OSHO (Rajneesh) Raport - Evil among usTruth about Osho

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 3:56OSHO: My God! There Is No God!

 18:30OSHO: Making Love -- A Sacred Experience

 7:59OSHO: I Respect Money (Preview)

 4:37OSHO: There Is No Creator

 9:11OSHO: There Is No God, but I Have Found Something Far More Significant P

 7:31OSHO: Miracles - Turning Water into Wine Without License

 3:24OSHO: Sex Is Your Life Force

 11:26OSHO: If You Love This Planet, Absolute Birth Control Is Needed

  OSHO: I Am the Rich Man's Guru

 8:21OSHO: Let Sex Be a Playfulness

 5:55OSHO: There Are No Devils

 5:25OSHO: Jesus Never Died on the Cross (Preview)

 5:47OSHO: Love and Hate Are One

 10:07OSHO: God Is Not a Solution - but a Problem

 

Part 1: "25 years after Rajneeshee commune collapsed, truth spills out"

» Part 2: "Thwarted Rajneeshee leaders attack enemies, neighbors with poison"

» Part 3: "Rajneeshee leaders take revenge on The Dalles' with poison, homeless"

» Part 4: "Rajneeshee leaders see enemies everywhere as questions compound"

» Part 5: "Rajneeshees' Utopian dreams collapse as talks turn to murder "

» The full project: Rajneeshees in Oregon -- The Untold Story

» On Facebook: Rajneesh -- An Oregonian special report

View full sizeThe OregonianFederal marshals escort Bhagwan Shree

Rajneesh to a bail hearing in Charlotte, N.C., in November 1985 following his arrest while attempting to leave the country. He was indicted on federal immigration charges.

The Oregonian's series on the history of the Rajneeshees in Oregoncontinues with "Rajneeshees' Utopian

dreams collapse as talks turn to murder."

Reporter Les Zaitz, who wrote about the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh when he arrived in Oregon with thousands of

followers, relates the collapse of Rancho Rajneesh and the departure of the bhagwan out of Oregon.

As public rulings and public opinion turned against the Rajneeshees, sect leaders laid plans for the murders of federal

and state officials. They also targeted members of their own group.

Zaitz writes:

So far, outrageous acts hadn't helped the Rajneeshee cause. The secret squads poisoned several hundred people in

The Dalles. They set fire to the county planning office. They exploited homeless people, costing Oregon taxpayers

$100,000 in bus fare to return them to their cities of origin.

Murder didn't make much sense, either, but the judgment of the leaders was crippled by exhaustion, isolation and

their unwavering faith in the guru.

More meetings followed the extraordinary session in Ma Anand Sheela's bedroom, the scene for much of her plotting.

She went to the guru for help stiffening the resolve of those participating. She returned with a tape of her

conversation. Although the quality was poor, the commune insiders heard Rajneesh say that if 10,000 had to die to

save one enlightened master, so be it.

As the plots collapsed in bad planning and even worse execution, Sheela, the sect's leader, bolted the country. (Read

about Zaitz's recent interview with Sheela in Switzerland: "Ma Anand Sheela: Rajneeshees' public face left

Oregon but holds onto blame, bitterness".)

Zaitz continues:

The murder plots ended, as did other dirty tricks. Soon after Labor Day 1985, Sheela quit her posts at the ranch. She

fled to Europe with selected taped conversations involving the guru, sect promissory notes and miniature hypodermic

needles such as the one used to attack Devaraj. A dozen of her allies also quit the commune, joining her in Germany

or fleeing elsewhere.

The ranch quickly fell apart.

At a news conference, the guru described a litany of crimes he attributed to Sheela and her "gang." Both Oregonians

and Rajneeshees were stunned.

Rajneeshees in Oregon -- The Untold Story:

Disciples garland Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's Rolls-Royce with flowers during the daily driveby, a ritual at the commune.

RajneeshAn Oregonianspecial report

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Why they came

Rajneesh primer

Editor's note: In a nearly unbelievable chapter of Oregon history, a guru from India gathered 2,000 followers to live

on a remote eastern Oregon ranch. The dream collapsed 25 years ago amid attempted murders, criminal charges and

deportations.

