Testimonial letter from Samuel E. Press
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 Samuel E. Press MD. It is "Exhibit A-265" 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.
 PRACTICE LIMITED TO PSYCHIATRY Dear Sirs: I am writing to endorse Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh as a man of exceptional abilities in the Arts and Sciences, a teacher of great renown, and a valuable asset to America. I am a board certified psychiatrist in private practice in Albany, New York and am affiliated with the Albany Medical Center Department of Psychiatry. My background includes: University of Maryland, B.S. in Psychology, 1962; University of Maryland, School of Medicine, MD, 1966; Kaiser Foundation Hospital Internship, 1967; Menninger School of Psychiatry, Residency completed 1970; Major, U. S. Army and Chief of Psychiatry, Irwin Army Hospital, 1970-1972; Psychiatrist, Albany Veterans Hospital, 1973-1974; Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albany Medical College, 1976-1978; Psychiatrist, Capital District Psychiatric Center, 1974-1978; Private Practice, 1978 to present. I have learned about Rajneesh and his teachings over the last several years through personal association with several of his followers, meditation tapes, lecture tapes, and reading his books. Rajneesh demonstrates a capacity to brilliantly utilize the wisdom of Indian philosophy, religion, and psychology and to meld these teachings with modern psychological methods developed mostly in the United States. While his teachings and methods are clearly not palatable to everyone, he is unique among the Indian masters in incorporating western psychology and developing techniques which enrich people's lives and health. In many areas, his teachings demonstrate an understanding of the human condition in a way which surpasses most of the schools of thought I learned about in psychiatric training at Menningers. I am not a member of the religious group headed by Rajneesh and am not an innitiate of his. It is my opinion that his presence is an asset to America, based on his exceptional abilities in the Arts and Sciences and his astounding capacity as a teacher. Sincerely yours, |
(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.)
