Judge warned: Crippling disease won‘t stop pervert

Some devotees of Sathya Sai Baba - the ’God’ worshipped by so many of India’s top power brokers (and others beyond) who faces worldwide accusations of large-scale, serial sexual molestation of boys and young men - claim that he could not possibly offend, if he ever did, because of his age and physical incapacity, and that therefore his current accusers are caught in a palpable deceit. 

L. Ageing multiple rapist Wayne Chapman still Dangerous. (Boston Herald Photo Pool). R. An Ironside Sai Baba - not one to easily push around.

They offer no evidence concerning the nature of sexual capacity and ageing. Yet there is a mass of readings on the topic ‘ageing and sex’ in the popular press, let alone a wealth of information from Gerontology and Geriatrics. As ever, the Internet is an abundant source.  But why go looking for facts when there is a guru to defend at all costs? And the word ‘costs’ is more than appropriate, since Sai Baba’s worldwide cult has to defend many billions of dollars of investment in its notion that Sai Baba is about to rule the earth. Any dear reader who happens to be a billionaire, watch your money - Sai Baba is a consumate master in extracting it from you - without seeming to want it. See my article: Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

Of course, making Champion of the World may require Sai Baba to take a little more than Viagra or Cialis. 

Extract from: Judge warned: Crippling disease won‘t stop pervert
By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald. Friday, March 23, 2007

‘Aging and Sick Sex Offender to Be Civilly Committed?

Whatever the wisdom of civil commitment laws it would seem that this fellow might qualify.  Increasingly, though, the states are going to have to contend with the high cost of health care in keeping aging and sick convicts behind bars.

Even though his aging, bloated body is confined to a wheelchair, a judge was warned yesterday a 59-year-old convicted sexual predator remains dangerous to children. A forensic psychologist assured Lawrence Superior Court Judge Howard J. Whitehead that convicted child rapist Wayne Chapman, who bragged he had sexually molested between 50 and 100 boys and even fantasized about killing some of them, “presents a high and unacceptable risk to re-offend.” “It just doesn’t go away,” Christine Schnyder Pierce testified. Chapman, an interstate predator, has been incarcerated for 31 years. Having served his time, he is hoping to retire in Massachusetts, but the Essex District Attorney’s Office is fighting to have Whitehead civilly commit him for life as a “sexually dangerous” person’.

Further Resources

Wikipedia, Sexuality in older age

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Sai Baba’s ‘Miracles’ Panned In Newsweek

From his observations of YouTube footage, in a Newsweek debate, Sam Harris opines that Sai Baba’s so-called miracles reveal him to be “a stage magician”. This view accords with that of many former Sai Baba devotees - who speak out about it - and of many devotees - who shut up about it.

You can see Sai Baba cheating HERE

Satya Purcell and Sam Harris Agree

www.exbaba.com has recently run in series an article by Satya Purcell, who, having been a member of the International Magician’s Society, exposes Sai Baba as a “bad magician”. Satya (given his name by Sai Baba) along with his mother and father, Sharon and Gary Purcell, were early Western figures at the commencement of the global spread of Sathya Sai Baba’s cult. He is the godson of famed early Sai Baba supporters, the multimillionaire husband and wife, the late Elsie and Walter Cowan. Sai Baba was alleged by the first major leader of the Western organization Dr Jack Hislop and others to have raised Walter Cowan from the dead in 1972. The details, including the medical documents, are hotly disputed. See, for example, Sai Baba’s miracles, an overview, Dr Dale Beyerstein, This book, by a rationalist and an academic from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, can be downloaded as a 100k zip file in .html format. Scroll down the Index to Section 3. for the material referring to Walter Cowan, which as an analysis, as is the case of the whole book, although dating from circa 1994, is still sharp and relevant.

Sam Harris-Rick Warren Debate Extract

Source: Newsweek.  The God Debate, April 9, 2007, page 3. LINK.

