Testimonial letter from Douglas V Steere

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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 Douglas V Steere. It is "Exhibit A-1" 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.

Haverford College

Haverford PA

July 16, 1983


To Whom It May Concern,

I am the T. Wistar Brown Professor, Emeritus, of Philosophy in Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania, and the author of a dozen books in the area between philosophy and religion. I have been five times in India. I have been president of the American Theological Society and for six years chairman of the Friends World Committee, the international body of the Quakers. I would like briefly to give the reason why Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh seems to me to be person who would be a most valuable asset to this country as a distinguished teacher and why I feel he should be permitted to remain here and continue his important work as a teacher.

I have carefully looked over the messages that he has given in the Ashram and have found his teaching a sound and moving account of the Hindu religion and would consider him a rare addition to the teaching corps of the world religions in this country. We are in this ecumenical time ever so fortunate to have sound teachers from abroad who are willing to live in this country and share their religious insights with eager people over here. This country has had Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu teachers who have greatly enriched our lives and the freedom the USA offers the Christian religion to be enriched by opening our doors to all is something that is precious in our heritage.

I would hope that such an exceptionally able interpreter of Hinduism as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh would be welcomed as a gifted teacher who is thoroughly competent and that he would be permitted to continue his teaching in the Northwest.

[signature]

Douglas V Steere


(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.)