Testimonial letter from Carl Silver
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 Carl Silver. It is "Exhibit A-177" 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 2 pages.
 (516)475-3800 To whom it may concern: Had Freud applied for citizenship to America, few in his time would have questioned this scientist of human behavior. He would have been welcomed for his extraordinary understanding of man, and the primal depth exposed for modern man to look afresh. Had Abe Lincoln applied for British citizenship, he too would have been welcomed for his extraordinary vision, and his most compassionate heart. Albert Einstein came to us at a time in history when his intelligence and brilliance shone brightest, and he gave to us his deepest commitment at a time when America stood alone and at the pinnacle for the world. These men of exceptional and seminal vision touched our world and each of us deeply. As a clinical psychotherapist I have diligently studied Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for the past 8 years. His vision of the nature of man is so vast and total that it can be said that the complete science of man has culminated in this One called Bhagwan. Bhagwan brings to us the scientific ability, embodied as Love, to balance out man psychologically and spiritually. I grew up in the South in the Blue Ridge Mountains, white Protestant, Anglo-Saxon. My little mountain village, called Micaville, North Carolina, is at the very heart of the Bible belt. The belief that the situation is always grim entered deeply into my bloodstream. I finished high school in Micaville; served in the Infantry in W.W. II. I graduated from the University of Tennessee, A.B. in philosophy, and from Columbia Theological Seminary with a Bachelors and Masters in theology. For 4 years I was a Presbyterian clergyman. I am a graduate of William A. White Institute of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, and a member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapist. For the past 23 years as a psychotherapist, I have been deeply concerned about my own human misery, and to reach the men and women who come to me with their fears, extreme doubts and confusion with an understanding that life in its intrinsic nature is whole and healthy. Although I have been working in the attitude that life in its naturalness is whole and healthy, I ,myself, had not found the very thing that somewhere I felt was so. There was no way for me to relax, to enjoy, to feel. Thus at the age of 48, I came upon Bhagwan through one of his lectures on casette tape that a friend had given to me to hear. The immediate feeling I felt was that this One sees human nature totally, understands human nature totally. The long, long broken circle of my 48 years of searching felt completed. I was home. I had no doubts about Bhagwan. Bhagwan gives the supreme understanding that health and sanity are the natural order of things, rather than an idealized intellectual concept that ultimately leads each of us to hypocrisy and psychological violence upon ourselves and each other. Being around Bhagwan is to see in Him, and all that flows from Him, effortlessly, the embodiment of the new man and the new woman realized. The natural balance of things is the lesson to be learned in all the myriad situation that life thrusts upon us, and it is in the getting and understanding of this lesson that Bhagwan comes to us, and offers Himself totally as Love. Respectfully 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.)