• Author Sam HARRIS: Let’s go back to the Bible. The reason you believe that Jesus is the son of God is because you believe that the Gospel is a valid account of the miracles of Jesus.

• Pastor Rick WARREN: It’s one of the reasons.

• Sam HARRIS: Yeah. It’s one of the reasons. Now, there are many testimonials about miracles, every bit as amazing as the miracles of Jesus, in other literature of the world’s religions. Even contemporary miracles. There are millions of people who believe that Sathya Sai Baba, the south Indian guru, was born of a virgin, has raised the dead and materializes objects. I mean, you can watch some of his miracles on YouTube. Prepare to be underwhelmed. He’s a stage magician. As a Christian, you can say Sathya Sai Baba’s miracle stories are not interesting, let’s not pay attention to them, but if you set them within the prescientific religious milieu of the first-century Roman Empire, suddenly miracle stories become especially compelling.

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My Life As Sathya Sai Baba’s Prophecy. Part 6, Final

Satya Purcell’s serialized account ‘My Life As Sathya Sai Baba’s Prophecy’ - subtitled Murder in the ‘Cathedral’! (Or Sai Baba’s Mandir) - concludes with Part 6., at:  http://www.Exbaba.com. It was Sathya Sai Baba, arguably India’s most famous - or infamous - guru who named this son of Sharon and Gary Purcell, who were among foundational figures like the multi millionaire supporters of Sai Baba, Elsie and Walter Cowan (Satya’s godparents), Dr John (Jack) Hislop, and others in the worldwide movement that became the highly organized, powerful and influential authoritarian cult, the Sathya Sai Baba Organization.

To access Part 6, click HERE then click on the NEWS tab then select the entry for Saturday, July 7, 2007. (Links to the other parts are given on each instalment page).

Quotes

“Only a properly conducted investigation would have dispelled the view that has been shared by many - that Sai Baba, who was well in command after the first confusion of events, did what many wealthy and politically powerful criminals do.  He had them killed!

“It is the culture of cover-up in matters both great and small that will surely be the undoing of the Sathya Sai Organization”.

“The crime scene had not been secured, an absolute fundament of proper police procedure. Hours after their prompt arrival, the police had rounded up these former students inside the mandir - the place where worshippers sing to God - and shot them dead. Some investigation! It made the stomach sick, even more than the presence of swilling blood”.

“One of the sweepers pushed the water right up to my bare feet and I had to quickly step back to avoid getting my feet wet with this bloody water.  I remember thinking that there must have been a lot of blood for the water to still be pink by the time it reached me”.

“I carry the name of one of the biggest spiritual frauds of all time, given to me by him when I was a child. I am not a baby now, and will not be silenced - even though knowing that to be a former devotee who speaks out is necessarily to attract extreme vilification, distortion and slander … The truth is hard.  I know because I carry it as my name”.

“Oh, let me not exclude, since I have been a keen amateur magician and member of the International Magician’s Society that, all the while, though a conman of genius, Sai Baba carries off his master act despite being a really bad magician. How ironic!”

Further Resources, including still further Links

Barry Pittard’s contextualising comments on this series from Satya (Sathya, Satch) Purcell series, with added resource links, are found HERE and HERE
For film clip of former Andhra Pradesh Home Minister V.P.B. Nair - telling BBC cameras that the police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom on June 6, 1993, were “absolute cold blooded murder” HERE

Transcript of the BBC’s The Secret Swami HERE
Sathya Sai Baba Bedroom Murders
Robert Priddy

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Former leader of Norwegian Sathya Sai Organization and retired academic, University of Oslo, looks at the killings. His Wikpedia resumé is HERE

