Appendix. Oregon
1. News Summary 1981-1986. Timeline / Max Brecher. 22 pages.
2. Introduction by Sw Devaraj. In: ‘The Rajneesh Bible’ (1987). Excerpt.
3. Telegram from Alexander Haigh, Secretary of State. November 1981.
4. Letter from Edwin Meese III, Councellor to the President. 30.10.1981.
5. Letter from US Attorney General Edwin Meese III to INS. 30.08.1983.
6. Testimonial for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh / Rabbi Michael Ziegler.1983.
7. Documents attesting to the adoption of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. 1984.
8. The Name Game: Ranch Names. Listing compiled 2015.
9. Telephone Directory. Rajneeshpuram and Vicinity. 1985. 12 pages.
10. Election Plot Chronology. Constructed by Lewis F. Carter. 1988.
11. Three letters from Ma Anand Sheela. September 1985. (Sheela 1996).
12. Osho’s first and second arrest warrants. 23.10.1985. Two documents.
13. Osho signed in as David Washington. Oklahoma County jail.04.11.1985.
14. Infighting Mars Rajneeshee Probe / James Long. The Oregonian. 30.12.1985.
1. News Summary 1981-1986. Timeline / Max Brecher. 22 pages.
2. Introduction by Sw Devaraj. ‘The Rajneesh Bible’. Volume 4. (1987). Dated 12.11.1985. Excerpt.
Introduction by Swami Devaraj. Excerpt:
“In October and November of 1985, the world was treated to the bizarre sight of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh being dragged across the United States of America in handcuffs and leg irons. The barbarity of this act compared with the unproven charges against Him will slowly seep into the consciousness of the country and stain it forever. The cancer of governmental violence was exposed for all to see.
It is indeed ironic that the American government claims a moral prerogative to “fight terrorism throughout the world,” when it rests on a bureaucracy for whom terrorism is, as the treatment of Bhagwan has shown, “a policy option.”
But there are greater ironies yet to come. As time goes by, the systematic nature of government actions against Bhagwan and His commune continue to unfold, revealing nothing less than religious persecution. That a country founded by people seeking to escape such persecution should resort to the same strategies itself, is as demeaning an insult to the founding fathers and their constitution as can be imagined.
Moreover, that such charges as immigration fraud should be leveled by a country whose ruling group took possession of the land at the barrel of a gun is an even richer irony. Without doubt, the destruction of their Red Indian predecessors must be the greatest immigration fraud in history.
But when all is said and done we have to admit that the rise of the state has been one of the new religions of the twentieth century.
Jingoistic national anthems have become the creeds of these new religions, where patriotic fervor is the sign of the true believer. East and West, North and South, the story of ever more dominant state power emerges everywhere.
And with that new power has come the dissident.
Almost every nation regards as its divine right the power to take whatever action is required to silence those few brave souls who have the courage to speak against the ruling ideologies – ideologies that condition man everywhere to accept some party line or other under the guise of “public opinion.” Yes, we have come to expect such behaviour. But that begs another question. Why Bhagwan?
Even news commentators were amazed at the sight of Bhagwan being treated, as one put it, “like Al Capone and Bugs Malone combined.”
And there is the center of the issue: Why should a country as large, powerful, and apparently confident as the United States feel fearful enough of this peaceful man to attack him? Was there ever a greater sign of weakness? Was there ever a greater sign that somebody somewhere is desperately afraid that what He is saying may be right?
Much of that material is in this book.
As He says in Discourse 8, “Coming to America has been a tremendous disappointment. There is no democracy anywhere – neither in America, nor in the Soviet Union, nor anywhere else. It is only a word that politicians have been exploiting.”
Bhagwan explains precisely why, in His own unique, brilliant and amazing way.” (Swami Devaraj. November 12, 1985)
3. Telegram from Alexander Haigh, Secretary of State, to US Consul in Bombay. Subject: Activities of Indian Guru Bagwan Shri Rhaneesh. November 1981.
