Pope’s US Visit. Is US to blame for abuse crisis?

The headlines are going up: Pope blames US for abuse crisis.

Of course, we shall need to see whether his statements exactly reflect the headlines. (See BBC News reference below, Pope attacks US sex abuse record)

If they are accurate, it may appear as a type of papal and Roman Catholic hierarchy self-absolution? Surely, the responsibility needs to be taken as a whole by the ‘Captain’. There can be no blame shifting, as decent Roman Catholics themselves have attested, when they were ready to buck an incredibly powerful heirarchy in a courageous coming out against sexual abuse within their church.

A Suggestive Historical Counter-factual

Let us alter the scenario. Suppose this: that, decades ago, a Pope had said: We are getting shocking reports of sexual abuse. We shall move against this iniquity with the utmost urgency and thoroughness and compassionate professionalism - compassionate, above all, for the survivors of this great and abominable abuse. It is not to be tolerated. It would be too facile to blame the problem on any wealthy country, because the same abuses are to be found in countries rich and poor, and at every socio-cultural level.

Resources

BBC NEWS. Pope attacks US sex abuse record

April 18, 2008

‘Pope Benedict XVI has criticized US bishops for their handling of child sex scandals, saying their response to the crisis had sometimes been very poor.

He laid part of the blame for the crisis, of which he feels “deeply ashamed”, on a breakdown in US values’.

The Australian. Pope spreads pedophilia blame

April 18, 2008
‘WASHINGTON: Feted at the White House on his 81st birthday, the Pope told the US’s bishops that the scourge of clergy sex abuse had sometimes been “very badly handled” - and laid part of the blame for the scandal on the breakdown of values in American society … The US church has been racked by falling attendance at mass and financial and other difficulties in recent years, most notably the sexual-abuse scandal that has resulted in the removal of many clergy from the ministry …. Describing clerics who sexually abused children as “gravely immoral”, the Pope warned that the scourge of pedophilia “is found not only in your dioceses but in every sector of society” … Last year, 689 fresh allegations of abuse were lodged, and the church paid out $US615 million to settle child sex abuse cases involving members of the clergy ‘.

Some related Articles at Call For Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

Cult Exposure. By Their Documents Ye Shall Know Them

Australia Says ‘Sorry’. A Lesson For Sai Baba And Followers

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

Cult Exposure. By Their Documents Ye Shall Know Them

Those organizations and individuals approached by the International Sathya Sai Organization may do well to look at the page just constructed by Robert Priddy. Now a retired academic from the University of Norway, he was for over fifteen years its head in Norway, until his prolonged and rigorous investigations disclosed its profound duplicity (often hidden from its rank-and-file).  He documents the Sathya Sai Organization’s (so-called!) ‘Interactive Panel’ of the 8th World Conference (November 2005)
- from [http://www.saiscotland.com/resource/misc/8thWC-QA1.htm].

Non Interactive ‘Interaction’?

The whole notion of interaction can be seen as false by any reader not enmeshed by cultic (non-) thinking. But by what – plausibly more than by the voices of critics – will the Sathya Sai Baba’s cult be exposed to the world? It is by reference to the conflicted words and actions of Sathya Sai Baba’s leaders that the profound failure of intellectual and moral integrity of his operation at large is made manifest to honest enquirers. Indeed, Robert Priddy’s main website is entitled: Sathya Sai Baba In Word And Action

By Their Documents Ye Shall Know Them

It was anciently said: ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’. Very true, and I may add:  By their documents ye shall know them. One does not contend that the leaders of the international Sathya Sai Organization are unendowed with intelligence. If anything, they have all too much of it – but it is unhappily deployed, and if unchallenged, given the group’s Croesus-like wealth,  runs the serious risk of their founder being hailed for centuries. There is, however, a feature that is of interest to those scholars and other investigators who study patterns of cultic thought and action. This factor relates to the way in which – in the worship of a charismatic figurehead – even the most ordinary practices of intellectual probity, the exercise of the most fair, democratic and reasonable processes, the faculty of moral discrimination, and indeed of commonsense itself are self-subverted, and, by powerful reinforcement, undermined by group-think. Or group-non-think. 

