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| Capital | Rajneeshpuram | ||||||
| Largest city | Osho City | ||||||
| Language | English | ||||||
| Spiritual Leader | Osho | ||||||
| Inner Circle | Aamod Padmashree
Zahira Chameli Chandra Tabaan Yachak Baag Kalavati Ektal | ||||||
| Population | 263,549 | ||||||
 This 1983: Doomsday page is a Proposal.
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Rajneeshistan is a theocratic state located in the former Pacific Northwestern United States. A primarily agricultural, traveling spiritual affair, and craft-based nation, the rule of Rajneeshistan is left to the Inner Circle while Osho remains the figure-head in the form of the head of state.
Controversy surrounds Rajneeshistan as outside states argue that the nation is a dangerous dictatorship where civil rights are suppressed, while Rajneeshistan claims it is in a state of siege where outsiders are constantly seeking their demise.
History[]
Pre-Doomsday[]
Rajneeshistan began its life in the pre-Doomsday world as Rajneeshpuram, a religious intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, incorporated as a city starting in 1981. Its population consisted entirely of Rajneeshees - followers of the spiritual teacher Rajneesh. Its citizens and leaders were in the midst of planning the launching of Rajneeshee bioterror attacks, slated for 1984, and for planning an assassination plot, in which they conspired to assassinate the then-United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. Doomsday would curtail these plans to ignite apocalypse and rebirth – the world intervened to do the deed for them, believed to be divinely brought about by the Rajneeshees and a turn of events that ccemented radicalization and growth.
Tensions with the public and threatened punitive action by Indian authorities originally motivated the founders and leaders of the Rajneeshee movement, Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh and Ma Anand Sheela, to leave India and begin a new religious settlement in the United States. Discussions of this new settlement began as early as 1980, but Rajneesh did not agree to relocate until May 1981, when he travelled to the United States on a tourist visa, ostensibly for medical purposes. Rajneeshpuram was planned from the beginning as a home for Rajneesh's followers in the United States, most of whom were told to sell all of their belongings before moving there.
Rajneeshpuram was on the site of a 64,229-acre (25,993 ha) Central Oregon property known as the Big Muddy Ranch, near Antelope, Oregon. 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, a reservoir, and a post office. It is thought that the actual population during this time was potentially much higher than they claimed, and the neo-sannyasins may have gone as far as to hide beds and citizens during investigations. Various legal conflicts, primarily over land use, 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 length of its existence.
In 1983 the Rajneeshee Ma Anand Sheela (formerly known as Sheela Silverman; all members received a new sannyasin name) began to make plans for a coordinated attack alongside Rajneeshpuram citizens to infect the salad bars of at least ten restaurants in the county seat of Wasco County with salmonella, in an attempt to incapacitate the voting population of the city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections.
Post-Doomsday[]
Wasco County, Oregon did not receive any direct hits by nuclear weapons, but the nearby metro area of Portland was devastated and, further away but no less important, Seattle was also hit. Like the nearby Pasco Free State, refugees began pouring in from the Puget Sound region and also from the Portland Metro region, the latter in large numbers. The Rajneeshees used the apocalyptic events as a major propaganda event. The preaching of a universal religiousness to be spawned from the Rajneeshees movement would provide peace and deny a repeat of the nuclear events just witnessed. Dysfunction and destructiveness was what the Rajneeshees had warned against and they had not been listened to – and so it came to pass.
Not all refugees joined the movement but many did and the numbers of the communes were blostered. Rajneeshpuram and their sister commune in the Dalles provided food and shelter and set their path for permanence by guising as doomsday prophets and charitable peace-lovers. Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, known as Osho, became the de-facto head of the growing land dubbed Rajneeshistan, weaving together the Dalles, Rajneeshpuram, and neighboring small towns being absorbed by the influx of converts.