4. Letter from Edwin Meese III, Councellor to the President. 30.10.1981.
5. Letter from US Attorney General Edwin Meese III to Alan C. Nelson, INS. 30.08.1983.
6. Testimonial for Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh / Rabbi Michael Ziegler of Piedmont, California. (Rajneesh Times, 30.09.1983)
“But a few of the Jews began to speak out in their defense. Rabbi Michael Ziegler, of Piedmont, California, wrote a testimonial for Bhagwan that was printed in the Rajneesh Times on September 30, 1983.
In the first paragraph, he said: “The presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the United States contributes to the vitality of religion in America and adds to the texture of our country’s intellectual plurality. I have been familiar with the work of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for the past five years and have used his books for discussion groups and workshops in a variety of Jewish and secular settings. In Northern California, Rajneesh is well respected among my colleagues as an articulate spokesman of Eastern religious traditions and philosophies. As a religious philosopher, Rajneesh stands head and shoulders above most of his Asian contemporaries. Out of respect for this man’s intellectual accomplishments, prestigious educational institutions like the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley are teaching classes on his thought.”
After more in the same vein, he ends with the words: “I am appreciative that such an erudite scholar as Rajneesh is in America. I am aware that this scholar’s visa is under consideration, and as a member of the American clergy I would hope that the United States will welcome such an exceptional man in our ranks. Most sincerely, Rabbi Michael Ziegler.”” (Murphy 1986, p. 38)
7. Documents attesting to the adoption of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. (Madyapa 1984, pp. 534-36. Document. Text. Photo).
Adoption of Osho as a child
“Swami Swarupananda, Ma Sheela’s father, surprises the whole commune when he reveals that he had adopted Bhagwan at the age of four. “Bapuji”, as Swaruoananda is affectionately called, relates the story to the Rajneesh Times.
Shortly after Bhagwan was born, His parents consulted astrologers to have the child’s destiny read. But the astrologers refused to do the chart, saying that the boy would die before the age of seven. A strategy was suggested that might avert this destiny, and that was for the parents to disown Him. If He lived, the astrologers said, He would be the leader of mankind.
The parents did not want to believe this dire prediction. They tried to ignore it as if nothing had happened – maybe the predictions were wrong. At the age of one-and-a-half, Bhagwan almost died of smallpox. The sores covered His body and His eyes were swollen shut. They thought surely He would die, but He lived. His parents began to take the predictions seriously.
Within a year, He was sick again – this time it was typhoid fever. He almost died, but by some miracle He survived, only to have the typhoid recur after a period of time. He was deadly sick, but again He pulled through.
About this time Swami Swarupananda met Bhagwasn’s father, Swami Devateerth Bharti, affectionately called “Dadaji”. Swarupananda could see that his friend was burdened with some anxiety, and he asked what was wrong. “Dadaji” told the whole story. Swarupananda pointed out to him that things were happening according to the astrologer’s prediction. He then offered to adopt Bhagwan as his son. There was a strong feeling between the men – “Dadaji” felt that he was right. He took a picture of Swarupananda to show to Bhagwan’s mother, Ma Amrit Saraswati Jain, and to ask her agreement. On the next trip to Bombay, “Dadaji” and Saraswati brought the young Bhagwan to his new father.
Swarupananda remembers the child Bhagwan as being “in a class by Himself… There was something about Him, a king of quietness.. And the eyes… those eyes… there was such a luster in them it would always draw attention to Him… there was understanding and peace in those eyes… this child… I felt He was coming from a different place than the rest of the world.”
Because of his agreement with “Dadaji”, Swarupananda keeps this story a well-guarded secret until the evening of February 9, 1984. The time has ome for the news to be revealed.
A surprise meeting of the commune is held to make the announcement. Naturally, a huge celebration follows with “Bapuji” joining in the dancing.
One week later, Bhagwan, on His own merits, is recognized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service as a religious teacher.” (Madyapa 1984, pp. 534-35)
(Note: Madyapa 1984 also shows a document and photo on same pages, with Osho’s mother somewhat bewildered being presented with the said document. Some would argue that the presented document on the adoption of Osho when he was a child is a forgery. Even if this is true, it fulfilled its purpose and made the INS recognize Osho as a religious leader. The argument has also been put forward that this adoption document is in the same category as Osho’s will which mysteriously appeared from some archive in 2013. The rumor goes that Swami Niren, Osho’s lawyer for many years, has his role in the construction of this early document which was later to be withdrawn)
8. The Name Game: Ranch Names. Places, Work Departments, Misc., Organizations. Listing compiled by Sw Deva Bodhena and Ma Anand Bhagawati. 19.07.2015.
