Testimonial letter from Marc Gonthier
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 Marc Gonthier. It is "Exhibit A-1943" 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.
 944 W 15th TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I am a professional musician. My field is voice coaching, theatre music and music-dance workshops. My background includes an Hon. B.M. from the University of Western Ontario, Canada'78, and post graduate studies in Germany, England and France '78-'81. I am at present a voice coach in Vancouver. My transition from a well-educated technically sound and efficient musician, to an artist is through the discovery of the writings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. His discourses on music take the executor to a different dimension in his art and his performing. He truly understands the meaning of the word "ART", as something which comes from within, rather than from repetition and study. Both are of course needed, but without the inspiration of a great teacher, or in this case, a master, music in the world would rately rise to the level of art. What this man offers is an asset to all cultures, espec-ically to people whose life is devoted to the expression of art, be it music, dance or painting. Through this inspiration, even the common man becomes sensitized to the finer aspects of life, for an inspiration such as Bhagwan affects man on all levels, not only spiritually, which is the obvious message, but through one's career and professional life as well. At least it is so in my case. I trust that this information will help you in understanding the value of such a man, and the assets such a man brings, in this case to American society. 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.)
