Antelope Prays For Cults To Stay Away

12/31/1997

Eric Ellis drops in on Antelope, Oregon, and finds there's business in the cults of America.

AMERICA'S New Economy has bypassed Ellen McNamee and the old ranching hamlet of Antelope, Oregon - population 115 (west approach sign) or 45 (east). And that's just the way they like it.

It was here 15 years ago that the Indian tax dodger cum cultist Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, 96 Rolls-Royces and 20,000 of his followers, the notorious Orange People, descended to create what they intended as the "world's most wonderful city" on a 100 sq km ranch nearby. They spent big on this mini-nation, with money mostly "donated" by worried parents, called it Rajneeshpuram and ran a $US100 million property and retail empire that stretched from Australia to North America, via India and the Rajneesh Investment Corporation.

Where other small towns in the US have memorials to townsfolk who fell at The Somme, Dunkirk or Vietnam, Antelope today bears a snow-dusted plaque "dedicated to those who throughout the Rajneesh invasion and occupation of 1981-85 remained, resisted and remembered".

The crucifixes that dot the approach roads are a further reminder of who won.

But potential trouble is again stirring the town's now near-pathological distrust of outsiders with rumours that the old Rajneesh property could again be taken over by outside extremists.

The massive compound where the Rajneeshees frolicked is now owned by Montana transport tycoon Dennis Washington, who is struggling to find a use for what his company now considers to be a white elephant.

Washington has rarely been there and is not popular in Antelope, in part because of suspected business links with another wealthy extremist cult, the Montana-based Church of Universal Triumph, or CUT.

"It's all about business. Nuthin' to do with God," says Ms McNamee, who runs Antelope's post office.

Unfortunately for the Montana state administration, and its inward investment numbers, Montana is a magnet for many dwelling on the fringes of the US mainstream.

Montana looks longingly at neighbouring states like Idaho and Wyoming, which have attracted outside investment to move in step with economic trends elsewhere in the country. Montana is the state were the suspected Unabomber, now on trial in Sacramento, allegedly plotted from a tiny backwoods cabin. The state is overrun by cranky white militia groups with suspected links to the 1996 bombing of the government building in Oklahoma City.

And if that's not enough, doomsday cults have taken to digging fallout shelters in the mountains near Yellowstone National Park, scaring off tourists. It's the Church of Universal Triumph that worries Oregonians and Antelopeans.

After the dramas of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas, and the Ruby Ridge siege, Antelopeans are worried that Montana may do a deal with Washington to rid Montana of its lunatic fringe and set them up on the old Rajneesh ranch.

Since 1985, the CUT's disciples have planted themselves in the Gallatin Mountains near the Montana-Wyoming border. They follow the teachings of their leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and spend their time in some 100 camouflaged bomb shelters waiting for the apocalypse. The end of the Cold War apparently hasn't made much impact on them.

Antelopeans have learned of business links between Washington and the cult. There's also talk in Antelope of the property being taken over by the various militia groups which visited the property recently. Another mooted plan has it becoming a boot camp for hardened criminals.

Part of the Rancho Rajneesh compound is now occupied by Young Life, a moderate missionary group that uses a few of its nearly 1,000 buildings as a religious retreat.

Much of the inhospitable land around it is used for free-range cattle grazing.

"We are just normal folk like anywhere who want to live our lives in peace," says Ellen McNamee. "The property is a big problem because its very valuable but no-one seems to know what to do with it."

"I guess we're all a little paranoid," another resident, John Silvertooth-Stewart, told the local paper recently.

"We probably always will be. But, you know, sometimes it seems a dark cloud has drifted over Antelope and that it just won't leave."