CNN-IBN ( CNN-India Broadcast News) is an English language Indian TV news channel lauched in 2005. The network is a partnership between Global Broadcast News (GBN) and Turner International (Turner) in India. Rajdeep Sardesai is the Editor-in-Chief of the network.

One may comment:  What debate?!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO ON-LINE
if unavailable, click here

Source:  CNN-IBN TV interviews: “Debate – Sai Baba a Godsend?”

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See Topics posted at ‘Call For Media and Government Investigation’:  Sathya Sai Baba Birthday 2009

Sathya Sai Baba 84th Birthday Celebrations. Will 21st Century India Tolerate The Shame That Is Puttaparthi?

Golden Throne of India’s Sathya Sai Baba. He says he will Rule the world soon

Sathya Sai Baba Birthday. Brian Steel Examines Birthdate Issue

For earlier birthday events at Puttaparthi:

Sai Baba’s Birthday. Vast, Costly Pomp and Ceremony

Sai Baba’s Imperial 83rd Birthday Celebrations Photo, Puttaparthi, India

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Barry Pittard’s comments in regard to the Public Petition) -:

Petition For Official Investigation Into Sathya Sai Baba Cult

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Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA ”INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL

The foremost Indian rationalist, Basava Premanand has died, aged 79, of cancer at Podannur, Tamil Nadu (17 February 1930 – 4 October 2009).

Premanand’s close colleague Professor Narendra Nayak has just informed me of his death, and I am deeply saddened. Premanand and I had an extensive correspondence over the years, joined eventually by my trusted colleague, Robert Priddy.

Premanand, the late Glen Meloy of the USA, and I maintained contact during the making of  BBC television’s “The Secret Swami”. See: In Memoriam – Glen Meloy (“Standing up for truth and goodness”). This contact strengthened in the difficulties of international co-ordination, which were considerable.

Amid sadness on receipt of the news of Premanand’s passing, I briefly smiled, as memories began to course back, at how some, but happily by no means all, of the members of the international former Sathya Sai Baba network, got upset by my contacting Premanand – but what a priviledge they missed out on!  This was a man who vividly lived the principles about which some but speak and genuflect, their eyes upraised.

The word “warmth” is one of the words that I cherish when think of Premanand, and this quality shows in the words of a glowing tribute at Glen Meloy’s death, when he said: “Glen’s death was a great shock. I wanted him to live till Sai Baba was arrested … I am missing a great loving friend whom I came to know from the BBC film production.”

With Premanand, Robert Priddy and I worked on some research, analysis and written work. Together, we were able to expose  -  including with  some Interpol and Indian police follow-up  -  an extensive attempt at penetration of the networked exposure of Sathya Sai Baba and core colleagues by one of his former college/university teachers.

Had it not been for the economies of telephony, I feel sure we would have spoken more between India and Australia, but were restricted to emailing. In recent months, I was tempted to try, with the assistance of his aides, to set up a Skype link, but, realising that his cancer had struck back again, thought the better of it. About three years ago, Premanand and I spoke on the phone for about an hour, when he was staying with his sister in Bangalore. His warmth of greeting when he answered the phone was touching and palpable. Throughout the conversation, I was aware of his wide grasp of issues, graciousness, and of a sense of stern purpose  lightened by a gentle humour.

I don’t know that Sathya Sai Baba will be arrested. He ails considerably, despite his declaration that he would not age after his 60th birthday.  Premanand was his great and unrelenting foe in India. Alas, the forces of corruption in India, which Premanand so courageously faced for so many years, are almost unimaginable. Of course, to let any notion of mountainous difficulties seep into consciousness would be to ensure that any light in the world snuffs out fast. Premanand had those rare blessings – innocence without naivity, and the warrior spirit that fights for goodness and gentleness. Premanand was one of those voices that cry out in a wilderness of superstition, fear and apathy. However, I learn that there is a feisty younger generation who support his work. So he will not die.

Perhaps attempt to educate and warn, rather than the jail scenario for Sathya Sai Baba, will be the one that triumphs.

I have wondered whether Premanand would have achieved some of his ends if it were not for the terrible dereliction by those calling themselves religious.  A foremost Hindu leader wrote to me:

“There is considerable concern among the Hindu Community, especially among the educated. It is very hard to get any action from the temples as they do not wish to cause difficulties with the Sathya Sai Baba groups. People are starting to distance themselves from Sathya Sai Baba. It’s going to be gradual process of education. The biggest impact it appears was the ‘The Secret Swami’ … it seems it has had a tremendous negative effect on Sathya Sai Baba”.

Perhaps if there were to be a Heaven after all, and Premanand, of course, find himself in its halls, one rather thinks that he would find the company, although illustrious, rather too few.

Goodbye, most good one …..

Barry Pittard, Australia

See Wikipedia entry for Basava Premanand

See tributes to B. Premanand by Professor Nayak, Premanand’s successor and president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, and others:

Basva Premanand (17 February 1930 – 04 October 2009)- The Passing of a Great Man

Basava Premanand (17 Feb. 1930-4 October 2009). India's most famous Rationalist

What will the fast-ailing Sathya Sai Baba do? Rub oil or vibhuti on the surface of his multiple infirmities, and do all that he has for so long promised? That is to say:

• Bring the world to him, even before he dies
• Harmonize the world’s major religions
• Save the world from enormous catastrophes
• Lift a whole mountain range
• Travel the world
• Fly through the air
• Put humanity on what he calls ‘the royal road’ to righteousness
• And so much more ….

To listen to his carefully hand-picked and carefully-groomed speakers, his fame has spread to virtually every clime. This claim is patently untrue. Ask people on crowded streets in many countries do they know the name Nelson Mandela, or the late Princess Diana. Or whether they can immediately visualize those such as the Pope, Barach Obama, the late Michael Jackson, and so on, and they will instantly affirm that they do.

Do leaders in the interfaith movement feature him or his emissaries as notable in their publications and websites? And yet the following edifice, sited amid the great opulence of his Puttaparthi ashram, displays his symbol (the so-called ‘Sarva Dharma Chakra’ or All Faiths motif):

Sarva Dharma Stupa, Puttaparthi. In background, the huge auditorium Poorna Chandra Hall

Do we see world leaders in politics, religion and so forth beating a track to his door? What do we see?

