Contra Cult Crusaders Need to Communicate and Coordinate

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

Cost Of Cover Ups Can Far Exceed Hoped-for Benefits

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

Sai Baba has created a multi-billion dollar opulence and spendour around him - from vast donations, be it said, often from your and my countries.

Highly Motivated Sai Cult Members Infiltrate Major Social Organs

He is a showy emperor of his own domain, commanding many Indian power brokers, irrespective of which party rules, and some beyond. He says he will, shortly, be God to the whole world. When a fool without enormous power thus proclaims we can either laugh or feel sorry for him.

But Sai Baba has millions of followers. See pic of Dr Michael Goldstein, Covina, California, U.S.A. caught fulminating by BBC hidden camera. He is world chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization, which Sai Baba says is THE divine organization through which he will change the entire world in his own lifetime, Islam being the last to accept him.

See BBC’s The Secret Swami HERE.

Sai Baba Cult Recruits In Costly Venues

In their thousands, in your and my countries, at virtually any point of the compass, one can encounter highly motivated Sai Baba devotees. They do not tap on your door like the Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehova’s Witnesses, etc. They inhabit the highest echelons of power in various countries, and especially win involvement by contact at the top, whether it is with the various world faiths, politicians, governments, municiple authorities, education institutions, etc. In tightly controlled circumstances, they recruit in highly costly, luxurious venues. For example, Cooper’s Union, New York; La Mirada Theatre; Los Angeles County, Hilton Ballroom; Sheraton Hotel & Towers, both Chicago; Copley International Conference Center, San Diego; Town Hall, Melbourne; Super Dome, Sydney, etc. See article by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard:  Sai Organization’s Spending Spree In Super Dome, Sydney.

Sai Cult Members Face Trails of Broken Promises

It does not seem to occur to Sai Baba’s devotees that the rest of humanity simply will not let him be God. Alas, it can take all of our communities all too long to wake up to Sai Baba devotee infiltrations into many civic, religious and political systems. Sadly, in the long run, it will be the great life crisis of these devotees, so many of them sincere and decent people, that their cherished beliefs, for which they work so tirelessly hard at practically all levels of the society, are doomed. They already have to watch him severely ageing, when he said he would not age after he turned 60 years. They now witness whole trails of his broken promises.

Members’ Air of Unreality Does Not Lessen Cult Danger 

Would the rest of us - wearing blank looks on our faces - permit this admittedly charismatic and powerful, mega wealthy, influential would-be World Teacher to have his way - or either in the role of God fully incarnate or at least as a Christ, a Muhammad, a Moses, a Buddha, a Zoroaster, etc., - or even all of these, in some strange manner, rolled up in one? This is what Dr Michael Goldstein, head of the world Sathya Sai Organization and physician of Covina, California, U.S.A, told the BBC cameras in London during the making of The Secret Swami (2004):

“We believe that Sri Sathya Sai Baba is Jesus Christ.  Sri Sathya Sai Baba is Buddha.  Sri Sathya Sai Baba is the founder of all of the world’s religions.  Sri Sathya Sai Baba has always been God”

It is interesting that Goldstein chants this statement, instead of speaking naturally. I am reminded of a remark to me of one of our very qualified, experienced support psychotherapists, who mentioned how she and her medical doctor husband spoke to a close organizational colleague of Goldstein, Dr Samuel Sandweiss, of San Diego, California, a psychiatrist who has led large medical groups to visit Sai Baba. They spoke to him of the sex abuse allegations against Sai Baba, and observed a highly incantatory response, a certain air of unreality, and a marked deflection away from being to the point. 

When Shall We Learn The Weimar Lesson?

Humanity has a not un-noted failure to refute obscurantism with reason, and to put a stop to rot. Do we think a figure with a genius for self-promotion like Sai Baba could not succeed in getting the centuries to accept his version of himself? In admittedly the extreme case, what untold ghastliness arose because the Weimar Republic curled up foetal-style in its wretched bed?  Thomas Jefferson had the matter right - “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”.

