Testimonial letter from Peter Didcott

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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 Peter Didcott. It is "Exhibit A-194" 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.

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Department of Social Administration
ADAM FERGUSON BUILDING, GEORGE SQUARE, EDINBURGH EH8 9LL
031-667 1011 ext
19th July 1983.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

RE: BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH

I am a qualified and professionally recognised social scientist with an Honours degree and a post-graduate qualification from the University of Cambridge, England, and am presently employed as a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, through a government research grant.

I am 45 years old and have been engaged in social sciences research most of my professional career: I worked for 7 years as a Principal Research Officer in the British civil service where I headed a Research Board which provided an advisory service to government in the field of crime and social problems. Prior to that I was at the University of London, where I worked for 7 years as a Research Associate at the Survey Research Centre of the London School of Economics. I have also had research posts at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge and in the British Government’s forensic science service. I have, concurrently with the above, held teaching posts as lecturer and tutor at the University of London, Kingston upon Thames College of Technology and the Home Office Probation and After-Care Training Centre; and have for a number of years been a member of the teachers section of the British Sociological Association.

I have published various books and articles, among the most recent being Pretrial Bail and Custody in Scotland (HMSO) and The Management of Solvent Abuse (forthcoming); I was founder-editor of the HMSO Scottish Social Research Studies. I have given several radio and television appearances and press interviews in connection with my work.

I first came to know of Bhagwan through friends who introduced me to his meditation techniques and to his teachings in books and on tape. I was so impressed by what I heard and experienced that I subsequently visited his Ashram in Poona, India and spoke with him on several occasions, as well as listening to many of his discourses on various religious teachings.

Bhagwan, an Indian national, is without doubt a most exceptional person of outstanding abilities, and the international reputation which he enjoys as a spiritual leader and teacher is in my view well-merited. I can testify that in my own field of study, the social sciences, the creative insights he provides into human motivation and behaviour are immensely helpful to me and my colleagues in our work in a very direct way. We are able to use his teachings to adopt innovatory approaches to data, thereby deriving new insights into the analysis of human behaviour. I recently visited the City of Rajneeshpuram, where Bhagwan's teachings are put into practice, and my experiences there fully confirm my view that Bhagwan is, and continues to be, of exceptional ability as a teacher and guide in the field of human relations and behaviour.

I shall be glad to provide any further information needed.

[signed]
Peter Didcott,


(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.)