Testimonial letter from Gordon D. Stott
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 Gordon D. Stott. It is "Exhibit A-166" 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.
 GORDON D. STOTT To Whom It May Concern: It has been brought to my attention that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, currently residing in Antelope, Oregon, is seeking permanent resident status in the United States as a "religious leader". I have not met Rajneesh personally. I am, however, completely familiar with the religious community in Oregon since I have a daughter there. My wife and I have visited Rajneeshpuram on several occasions. I am also somewhat familiar with Rajneesh’s writings and while not entirely in accord with all the tenets expressed believe them to be essentially religious and metaphysical in nature. I have been much impressed by the accomplishments of Rajneesh and his group in building a viable community in Oregon. It is hard to visit Rajneeshuram without sensing a fundamentally spiritual bond that unites Rajneesh and his disiples. The community is living testimony to spiritual leadership. I believe Rajneesh entirely deserves the status of a "religious leader" and it would be sheer bigotry to deny him the right to live and teach in the United States. 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.)