We see him using visitors to the ashram – not necessarily Sai devotees, either – who are of this or that religion. For propaganda purposes, these individuals are used to give the appearance that educated members of other faiths are accepting his “greatness”. One such use was made of a visiting rabbi from Israel. When I reported on this, Sai Baba’s proxy defender on the Internet stated that I was anti-Semitic. That the Sathya Sai Organization allows its members, some of them prominent in the Sai movement, to assist this effectively conscienceless individual can only still further damage its standing.

Sathya Sai Baba’s official Puttaparthi website shows that he also uses others who have little or no representative power in various faith organizations to make it appear that his evangel is winning hearts and minds in the different faiths around the world. There is a simple test that media, scholars and other investigators can apply:  ask the leaders of the major faiths whether they would lend their organizations’ name and authority to Sathya Sai Baba or his movement. Those Sai Baba protagonists who attack former followers for pointing out the long list of anomalies and cover ups of crimes and spiritual betrayals find it easier to use ad hominem and other profoundly dishonest tactics to deflect forms of questioning commonly regarded as essential to intellectual and moral integrity.

The below – official – text, and many other texts like it, are not likely to stand the test of time. Critical writings of prominent commentators as Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Timothy Conway Ph.D, and the work of many former Sathya Sai devotee networks – with a most notable activity by the late Glen Meloy and also Hari Sampath and other critics via major world media – have already played a role in ensuring that the Avatar of Avatars – pretendu – has been highly exposed. I may add, from my own personal and close witness that the work of the latter two, although it has had low visibility on the Internet, has been of enormous, indeed incalculable, dimensions.

Further Reading

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

BBC Hidden Camera in ‘Secret Swami’. Ethical?

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony To BBC – After Years of Silence

Indian Minister Shields Sai Baba on BBC television

Probed On Male Sex Abuse, Sai Baba Evicts BBC TV Team

V.P.B. Nair. B.Premanand. R.Priddy: Sai Baba Bedroom Killings

Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba. Media Source List

Video Resources

The Secret Swami (BBC Television):
(154 MB, Broadband)

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster):
(80 MB, Broadband)

http://home.hetnet.nl/~seduced/seduced.wmv
(21 MB, Modem)

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

BBC and Other Film Footage Shows India’s Top Guru Sathya Sai Baba Faking Miracles

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle « Call For Media and Government Investigation

Sathya Sai Baba Chief, Dr Goldstein, Explodes. “I am the consummate professional” (See Film Clips)

Raising ever more serious questions about how spiritual is the head of what Sathya Sai Baba has called THE divine organization in the world,

Michael Goldstein explodes with anger (710kbs)

at the BBC’s perfectly reasonable questions about accountability

Dr. Goldstein again reveals his higher self (1.500Kb)

Michael Goldstein and the sexual allegations (2,10 Mbs)

Michael Goldstein admits his view is merely a belief (456kbs)

Sathya Sai Baba Cult Exposure By Major TV Channel In Australia « Call For Media and Government Investigation

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General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to proceed straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

The Sathya Sai Baba Organization has tried to stem a major exit from congregations via an entity it internally refers to as ‘the waverer’s committee’.  This wealthy and highly authoritarian organization, which seeks to infiltrate mainstream civic, religious, education and political venues, will not be so frank as to show the waverers the following videos. For the Sathya Sai Organizations recruiting drives in luxurious venues, See: ‘Secret Swami’ Cult Recruits At Prime Public Venues. For the dangers posed in its infiltration of unsuspecting communities, while concealing its agendas, and often from its own rank-and-file, See, Sathya Sai Baba Sect and Its Hidden Agendas. A Caution

To carefully go through these stark video revelations that expose Sathya Sai Baba cheating with his (so-called) miracles is to see why his chief defenders like Dr G. Venkataraman and Gerald Moreno have raised profound smokescreens and engineered such markedly distorted ‘pictures’ of hundreds of former Sathya Sai Baba devotees. Many of the latter, from many countries, spent deeply dedicated years of their lives serving him. Some of these were leaders such as Terry Gallagher (Australia), Stephen Carthew (Ph.D Program Candidate, Australia), Al Rahm (USA), Richard Nelson, Rick Raines (USA), Timothy Conway Ph.D (USA), Dave Lyons (USA), Serguei Badaev (Russia), Artur Wisniewski (Poland), Britt-Marie Anden (Sweden),  Robert Priddy (Norway) …. Although it is men who in real fact lead the Sathya Sai Organization, prominent women leaders who have left after years of work on behalf of the organization include:  Shirley Pike, Sharon Purcell and Elena Hartgering (both deceased), Lori Kaplowitz, Ella Evers, and many others …. Shirley Pike and Elena Hartgering have a long professional background as very qualified, experienced mental health counselors, as are a number of former devotees who have very carefully studied the accounts of Sai Baba’s sexual abuse survivors – and some have had personal contact with the terribly stricken individuals and their families and others who know them well.

Despite extraordinary attempts to blacken their names, such former devotees have spoken out on behalf of the many boys and young men Sathya Sai Baba, has sexually abused, and large numbers of other individuals abused in a variety of shocking ways. Four individuals were killed in Sai Baba’s bedroom on June 1993 – when he was in control of the cirumstances at the Puttaparthi ashram – and the circumstances extensively covered up by successive Indian central, state and local governments. Former devotees have been attacked libelously, stalked, themselves and their families harrassed (including those who have had nothing to do with the exposure of Sai Baba and his cult), and constantly disparaged. The fact that Sai Baba devotees who have known, respected and loved those who have left the organization having investigated the facts bear a great weight of failed conscience. They know perfectly well that their earstwhile co-faithful are not, and have never been, the devils Sai Baba has said that they are. I add that most Sai devotees do not actively attack former devotees - because, simply, they are not like this. However, some who are prominent followers, and close to Sai Baba himself, have been long engaged in the attacks on the Internet supporting their proxy, Gerald Moreno.

The BBC, DR and other footage is a valuable resource for those who, in their families, friendhip circles, professions, communities and so on are deeply concerned and wish to have evidence by which to confront those who have been attracted by the Sathya Sai Baba sect. Although approaches through reason and evidence frequently will not work with members who are blinded to the facts, there are many others who have successfully been shown the facts before they got around to joining or else those who having joined are nonethless still of a mind capable of questioning.

