Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)

[Blows Against the Empire]

 As mentioned in another thread I personally got to know, to a degree, several followers of the Bhagwan in the summer of 1972 as they descended upon my hometown, Unadilla, NY. I am speaking first hand from my own memory, and have already expressed I have never seen any reporting or documentation that can back me up. Somehow this all starts in 1981 which is BULLS***!

 It was my senior year in high school and there were reports of a helicopter making landings at one of the more beautiful homes just outside of town. This was one of these century old farmhouses that had been kept well, acres and acres of beautiful cleared and wooded land. The type of place that comes up for sale and the talk around town is "Who could ever (locally) afford to buy it".

 However repeated helicopter landings in the area of a village of less than 2500 draws attention.

 Our first impression was that our new neighbors were Krishna, a snap judgment by clothing and appearance which soon seemed to be untrue.

 As the summer went on, more and more of these folks appeared, many of them skilled and quickly finding jobs. They didn't seem to make ANY effort to relate to the community in general, only if there was a need to.

 EVERYTHING was ORANGE! Painted that beautiful house some awful off orange, their mailbox, they drove orange VW Beetles and such. I'm serious, they even took it to the extreme of having 'yellow' (as close to orange as you can get) cats and dogs.

(break)

[Blows Against the Empire]

 As summer ended there was a population of the Orange people intermingled into our small community that it was the talk of the town. Who exactly where they? Why so many??

 They had begun building small cabin like homes in rows on this land to live in. In that era zoning didn't amount to much. They eventually rented many places in the village and were known to approach landlords and owners with buyout offers.

 Unknown to them they were being watched. Even at night. One of the families owned the land that borders their property so it was easy to cross this family's land and at the fence line you had a full view of the back of the place. (I personally never did this) Friends of mine had been watching some of the 'goings on' in the dining room (they had stripped it of any furniture, just huge floor pillows) and basically were describing some kind of ritual where they would all jump around flailing their arms and holler and yell, then collapse and be silent for a while lying around and then basically end up in what they described as an 'orgy'.

 At first I was in shock and didn't quite believe what I was hearing but enough was enough, this was OUR hometown and it was about time to find out what the heck was going on.

[Blows Against the Empire]

 Halloween was coming and the possibility of harassing them on that night was becoming a real issue in some cliques, and the truth is none of these guys had been in trouble, weren't bothering anyone openly so a more rational group of us decided to go in numbers to their door, discuss concerns in the community grapevine and see what their intentions were.

 The local village police were parked in their usual spot waiting for someone speeding and we told them exactly where we were going. Small town, we all were on a first name basis.

 So around 18-20 of us in multiple vehicles drove to what I would come to know as Samarpan, went to the door and were invited in.

[Satyagraha]

and then...

[Blows Against the Empire]

 I recall we were asked individually if we had any weapons, drugs or alcohol on us and to not bring them in.
 
 The rules to live at Samarpan were posted just inside the door. The three above were covered, I remember it cost $9.00 a day to live there.

 All kinds of dietary rules, wish I could remember.

 They did culture their own yogurt and such. Very heavy into herbs and teas.

 That first night they offered us tea, granola, samples of their yogurt and such. Gave us the mainstream propaganda on their 'mission of enlightenment' or whatever. They kind of left us with the impression they were harmless and just establishing a community to support the arrival of Bhagwan in America.

 But I had a feeling something wasn't right. We all still knew what the guys had seen from the hill.

 There was this beautiful young Brazilian girl there who I made eye contact with. She never said a word but was obviously in a 'servitude' position as she waited on everyone, always to return to her almost fetal sitting position on the floor never saying a word. As the leader (this is the same woman who appeared in news reports when they were raided in Oregon, I have had several conversations with her, a couple a bit 'heated' if you will) went on about the congeniality of man and inner peace and all that; this girl was telling me with her eyes she was full of it.

 After the first visit many of the group carried back the message that the Orange people were just starting a commune of sorts and weren't really any threat.

 There was myself and three or four friends who weren't completely satisfied, so we decided to show a false interest and get a bit closer.

[Blows Against the Empire]

 I appreciate people are really reading this as I have rarely ever told this story. I will add to this later, this went on for several months. There is tons more I've kept inside about this for decades.

 But I really need to logoff for a couple hours or so.

[Blows Against the Empire]

 I do not recall the name they gave their particular type of 'meditation', anymore than I can really say I specifically recall the first time I agreed to participate.

  I recall a phase where it started with deep concentrated breathing, if correct this progressed to a stage of almost self-hyperventilation rapid deep breathing (for beginners a recording of the Bhagwan was played in the background instructing you through).

