Testimonial letter from RC Gordon-McCutchan

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 RC Gordon-McCutchan. It is "Exhibit A-21" 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.

July 23, 1983 To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked by followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to provide a statement about him as a spiritual leader. This I am happy to do and I believe that my qualifications make me suited to the task. I have a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Colorado; an M.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in philosophy of religion; and a Ph.D. from Princeton University in the history of religion. My academic speciality is american religious history. I have published numerous articles on various aspects of religious life in America. I am especially well acquainted with new religious movements and the legal implications thereof. For the past four years I have taught american religious history at U.C.S.B. By any criteria, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is one of the most important spiritual teachers in America today. His followers number in the tens of thousands—and they look to him as the embodiment of wisdom. He has developed programs for self-transformation that are as ingenious as they are various. He has published more than twenty books which develop and explain the ancient wisdom of tantra yoga. He has delivered hundreds of lectures, many of which have been transcribed and published. He has gathered around himself a community in Oregon that exemplifies the spirit of his religious movement. Rajneesh and his followers deserve the full protection of the law and constitution. [signed] R.C. Gordon-McCutchan, Ph.D.

(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.)