Barry Pittard
Arts/Teaching/Drama  post-graduate, commenced informal teaching with drama, and then, including being assigned what were to have been Principal Narendra’s third year lectures, lectured in English at all levels of the three-year degree Course (1978-79) at the Sri Sathya Sai College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Whitefield, via Bangalore, South India. Innovated what was known as the ‘Small Library’ project, which brought him into unusually wide contact with boys from many backgrounds and classes from virtually all-India. Co-edited with valued colleague P.K. Mohanty an issue of the College magazine, which boys from across the campus turned into a huge best-seller. (With such fond memories, ex-students and staff are most welcome to contact Barry Pittard at:  bpittard (at) optusnet.com.au. Strictest confidentiality is assured. Or phone or video conference contact can be arranged)
Indian Ex Top Official Dogs Sai Baba On BBC. “Cold-blooded Murder” HERE

Serial Sex Molestation and Bedroom Killings. But Much More HERE

If Not For Whistleblowers

(Tal Brooke front left)

In 1970, in the U.K., Tal Brooke published Lord of the Air, which, evidently because Sai Baba’s people have such political clout, was banned in India. It was re-written and published as Avatar of Night. Paperback: 400 pages. End Run Publishing; December 15, 1999. ISBN: 193004500X.

During the fourteen months that Brooke lived close to him, Sathya Sai Baba conferred on him, as he was later to do with David Bailey, a rare closeness – rather too close for comfort, as matters turned out.

Amazing Grace? Or Incredible Disgrace?

Tal Brooke is author of nine books (at my last count) and is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in the World (Volumes 12 & 13), Contemporary Authors (Vol. 93-96), and The International Who’s Who of Authors. The famous English intellectual and broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge highly praised his work. Glen Meloy  identified Tal Brooke as the ‘original whistle-blower’ against Sai Baba. Brooke had began to compose a work in praise of Sai Baba which he called The Amazing Advent. However, what he had thought of as such amazing Grace, became incredible disgrace.

Name-calling

It was too easy for some Western, Hindu and other Sai Baba devotees to allude to Brooke’s adoption of a born-again Christian faith, and to pass off his accounts of Sathya Sai Baba’s sexual escapades. Those with accounts of Sai Baba sexually abusing them come from many different backgrounds. Such accounts simply keep on coming, and core leaders of the powerful and mega-rich worldwide Sathya Sai Organization have refused to tell the truth about the abundance - and indeed cultural variety - of serious reports that Sai Baba, and some of those around him, have long engaged in sexual abuse (not to mention other abuses). In short, it is far out of line with many contemporary organizations, both civic and religious, which have clear and strong guidelines concerning accountability and transparency.

Adherents Alone Without Fault. Dissentors Must be Wrong

There is a severe and oft-repeated syndrome to be noted where supporters of a guru, with their whole belief structure at stake, immediately - and with utter emotional and intellectual dishonesty - attribute maleficence to those reporting abuse, who are assailed with the easiest slurs that come to hand. Brooke turned to evangelical Christianity - therefore, he must have a deplorable motive. What then, suppose an evangelical or any other type of Christian or Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist (or whatever!) believes a crime has been committed? Should he or she not report it? What suppose an author makes money out of a book that reports abuse or some other shocking fact? We should ban it? Ridicule it? Refuse to read it? Tacitly assume that what is alleged cannot possibly have been true? Suppose a doctor makes a lot of money out of treating cancer or writing a book about it? Should we thus assume that he or she does not know what they are talking about?

When, in early 1982, I glanced at a few pages of Tal Brooke’s Lord of the air, I thought (as so many Sai devotees before and since have thought) that he had totally missed the point of my spiritual teacher, for whom I thought there were good reasons for regarding as unique in history.  I still think Sai Baba is rare, if not unique in history - but now for reasons far from inspirational but which, rather, give great concern - not only to those who feel they have been catastrophically betrayed by him but to those individuals and institutions throughout the world whom his cult would seek to influence and transform.

Is Cultic Thinking Only Found In Cults?

