Testimonial letter from Tudor Banus
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 Tudor Banus. It is "Exhibit A-1057" 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.
 Paris, July 17th. 1983 Dear Sir; I’m a professional Artist (Painter, drawer, illustrator and engraver. ) Since 1975 I’ve been an illustrator for major U.S. and foreign newspapers and magazines: The New York Times, Harper’s magazine, New york Magazine, Die Zeit, Le Monde, L’express, Figaro Magazine, among others. I’ve held exhibitions in Paris, New York, Geneva, Munich, Cologne, N"uremberg, Wien, etc... My books have been published by Abrams, Franklin Library, Simon and Schuster, etc... I don’t intend to brag, but just to make it clear that i’m no amateur, and i’m well acquainted with the specifical problems of artistic creation. Well, when I learnt that the Government of the U.S. was creating trouble around the permit to live and work in your country to the World renowned Master Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I thought at first there ought to be a mistake! Such an international celebrity not being welcomed into the most creative country of the world? I just couldn’t believe it! I came to know about this exceptional man through some friends of mine who are HiS disciples, and they introduced me to his countless books covering the entire range of human interests and activities. I found his conceptions about artistic creation most re freshing and inspiring, and the evolution of my work owe much to His vision about inspiration, spontaneity and authenticity. I understand that Bhagwan is himself a painter, and i've seen some of his Zen-style calligraphy, which I find most lively and fluid, one more of the many talents of this truly exceptional Being. Please don’t miss the opportunity of having Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh live and work as a spiritual Master in your country, for many people in France, among the cultural Intelligentsia, would not understand your refusal. I thank you for your attention and remain Sincerely yours [signed] |
(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.)
