Testimonial letter from Jack W. Painter
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 Jack W. Painter PhD. It is "Exhibit A-301" 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.
 The Center for Release and Integration To whom it may conern, This letter is to recommend Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as a person of exceptional ability in religion, philosphy-theology, and psychology. On the attached biographical sheet you will find that after taking a doctorate in philosophy at Emory University in Atlanta (which included advanced study in the philosophy of religion), I served for ten years as a professor of philsophy and during the past thirteen years have worked in the area of bodymind psychology, establishing training centers throughout the world, (U.S., Canada, Latin American, and Europe). My book, Transforming the Inside and Outside of Bodymind, has appeared in French, German, Danish, and Italian. This background, as well as the fact that I knows Bhagwan personally, qualifies me, I believe, to recommend him. First of all, Bhagwan is a leader and teacher of total committment to the improvement of humanity. In all his teachings and activities I have seen only conern to share his deep convictions about, life, love, and God. Even if on occasion he has been controversial and provocative, he has always been consciously trying to awaken others to his spiritual message. Second, Bhawan is an original theologian and writer, having contributed more than one hundred books of carefully researched, inspired, and stimulating theology and spiritual guidance. His teachings are a unique blend of western and eastern attitudes and offer an approach not available in western theology or in imported eastern religion. He has much to say to Americans and says it in a clear, yet rich and relevant way. Third, Bhagwan is a religious psychologist, who understands the need for the individual to not only be inspired but to change his or her life. He has taken tools from American humanistic psychology, combinded them with eastern religion, advanced his own original techniques, evolving them all into a dynamic way of helping others be freer, more creative, more disciplined, and more loving. I wish to give Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh my strongest recomen-dation as a religious leader, thinker, and original religious psychologist, and I hope that he will be able to remain in the U.S. where I can visit him and learn from him. 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.)