 Then there was a more 'primal' phase where everyone yelled,screamed,groaned, shook,trembled, waved arms and legs wildly, kind of a free expression period where anything goes, so to speak.

 Then the quiet, everything silent except the recording in the background instructing you to be silent, breathe deep and relax etc.

  There were four specific phases. This is about the best I remember.

 Then of course there was the phase afterward that beginners didn't get exposed to, this is what my friends apparently watched from the field.

[citizenx]

Way to take one for the team, Blows.

[Blows Against the Empire]

 The Brazilian girl:

 One night I was there alone (that became my norm, I wasn't finished figuring out what these folks were about) and the 'Queen Bee' wasn't around, the guy she put in charge and I got along well, so I finally got to talk to her briefly.

 She was from Brazil, got tangled up with the orange people somewhere more or less as a runaway, she did not like it at Samarpan and wanted to go home, but as usual 'they' had her paperwork.

 Days after this occurred she disappeared not to be seen again. I asked once where she'd gone and got an answer I no longer recall and definitely told it was not my concern.

 She told me she had recently turned fourteen.

[Blows Against the Empire]

 By now we are down to myself and another friend who are visiting these guys, together and alone. Pete and I were convinced these people had been recruited and brainwashed by some guru who wasn't even here basically controlling every aspect of their psychological lives, and in some cases, as we would come to understand against their true will.

 I will call this next guy Dan. Somehow I feel he may have told me this was his name. I knew their Indian names from Bhagwan.

 Dan took a special interest in asking me questions about what was happening with the  outside world, especially anything to do with the war.

 See it looked to me as if there was some sort of way you needed to 'qualify' to actually leave Samarpan and go downtown. I don't have any doubt, actually I know, there was an information blackout at this place and those too 'risky' to go out into the world were used as 'laborers' who lived and worked at the place without ever leaving.

 Dan was a 'Nam combat vet they had latched onto fresh back on mainland soil before he ever even went home!

[Blows Against the Empire]

 This poor guy had been scooped up by them coming home totally confused, not sure if he was ready to face family or not and ran into this.

 We became quite tight so I finally invited him down to the local bar sometime for a beer and saw his eyes light up. He made some comment about how long it had been, of course he couldn't, so I let the invitation remain open.

 He continued to ask about music, sports all that. (They received no newspapers as far as I ever saw).

 It got to the point when I got my chances to talk with him alone I started telling him he had to get out of there, contact the family that loved him, learn to face his demons and the past and go on with his life, not let these clowns decide for him.

[citizenx]

Good for you, Blows.  Seriously.

[Blows Against the Empire]

 Lo and behold the night came when Dan walked into the local hotel to take me up on my offer of a beer.

 Here he was, dressed in his orange garb, standing in a little, I guess for the 70's long-haired and redneck bar, smiling from ear to ear, beer in hand.... he was finally on his way home!

[Blows Against the Empire]

 You need to realize that Dan walking into the bar was the first real social contact any group of locals had. I surely can't recall all that went on, but the dam had broken, the locals were hearing a story first hand of 'what' was going on 'up there' and especially coming from a vet who hadn't been home.

 The cold shoulder from the community was on and the rate of 'defectors' would increase.

 I had at least two 'run ins' with the 'leader' and she was obviously very pissed we had 'interfered' with their plan to establish a home for Bhagwan in Unadilla. Again if we could find the news reports about the Oregon raid, she is the same person as the prominent spokeswoman in these reports. It actually scared the heck out of me to have it surface so many years later and see all the AK's and grenades and stuff they'd built up! This bitc* threatened me at least twice in the early 70's.

 She finally had the courage to confront me on main street once with an entourage and that was the last I saw her. This was probably '74 or'75.

 Steve:

 This was his real name. I also recall his last name. He was from Connecticut.

 Never knew this guy too well but he wandered into town in the fall of '74, rented the apartment under mine, and picked up work with a local contractor.
 
 Progress on the land was still proceeding to the point where they were needing to hire contractors and this is where Steve came in.

 What I do know is one morning the local police came to my door asking if I had a young girl from 'up there' at my apt., told them I didn't but that Steve was working there and I'd seen a young girl he said was his sister with him the past few days. Seems they had come up missing another 'recruit' and by now were willing to at least contact the local PD to see if I knew anything.

 They went to Steve's apartment, came back and told me that she was there, he proved she was his sister and that they were heading home for Connecticut within the week. I spoke with him before he left and he had followed his 'runaway' sister to this group and my home.

  You couldn't make this stuff up! The ironic thing is how this almost was my hometown. I feel for the people in Oregon where they really got control. Glad it is in their past.


  How did we stop it from happening here? We disrupted them and got the truth out!

[Blows Against the Empire]

 I can't say I ever learned much about the teachings as this was never my ambition.

