Adi Da Samraj / Daism (Franklin Jones, Adidam)

Despite its CLCIHub slug, this record documents Adi Da Samraj (born Franklin Albert Jones, 1939–2008) and his Adidam community — not a composite 'Ramana/Osho-derived' umbrella group; the slug/name mismatch should be flagged for editorial correction or a rename. Jones, a Columbia and Stanford graduate, published his autobiography The Knee of Listening in 1972 (with a foreword by Alan Watts) and opened an ashram bookstore in Los Angeles the same year, teaching a nondualist path drawing on Advaita Vedanta while claiming to transcend it; he declared himself a uniquely historic avatar and held that devotional 'recognition-response' to him was the sole means to full spiritual realisation for others. He authored 75+ books under successive names (Bubba Free John, Da Free John, Da Avabhasa, Adi Da Samraj) through his own Dawn Horse Press.

In 1983 Jones relocated with roughly 40 followers to Naitauba, a Fijian island purchased by a wealthy follower from actor Raymond Burr, establishing it as a 'set-apart' hermitage and his primary residence until his 2008 death; he became a Fijian citizen in 1993. Over subsequent years he engaged formal devotees in what he termed 'emotional-sexual reality consideration,' including 'sexual theater' psychodrama, partner-switching, pornographic filmmaking, and orgies, framed as a method for releasing sexual and emotional neuroses; he characterised conventional marriage as reinforcing ego-identity. In 1985, former followers filed two lawsuits alleging misconduct connected to this period, to which Adidam responded with threatened counter-litigation. The principal suit was dismissed and the second was settled out of court — no judgment against Jones or Adidam is documented. Mark Miller's 1985 Pacific Sun investigative series and subsequent ex-member memoirs remain the primary documented sources for communal life on Naitauba.

In his later years Jones focused on visual art, exhibiting at the 2007 Venice Biennale and in Florence; he died on Naitauba in November 2008. The community continues as Adidam, with an estimated few hundred formal members. Because no lawsuit produced an adjudicated finding against Jones and no criminal proceeding was ever brought, the CLCI here rests on ex-member testimony and investigative journalism rather than court findings — consistent with the entry's 'Medium' confidence rating.