Truth Commission Model May Assist Sai Baba Devotees

Other group leaders from various countries who we know to have been informed that Sai Baba sexually abuses boys and young men still take groups of all ages to see him. There is repeated evidence that they still do not inform parents of global allegations concerning Sai Baba, nor that highly respected individuals, once loved and esteemed  leaders and members of the Sathya Sai Organization, make them.

Sai Baba’s leaders tell rank-and-file members that those making the allegations are a small disgruntled handful. Blind to commonsense, deaf to basic reasoning processes, rapid to leap to worst case speculations about the motivations of Sai Baba dissenters, Sai Baba’s devotees typically believe that former devotees have become, in an instant, transformed into demons. Racing into deep denial, vacating all commonsense, these devotees chronically deny the good standing of those they have long loved and respected, and worked and worshipped beside. History is bound to ‘out’ those who do this. They cannot possibly defend themselves on the grounds of truth and compassion. They will need, above all, to express profound sorrow, and admit profound failure in duty-of-care, towards those Sai Baba has so criminally, and for so many decades, abused.

Perhaps some of the Truth Commission experiences and insights may assist Sai Baba devotees to pull themselves out of their dilemma. It would be a great pity if the good social uplift works done by many good and decent Sai Baba devotees were to be damaged by the revelations already so extensively available, with many more on their way.

Starting points are:

http://www.truthcommission.org/
http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/

Networking Secure and Humane Support Systems

It was little wonder that in a context of compartmentation of information based on a strict need-to-know that our networkers faced situations that, for most of us, challenged work and notional habits of a lifetime.

A fortunate countervailing factor was that, as the exit from the Sathya Sai Organization – or rather cult – continued, our networks were often enough quickly able to determine the skill base and character profiles of those who flowed in to us. This worked to the benefit of loving and humane support systems, and helped to ameliorate the shocking sense of isolation and shock that attends sexual, ethical and spiritual betrayal by a guru and by his organization.

Another benefit was that nothing could be quite so efficient as this situation in exposing attempts at penetration – or in some cases attempts within the cult to win back what officials such as Chris Parnell (Australia, a man alongside whom I worked in the publishing house Sai Towers, Puttaparthi) called “Waverers”. He spoke to me of what he called a “high-powered” committee being formed involving him, Professor Roger Basham and others to combat the Australian Sathya Sai Organization membership depletions.

We do not trumpet our intentions to Sai Baba and his cult – preferring to continue our careful documentation to bona fide investigators, such as responsible journalists, academics, governments, religious groupings like the interfaith movement, and various civic and political institutions with which the Sathya Sai Organization attempts (without revealing the ’secret swami’s real agendas) to ingratiate itself.

A linguistic cognate of the word ’secret’ is ’sacred’. So – not all secrets are dirty ones.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Sai Baba’s networked former followers face a formidable adversary. We do not cry our plans to expose him and his worldwide cult from the rooftops.

Our security of communications – in a word, secrecy – has been vital. Most of our networked former devotees had never in our lives been party to a public campaign. The complex steps of the ‘dance’ between private and public had yet to be learnt, and to be learnt on-the-hop. 

We found ourselves in a role in which atmospheres of readily-given love, trust and the easeful flow of information were not germane – indeed, could prove dangerous – to our task. Our adversary was a global organization, with billions in its exchequer and devotees in many of the highest positions of power. The Sathya Sai Baba Organization – or cult – was, and is, formidable – and long-practiced in the modes of high secrecy and subterranean influence, including in the worlds of power brokerage even well beyond India’s shores.

Thus, any sincere error on our part could have painful consequences. Survivors and other witnesses come to us with a trust that we should never endanger – for example, with a careless remark, the accidental sending of an email, or the answering of even certain fair and reasonable questions raised on the Internet or shopping mall, etc.

Of course, most human beings are social and gregarious by nature – an often pleasant fact of life, but every bit hazadous in our peculiar circumstances. We do not wish to parade in the marketplace those who come to us with tragic accounts of having been sexually abused by Sai Baba and certain of his teachers or subjected to other abuses within his cult. Those who have done so have been mercilessly attacked and derided, one after the other.

Secrecy Needs In Exposing A Top Global Cult

Our security needs are pragmatic, and are not in the nature of the secrecy and cover-up of scandals so endemic to an authoritarian cult that has so much to hide. The BBC’s own experience in investigating his cult and the testimonies of those who have left it led to its calling Sai Baba ‘The Secret Swami’, and the somewhat Soviet-style secrecy and authoritarianism of Sai Baba’s religious cult have been repeatedly observed by media, institutions and academics who have attempted to examine this founder and his organization.

Regrettable Secrecies

The need for sensitive non-disclosure of the accounts that came to us of sexual abuse by Sai Baba and some around him in his education wing, and other alarming information, was rapidly apparent to some of us, but – rather disturbingly! – to others came only slowly and, astoundingly, to yet others scarcely at all.

If there was an extenuating circumstance for bewilderment at all it may be this:  suddenly, to our great surprise, we found ourselves cast in the role of activists and crusaders. What does the layperson know of sexual abuse? The exceptions in our midst were those such as Shirley Pike and (the late) Elena Hartgering, Dave Brandt and others who were mental health professionals of various kinds. We were entering a world of anguish and complexity. What we learnt was that the first requirement is to listen with compassion. It is the opposite of what cultic defenders show, who race to judgement, leap to the worst imaginable conclusions, and condemn  any who should dare to attempt to communicate their account of abuse.

Males from various countries - in some instances many years later (as in the case of Mark Roche in appearance in the BBC television documentary The Secret Swami) – have attempted to give their accounts of sexual abuse at the hands of Sai Baba. Those devotee apologists for Sai Baba and his Sathya Sai Organization (or rather, cult) who make ready and cruel assumptions about the abuse survivors might well contemplate on a saying of the English philosopher, scientist, statesman and essayist Sir Francis Bacon  (1561-1626) adding the word ‘hear’ and, ‘view’ in the case of television footage from The Secret Swami, and Danish national broadcaster DR’s Seduced (in Australia, Seduced by Sai Baba, SBS) to Bacon’s  ‘read’:

“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider”.

For Viewing

Video clip of Mark Roche interview from  The Secret Swami, BBC 2, This World

The Secret Swami. 1. Broadband. 2. Modem (Both .wmv)

Seduced (version in English over-dub)  1. Broadband. 2. Modem (Both .wmv)

Ullrich Zimmerman Interview, Part 2., Broadband.

Further Reading

• Sai Baba. Some Dissenting Themes and Resources
• The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision
• BBC’s ‘Secret Swami’ Clip. Man Claims Abuse When Young
• Psychotherapist’s Note On Ullrich Zimmerman’s Sexual Abuse Allegations Against Sathya Sai Baba