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23. Your CI entry on Wikipedia and Sathya Sai Baba is said to break new ground in the response to cult harassment. It is evident that you have never been a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, and that the attack on yourself from within his sect has serious implications for non-participants. Can you comment further upon the wider issues posed by this sectarian movement?
CONTENTS KEY
23.1 Claims and Purported Miracles Contested
The elaborate hagiology created by Sathya Sai Baba has been very influential amongst the credulous. His promotionalism has relied heavily upon the image of the miracleworker, a factor reflected in numerous devotional works. A major (and canonical) biography is Narayan Kasturi, Sathyam Sivam Sundaram: The Life of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba (4 vols, 1961-80). The tone is strongly devotional and eulogistic. Kasturi was one of the sources uncritically drawn upon in Howard Murphet, Sai Baba: Man of Miracles (1971), a work evocative of the preferred partisan projection, and which was influential amongst Westerners who took this format at face value.
More realistically, Professor Lawrence A. Babb contributed an analysis of the problem in his paper “Sathya Sai Baba’s Miracles” in T.N. Madan, ed., Religion in India (1992), which I covered in my Investigating the Sai Baba Movement (2005), pp. 163-5 note 2. Professor Babb was careful to draw upon the multi-volume work Sathya Sai Speaks, which he treats critically, having evident reservations about the ideology expressed. Ex-devotees have revealed that canonical work to contain numerous errors. Translators are reported to have frequently removed mistakes in the problematic discourses of the guru, though even the final edited version can be faulted in many places.
One of the major critical commentators on the corpus of Sathya Sai is the ex-devotee Brian Steel. His website has also furnished penetrating analyses of matters such as miracles and the reincarnation claim. See especially Brian Steel, “Claim to be the Reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba” at http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/Shirdiessay.htm. That claim is very much open to repudiation, especially as it is so obvious that this recourse produced fame for the claimant at an early stage in his career. See 23.4 below. A recent contribution is Steel, “Sathya Sai Baba’s Questionable Stories and Claims” at http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/storiesclaims08.htm. This makes many references to the edited discourses in Sathya Sai Speaks, and the conclusion is expressed that the subject is not omniscient (contrary to his claim). Steel instead describes Sathya Sai as a charismatic guru “who offers eclectic (Hindu-based) spiritual teachings and promotes universal harmony and charitable works achieved by devotees’ efforts or donations.”
Brian Steel has also provided a valuable documentary source in his An Annotated Bibliography for Research on Sathya Sai Baba, in Three Parts. For this quite lengthy priority, go to http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/sbresearchbib1.htm, and the similarly detailed accompaniments. Steel himself formerly wrote a hagiography entitled The Powers of Sathya Sai Baba (1999), which he now describes as “thoroughly over-enthusiastic and unquestioning.” That verdict can be located in Part 3 of the Bibliography. In that section can also be found Brian Steel’s assessment of the canonical biography by Kasturi (mentioned above), and in terms of “the first detailed hagiographical and eulogistic account of Sathya Sai Baba’s early life and his mission until the late 1970s by his close Indian devotee.” Steel informs that Kasturi retired from academic life in 1954 and stayed at the Puttaparthi ashram until his death in 1987.
The investigations of the parapsychologist Erlendur Haraldsson proved misleading. He contributed a well known book ‘Miracles are My Visiting Cards.’ An Investigative Report on the Psychic Phenomena Associated with Sathya Sai Baba (1987; new edn, 1997). This work also gained the title of Modern Miracles in the American edition. Haraldsson was enthusiastic about investigating diverse miracle stories, and questioned various persons in relation to these. The assessment of Brian Steel is duly critical, and includes the observation that the Haraldsson version “is often erroneously regarded and quoted by devotees as a scientific endorsement of Sathya Sai Baba’s materialisations.” (See Part 3, and also Part 1, of the Steel bibliography). In reality, we are here discussing a description of beliefs about miracles. Dr. Haraldsson made eight visits to India during the years 1973-1983, and could not prove anything. He could only relate what he was told by informants.
The Indian critic Basava Premanand (23.7 below) was in controversy with Dr. Haraldsson about certain aspects of the latter’s report. The relevant correspondence of the late 1980s was reproduced in early issues of Premanand’s journal Indian Skeptic. A Canadian academic, Dr. Dale Beyerstein, became interested in this argument and tended to side with Premanand, finding the Haraldsson argument too condoning in relation to the guru. A few years later, Premanand published in India an investigation of the same subject by Beyerstein (Sai Baba’s Miracles: An Overview, 1994).
Dr. Beyerstein adopted a much more critical standpoint than Dr. Haraldsson and his associate Karlis Osis. The Beyerstein book was reproduced on the internet, and became the nucleus for further critical comments, including those made on the basis of personal observations. The ex-devotees David and Faye Bailey gave one of the most well known firsthand insights about sleight of hand in their internet document The Findings (2000), which gained widespread coverage (e.g., Shepherd, Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, 2005, pp. 274ff.).
The purported “materialisations” of Sathya Sai Baba have thus been exposed as cheap tricks utilising sleight of hand, a habit which he cultivated from his early years in an obvious attempt to gain adulation. The element of deception is pronounced. Yet his ashram at Puttaparthi, emerging in the 1950s (and known as Prashanthi Nilayam), has been in receipt of very substantial funds. The fate of diverse fundings has been a further cause for critical reactions.
A prominent aspect of Sathya Sai miracle claims is the lore surrounding lingams, meaning iconic objects associated with Shiva. In 1951 the guru “materialised” a Shiva lingam on the occasion known in the Hindu calendar as Mahashivaratri. This spectacle became an annual event at the Puttaparthi ashram. These public “materialisations” associated with the Shiva festival ceased in 1978, but resumed in 1999, coinciding with the unease at the ashram about pending allegations against the guru from ex-devotees. The subsequent manifestations of this annual event were attended by strong critical appraisals. The Mahashivaratri performances of 2002 and 2004 occurred in front of BBC cameras, and the relevant footage was appended to The Secret Swami documentary of 2004. Brian Steel informs:
“Videos of the highly dramatic event (including some on YouTube) have tended to support the long standing accusation by B. Premanand and other magicians and critics that the lingam production is the result of regurgitation (in the old days) and legerdemain (recently) rather than the claimed Shiva powers.” See Steel “Sathya Sai Baba: Questionable Stories and Claims Part 2” at http://briansteel.wordpress.com. The entry is dated May 2008.
23.2 David Bailey and The Findings
The document known as The Findings was contributed by David Bailey, a British ex-devotee strongly disillusioned by what he had discovered at the Puttaparthi ashram of Sathya Sai Baba. He was a concert pianist from Llandudno, and since 1994 he had been in the habit of visiting the ashram three or four times a year. He performed a role as music teacher to the students at the Sathya Sai College. Over four years, Bailey gained more than a hundred interviews with the guru. Participating in the devotional enthusiasm, he edited a magazine with his wife Faye for the purpose of spreading the teaching of Sathya Sai. Yet Bailey was subject to increasing doubts at what he learned during this period. There were too many discrepancies, and the result was a 46-page report on misdemeanours.
The Findings achieved recognition on the internet in 2000. Bailey had concluded that the purported “miracles” were no more than cheap conjuring tricks, and that the much proclaimed healings of the guru were a myth. Furthermore, he now portrayed the guru as a charlatan with dissolute tendencies to sexual abuse, here meaning homosexual abuse. The enthusiasm of Bailey had been shattered, and his wife had followed suit in the negative verdict.
Yet Faye Bailey had at first strongly resisted the critical viewpoint of her husband. It was only when she ceased her habit of gazing adoringly at the guru’s face that she began to see things differently. When she focused instead upon the hands of Sathya Sai, she was horrified to perceive that the “miracles” of materialising sacred ash, rings, watches, and trinkets amounted to the stealth achieved by sleight of hand. The Baileys recorded that these diverse objects were palmed or plucked from chair cushions. The sacred ash (vibhuti) was described as being derived from vibhuti tablets that the guru held between his fingers. The tablets were crushed in the adept hand, and this action produced the “materialisation.”
David Bailey discovered that the “materialised” jewellery comprised worthless trinkets. The guru told him that a ring “materialised” for him was a diamond ring of great commercial value. Bailey took this ring to a jeweller, who informed that the item was a typical “Sai Baba ring” of cheap manufacture. Bailey learned that these worthless rings were specially manufactured for Sathya Sai. The stones were valueless zircons.
In 1998 Bailey had ended his association with Sathya Sai after hearing disturbing reports from students at the Sathya Sai College where he taught. Some of these boys begged him to help them in their plight of being sexually abused by the guru. The vicitims feared for their personal safety if they disclosed the abuses, and were scared to inform their parents, who were indoctrinated devotees of the guru. Bailey now felt a special obligation to counter the propaganda he had formerly been assisting so committedly. He began to assemble a dossier that included verbatim reports of abuse from ex-devotees in various countries.
His disenchanted wife Faye Bailey now described Sathya Sai Baba in terms of “his chicanery, illusion, fraud, embezzlement, implication with murders, ongoing paedophile activities, and the almost impenetrable fortress of lies creating his ‘divinity.’”
The guru had encouraged his reputation for a simple diet. Bailey discovered that the evening meal of Sathya Sai consisted of six to eight different dishes that were prepared for him every night. The appearance did not match the reality. The Baileys learned that many other people had encountered the same underlying problem in relation to the Puttaparthi ashram. During their worldwide travels to Sathya Sai devotee centres, the Baileys found that “after almost every meeting people would come to us asking for help because of the financial trickery they had experienced at the ashram.” The trickery did not stop at small amounts of money. Trusting devotees are reported to have given thousands of dollars per head for a living space at the ashram; they had not received any receipt for the money, and when they tried to retrieve their funds, they were told that there were no records of the transaction. Bailey became acutely embarrassed by his role as an evangelist for the cause that was revealing flaws.
David Bailey concluded that the humanitarian reputation cultivated by Sathya Sai was deceptive. For instance, he and many others had been led to believe that the schools and colleges at Puttaparthi and the Whitefield colony had been created to give free education. Bailey discovered that only the village school charged no fees, being run by the government like other village schools in India. The institutions of the guru charged fees, and Bailey specifies an annual figure of 20,000 rupees per child, plus extras if required. The college boys were enrolled from all over India, and the allegation is that many of them regretted the homosexual attentions they received from the guru.