But the whole story was never made public. With first-ever access to government files, and some participants willing

to talk for the first time, it's clear things were far worse than we realized.

What follows is an inside look -- based on witness statements, grand jury transcripts, police reports, court records and

fresh interviews -- at how Rajneesh leaders tried to skirt land-use and immigration laws only to have their schemes

collapse to the point they decided killing Oregonians was the only way to save their religious utopia.

Ma Anand Puja stepped into St. Vincent Hospital on a summer night in 1985, hunting for James Comini.

The Filipino nurse was there to kill the rural Oregon politician, who was recuperating from ear surgery at the

Portland hospital. She carried a syringe to inject a mixture into Comini's intravenous tube that would stop his

heart.

But once inside Comini's seventh-floor isolation room, Puja discovered her target wasn't on an IV. Flustered, she

hurried from the hospital to a getaway car, and her assassination team started the long drive home.

Their destination: Rancho Rajneesh, a spiritual encampment 200 miles away in eastern Oregon. It was base for

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a guru from India, and 2,000 of his worshippers.

The murder scheme was just one of many increasingly desperate attempts to save the guru's empire.

The Rajneeshees had been making headlines in Oregon for four years. Thousands dressed in red, worked without pay

and idolized a wispy-haired man who sat silent before them. They had taken over a worn-out cattle ranch to build a

religious utopia. They formed a city, and took over another. They bought one Rolls-Royce after another for the guru --

93 in all.

Along the way, they made plenty of enemies, often deliberately. Rajneeshee leaders were less than gracious in

demanding government and community favors. Usually tolerant Oregonians pushed back, sometimes in threatening

ways. Both sides stewed, often publicly, before matters escalated far beyond verbal taunts and nasty press releases.

Three months after the aborted Comini plot, the commune collapsed and the Rajneeshees' darkest secrets tumbled

out.

Hand-picked teams of Rajneeshees had executed the largest biological terrorism attack in U.S. history, poisoning at

least 700 people. They ran the largest illegal wiretapping operation ever uncovered. And their immigration fraud to

harbor foreigners remains unrivaled in scope. The revelations brought criminal charges, defections, global manhunts

and prison time.

But there was much more.

Long-secret government files obtained by The Oregonian, and fresh interviews with ex-Rajneeshees and others now

willing to talk, yield chilling insight into what went on inside Rancho Rajneesh a quarter-century ago.

It's long been known they had marked Oregon's chief federal prosecutor for murder, but now it's clear the

Rajneeshees also stalked the state attorney general, lining him up for death.

They contaminated salad bars at numerous restaurants, but The Oregonian's examination reveals for the first time

that they just as eagerly spread dangerous bacteria at a grocery store, a public building and a political rally.

To strike at government authority, Rajneeshee leaders considered flying a bomb-laden plane into the county

courthouse in The Dalles -- 16 years before al-Qaida used planes as weapons.

And power struggles within Rajneeshee leadership spawned plans to murder even some of their own. The guru's

caretaker was to be killed in her bed, spared only by a simple mistake.

Strangely, most of these stunning crimes were in rebellion against that most mundane of government regulations,

land-use law. The Rajneeshees turned the yawner of comprehensive plans into a page-turning thriller of brazen

crimes.

A new start

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh needed a new place to build his worldwide commune.

In India, he worked as a small-town philosophy professor until he found enlightenment paid better. He built a thriving

enterprise attracting Westerners to his lectures and group therapies. They sought meaning in their lives, escaping the

remains of the Vietnam War and a crashing world economy. And Rajneesh mixed in plenty of sexual freedom, ensuring

publicity to build his brand.

Government authorities in India, weary of the Rajneesh's growing notoriety, cracked down on his group's unseemly

and illegal behavior, including smuggling and tax fraud. The guru ran, ending up half a globe away at the Big Muddy

Ranch, 100 square miles of rangeland an hour's drive north of Madras.

The first contingent of Rajneeshees quietly moved to Oregon in summer 1981, but they couldn't escape notice for

long. Part of the guru's brand was clothing in reddish hues. Such dress was out of place in the blue denim reaches of

Oregon. Followers, known as sannyasins, also displayed their devotion to the guru by wearing malas, wood bead

necklaces holding a photo of Rajneesh.

