Testimonial letter from Michael Lunt (?)
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 Lunt. It is "Exhibit A-1872" 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.
 Michael L(?) TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN This letter is to endorse the application of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to be allowed remain in the United States. I am forty-six years old, living singly after seventeen years of marriage. I have a son of sixteen years and a daughter of eighteen. Born and educated in England, I have lived and worked in Ireland since 1953. For the last fifteen years I have worked sucessfully as a free-lance design consultant. From 1968 to 1971 I taught design in the National College of Art. My clients are mostly large institutions, major Irish industrial companies and government agencies. My work has won many national design awards and some international recognition. My experience of the work of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh dates from 1979, and in my opinion he is the most significant religous teacher alive today. The Rajneesh movement is not an extreme, exotic or esoteric cult. He simply restates the message of Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha in the language of the twentieth century, his words are completly relevant to modern society, his understanding of what is going on in the world is equal to his knowledge of the great masters of the past. The media have depicted the Rajneesh movement in sensational terms and some of his therapies lend themselves to this treatment , however, I know from personal experience how this reporting actually misrepresents what is really going on which is to promote personal growth and action rooted in and motivated by love and compassion. That such a man is alive today and living in the United States is a cause for hope and celebration in a world more familiar with despair. [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.)