For Longer Video Viewing

The Secret Swami (BBC Television):

(154 MB, Broadband)

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster):
(80 MB, Broadband)

http://home.hetnet.nl/~seduced/seduced.wmv
(21 MB, Modem)

Video Clips

‘The Secret Swami’ showcased with selected transcripts and brief
video clips

Sathya Sai Baba Chief, Dr Goldstein, Explodes. “I am the consummate professional” (See Film Clips)

BBC Cameras Catch Sai Baba Cheating With Gold Sivalingam. (Film Clip)

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle

Michael Goldstein explodes with anger (710kbs) (i.e., the world chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization. The BBC’s hidden camera caught Dr Goldstein in a display far from spiritual. Though the BBC’s team asked perfectly reasonable questions about accountability)

Dr. Goldstein again reveals his higher self (1.500Kb)

Michael Goldstein and the sexual allegations (2,10 Mbs)

Michael Goldstein admits his view is merely a belief(456kbs)

Reading (With Links to Video Clips)

BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ and British Press Praise

Sleight Of Hand. The Sleightness of Sathya Sai Baba (Exposing film clips)

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

Censored Indian National Television Film of Sai Baba Cheating

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Sai Baba). Revealing Footage

Articles At: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com Referring to the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

BBC Hidden Camera in ‘Secret Swami’. Ethical?

BBC Caught UNESCO Head Bowing To Indian Government

Indian Minister Shields Sai Baba on BBC television

Probed On Male Sex Abuse, Sai Baba Evicts BBC TV Team

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony To BBC – After Years of Silence

The Genesis of the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Sai Baba)

India A Mature Democracy? BBC Probes

V.P.B. Nair. B.Premanand. R.Priddy: Sai Baba Bedroom Killings

Recent Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba Cult in Australia By Channel NINEMSN

(Note: Video footage Links available within these articles)

Sathya Sai Baba Cult Exposure By Major TV Channel In Australia

Australian Current Affair Exposes Sathya Sai Baba Cult

Australian Current Affair: ‘Infiltrating A Cult’ (Sathya Sai Baba)

Sathya Sai Cult Under Media Scrutiny In Australia

An article that has continued to gain many ‘hits’ long months after the posting at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com is: 

Sai Baba To Be Seen In Moon? But Where Was Moon?

The almost acrobatic contortions of Sai Baba’s defenders are well-nigh tortuous to read. Perhaps they impart some kind of imagined bliss to those who habitually refuse to look carefully at the evidence against him. To scholars or other students of the Procrustean nature of cultist defence, issues like this provide a fertile area of scrutiny: 

rationalization, psychological denial, demonizing of critics, distortion of critics’ facts and arguments, absence of self-questioning, group-think, euphoric states imagined to be Joy, Bliss, Love, Life and Spirituality, etc., …

The blog referred to above was posted in the same month as Sathya Sai Baba’s extraordinary statement (via his close aide and frequent translator Professor Anil Kumar on October 4) that he would give ‘visvarupa darshanam’ on the moon. He also turned up a while later in his car that same night, when the sky was cloud-covered! and the police, as reported in the media, had a serious time preventing threats to life and limb in all the milling of the crowds who had rushed to the designated site, the airport.  It is but one of many Sai Baba declarations and predictions that have been falsified. Let his followers take deep breaths and gaze steadily upon the facts. They cannot. They dare not. It is easier to vilify those who present the facts. A fact which, with whatever intellectual honesty, people like Joe Moreno and Dr G. Venkatarman do not appear likely, with other than heavy blinkers, ever to deal with. See: 

Slander by Dr. G. Venkataraman & Joe Moreno

Sathya Sai Baba’s ‘Minister of Propaganda’ – Dr G. Venkataraman 

‘The Sathya Sai Organisation’s Deception and Propaganda Exposed’ (Extensive analytical article containing many key links. Co-authored by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard) 

Parts  One Two Three Four

See videos which reveal Sathya Sai Baba, in November 2007, as unable to cut his birthday cakes any longer

High-powered Minister of State, Renuka Chowdhuri, has to cut 2007 for badly ailing Satya Sai Baba

For some time, he has had a mask-like face, suggestive of a degenerative disease.

The Ageless

One Of Many Examples of Sai Baba’s Falsified Statements

“Many people wonder that I look so young even at the age of 73. The reason is that I have the three P’s in Me. One is Purity, the second is Patiene and the third is Perseverance. It is because of these three that I shall remain like this for any number of years to come. (cheers)”  p. 302 Sanathana 11-1998

Further Reading At ‘Call For Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba’

Sathya Sai Baba’s Amazing Predictions

There is no end to his failed predictions. In his February 1 16, 2007 (so-called ‘divine discourse’, Sai baba said:

“I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly.”

Wealthy Americans Prepare Mansions For “God’s” Visit

The guru, perhaps the most wealthy and politically powerful in India’s long history, claims that he will save the world in his own lifetime. He will, he says, preside over the greatest changes ever to occur in history

‘World Hindu’ by 2030. VHP’s Singhal Reports Sathya Sai Baba Told Him

One of India’s most powerful Hindu nationalist leaders, Ashok Singhal, who has an international profile in the Hindu world, has just told an assembly of political and religious luminaries in Delhi of a prophecy he says Sathya Sai Baba shared with him. The Organiser, September 14, 2008, reports …

Robert Priddy – former head of Sathya Sai Organization, Norway – at his blogsite Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed

Ageing and collapse in Sai Baba’s health

Sai Baba’s health – miracle or self-sacrifice?

Sai Baba says his close servants live for 100 years

Sathya Sai miracle of transformation of India?

Sai Baba’s failing health

Sathya Sai Baba has said that the world should come to him with empty hands. On the other hand, he has succeeded in getting many to come to him with their hands full of gold.

The Golden Age of The World Sai Kingdom Is At Hand

That gold is now flashing more than Disneyland-like at Puttaparthi, as thousands swarm around the golden honey-pot that he has created for the occasion of his 83rd birthday.

The misspelling in the photo (upper left hand side) of the word ’sceptre’, do kindly trust, is not that of this blogger, but of a Sathya Sai minion, who will quickly need a spelling tutorial before his master leads the world into the Golden Age. This feat of universal salvation Sathya Sai Baba says he will accomplish before he ‘leaves the planet’.

Trustfully, as the gerontocracy that essentially leads India dies out, the young India will turn a back on the crass superstition of many of her older generations.

