Testimonial letter from Bruno DeMattio
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 Bruno DeMattio. It is "Exhibit A-649" 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 12, 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I am a 45-year old German writer and painter. I have published two books, The Software-Culture Is Coming, E.M.E. Publications, Gottingen, 1973, Jenseits der Wueste, Herzschlag-Verlag-Berlin, 1982, written contributions to books, worked on films and am especially known as a painter and performance artist. I have had many exhibitions in galleries and art museums in Germany, France, England, Italy, Canada and Holland. In the field of art, in which I am working, I try to describe my way through many different techniques in order to get the audience to look at their way of getting in touch with their own spontaneity and creativity. And I feel that our society needs a fresh look at its creative potential, in order to keep us alive, to live with fantasy and joy. And behind all that stands Bhagwan. I am a sannyasin since 1976, and I would never have come to that depth of understanding without experiencing Him. I feel that He really is leading me to the source of creativity, to a taste of life which beforehand I never had seen. So clearly He is the very inspiration I needed to express myself. I see Him not only as a spiritual teacher but also as an artist of exceptional vision... and what would the arts be without that vision of something greater, something more beautiful in our lives - this taste of existence which every great artist tries to express, and which humanity needs for everyone. And in meeting Bhagwan my life has changed; my outlook has changed and without Him all of that I do would be with much less understanding of nature and mankind. Very truly yours, |
(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.)
