Testimonial letter from David George O'Neil
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 David George O'Neil PhD. It is "Exhibit A-189" 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.
 Telephone (714) 781-___5 To Whom It May Concern: My name is David George O’Neil, Ph.D. I was bom February 22, 1935, in La Grande, Oregon and am an American Citizen I possess an earned B.S., University of Washington, 1959; M.S., Brigham Young University, 1965; and Ph.D., Brigham Young University, 1968; all in clinical psychology. I was licensed as a clinical psychologist in California in 1970. I have held the position of Program Director for The California Department of Mental Hygiene; Program Director, Director of Professional Education, Director of the Forensic Program, and have acted as Chief Psychologist for the Riverside County Department of Mental Health. I am a member of the California State Psychological Association and the Southern California Inland Society of Clinical Psychologists. I am past chairman of the Ethics committtee for the latter organization. My publications include: David G. O’Neil, Leslie M. Cooper, and Darhl M. Pedersen; Increase and Decrease in Light and Noise Stimuli as Reinforcers for Albino Rats. Psychological Reports, 1968:22:1113-1118. I initially became aware of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh through his books. I have also personally attended many of his discourses, traveling to Poona, India in 1979, to do so. I have experienced a number of groups in his ashram there, and at his meditation center in Laguna Beach, California. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has had a very heavy influence upon my work and thinking as a professional Clinical Psychologist. His experientially oriented discussions of psychology represent a maturation and synthesis of earlier work by such theorists as Freud, Jung, Perls, and Maslow, to name a few. He has brought clarity to the interface of western psychology and eastern wisdom. His work is seminal in the areas of study which are currently unfolding under the headings of Transpersonal Psychology and Holistic Medicine. I have had occasion to talk with psychologists from other countries who have been influenced by this singular man as I have. He is indeed a rare genius in the field. [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.)
