Testimonial letter from Leo Cohen
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 Leo Cohen. It is "Exhibit A-125" 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.
 Dr. L. COHEN To whom it may concern: I am a professional clinical psychologist, I am an assistant professor at the University of Utrecht and a practitioner of individual psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy at the Regional Institution for Outpatient Mental Health, Center/Old-West Amsterdam. I am coauthor of a number of psychological papers and the principal editor of a volume of proceedings for an international congress on child abuse and neglect. I represent the subfaculty of psychology of the University of Utrecht on the commission on psychological tests in the Netherlands. I received my A.B, degree magna cum laude from Brandeis University and was elected a member of Fhi Beta Kapa. I received my A.M. and Ph.D, degrees from Harvard University. My clinical psychology traineeship was served at the Connecticut Mental Health Center / Department of Psychiatry, Yale University. In the past year I ha ve visited Rajneeshpuram twice for a total period of approximately three months. I have read from a number of books by Bhagwa n Shree Rajneesh andhave listened to (and seen) talks given by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on audio (and video) tape. I wish to declare the following: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s insights are of inestimable value. His contributions are extraordinary. As the inspiration and guiding force for the training and personal growth at Rajneeshpuram, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is responsible for the very high quality psychological work and development offered at Rajneeshpuram. I also refer the reader of this letter to the words of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as recorded in more than 100 books; an outpouring so vast and sagacious that it is beyond the comprehension of the normal scholar or professional. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s influence is so positive that it must be counted as a tremendous fortune that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is living in the United States of America, the country of which I am a citizen, I heartily recommend that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh be accorded full legal residence in the United States of America, as soon as possible. [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.)