Resettling in Oregon was the work of his chief of staff, Ma Anand Sheela, then 31 years old. She was a native of India,

born to a privileged family as Sheela Patel. She wasn't after enlightenment. She was quick-witted and hungry for

power, the perfect instrument for the guru's ambition.

Initially soft-spoken and engaging, Sheela charmed Oregon ranchers and politicians. Early on, she hosted a dance in

Madras where cowboys partied until dawn. She curried favor, buying 50 head of cattle from a Wasco County

commissioner, even though the commune was vegetarian.

She assured the guru that the commune of his dreams would soon rise on the Big Muddy. She expected to put up

housing compounds, warehouses and support buildings. Business enterprises, once based in India, would move to the

ranch.

In short, Sheela intended to do as she wished on their remote 64,000 acres.

Anxious to move ahead, she closed the property deal without understanding Oregon law -- a pivotal mistake. She

didn't know the state severely limited how many people and buildings could be jammed onto ranch land.

Already it was too late. The money was paid, the guru packed and hundreds of sannyasins were expecting to be

housed and fed. Sheela and the guru were undeterred. In India, trickery and bribery got results. Why would Oregon

be any different?

The Rajneeshees found that the law did allow some new homes, but only for farmworkers and their families. Sheela

homed in on that exemption when she met withWasco County planners in summer 1981.

She was joined by her husband, a former New York banker named John Shelfer who was known on the ranch as

Swami Jay, and David Knapp, a California therapist known as Swami Krishna Deva. For the meeting, they shed any

sign of affiliation with the sect. They wore plain clothes, stowed their malas and introduced themselves by their given,

not sannyasin, names.

They told the assembled officials they planned to operate a farm commune. Workers would be brought in to restore

abused rangeland. They needed dwellings to house the workers.

Attending the meeting was Dan Durow, a young planner who had been with Wasco County less than a month. He had

a trusting nature from his Midwestern upbringing and was intrigued by the idea of a farm commune. They discussed

how the ranch could legally house perhaps 150 workers.

But the three visitors were vague about whom they represented.

"Are you a religious organization?" Durow finally asked.

"No," came Sheela's quick answer. "We celebrate life and laughter. We are simple farmers."

In the ensuing months, Durow repeatedly traveled to the ranch to monitor developments. He discovered that four-

bedroom modular houses were in fact dorms with no kitchen, no living room. The Rajneeshees, on alert for his visits,

routinely hid extra mattresses to disguise the true population at the ranch.

Making enemies

To legally stretch the limits, the Rajneeshees moved to form their own city.

Their private Portland lawyers advised they needed to befriend 1000 Friends of Oregon. The environmental group was

a watchdog over land use, especially guarding farmland from development.

In late 1981, Sheela, Krishna Deva -- better known as KD -- and others from the commune met with two lawyers from

1000 Friends. They explained they needed to erect a city to tend to the thousands who would be moving there. They

explained that remaking the ranch into a working farm was a bigger task than expected.

The environmental lawyers applauded the desire to restore the land, but they saw no need for a city. Plopping an

urban area into the middle of an agricultural operation didn't make sense. As their resistance became apparent,

Sheela asked whether their opposition would dissolve if the Rajneeshees joined 1000 Friends with a substantial

contribution.

The bribe was brushed off. Sheela turned snide. Observing the modest furnishings in the Portland office, Sheela said

she wasn't surprised by "shabby" work being done by people working in "shabby" surroundings. The crack was

needless, but it was trademark Sheela.

From then on, 1000 Friends and the Rajneeshees battled. The organization launched an aggressive, but not always

successful, legal campaign to blunt creation of the city. Its fundraising literature soon bore the picture of Sheela, and

donations and membership soared.

In turn, the Rajneeshees portrayed 1000 Friends as a pawn of powerful political interests. They considered the

environmental group an enemy, more interested in crushing a religion than protecting land. They named their sewage

lagoon after the group's executive director.

Their fight would rage on for years.

Much of it played out in Oregon courtrooms and in the media. Coached by the Bhagwan, Sheela became adept at

using the press to her advantage. She could be counted on for outrageous news conferences, where her sharp tongue

cut into the enemy of the day. She seemed to spit insults with every breath.