The ashram was in receipt of extensive funds, and some devotees had been suspicious of the costly new buildings regularly appearing. The most famous of these buildings was the Super Speciality Hospital, though Bailey found fault with this, mentioning an unopened wing and bad sanitation. The Sai Baba Water Project also received criticism, this activity having arisen in order to create a new water supply for the ashram that replaced deficient well water. Yet The Findings aroused criticism from devotees mainly because of the focus on sexual abuse. Bailey reports that two prominent devotees who at first denied the allegations of sexual abuse subsequently made a revealing admission. They telephoned him to admit that they had known for years of these matters, “but he (Sathya Sai) is God, and God can do anything he likes.”
Bailey now discovered that the devotional mentality could justify any adverse factor. A wealthy Australian devotee even sent him an email which derisively claimed that Bailey was merely an instrument of the all-powerful will of Sathya Sai. Bailey was severely harassed by some defenders of the guru. Certain devotees are reported to have maliciously presented him as a paedophile who was condemned to jail. These agents of rabid contrivance even spread the story that he hanged himself in his jail cell (Shepherd, Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, 2005, pp. 293, 295). Bailey eventually chose to retreat into obscurity, wishing only to escape the persecution from dogmatic zealots. These events confirmed his conviction that he had joined one of the worst cults.
The Findings internet document inspired many other ex-devotees to express testimonies of how they been abused, defrauded, or otherwise wronged or deceived. A number of them were more resilient than Bailey and have maintained a strong internet presence in opposition to the guru.
23.3 Exodus from the Sect and the Reactionary Gerald Joe Moreno
Many Western devotees have left the Sathya Sai movement in a mood of strong disillusionment at the allegations of sexual abuse and economic manipulation which surfaced on the internet from the late 1990s onwards. Shattered illusions include the humanitarian idealism associated with the Sathya Sai Colleges and the project known as the Super Speciality Hospital. The slogan “Love All Serve All” now seems a mockery to the dissidents, many of whom generously donated funds to the Puttaparthi ashram in Andhra where the guru resided. The bedroom murders of 1993 were another factor causing perturbations.
An aggressive reaction to the noticeable exodus from the sect arose in America a few years ago. Associated with the alleged backing of Dr. Michael Goldstein, the internet campaign of Gerald Joe Moreno (see no. 22 above) is now increasingly viewed as conclusive evidence of the drawbacks occurring in zealous support for cult figures. Moreno (of New Mexico) opposes all critics of Sathya Sai Baba and adopts measures of strident defamation in response to the many allegations against the guru and due objections to his own output.
Moreno has launched other websites such as vishvarupa.com, though his primary website is saisathyasai.com, which exhibits the credo of “Exposing Critic’s Smear-Campaigns Against Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.” This pro-Sai activist website is industrious in defending the guru, and items mentioned below can be found there. Moreno continually tries to find fault with the output of ex-devotees, as in his item The Findings, which is pitched against David Bailey. See 23.2 above. His contribution The John Hislop Letters questions the authenticity of certain documents relating to an early claim of sexual abuse in the American sector. However, the counter of Dr. Timothy Conway is more convincing to non-sectarian analysts. See 23.10 below. Moreno’s attempt to cast doubt on the Hislop letters includes the accusation of “more lies from Anti-Sai’s” (accessed 17/07/2008). The tendency to cliché on the part of Moreno does not prove that he is justified in his extremist defence of the guru. His related item Witnesses attempts to negate the relevance of testimonies to sexual abuse, and refers to the reports involved as mere stories. There is here a marked difference to ex-devotee versions of the testimonies. Again see 23.10 below.
Moreno’s resentment of ex-devotee activity on the internet may be gauged from such items as Pervasive Anti-Sai Websites, which comprises a long list of online opposition features. This inventory is entitled “Assessing the Extent of the Pervasive Online Propaganda against Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.” Spectators view the extent of opposition as being impressive rather than any proof of contrivance. A related item is Anti-Sai Activists, which exhibits a list of ex-devotees and critics accompanied by links to critiques and hostile portrayals of them by Joe Moreno. The Moreno dismissal entitled Bogus Sai Petition has similarly aroused resistance from ex-devotees, who are continually presented as agents of deceit. They maintain that Moreno habitually attempts to justify his arguments by lacerating rivals and critics in a manner injurious to context.
Moreno has also reiterated a defensive theme that Sathya Sai has never been proven a charlatan, and has never been convicted of any crime. The same wording occurs on different web items, and includes the refrain that no alleged victim has lodged a complaint against the guru in India, “where courts would have jurisdiction over Baba as an individual defendant” (accessed July 2008). That statement was included in the item Kevin Shepherd – Citizen Initiative: In Conclusion, which basically comprised the defensive theme plus a few clichés relating to “frenzied Anti-Sai speculations and conspiracy theories.”
Ex-devotees continue to counter the pro-Sai defensive attitude, pointing out the situation of suppression at legal and political levels in India, a situation facilitated by socially prominent devotees and sympathisers. The negligible prospect for victims in Indian courts has been stressed, and their psychological situation of fear about victimisation has also been emphasised. Such a prominent Indian critic as Basava Premanand discovered more than once how resistant the Indian legal system is to complaints against Sathya Sai Baba. See 23.7 below.
It was discovered that a complaint about sexual abuse could not get far in the American legal system due to obstructing factors created by pro-Sai defenders. The Moreno item Alaya Rahm’s Failed Lawsuit has been viewed by ex-devotees as a substantial distortion of a legal case mounted in 2006. Alaya Rahm was an American testifier to sexual abuse who was profiled by the BBC two years earlier, and this salience made him a target of Moreno. See 23.6 below.
The misrepresentations by Joe Moreno of opponents are notorious, and supplemented by attack blogs and other web features. For instance, he has libelled the academic ex-devotee Robert Priddy as a drug enthusiast, and contrived a story that ex-devotee Barry Pittard was a paedophile (see 22.10 above). Moreno and a close colleague (both banned from Wikipedia) are strongly associated by ex-devotees with the extremist tactic of placing details of resented critics on porn sites. Moreno has countered by saying that the porn site tactic cannot be proven against him. Yet his general response to allegations and criticisms is strongly denunciatory, and has been considered an obsessive outcome of sectarian beliefs. It is easy to credit the ex-devotee complaint that Moreno web output amounts to a contrived diversion from the dire allegations against Sathya Sai Baba. See, for example, “Personal libel as an attempt to avert serious criticism,” 19th March 2008, at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com.
The accusations of Joe Moreno about “racism” and “hate” have been amongst the most discrepant features of his campaign against ex-devotees. Many of them were followers of Sathya Sai Baba for many years, giving their time and money all too generously. They fit a wide variety of temperaments, and have not shared the same approach. In some cases, temperate speech has been marred by some more colloquial idioms, typical of the genre associated with inferior blogs. Yet on the whole, this is a very significant phenomenon of dissident protest that is rarely found to such a degree of coherence and commitment.
The extremist sectarian has gained high Google ratings due to such factors as backlinks with sectarian Sathya Sai websites, but this ascendancy is no indication of accuracy or prowess. See 22.21 above. Moreno adopts an abrasive tit for tat approach, evidently believing that if ex-devotees criticise the guru for abuse, this must mean that they are perverts themselves. His fervour is quite bizarre in this respect. Critics of the guru are diversely stigmatised as racists, perverts, and fanatics. Victims respond that pro-Sai fundamentalism is easily discerned as possessing a fanatical component.
The pro-Sai activist does not stop at attacking ex-devotees. He has also targeted the BBC for their documentary The Secret Swami (2004), and likewise prominent journalists who have duly commented on the Sathya Sai issue. Moreno has reviled Paul Lewis of The Guardian newspaper on account of a very relevant article detailing certain events in Britain (that article is covered in Part Four of the Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia webpage on the Citizen Initiative website). See 22.7 above. Moreno continually argues that incidents of sexual abuse are unconfirmed, but that is a misleading tactic, especially when attended by accusations of unreliability amounting to lies. See 23.10 below for the many allegations of sexual abuse.
The BBC documentary of 2004 profiled various entities on both sides of the Sathya Sai controversy, eliciting their reactions to basic issues. Two claimants to sexual abuse (Alaya Rahm and Mark Roche) were in evidence, and also the major Indian critic Basava Premanand. Amongst supporters of the guru here featured were the elusive Dr. Michael Goldstein (filmed on hidden camera) and the wealthy American devotee Isaac Tigrett. A long-term supporter, Tigrett expressed his belief that the allegations of sexual abuse are true, but that this factor made no difference to his faith in the guru. Moreover, Tigrett remarked that even if Sathya Sai were to murder a person, this would not alter his regard for the guru. One ex-devotee has described such a condoning attitude as a form of derangement affecting long-term devotees (Shepherd, Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, 2005, p. 298).
The abrasive polemic of Joe Moreno has accused critics and objectors of expressing tabloid tendencies. This is part of his standard attack repertoire. Analysis of Moreno idioms is pertinent. The rather flippant vocabulary of this sectarian crusader includes such refrains as “Enough said.” The best journalists do not use such expressions, and could never rely upon sectarian blog standards of abbreviation in their own careers. Critics say that Joe Moreno has a pronounced habit of not saying enough in due perspective, as a consequence of his very emphatic career in pro-Sai activism.
Tabloidal Moreno has also favoured the accusation of a gutter agenda, the word “gutter” being associated with a statement of Sathya Sai Baba, who described allegations made against him in terms of “people in the gutter.” The defensive jargon becomes markedly on the attack at Moreno’s primary website saisathyasai.com. This format of pro-Sai activism is considered very misleading by those familiar with the opposition output. The attempt to make allegations look baseless is reassuring to devotees, but others say that the Moreno project fails at such an elementary hurdle as the sleight of hand “miracles” exposed elsewhere.
23.4 Shirdi Sai Baba and Dr. Marianne Warren’s Rejection of Sathya Sai
A proficient scholar of Indian religion seceded from the movement when she grasped the nature of events surrounding Sathya Sai Baba (born 1926 or after). The late Dr. Marianne Warren, of Toronto University, is noted for research on Shirdi Sai Baba (d.1918). She was a devotee of Sathya Sai for some years until news spread of the abuses and anomalies at the Puttaparthi ashram. She felt rather sore about having glorified Sathya Sai in her book on Shirdi Sai entitled Unravelling the Enigma: Shirdi Sai Baba in the Light of Sufism (1999). She produced a revised edition of that work, and also planned a further book to assist in the exposure of Sathya Sai, whom she now considered an opportunist for claiming to be the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai. Dr. Warren died in 2004 before her new project could come to fruition. See Part One of the Citizen Initiative webpage Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia. See also the details at www.saibaba-x.org.uk/7/W/index.htm.