Cults endanger The Open Society

Cults, with secrecy and authoritarian structures enshrined in them, are dangerous for the open society. We ignore them at peril. We need to find ways that both protect religious and other freedoms, of course. But this should not preclude, as it all too often does, clear and strong action by communities to expose and deal with the cultic mentality. We also need to look within our own communities, and perhaps within our own selves, to see that distorted thinking of cultic thinking, in greater or lesser degree, exists in our own milieu, and not alone in forces without, such as terrorism.

Rigorous education in clear thinking would be a start, as would, necessarily entailed with the latter, addressing social ills which are only too bound to attract it.

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Sai Baba’s “Back Yard” Still A Mess

Will More Indian Activists Speak Out?

Activism from within India against Sai Baba and his worldwide cult, the Sathya Sai Organization, and other corrupt gurus is crucial. 

Activists know best their own culture. It would be good to see many more critics than B.Premanand and Swami Agnivesh and a handful of others speak out against the abuses. As I discovered when a Sai Baba follower for 25 years, as do many other devotees who travel widely in India, there is, and long has been, widespread disrespect for Sai Baba - no matter his popularity, too. Much more would have been uttered, except that a great many Indians are extremely polite and do not like to upset the feelings of others.

Sai Baba Appalls Many Indians

Many Indians of wide socio-economicand religious and non-religious backgrounds do not object to Sai Baba’s evangel of respect for all the faiths - which is something very historic and deeply germane to India. Likewise, they respect the worthy social uplift work which his followers do in his name. However, they point to the contradictions and muddles that he makes with the Hindu scriptures, many of which bungles can be shown to have been later quietly removed by his translators. (I saw this damage control happening at first hand when I was an editor at Sai Towers, Puttaparthi, and saw Professor Anil Kumar, Sai Baba’s principle translator implicated in it, as did I see the re-shaping hand, too, of my dearly loved friend (the late) V.K. Narasimhan), Editor of Sanathana Sarathi, Sai Baba’s official magazine, which is goes worldwide. Many Indians disapprove of the grip that so-called miracles (despite the way Sai Baba says about them only being his “visiting cards”) have on the minds of his devotees.

Concern About India’s Image

My extensive travels and years in India showed that many Hindus feel that he, and many other gurus, bring Hinduism into disrepute. Indians of a variety of religious and nonreligious backgrounds believe that corrupt gurus bring grave international disrespect to India. Many Indian and other Sai Baba devotees wanted to see the Indian diplomat Shashi Tharoor succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations. After all, he allowed an article of his to be used in a Sai Baba propaganda effort in The International Tribune right at a time when the sister newspaper ran a piece by Keith Bradsher in the New York Times. See HERE. One only needs to read the writings of Sai Baba’s close servitor, Dr G.Venkataraman, deputy head of the Sathya Sai Organization and head of Sai Global Harmony via WorldSpace Satellite Radio International to see how Sai Baba’s merest interests are advanced in a UN mission by the Government of India. See my article, Does UNESCO Really Protect the Young? The Case of the Missing Media Advisory (2005). HERE

Sai Baba’s Mission Fails

Many dispute that Sai Baba has made significant headway in bringing harmony among the various faiths in India, very few of whose representatives have ever allied themselves with him. They frown at the enormous pomp and circumstance that attends him, and they disdain the spectacularly costly museums and other buildings erected in his ashrams and elsewhere - which are supposed to feature the ‘unity of faiths’ but in fact extol and glorify Sai Baba. Where does all the money come from? Answer: your country and mine! In the article at this blogsite: Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia , see photos of just some of the incredible Sai Baba opulence. HERE.

Puttaparthi - A “National Circus”

Decades ago, an Indian man who sat near to me in Puttaparthi - who was present only because of family considerations and on sufferance - said to me with intense feeling, “this place is a national circus!” I then felt him profoundly mistaken but today see how right he was.

In marked contrast, Indian history, in many of its religious traditions, abounds in examples of spiritual figures who lived in the utmost simplest of circumstances.

