Testimonial letter from Edvard D Vogt

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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 Edvard D Vogt. It is "Exhibit A-96" 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.

JORGES HANDELSH0YSKOLE
Instituttet tor arbeidspsykologi og personaltorvaltning
Bankforbindelse: Bergens Sparcbank, Oyjordsvn. 2
Bankgironr. 3625.07.246 02
HELLEVEIEN 30-5000 BERGEN
Tlf. 25 65 00

August 22. 1983

To whom it may concern:

re Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh' application for resident status.

I have been taking an interest in the religious and civil rights aspects of the Bhagwan's application for resident status. I am a sociologist of religion at the faculty of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen, Norway. I am myself a Roman Catholic, but I have done research on various religious movements.

There can be no doubt on scientific grounds that the Rajneesh Movement is a genuine religious movement and that Bhagwan is a genuine religious teacher.

I have in particular studied the Anando Rajnees Meditation Center here in Bergen, Norway, and have registered thet the Bhagwan teachings and practices have had a profound benevolent effect on its members.

I strongly recommend that this religious teacher is given his rights according to U.S. law in order to help people with religious or moral problems.

Bergen, August 22, 1983
[signed]
Edvard D. Vogt, Forsteamanuensis


(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.)