Testimonial letter from Jan Vintilescu
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 Jan Vintilescu. It is "Exhibit A-260" 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.
 BOOKSHOP EAST & WEST To whom it may concern Dear Sirs, In response to the request of the Deeva Rajneesh Center in Stockholm, Sweden, to write some kind of affidavit concerning Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I can only say that I comply with great enthousiasm. Since two and a half years I am established as an owner of a bookstore "East & West” in the very center of Stockholm. We are specialized in psychology, philosophy, social sciences and religion. We also function as a New Age Information Center and are thus very much at the very core of spiritual and social developments going on in Sweden at the moment. Previously (during almost thirty years), I was an information manager for an international company and a public relations consultant employed by one of the foremost Swedish PR consultancies. I have also produced myself as a translator of poetry and as a poet in my own right. Moreover I have made myself a name as music critic in various popular magazines and above all, during a couple of decades, in "Musikrevy", the very magazine dedicated to classical music. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that due to both my earlier carrier and my new field of activity I have become a rather wellknown personality in Stockholm's caltural and social life. To me, as an intellectual person (with a wide range of reading in the humanities) as well as a spiritual seeker (without a specific religious affiliation), Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is an outstanding personality, an exceptional spiritual leader and a human being of no ordinary integrity. Reading his books and through my personal contact with him during my six weeks stay at his ashram in Poona in 1978/79, he has made an everlasting impression upon me with his outspoken and unconventional views on human affairs pointing the way with his perspicacity to a possible New Age for the mankind and this planet. It is with the greatest concern that I add my voice to all those who speak in favor of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and who want to support him in his very important work as a practical visionary. Yours sincerely, |
(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.)