Early tensions arose with the Free State of Oregon which claimed the area, but at the time, in 1984, was only loosely held. Conflict arose with a loosely organized group known as the Christian Militia and the Young Life Guards of Christ. The guerilla war, and war of reprisals, would drive the largely unarmed Rajneeshees north with their former communes occupied by the Christian Militas and, later, by the Free State of Oregon as it consolidated itself. The turn of events would mark a militarization of the already teetering Rajneeshees. Anti-Rajneeshee residents declared "an open season on the central eastern Rajneesh, known locally as the Red Rats or Red Vermin."
Osho led “The Great Exodus” and, while the spiritual head and face of the movement, Ma Anand Sheela had become the true leader. The northern migration put the Rajneeshees in Klickitat county, Washington. From ’84 through ’87 the Rajneeshees would expand from Klickitat, Skamania, parts of Lewis, and Yakima counties, settling in an area between the growing Victoria, United States, and Pasco.
Rajneeshistan was declared after a spreading of communal settlements across the aforementioned counties over the three year period following the Great Exodus. Period skirmishing happens around the Columbia River and tensions linger with the neighbors to the north, but by and large stability has grown in the Spiritual State. The three turbulent years witnessed widespread displacement of those living in the area claimed by Rajneeshistan; any who did not convert and become loyal were pushed out into neighboring nations, while internally an iron grip was enforced on the inhabitants by the ruling Inner Circle. A siege mentality set in among the Spiritual State's leaders, and intimidation and authoritarianism ensued. Disillusioned followers began to leave the organization while Rajneeshistan ‘members’ (as citizens are known) are instructed to cease communication with anyone who left.
Government[]
The population sits around 263,549 at present and the capital city is Rajneeshpuram (sometimes called New Rajneeshpuram), what was the former city of Goldendale, Washington. The largest city is Osho City, where Osho resides, the place formerly known as Yakima.
The Inner Council governs the Spiritual Republic while Osho remains a largely hidden figure-head and the duo of Aamod Padmashree and Zahira Chameli dominate the Council and are, in essence, the dictators of Rajneeshistan. Aamod maintains what amount to a secret police and his presence tends more towards shadowy activity, to ‘”maintain the peaceful essence of Rajneeshistan against the myriad apocalyptic actors surrounding the Spiritual Republic, those forces that seek to continue the Earth on a path towards absolute destruction and anger.”
Zahira remains the more ‘joyous’ face of the nation, the smiling mother and caregiver, the balance to Aamod.
The people of Rajneeshistan hold elections, but how fair and free these are is debatable. Candidates must hold spiritual criteria and must be approved by the Inner Circle (sometimes called the Inner Council), a secretive group that answers, supposedly, to none but Osho.
Swami Krishna Deva (born David Berry Knapp), a former American clinical psychologist pre-Doomsday, serves as mayor of Rajneeshpuram.
Culture[]
Rajneeshees understand their ideology to be a worldwide movement, rooted in the affirmation of life, playful, joyful and based on science rather than belief and dogma. They believe that Doomsday was foretold by their leader, who tried to warn the world away from the material and chaos, but as the world did not listen it nearly ended all life. The belief was radicalized further, seeing that without their intervention, a worse doomsday is inevitable.
At present the intent is to lead people to an essential, universal religiousness and thus bring eternal peace to all humanity, preventing said second-permanent doomsday. The movement is supposedly open to people of all religions or of none, experimenting with the inner methods of all religions in their pure, original form, not seeking to synthesise them but to provide facilities whereby each might be revived, maintained and defended and their lost and hidden secrets rediscovered.
Despite the claims, and indeed quite contrary to them, the people of the nation practice Rajneeshism, a codified religion claimed to not be a religion. The book (nations bible), The Word of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, claims that Rajneeshism is not a religion, but rather "a religionless religion ... only a quality of love, silence, meditation and prayerfulness".
