Testimonial letter from Sw Deva Paritosh
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 Sw Deva Paritosh (J. Paul Campbell). It is "Exhibit A-12" 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 2 pages.
 July 14 1983 To Whom It May Concern: My name is J. Paul Campbell, also known as Swami Deva Paritosh, and I am 74 years old. For over six years, I was a Catholic monk in a Cistercian monastery in England. St. Benedict of the 6th Century and St. Bernard of the '11th Century were two famous monks associated with my religious order. As a former Catholic monk, who had taken a vow of silence, I am an expert in being able to state that the highest religious experience is that attained in silence. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whom I first experienced in 1974, is a Religious Teacher and Leader of the most exceptional nature. Throughout my entire life, I have had close friendships with Bishops, Priests, Abbots and Priors of the Catholic Church, yet only Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was truly an enlightened Master of the spiritual life, having realized God within Him. His present teachings in silence are enabling hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world to realize God within themselves. To be with Him in silence is one of the most profound experiences, as His love and His extraordinary wisdom radiates to all around Him. I am presently a member of the world renowned C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and have been practicing as a psychotherapist for over thirty years, being Director of the Davidson Clinic in Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland. From 1975-1981, I worked as ’ a counsellor at the Shree Rajneesh Ashram in Poona, India. Using Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ‘ s meditations and religious teachings, I led groups in Dreams, Creativity and Spontaneity and observed a most remarkable thing: that Bhagwan ’ s meditations and the use of his teachings enabled me to improve the psychological health of the group participants in an extremely short period. Conventional methods would have lengthened the process considerably. As a recognized expert in the field of Psychology, I can unequivocably state that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ’ s religious teachings have had the most dramatic and beneficial effect in Psychology since C.G. Jung, the world famous psychoanalyst, under whom I studied in Switzerland. The culture, wisdom and religion which Bhagwan will bring from the East to America cannot be evaluated in dollars — America is rich enough in material things. But from the marriage of Bhagwan with America, though she seems a strangely reluctant spouse, will emerge the New Man, the Whole Man, both material and spiritual, that the world needs, if the world, not just America, is to survive. Sincerely yours, J.Paul Campbell, LLB Diploma of Psychology |
(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.)
