Testimonial letter from Joseph Downing

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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 Joseph Downing MD. It is "Exhibit A-523" 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.

JOSEPH DOWNING, M. D.
59 KITTREDGE TERRACE
SAN FRANCISCO. CALIFORNIA 94118
Telephone (415) 221-8202
July 27, 1983

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a physician who has practiced psychosomatic and spiritual medicine for thirty-seven (37) years.

I came upon the writings and teaching of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh twelve (12) years ago. I have found his teaching to be useful for health and healing, both in my private and professional life. I consider him a most outstanding contributor in many areas of the arts and the sciences. His solutions to the plight of mankind in this time are at once workable and at the same time, reach to the very roots of the matter.

I hope you will make every effort to facilitate his stay in this country. It would be a great misfortune to miss having a person of his stature in America.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
JOSEPH DOWNING, M.D.


(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.)