Testimonial letter from Thomas Sewell

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 Thomas Sewell. It is "Exhibit A-2167" 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.

SEWELL & WEBSTER 236 Main Street Venice California 90291 392-5721 399-5400 July 19, 1983 TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN I am Thomas Sewell. I am a successful property developer specializing in the renovation and restoration of old buildings in the Venice, California area. My largest and most successful project to date is the Main Street Design Center-a 20,000 sq. ft. building that sits on 40,000 sq.ft. of land on Main Street in Venice, California, 2 blocks from the sea. It is leased to approximately 25 different business’. Mostly people in the area of architechture, design, films and advertising. We also have a fine yoga studio. I first became familiar with BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH through his book "If The Shoe fits". Subsequently I visited the Ashram in Poona while on a trip around the world in 1981. I spent 7 wonderful days there. I’m looking forward to spending time with him in Oregon. I sincerely hope he will be able to stay in this country. I am quite impressed with his work in this country. Sincerely, [signed] Thomas Sewell

(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.)