But her conduct troubled other Rajneesh leaders.

KD complained in a letter to the guru that the insults were impairing efforts to build the commune. The guru's

response was blunt: You're a coward. KD swallowed the insult and kept his place at the inner circle of the ranch.

Later, he used his insider knowledge to get a lenient plea deal for himself -- and to help send Sheela to prison.

Another insider, Ma Yoga Vidya, a mathematician then also known as Ann McCarthy, tried her hand at reeling in

Sheela. In a private meeting with the guru, she described Sheela's conduct as "outrageous" and harmful to the

commune. The guru nodded as he listened, but otherwise made no reply.

Her end run enraged Sheela. The next day, Sheela dragged herself out of a sick bed and, with an intravenous drip line

in tow, took Vidya back to see the guru. This time he had plenty to say. He unloaded on Vidya, who was the commune

president. He said Sheela was his agent, and when she spoke, she was talking for him. He told Vidya to never

challenge Sheela and to share that instruction with other commune members.

Most Rajneeshees would have been surprised to learn the guru provided such intimate oversight. They believed

the guru was a spiritual master, a rare enlightened man untouched by daily events at the ranch. To this day, some

former sannyasins hold the view that he knew next to nothing about what was happening at his commune.

Sannyasins well understood, though, that Sheela acted with the guru's authority. She wasn't to be questioned on any

decision or directive. She wielded the authority without restraint, sharing it with an elite team of other women

leaders, called "moms" by their underlings, who kept the Rajneeshees in line both with favors and punishment.

Cliques and cracks

Not everyone could be so readily controlled, such as the guru's personal doctor, dentist and caretaker.

They and a handful of other sannyasins served Rajneesh in his fenced compound called Lao Tzu. Their independence

irritated commune leaders, but especially peeved Sheela.

A group of wealthy California donors also proved challenging to control once they moved to the Oregon ranch in 1984.

The most notable were Francoise Ruddy, whose former husband produced "The Godfather," and John Wally, a

physician who made a fortune in emergency room medicine. She became Ma Prem Hasya; he was Swami Dhyan John.

They had no zeal for the lifestyle of seven-day workweeks, shared meals or rudimentary sleeping quarters.

Instead, the Californians set up a home for themselves apart from the usual housing. They brought in

expensive furnishings, artwork and even their own car, a Jaguar. Almost daily, they drove to Madras for groceries to

avoid the ranch's staid meals.

That was bad enough, but they also attracted the guru's attention. They obliged him with diamond-studded watches

and Rolls-Royces. Before long, Hasya married the guru's doctor.

The Hollywood group and the guru's personal staff soon made Sheela's list of people on and off the ranch considered a

threat to the commune and the guru. She split up the Hollywood group, scattering them to separate homes around

the ranch. She tried to replace the guru's doctor.

To keep tabs on what was going on inside the guru's compound, she had the place laced with hidden microphones

and recording equipment. One bug was placed on a table leg next to the guru's favorite chair. He was told it was a

panic button. Trusted sannyasins monitored the eavesdropping equipment, reporting information to the commune's

top four leaders.

Eventually the chasm between the commune's leaders and the guru's chosen insiders became too much even for him.

On a spring evening in 1984, he summoned both sides to his house and, in front of them all, lectured Sheela. He told

her his house, not hers, was the center of the commune.

He turned to the others with a warning.

"Anyone who is close to me inevitably becomes a target of Sheela," the guru said.

He proved prophetic.

Two of those sitting at the guru's feet that day were later marked for death.

NEXT: The Rajneeshees stalk and intimidate local county officials. When that doesn't work, they turn to poison.

Ma Anand Sheela addresses reporters, accompanied by Swami Prem Niren, one of the sect's leading in-house lawyers.

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Rajneeshees in Oregon -- The Untold Story: As land rules keep Rajneeshees from building the utopia

they envision in the 1980s, they go from dirty tricks to biological warfare.

The call from home jolted Bill Hulse, a Wasco County commissioner and wheat rancher.

His wife, Rose, was panicked. Two Rajneeshees had driven up their dead-end street in Dufur, parked across from their

house and sat there. One hour. Two hours. Four hours.

Hulse called police but was told their hands were tied. Parking on a public street wasn't illegal.

