Testimonial letter from M. A. Smallenburg
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 M. A. Smallenburg. It is "Exhibit A-1230" 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.
 Amsterdam, 19th July, 1983 To whom it may concern: In 1979 I finished my highschool and started to study psychology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. After three years I specialised in clinical psychology for another four years. My extracurricular subjects were psychopathology and family therapy For my research, I explored the newly discovered possible connection between heartbeat patterns and personality characteristics. I also worked at the crisiscentre at the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital in Amsterdam where they help people in acute crisis. My whole life I have done extensive reading and studying into all kinds of religions, philosophies and psychotherapies. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was for me the first who gave an all-encompassing view of a human being in all his aspects i.e. sociological, psychological and religious and this view is ’not just theoretical: his very being reflects it. In November 1979 I took sannyas, became a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Poona, India, and took part in a number of psychotherapeutic growth groups. These therapeutic groups available in Poona and now in Rajneesh Puram, U.S.A., conducted by outstanding psychologists under Bhagwan's spiritual guidance, have a total approach to therapy, which helps many people who are stuck in a situation painful to the (?) Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is unique in his combination of technologic: and spiritual thinking, which treats man as a whole denying neither the material nor the spiritual. This approach is very helpful in the field of psychotherapy and has helped me tremendously in dealing with people with psychological problems. Through his outstanding qualities Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has influenced many people. Sincerely yours, |
(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.)
