Testimonial letter from William Brunson
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 William Brunson. It is "Exhibit A-591" 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.
 FYLKINGEN To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to testify to the exceptional ability of the religious teacher and spiritual leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. An American citizen currently residing in Sweden, I am by profession a composer, especially of electronic music. My works have been performed in the United States, nearly all of Western Europe, Japan and Australia. This includes broadcasts by National Public Radio, European Broadcasting Union, Radio Sweden and the Australian radio networks. Two of my pieces, Tapestry I (1975) and Tapestry II (1981) have been released commercially on Folkways Records (NYC) and Fylkingen Records (Sweden), respectively. I moved to Sweden in 1980. Since then I have contributed numerous articles on music to Dagens Nyheter (Sweden's largest morning daily newspaper) and Nutida Musik (Radio Sweden's publication for contemporary music). In addition to composing, I teach electronic music at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm and hold the producer’s position at Fylkingen (a fifty year old concert society for new music). I have received the following awards: James B. Reynolds Scholarship for Study Abroad ( 1975, electronic music, from Dartmouth College), STIM (Swedish Composer’s International Music Bureau) Work Stipend (1981,1983) and Artist's Stipend (1982) from the Swedish National Arts Council. At present I am a member of STIM, The Swedish Composer's Union and the editorial board of Nutida Musik. I hold a Bachelor of Arts (1975) degree, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College and after the impending completion of an orchestral work, a Master of Arts degree in music composition from Columbia University in New York. My introduction to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh came through one of his many books which I chanced to read while a graduate student at Columbia University in 1978. My initial response to The Book of the Secrets, Vol. I was an admixture of curiosity, intense excitement, deep wonder and a miid,but delightful confusion. Thereafter I began to search both for other books by Rajneesh and his disciples. These I located after some time at Satgit Rajneesh Meditation Center in New York City. Upon moving to Sweden, my wife-to-be who had also encoutnered Rajneesh introduced me to the local center, Deeva, under which auspices I made further contact with sannyasins and Rajneesh meditations and therapy groups. Although I have not personally met Rajneesh and am not a sannyasin, I have through his disciples, his books, recorded talks and film fostered a deep respect and love for the man. His meditations and spiritual teachings have penetrated nearly every level of my personal and professional life. This alone is, in my eyes, sufficient proof of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh' exceptional capabilties. Rajneesh is neither a musician nor a composer in the strict professional sensed but the points of contact between his religious teachings and music are numerous. Many of the meditation techniques developed by Rajneesh as well as other traditional methods which he discusses utilize music in specific and sound in genera! as a means to acheiving greater sensitivity, higher awareness and therby greater personal well-being. Artists cross daily the borders between the consiousness and the subconsciousness. Indeed much of artistic expression is contingent upon self-knowledge and the ability to ensnare nearly subliminal creative impulses from the surface of the subconsciousness for conscious application in the more objective, realization phase of a work of art. Through meditation this sensitivity is developed and enhanced. It follows that the quality of artistic ideas deepens and their mode of execution improves. To this I can personally attest. Art as a whole is an inward search for spiritual truth just as science is research in the material world for physical truths. Art and Science are, in reality, two complementary facets of the human consciousness and together form a double-edged spiral inwards and outwards. Rajneesh' remarkable accomplishment is precisely that he transforms individuals from the inside out. His realm is that of the human consciousness. His media are his books, recorded talks, video tapes, his sannyasins and, above all, his living presence. A factual assessment of Rajneesh's religious work is, however, a sheer impossibility since such an endeavour would entail the summation of both the individual and collective work of all those who have taken his message to heart. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is most certainly a man of exceptional ability. It is my profound wish that he be granted the legal right to remain in the United States. Yours 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.)