The reincarnation claim has been a major issue amongst devotees of Shirdi Sai, who comprise a completely separate movement in a different area of India (Maharashtra as distinct from Andhra). In so many features of his lifestyle, the faqir Shirdi Sai did not resemble his putative successor.
l to r: Shirdi Sai Baba, Sathya Sai Baba
Sai Baba of Shirdi is now frequently known as Shirdi Sai Baba in order to differentiate him from Sathya Sai. The very ascetic Shirdi Sai lived in a ramshackle rural mosque at Shirdi (in Maharashtra), and daily begged his food until the end of his life. He was a liberal Muslim faqir, not a Hindu sadhu or sannyasin. His familiarity with Islamic speech and customs is strongly traceable in the extant sources, which include a significant notebook from the pen of a Muslim disciple. That Urdu notebook was detailed by Dr. Warren for the first time. The Islamic significances were also confirmed by her commendable familiarity with the Marathi original of Shri Sai Satcharita, a work by the influential Hindu devotee known as Hemadpant (Govindrao Dabholkar), who has frequently been read in an English adaptation by Nagesh V. Gunaji that is resistant to Muslim factors. The Gunaji adaptation was published in 1944, and has gained many reprints.
The current Wikipedia article (accessed 09/07/2008) on Shirdi Sai is basically a Hinduizing account, and one which advocates the Gunaji adaptation for further reading, even while omitting reference to some more recent publications (though not the Warren book). Furthermore, an online presentation of the Gunaji adaptation is proffered by Wikipedia, a factor quite sufficient to mislead readers who are unversed in the overall context of the Shirdi Sai Baba phenomenon.
The Islamic orientation of Shirdi Sai extended to his performance of the sacrificial ritual known as takkya, which involved the slaughter of a goat. That ritual was abhorrent to high caste Hindus, who preferred to create the legend that Shirdi Sai was a vegetarian. The saint gained many Hindu devotees who formed the bulk of his following. He was not a religious insularist in any way. Hindus came to associate him with Vedanta, a theme which Dr. Warren penetrated as being misleading.
The same scholar felt obliged to emphasise at length the misleading nature of the Gunaji adaptation of Dabholkar abovementioned. Reproduced below are some of her very relevant observations on this subject:
“Gunaji frequently added sections of his own Hindu interpretation of the saint’s words and actions....the graphic description of the goat slaughter is completely missing from chapter 38 in the English adaptation, where Gunaji simply reports that Sai Baba made pulav with meat. Many of the secondary authors have made the mistake of assuming that Gunaji’s book is a direct verbatim English translation of Dabholkar’s work....a close line-by-line comparison between the two reveals that Gunaji was indeed very selective in his translations, deliberately omitting whole sections which he decided were not relevant. Many of these omitted sections include numerous specific references to Muslims, Muslim practices and Sufi precepts. Gunaji, like Dabholkar, was a Hindu with perhaps little knowledge, understanding or appreciation of the Muslim religion and the finer points of the Sufi tradition....he (Dabholkar) repeatedly acknowledged Sai Baba’s Muslim faqir status. Thus, for example, whenever Sai Baba spoke in Deccani Urdu [a Muslim language] he (Dabholkar) recorded it, albeit transcribing it into Marathi script. Gunaji, on the other hand, felt no such obligation and important points such as Sai Baba’s frequent use of Urdu words are completely lost in his English adaptation.” (Warren, Unravelling the Enigma, first edition, New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt Ltd, 1999, pp. 5-7).
The missing account of the Islamic goat sacrifice was replaced by Gunaji with an equivocal theme (in chapter 38) that “by drawing inferences or guessing in their own way some people said that Sai was a Brahmin, and some that he was a Moslem.” That is an instance of how the Muslim faqir became assimilated to the preferred role of a Hindu Vedantist who enjoyed elite social status as a member of the brahman(a) caste (the Sanskrit word brahman was generally corrupted in English as brahmin).
Dr. Warren acknowledged that the first writer to emphasise the Muslim Sufi significance of Shirdi Sai was myself, in the preliminary work Gurus Rediscovered (1986). Dr. Antonio Rigopoulos made an equivalent acknowledgment in his The Life and Teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi (1993). There were differences of emphasis between all three of the researchers mentioned, to some extent spotlighted by the treatment of Shirdi Sai in my sequel book Investigating the Sai Baba Movement (2005), Part One. However, the present writer was closer to the version of Dr. Warren, despite her deference to the miracle reports in devotional literature. Although devotees did strongly credit Shirdi Sai with miracles and related phenomena, these did not equate with the miracle stunts performed elsewhere. Shirdi Sai did not indulge in sleight of hand, but was believed to confer offspring and similar blessings. Such beliefs are widespread in India in relation to holy men.
The Muslim Sufi saint of Shirdi developed a habit in his last years of requesting money and then redistributing the funds before nightfall. At his death, he had no surplus funds, but just enough to cover his funeral expenses. He had no ashram and no bank account. Whatever his eccentricities, he remained true to his renunciate vocation.
The career of Sathya Sai was markedly different to that of the Shirdi saint. In 1943 (though officially 1940) the teenage Sathyanarayana Raju first made his controversial claim to be the reincarnated Shirdi Sai Baba. “I am Sai Baba.” He assumed the name of the deceased saint, whose fame was spreading; the namesake gained some wealthy patrons. At his Puttaparthi ashram in Andhra, the proclaimed successor adopted a much more comfortable (and opulent) lifestyle that did not involve begging. Sathya Sai Baba was not a Muslim faqir, but a Hindu swami. He gave daily darshans (audiences), and constantly emphasised his “materialisations” of holy ash, jewellery, and lingams that have been so much in dispute. See 23.1 above. His version of the Shirdi saint was very much in a Hindu mould, following the popular Hindu assimilation of the Muslim faqir.
The early claim of Sathya Sai to be the reincarnation of the Shirdi saint became a major reference point for his first followers, along with the supposed miracles that also drew attention. From the 1970s onwards, Sathya Sai gained many Western devotees who generally accepted the reincarnation claim without query. A book with which some of the new recruits were familiar was Arthur Osborne, The Incredible Sai Baba (1957), which is a version of the Shirdi saint. Osborne relied heavily upon the Hinduizing works of B.V. Narasimhaswami, which tended to hagiology (though relaying a number of relevant reports).
The hagiographical elements in the biography of Sathya Sai have been a cause for vexation. Claims concerning his divinity (or avatarhood) and his miracles are much in dispute, and have coloured sectarian accounts. The official biography is considered very unreliable by critics. Even the date of the guru’s birth has been questioned due to anomalies of reporting about his early years. The official date of his birth is 1926, while the official date of his “alleged Declaration of Mission” as the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai is 1940. Recent evidence has caused researcher Brian Steel to firmly opt for 1943 as the date for the declaration of identity with Shirdi Sai. I have accordingly followed suit above. Steel has also queried the official date of birth, and suggested that 1929 might be more accurate, though no certainty applies. The exact date of birth could easily have been forgotten in the remote village where Sathya Sai was born. See further Steel, “Fuzzy Dates in the Official Biography of Sathya Sai Baba: A Re-examination” (2008) at http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/ssbfuzzydates.htm.
Dr. Warren wrote a draft introduction to her proposed new book intended to expose Sathya Sai as a deceiver. That document included the following statements:
“Shirdi Sai Baba never anticipated any future incarnation of his own. Indeed, he intimated that he would have no physical successor.... The Maharashtrian saint (Shirdi Sai) does not appear to have been aware of a future triple avatar [expounded by Sathya Sai], and in fact he personally never described himself in these terms, although his Hindu devotees occasionally termed him an avatar, but more as a mark of their esteem than a literal designation.... This is but one of many discrepancies and anomalies between the extant literature on Shirdi (Sai) Baba and the way he is described by Sathya Sai Baba.
“Sathya Sai Baba goes further, claiming that Shirdi Baba was the incarnation of Shiva, that he himself is an incarnation of Shiva-Shakti and that Prema Sai, the third and future incarnation, would be Shakti alone. This would be a magnificent idea if it had fitted, but Shirdi Sai was a Muslim mystic who showed no awareness of his cosmic powers as Lord Shiva of the Hindu tradition. No wonder then that Sathya Sai Baba has emphasised the Hindu characteristics of Shirdi Sai Baba, bestowing on him a Hindu birth, and other Hindu features. One of the most glaring errors I discovered is that in a full-length painting of Sai Baba of Shirdi in the Prasanthi Nilayam mandir [at Puttaparthi ashram], he is depicted as wearing an orange full length robe. This is a colour that only Hindu sadhus would wear, but Sai Baba of Shirdi was a Muslim. Muslim faqirs would only ever wear white, and extant photographs of him (Shirdi Sai) confirm this to be true....
“As a result of all the investigations, research, allegations and revelations, I present this document as objectively as possible, as a warning to those who may discover the literature on Sathya Sai Baba and all the extraordinary claims, and are tempted to believe it.”
The testimony of disillusionment on the part of Dr. Warren is just one of the many in evidence on the web (though unusual for the scholarly associations involved). The most well known ex-devotee site is www.exbaba.com, which has numerous reports. See also www.saiguru.net. Yet there is a significant number of other websites conveying critical information about Sathya Sai Baba. When these dissident websites (and blogs) are consulted, the strongly contested sectarian dogma and hagiology is further seen to be a very inadequate rationale.
23.5 Gerald Joe Moreno And Ex-Devotees
A pocket of American pro-Sai activism has vehemently denied the relevance of dissident websites, which are depicted in negative terms. The main reason why critics do not take seriously the “last ditch stand” of Sathya Sai supporter Gerald Joe Moreno (23.3 above) is because reports of abuse by Sathya Sai Baba are too numerous and consistent to ignore. Investigators would not be justified in putting aside such reports to suit the convenience of sectarian exegetes. The preference of Moreno for anonymity has not improved his position outside the cult, and has aroused speculation as to possible reasons attendant upon his rather obscure background.
There is only one known photograph of the sectarian internet crusader, and that image he discarded from his web record a few years ago. See 22.15 above. His many blogs are often registered anonymously. He has resorted to many web pseudonyms such as Equalizer, vishvarupa108, and sheilawaring. (His Wikipedia pseudonym was SSS108, and this reflects a common screening habit amongst Wikipedia contributors.) Now banned from Wikipedia, his aggressive tactics and strident denial of allegations have evoked the conclusion that he is demonstrating a sectarian psychology that can make even Scientology propaganda seem reasonable by comparison.