Rajneeshees follow the norms of wearing similar clothes and participating in the same activities. The people are allowed to come and go as they pleasd as long as they did not hurt anybody and, importantly, stay within the nation. Special bands of traders are allowed to travel outside of the country, with a mission of trading and receiving goods and also with the intent to send preachers abroad to find converts outside of Rajneeshistan.
Society[]
Osho held that families, large cities and nations would ultimately be replaced by small communities with a communal way of life, that this would divert the world from doom. A siege mentality has set in among Rajneeshistan's leaders post-exodus, and intimidation and authoritarianism ensue. The nation is heavily armed and the border constantly protected.
Although the movement was without clearly defined and shared values, it was well known that Rajneesh discouraged marrying and having children, since he saw families as inherently prone to dysfunction and destructiveness. Not many children were born at the communes pre-Doomsday in Oregon, and contraception, sterilisation, and abortion were accepted. The nation has thus note witnessed a boom in population, lower now than the pre-Doomsday population of all the counties it occupies. The current movement, under Zahira's guidance, is to promote a population boom. While sterilisation and abortion are accepted and even encouraged, a broad move to promote family growth has risen. This is very much in contrast to the other held stance, not unlike the claim that Rajneeshism is a religion and is not a religion.
Commerce[]
Pre-Doomsday it was commented that "one of the most astonishing features of the early Rajneesh movement was its remarkable success as a business enterprise". It "developed an extremely effective and profitable corporate structure", and "by the 1980s, the movement had evolved into a complex, interlocking network of corporations, with an astonishing number of both spiritual and secular businesses worldwide, offering everything from yoga and psychological counselling to cleaning services." It has been estimated that at least 120 million dollars were generated during the movement's time in Oregon, a period when the acquisition of capital, the collection of donations, and legal work were a primary concern. The popular press reported widely on the large collection of Rolls Royce cars Osho had amassed, reported to be 93 at the final count.
This business acumen has rolled over into the Spiritual Republic. Localized crafts sees many items exported and what could be described as 'nation-to-nation salesmen and women' move from Rajneeshistan and offer spiritual guidance, contraception, abortions, yoga, medicine, tantra, and so forth (all for a fee, which is funneled into Rajneeshistan). Many abroad believe these groups to also be spies and subversives on behalf of their home nation, Rajneeshistan.
Demographics[]
Half of all the original Rasjneeshees (Exodus Branch, so called) came from California, 97 percent are white, 25 percent were Jewish and 85 percent belonged to the middle and upper-middle classes pre-Doomsday. The early studies revealed a middle-class group of predominantly college-educated whites around the age of 30, the majority of whom were women. The other half (Refuge Branch) is made up of those refugees from Seattle and Portland who stayed as well as the residents (who stayed) of the former US counties Rajneeshistan holds. Of these about 87% were white, 6% Asian, 2% Native America, and 5% Hispanic.
At present the population is a blend of the former early demographics as a result of a deliberate 'mixing campaign' by the Inner Circle, to 'erase race and visible distinction and, thus, stratification and competition'. This was largely successful but, left unsaid, was due to over 90 percent of the populace of both branches collected (Exodus Branch and Refuge Branch) were white, thus it was a simple task. The desire for 'fusion' has led to claims of racism directed at Rajneeshistan, one of the many actions that has led to some fleeing.
The people of Rajneeshistan wear orange robes exclusively and there is a broad uniformity in the people, which is not an option. All citizens are required to adopt new sannyas names and abandon their old name. Men, women, and children live apart, each designated to segregated huts and 'communal homes'. The stressors of the enforced life has resulted in a number fleeing the theocratic state, as one refugee in the United States said, "laughter was a way of saying 'I’m OK with my feelings,' and one night thousands of people suddenly started laughing hysterically, crying with laughter, which was frightening." The hysterics, the iron grip of the Circle, and the promoted rampant promiscuousness and anti-societal structure has resulted in antagonism from within, increasingly clamped down on by the leaders.