Testimonial letter from Debra A. Kirkpatrick
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 Debra A. Kirkpatrick. It is "Exhibit A-358" 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.
 Cheekwood To whom it may concern: My intent in writing to you is to express my concern regarding Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's residence status in this country and to point out the tremendous contributions and influence his presence has created in the area of corrective land use of depleted and mismanaged land. The community in Oregon is uniquely equipped, willing and capable of employing and executing innovative corrective farming practices that have already proven successful in a short period of time. There are many expert agronomists, horticulturists and architects directing these experiments and they are in a position to obtain results and data that could be used throughout the rest of the country upon perfecting their best methods. This community has already become a model for discovering new and worthy corrective-enrichment techniques for exhausted lands. I look forward to receiving the extensive research publications that I am told will be available and circulated to the agricultural community in this country. I hope the I.N.S. will also examine the content of these findings as well. My background consists of a B. S. in Horticulture from Pennsylvania State University with memberships in Phi Kappa Phi and Gamma Sigma Delta International Agricultural Honor Society. I have developed two horticulture therapy programs teaching disabled adults vocational skills and providing therapy, and I am presently on the horticulture staff at the Tennessee Botanical Gardens and employed in Landscape Consulting contracts in the Nashville Areas. I have always been interested in land conservation and environment improvement programs for this country. My future plans lead me even deeper into this area in that I hope to return to school in landscape architecture with a special emphasis in designing with nature. Now more than ever this country needs to thrust its efforts into developing corrective land use programs , as well as sound, far-sighted preservation practices. The community in Oregon under the direction of Rajneesh has already been making important advancements in this area and I hope to see it continue. Since Rajneesh is the main drawing element for the existance and development of this model community, to deny his legal residency in the country would no doubt holt further progress of the important contributions underway. I have not chosen to be a formal initiate of Rajneesh but I have found his teaching through reading his books and talking to members to be profoundly progressive and beneficial. I suppose some of his methods of therapy sound rather extreme to the general population and the press coverage has painted a distorted picture of what he is all about but this should not be allowed to get out of hand and influence the INS to deny his right to be here and progress in his endeavors that will ultimately benefit millions. I certainly hope this letter will be read and considered. These are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this organization. I will be following the news closely concerning the INS decisions and I trust you will do the right thing. Thank you. Sincerely 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.)