The gaudiness of all the gold in the Sathya Sai Baba birthday celebrations – mounted aloft India’s anguished land of seething poverty and squalor – will not reflect well in the eyes of the world.

The would-be King of Kings, Lord of Lords and his gold sceptre

Sathya Sai Baba has said

“The success of the task for which I have come will very soon reverberate throughout the world!”
Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol XIV, p. 278. 1979

“I do not need grand decorations, huge pandals, arches, flags and such paraphernalia … Even a chair is superfluous! … Spend sparing to the minimum needs; do not involve yourselves in expensive luxury. I would like you to spend any extra money that you have for the feeding of the poor or for any similar beneficial object.” Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol VII, p. 100

He says he will rule the world before leaving it, circa AD 2022

Puttaparthi Prashanthi Nilayam. Modest dwellingplace of the, ahem, Most High

Select Reading

‘Secret Swami’ Cult Recruits At Prime Public Venues

See photos of some of the luxurious venues where the International Sathya Sai Organization – at times hard-pressed for funds in the face of constant public exposure in the media and on the Internet etc., – conducts its recruiting

Sai Baba No Shiva. Gold From His Gut Is Regurgitator’s Trick

See how the BBC cameras catch out the Shiva pretendu.

BBC Hidden Camera in ‘Secret Swami’. Ethical?

How the BBC caught Sai Baba’s world chairman in moments of profound

Will World Accept Sathya Sai Baba? He Says Yes. Very Soon

Indulal Shah and Indian Government Cover Up

Sathya Sai Organisation Misinformation and False Propaganda
Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

By Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard

Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Video Resources

The Secret Swami (BBC Television):
(154 MB, Broadband)

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster):
(80 MB, Broadband)

http://home.hetnet.nl/~seduced/seduced.wmv
(21 MB, Modem)

……………………………..

For information on the highly revealing photo below, see

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

Michael Goldstein’s Chilling 9/11 Remarks

Sathya Sai Anger Mismanagement as demonstrated by Sai Baba's international chairman Dr Michael Goldstein of Corvina, California, USA. Caught by BBC hidden camera in 'The Secret Swami' (2004)

Sathya Sai Baba, who is on the brink of celebrating his 83rd birthday,

has said that he will first rule India (innumerable of whose top leaders bow down to him!) and soon the rest of the world. He also has said, December 14, 1963:

“Let Me tell you this now itself: I do not like this pomp and show. I do not derive any joy out of it. Pomp, such as this, has become a fashion now, even among ascetics and monks who ought to know better. They profess poverty and simplicity and yet, they allow or encourage their disciples to waste much energy and money on pomp and pageantry which serve only to develop the egotism of themselves and their followers. The emphasis on show makes a thing hollow of all meaning.” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol 3., p 228)

Sathya Sai Baba says he dislikes pomp

He has said:

“In the days ahead, the whole world will be obliged to come to Prashanthi Nilayam” (p. 320 Sanathana Sarathi December 1991)

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Some edifying discourses which will no doubt hasten the golden glory of the coming of the Kingdom of Sai:

Sai Baba’s Birthday. Vast, Costly Pomp and Ceremony

Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

Sai Baba To Be Seen In Moon? But Where Was Moon?

Robert Priddy

Sathya Sai Baba worshipped by India’s P.M.s etc

Sathya Sai Baba upcoming birthday

Sai Baba’s failing health

Today’s blog suggests that Sai Baba has, leave aside his recent would-be moon sightings, not been particularly bright himself.

And how can he be so when the evidence – that can less and less be hidden from his rank-and-file devotees – suggests that he now suffers from senile dementia?

He has not selected the brightest moon. Nor  a cloudless evening by which his religious and spiritual élite of devotees could view him in the moon on October 4, 2007. Nor the brightest students of his alumni – who now rush to the Internet to prove that Sai mooning is not moon madness.

Today’s blog suggests that Sai Baba has, leave aside his recent would-be moon sightings, not been particularly bright himself.

And how can he be so when the evidence – that can less and less be hidden from his rank-and-file devotees – suggests that he now suffers from senile dementia?

He has not selected the brightest moon. Nor  a cloudless evening by which his religious and spiritual élite of devotees could view him in the moon on October 4, 2007. Nor the brightest students of his alumni – who now rush to the Internet to prove that Sai mooning is not moon madness.

Why Seek They After A Sign?

Note, King James Bible. Mark 8.

“And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation”.

Note, the great Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda:

“I look upon miracles as the greatest stumbling block in the way of truth. When the disciples of Buddha told him of a man who had performed a so-called miracle and showed him the bowl, he took it and crushed it under his feet and told them never to build their faith on miracles, but to look for truth in everlasting principles”

Note, writer of the ancient classic treatise The Yoga Sutras, Sage Patanjali:

‘These (psychic) powers of spreading or outgoing mind are injurious to contemplation”

SBOI (Sai Baba of India Group) Are Over the Moon

It is interesting to find highly unofficially-officially connected prominent Sathya Sai Baba devotees, including those who as students were long in his colleges and university, now enthusing about visions in the moon of their guru. That some get so extremely excitable as to support calls on the Internet for people’s experiences of Sathya Sai Baba induced moon visions, suggests that Sai Baba’s years of education have failed them. (Yes, by the way, their education was ‘free’ but many of their parents forked out a fortune in donations and supposedly incidental expenses).

Unless, of course, a moon vision of Sai Baba in the absence of a moon is one of his greatest miracles.

The astronomical moon chart for October 2007 sustains Robert Priddy’s point in his article Deceiving ‘devotee’ makes bogus image of Sai in the Moon. He writes “

“it so happens that the moon on October 23 was not full but was still ’waxing gibbous’, as can be seen from the following image taken from the astronomical website http://stardate.org/nightsky/moon/ This shows the moon two days before full moon. Full moon did not occur until Oct 26  04:52, according to NASA“.

Tonight, quite a bit of the eastern seaboard in Australia looks as though it may be in cloud. A pity. Otherwise, we’d get to see the moon at its brightest for 2007, a large brilliant perigree moon. If you were Sathya Sai Baba – who says that he is the fullest manifestation of God in mankind’s history – perhaps, you might:

a) have chosen the brightest moon for the delectation of your followers and

b) made sure to check with your inner Divine Weather Forecaster – because, on October 4, clouds descended over Puttaparthi obscuring the moon. Ah, that old devil cloud!  Or, let me be true to that marvelous American lyricist Yip Harburg with the Burton Lane tune:

I look at you and suddenly,
Something in your eyes I see;
Soon begins bewitching me.
It’s that old devil moon;
That you stole from the skies.
It’s that old devil moon in your eyes

Can Visions Be Deceptions?

