Testimonial letter from Peter Den Haring
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 Peter Den Haring. It is "Exhibit A-1223" 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.
 2511 AP Gortstraat 1a TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I met Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in January, 1979, when one of Holland’s largest morning newspapers, ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD, send me as a feature reporter to the ashram in Poona, India to write an inside report about his teachings, the work in the ashram and the therapy programs that were conducted there. Apart from a small earlier article in my weekly page, I had two large research articles published by the newspaper with a convincing general conclusion: "Bhagwan is an extraordinary teacher, a psychologist of great insight and his school is worth a visit for everyone who is interested in personal growth!" I was born in 1946, graduated at N.O.I.B. University, Breu elen, Holland with a degree in Business Administration and Foreign Diplomacy. I worked many years as a P.R. officer, journalist and youthworker. Since 1975, I am an advisor to the Dutch government for Drug Addiction Problems and Youthwork. I now also work as a supervisor and trainer for youthworkers. This year I wrote two books on social work and youthwork, entitled: "Societeiten Spoorboekje" and "Praktykboek voor Jongerenwerk", both published by LAST, a semi-governmental organization. I feel very grateful to Bhagwan for his teachings. In my professional training programs for youth workers, I use various techniques for body relaxation and self-understanding that are developed by him. In my district (West Holland) I know twelve youthworkers classified by the government who are Rajneeshees and who also work with these same techniques with young drug addicts and young criminals. In my last book, I explained some of Bhagwan’s theories on human relations since they also apply very adequately to welfare work. This book is now used at all Dutch schools for future youthworkers and social workers. In my opinion, the Dutch government feels very liberal about Rajneeshism, allows all Rajneeshees meditation and therapy projects and creates no problems whatsoever for individual Rajneeshees. I sincerely hope this letter will contribute to a better understanding of Bhagwan as an immensely valuable philosopher and teacher. Yours truly, |
(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.)