 I never saw any weapons or contraband of any type.

 Obviously after Dan came downtown and defected, I was never welcome, this was probably getting later into 1974.

 As far as sex, there was a very obvious overtone expressed that it is something we should all share with each other freely with no restriction whatsoever as long as participants were agreeable. I never went back to a meditation session once they had become comfortable enough with me so the final phase got way too "touchy feely" for my liking.  I had a 41 year old woman completely offer to 'make love' with both myself and,or my girlfriend. (Keep in mind I was 18-20 or so when all this went on )

 In fact she handed my girlfriend and I a poem she had written that they all thought was great. If i were to quote the first line here I may get banned.

 I had a couple of friends (or three) who went to meditation a couple of times after I did and they reported the physical aspects were progressing and they also stopped going.

 It is noteworthy to mention that two of the last four to frequent meditation sessions acquired some type of 'fear' that I never have seemed to. They went a few times more than me, admit it got more sexually bizarre but stop there. They will not talk about this at all!!

 The other friend will at least talk about it for a minute, but always suggests it's better off left alone.

 When the Oregon raid happened I contacted people to speak up and see if any reporters were interested in what we could tell them. They were totally against the idea and told me to forget about it.

 That leaves me wondering for sure.

 

[Blows Against the Empire]

I just started watching this myself.

http://www.xenutv.com/blog/?cat=207

[Dig]

I do not recall the name they gave their particular type of 'meditation', anymore than I can really say I specifically recall the first time I agreed to participate.

  I recall a phase where it started with deep concentrated breathing, if correct this progressed to a stage of almost self-hyperventilation rapid deep breathing (for beginners a recording of the Bhagwan was played in the background instructing you through).

 Then there was a more 'primal' phase where everyone yelled,screamed,groaned, shook,trembled, waved arms and legs wildly, kind of a free expression period where anything goes, so to speak.

 Then the quiet, everything silent except the recording in the background instructing you to be silent, breathe deep and relax etc.

  There were four specific phases. This is about the best I remember.

 Then of course there was the phase afterward that beginners didn't get exposed to, this is what my friends apparently watched from the field.

From Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932):

Chapter 5: http://www.huxley.net/bnw/five.html

The President stood up, made the sign of the T and, switching on the synthetic music, let loose the soft indefatigable beating of drums and a choir of instruments–near-wind and super-string–that plangently repeated and repeated the brief and unescapably haunting melody of the first Solidarity Hymn. Again, again–and it was not the ear that heard the pulsing rhythm, it was the midriff; the wail and clang of those recurring harmonies haunted, not the mind, but the yearning bowels of compassion.

The President made another sign of the T and sat down. The service had begun. The dedicated soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table. The loving cup of strawberry ice-cream soma was passed from hand to hand and, with the formula, "I drink to my annihilation," twelve times quaffed. Then to the accompaniment of the synthetic orchestra the First Solidarity Hymn was sung.

"Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,
  Like drops within the Social River,
Oh, make us now together run
  As swiftly as thy shining Flivver."

Twelve yearning stanzas. And then the loving cup was passed a second time. "I drink to the Greater Being" was now the formula. All drank. Tirelessly the music played. The drums beat. The crying and clashing of the harmonies were an obsession in the melted bowels. The Second Solidarity Hymn was sung.

"Come, Greater Being, Social Friend,
  Annihilating Twelve-in-One!
We long to die, for when we end,
  Our larger life has but begun."

Again twelve stanzas. By this time the soma had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles. Even Bernard felt himself a little melted. When Morgana Rothschild turned and beamed at him, he did his best to beam back. But the eyebrow, that black two-in-one–alas, it was still there; he couldn't ignore it, couldn't, however hard he tried. The melting hadn't gone far enough. Perhaps if he had been sitting between Fifi and Joanna … For the third time the loving cup went round; "I drink to the imminence of His Coming," said Morgana Rothschild, whose turn it happened to be to initiate the circular rite. Her tone was loud, exultant. She drank and passed the cup to Bernard. "I drink to the imminence of His Coming," he repeated, with a sincere attempt to feel that the coming was imminent; but the eyebrow continued to haunt him, and the Coming, so far as he was concerned, was horribly remote. He drank and handed the cup to Clara Deterding. "It'll be a failure again," he said to himself. "I know it will." But he went on doing his best to beam.

The loving cup had made its circuit. Lifting his hand, the President gave a signal; the chorus broke out into the third Solidarity Hymn.

"Feel how the Greater Being comes!
  Rejoice and, in rejoicings, die!
Melt in the music of the drums!
  For I am you and you are I."

