Testimonial letter from Julie Connaghan
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 Julie Connaghan. It is "Exhibit A-464" 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.
 P.O. Box 10 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I am a professional person, having studied psychology and the human potential movement for the last 10 years. I received a B.A. degree through Western Kentucky University Psychology Department, which is well known for its school in Behaviorism. I’ve studied the Human Potential Movement and done in-depth studies in anthropology and ancient healing techniques of the emotional, psychic and physical body at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California; and carried on my research to the modern day human potential movement, wholistic health movement, by also attending Esalen Institute and the Boulder School of Massage Therapy, being certified there, and by finding and studying with individuals who have pioneered their own developments in working with people and furthering human growth studies: Ron Kurtz, Joan Halifax, Al Drucker, Dick Price, and Stan Grof. Over the past 6 years I have had my own successful practice in and around Denver, Colorado, doing counseling and massage therapy, and through the influence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh developed my own techniques of working with people towards their own self-healing on all levels of body, mind and spirit. My research and constant concern with keeping open to new developments in human potential and self-development brought me naturally to hear of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. First discovering him through hearing tapes of his religious discourses, and then reading his books which are also taken from his religious discourses, I sensed something going on around Bhagwan beyond anything I had encountered to that point in the human potential movement. Hearing that he had developed a therapy technique that had no limits for self-discovery, and going with my strong feeling towards seeing him, I travelled to India to see for myself just where the growth movement could be taken, if it could. Once I did encounter Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, my life growth process accelerated to a point where I was able to move through my own experience to a point of real flowering of my creative potential, the creative resources stored inside my own self. Bhagwan somehow had created a place around him where any person is safely allowed to discover their own inner resources and in turn share with those around in an atmosphere that is loving, positive, supporting and open-ended. Here with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is where the Human Potential Movement is embraced and true movement is allowed and includes the individual. Being around Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is always moment by moment a new experience, a religious experience, embracing the flow of life as it unfolds naturally. I have associates who have also studied Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh - counselors, psychologists, speech pathologists, communications specialists and also priests. He’s been used in Masters dissertations and as reference material at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. His books are used for their religious teachings as well as containing rich resources for dealing with ones own human nature in an unimposing, open-ended matter of fact way. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh certainly takes education beyond the Universities, beyond the Human Potential Movement, beyond the church or religious studies. This man is himself, along with his prolific works, a living contribution to the Arts and Sciences, for he has mastered the Art of Living, and the Science of Discovery, and is a Master Teacher of both. His staying in the U.S. would reaffirm our country as the first to discover and accept new frontiers. I for one support wholeheartedly, totally, Bhagwan’s staying in America. 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.)
