Where did the alleged last will of Osho appear?

 
As you probably already know, a legal dispute is in progress over the European Community trademark “Osho”. This began when Osho International Foundation (OIF) in Zurich registered this trademark in Europe, allegedly to protect the name Osho against abuse.

In response to this, Osho Lotus Commune e.V., operator of the Osho meditation centre in Cologne, then filed an application to cancel the trademark. This application was made on the grounds that the name Osho was and still is used to refer to Osho as a historical person and to his vision, and that it thus cannot be registered as a trademark.

In addition to this, if a single foundation were to hold the rights to the name “Osho” as a trademark this would make all Osho centres subject to the control of OIF. This, in turn, would go against Osho’s original instruction that the centres should be legally independent and only spiritually affiliated with the Meditation Resort in Pune.

On the 8th of June 2013, OIF’s lawyers submitted a set of documents as part of the cancellation dispute proceedings. These documents included a sworn affidavit by Philip Tölkes (Swami Niren), who describes himself as OIF’s lawyer, and an alleged “last will and testament” of Osho dated October 15th, 1989. This submission was the first time that anyone had heard of the existence of such a document in the 23 years since Osho’s death.

It now looks as though this will is actually a forgery.

In the following sections we present further facts of this case and the documents that demonstrate this.