Testimonial letter from Antony McCardell

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This letter is one of a remarkable series of over 2650 letters amassed in 1983 to support Osho's attempt to get permanent resident status in the US at the time of the Oregon ranch. The image is reproduced here with the kind permission of The Oregon Historical Society. Information about their collection of these letters and other supporting material -- the "Jeffrey Noles Rajneesh Collection", named for Osho's immigration lawyer Jeffrey Noles, who compiled them in 1983 and donated them to the OHS -- can be found at this page. The wiki is grateful to the OHS for making access available for these documents. For more information and links to all the letters, see Testimonial letters.

This letter is from Dr. Antony McCardell. It is "Exhibit A-208" in the Noles collection.

The text version below has been created by optical character recognition (OCR), from the images supplied by OHS. It has not been checked for errors but this process usually results in over 99% correct transcription. Most apparent "errors" are correct transcriptions of typos already in the original. The image on the right in the text box links to a pdf file of the original letter, it has one page.

July 4, 1983

To Whom it May Concern:

I possess the degrees of B.A. (Honours, First Class, 1970) and Ph.D. (1976) both from the University of Western Australia, and both in the field of ethnomusicology (the anthropological study of music), specializing in the sacred and ceremonial music of the Australian Aborigines. My findings, which are pioneering studies in the field, are documented in my Ph.D. thesis and in the scholarly journal, "Studies in Music" (The University of Western Australia Press, 1980). My experience also includes teaching in the field of European musical history at the same university.

During my Doctoral studies in 1976, I came across the recently published lectures of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I feel that his statanents about music and particularly about the spiritual nature on music make an outstanding contribution to the literature cn the subject. Most ethnomusicological and anthropological approaches to the study of non-Western religious music concentrate almost entirely on the structural aspects of the music to the detriment of its subjective effect upon the participants. Rajneesh eloquently addresses this area. His explanations of how music enables man to transcend his normal consciousness and enter the spiritual realm are among the clearest I have encountered. In particular he explores the central issue of the "totality of the act", whether it be musical or involving any of the other arts, as prerequisite to the transcendental experience. In this and many other points pertaining to the creative act he has, in my opinion, made an outstanding contribution to the world as both a religious teacher and a philosopher of the arts.

[signed]
Dr. Antony McCardell
I.P. Sharp Associates Pty. Ltd.
8th Floor
55 Elizabeth Street
Sydney 2000 N.S.W.
Australia


(Please note: We assume that the above letter is still copyrighted, but we regard its historical interest to constitute a Fair Use exception for publication in this wiki.)