Further Readings

Serguei Badaev is a Russian educationist, trained as a scientist. Until he began to raise leading questions about Sai Baba, he was President of the Moscow Sai Baba Center and National Coordinator for Sathya Sai Education in Human Values for Russia. Three of Sai Baba’s top hatchet men - Indulal Shah, Thorbjörn Meyer and Steen Piculell - quickly and ruthlessly militated against him. It is like this elsewhere in the organization. It is a cult cleverly parading as not-a-cult, nothing less. About monthly at http://www.saiguru.net , Badaev continues to provide cool data that suggest Sai Baba’s claim to be divinely transforming India is, like so many of his other claims, extremely fraudulent. HERE.

Badaev uses Indian commentators to indicate how unprogressive Sai Baba’s education system often is. (Indeed the latter’s propaganda tirelessly makes much of narrow indicators of education success,  gold medals, high marks, obedience, etc., and yet the style of teaching has long been that of talk and chalk - eschewing the many extraordinary advances made in Educational theory and practice).  HERE.

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Dalai Lama: Forgiveness does not mean forgetfulness

At the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Australia, July 14, 2007, the 14th Dalai Lama spoke to a capacity, 15000 audience. Several large screens throughout the auditorium meant that people were able to see him close up.

This well reinforced a remark that someone had made - that he was “radically informal”. It was true - he had a profound naturalness, straightforwardness and simplicity. There were also  large crowds outside watching on a large television screen outside the Brisbane Entertainment Center.

Forgiveness does not entail forgetfulness

First, I shall single out one of the points he made, because it can throw light on the motivations of many former devotees of Sathya Sai Baba around the world. Most are not motivated by hatred against Sai Baba or leaders of his Sathya Sai Organization but believe it important to state their case as best they can, if in very difficult circumstances.

This point of the Dalai Lama’s - about forgiveness - is made, like all of his points, in many wisdom traditions, yet it seems to forever need to be raised and clarified, simple a point although it is.

Anyone who knows those individuals around the world who have dissented from Sai Baba - many of them having been deeply committed to his work for decades until they resigned or simply walked out - knows that most of those individuals speak out decidedly not because of hatred and revenge. It is a simplistic notion that speaking out about crimes and other wrong-doings has to to equate to hatred and revenge. Even if, since none of us is perfect, we err, it is important for us all to look for some better resolution of the issues. Some of the insights gained in the ‘Truth Commission’ processes may afford a guide for groups who are ready to reform themselves and seek compassionate solutions. See e.g., http://www.truthcommission.org

A society in which serious allegations are not brought out will remain a terribly crippled one. It will be one of secrecy, and lack compassion. It will not address the difficulties that so sorely need to be raised. China is far from alone in this, and we each need to address our own country’s failures to be a genuinely just society. However, China, as many cults do, has a long record of severe suppression, secrecy and violation of human rights. It has strongly protested to the Australian government, attempting to get it to stop the Dalai Lama’s visit. It would like us to forget him, and forget its atrocities, including enforced colonization and genocide. It can no more say sorry for these and make amends - to name but one of many Chinese government human outrages, for its violent mass killings in Tienanmen Square in 1989 (see Wikipedia reference HERE) than my own country’s government of John Howard can say sorry to our own wonderful, but tragically decimated indigenous people. Howard and the federal Opposition Leader, a former diplomat, Kevin Rudd, who speaks fluent mandarin Chinese, have both vacilated severely about whether they would meet the Dalai Lama. Most suddenly and curiously, neither appeared to know what their diary was doing but in fact, according to various media reports, they were both locked in consulting their realpolitik options - namely the trade issue, since China is Australia’s biggest trading partner. (I have dealt with this issue, from the perspective of our own interfaces with a number of governments in relation to Sai Baba HERE.  Many governments prefer narrow pragmatism over humanitarian conscience). 

What the Dalai Lama has succeeded in doing, and what a few others like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson and so on have so powerfully sought to do is to rise above hatred and vengeful, violent retaliation. (It may be good if we all start making a list and add still many more role model names, such as the Myhero project has sought to do at this page HERE). They have struggled on the great scale just as the rest of us have to struggle on the smaller scale. Not one of these leaders failed to speak out against the evils that had been perpetrated - such as those of war, empire, colonialism - and the disgraceful and terrible means used to realize them. Remembering evils can be graceful, especially when we have community support, and personal methods of self-discipline and induction of genuine calmness - such that we do not visit them on others as doctrine.

