Testimonial letter from Marie Schwab, Julius K. Peter Schwab

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 Marie Schwab and Julius K. Peter Schwab. It is "Exhibit A-117" in the Noles collection.

The original letter was handwritten in German, a text transcription has not yet been created. A text version of its translation 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.

The image in the text box links to a pdf file with the original letter, the translation, and a notary statement attesting to the validity of the translation. It has 4 pages.

translation TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN RE: EXPERIENCES WITH THE RAJNEESH RELIGION In our contact with Rajneeshies for over two years we have been able to observe what a favourable influence their master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his guidance has had on their lives in relating to others, their attitude to life and to the world around them. We were able to reach this conviction personally through many conversations or visits to the Hamburg sannyas commune, Baile Rajneesh and also Medina Rajneesh in England. Our attention was especially drawn to the Medina Rajneesh Sannyas Commune through our son who belonged to this community and received care and medical attention more lovingly there than at any conventional hospital until his death from leukemia took him away from us at the age of 22. We began to have a deeper interest in this heritage of thought and also to read the books of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. We noticed that we too had become able to face our fellow man in a more open, loving and patient way and to understand the world about us with more awareness and clarity. As we believe that this change is related to our harmonizing with the ideas of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, we hope that the flock of his followers continues to grow so that through Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, love between us regains the rightful importance it deserves and our whole world becomes a more loving and beautiful place for mankind. (Signed) Marie Schwab Julius K. Peter Schwab Hamburg 18 July 1983 Ruhrstr. 22 2000 Hamburg 50 W. Germany

(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.)