Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree (1931–1990)

In 1984, disciples of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh used salmonella bacteria to poison 750 people in rural Oregon.

Rajneesh, an Indian philosophy professor turned spiritual guru, left his commune in Poona, India, in 1981 and traveled to the United States, where he established a commune on a 64,000-acre ranch in the high desert of Wasco County, Oregon. In a short time, the commune, called Rajneeshpuram, developed into a small city, complete with sewer and water systems, a paved airstrip, a 44-acre reservoir, a shopping mall, and its own “peace” force that carried assault weapons and patrolled the commune 24 hours a day.

As the commune's population swelled to over 4,000, one hundred times that of the local community of Antelope, tensions mounted. Some of Rajneesh's followers moved into Antelope and took over the city council, changing the city's name to Rajneesh. Antelope's population had dropped to 17 when the commune began to unravel.

The major disputes between Rajneeshpuram and the surrounding communities were over Oregon's land-use laws, which prohibited building a city on land that was zoned for agriculture. In 1984, Rajneesh's followers pushed for a special election, ostensibly to change the zoning laws; what they planned was to take control of Wasco County's affairs. Rajneesh's followers imported thousands of homeless people to vote, in hopes of winning the election. Rajneesh's chief aide, Ma Anand Sheela, masterminded a plan that would have guaranteed their success.

In September 1984, followers of Rajneesh sprinkled the bacteria Salmonella typhimurium on salad bars in 10 restaurants in Wasco County. Within two weeks, 751 residents became violently ill, suffering from acute stomach pains, fever, chills, headaches, bloody stools, and vomiting. Investigators quickly linked the symptoms to salmonella poisoning and traced the poisoning to local salad bars.

Initially, it was thought that food-handlers had contaminated the food. Suspicions that members of Rajneeshpuram had poisoned residents to skew the voting were raised, but they were quickly dismissed because the elections were not until November, and any debilitation from salmonella poisoning would not last that long. Investigators did not consider that the attack was just a practice run. Reportedly, Sheela ultimately planned to contaminate the county's water supply.

The Oregon State Health Department's chief epidemiologist, along with the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took a full year to determine that the salad bar had been deliberately contaminated with the salmonella bacteria. When investigators finally raided Rajneeshpuram, they found proof in the commune's laboratory, registered as Pythagoras Clinic, where another follower, Ma Anand Puja, grew the Salmonella typhimurium cultures.

In 1986 Sheela was convicted of masterminding the salmonella poisoning, as well as the poisoning [Page 498]of two Wasco County officials, the attempted poisoning of Swami Devaraj (Rajneesh's physician), setting fire to a county office, and arranging more than 400 sham marriages. Two other commune members, both British women, were later jailed for conspiracy to kill the Oregon attorney general, Charles Turner, a long-time enemy of Rajneeshpuram. Rajneesh, who had fled the commune in 1985, was later arrested on immigration fraud charges and deported; he returned to Poona, where he changed his name to Osho and established another commune. He died of heart failure in January 1990.

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