Testimonial letter from Diane Choquette
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 Diane Choquette. It is "Exhibit A-89" 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.
 GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION LIBRARY July 19, 1983 [To:] Hotel Rajneesh 115 SW 11th Ave. Portland, OR 97205 To Whom it May Concern, For the past four years I have maintained and developed the New Religious Movements Research Collection, the special collection of the Graduate Theological Union Library. We collect a wide variety of materials from and about many different spiritual groups that are new to the U.S. since about 1960, or have had renewed growth since that time. Although the main collection of the library concentrates on Christianity, in all its history and manifestations, the NRM Research Collection concerns itself with alternatives to Judaism and Christianity. The collection is a unique subject collection. In my capacity as the librarian for the NRM Research Collection I have known of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and have endeavored to add his publications to the collection. We have collected materials from and about him and his followers since 1977 and now have approximately fifty books, in addition to periodicals and ephemeral materials, such as newspaper clippings. Rajneesh’s arrival in the U.S. and the development of Rajneeshpuram is certainly a significant aspect of the contemporary alternative religious scene, one of growing pluralism. Legal and social policy issues are involved and public interest has been piqued. The library, in its capacity as a major theological and religious research library, will continue to add such materials and to make them available to anyone wishing to use them. Sincerely, |
(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.)
