Testimonial letter from William Winocur
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 Winocur. It is "Exhibit A-1867" 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.
 July 14, 1983 To whom it may concern, I have a master’s degree in engineering from UCLA and have also done graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Paris, France. My work in engineering took a back seat to my interest in medicine and health as a result of my becoming disabled from rheumatoid arthritis. Besides my own personal health exploration, I have taught in the Dept. of Physiology at UC Berkeley, been a speaker at medical seminars and published in the field of medical treatment. I came to know of Bhagwan Rajneesh through my five year involvement with his meditation group in Berkeley. I have found his philosophy and meditation techniques beneficial for my own growth and health management. I would even attribute some physical improvement in my condition to the use of his spiritual techniques. I see him as an exceptional person who can be of benefit to the country he resides in. While I feel close to Rajneesh and his disciples, I have never become a sannyasin myself. I have always appreciated the acceptance and support of his community despite my not wearing orange and becoming a swami. 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.)
