Testimonial letter from Ottfried R. Weise

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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 Dr. Ottfried R. Weise. It is "Exhibit A-561" 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.

GEOGRAPHISCHES INSTITUT
JUSTUS LIEBIG-UNIVERSITÄT
GIESSEN
PROF. DR. OTFRIED R. WEISE
D-6300 GIESSEN, 19 July 1983
Senckenbergstraße 1
Neues Schloß
Tel 0641/702-8203
702-8207

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I am a professor of physical geography and geo-ecology. I worked in these fields as a scientist and academic teacher for twenty years, the outcome of which are numerous publications - articles and books, among them a university textbook.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh has been known to me since 1978 through his books, lectures and also personally. The contact has been established during my numerous research visits to Middle and Far Eastern countries, during which I did field work on ecological problems, such as land use, over-grazing, soil erosion, etc.

I recognized Bhagwan as a person with outstanding abilities presenting a totally new concept to solve the current problems of mankind. This applies to many fields and is true to my own subject of ecological research and teaching.

The experiment of Rajneeshpuram is a concept of communal living and a way to deal with nature and resources that will be the dominant guideline for the future. The fact that many ordinary conservative people oppose the enterprise shows that it is new and risky. Only a genius like Bhagwan with his clear vision can be the inspiration behind a project of this quality and size. As a long-term university teacher I must also say that his abilities of teaching people are beyond anything known so far.

It is obvious that the USA is the place in the world where Bhagwan can do his work under optimal conditions, because it is the most developed country on the earth.

[signed]
Prof.Dr.Ottfried R. Weise


(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.)