Of Ghostly Semi Responses, Floating Disembodied Questions, and Human Immobilization

The genuineness (and indeed perhaps an underlying anxiety) of the questions from the conference floor, as any slightly sensible person can see plainly, are in marked contrast to the evasiveness and poor general poor quality of the virtual non-responses by the top leaders in Sathya Sai Baba’s organization. They have a consummate exemplar in their sorely disfigured figurehead. You can scarcely hear the ghosts of their former, and perhaps even likeably human and vulnerable, selves. But you can hear the creaking of the haunted house, and sense the bated breaths of the frightened inhabitants, the captive audience - with a straining-at-the-leash partial awareness of severe need for reform, but unable to see far beyond the kennel to which they are bound.  The Chief ghost has them deeply troubled but immobilized, not even to bay at the moon. Their questions hang in the air like disembodied spirits, never to be communicated with. Sai Baba himself believes in, and claims he is in touch with, ghosts. Yet again is the bad fruit revealed by the self-documentation, publicly available. See, Unnatural Events In Sathya Sai Baba’s Bedroom, Told By Him, Sanathana Sarathi, June 1998, p. 142-3.

The Disappearing Ghost References. Banished by An Eery Touch No Lighter Than An Editorial Hand

Indeed, one of the ghost-vanquishing editorial hands was my own! For a few months ca. 1997-1998, I had a considerable editorial hand in Spiritual Impressions, Puttaparthi, a beautifully-produced magazine distributed worldwide. When I saw Sai Baba’s ghost references (referring to Sai Baba’s account of his seeing his mother’s ghost) in a brand new pencil-written translation by (if I recollect aright) Professor Anil Kumar, Sai Baba’s official translator, I went across the road and conferred with my dear friend (the late) V.K. Narasimhan, one of India’s great newspaper editors, then Editor of Sanathana Sarathi. Each of us censored most of the ghost references felt likely to blow the mind of rational readers, in an account which was, in any case, terribly muddled and a terrible strain on any half-compos mentis translator. Such extraordinary blunders usually get excised before they get into publications that go worldwide like Sanathana Sarathi and Spiritual Impressions. In retrospect, the flap they cause among Sai Baba’s editors and other publication staff are really quite funny. See, Brian Steel,  SB’s Discourses. More Nonsense, where Steel works, as so often, from the tell-tale documents themselves and here from (then devotee and Sai Baba’s official videographer) James Redmond’s video material from which the excisions of the magazine editors were not able to occur.  See also my, Huge Sai Baba Gaffes I quote briefly from Robert Priddy’s page - http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/10/interactive_panel.htm

Here, Robert Priddy copies, and tersely comments on, parts of a transcript of the 8th World Conference (November 2005) of the Sathya Sai Organization - noting that: 

 “the questions and answers demonstrate very well how avoidance of issues, cover-up of damaging facts and patronizing talk is the backbone of all Sathya Sai Organization conferences”.

‘(Dr David Gries) introduced the panel: Dr. Michael Goldstein, Dr. Narendra Reddy, Air Chief Marshall N. C. Suri, and Dr. William Harvey

Question 1. “Why are previous Conference recommendations and resolutions not implemented?” 

Answer 1. (Dr. Goldstein): Many recommendations and resolutions have been made. (Priddy’s comment: That does not answer the question, as usual) Suggested changes to the Charter are being considered by members of the Prasanthi Council. (Priddy: Authoritarian VIPs decide everything, in other words. Anti-democratic because it would all fall apart otherwise)

Q10. Doesn’t the Organization need to set a vision? The Organization is not addressing its sustainability. The speakers are not addressing the theme of the conference.

A10. (Dr. Michael Goldstein, international head of Sathya Sai Organization): First of all, there is no question of addressing sustainability. This organization is imbued with divinity, founded in the name of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Imbued with Love, wisdom and power insofar as we are able to come together as devotees and tap that Love, the organization is invulnerable and eternal as is Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Swami has said so.

