17.4 million in today's dollars ). Within three years, the neo-sannyasins (Rajneesh's followers, also termed Rajneeshees in contemporaneous press reports) developed a community, turning the ranch from an empty rural property into a city of up to 7,000 people, complete with typical urban infrastructure such as a fire department, police, restaurants, malls, townhouses, a 4,200-foot (1,300 m) airstrip, a public transport system using buses, a sewage reclamation plant and a reservoir. The Rajneeshpuram post office had the ZIP code 97741.
Within a year of arriving, the commune leaders had become embroiled in a series of legal battles with their neighbours, the principal conflict relating to land use. Initially, they had stated that they were planning to create a small agricultural community, their land being zoned for agricultural use. But it soon became apparent that they wanted to establish the kind of infrastructure and services normally associated with a town. The land-use conflict escalated to bitter hostility between the commune and local residents, and the commune was subject to sustained and coordinated pressures from various coalitions of Oregon residents over the following years.
Images for kids
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The Krishnamurti Lake
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Guest houses built by Rajneesh followers.
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Air Rajneesh Convair 240 and Douglas DC-3 at Big Muddy Ranch Airport in October 1985.
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Convair 240 of Air Rajneesh, used to transport passengers and cargo to the enclave
See also
In Spanish: Rajnishpuram para niños