As verse succeeded verse the voices thrilled with an ever intenser excitement. The sense of the Coming's imminence was like an electric tension in the air. The President switched off the music and, with the final note of the final stanza, there was absolute silence–the silence of stretched expectancy, quivering and creeping with a galvanic life. The President reached out his hand; and suddenly a Voice, a deep strong Voice, more musical than any merely human voice, richer, warmer, more vibrant with love and yearning and compassion, a wonderful, mysterious, supernatural Voice spoke from above their heads. Very slowly, "Oh, Ford, Ford, Ford," it said diminishingly and on a descending scale. A sensation of warmth radiated thrillingly out from the solar plexus to every extremity of the bodies of those who listened; tears came into their eyes; their hearts, their bowels seemed to move within them, as though with an independent life. "Ford!" they were melting, "Ford!" dissolved, dissolved. Then, in another tone, suddenly, startlingly. "Listen!" trumpeted the voice. "Listen!" They listened. After a pause, sunk to a whisper, but a whisper, somehow, more penetrating than the loudest cry. "The feet of the Greater Being," it went on, and repeated the words: "The feet of the Greater Being." The whisper almost expired. "The feet of the Greater Being are on the stairs." And once more there was silence; and the expectancy, momentarily relaxed, was stretched again, tauter, tauter, almost to the tearing point. The feet of the Greater Being–oh, they heard them, they heard them, coming softly down the stairs, coming nearer and nearer down the invisible stairs. The feet of the Greater Being. And suddenly the tearing point was reached. Her eyes staring, her lips parted. Morgana Rothschild sprang to her feet.

"I hear him," she cried. "I hear him."

"He's coming," shouted Sarojini Engels.

"Yes, he's coming, I hear him." Fifi Bradlaugh and Tom Kawaguchi rose simultaneously to their feet.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Joanna inarticulately testified.

"He's coming!" yelled Jim Bokanovsky.

The President leaned forward and, with a touch, released a delirium of cymbals and blown brass, a fever of tom-tomming.

"Oh, he's coming!" screamed Clara Deterding. "Aie!" and it was as though she were having her throat cut.

Feeling that it was time for him to do something, Bernard also jumped up and shouted: "I hear him; He's coming." But it wasn't true. He heard nothing and, for him, nobody was coming. Nobody–in spite of the music, in spite of the mounting excitement. But he waved his arms, he shouted with the best of them; and when the others began to jig and stamp and shuffle, he also jigged and shuffled.

Round they went, a circular procession of dancers, each with hands on the hips of the dancer preceding, round and round, shouting in unison, stamping to the rhythm of the music with their feet, beating it, beating it out with hands on the buttocks in front; twelve pairs of hands beating as one; as one, twelve buttocks slabbily resounding. Twelve as one, twelve as one. "I hear Him, I hear Him coming." The music quickened; faster beat the feet, faster, faster fell the rhythmic hands. And all at once a great synthetic bass boomed out the words which announced the approaching atonement and final consummation of solidarity, the coming of the Twelve-in-One, the incarnation of the Greater Being. "Orgy-porgy," it sang, while the tom-toms continued to beat their feverish tattoo:

"Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,
Kiss the girls and make them One.
Boys at 0ne with girls at peace;
Orgy-porgy gives release."

"Orgy-porgy," the dancers caught up the liturgical refrain, "Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun, kiss the girls …" And as they sang, the lights began slowly to fade–to fade and at the same time to grow warmer, richer, redder, until at last they were dancing in the crimson twilight of an Embryo Store. "Orgy-porgy …" In their blood-coloured and foetal darkness the dancers continued for a while to circulate, to beat and beat out the indefatigable rhythm. "Orgy-porgy …" Then the circle wavered, broke, fell in partial disintegration on the ring of couches which surrounded–circle enclosing circle–the table and its planetary chairs. "Orgy-porgy …" Tenderly the deep Voice crooned and cooed; in the red twilight it was as though some enormous negro dove were hovering benevolently over the now prone or supine dancers.

[Blows Against the Empire]

 The parallels I can see there are quite amazing Dig. The quality of that vid is terrible, but I wasn't going to get into seeing people actually dive into walls and stuff. Never saw any broken bones but I did see minor bleeding from people throwing themselves around on the hardwood floor etc.

  This is Sheelah in the beginning of this video, there is more name in front of it I don't recall, but this is she:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jBeqXG9VuU

[Satyagraha]

In one of the earlier Mystery Babylon broadcasts done by Bill Cooper, he talks about tribal dancing (as in that Aldous Huxley post), and how the increasing frenzy of the dance builds up to this ecstatic point, where afterwards, the people involved become much more open to suggestion - their brains in a state where they can be effectively brainwashed. That Huxley passage sounds exactly like what Bill Cooper was talking about.