Testimonial letter from Arthur Sundqvist
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 Arthur Sundqvist. It is "Exhibit A-1263" 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.
 Arthur Sundqvist To whom it may concern. My occupation is architect who recived my Master of Architecture at the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg. I have been working with different architects in various architects offices in Stockholm. I am now studying again at the Royal University of Technology, Stockholm for a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Architecture. I am also a member of the National Association of Swedish Architects. As an architect I find the growing city of Rajneeshpuram in Oregon a masterpiece of architecture on whatsoever level you look at it. The architecture of the houses, interiors, the concept of the townplanning, relationship architecture - nature, ecology, etc. Why is this so interesting for an architect in Sweden? I will be brief. In Sweden we invest a lot of money, as in the States, in building homes, factories, schools, etc. Most of the architecture looks ugly and this makes people feel bad. The we put a lot of money on research, how to make it better, but the situation remains the same. Most of the new towns and the new architecture is very bad and ugly as architecture and booring to live in. I can go on describing more problems, many more which architects in Sweden and over the whole wide world are struggeling with, but I stop here. I therefore see the creation of Rajneeshpuram as a blue-print, from which the whole world has something to learn, regarding the creation of beatiful architecture, and also a high quality of living within that architecture for the future. The whole inspiration behind the growing city of Rajneeshpuram is the religious teacher and spiritual leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. It is his inspirational religious work and vision that guides this remarkable experiment in the field of architecture and it is the only really new thing happening in the field that can help and guide us architects toward creating a far better architecture for the future to live in. In Sweden, as a doctoral student, you have to read a lot of philosophy, psychology, sociology, art and other sciences, and here in my research I read many books, also Rajneesh’s books, listen to his tapes and watch videos where he lectures, and all the time makes a synthesis of the different sciences. I have not found anything better to read, these texts inspires me a lot. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has an exceptional ability to explain that religion is the base for science and art. Right now I see a rapidly growing interest among doctors, engineers, philosophers, psycologists, psyciatrists, architects, musicians, actors, film-makers, poets, painters and all other creative professions involved in the sciences and art here in Sweden, in the work of the religious teacher and spiritual leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Yours faithfully |
(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.)