Ex-devotees complain that the tactics of Gerald Joe Moreno are not limited to websites and blogs, and that he has pursued a subversive policy of mailing to all the email contacts he can find of the persons he is attacking, e.g., Conny Larsson, Barry Pittard, and Sanjay Dadlani. This email recourse was designed to stigmatise the victims.
The American sectarian has flagellated the prominent British ex-devotee Robert Priddy and his Australian counterpart Barry Pittard. These two rank amongst the most articulate ex-devotees, and each of them maintain a successful blog committed to the exposure of Sathya Sai Baba as a fraud. That is evidently why Moreno extends such depreciatory invective in their direction. Priddy was dismayed to find that Moreno announced the presence of his URL on a porn site. Pittard has recently complained that Moreno and his close associate Lisa De Witt are using accusations of “acting like racists” and “hate campaign” against his critique of Sathya Sai. The sectarian reaction caricatures the critique in terms of “hiss, spit and froth-at-the-mouth.” Criticism is not necessarily equivalent to hate or fanaticism, though pro-Sai rhetoric gives the impression of being in that respect what the opponents are accused of.
Racism is one of the depreciatory polemical tags that was complained about by Martin Alan Kazlev, an Australian critic who exposed on his website the Moreno depiction of ex-devotee “Anti-Sai Activists” as monsters of wrongdoing. Kazlev also proffered a more speculative psychological interpretation of Moreno that was strongly contested by the latter. Moreno has made Kazlev the subject of a pro-Sai attack blog.
The sectarian activist has run the full gamut of polemical inflections against critics. He upbraids those without academic credentials as being imposters of no consequence, though an academic like Priddy receives advanced castigatory treatment. Even the American ex-devotee Dr. Timothy Conway has been on the edged receiving end of sectarian disapproval. There is clearly no exception to vilification for Joe Moreno, except of course devotees like Dr. Michael Goldstein, the top official of the Sathya Sai Organisation who remains in the background while his foes are being contested and stigmatised.
The deceptive nature of the Moreno campaign has been emphasised by ex-devotees. Though claiming to be unconnected to the Sathya Sai Organisation, Moreno is revealed to be in close affinity with the official thrust of the sect. His backlinks derive ballast from many devotee websites, which evidently sanction (however indirectly) his campaign of harassment. Some critics believe that he has been secretly paid for his defamatory services by Dr. Goldstein, who is the presiding overseer for activities in the West. There is as yet no proof for the belief. Moreno lives in New Mexico, and Goldstein lives in California.
The ubiquitous and derisive salience of Moreno on Google Search name listings of ex-devotees and critics of Sathya Sai Baba has been revealed in detail. For a direct scan of Google Search listings, see the graphic contribution of the Australian commentator and ex-devotee Martin Alan Kazlev at www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/Moreno_google_disinformation.html. This makes the appropriate point that the infovandalism of Moreno has aggressively tyrannised and sandwiched the diverse contributions of others on Google Search. See further www.saibabaexpose.com/two-faced.html and also the rather more comprehensive inventory of sectarian defamation and harassment (applying to over fifty victims) which is arrayed at www.saibabaexpose.com/GeraldMoreno.html. Some aspects of the Moreno campaign have been interpreted in terms of negative Search Engine Optimisation, and this contention is an important factor to be assessed.
The lastmentioned webpage testifies to the acute attack policy evident in the Moreno repertory. “Moreno has posted on countless bulletin boards and web page or blog comments to make backlinks to all his sites in a massive campaign of persecution, harassment, and outright attempts at character assassination.... Most of his entries contain the same texts and links, or else recycle selections from his other pages, copying every single likely keyword from hundreds of serious web pages by his ‘victims’ to spread his libel and malicious slander.” The accuser also states that “the number of libels, untrue statements, misrepresentations and dirty tricks he (Moreno) employs are legion, especially against the ex-devotee Sanjay Dadlani.”
The case of Dadlani has shocked spectators. Forty-nine attacks on Dadlani are here documented, which include seventeen Google listings associated with porn sites. “Moreno has arranged for Sanjay Dadlani’s name to appear on numerous disgusting porn sites. Moreno conceals his identity here as elsewhere. But it is unquestionably Moreno at work here since he has previously done the same thing against Reinier Van Der Sandt.”
Both of these opponents (Dadlani and Van Der Sandt) have suffered distorted photographic images on Moreno postings, and relevant images have since been reproduced elsewhere. Those questionable images depicted Dadlani with female breasts and Van Der Sandt with an oversize nose (the latter is a critic of the guru who is closely associated with a major ex-devotee website). For the discrepant nose, go to www.saibabaexpose.com/libeller.html. The blatantly pornographic breasts imposed on Dadlani can be viewed at www.saibabaexpose.com/MorenoBlog.htm. Yet Joe Moreno continually denies any malpractice in his extremist campaign of defending Sathya Sai Baba. See also 22.6 above.
A related matter merits mention. Ex-devotees say that Moreno has also conspired against Robert Priddy (a retired academic of Oslo University) by having his website URL placed on a porn site. Moreno has denied this allegation, but has very unconvincingly argued that Priddy himself did the deed. Nobody outside the cult is likely to believe this. The only concession made by ex-devotees is that one of Moreno’s close activist colleagues may have done the foul deed, in which case Moreno would have been in full knowledge of the details when he advertised Priddy’s new porn site association. The fact that Priddy and Dadlani rank as the major opponents of Moreno is cause for due reflection on the reasons for the unsavoury porn site stigma, which is now widely regarded by ex-devotees as a cult tactic. The gravity of this situation is obvious to academic assessors. See also 22.5 above.
The Moreno strategy is said to have commenced in 2004. The ex-devotee (and linguist) Brian Steel has detailed the disconcerting career involved. Steel writes that the modus operandi of Joe Moreno was “to set himself up as prosecutor, judge and jury, and issue unappealable guilty verdicts (usually based on the flimsiest of evidence) on the writers of ALL criticisms of Sathya Sai Baba – indiscriminately – beginning with most of the extremely varied output of 5 years of publishing by www.exbaba.com. Two flaws in the campaigner’s method were visible from the outset: his refusal to consider any evidence which conflicted with his preordained verdicts and an evasion of the central divine claims issue [meaning the claims of Sathya Sai to be a God-man] – claims which he had admitted he did not endorse.
“Over the past three years, this propagandist has devoted considerable time and energy to his self-imposed mission, adapting techniques drawn from basic propaganda procedures, ‘spin’ tactics, demagogic talkback radio (talk radio), and low-level Internet discussion forums. He has been bombarding Internet surfers for over three years with hundreds of articles containing his idiosyncratic versions of the truth about Sathya Sai Baba.
“From his elaborate network of at least 14 interlinked websites and blogspots, this unofficial champion of Sathya Sai Baba is now able, like an electronic Jack-in-the-box, to pop up all over Search Engine results for ‘Sathya Sai Baba’ (or even ‘Sai Baba’) or for individual critics’ names, in an increasingly more strident and dictatorial attempt to impose these biased opinions on Internet users curious to know the facts of this growing controversy. As he (Moreno) concentrates more and more on the messengers (i.e., the critics) rather than the inconvenient messages, the activist’s intemperate language and strong personal denigration and defamatory statements have escalated, in an Internet system which has proved incapable of dealing with such deliberate abuse.”
Brian Steel continues on this deeply problematic subject:
“During the three years of Joe/Gerald’s voluminous output of propaganda aimed, unrealistically, at exposing the ‘errors, lies, deceit and smears’ of all of Sathya Sai Baba’s critics (rationalists, ex-devotees, journalists, scholars and other commentators), some of his victims have – not unnaturally – protested against his crude bullying and disparagement. Such unwelcome reactions have merely provoked fresh diatribes....Boosted by his tireless Search Engine Optimization activities, Moreno has engineered a high Internet profile to project his own extensive ‘smear campaign’ with its egregious deceit and dishonesty....
“When readers and researchers pause to take note of Moreno’s preference for intemperate language and ad hominem tactics and realise that many of his triumphant boasts and dogmatic ‘refutations’ of criticisms are misleading, unfounded or malicious, they may feel curious – ‘No smoke without fire’ – to look more closely at the object of Moreno’s ranting: any detailed criticisms and allegations directed at Sathya Sai Baba and the Sathya Sai Organisation.
“Already Moreno’s reckless behaviour has earned him public condemnation on the Internet for one high profile but minor part of his extensive campaign. Thanks to his highly aggressive attempt to dictate to Wikipedia contributors what should and should not be included in their article on Sathya Sai Baba, the propagandist has received a significant official rebuff from that prominent Internet institution. After months of Moreno’s abrasive demands and provocative filibustering, the already heated Wikipedia debate became incandescent and vituperative, leading, inevitably, to the intervention of an internal Arbitration Committee. After three months of discussions, in March 2007, Joe Moreno (as User SSS108) and others involved in the debate were banned indefinitely from contributing to the Wikipedia Sathya Sai Baba article, its Discussion page and related articles.”
(The above quotes are gratefully reproduced from the bibliographer Brian Steel, and come from his very informative “Diversionary Tactics by an Internet Demagogue: The pro-Sathya Sai Baba Campaign of Gerald ‘Joe’ Moreno” at http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/internetpropaganda_jm.htm .)
The decision of the March 6th 2007 Wikipedia arbitration committee is documented at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sathya_Sai_Baba_2. This item contains the relevant clause that “Wikipedia is not a soapbox for propaganda or activist editing.” Earlier, in January 2007, Moreno had gained a reputation in Wikipedia for making personal attacks on other editors. Suspicions were confirmed when, after his ban, Moreno engaged in complaining webpages and other postings about Wikipedia. In general, the tendency of Moreno to personal attacks in his web harassment is acute, and ex-devotees have viewed this as a convenience for the evasive policy of Dr. Michael Goldstein, the presiding American supporter of Sathya Sai.
Dr. Michael Goldstein is the International Chairman of the Sathya Sai Organisation, based in India, which has claimed high moral values such as love. Dr. Goldstein is a physician of California. He became notorious for his non-response to urgent letters concerning the strongly alleged sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba. His evasionism met with a notable tactic from the BBC, who took the unusual step of filming him with a hidden camera, a recourse that is only employed when there is evidence or strong suspicion of cover-up. See 23.11 below.
Dr. Goldstein’s resultant appearance in The Secret Swami documentary of 2004 aroused public amazement and indignation at his very dogmatic attitude in support of the guru, an attitude entailing outright denial of all allegations. A recent report posted on an ex-devotee website states that “having been instructed by Sathya Sai Baba not to get involved in replying to critics of any kind, Dr. M. Goldstein has obtained the support of this semi-educated person Moreno who was willing from the start to use outright lies.” See www.saibabaexpose.com/two-faced.html.