Such intimidation no longer surprised local officials, and leaders of the religious sect made no apologies.

The Rajneeshees wanted to be left alone to build their global commune. That ambition was being thwarted by

regulators, politicians and nearby residents. Commune leaders fought back in ways large and small, public and

clandestine. They did so in the name of their spiritual master, the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Public opinion was initially divided as Gov. Vic Atiyeh tried to counsel tolerance.

From the time the group arrived in 1981, Atiyeh fielded scores of letters from Oregonians alarmed by the commune's

development. Other citizens wrote their governor that the state should be more welcoming of a religious order.

Atiyeh responded to all with reserve. Typical was one letter to a Portlander:"Regardless of the religious beliefs or

practices of this group, they are entitled to every right afforded under our Constitution." His duty, he said, was to

protect those rights.

Retaliation grows

Dan Durow, the Wasco County planning director, was closer to the front lines, deciding almost daily what the

Rajneeshees could and couldn't do on their land.

He was suspicious, since they had lied about their intentions in their first meeting with him. Still, he knew his every

act would be closely watched, both by sharp Rajneeshee lawyers and their equally attentive legal opponents. He

decided to administer land-use rules to the letter of the law, giving up the sometimes informal way rural counties

handled such matters.

That strict compliance riled Rajneeshees, who felt Durow was deliberately impeding their efforts. They belittled him in

meetings and in letters. On two occasions when he arrived for inspections, ranch equipment blocked the way, disabled

by contrived breakdowns. Packs of Rajneeshees came to his office in The Dalles, disrupting work by scattering

throughout workstations off-limits to the public.

Their aggressiveness alarmed Durow, and he worried for his safety. Uncertain what was coming, he sent his three

young children to live out of town with their mother, his ex-wife.

At the commune, Rajneeshee leaders cast any resistance to their needs as oppression or religious discrimination.

They retaliated in petty ways. One Rajneeshee put a nail under the tire of a Wasco County planner while he attended a

conference in Eugene. Ma Anand Sheela, the guru's top aide, held a courthouse door open for the state's deputy

attorney general, his arms full of legal books. As he passed, she stuck out her foot, sending him sprawling to the

ground to laughter from the Rajneeshees.

Such tactics, of course, didn't slow the growing government reaction to what was happening at Rancho Rajneesh.

Durow and others held up, or denied, permission for some buildings, including a hospital. Then-Attorney General Dave

Frohnmayer pressed his case to have the sect's city declared illegal.

Those obstacles undermined Sheela's power in the sect, derived in large measure from her promise to build a

sprawling utopia. The guru pressed her relentlessly to sweep the hurdles away. Millions of dollars were at risk if their

American dream failed.

Impatient with court action and petty pranks, Sheela set up secret squads to strike at the commune's enemies. These

were disciples who accepted Sheela's view that the commune and their guru were in danger. Sheela, effective as any

spy master, compartmentalized her minions. They operated alone, or in small teams, often unaware of one another's

assignments.

Brewing trouble

Poison was the primary weapon, crafted by Ma Anand Puja, a nurse also known then as Diane Onang.

She was Sheela's shadow. The two had been close since their days in India, and Puja now supervised the ranch's

medical department. She managed routine medical care but also ordered renegade Rajneeshees into isolation on

trumped-up diagnoses and routinely overruled the sect's physicians. Daily, she medicated Sheela for stress.

From time to time, Puja retreated to a laboratory hidden in a cabin up a canyon on the ranch to secretly experiment

with viruses and bacteria. Sheela wanted something to sicken people.

In summer 1984, Puja field-tested her work, handing unlabeled vials to those on the secret teams.

The operatives knew, or suspected, the brown liquid was salmonella, which produces severe diarrhea and other

symptoms. Over months, they were dispatched to spread the poison in The Dalles. They initially hoped to sicken public

officials standing in their way, but then pursued a grander scheme to attack innocent citizens.

Swami Krishna Deva, mayor of Rajneeshpuram, smeared Puja's mixture onto fixtures in the men's restroom at the

Wasco County Courthouse in The Dalles.

