Rajneesh movement

The Rajneesh movement are people inspired by the Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931–1990), also known as Osho, particularly initiated disciples who are referred to as "neo-sannyasins". They used to be known as Rajneeshees or "Orange People" because of the orange and later red, maroon and pink clothes they used from 1970 until 1985. Members of the movement are sometimes called Oshoites in the Indian press. The movement was controversial in the 1970s and 1980s, due to the founder's hostility, first to Hindu morality in India, and later to Christian morality in the United States. In the Soviet Union, the movement was banned as being contrary to "positive aspects of Indian culture and to the aims of the youth protest movement in Western countries". The positive aspects were allegedly being subverted by Rajneesh, whom the Soviet Government considered a reactionary ideologue of the monopolistic bourgeoisie of India and a promoter of consumerism in a traditional Hindu guise. In Oregon, the movement's large intentional community of the early 1980s, called Rajneeshpuram, caused immediate tensions in the local community for its attempts to take over the nearby town of Antelope and later the county seat of The Dalles. At the peak of these tensions, a circle of leading members of the Rajneeshpuram Oregon commune was arrested for crimes including an attempted assassination plot to murder U.S. Attorney Charles H. Turner as part of the United States's first recorded bio-terror attack calculated to influence the outcome of a local election in their favour; the effort ultimately failed. Salmonella bacteria were deployed to infect salad products in local restaurants and shops, which poisoned several hundred people. The Bhagwan, as Rajneesh was then called, was deported from the United States in 1985 as part of his Alford plea deal following the convictions of his staff and right hand Ma Anand Sheela, who were found guilty of the attack. After his deportation, 21 countries denied him entry.