What if cultic thinking is one of the great threats to a mature humanity? Is there no cultic thinking among terrorists? If there is, should it not be in our interests to understand it better? But, far more than that, what if some at least of its elements are present - all unquestioned - in our own belief systems, whatever they may be? What if the quest for charismatic leaders figures more widely than in those movements we so easily deem to be cultic?

Bizarre Content May Not Preclude Truthfulness Of Abuse Accounts

I now think that we have to take seriously certain reports (such as in the Brooke reportage) like Sai Baba morphing from one gender into another - NOT because they may be literally true but because the mind of a person in an abuse situation - especially with someone they believe is, for example, God incarnate, Christ-like, Buddha-like or whatever it may be - may well be undergoing some kind of pyschopathology. But one which, however, does not mean that they have not been sexually abused. They may indeed hallucinate in one respect - BUT not about the fact of abuse itself. They too have a right to be heard. Whether they have been abused or simply have imagined that they were abused, attacks upon them are reprehensible - and are clearly about defending a guru, and not about humane sensitivity and compassion for our fellow human beings.

Need For Independent Third Party Investigation

What, then, the case of someone who realises that they have had an experience of a kind bound to be disbelieved by most of their fellow human beings. Should they, too, fail to report their belief that they have been abused? Of course, most will take the ‘easy’ way out and shut up. However, there have always been examples of human beings propelled by conscience who will speak out for what they believe is true, even in the face of direst opposition?

Attackers Of Whistleblowers Have A Lot To Answer For

But suppose some human beings speak up because of conscience - for example, because those they have most loved, such as parents, or the founder of their faith or other inspirational role model have instilled in them the importance of telling the truth, even against the odds.

The fact that devotees of a guru under siege so vehemently attack those who dissent should not go unexamined. Their own assertions should be as rigorously examined as the views of dissentors. Indeed, the central contention all along of organized former devotees and other critics of Sai Baba is that independent, third party investigation of such serious allegations is of the utmost importance.

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‘Marriage Mart’ - Are Known Sex Abusees Disadvantaged?

Witnesses Speaking Out On Sex abuse. Opportunities? Obstacles?

Getting those of Sai Baba’s ex college boys and staff, with whom we have had contact over time, to speak out publicly has proven difficult.

Indeed, in our own movement of exposure, except around 2000, encouraging Sai Baba’s abuse survivors, no matter what their country or culture, has been hard. At  this time, there was unusually intense effort to bring allegations against Sai Baba and his organization to world attention. There were also high hopes - terribly idealistic, in retrospect - that simply getting the major media to investigate, and informing governments, law enforcement agencies, the general public and as many remaining devotees as possible would effect transformation.

Caution In the Primary Witness Process Essential

Of key significance in obtaining cooperation of those making primary allegations circa 2000 was that one of the former devotees was an Indian, with many contacts within Sai Baba circles in India - but added to this fact were his own distinctive qualities. For he was an enormously energetic campaigner, matched outside India by another extraordinary activist, now deceased, who was non-Indian.

The issue of charismatic ability of some activists to inspire abuse survivors to come forth - has been been re-raised by recent developments. These will not be made public yet - but of which more, trustfully, in the next year or so. However, with the utmost emphasis, I wish to suggest a caution. As in the example given above, a highly energetic, articulate, personable individual may indeed have unusual success in obtaining cooperation with abused individuals - e.g., getting sworn testimony, undertakings to travel as court witnesses, sharing of abuse experiences with leading media, law enforcement agencies, governments, UNESCO, academic researchers, etc.

However, my view is that, under a regimen of caution and great sensitivity, it is essential to have well-qualified, experienced abuse professionals involved - as well as those with other professional skills, such as lawyers, social workers, financial advisors, etc. With such constraints, there will, I should think, be some falling away in the numbers ready to testify. When all is said and done, those who are inwardly crumbling may not make the best witnesses, anyway. However, the issue is an ethical one, and should not be up for grabs! Although activists may have the very best intentions, and be far from exercising any coercion, there are nonetheless serious dangers to be avoided. Badly traumatized human beings can be like ticking bombs, where the approach must be made with a great care and skill not possessed by most of us.

