Testimonial letter from Craig S. Vassel
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 Craig S. Vassel AICP. It is "Exhibit A-357" 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 3 pages.
 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I am writing in support of permanent admittance to the United States of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I am a community and environmental planner and have worked eight years for the Federal government. For background, my resume is attached. My knowledge of Rajneesh derives from listening to lecture tapes and reading the transcripts of those talks in book form. In addition, as a planner, I have followed with great interest developments regarding the establishment of Rajneeshpuram. I am not a sanyassin and have no connection to any Rajneesh organization,. Rajneesh appears to be exceptional in his grasp of philosophy, religion, and psychology. More remarkable is his ability to clearly communicate formerly esoteric concepts in a humorous and irreverent way. His positive approach which stresses the freedom and responsibility of the individual has inspired many people. An understanding of some of his ideas has helped me more effectively communicate with people, thereby enabling me to better perform my job. The Rajneeshpuram project is much needed as we go through the transitional 1980’s. It combines advanced technology with ecological sensitivity. Without Rajneesh, the project might flounder. New community projects are quite scarce in this country and we could learn much from this experiment. It seems that great efforts are being made to integrate Rajneeshpuram into the existing institutional structure, so that the problems of isolation from the larger community never develop. While I certainly don’t approve of everything Rajneesh and his organization is doing, I appreciate their courage in persevering despite the opposition. Innovators and social critics have long played an important role in advancing the culture. [signed] |
(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.)