Forgiveness: Not losing compassion for the other person

Answering a question from the audience, the Dalai Lama distinguished between forgiveness and forgetfulness. He said that forgiveness is logically not possible with the absence of forgetting. To forgive, you need to remember what it is that you are forgiving. Forgiveness means not losing compassion for the other person. Sooner or later that individual, if they have have committed an offence, has to face the consequencies. Forgiveness does not mean taking no action. The important thing is that you do not let hatred overtake you.

‘Secular Ethics’

The Dalai Lama said he had nothing to offer but common sense. His own religion was his own private matter. His thoughts expressed publically may be termed ’secular ethics’. He had not much to offer, except commonsense.

He was now nearly 72 and since 16 years of age has had lots of difficulties, like the loss of his country. As he tours the world there is always sad news. But it is important to find a way, although recognizing the sadness for what it is, not to detain oneself with it but instead to establish a calm mind. To some, this attitude seems like being careless. But it is not, because a conflicted mind will bring still more troubles. Take problems seriously by all means, of course, but on the objective intellectual level rather than on the emotionally conflictful level. One needs to  look at things objectively, and handle things more realistically, being neither over joyful nor over sad.

Happiness is the very purpose of life

Feelings of compassion and kindness need to be implemented through action. People need to feel a part of society, and self-confident.  We are social ‘animals’. Survival depends on a sense of community. Positive emotions are very good for us, and negative emotions very bad and destructive. The more compassion the better is society’s functioning. This recognition does not belong peculiarly to any religion.

Religious answers often divide

Compassion is very commonly shared by people everywhere since we received it from our time in the mother’s womb and from her as we developed as we developed from our earliest stages as human beings. If morality and ethics were based on adhering to this or that religion, serious questions arise. For example - what religion? Many answers to this are very divisive of humankind. What? Six hundred million human beings should all follow a just one religion and no other. It is not possible. The secular teaching of values is the commonsense solution.

Force has been the typical answer

Compassion cannot be a weapon. If you try to eliminate people’s viewpoints by force the hatred will pass down the generations. Today, one Bin Laden, in ten years 10 Bin Ladens. The Dalai Lama told this in a letter of condolence to President George W. Bush on the day after 9/11. He got a strong laugh from the audience when he said that he has met George Bush and is scheduled to meet him again soon, and finds him individually a very nice man but that “his philosophy and mine are - different”.

Destroying another person is destroying yourself

External disarmament is important but the real need is for internal disarmanant. We need to make these notions familiar to children in school, so that they can confidently say to their parents - this trouble needs to be solved through dialog, not through conflict. Consider the other person as a part of yourself. Destroying another person is destroying yourself.

A questioner asked the Dalai Lama what have been the his greatest joy and and greatest sadness. He replied that there have been so many such moments that it is hard to pick but that two of those that stand out that taken together were very important revelations to him came close together. When he was sixteen he was overjoyed to have obtained his Ph.D. Even as this happened, the Chinese occupation of Tibet was proving very difficult for his people. There was terrible fear of the Chinese soldiers. Over half a million people died, many of starvation, many killed. In March 1958, many Tibetans, including himself, escaped. The experience felt very “Up. Down” but it enforced a sense of reality.

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Genital Oiling. Do Hindu Religious Leaders Approve?

My private enquiries disclose that Hindu and other Indian religious leaders do not approve such practices as the oiling of genitals. Ludicrously, Sai Baba’s foremost leaders attempt to exhonerate him by stating that his genital touching and oiling are part of a time-honoured Hindu tradition.

In an e-mail, February 2002, to Robert Priddy, retired academic of the University of Oslo and former head of the Sathya Sai Organization in Norway and devotee of 18 years, Thorbjørn Meyer, the organization’s Central Coordinator for Denmark, and a major world Sai Baba leader, has documented that he considers genital oiling to be “the age old Indian oil ceremony.” Link.

Thorbjørn Meyer’s close colleague Steen Piculell, Co-coordinator for Russia, interviewed on BBC Radio 4, Sunday, November 19, 2000, says:

“Gurus have always, as part of their job, put some oil on the er … upper er . part of their … right hand and g… and gone down in the chakra be … be … behind the testicles to er adjust the chakra there. This is a normal thing. And this I suppose Baba has also done because this is part of his job. That’s all.” (But Steen Piculell does not normally stutter like this!)

