Testimonial letter from Marcelle Wolfers
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 Marcelle Wolfers. It is "Exhibit A-1736" 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.
 July 11, 1983 To Whom It May Concern; I am a practising artist, writer and film-maker. I first trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, where I held the Richardson Scholarship for women and gained the Diploma of Fine Art from London University in 1953. From 1953 until 1962 I was a teacher of art and held a one man exhibition of paintings at the Galerie de Siene, Belgravia, London, in 1960. I also exhibited at mixed exhibitions such as the London Group. In 1962 I became interested in films and have worked as a free lance film editor for the past 15 years. I have also written a number of film scripts and am at present working on various film projects of my own - notably "The Memoires of a Midget" by Walter de la Mare, the well known English writer, and "In The Labyrinth" by Alain Robbe-Grillet, the French novelist. I have an option on the film rights for both these novels. In 1972, I took time off from my work as a film editor to attend Leeds and Edinburgh Universities, where I followed a B.A. degree course in Religious Studies. At Leeds I was following a course in Sociology of Religion, Psychology of Religion, History of Religion and Philosophy of Religion, as well as Greek Civilization and Hebrew studies. When I transferred to Edinburgh University, the course consisted of Comparative Religion, Moral Philosophy, Indian Civilization and Chinese Civilization. I received my B.A. Degree from Edinburgh University in July 1976. While I was a student at Edinburgh, I became interested in Humanistic Psychology. I was a member of a study group on Tiellard de Chardin and it was another member who suggested I attend a conference on Humanistic Psychology and Religion organized by the Sempervivum Trust in Scotland. It was at this conference in 1974, attended by prominent members of the "helping professions" - therapists, doctors, priests, teachers, social workers, scientists, etc., that I first met some disciples of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who had just returned from their first visit to his ashram in Poona, India. Their presence was electrifying and the meditations and books of Bhagwan they brought with them from Poona even more so. From this time onwards, for the past 9 years, I have had sannyasin friends and have read the books of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. His teachings have had a profound effect on me and on my work and I am at present engaged in writing a piece about Rajneeshpuram and a film script inspired by his life and teachings. In 1976, I returned to London and began a post-graduate Master of Philosophy course at London University in Anthropology and Psychology of Religion and Hinduism. I was also at this time studying to become a Gestalt Therapist with the London Gestalt Center of which I became treasurer and where I stayed for two years. I was also once more working as a free lance film editor. My interest in and involvement with Bhagwan’s work continued during this time as it appeared relevant both for the subjects I was studying at University and in my work as a trainee therapist. For it is precisely this combination of the religious, philosophic and therapeutic approach which gives his teaching so much power and effectiveness. Moreover, having studied comparative religion and the Eastern philosophies and religions in particular, as well as moral philosophy and psychology, I can vouch for the difficulty of these subjects as usually taught at Universities, and the comparative inaccessability of the ancient teachings to the general public. One of the greatest services that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has done, in my estimation, is to re-tell in his own simple words the profound philosophies and teachings of the ancient Masters, including Jesus of Nazareth, so that everyone, whatever their social or educational background, can understand and be affected by his words in a way that changes their lives. 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.)