The same source informs that “Gerald Joe Moreno’s deceptions were evidently planned carefully from the start in that he assiduously posted on every page as a footer that he was not a member of the (Sathya Sai) Organisation, nor even a devotee of (Sathya) Sai Baba. All the evidence points directly to his being a proxy mouthpiece of the Sathya Sai Organisation.” Further, this contention is made more explicit by the accusation: “Over three years of virtually full-time work attacking critics of Sathya Sai and the Sathya Sai Organisation on many hundreds of internet pages, further proves his (Moreno’s) wilful deception in claiming he is a ‘neutral observer.’” The time span referred to is 2004-2007. (Moreno commenced his web operation in 2003).
A recent posting by Robert Priddy has affirmed that “several lawyers and not least webmasters of major portals (e.g., zoominfo.com, Steve Hassan etc.) who have looked at the attacks by [Sathya] Sai Baba’s proxy defenders [Moreno and Lisa de Witt] on the internet, have said that their content is defamatory and the attacker is completely out of order. No one who takes the ethical and spiritual teachings of Sathya Sai Baba at all seriously would be able to commend their writings.” See Priddy, Smear Campaign against critics of Sathya Sai Baba, August 11th 2008, at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com. The point is that the guru’s teachings are contradicted by the libellers, an anomaly which devotees have failed to assimilate.
The Moreno tactic is further described in terms of: “The slightest factual error is presented as a ‘blatant lie,’ which is of course wholly unreasonable. These assailants [Moreno and de Witt] repeat the very same words again and again on countless web pages, blogs and bulletin boards in the hope that some dirt will stick. The main defender [Moreno] has several anonymous blogs, which are most obviously his, despite his attempts at denial that he wrote them, even though they are mostly copies of his other postings of the same or very similar materials on websites he acknowledges are his” (ibid.).
The complaint is made by Priddy that Moreno and his accomplice attempt to divert attention to side-issues, a ruse which misleads uninformed readers. “They produce no sound point by point evidence against critics of [Sathya] Sai Baba, although they strive to give the superficial appearance of it. When their statements are refuted – however civil the manner – with documentation and/or independent testimony, they never change their wilfully posted false information or make any apology” (ibid.).
Priddy concedes that “some minor errors or unclear statements have been made by serious critics from time to time,” though these have been “invariably corrected later where possible,” and “no dishonesty has ever been proven.” The same commentator adds that the sectarian attackers “are unable to produce any reliable testimony or published third party evidence to support their case, and almost never show independent documentation from the public sphere, while critics of Sathya Sai Baba constantly do so, not least from many of his own published writings, discourses and authenticated reports on his statements” (ibid.).
A rather striking reflection is made by the ex-devotee critic: “Virtually every critical statement of fact by over a hundred testifying witnesses, independent journalists, film-makers, researchers, disaffected former followers of Sathya Sai Baba and alleging survivors of sexual abuse and other abuses, is contested and cast into doubt, or called a lie, a blatant lie and so on – almost invariably without any attempt at presenting respectable evidence.” Priddy describes this obsessive recourse in terms of a cultist attempt to stifle criticism.
The same countering article refers to “constant attempts at character assassination through webstalking by contacting and harassing critics’ families, friends, associates, and employers (such as at universities).” There is also reference here to emails of critics being posted (by Moreno) on attack web pages accompanied by strong condemnations, and “also disruptive editing on Wikipedia, with endless diatribes and stalking of [Wikipedia] editors” who objected to Moreno and de Witt prior to their ban in March 2007.
Priddy complains that the webpages of critics like himself are “copied relentlessly without linking to the source pages (totally infringing copyright).” This tactic of Moreno is interpreted in terms of a fear about being shown to be in the wrong through formulating misleading and tangential arguments. Priddy accuses Moreno of falsely claiming that his (Moreno’s) webpages are stopped by opponents “and even that their links [of Moreno] would be redirected to porn sites.” Ex-devotees accordingly see no reason to link to (and thus assist) the large quantity of distorting materials created by Moreno. An exception to this abstention was myself, an outsider who found that a lengthy web page of mine (Response to Moreno), featuring many links to Moreno sources, was ignored by the sectarian exponent (see 22.9 above), save for a few lines that were crudely misrepresented (see 22. 16 above).
The Priddy article supplies a list of over fifty critics of Sathya Sai Baba who have been attacked by Moreno, along with “many more.” Priddy emphasises that Moreno attack pages “are linked to by Sathya Sai Baba cult websites,” thus boosting the Google ranking of Moreno via backlinks.
With regard to his own victimisation, Priddy recounts how “I was constantly attacked tendentiously on Wikipedia, until both the main attackers [Moreno and de Witt] were banned indefinitely.” The ex-devotee victim adds that “facts about childhood experiences over 60 years ago about which I wrote on a school website are brought out in the form of an attack on my integrity, and likewise my account of other events in my life from over 50 years ago are highlighted as if they happened yesterday.”
The same account says “I am accused of lying about the donations my wife and I made to the Sathya Sai Central Trust (but I have documented most of them).” Priddy also refers to the Moreno tactic of “a hair-splitting denial that I can have any kind of ‘collegial’ friendship with Professor Erlendur Haraldsson, who has referenced my writings in lectures and who still visits us in our home.” Furthermore, “he [Moreno] has tried to cast doubt on whether I was a leader in the Sathya Sai Organisation (which is proven fact), whether I wrote the articles I claim for Sathya Sai Baba’s journal Sanathana Sarathi (but they are all documented), and cast many similar doubts about me” (Priddy, Smear Campaign against critics of Sathya Sai Baba). See also 23.9 below on Priddy’s link with V. K. Narasimhan.
Such details of sectarian harassment have gained some attention from cult analysts, who are tending to the view that extremism in the defence of Sathya Sai Baba is a cause for alarm.
23.6 The Alaya Rahm Lawsuit in California
Ex-devotees have stressed the strong convergence of Gerald Joe Moreno with the resisting attitude of Dr. Michael Goldstein to the Alaya Rahm lawsuit of 2006 that occurred in California. Alaya Rahm is an alleged victim of sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba. He filed a civil lawsuit against California leaders of the Sathya Sai Society, who included Dr. Goldstein. The case was finalised in April 2006.
The lawsuit was foiled due to a diverting technicality improvised by the Goldstein contingent, who were here the defendants, and who were known as the Sathya Sai Society of America. This wealthy body conveniently stated that they were nothing more than a bookstore, and therefore not at the centre of the guru’s activities. This despite the role of Goldstein as the leading international representative of Sathya Sai. Yet because the Society could take legal cover behind their technicality, the attorney (William Brelsford) of Alaya Rahm advised his client to self-dismiss the case in view of the delaying complications envisaged.
As a consequence, the court did not arrive at the due stage of investigating substantive evidence regarding the allegations of sexual abuse which motivated the lawsuit. Basic facts of this legal episode were subsequently distorted by sectarian propaganda at an international level, in a process which has been described as “systematic disinformation.”
Moreno was eager to cover the resisted lawsuit in his postings, and he promoted a version of “evidence” emanating from Lawrence (Lewis) Kreydick, a declared devotee of the guru who was favoured as a witness by Goldstein and his colleagues. Moreno depicted the Kreydick version as “pivotal” evidence against the testimony of Alaya Rahm. Moreno promoted this misleading version on Wikipedia and elsewhere, but “had to accept removal of his postings of the false Kreydick testimony from the Sathya Sai Baba entry on Wikipedia because he could not prove it was available in the public realm except through himself.” Go to www.saibabaexpose.com/two-faced.html.
The Kreydick testimony originated with the Sathya Sai Society, and has been described as “mostly conjectural” by ex-devotee critics. Moreno’s version of the Alaya Rahm legal issue appeared on his primary website in May 2006 as Alaya Rahm’s Self Dismissed Lawsuit. The attacking sectarian described the lawsuit in hostile terms contradicted by opponents of the Goldstein faction, who included the ex-devotee parents of Alaya Rahm. See, e.g., the detailed report dated July 2006 entitled “Alaya Rahm’s Lawsuit vs Sathya Sai Society of America.” This relevant item can be found at http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex_baba/engels/articles/alayarahm.htm. The report specifies: “That Alaya Rahm withdrew his case reflects on certain Sathya Sai Organisation leaders and their bad faith, not on him.”
The Goldstein contingent were desperately counteracting the significant testimony of Alaya’s parents, namely Al and Marisa Rahm: “Sai Baba also threatened Alaya repeatedly that if he ever told anyone what Swami (Sathya Sai) was doing (i.e., sexual abuse of Alaya), Sai Baba would use his (occult) powers to cause an accident to Alaya and would also never talk to his parents again.”
The ex-devotee Al Rahm was a big headache to Dr. Goldstein. The father of Alaya was a long-term American devotee, and had gained many interviews with Sathya Sai during visits to India. He was one of the regional officers in the widespread deployment of the sect in America. He started the first Sai school in America at the personal direction of the guru. Yet when he grasped what had been happening to his teenage son in the 1990s, Al Rahm seceded from the sect and subsequently testified that the American leaders like Dr. Goldstein had been covering up problems of sexual abuse for many years.
In 1999 Al Rahm informed Dr. Goldstein about the abuse of his son. A process of acute evasion followed. “Goldstein told us that he had never heard anything like this before; that was twenty years after the Hislop letters, which we now know prove he was lying.” Goldstein was a recipient of those letters, which referred to the sexual abuse of another American youth in the 1970s. See also 23.10 below.
Several years later, and after being disgusted with the evasionism of the international Sathya Sai Organisation, the Rahm family appeared in the evocative BBC documentary The Secret Swami (2004). The BBC team had such difficulty in getting a due response from Dr. Goldstein that a hidden camera was resorted to for a memorable testimony of inability to confront pressing problems. See 23.11 below. Joe Moreno has repeatedly targeted the BBC documentary with misleading statements of a type evidently designed to justify the Goldstein role and the sectarian mandate of dismissing allegations.
The attorney of Alaya Rahm divulged that the 2006 lawsuit was dropped because “California does not have reciprocal jurisdiction rights against an out-of-country defendant,” here meaning Sathya Sai Baba, who was not subject to the powers of the Hague Treaty. The Letters Rogatory process would have needed to be pursued, and unfortunately that process can take several years to complete, and there was no guarantee that Sathya Sai would respond to service of a subpoena, or even that he would still be alive at the time of the further eventualities involved.
