Testimonial letter from Vasanto L. Crawford
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 Vasanto L. Crawford. It is "Exhibit A-1557" 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.
 2613 Mackenzie St. To whom it may concern: I am a faculty member of the University of British Columbia and of the Vancouver General Hospital. My field is nutrition, with a special interest in fitness and stress-reduction. I am writing to you concerning the immigration status of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and to support his continued stay in the United States. This man has attracted admiration and respect from all parts of the world, not only for the brilliance and beauty of his writings, but also for his ability to help people outgrow their limitations - jealousy, greed, violence. The community growing in Oregon is a miracle in this stress-filled world: a place where people are living together in harmony, productivity and joy. Rajneesh has a unique ability to inspire alternative life styles which will be a model for man's future development in a most positive way. I sincerely hope that he will be allowed to remain in the United States. 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.)
