Rajneeshees into disco

Press, 13 July 1984, Page 18

Rajneeshees into disco

NZPA-AP Wiesbaden The Rajneeshees were having a ball at the Zorba the Buddha disco. Orange-clad followers of the Indian guru gyrated to rock music piped from a disc jockey’s booth, while waiters in red shirts and wooden beads served drinks to patrons lounging beside the dance floor. White walls emphasised the airy, gym-like atmosphere in the second-floor club on Schwalbacherstrasse. The disco’s atmosphere was a stark contrast to the dingy bars and sex cinemas in the same section of this Rhine River spa. Zorba is one of a dozen discos opened in West Germany over the last year by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a bearded guru whose movement claims a worldwide membership of 350,000. West German Church and Government officials are particularly worried that the sect, which advocates meditation and sexual freedom, will use the dance temples to sign up members. One Lutheran pastor in Munich described the Rajneeshee disco boom as “most threatening.”

An Associated Press reporter, during a 90-minute visit to the Buddha disco, saw no obvious efforts by Rajneeshees to recruit new members. About half of the 100 patrons were wearing the sect’s garb of red, orange or purple garments. “We’ve been open for six months, and business is good,” said a German woman in her mid-20s, collecting a $2 admission fee at the front door. Inside, prices for drinks were comparable to most West German discos. Tap beer cost about $l, and a bottle of French champagne cost more than $54.

to a chain of

discos in cities like Cologne, Frankfurt, Hanover, Frieburg, and Wiesbaden, the Rajneeshees run vegetarian restaurants, boutiques and home renovation businesses, and peddle products such as organic fertiliser and shampoo. The Cologne area, with an estimated 3000 members, is the centre of the West German movement, which claims to have 50,000 adherents. It boasts the sect’s largest disco with an annual turnover estimated at 61-62 million.

Founded by Rajneesh 31 years ago in Poona, India, the movement moved its world headquarters in 1981 to Oregon, where the Rajneeshees bought a ranch and later incorporated more than 800 ha as the 1000resident city of Rajneeshpuram.

Although sect members cultivate an image of peace, their relations with West German authorities have been strained.

Wiesbaden city officials petitioned a court last year to block the opening of the Rajneeshee disco, but an appeals court overturned the order, ruling there was no evidence they would use the disco wrongfully. Bruno Reimuth, a spokesman for the city, said Wiesbaden had no present problems with the disco.

When the city of Augsburg refused a licence to the sect’s disco in April, dozens of Rajneeshees danced in the streets to protest and demanded freedom of religion. In Essen, irate citizens collected a petition with 3500 names to protest against the sect’s meditation room in a former retail shop. Rajneeshees sued when local politicians branded them a criminal association importing drug abuse and prostitution to the Ruhr district city. The case impending.