Chidvilas Rajneesh Meditation Center, Montclair

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Kip's Castle
Osho in Chidvilas
Advert in a local yoga magazine

Chidvilas RMC was incorporated on Oct 14, 1975 in the state of New Jersey as a non-profit corporation by Sheela Patel Silverman (Ma Anand Sheela) and her first husband, Marc Harris Silverman (Sw Prem Chinmaya). Entity ID was 0100005549.

It was subsequently registered in Oregon under the same name, Chidvilas Rajneesh Meditation Center as a "Foreign Nonprofit Corporation" on Jul 6, 1981.


Chidvilas RMC was located in a shop-front house in Montclair. It was run by Sw Prem Jayananda, Ma Anand Sheela's second husband. By 1981, Chidvilas was the largest sannyasin media centre in the western world and most of the equipment needed in Poona at the time was shipped via Chidvilas RMC, until 1981, when Rajneesh Foundation, India purchased an early 1900s 30-room Rhineland-style castle named Kip's Castle, which on Jun 1, 1981 became Osho's first residence in the US.

Rajneesh's first residence in America was a sprawling turn of the century assortment of styles, designed by an architect who was told to leave nothing out. There were towers and turrets, spacious, high ceiling rooms and wide stairways cheek by jowl with narrow corridors and tight, creaky maids' rooms. Kip's Castle evoked a description of Mark Twain's home in Hartford, Connecticut - either his or someone else's - "half castle, half cuckoo clock". (Max Brecher, A Passage to America)

It should be noted that Montclair was Sheela's hometown where she lived until she moved to Poona.

On Sep 16, 1981 the New York Times reports (see ref 2),

"Also in July, the Montclair center purchased more than 100 square miles of ranchland in Oregon. Anand Sheela, president of the nonprofit corporation that includes the new ranch, the Montclair storefront center, a large house next door to the center and the castle, said there were 58 disciples from the Montclair center with her in Oregon beginning a farming operation."


address
154 Valley Road (downtown)
Montclair, NJ 07042
and
22 Crestmont Road (castle)
Verona, NJ 07044
USA
It was a 20 minute walk from the centre to the castle.


references
1) New Jersey Division of Revenue & Enterprise Services
2) Cult in Castle Troubling Montclair


see also
The Castle Diary
Kip's Castle Park