9. Telephone Directory. Rajneeshpuram and Vicinity. 1985. 12 pages.
10. Election Plot Chronology. Constructed by Lewis F. Carter.
From: Carriers of Tales: On Assessing Credibility of Apostate and Other Outsider Accounts of Religious Practices / Lewis F. Carter.
“One of the most controversial incidents during the years of Rajneeshpuram involved what appears to have been a concerted attempt by leaders of the community to sweep the 1984 county election in Wasco County, the county in which the community had been repeatedly blocked by county commissioners in its ambitious expansion program.
Based on testimony from Krishna Deva, the ex-mayor of Rajneshpuram, it appears that members of the commune leadership intended to elect residents of the commune to two of the three county commissioner positions in the fall election. To this end, they tried to recruit three sets of potential voters:
* all sannyasin (devotees) who were American citizens but not then resident at the ranch
* non-sannyasin who might be sympathetic to Rajneesh candidates
* and when those recruiting efforts appeared to yield fewer voters than required, large numbers of indigents recruited from the streets of American cities.
It also appears that on two occasions salad bars in The Dalles, Oregon, were contaminated with salmonella, apparently as “tests” to see if considerable numbers of county residents could be disabled. The effort was abandoned only after the State of Oregon closed voter registration and the U.S. District Court declined to intervene.
At the time, allegations about an attempt to sweep the elections was dismissed by commune leadership and sympathetic writers as existing “only in rumors circulated by anti-Rajneeshees.” Bhagwan’s secretary called a news conference in which she claimed that the election bid of the two write-in candidates was merely a “joke.” A call by an Oregon congressman for investigation of the poisonings was dismissed as a “rambling incoherent speech.”
Krishna Deva’s narrative was in the form of testimony given when he was being investigated for suspected participation in the poisonings and other alleged crimes. As one of the core staff members at Rajneeshpuram, his testimony obviously raised credibility questions, and some of the narrative was frankly astonishing even to outsiders familiar with Rajneeshpuram, though it was savored by the anti-cult movement in Oregon. Here was a core practicing member of the community whose testimony was used in subsequent prosecutions of other staff members.
Being unwilling to rely solely on a defector’s narrative involving such a remarkable election plot, I constructed the following chronology (presented here in abbreviated form) based on information from extremely varied sources.
1. In August 1984, staff at Rajneeshpuram began calling all American sannyasin (devotees) to come to stay at the ranch for the fall, with offers of “fellowships” or “subsidized rates.”
2. In August 1984, the staff also sent letters to all “non-sannyasin” who had ever stayed at the ranch to come to the ranch and participate in “a special three-month program” for the fall. Staff response to inquiry about the possibility of a two-week visit was that “this would not likely be possible.”
3. In September 1984, a massive recruiting effort with chartered buses sent to major urban areas of the country to recruit “street people” to come to Rajneeshpuram as part of a philanthropic “share-a-home” program. Over the next month and a half at least 1,455 indigents were transported to the ranch, with the first four busloads arriving September 4-6.
4. On September 9 there was an unexplained outbreak of salmonella poisoning in The Dalles, Oregon, which was eventually traced to salad bars in several restaurants.
5. A concerted indoctrination program began at the ranch at this time which urged street people to register to vote in the upcoming election, telling them that the state was trying to deprive them of their right to vote and that groups of people were physical threats to them and the commune.
6. On September 22 (after at least 641 street people had been brought to Rajneeshpuram), a second outbreak of salmonella occurred in The Dalles, this one eventually traced to eight separate salad bars with no common supplier. Samples from the salad bars indicated a single strain of salmonella to be responsible for the poisonings.
7. On October 5 (after at least 1,093 street people had been recruited), Bhagwan’s secretary announced the intention to run two write-in candidates for county commissioner positions.
8. On October 7 a ranch spokesman claimed 7,000 voters at the commune, including 4,000 “Share-a-Home” residents (street people).
