Testimonial letter from Howard B. Johnston
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 Howard B. Johnston, Jr. It is "Exhibit A-161" 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.
 VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY To whom it may concern in the Immigration and Naturalization Service: I Howard B. Johnston, Jr. have a Bachelor of engineering and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering, with my areas of specialization being Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering. For the last ten years my work has involved all levels of the systems design, computer automation, physiologic systems modeling, and data analysis problems that are associated with the doing of basic and clinical medical research. For the past five years my work in the Vanderbilt School of Medicine has focused on the automation data management and data analysis problems associated with clinical research (i.e., research in the identification and treatment of disease processes in man). In this context my primary responsibility has been the design, creation, and direction of laboratories that provide support for the data management and data analysis activities of clinical scientist. Currently, I direct three of these laboratories, one each in the General Clinical Research Center, the Nutrition Center , and the Division of Biomedical Engineering Services. I also serve as a consultant to the National Institutes of Health on the application of computer technology to aid clinical investigation. I first encountered Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh a year and a half ago at the Shanti Kutir Rajneesh Meditation Center in Nashville, Tennessee. I came to know Bhagwan through the study of meditation techniques, participating in periodic workshops, and my personal interaction with sannyasins at this center. Recently, I studied for a month at the Rajneesh Institute For Therapy in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon. The knowledge that I have gained and skills I have learned through my study of Bhagwan’s teachings and through my participation in workshops, which have been developed at his Institute For Therapy, have had a major impact on my effectiveness in my job. Success in my work depends primarily on my interaction with other researchers and on my ability to communicate effectively with others. My studies of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and my work with his sannyasins have transformed my way of working with others and improved my effectiveness immeasurably. We are very fortunate to have Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in our country. We are particularly lucky to have his major center for research and developement (the Rajneesh University and Rajneesh Institute for Therapy) located in our country and thus easily available to U.S. citizens. The work of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is going to have a major positive impact on our country through the technolgy in health care and personal growth that is now available to us through this Insitute. [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.)