In regard to later capers by some of Sathya Sai Baba’s well-known (many of them young) propagandists of SBOI (SaibabaofIndia), I leave Robert Priddy on his blogsite at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com to make the point about whether one of a group of highly active supporters of Sai Baba, Darpan Rane, has fabricated a deception. Perhaps more interesting from the point of view of human growth to maturity is this:  Just suppose Sai Baba’s image were to have appeared on the moon. Then, let us ask, of what advancement would such a quaint manifestation have been to individuals collected around their guru? Or to all those international devotees so fervently racking up huge mobile phone costs trying to get the latest ‘moon miracle’ reports from their contacts at Puttaparthi? Or, much less, to humanity as a whole?

Form vs Essence

It is interesting that so many devotees have assumed that the vision apparently promised by Sai Baba via his chief translator and close servitor Professor Anil Kumar to many thousands of devotees gathered at his Puttaparthi ashram would entail seeing the form of Sai Baba on the moon. If they had consulted their timeless sacred classic, Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, they might have recalled that the vision granted by Sri Krishna to Lord Arjuna (vishwarupa or vishvarupa darshana) was of a very different character. It was not the form of Sri Krishna -who was right beside him! - but a cosmic vision of enormous range and depth. But what fools who rush all agape in to Sai Baba’s local airport would ever want something both noble and fiercesome as that?

• Was it not enough for them to have seen it where they had daily darshan (sight) of him within his Puttaparthi ashram?
• Why all the sensationalism, and indeed threat to life and limb, of thousands of devotees rushing headlong to his nearby private airport?
• Is an unruly crowd, which police had great difficulty in controlling, likely to be in a fit state to receive a divine and blissful vision?

Certainly, if it was the form of Sathya Sai Baba that was so eagerly sought after by the crowds of devotees, they have entirely missed one of his most insistent teachings: that the form is not what is important - but the essence of the teachings, and that attachment to the form is deleterious to spiritual growth.

A Dotty Sai Moon, A Smudgey Sai Earth

Why then, after all these years, do his devotees, both old and young, quest so fervently after a mere rather dotty semblance of his form somehow superimposed on the moon?

And are they so uncertain of their faith that they need to grasp at ‘proofs’ of their guru’s divinity?

Certainly, Sai Baba’s so-called ’spiritual’ museum exhibitors cater for such spurious ‘confirmatory’ evidence of their ‘Lord’s’ greatness. On show for example is what purports to be a NASA satellite photo of Sai Baba. It appears to some as though the very terrain for miles around his abode shows him watching over it. (I rather think that this is what Darpan Rane has in view and it harks back to material in Chapter 10 of (the late) Sai Baba devotee-journalist Shakuntala Balu’s book, Living Divinity. Here you are, dear Reader – but gaze on this divine miracle of Sai Baba, and, should you become fully enlightened, please remember me in your Will):

Or, with no authentication by Muslim or any other bona fide scholars, you may like to take a trip to India to witness material in Sathya Sai Baba’s self-glorifying Chaitanya Jyoti museum at Puttaparthi that purports to be many clear prophecies of the so-called ‘Advent’ of Sathya Sai Baba – as the promised Medhi Moud. What? Allah in form?! See, HERE

Further Reading

Other articles on the Sai Baba moon issue at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com are:

Sai Baba Fails to Grant Great Moon Darshan

Sai Baba Fails To Appear In The Moon, IANS Reports

Is Indian ‘Godman’ Sai Baba’s Moon Waning Still Further

Brian Steel: For a detailed, critical examination of the Medhi Moud so-called prophecy regarding Sai Baba, see The “Mehdi Moud” Prophecy Revisited

………

Robert Priddy:

Deceiving ‘devotee’ makes bogus image of Sai in the Moon

Oops! Apparently Sai Baba DID appear on the moon?

Why build moon rockets when Sai Baba has mantras?

More Sathya Sai Baba Moon Madness

Sai Baba postpones moon buggy ride

General

The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

For Online Viewing and/or Dowloading

The Secret Swami (BBC Television) Broadband 154 MB

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster):   (80 MB, Broadband)

• Sleight Of Hand. The Sleightness of Sathya Sai Baba (Exposing film clips)
• Censored Indian National Television Film of Sai Baba Cheating
• Sai Baba Cultists’ Gull Wider Communities
• BBC Cameras Catch Sai Baba Cheating With Gold Sivalingam. (Film Clip)
• The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Sai Baba). Revealing Footage

Still More Video Resources

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

BBC and Other Film Footage Shows India’s Top Guru Sathya Sai Baba Faking Miracles

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle « Call For Media and Government Investigation

Sathya Sai Baba Chief, Dr Goldstein, Explodes. “I am the consummate professional” (See Film Clips)

Raising ever more serious questions about how spiritual is the head of what Sathya Sai Baba has called THE divine organization in the world,

Michael Goldstein explodes with anger (710kbs)

at the BBC’s perfectly reasonable questions about accountability

Dr. Goldstein again reveals his higher self (1.500Kb)

Michael Goldstein and the sexual allegations (2,10 Mbs)

Michael Goldstein admits his view is merely a belief (456kbs)

Sathya Sai Baba Cult Exposure By Major TV Channel In Australia « Call For Media and Government Investigation

……………………………………………………

Note: Many surfers used the following search terms to get to the articles at http://barrypittard.wordpress.com on the Sai Baba moon issue:

sai baba moon miracle
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sai in the moon, October 2007
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sai baba viwa darshan

……….

See:  Petition For Official Investigation Into Sathya Sai Baba Cult

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Once, my life nearly succumbed to an Indian headlong pilgrim rush.

Crowd Delirium at Puttaparthi

What wondrous relief, then, not to have been caught up in the crowd surges of Sathya Sai Baba devotees which, last Thursday evening, plunged towards Sai Baba’s Puttaparthi airport. They hungered after Sai Baba’s reportedly promised divine vision as hunger-maddened human beings might rush for food.

Sai Baba had announced through one of his chief servitors, Professor Anil Kumar, news reports state, that he would grant to his assembled devotees a great vision – no less than “Vishwarupa Darshanam”.

