Testimonial letter from John Dahlsen

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 John Dahlsen. It is "Exhibit A-2323" 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.

John Dahlsen 272 Brunswick St. Fitzroy 3065 Victoria, AUSTRALIA To whom it may concern..... I, John Dahlsen, am a professional artist currently working in Australia. I have studied for three years at the National Gallery of Victoria, being awarded a diploma in Art in 1977-79. This institution is renown as the most prestigious art training school in the country. I studied painting here during the 3 years. I have shown in group and solar exhibitions continuously over the last 7 years and have travelled Europe working professionaly as an artist in London. I am a member of many artists' groups and cooperatives in Australia. However, my influence is of a very individual nature, my professional thrust being through my solo work as an artist-painter. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has impressed me so strongly in the field of art and painting because of his exceptional insight in this area. I was introduced to Bhagwan on my return from Europe in 1980. This was through religious books and magazines. Since, I have met various sannyasins who have furthered my interest. In many of Bhagwan's writings and discourses he discusses many notions on art and these have had an important effect on my own being and through this he has had an equally important effect upon my work as a painter. The religiousness and zest he speaks of and expresses is helping my work climb to some of the peaks he speaks of with a completely new important flavour being added, as my work surely feels as though it contains life, love and laughter. This I thank Bhagwan for, as my previous work was much more dull and uninteresting. At present, due to Bhagwan’s influence I can forsee my work having the newfound potential of taking quite a major place in Australian Art. I am also currently studying for one year at Melbourne State Teachers' College- training for a diploma in Art Education. He has through his insights into Art and Education given me a totally revolutionary attitude to children and education and as I have spoken of already - Art. I am indebted to this inspirational leader for his guidance in both of the areas of art and education and can only feel the importance of his work growing and enriching my work, and the international community as a whole. 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.)