Testimonial letter from Wolfgang Karpa

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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 Dr. Wolfgang Karpa. It is "Exhibit A-191" 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.

Rajneeshpuram
July 11, 1983

To Whom It May Concern:

I studied in the University of Gottingen with Professor Blechchmidt, in the Medical School of Oxford with Sir George Pickering and in the University of Heidelberg with Professor Sehettler.

After my studies I took training for general and internal medicine in Berlin. After that I trained in a variety of psychotherapies, such as Bioenergetics with Alexander Lowen and Stanley Keleman, Hypnotherapy with Richard Shoulders and Unitive Psychology with Jacob Statman. About 9 years ago I came across Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s methods of meditation, which proved to give me the deepest and strongest experience of meditation. They gave me inner peace and clarity. After that I began to read books by Bhagwan which impressed me more than any books have done before. His insight into the human mind caused me to look deeply inside myself but also, His words helped me to understand my patients better. I was convinced that this man is a man of wisdom, probably unique in our age. I saw myself strongly confirmed in my wholistic view of medicine.

The therapeutic groups and the meditations in which I took part in Bhagwan's ashram in Poona, India, changed my life deeply. Afterwards I had the opportunity to work medically within communities of Bhagwan's disciples first in Poona and later in England. The most striking phenomena there was that the most typical diseases of modern civilization were practically absent; such as high blood pressure, myocardial infarction, stomach ulcers, migraines, etc. I suggested Bhagwan's meditations to patients in Europe, which helped them for both bodily symptoms as well as their mental state. Bhagwan’s unique approach to meditation is derived from his insight that relaxation and meditation can happen for modern man only after he has been thrown out of his tension.

Within Bhagwan's communities, psychotherapy, which is more and more needed in modern society, has become superfluous.

This approach to life, which is based on trust, on joy, meditation and awareness, makes them, in my opinion, to be the sanest people in the world.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Dr. Wolfgang Karpa
Meissnerweg
61 Darmstadt
WEST GERMANY


(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.)