Ignoring these complexities, and making no reference to them, Joe Moreno has opted to deny validity to the allegations of Alaya Rahm by depicting him as a consumer of street drugs and alcohol, and asserting that this interpretation “irreparably compromises the integrity of his claims.” This statement was made in the Moreno attack of Sept. 2007 against my defence of publishing right, a defence that furthermore occurred in response to what can be interpreted as a ploy of the Goldstein contingent on Wikipedia via their front line buffer known as Gerald Joe Moreno. The situation of the (British) citizen initiative counter-argument is sufficient to erode fond assumptions about American democracy.
The fact that Moreno has attempted to deny validity to the literate Robert Priddy on the basis of an inverted drug stigma is no encouragement to accept his hostile verdict about a Californian lawsuit. Cf. Moreno, Kevin Shepherd Referenced the BBC ‘Secret Swami’ Documentary at saisathyasai.com. The title of this item signifies an accusation, though I am quite happy to have referenced the documentary so strenuously opposed by the pro-Sai activist.
For the record here, I do not believe and endorse all reported statements of Alaya Rahm or other ex-devotees, contrary to the inverse logic of pro-Sai activism in the item cited immediately above. Furthermore, I here explicitly rebut the Moreno assertion in the same item that “Kevin Shepherd also blatantly lied and distorted the truth when he erroneously claimed ‘the American Sathya Sai Society blocked the lawsuit of Alaya Rahm in 2006’.” Pro-Sai activism is unable to decode legal procedures and contrivances. Alaya Rahm only self-dismissed his lawsuit on legal advice because he was blocked by the Goldstein faction with a delaying tactic. It is impossible for close analysts to credit the pro-Goldstein statement of Moreno that “the Sai Society did not ‘block’ Alaya Rahm’s lawsuit whatsoever” (accessed 30/08/2008). This is the same form of evasive argument which dismisses the allegations of sexual abuse.
It is relevant to add here that the “quote” supposedly representing a blatant lie did not occur in the original version of Moreno’s Sept. 2007 attack webpage against myself. The “quote” was inserted at a later date, evidently being extrapolated from my Response to Moreno (Nov. 2007), and without any acknowledgment of that separate document or the argument and source material provided. I referred to “the blocked lawsuit of Alaya Rahm” and gave the due internet source evaded by Moreno, whose method of commentary is aberrant, as ex-devotees have also observed. Moreno so frequently accuses critics of “lies” that the favoured word amounts to a rhetorical device in his case.
To repeat, the lawsuit was effectively blocked by the bookstore technicality. Alaya Rahm’s attorney stated:
“We were successful at the demurrer stage in establishing that a duty would be owed by the Society in the event they sponsored and/or endorsed the trips that Alaya went on when he was abused by Sai Baba. As it turns out, the Society is not the ‘hub’ of all of Sai Baba’s corporate activities. Rather, the Society, pursuant to declarations under penalty of perjury, confirmed they are a bookstore...nothing more. Accordingly, we do not have the necessary factual requirements to establish liability on the Society/Book center.”
The persistent attacks and ruses of Gerald Joe Moreno fit a category of extreme sectarian disposition. Ex-devotees have recently complained (March-April 2008) that Moreno has inserted bogus details under the names of several ex-devotees on a prominent Who’s Who website (unrelated to his own). This shocking discovery evoked strong complaint and an action to have details removed. Moreno has been called an “internet assassin” and “web delinquent.” He is said to have harassed in total over a hundred victims in his questionable role as a “webstalker and libeller.”
The Moreno attitude is now widely considered to demonstrate a cult mentality in which the assumption is one of an inviolable supremacy transcending the obligations of due civilised protocol. The cultist mentality so frequently regards any measure as justified if that serves the cult agenda. From defamation and harassment to criminal abuse and murder, the spectrum of cult options remains a warning to the rest of society.
23.7 The Indian Rationalist Basava Premanand
For one aspect of the varied allegations against Sathya Sai, see Basava Premanand, Murders in Sai Baba’s Bedroom (n.d., but published in 2001), relating to notorious events in 1993. Premanand is the leading Indian critic of the guru, being associated with a grouping known as the Indian Rationalists. Attempts to secure official investigation of the murders (and other anomalies) have been blocked by influential Indian supporters of the guru.
l to r: Sathya Sai Baba, Basava Premanand
Related problems have been highlighted by the book of Basava Premanand entitled Sabotage by Murali Krishna Yachendra (n.d., but apparently 2005), which describes over one hundred emails revealed as a ploy to discredit and damage ex-devotees of the guru, and involving a recourse to extract large sums of money under false pretences. Further, compromising documents were found by the police that revealed a link with concerted international attempts to undermine critics of Sathya Sai Baba. It has been concluded that the objective of Yachendra was to mislead critics into accepting fabrications as true, in the hope that they would present these stories as legitimate on “anti-Sai” websites. The author of the emails subsequently revealed himself as being a devotee of Sathya Sai, a detail which further underlined the ploy. Cultism on the web is not something to be underestimated by the gullible.
The Yachendra episode may leave investigators feeling startled at the scope of dissimulation that can occur in fervent devotional circles. Yachendra has been described as the member of a devotee family with early and close connections to Sathya Sai, and as having significant affinities with officials at the Puttaparthi ashram of the guru in Andhra. Yachendra became a teacher at the Sathya Sai College in Puttaparthi. His “sabotage” campaign by email claimed that he was a victim of sexual abuse. He is described as inventing other fictitious sexually abused students at the Sathya Sai College. He claimed a knowledge of murder plots and embezzlements by the guru. Yet all this was revealed as a scam.
The alert Basava Premanand reported Yachendra to the police. It is said that, due to questioning and the train of events, Yachendra became confused and could no longer maintain his sham role as one of the abused. He began to present himself on Sathya Sai web bulletin boards as a believer in the guru. Meanwhile, he is said to have been abetted by Gerald Joe Moreno, who ignored information from Premanand that Yachendra was indulging in a campaign of lies. Go to “Major sabotage by Sai college teacher averted,” January 16th 2008, at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com. The Sathya Sai Organisation are closely implicated as being in passive and convenient complicity with such dubious activities.
Some of the statements made by Basava Premanand are very thought-provoking. For instance, he asserts that “hundreds” of Indian devotees were murdered. This complaint does not relate to the Yachendra “sabotage” campaign, but to the terrorist extension of sectarian activities that is denied by Gerald Joe Moreno. Go to www.saibabaexpose.com/Yachendra/Premanand.htm.
The number of alleged murders relating to the Sathya Sai sect is unconfirmed. Premanand knows more about this sect than most other living critics (and probably more than any of them), and his accusations cannot be ignored. He has been in active opposition to Sathya Sai Baba for over thirty years, having worked to expose the purported “miracles” of that celebrity. Premanand informed the BBC that he had been ruthlessly molested several times by aggressive supporters of the guru.
The Indian critic also affirms that many financial irregularities have occurred at the Puttaparthi ashram of Sathya Sai Baba, and that much of the money gifted to the Sathya Sai Organisation has not been accounted for. Very substantial funds have been donated, and Premanand has called for a government investigation of alleged corruption. Premanand’s increasing concern about the diverting internet activities of the extremist sectarian Gerald Joe Moreno are reflected in his recent book Failed Sabotage by Sathya Sai Baba through Gerald Moreno (2007).
Premanand has referred to many alleged murders on the websites associated with his Indian Skeptic journal. He has said that he survived only because of his prominence. He has filed several unsuccessful lawsuits against the guru, who has very strong support from devotees and sympathisers in prominent positions. Premanand has stated “I have the records of more than a hundred persons destroyed by the Sathya Sai Baba gang, beginning with one Mr. Venkatamuni of Madras who was done away at Madurai in an air conditioned room and then (after getting death certificates from doctors) taken to Madras by Sathya Sai Baba in his own car and cremated without giving any information to the police.”
Premanand refers to deaths by car accidents, heart failure, poisoning, hanging, and drowning. A number of these deaths were officially interpreted as suicides. In the same entry, Premanand refers to “hundreds of such deaths.” Even if that be considered an exaggeration, the implications are extremely grave and merit due examination to the extent possible. See the entry “Suicides, Deaths, Missing persons covered–up at Prashanti Nilayam ashram,” comprising arresting information available at http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/8/More_untoward_events_at_Sai_Baba_ashrams.htm. The grim factor of despair or stress causing suicide is mentioned in some accounts.
Basava Premanand has been a rather versatile critic whose dexterity at magic enabled him to expose numerous supposed “miracle” feats of holy men, including Sathya Sai Baba. His abilities have included eating glass, placing lighted camphor in his mouth, putting a spike through his tongue, and producing holy ash out of apparent thin air. The ash trick is favoured by Sathya Sai and comprises sleight of hand. In his younger days Premanand was a follower of holy men, but from 1976 he has campaigned to expose their trickery. His major target has been Sathya Sai Baba, whose promotion has relied heavily upon purported miracles. Not all gurus have opted for the role of a miracleworker, but many have done so in the obvious hope of influencing the credulous.
Premanand was deeply offended at how poor people were deceived by gurus who used magical stunts. He gave many lectures relating to this subject and toured numerous villages and small towns in a jeep, treating crowds to a performance of “miracles” like a holy man and then afterwards exposing the trickery. His innovation appeared on the television documentary Guru Busters (1995), associated with UK Channel 4.
This campaign was at a cost, meaning attempts to annihilate Premanand. He has described being physically attacked and hospitalised. His jeep is said to have been tampered with by supporters of Sathya Sai, causing it to overturn at speed. A lorry attempted to run him down. Yet undaunted, Premanand became Convener of the Indian Rationalist Association, and in 1988 he began publishing the monthly magazine Indian Skeptic, noted for an atheistic tone. He complained of the formidable opposition represented by Sathya Sai, who “has followers amongst bureaucracy, law enforcement departments, revenue departments, the judiciary, the state and central ministry, and among the elite and the influential.” See Lewis Jones, “Scourge of the Godmen”at http://www.indian-skeptic.org/html/byljones.htm. This rather strongly entrenched supporter faction blocked the lawsuits of the protester, and sought to obliterate all indication of discrepant events.
23.8 From Yogi to Magician and Sceptic
In the year 2000 a lengthy report on Premanand appeared in a London newspaper. Some errors are said to have been incorporated, though the basic core of information came from Premanand. This article emphasises that several attempts were made to kill the subject by the followers of “godmen” (as Premanand calls them). He is here said to have visited almost every village in India, made 7,000 speeches, and written 36 books. Premanand (b.1930) is certainly a phenomenon to be reckoned with, especially in view of his figurehead status amongst the growing Indian Rationalist contingent.
