Testimonial letter from Ted A Nordquist
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 Ted A Nordquist. It is "Exhibit A-32" 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.
 UPPSALA UNIVERSITET Rinzai Department To whom it may concern, The undersigned has for the past nine years researched 'new religious movements' as they have bden called within the scientific study of religion# As research assistant at the Department of the History of Religions, Uppsala University, the undersigned has conducted interviews with members of the Bhagwan Rajneesh Movement, studied their literature, read many of the books writen by Bhagwan Rajneesh, and observed center activity as part of a three-year project funded by the Swedish government. In addition, as member of the British Sociology of Religion Study Group, the undersigned has attended numerous conferences around the world including the World Congress of Sociology in Mexico City last summer, where our group discussed the 'new religions' in an international context. In view of what we know of the many alternative religious groups being founded in the West, the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh Movement is indeed one of the largest and most rapidly expanding group with the widest field of therapy related programs available today. As an 'Indian Guru' Rajneesh has been criticized by the anti-cult organizations and members by wearing red clothing and a 'mala' have been identified in many countries as 'cultists'. However, after a serious study of the movement, a knowledge of religious history and mysticism, a respect for human development in psychology, and an extensive experience of similar groups, the undersigned would like to state that the person of Bhagwan Rajneesh as reflected in his centers throughout the world and in his literature and books (from live taped talkes) must be considered exceptional. The mans ability in mysticism, religion and psychology cannot be denied. Whether or not one agrees with his methods is always open to question. I, for one, have fond no evidence of the sort that might support rejecting him as a truley religious man. Sincerely, |
(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.)
