Testimonial letter from Hans-Jürgen Greschat

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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 Hans-Jürgen Greschat. It is "Exhibit A-79" 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 will link to a pdf file of the original letter when the pdf is created. It has one page.

Prof. Dr. HANS-JÜRGEN GRESCHAT
Sybelstraße [xx]
3550 Marburg a. d. Lahn 1
19 July, 1983

To whom it may concern:

I am professor of the History of Religions at the University of Marburg, West Germany (for further professional details please consult the "World of Learning" or "Kürschners Deutscher Gelehrten-Kalender"), It was in connection with a seminar held by Professor Schwebel, a theological specialist, and me during the summer session of 1982 that I began to work with the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The following session I spent on sabbatical leave in California where I could further these studies at the "New Religious Movements Research Collection", Berkeley. Since Professor Schwebel and I were asked by a publisher to prepare a book on this- religious leader and his followers, my religio-historical inquiries have lately become even more extensive.

From what I have come to know so far I can safely support those who believe Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to be a religious teacher and spiritual leader of exceptional ability. He calls himself a Bhagwan, a Buddha, a Siddha, and there is evidence in support of these claims. To be sure, what is meant are states of consciousness not commonly known and valued in Europe and the U.S.A. They do find, occasionally, expression in ways that may seem to some of us quaint or even unseemly. Being still part of a foreign cultural background, they remain, nevertheless, religious in nature.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]


(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.)