John Gress Photography
Building Utopia: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is researched, written, narrated, and produced by Rusty King. He also wrote most of the music heard in the series.
Research for Building Utopia included reviewing hundreds of state and federal reports related to the disciples of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, memoirs from people who lived and worked in Rajneesh’s communities, and every issue of the Rajneesh Times newspaper (published weekly at the Rajneeshpuram commune); visiting the University of Oregon’s Special Collections and University Archives to examine thousands of documents and ephemera from Rajneeshpuram; visiting the federal district court in Portland, Oregon to review archived court documents related to the prosecution of Rajneeshpuram’s leaders in the 1980s and 90s; and submitting dozens of requests for government documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and similar state laws.
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