![]() ![]() By 1983 regional hunting groups had proposed declaring "open season on the central eastern Rajneesh, known locally as the Red Rats or Red Vermin"-invasive and threatening pests that they were. Especially as the Sannyasins, as the followers were known, began to overstep their promises of limited development to local communities by building hotels, restaurants, a fire department, sewage reclamation plant, public transit system, and even an airstrip. Rajneesh drives by his followers in a shiny new Rolls-Royce.Īs might be expected, the sudden influx of thousands of capital-cultic neo–flower children all done up in red uniforms into rural America was met with some resistance. It helped, of course, that two of those followers were heirs to the Baskin Robbins and Learjet fortunes, flooding the retreat with millions to build up infrastructure and, why not, buy a pile of diamond-studded Rolexes and 93 Rolls-Royces for Rajneesh, whose goal was to have 365 of them so he could drive by his jumping, waving followers in a new car each day of the year. Unsurprisingly, he got the boot from India by 1981, fleeing allegations of tax evasion, smuggling, and violence, and landed in eastern Oregon, where his follower and lieutenant Ma Anand Sheela had, with the aid of her wealthy husband, Marc Harris Silverman, recently purchased a 64,000-acre ranch to create an isolated commune for 7,000 of Osho’s red-clad followers to farm and worship in peace. ![]() To spice things up, Rajneesh liked to lace all of his teachings with a few dirty jokes, ethnic punch lines, and, allegedly, drugs. By 1974 Rajneesh had amassed 10,000 followers and was raising hackles across the nation for his group’s vocal support of aggressive capitalism, free love, and ecstatic meditation in search of a detachment that would both allow and entitle one to do anything to anyone else. Baghwan Shree Rajneesh, or Osho, began a religious refuge known as an ashram that attracted followers from far and wide. It was there in 1974 that the charismatic spiritual guide Chandra Mohan Jain, a.k.a. All photos by Samvado Gunnar Kossatz unless otherwise notedĪlthough the Ranch’s story centers on a desiccated patch of Americana, it begins 40 years ago and 8,000 miles away in Pune, India.
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