Ma Dhyan Yogini, also known as Alma Peralta, went to town with vials in her purse. She stepped into a local political

rally and took a seat. She secreted some of the contaminant on her hand, turned to an elderly man sitting next to her

and shook hands. She also made her way into a nursing home in The Dalles, but her plan to contaminate food was

disrupted by a suspicious kitchen worker.

Sheela tried her hand at contamination as well, taking a half-dozen Rajneeshees, including Puja, to a grocery

store in The Dalles.

"Let's have some fun," Sheela said.

The group spread across the store with Sheela targeting the produce section, pouring brownish liquid from the vial

she had hidden up her sleeve.

When there were no public reports of anyone getting sick, Sheela pushed Puja to find a more toxic solution.

About that time, Hulse and two other Wasco County commissioners arrived at the ranch for a tour. They parked

Hulse's car outside the commune's welcome center and loaded into a commune van for their visit. When they got

back, Hulse's car had a flat. The Rajneeshees arranged a repair on the spot that would cost Hulse $12.

As the commissioners waited in the hot August sun, Puja approached, offering each a glass of water. Her gesture

was odd, for Puja was in her medical whitesand had no role as a greeter.

The thirsty men took the water.

NEXT: Rajneesh leaders flood Oregon towns with homeless people originally brought to the commune to help sway local elections.

Ma Anand Sheela addresses disciples in the commune's two-acre lecture hall.

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weapon in The Dalles and import homeless people to get an electoral edge.

Unbearable stomach pain roused Bill Hulse from sleep.

The Wasco County commissioner ran for the bathroom, vomiting. His worried wife insisted he go to the hospital,

where doctors admitted him as they tried to diagnose what was wrong.

Two hundred miles away in a mountain cabin at Camp Sherman, a second Wasco County commissioner awoke, ill. Ray

Matthew stayed in bed, alone, for two days, unsure what was causing his violent sickness.

But a handful of Rajneeshees knew. The men had been poisoned the day before as they toured the religious sect's

ranch, drinking down potent bacteria stirred into their water.

Hulse remained in the hospital four days, with doctors telling him he would have died without

treatment. As he recovered at home later, Hulse concluded the Rajneeshees poisoned him. He said so publicly.

Rajneeshees reacted indignantly to his claim, saying there was nothing wrong with the water. "It was a simple act of

human kindness on that sweltering day," a Rajneeshee PR person wrote to Hulse. "Now you are making a hysterical

accusation that you were poisoned."

It wasn't until the commune collapsed a year later that Rajneeshee operatives admitted Hulse was right.

The poisoning was revenge for Wasco County's restricting growth at Rancho Rajneesh. The sect's leaders hoped

sickening public officials would deter future decisions against their operation.

Yet the guru they worshiped, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, pushed for even more extreme acts.

His chief of staff, Ma Anand Sheela, shared with her inner circle that the guru was fed up with Wasco County's

attitude. He wanted his people to get a seat on, or even get control of, the county's board of commissioners. That

would at least give the commune a direct voice in its fate.

City under siege

Sheela conspired to make it happen. One Rajneeshee, shedding any trace she was affiliated with the ranch, moved

to The Dalles intending to run for county office.

To elect her, the Rajneeshees hit upon two schemes. One was to depress the turnout by traditional Wasco County

residents by making them sick. The second was to pack the rolls with new voters loyal to the Rajneeshees.

They first considered contaminating The Dalles' water supply. Operatives obtained maps of the water system and

scouted reservoirs. But no one could figure a way to introduce enough contaminant to sicken people.

They decided instead to attack people where they ate: the restaurants of The Dalles. A young woman named Ma

Anand Ava, one of Sheela's most reliable associates, was ferried to town by a driver who had no idea of her mission.

She ordered him to stop at one restaurant after another, having him wait while she went in for a few moments at each

stop.

Wearing a wig and dressed in street clothes, Ma Anand Puja -- who oversaw the commune's medical operations -- went

on a separate mission, settling into a restaurant for lunch. Her companion helped himself to the salad bar and then

watched, horrified, as Puja poured a liquid onto salad greens. She returned to her seat, calmly finishing her own

lunch.

For residents and travelers exiting Interstate 84, going to any of 10 restaurants was routine.

Terry Turner, a local furniture store owner, took his wife and 2-year-old to Sunday brunch at a restaurant on the

banks of the Columbia River. They enjoyed a casual meal, opting for the salad bar.

