Testimonial letter from Michael H. D. Vodden

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 Michael H. D. Vodden. It is "Exhibit A-860" 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.

Subject Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh My name Michael HD Vodden MBE MA(Oxon) Dip ESL (Leeds) Outline of my career Military Service 1940-1946 Infantry Captain Oxford University 1946-49 2nd Class Honours (Italian) The British Council 1949-1970 London 1949-54 Deputy Director Fellowships Department Bombay 1954-58 Assistant Regional Representative St Peter’s School Panchgani 1958-60 Assistant Teacher Punjab Public School Nabha 1961-65 Assistant Teacher Awarded MBE for services to education in India Leeds University 1965-66 Diploma in English as a Second Language Calcutta 1966-70 Education Officer Eastern India Retired on medical grounds (heartblock) 1970 Proprietor Children’s Bookshop Beverley 1972-80 Connections with Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh I was introduced by a Swiss friend to the published versions of the discourses in 1979. A Danish friend of 25 years standing spent six months at the Rajneesh Centre in Poona and introduced me to the tapes of the discourses. I visited the London Rajneesh centre several times and attended a seven-day Satori Group at the British Rajneesh Centre in 1983. Significance of Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh He has been responsible for gathering round him an international team of highly qualified and experienced psycho-therapists, for inspiring them and for having others trained to conduct personal development courses at his centres round the world* These courses provide in the most practical and realistic way for the needs of people in the modern world. It would be hard to overestimate his influence in the promotion of international understanding. He is one of the greatest living educationists and psycho-therapists. [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.)