Testimonial letter from Michael J. Kidd

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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 J. Kidd. It is "Exhibit A-196" 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.

Suite 61, Security Bldg,
198 Queen St,
P.O. Box 5355,
Auckland, N.Z.
Ph (09) 32-659
Telex NZ 21057 Intcom: Trin
Michael J. Kidd
B.A. LL.B
BARRISTER
17 July 1983

To Whom It May Concern

I am a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. I graduated Batchelor of Arts in Political Science and Batchelor of Laws in Criminal Law and Advanced Criminology from Auckland University in May 1979. I have practiced as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand since 19 December 1979.

I have specialised in the area of criminal law and have taken several cases on appeal to the High Court of New Zealand, I wrote a research paper whilst at University on the relationship between the increase of violent offending and violent content of television programmes in New Zealand,

I became a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh In August of 1981 and since that time I consider I have been helped enormously in my work by the meditation techniques and teachings of Rajneesh. I have become much more competent in my work as a criminal lawyer both from the study and application of his teachings with regard to violence and criminal offending.

I consider Rajneesh to be an outstanding authority on the reasons for and treatment of violent offending in society generally.

I have visited the city of Rajneeshpuram peace force and they inform me that the city of Rajneeshpuram is unique in the world as being 100% free from violent and criminal offending. I can confirm this by my own observation as having stayed at the city for a period of two weeks in July 1983.

It is my opinion that the reasons for this crime free environment are that the residents of Rajneeshpuram who are disciples of Rajneesh have achieved satisfaction of their personal needs through practicing the meditation techniques and teachings of Rajneesh. Conversely the reasons for criminal offending in society generally spring from spiritual and material malaise of individuals who are subject to varying pressures from society. These individuals have no resource to fall back on to alleviate these internal pressures.

I believe Rajneesh to be an outstanding world authority on the causes of and remedies for violence.

Yours faithfully
[signed]
Michael J. Kidd
Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.


(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.)