Across town, state Trooper Rick Carlton had the day off. He took his wife, 3-year-old son and 4-month-old baby to a

downtown restaurant. After a meal that included a trip through the salad bar, they drove home.

By the next morning, both men were violently ill. So were Turner's young daughter and Carlton's son. Turner headed

to a medical clinic, only to discover a waiting room filled with people just as ill.

"Where did you eat?" a nurse asked Turner.

"What?" he asked, confused by the question.

The nurse asked again, and when Turner told her, she said, "We've heard that several times."

Carlton tried going to work despite not feeling well, but soon clocked out for home, nauseated and weak. At home, he

found his wife and son as sick as him. His mother-in-law drove up the Columbia River Gorge from Portland to tend the

sick family.

Such scenes played out up and down the gorge. Soon, it was evident hundreds were sick. Hospital emergency rooms

and medical clinics overflowed with people suffering nausea, diarrhea and enduring weakness.

"Rajneeshees," some whispered, but there was no proof.

A state health official famously concluded that restaurant workers in different restaurants had all ignored proper

hygiene at the same time. Evidence of the Rajneeshees' true role wouldn't come out until the commune collapsed.

Using the homeless

Rancho Rajneesh faced an unfolding disaster of its own.

Using Sheela's American Express card, Rajneeshees had chartered buses in cities coast to coast, filling them with

homeless people, mostly men. They said hauling them to Rancho Rajneesh was a humanitarian initiative. Those lured

to the buses werepromised food, beer and rest.

In truth, this was the second prong of the election scheme.

As the homeless rolled onto the ranch, they were obliged to register to vote. They were expected to vote the party

ticket, as it were, when it came time to pick the new county commissioners.

But Rajneeshees quickly discovered many of the homeless had serious mental problems. A remote ranch founded on

love and freedom was no place for an unruly mob. Fights broke out. To regain control, Rajneeshees injected the

tranquilizer Haldol into beer kegs used to serve the homeless.

Eavesdroppers monitoring the ranch's bugged public pay phones recorded one of the homeless men apparently

planning to kidnap the guru.

Sannyasins identified him as Felton Walker and took him to the Rajneeshee medical clinic, supposedly to be tested

for tuberculosis. But the clinic had been emptied of all other patients by the time he arrived.

Walker changed into a hospital gown and lay on an examining room gurney. Someone taped Walker's arm to the

gurney rail, and Puja put him to sleep with an injection. Then a Rajneeshee doctor administered sodium pentothal,

the so-called "truth serum." Sheela and at least six other commune insiders gathered around Walker, slapping him

awake to endure questioning about the plot. A tape of the call was played for him over and over. Walker kept dropping

off to sleep, and his interrogators kept rousing him.

The episode went on for hours. About 3 a.m., the interrogators gave up after learning little of use. They kept Walker

sedated for two more days before booting him off the ranch.

Soon, scores of homeless followed Walker. At first, they got bus tickets to return to their home cities. The Rajneeshees

soon stopped that. Instead, they ferried the homeless to small towns around the commune and left them. Streets in

towns such as Madrasfilled with penniless people far from home.

The spectacle deeply worried state and local authorities. They feared locals would be so angered by the callous act

that they would strike out at the commune. The Oregon State Police and the National Guard devised contingency

plans, with Guard commanders promising the governor they could mobilize 10,000 soldiers if necessary.

Sheela saw opportunity in the crisis and decided to negotiate for what she wasn't getting through the courts or

crime. She sought meetings with Gov. Vic Atiyeh and Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer, inviting the

governor to the ranch.

Neither man agreed, but when Sheela persisted, Atiyeh agreed to let his staff meet with her. The commune was

dominating ever more of his time. And now the impending flood of homeless people into Oregon communities was

pressing the tolerance of the state and its people to the breaking point.

Atiyeh hoped conversation would calm the charged atmosphere.

Sheela needed less than an hour to crush that hope.

NEXT: As Ma Anand Sheela's play to involve Gov. Vic Atiyeh fizzles, she expands her "dirty tricks" to

burning a county office.

Osho = Rajneesh = Incarnation of Ravana demon.