Premanand reveals here that he left home in Tamil Nadu at the age of eighteen in search of a guru. He claims a link with both Aurobindo Ghosh (Shri Aurobindo) and Ramana Maharshi, though it was a less well known teacher of kundalini yoga who precipitated his scepticism. That guru resorted to a cheap “miracle” trick which involved the application of chemical agents to a piece of paper bearing a mantra. When the paper was lighted, only the mantra (untreated with chemicals) survived. Premanand was at first deceived, but was stunned when he happened to see how the guru performed this trick. He has traced the beginning of his sceptical career to that episode. He afterwards learnt how to accomplish the “miracle” feats that were in wide vogue.
Originally an ardent meditator, the disillusioned ex-yogi at first hesitated to tour villages because of his lack of an academic education. Yet Premanand became a consistent crowd-puller, his prolific energy being devoted to travel twenty days every month. He could perform any “miracle” trick, but he would always carefully explain afterwards how the deceit was achieved. He has walked on fire, eaten fire, laid on beds of nails, and stopped his heartbeat. And much more besides. He gained television appearances and many enemies alongside the admirers. The “godmen” he ridiculed called him rakshasa or demon. When he published his first book on Sathya Sai Baba, entitled The Lure of Miracles, Sai devotees burned the heresy.
l to r: Basava Premanand eating fire, Sathya Sai Baba (wordings from other sites)
These “godmen” contingents harbour vindictive temperaments. “Premanand says he has received numerous anonymous midnight phonecalls, threatening everything from public flogging to murder. More than once, his group of fellow magicians have doubled as bodyguards to protect him from being stoned or knifed.” (Beatrice Newbery, “Miracles don’t happen,” The Independent, December 24th, 2000, available at http://findarticles.com/ ). Premanand has a metal rod in a damaged knee which survived an attack from Hindus wielding big sticks. The varied attacks he attributes to Hindu fundamentalists and devotees of the godmen, especially the Sathya Sai camp, though Christian objectors have also been mentioned due to his dismissal of miracles.
Internet attacks on Basava Premanand have come from Gerald Joe Moreno in New Mexico, who pressed, e.g., an erroneous denial of the National Award for Science Popularization gained by Premanand in 1998 at a presentation in Delhi. Moreno facilely assumed that the National Award was fictitious because the BBC reporter Tanya Datta did not mention it in her account of the sceptic. See Premanand, “Unfounded, Misleading Claims against my Writings – part 4” at www.saibabaexpose.com/Prem1d.htm .
The proscribing nature of sectarian arguments are well known to careful investigators. In 2006, the following quote was stigmatised in a Wikipedia User page of Moreno: “According to Kevin Shepherd, the former national leader of the Sathya Sai movement in Norway, Robert Priddy, expressed the opinion that Sathya Sai Baba was an accomplice to the 1993 murders, among others based on information given to him by his friend V.K. Narasimhan.” This version of the quote was the end formulation by Wikipedia editor Jossi Fresco. Moreno strongly disputed the Wikipedia quote in his hostile User page entitled User:SSS108/Kevin Shepherd. The arguments of Joe Moreno are encumbered by a strong sectarian incentive, and Jossi Fresco here did nothing to offset that factor. See 22.1 and 22.3 above.
I did indeed mention the Priddy data to which Moreno was so hostile, but without defining this as an opinion. See my Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, 2005, p. 293. There is logical difficulty in avoiding the strongly implied complicity of Sathya Sai. That alleged complicity has been independently urged in a lengthy book by Premanand which was not mentioned in the very misleading Wikipedia User page featuring cult advocates. The stigmatising Wikipedia User page (see 22.2 above) still circulates on the internet as part of a cult tactic, and so readers should know that a significant tome was eschewed by the Moreno purge. See further Premanand, Murders in Sai Baba’s Bedroom (2001), which has something to say about the group of four intrusive young men who were killed at the guru’s private quarters in 1993. See also Premanand’s 2005 response to Moreno entitled “On the Murders in Sai Baba’s Bedroom” at www.saibabaexpose.com/Prem0.htm.
The alleged murder of Premanand’s son in 2003 by supporters of Sathya Sai is now a fraught issue. Premanand has urged this matter. The Indian government are suspiciously resistant to such grievances. The insidious political process of support for the guru has been a deterrent for due official investigation of relevant matters. The complaint has been pressed that Tony Blair stopped British Metropolitan Police investigation into the Sathya Sai Organisation due to political considerations about not offending the Indian government. This loaded decision of the former British Prime Minister is said to have been made on the basis of contracts for expensive British jet aeroplanes that were signed by the Indian Prime Minister. Trade before scruple, is the allegation here.
Some analysts of cult activities have concluded that (with the exception of Aum Shinrikyo) the Sathya Sai Baba sect is the most questionable of all the contemporary problem movements, and indeed, even more so than the Rajneesh sect which once took priority in this respect (see 24.1 below). The Sathya Sai Organisation, together with related websites and Radio Sai, is said by ex-devotees to be facilitating an internet campaign to blacken the names of critics on an international basis. See 23.12 below.
23.9 The Case of V. K. Narasimhan
V. K. Narasimhan in 1998 with Robert Priddy
The issue of V.K. Narasimhan (d. 2000) has been revealing. This Indian devotee remained loyal to Sathya Sai Baba until his death, though he was known to express cynical reflections, a tendency some have attributed to his earlier career as a noted journalist. The American pro-Sai activist Gerald Joe Moreno treated the reports of British ex-devotee Robert Priddy about Narasimhan as mere hearsay and contrivance. Priddy has decisively proven that accusation wrong in his ongoing documentation appearing on his primary website. For a list of relevant entries on this subject, see www.saibaba-x.org.uk/16/index.html. The Priddy notebooks detail his significant contact with Narasimhan to a very convincing degree. Those notebooks describe his nine visits to the ashram of Sathya Sai Baba during the years 1984-98, when Priddy was a devotee. Priddy found Narasimhan both likeable and forthright, and the two would spend hours in conversation.
Narasimhan had settled at the ashram of the guru in 1980. Formerly he had been a well known journalist attached to leading Indian newspapers. He had “defied Indira and Sanjay Gandhi over publishing facts about the 1973 Emergency under the threat of (military) tanks.” See “Famous editor confronted Sathya Sai Baba,” March 30th 2008, at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com. One would expect such boldness to remain an aspect of his make-up, and this was so according to the Priddy notebooks. However, some vicissitudes were involved here that merit attention.
It is evident that Narasimhan found great difficulty in accepting the explanations given by Sathya Sai Baba about the disconcerting bedroom murders of 1993, an event which caused a shockwave in the international movement comprised by the sect. This dire episode evidenced that things could go seriously wrong in the guru’s periphery. Four young intruders were shot dead in the private quarters of the guru. Tangible and premature deaths at the ashram were not the best fuel for “Love All Serve All” enthusiasms. It was alleged at this period that the police had been blackmailed to carry out the shootings. In 1996, Narasimhan admitted with some emphasis that the answers of Sathya Sai to his questions about the disconcerting murders “were not convincing, not convincing.” See Priddy, “The Unresolved, Covered-Up 1993 Murders” at http://home.no.net/anir/Sai/MurderReview.htm.
Yet the bedroom murders were far from being the only topic about which Narasimhan expressed reservations. The ex-journalist claimed that there were some looming inconsistencies in the teachings of his guru, and he even argued with Sathya Sai about Advaita Vedanta, himself believing that this favoured doctrine had ruined India with an assertion of the unreality of the physical world. Go to www.saibaba-x.org.uk/16/VKN_contradicts_Sai_Baba.html.
Narasimhan disclosed his compromised situation at the Puttaparthi ashram, which involved “having to make unprofessional edits of Sai’s erroneous statements and also under pressure tell untruths about the Central Trust so as to save face for (Sathya) Sai Baba.” See the details at http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/16/VKN_newyear96.html. Narasimhan complained about “numerous embezzlements” by members of the prestigious Sathya Sai Central Trust. This was part of the economic malaise at the ashram that features in a number of dissident reports.
The role of unprofessional editor is significant. Narasimhan had been requested by the guru to take over editorship of the monthly journal Sanathana Sarathi from the biographer (and hagiographer) Professor N. Kasturi. The latter was a very subservient devotee, but the ex-journalist “was bold enough to contest the adult Sai Baba’s statements and opinions, which he did – though almost always privately – on numerous occasions.” The guru disliked the boldness of Narasimhan and took away his editorship for a lengthy period, which meant that the tired Kasturi had to replace him for many months. After becoming “too dependent on the ashram,” the mood of Narasimhan was tamed to “strict political correctness” in his regained editorship, which involved encomiums and the absence of criticism. Sadly, “Sai Baba actually forced him to lie in an article about the Sathya Sai Central Trust.” Priddy adds that Narasimhan “confided this to me of his own will and with a dejected expression.”
Being unable to print his own real views any longer, the ex-journalist unburdened himself in private conversations, though at the same time “he was unable to constrain himself from critical comments in public (though never in written form).” The information is given that “despite his frequent public praise of (Sathya) Sai Baba, Narasimhan did not believe in all of Sai Baba’s claims about himself, particularly about omniscience, omnipotence and being the avatar.” All these quotes come from “Concerning V.K. Narasimhan’s Revelations to Robert Priddy” at http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/16/Narasimhan_RobertPriddy.htm.
Narasimhan’s conscience was stirred in such disclosures to Priddy as “he was worried that he would fall into disrepute because of the editing he had done,” which involved reformatting discourses of the guru in the monthly journal to eliminate “self-contradictions and faux-pas.” These quotes come from Priddy, “Famous editor confronted Sathya Sai Baba,” March 30th 2008, at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com. The sanitised official versions of the guru’s discourses in Sanathana Sarathi have gained the repute of being “heavily reduced translations,” and discrepancies showed up in the complete and undoctored versions which appeared on a partisan website that was subject to forced closure by the ashram authorities.
The ex-journalist described himself as being “a rather non-religious and even cynical person.” He often remarked that he did not understand why Sathya Sai Baba was so nice to him. Priddy gives the reason that Narasimhan was an asset to the social credibility of the guru because of the former’s “huge journalistic prestige,” his social ideals, and his reputation for honesty. Go to “Shocking Revelations from V. K. Narasimhan” at http://home.no.net/anir/Sai/enigma/VKN1.htm.