This is the sort of peak divine experience that Lord Krishna is said to have granted to his servitor and boon companion Arjuna. See Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, At a point north east, all the divinely and incredibly fortunate Sai devotees would have to do would be to look up at the moon, and, lo, they would receive a blessing granted usually only to yogis or rishis (sages) who had meditated for thousands of years. (Too bad, of course, for any blind Sai Baba devotees). But the weather turned cloudy, and Puttaparthi officials are reported as saying that their Bhagawan Sai Baba had refused to go ahead with the event because the crowds had become unruly, holding up his car, in which he had been driven to the airport, for an hour.

How anyone could attain redemptive deliverance by trampling to death one’s fellow pilgrims may seem something of a mystery. But it is not a spiritual mystery. How Sai Baba could have set up a situation which any sane Indian knows is bound to cause incredible crowd turmoil is not, I think, a mystery at all. But, rather, is explicable in terms of serious recurring evidence of an encroaching mental condition that his core assistants work overtime in trying to keep from devotees and the general public. See my article: Sai Baba’s Tip to Keep Ageing Away.

In India, ‘Guest is God’. My 15 Minutes of Godhood

To speak of fervent ‘religous’ crowds who can trample you underfoot in the twinkling of a foot. One day at Sai Baba’s Puttaparthi ashram, in the late ’70’s, I was seized by a fit of (would-be) renunciation.

I was a lecturer in Sai Baba’s boys college at Whitefield, via Bangalore, and used to my place on Sai Baba’s temple (mandir) verandah and other ‘privilegious’ vantage points. One of these was a spot among Sai Baba’s male bhajan lead singers who sat right up front in the Puttaparthi auditorium, the Poorna Chandra, at that time said to be the second-largest auditorium in South-East Asia.

With no prizes available for grand naivity, I thought:  let me get out of this unseemly easefulness and sit as far up towards the back as possible, among the seething humanity, in this way working towards combatting egoic attachment to Sai Baba’s form. Unlike my normal seating position, to which I could go freely without queuing, I now had to wait among great throngs. At length, the roller doors of the Poorna Chandra were thown open, whence followed as fiece a charge as a Kiplingesque ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ – except that this was the charge of myriad heavy brigades. Pakistan would have been defeated in an instant!

Salvational Desperation

I did not then know what many a surviving pilgrim in India will know – which is:  Do rush. Do plunge pell-mell. Do charge with the charge. Otherwise you’re done for – life or limb. Unless you want to stay at home and risk getting run over by a vehicle. Nothing in India’s scriptures, nor in any, had quite prepared me for this important annexure to sacred Wisdom.

Thou Shalt Not Trample Foreign Visitors, Unless Moksha (Soul Liberation) Needs Forbid

Fortunately, there were a few quick thinkers among that madding crowd. As it surged forward stormily – avid after sitting places – an instinctive protectiveness by alert Indians saved this Australian “innocent abroad”. One had better not, if at all manageable, paste an innocent foreign face on the floor. Of course, my Indian brothers have known millennia before the American humorist Mark Twain wrote “Innocents Abroad“ that foreign travellers tend to be … ah, well … Or, to express the matter mildly, that we can magnify Murphy’s Law to the power of ten.

Then, several pairs of hands swept me up until I was carried over the heads of my benignly strong-armed rescuers. Perhaps that was the prize – my life.

My Fifteen Minutes of Sacred (or Scared) Fame

Once we sat down, I found that some knew I was a teacher in Sai Baba’s college and, at odd times, a bhajan leader, and “I” found “myself” - so to speak - duly worshipped - for God’s sake! The chump being worshipped was still alive, if rather shaken. And Andy Warhol was assiduously timing the whole event – pretty well right down to his statutary fifteen minutes.

Further earnest devotees started beckoning me to work my way down, and, with pained concern inscribed in their faces and tender care vibrating in their outreaching hands, swept me up and passed me continually forward to yet myriad other caring hands (which minutes ago might have belonged to individuals who would gingerly have trampled me underfoot), until service volunteers (seva dals), also brimfull of earnest solicitation, conducted me back to my accustomed, privilegious seat.

For, of course, one of the great courtesies of India is, veritably, that ‘guest is God’.

Vintage Quote From Sai Baba

“I will have to forego the car and even the aeroplane when I move from place to place, for the crowds pressing around them will be too huge; I will have to move across the sky; yes, that too will happen, believe Me.” (Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. II, p. 92)

Further Reading

www.andhracafe.com news report, updated: October 4, 2007. Hysteric crowds force Sai Baba to differ Viwa Rupa. Below, I have excerpted from this news release:

HYDERABAD : Hysteric crowds and overhanging clouds persuaded Sri Satya Sai Baba to postpone his promised Vishwarupa darshanam on Thursday evening. There was chaos at the Puttaparthi airport after Sai Baba devotees thronged the premises to witness the Vishwarupa darshanam of their master….
They returned disappointed. Sai Baba had earlier given darshan to his devotees at Sai Kulwant hall in Puttaparthi. After the bhajan, he told his assistant Anil Kumar that he would give Vishwarupa darshanam at around 7 pm on the northeastern direction of the airport….
As soon as Mr Anil Kumar announced this, devotees ran towards the airport chanting his name. Television channels also telecast the news and people in Puttaparthi locked up their houses and ran towards the airport. Thousands also rushed to the area from surrounding villages….
All the devotees crowding the area focused their attention on the northeastern direction in the sky. In a fit of devotion, some of them surrounded the car of Sai Baba and he could not come out. Devotees did not relent even after members of Satya Sai Trust urged them to sit down. Instead, they ran after the car….
A small stage was set up before the car for Viswarupa Darshanam but Sai Baba could not reach the stage as devotees prostrated before him. He was forced to remain in the car for about an hour….
A short while later, the office-bearers of the Satya Sai Trust announced that the Viswarupa Darsanam was postponed because of the non-cooperation of devotees and the cloudy weather. Sai Baba then returned to his Ashram. Sai Baba devotees in other countries also called up their friends and relatives in Puttaparthy to find out about the incident….
Because of the rush, traffic on the road from Puttaparthy to the airport was thrown out of gear. At one stage, doors of the airport had to be closed. Police finally cleared the traffic to enable Sai Baba to return to his Ashram. Most devotees expressed disappointment at not being able to see the Viswarupa Darsanam.