9. On October 10 voting registration was suspended by Wasco County. (The county received over 2,000 complaint letters from people resident at the ranch who were denied registration.)
10. On October 15 the U.S. District Court refused to order registration to resume.
11. On October 17 (the official deadline for voter registration), five plane load of sannyasin and one plane of indigents were flown to Rajneeshpuram.
12. On October 18 a spokesperson for the ranch announced the end of the Share-a-Home program.
13. When a federal task force entered the ranch the following year, they found among other things a lab facility in Bhagwan’s secretary’s residence in which were petri dishes with the same strain of salmonells identified earlier in The Dalles.
Assembling and corroborating elements that went into this tale involved:
* Reports from sannyasin residents at Rajneeshpuram at the time of these events, although none claimed knowledge of the salmonella incidents.
* Mail and telephone contact from recruiters from Rajneeshpuram seeking academics to join them for this three-month period.
* Information concerning timing and numbers of indigents entering Rajneeshpurm from an “outsider,” a woman in Madras, Oregon, who managed the coffee shop at the bus station where indigents were transferred from chartered buses on which they came from major cities into school buses for transport to Rajneeshpuram.
* Published accounts of interviews with street people, and an account by an undercover journalist who had posed as a street person.
* Records of law enforcement and other public agencies.
* Personal analysis of 2,000 protest letters sent to the Wasco County voting registration office, consistently displaying the themes of fear and persecution, in many cases in the exact phrasing claimed by expelled street people to have been drummed into them over loudspeakers and in mass meetings. Internal analysis of these documents revealed evidence of systematic “coaching.” For excample, while many of the street people were quite articulate, something over 100 of the protest letters were below a fourth-grade level of literacy in terms of spelling and grammar, yet appended to each was “cc: Rajneesh Legal Services.” It was not credible that individuals who wrote as poorly as these letters indicated would have known enough to send a “courtesy copy” to their attorneys.” (Carter 1998, pp. 230-32)
11. Three letters from Ma Anand Sheela. September 1985. (Sheela 1996).
Letter to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Dated 12.09.1985.
Letter to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Dated 13.09.1985.
Letter to Academy of Rajneeshism. Dated 13.09.1985.
12. Osho’s first and second arrest warrants. 23.10.1985. Two documents. (Brecher 1993)
13. Osho’s first and second arrest warrants. 23.10.1985. Two documents. (Brecher 1993. Page 1-2 out of six unnumbered pages in photo section)
Document 1:
“The arrest warrant for Rajneesh above was introduced into federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Weaver on October 31, 1985, three days after Rajneesh’s arrest. Notice that it is neither signed nor completely filled out. This arrest warrant was found in the records of Ed Hinson and Bill Diehl, the Charlotte attorneys who represented Rajneesh. It was not found in the federal court records, either in Charlotte or Portland, Oregon.”
Document 2:
“This second arrest warrant for Rajneesh can be found in the federal court records in Portland, Oregon. What’s not apparent from the version reproduced here is that it was clocked into the courtroom records on November 12, 1985, more than two weeks after the arrest.
This nicely filled out arrest warrant, which includes the typed-in day of when the warrant was received and executed and the name of the arresting officer, Wade McGalliard, presents some insoluble difficulties for the perpetrators of the hoax.
1) At the time of the alleged issuance of the arrest warrant, October 23, 1985, there was no way anyone could have known that Wade McGalliard would be the arresting officer. Incidentally, McGalliard, who appears on the cover of this book – to the right of Rajneesh carrying the rifle – was not the arresting officer; Ron Taylor was.
2) If this arrest warrant existed at the time of arrest, why wasn’t it produced in court in Charlotte?
Other elements alert us to the fact that the second warrant is not even a fleshed-out copy of the first. At the upper tight hand corner of each warrant in the box marked “Docket No.”, the spacing and shape of the filled in numbers are noticeably different.
At the lower right corner of the warrants in the box marked “Date Issued”, there is a subtle difference in the way “Oct 23, 1985” is written in. Notice in particular the slight discrepancies in the “t” and the “23”.” (Brecher 1993. Page 1-2 out of six unnumbered pages in photo section)
14. Infighting Mars Rajneeshee Probe / James Long. (The Oregonian. 30.12.1985)
Part Six
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