Moreover, on Danish radio and TV news, Sathya Sai Baba’s officials admitted that he genitally oils young males. Their responses infuriated a wide Danish public.

Commonsense Deserts Sai Baba Cult Members

Sai Baba’s many devotees who can do no other than admit that he commonly does this ‘genital oiling’ (as many have described it) fail to ask:

• Why would Sai Baba be so selective as to confine this activity to boys and young men?
• Why would he not correspondingly touch the genitals of girls and young women? Or older people of either sex?
• Why would he transgress the laws and ethics that obtain worldwide concerning such practices?
• Why, when he is not a medical practitioner licensed only under the strictest exceptions to touch the genitals of another person, would he engage in these genital touching or ‘oiling’ actions?
• Why his secrecy when he grasps or oils the penises of young males?
• Why do so many reports indicate that the young males receiving this attention from Sai Baba are “pretty”, “good looking”, etc.?
• In the face of such serious allegations, why are there no accountability and transparency mechanisms in the Sathya Sai Organization, especially when the accusations persist decade after decade?

Indian Constitution Safeguards Unsafe?

Hindu and other Indian religious leaders I have consulted refute that any such practice is sanctioned in their religions or by the laws or Constitution of India.  (One wishes they would all come out and make unequivocal statements on such issues, though!). In fact, Article 32 of the Indian Constitution protects both Indian citizens and foreigners who visit India.  In most countries, legal codes forbid (other than for diagnostic or treatment purposes by a medical doctor) touching a minor’s genitals. Often, it is mandatory for professionals to report any allegations of sexual molestation, and those who fail to report commit a crime.

Sai Baba’s Leaders Fail To Warn Parents

For many years, in many countries, the leaders of the Sathya Sai Organization have failed to warn parents of devotees that profound concerns have been expressed by both members and resignees about allegations of sexual molestation by Sai Baba of boys and young men.

Accusations Exceed Genital Oiling and Touching

Disturbing as the practice is, the oiling of genitals is but the mildest form of molestation of which Sathya Sai Baba is accused.  Far more severe forms of sexual abuse, sometimes extending over months and years, have been often reported.  Sathya Sai Baba is accused, in relation to young males, of:

• employing and requesting masturbation
• engaging in oral and anal intercourse with his victims
• asking for ejaculation of semen into his mouth
• ejaculating into the young devotees’ mouths.

Sathya Sai Baba is reported to have issued dire threats when his advances have been refused, and to have given bribes of jewelry and large sums of money to enforce the silence of his victims.

The statement common in Sai Baba circles that he is raising the ‘kundalini’ (a mystic power) is absurd, since these acts are for the perpetrator’s own perverse enjoyment.

Wide International Efforts 
 
As well as action which achieved a UNESCO media advisory adverse to Sai Baba and some of his organizers, affidavits and other reports have been availed to the FBI (Chicago), CBI (New Delhi), German Chief Prosecutor’s Office, London Metropolitan Police, Australian Federal Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and copied to governments, legal counsel and sexual abuse counsellors. Although officers in various national police forces have been helpful and indeed often commendably sensitive, we record our repeated experience that most senior police and judiciary in India are the opposite. We privately know of cases where Indian police who attempted to investigate Sai Baba properly have been sidelined, posted elsewhere, and who live in fear. Journalists have been prevented from owners and publishers from printing adversely on Sai Baba. Foreign governments and law enforcement agencies are thwarted by the Indian government’s refusal to act, although our sources in foreign services make it plain that governments also do not wish to ‘rock the boat’ with India.

Irrespective of which political party is in government, the Indian power échelons powerfully protect Sathya Sai Baba and his multi-billion dollar empire that has been reported as the biggest single Indian recipient of charitable foreign donations. Link. See also: ‘Sai Baba Exchequer Worth Billions. Many Countries Donate’

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Indian Government Study of Child Abuse Is Groundbreaking

Recent blogs at: http://barrypittard.wordpress.com