Is There A ‘Damaged Goods’ Problem Within India Marriage ‘Markets’?

Indian boys with sexual molestation accounts have shared with networked former Sai Baba devotees a number of difficulties facing them. These relate to the conduct of Sai Baba and some of his personnel such as certain of his teaching staff and students. Suppose Indian abuse survivors were to go public. Are we able to imagine the ramifications within that extraordinarily complex institution - the joint family?

Ex-students and staff of Sai Baba’s institutions who are cooperating with us are acutely aware, for example, that members of their own families are strong devotees of Sai Baba. Some of these live in his ashrams, and are vitally dependent on his largesse, and anxious lest his officials find any fault, real or imagined, which could lead to their casting out. If ex-students and other young male devotees who have come to grief with Sai Baba, or are friends of those who have, were to speak out, what would be their fate, and that of those they love?

Joint Family A Great Institution. Like Any, It Has Its Stresses, Strains 

A great many marriages in India are still arranged, where a boy or girl does not, in certain respects, so much marry an individual but rather a complex set of family alliances.

To spend considerable time - as I have had the great fortune to have done in the case of India - in any other culture is often a humbling experience. Customs which vastly differ from one’s own can, on closer inspection, enshrine a great deal of commonsense, adaptive capacity and profundity - all too easily missed by superficial judgement. Therefore, it is not the topic in general of arranged marriages that I allude to in this piece, but a facet of the tradition which can pose - unless those in the culture itself  find creative ways around it - a difficulty for many Indian sexual abuse survivors.

Creative Indian Solutions Needed

All round the world, there are those who wish, of course, that ex students and ex staff of Sai Baba’s institutions would go public with what they know to be true, tragic as it is. (I do not say that they will not do so, eventually). However, such an event needs a uniquely Indo-centric approach - with Indian legal, spiritual, emotional and other support systems well in place. Where well-wishers in other countries may be able to assist is in contact with governments to smoothe the path for those Indian individuals or families who, for their own safety and well-being may wish to relocate.

Many who have been abused have real issues of reintegration, of  “moving on” (which is a phrase they themselves often use), and living with a sense of betrayal - especially acute in the face of their experience of a guru they supremely loved and trusted.

Legal Situation Can Be Problem-fraught

Any abuse survivors looking for legal remedies need to ensure that they obtain the most competent and sensitive advocacy. To win a monetary settlement and yet lose peace of mind is not worth it - unless an individual is very strong and believes that his sufferings will obtain tangible reforms for other abuse survivors, including the eduction of the wider public, and the breaking down of taboos against speaking out.

Related Reading at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com

Indian Government Study of Child Abuse Is Groundbreaking

Child Abuse Rife In India. But Who Would Speak Out?

Child Abuse in India. Will Minister Renuka Chowdhury Act?

Child Abuse. Landmark Indian Government Study

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Corrupt Indian Judges Stonewall Case Vs Sai Baba

In 2001, the celebrated Indian advocate Kamini Jaiswal (who was a lawyer for the famous ‘Bandit Queen’ Phoolan Devi) attempted to mount, pro bono, a case against Sai Baba on behalf of a former Sai Baba devotee, Hari Sampath.

Jaiswal’s reason for applying for the case to be pled in the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi was precisely for the reason that Andhra Pradesh, Sai Baba’s state, is chockful of Sai Baba police and judges. Therefore, Judges Paitnaik’s and Lahoti’s repeated statements (see link below): “Go the Andhra Pradesh court”, and refusals to give reason for their adverse decision is reprehensible. I have shown the transcripted remarks to a Judge who has also been a top government legal advisor in a major Commonwealth country, who was appalled, as other lawyers and laity alike have been.

