Testimonial letter from Jill P. Booth
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 Ms. Jill P. Booth. It is "Exhibit A-249" 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 2 pages.
 AFFIDAVIT I, Ms. Jill P. Booth, do hereby acknowledge and respectfully submit that: I have been employed for ten years in the field of Freshwater Studies, and have gained specific qualifications in 'this field (my curriculum vitae is appended). From 1975 to 1980 I was employed by the largest Regional Water Authority in Britain specifically to research the proposed creation of Europe’s largest river regulation impoundment. The Craig Goch Scheme - an £80 million development - was designed to solve the future water needs of Wales and the South of England. I am therefore familiar with the practical and technical difficulties involved in this field of research. I have been responsible, along with other members of the Research Team, for the production of over thirty research publications presented in reports of the Regional Water Authority, specific to this field. I came to know Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh through involvement in the personal growth movement in 1978. Since that time I have studied his writings and been closely involved with his teachings in a personal and practical way for the past three years. I have spent time in the communes in both Poona and Oregon. I have seen for myself the research programme in water resource development and conservation that is being carried out at Rajneeshpuram under the inspiration and spiritual guidance of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I can wholeheartedly say that it is of exceptional quality. The development work already completed is proving most effective in solving the problems of flash floods and insufficient drinking and irrigation water that have overlong been a serious handicap to agriculture, development and conservation in the area. In my professional opinion the applied research being carried out will not only help to solve local problems, but is likely to be of considerable help to other areas of the country, and indeed to other countries, facing similar difficulties. Ms. J.P. Booth, MSc. M.I.Biol. |
(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.)