The report of the compromised ex-journalist V. K. Narasimhan gains additional significance because the attendant disclosures were a major factor in causing Robert Priddy to move aside from his devotee identity to that of a dissident.
Joe Moreno accused me of “audacity” in daring to briefly reflect on Narasimhan’s critical sensitivity. More specifically, this stigma was applied in terms of “the audacity to claim that Robert Priddy’s hearsay trumped V.K. Narasimhan’s own words.” The unyielding dogmatism was further reflected in the Moreno web strategy using blog and tag items that sought to make me appear as a villain. Narasimhan was one of the ingredient topics in the Moreno harassment aimed at my Google Search name list in the autumn of 2007. See 22.16 above.
The typical vehemence of Moreno on this subject insisted that an article written by Narasimhan for Sanathana Sarathi in 1999 (shortly before his death) was the appropriate gauge for the ex-journalist. Narasimhan here glowingly referred to the guru as Bhagavan (“God”) and Avatar (divine incarnation). Moreno here stated (on his primary website) that the Priddy version amounted to “subjective and non-verifiable hearsay,” and that the Narasimhan eulogy did “wholly refute” the dissident version. Furthermore, Joe Moreno’s article about Narasimhan (on his primary website saisathyasai.com) was here considered to be very important for the elucidation of the subject, and evidently far in advance of anything in the Priddy version. Yet more, we are told that Moreno’s vishwarupa.com webpage on Priddy “provides concise and damning (sic) information about him that proves he is not credible.”
My own very brief reference to Narasimhan was construed by the vituperative American sectarian in terms of “bias and fanatic viewpoints” (note the plural). Who else but damning sectarians can lay claim to any objectivity? My brief remark in favour of the Priddy version was castigated in terms of undermining my “self-professed integrity.” I never mentioned the word integrity. Who else but damning sectarian polemicists can lay claim to such virtually unachievable goals? The sinful reference of the “fanatic” viewpoint(s) can be quoted here, informing that Narasimhan is “known to have entertained extensive doubts, his habitual cynicism tempered by his dependence upon ashram amenities.” That remark was located in the original July 2007 Update to the Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia webpage on the CI website. The Moreno denial can be found in Kevin Shepherd And The Case Of V. K. Narasimhan at saisathyasai.com.
Moreno cannot concede that the official ashram output of Narasimhan does not amount to the total psychological vantage point involved in ex-journalism. So he denies the validity of an important firsthand report. Indeed, he suggests that Priddy fabricated information to “further his venomous campaigns against Sai Baba.” The difference between partisan and dissident commentary is often telling, and perhaps crucial in the analysis of events.
23.10 The Allegations of Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is strenuously denied by the spokesmen of the sect, but is strongly claimed by ex-devotees. The extent of alleged abuse is striking, and indeed has gained close attention from many readers. A detailed version is available in “World-Wide Exposure of Reported Sexual Abuses”, included with other items at www.saibaba-x.org.uk/6/index.html.
l to r: Timothy Conway, Michael Goldstein
A relevant report comes from Dr. Timothy Conway (an American ex-devotee, not a medic but a scholar of Indian religion). He has contributed a recent lengthy webpage that substantially contradicts the sectarian evasion of alleged sexual abuse by the guru. See Timothy Conway, “My Concerns About Sathya Sai Baba,” at http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Sathya_Sai_Baba_my_concerns.html.
Dr. Conway says “we do have first-hand, informally sworn testimonies (if not formally sworn and notarized affidavits) from numerous individuals who have openly reported that, when they were younger (ages vary from mid-teens to early twenties), Sathya Sai made ostensibly or blatantly sexual contact with them, contact that includes a range of behaviour from the suggestive to the explicit.” Furthermore, “it is estimated that many hundreds or thousands of male youth have experienced” the widely known “oiling” ritual favoured by the guru and which applies to the lower abdomen and related areas of the body. That ritual could be the preliminary to more intimate advances.
Several testifiers to abuse have appeared on camera in Danish and British documentaries. The two most famous names here are probably Alaya Rahm and Conny Larsson, the former having mounted his own lawsuit in America (foiled by the Goldstein contingent on questionable grounds) and the latter being the former leader of the Swedish branch of the sect. Larsson’s website is www.saibabaexpose.com and he has authored the book Behind the Mask of the Clown (now in English translation), for which see the review by Robert Priddy at www.saibaba-x.org.uk/HOME/connyclownﾒsmask.html.
Conny Larsson became noted for a forthright address to the FECRIS Conference at Brussels in 2006. He described how he had transited from being a devotee of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to a follower of Sathya Sai Baba. He became disillusioned with the manipulations of the former, whose TM-Sidhi programme was attended by the claim that participants would levitate and “visit all kinds of planets.” Larsson subsequently spent over twenty years as a devotee of Sathya Sai, whom he says encouraged him into a physical (homosexual) relationship for four years. He affirms that the four young men who were murdered at the ashram in 1993 were “part of the inner circle of [Sathya] Sai Baba” (and in his book he says that they were victims of sexual abuse). Larsson pointedly describes the Sathya Sai activity in terms of “a paedophile ring.” Larsson also says that the “criminal organisation” denoted is “a money laundering machine,” and he claims that over fifty million dollars per annum are acquired from devotees throughout the world by the Central Sathya Sai Baba Trust. Yet there are further factors involved. “I have personally brought in $22 million dollars, others have gone as high as 900 million and even a billion each year.” Larsson alleges that the disputed Trust “includes a payroll which deals out payment to (Government) Ministers, Supreme Court judges, directors of CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), all very eminent men in high positions.” The implications are thought-provoking. Larsson complains that for security reasons he had moved from Sweden to Cyprus because of the hostility from Sathya Sai devotees after he had published his book. “I am hunted down and as soon as they find that I am going to speak anywhere, they find me and try to stop me from speaking.... I can no longer stay in my country because the danger is too big.” Go to www.saibabaexpose.com/fecris.htm. (FECRIS denotes the European Federation of Centres Research and Information on Sectarianism; see also 24.6 below.)
Returning to the account of Dr. Conway, the latter points out that sixteen named males have directly testified to sexual abuse, while “well over a dozen more” males have given private testimonies. This gives a total of over thirty testifiers, approximately one third of whom were minors (under age 18) when the alleged abuses occurred. However, there is yet a third category of abused males who appear in verbal and/or written reports supplied by relatives, friends, or acquaintances. This category comprises “at least a dozen or a few dozen further cases where we do not have any specific names.”
The total list of these three categories involves “nearly 50 named and unnamed individuals.” Dr. Conway adds that sectarian denials are contradicted by the (obvious) fact that “there are simply far too many allegations corroborating each other on similar crucial details.”
Yet the main testimonies are by no means the only ones. There are other accounts such as those deriving from many students (primarily Indians) attending the Sathya Sai Baba colleges, which are set apart from the ashram routines and normally represent a closed sector for investigation. The colleges are notorious amongst ex-devotees for sexual abuse. Dr. Conway informs that “numerous students have allegedly expressed fear to researchers about saying anything of Sathya Sai Baba’s sexual improprieties with them for reasons of shame and family situation (e.g., their parents and grandparents are devotees).”
The plight of these boys is said to have been aggravated by fear of reprisal and the risk of sudden termination of their subsidized educational opportunities by expulsion, a factor which could seriously affect job prospects in a country like India. Tendencies of the guru to questionable activity are well known. Dr. Conway reports that “it has become pretty much public knowledge in the movement that Sathya Sai Baba has one, two or more students spend the night with him almost every night for many decades in his private bedroom at Puttaparthi and at Whitefield, and when visiting his summer retreats at Kodaikanal or Ootacamund.” The extent of abuse in this sector is unknown, though said to be substantial by some ex-devotees, and allegedly made worse by homosexual imitators of the guru within the colleges.
Dr. Conway also mentions a further group of “suspected molestees,” meaning male youths who left the movement after having gained private interviews with Sathya Sai. It is known that such disappearing persons often emerged from their interviews “with eyes downcast, looking depressed, confused, even shaken or agitated.” Dr. Conway assesses the number of such suspected cases of abuse in terms of “at least an additional few dozen individuals, if not many more.” He includes in this category a rather notable instance, namely the late M. Krishna, the closest companion of Sathya Sai in the early years, a man who shared the guru’s bedroom at night during the 1940s. Krishna left the movement, and many years later told one investigator that he regarded his period with Sathya Sai as a “nightmare.”
Sadly, this disclosure of Krishna was not set in due perspective because of the preoccupation of the European investigator Erlendur Haraldsson with supposed miracles of the guru (see 23.1 above). Those purported miracles have been revealed by other investigators as faked “materialisations” of sacred ash (vibhuti) and jewellery. Basava Premanand, David Bailey, and others have shown that Sathya Sai Baba conceals ash in his palm, and that cheap jewellery was conveniently concealed (for ready access) in the storage space beneath his cushion in the group interview room. Some objects he would hide in his handkerchief as part of the general deception achieved by sleight of hand.
The issue of sexual abuse attaches to documents composed by Dr. John “Jack” Hislop (d.1995), a leading American devotee who was made aware of a complaint about the repeated sexual abuse (by the guru) of a male minor from California. Dr. Hislop was leader of the Sathya Sai Baba Council of America. A series of memos or letters dating to 1981, and written by Hislop, have added fuel to the accusations against abuse. Briefly, Dr. Hislop could not believe that the complaint of the minor was justified, and Dr. Conway observes that “he (Hislop) invented a theory of teen anxiety and projection to discount the stories.”
Hislop had formerly worked for the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi prior to becoming a devotee of Sathya Sai. He was one of the most influential spokesmen for the sect, and lectured widely at the Sathya Sai Centres which spread in many countries during the 1970s and after. He wrote one of the most popular books on the guru, namely My Baba and I (1985), which includes some miracle stories. The mood is totally partisan, and the title was chosen by the guru.
The pro-Sai activist Joe Moreno has questioned the Hislop letters. His entry The John Hislop Letters, found on his primary website, presents these documents as being of questionable authenticity. In contradiction of the sectarian resort, Dr. Conway states: “I have sworn a notarized affidavit that these Hislop memos, which have been uploaded for viewing at different internet sites run by former devotees, are indeed genuine.” Dr. Conway had received copies of the Hislop letters in the mid-1980s from a close friend who preceded him as a president of the San Francisco Sai Center. On the authenticity of these letters, see also Conway, “The crucial John Hislop Letters, Sathya Sai Baba, & Sathya’s defender Joe Moreno” at | 