Further Reading

Other articles on the Sai Baba moon issue at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com are:

Sai Baba Fails To Appear In The Moon, IANS Reports

Is Indian ‘Godman’ Sai Baba’s Moon Waning Still Further

………

Robert Priddy: Sai Baba postpones moon buggy ride

General

The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

Note: Many surfers used the following search terms to get to the articles at http://barrypittard.wordpress.com on the Sai Baba moon issue:

Sai Baba on moon
baba in moon
sathya sai baba in moon
satya sai baba in moon
saibaba on moon
moon appear satya sai

In the exposure of morally or criminally aberrant gurus and their cults, it is important to keep focus on one’s own exposure campaigns. This alone takes enormous time and energy. 

However, there is often no communication between contra cult activists across the board, each group of whom is exposing the specific cult which it has left.

One would wish to advocate that, to some degree, activists across the board, engage in organized, civil exchange exchange of views, experiences, and, at times, resources.

One of the difficulties in the way of purposeful cross-exchange of views and resources is that the cultic mindset that brought individuals into a belief system can remain, even when exit from a cult has been made. Rigid, illiberal, locked in, and still fear-fraught. On the other hand, experience of a cult can be the very trigger that was needed for rigorous and productive self-introspection and questioning of belief systems.

Another constraint is, at the same time, one of the great strengths of dissenters from a teacher or an organization accused. This is that the organized ex-followers have, often enough, known or known about each other for years. There has already been formed both a trust basis and an intimate knowledge base of the nature, structure and personnel of the specific fold. Naturally, this distinctive advantage needs to be preserved – yet we need to raise our sights, and not get buried in smaller holes. These confines do not reflect the great latitude of what is a society-wide problem, where a society tends to be very shy of recognizing the harms, even though it is cripplingly hurt by them – both directly and indirectly.

There are, of course, some fora for this exchange of perspectives, such as those provided by conferences conducted by ICSA (International Cult Studies Association, formerly AFF), FAIR (Family Action Information and Resource, UK), and so on. At least face-to-face contact at the personal and professional or academic, levels can help sort out what emails and other readings never will. Here, one is heartened by cyberconferencing (both video and voice) developments such as Skype. 

Some cooperation is essential, given especially that there exist dangerous charismatic leaders who have come under widespread accusation of gravely immoral or criminal conduct.  

Just a few of the topics for discussion are:

• Internet defamation and stalking (and sometimes real-time stalking) of those who have spoken out
• Misuse of Wikipedia, and the exploitation of its present weaknesses
• Prevention of unsrupulous and malicious methods of manipulating search engine results. For example, fanatical proponents of the guru accused multiplying – dubious – blog references by adding country prefixes to items. Using country prefixes as smokescreens. ‘Stacking’ Google ratings with multiple negative – and unfounded - references from a labyrinth of websites and blogs
• Getting onto the political agenda the dangers posed to public well-being of cultic mindsets
• Encouraging education systems to find effective means of teaching critical thinking
• Accessing far greater film documentary, DVD, CD and other information resources that can incorporate the testimony of a range of dissenters but satisfy best independent, professional criteria for objective frameworks of presentation. The passion should not dissappear but certainly discountenanced altogether needs to be the vitriol, the libel, the character assassination, the internet flaming, computer hacking, etc., - although these can be portrayed within the ambit of proper and objective rapportage
• Breaking down academic resistance to the study of cults
•  Legal reform and better access to existing resources to ensure that human rights and other abuses by cults and institutions are successfully countered
• Ways need to be found to ensure that those making allegations against gurus, etc., know about rights and processes, such as the careful making of an affidavit, pursuing remedies via media, governments and police agencies whether local federal or Interpol, and lawfirms. Far greater clarity needs to emerge about lawfirm access to de bono representations, class action provisions, and so forth.
• Access to professional case-taking where individuals are ready to share their experiences of abuse
• Greater access to trained, qualified counseling professionals. (Although here there are questions  about whether cult-specific professionals are those best-suited to dealing with cult exist presentations. However could there be enough e.g., Sai Baba-specific, Scientology-specific, SYDA-specific mental health professions to go around?)
• Ensuring effective interactions between government, civic authorities, media etc., and those reporting serious infractions of law and ethics within institutions, and safeguarding the human rights of whistleblowers
• Protection or relocation of those in danger because of their testifying against abuses
• Portraying the widespread, non-specific, nature of teacher or institutional abuse within followings. There need to be comparative studies, and enough of these need to be in language accessible to the reasonably competent layperson

Basava Premanand and Professor Narendra Nayak, the courageous Indian Rationalists and tenacious ‘guru busters,’ travel India revealing how tricksters like Sai Baba appear to materialize sacred ash, called vibhuthi, or manifest, as Sai Baba pretends to do, a golden lingam or Shiva lingam, called Lingodhbhava or sometimes Brahmananda lingam.

Premanand has told the BBC he has investigated Sai Baba since 1968, at first “as a hobby”, then speaking out in public from 1976 to this day. In the BBC television documentary The Secret Swami, Premanand demonstrates how, by sleight-of-hand, magicians perform the same ‘miracles’ as Sai Baba – e.g. materializing ash, rings, pendants, etc. Footage showed Narendra Nayak demonstrating to BBC presenter Tanya Datta - who realizes that it takes practice – how to secrete a vibhuti (ash) pellet between the thumb and base of the forefinger, and then to crush it into a powder. Nayak says that Sai Baba’s rotations of the hand when producing the ash is the method used by all ‘godmen’ who ‘materialize’ this ash, and this ploy obscures the act of crumbling the pellet. (Various people, such as the former leader of the Australian Sai Organization, Terry Gallagher, a scientist and businessman, have reported seeing Sai Baba inadvertently drop these pellets. See Here).

At first, I thought that, to convince the most critical, it might have been useful for the BBC to use a top magician such as Derren Brown, Noah Kelly, David Copperfield  etc. Certainly, Denmark’s national broadcaster, in its television documentary Seduced (DR, 2003) that exposes Sai Baba (renamed in Australia in its English version as Seduced by Sai Baba, a copy of which we made sure that the BBC possessed), used a renowned Danish magician Nils Krøjgaard to expose some types of fakery Sai Baba uses. This documentary, with an over dubbed English commentary by an acquaintance of the producer, is viewable in a 21 Megabyte download HERE.