Sampath, a software engineer from Chennai may be no bandit like Ms Jaiswal’s client the late Phoolan Devi, although many Sai Baba devotees would perhaps deem him so. He was, he relates, a former member of Sai Baba’s Security and Intelligence wing.  He co-led, with the late Glen Meloy (USA), the first major international former devotee effort that brought Sai Baba to critical attention in major media such as India Today, The Times of London, Salon.com, The Daily Telegraph, Denmark’s National broadcaster DR and various media in Europe and beyond.

Case Derailed

Two other prominent Indian advocates Prashant Kumar and Gaurav Agarwal appeared along with Kamini Jaiswal. However, they were entirely thwarted by judges in the New Delhi Supreme Court - the Sai Baba-partial Judges Lahoti and Patnaik. There is a document which reveals instantly to any alert and unbiased reader what a ‘kangaroo court’ theirs was. This document’s provenance we can prove to competent and principled enquirers. A legal professional has transcripted the case, and part of this may be viewed HERE.

By the way, our offer of proper provenance checking facilities is likewise the case with a wide range of facts that we often have to state in places like the Internet without evidentiary detail - alas, so cautiously and abstractly! But we are - and have been all along - happy to dislose such matters to reputed, bona fide journalists or other investigators, e.g., scholars, law enforcement, government.

Why Not Plead Against Sai Baba in Andhra Pradesh?

For an example how a Sai Baba devotee Judge in Sai Baba’s state of Andhra Pradesh can pervert the course of justice see HERE. Here are brief details.

B. Premanand, of TV “Guru Buster’s” fame, and fellow Indian Rationalists, among other gutsy actions, tried but failed to expose Sathya Sai Baba in court. He too has reported physical attacks, and has told a number of us that his own son was murdered - the only material stolen being extremely compromising to Sathya Sai Baba. Sri Premanand has formed a Committee for Scientific Investigation into Claims of the Paranormal (CSICP). He mounted a court action in Sathya Sai Baba’s state of Andhra Pradesh, in which the High Court Judge Y.V.Anjaneyulu, a prominent Sai Baba devotee, ruled that the law requiring a license to produce gold does not apply to Sathya Sai Baba, who, he determined, materializes his gold from a divine realm. This 1986 case, which B. Premanand brought in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, exposed a close Sai Baba devotee judge’s violation of India’s secular legal system. Judge Anjaneyulu pronounced:

“An article or ornament materialized from air in a split second by the use of spiritual powers or otherwise cannot be said to be made, manufactured, prepared or processed within the meaning of section 11 of the Gold Control Act.”

Having lived long in India, I know well that many thinking Indians feel disgusted that their otherwise great country is still awash, from top to bottom with irrationality and corrupt practice that includes the malfeasance of Judges such as Anjaneyalu, Lahoti and Patnaik. If she makes it as a superpower, will there be an insufficient number of ethical ’freedom fighters’ to prevent her from her existing as a moral and spiritual dwarf?!

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Who In India Will Stand out Against Abuses?

According to reports by Sanjoy Majumdar, BBC New Delhi and Tim Sullivan of Associated Press, there have been some recent populist stirrings in India against corruption and its cover-up.  Not that there have not long been those Indians who have stood up valiantly against these. One may hope that the groundswell will come to include corrupt gurus. 

A few courageous Indians, like B. Premanand, the famous “guru buster”, Rationalists, Humanists and People’s Union for Civil Liberties PUCL), work to expose Sathya Sai Baba and others who hold such tremendous sway with power brokers, and escape accountability. Would that India’s religious leaders would, in sufficient numbers raise their voices, as, for example, Swami Agnivesh has been doing.

With great courage and undying credit, a handful have not been afraid to mention sexual abuse and other evils publicly.  Even when failing to get certain gurus behind bars, it is a great achievement to get their covert mischief in front of the public gaze. Jail, and the threat of it, may have its uses, but the primary need is to educate a public so that it is on its guard.

Related Reading at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com

Fighting Multi Billion Corruption Takes Longer