Testimonial letter from H. J. L. Blanson Henkemans van Loben Sels

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 H. J. L. Blanson Henkemans van Loben Sels. It is "Exhibit A-2033" 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.

H.J.L. Blanson Henkemans - van Loben Sels Kleiberglaan 2 6891 DK Rozendaal (Gld) HOLLAND To whom it may concern, I am a psychotherapist with 25 years of practise. I studied at the University in Amsterdam and Utrecht and received my B.S. diploma in Amsterdam. (I specialized in humanities). My work has particularly been directed in helping the underpriviledged in Holland and I had many international contacts. Among others I was President of the Board of International Affairs of the Y.W.C.A. (Young Women Christian Association). As President I devoted much of my time in starting and supporting Women’s movements in underdeveloped countries. I also started a center for womens’ liberation in my own town of Arnhem, in the South of Holland. In 1976 I came in contact with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh by reading one of his books "My Way, The Way of the White Clouds". This had a profound impression on me. He confirmed my deepest intuitions on human affairs. From the beginning Bhagwan revealed himself to me as being not only a religious leader, but also a scientist. I visited Bhagwan in 1978 and went back to stay at the ashram in Poona in 1979. Now I have the fortunate opportunity to visit him at Rajneeshpuram. Always I am immensely impressed by His great wisdom and vision, but most of all His unconditional love. The fact that he does not speak any more makes no difference what so ever for me. The contact with him is now even a deeper and warmer quality and for me it is as if his healing energy is all around me. My vision of life has completely changed since I met him. I came to understand why humanity as a whole is facing all the troubles it is at the moment. And also why we all have so much troubles in relating with each other. In my function as leader of a family agency I am able to use the new insights on relationship of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh with great success. It seems that people suddenly open up and come to their original creative selves. I consider him as the only human being on earth who is able to bring our good planet Earth to a better future and to change the way that countries and religions relate to each other. [signed] H.J.L. Blanson Henkemans van Loben Sels

(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.)