Sai Baba Far From Being Top Magician

However, critical close observers of Sai Baba do not regard him as a top magician, and indeed a rather poor one, who sometimes fouls his tricks by carelessness or absent-mindedness, so perhaps the use of amateur magicians to expose his tricks is indeed appropriate. A fair to middling amateur can still trick educated audiences, although not of course experts.

I was recently sitting in a restaurant and got chatting with a local magician. He was a rather touchingly simple man, largely self-taught in his lovely passion for magic, and he was functionally illiterate and had to learn by the kindness of fellow magicians and friends, who would read for him descriptions in magic manuals and magazines. For the next hour he blithely regaled me with a whole range of tricks, deftly employing sleight-of-hand. Except for some very common tricks, he would not, as is the case with principled magicians the world over, disclose the method of these, but some he kindly did, after I had told him of Sai Baba, and he immediately improvised compelling demonstrations of how he thought Sai Baba would fake his miracles. His notions were in a line with those such as Krøjgaard, Premanand, Nayak, et al.

Viewing

For both modem and broadband viewing of The Secret Swami, you may go Here

Readings

Sai Baba: God-man or con man? By Tanya Datta, Reporter, Secret Swami. BBC News 24.

The BBC’s The Secret Swami – A Revision

The Genesis of the BBC’s The Secret Swami

I think that the following list – which is suggestive rather than exhaustive – will contain pointers to behaviours repeatedly found by any who expose a powerful cult.

* Legal manipulations, so that a leader or his organization cannot be further proceeded against

* Use of a cult’s considerable financial resources and political, religious or civic clout to suppress testimony, rather than to address the issues honorably, compassionately and responsibly

* Production of false witnesses and a connived avoidance of legal accountability

* Ignoring the sheer weight of the evidence, and strong, psychological denial

* The claim that criticism is coming from only a mere handful of malcontents

*  The attribution of mental illness to those who criticise

* Misconstruing what is being alleged, distorting it; ignoring it; laying a worst-case interpretation on virtually every word of critics, bending words in a procrustean way to suit the purposes of the cult’s protagonists and to belittle those who speak out

* Missing the points being urged and instead highlighting peripheral issues

* Derision, defaming and shunning of former followers, no matter how well their character and integrity were regarded when they were members, and still is so regarded in their professions, trades, wider communities, etc

* Use of guilt-by-association, ad hominem arguments, infraction of the ‘Aristotlean’ law of the undistributed middle, argument from a low poll, misinterpretation of facts that have another explanation altogether, tu quoque retorts, and other impoverished forms of argument …

 * Terrible and relentless vilification of primary witnesses and of those former followers who attempt to bring the allegations to light

* Threats of litigation – that can prove to be sheer bluff

*  Stalking and harassment. Attempting to blacken the characters of critics in their workplaces, families, friendships, universities, and so on

* In some cases, threats against life or limb

* Muckracking. Keeping of dossiers against critics, with the intention of harming them

*  Interference in the private, personal lives of those who have spoken out. Intrusions are sometimes pursued against others who know the former members but who are only most peripherally and tenously involved

* Depictions of hell (whether psychological, real or both), shockingly bad ”karma” for those who have made revelations of improper conduct within a cult

* Cult members can ignore those who criticise the cult but this means that the abuses being reported ever more seriously unadressed

 * Spurious justification of the teacher’s misdeeds. E.g., claiming that he is raising the kundalini; balancing the devotee’s sexual energy; ‘ironing out sexual kinks’; rapidly expunging the devotee’s bad karmas; stating that, as we are not our bodies, the guru has not violated anybody; disporting in the divine role as Shiva the destroyer

* Blaming of the Media or any institution in every instance where it writes critically of the cult

… And so, woefully, on ….

Further Readings

International Cultic Studies Association

The Genesis of the BBC’s The Secret Swami (Sai Baba)

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony to BBC – After Years of Silence

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A great irony of cover-ups is this – that once they have been exposed, the initiators of the abuses sustain a cost far greater than would have attended the prompt admission of the initial misdeeds – and genuine, exhaustive measures to address the abuses. Tragically, “cost” may be multiply defined – and in far from money terms alone.

And is there any Faith, major or minor, that is not sorely complicit in profound cover up of systemic sexual abuse?

The present repercussions of the Los Angeles Catholic Diocese afford us a ready example. Questions are being raised about whether there is enough – after insurance and money from other Orders have been paid – for even a rich Diocese’s coffers to afford such a vast pay-out. This is but one diocese, and yet many others face, or have already faced, a similar predicament. Is there even a single one (as a BBC television news report would indicate) in which such allegations have not been raised?

The Editorialist in The Boston Globe, July 17, 2007, writes:

“The Los Angeles and Boston money could have been spent on other important projects if Mahony and Law had adopted a zero-tolerance policy against abuse when it first became a national issue for the church in the mid-1980s.

Catholic dioceses across the nation, including Los Angeles, have initiated thorough policies to prevent future abuse, and Mahony apologized to the victims on Sunday. Yet new policies and regrets aren’t enough. In the eyes of victims, the scandal will never be fully resolved as long as bishops who put the interests of their fellow priests over the protection of children remain in positions of leadership”.

‘Or who shall ’scape whipping’?

But is there any organization – anywhere – which has not covered up serious allegations? Can it be a good thing that when exposure of sexual abuse is discussed the Roman Catholic Church is so often the tarnished exemplar?

Another irony is that first whistleblowers are scapegoated but then public scapegoating can too easily turn on discretely ‘easy’ targets. And what more ‘easy’ than arguably the biggest religious monolith on the planet?

Does convergence of attention on a big institution help to prevent a much wider focus?

Naturally, of course, there is, at least, a chance for other organizations – before it is too late (if it is not already far too late!) for them to act without the courts forcing them to act – to learn from the fate of those churches or other organizations already strongly exposed?

Today, most societies are multicultural. Would it not make sense to take the broad approach, with not a single organization acting as though it, too, is unaffected? Or a wider public permitted to think that it has not its own accountability?

Further Major News Media Readings on the LA scandal and pay0uts are HERE, HERE and HERE.  Website of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) is HERE

See, Robert Priddy’s article ‘Spiritual’ Abuse. Quote:

“One US lady who has been raped by a priest broke down in tears on worldwide TV News (22/7/2007) while telling how she was not believed by her very own church community, which ostracised her. This ‘turning a blind eye’ has been very common, also in the Sathya Sai Organization”.

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