A12. (Dr. Goldstein): Swami appointed the members of the Prasanthi Council. (Priddy: and he is a known misogynist) With regard to the panel, I thought these people would be the best to serve you. (Priddy: So it’s a man’s world for Goldstein too!) (Air Chief Marshall Suri): Men and women can relate. Our understanding of Love now is based on animal instincts, but Love should be pure (Priddy: Suri can speak for himself). Swami gives us options, take time to think about what will be correct action. Do relations have to be physical? It is the manner in which we relate to one another that becomes important. Love is different from relationships. We have the task of letting people know the difference. The problem you mention is not foreign to Indians. (Priddy: Women’s liberation may have just begun weakly in India, but certainly NOT in the Sathya Sai Organization!) …  Goldstein is the one to talk about status consciousness see here and treating people with love as his bullying behavior towards Tanya Datta of the BBC)

Q15. Heads of the Sai organization are becoming status conscious. How could this be remedied?

A15. (Dr. Goldstein): The remedy for officers who are so status conscious is to treat them with Love. (Priddy) Better to kick them all out and have genuinely spiritual leaders. Anyone who asks sensitive questions is kicked out (e.g., Leader of the Moscow Centre, Serguei Badaev), so why not also and not least these immature and often authoritarian characters. 

Further General Resources

Citizen Initiative

Recent Research on the Claims of Sathya Sai Baba

Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed

Sathya Sai Baba In Word And Action

http://www.exbaba.com

http://www.saigurunet.com

Saudi King Abdullah: Jews, Muslims, Christians Must Diolog

Sathya Sai Baba, 82 (although records suggest that he is older, see discussion and further links here, The Date of Sai Baba’s Birthday) has long said that he will cause, within his own lifetime, a profound coming together in peace and harmony among the world’s religions.  See, Will World Accept Sai Baba? He Says Yes. Very Soon When one looks at the Interfaith horizon, there are many players, and yet Sai Baba and his global Sathya Sai Organization are frequently conspicuous by their absence. A simple check with the organisational leaders of the Interfaith community will reveal all.

‘Divine’ Decline and Decline of the Showman ‘Emperor’

 

Sai Baba is now showing significant signs of dotage. His devotees - but not his worried minders! - ignore all the patently obvious signs of decrepitude. They claim e.g., that it is “all Bhagawan’s Leela” and that “Swami is simply testing us”, and display a range of rather saddening symptoms of being in deep psychological denial.

The Rise and Rise of Interfaith Diolog (and meaningful action!)?

On the other hand, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has called on Jewish, Christian and Muslim clerics to hold united fora “to defend humanity from harm”. In his meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in November 2007, King Abdullah had foreshadowed the idea, but has surprised some commentators by acting to gather clerics from these denominations. Part of the surprised reaction was because Saudi Arabia is religion-wise very conservative. It bans, for example, public prayer by members of any other religion. Perhaps the surprise is not occasioned, because the King is virtually surrounded by hard-line Islamic leaders committed to jihad. Not far from King Abdullah’s mind must surely be the powerful and continual rise of Iran, which is not an Arab country. The decisive issue may prove to be whether the King and Arab moderates prefer a strong peace settlement with Israel or to have to deal with it as a hostile, as well as with Iran. 

Whatever may be the prime motivation - whether Realpolitik or Interfaith leanings - at least King Abdullah is doing what Sai Baba has so long promised but singularly failed to accomplish. Certainly, the Saudi move is not the first Interfaith initiative from within the Muslim world. See my article,

Muslim Leaders Initiative Bold. Sai Baba’s Efforts Fail.   

An extraordinary cross-section of mainstream Muslim clerics, theologians and academics have acted in a way that Sai Baba and his mega wealthy worldwide cult, the Sathya Sai organization, have profoundly failed to act. This failure needs to be made very clear within the interfaith movement. The members of the Sathya Sai Organization which has attempted to interact with it, can be challenged to [...]

Further Resources

Yahoo News

Saudi King calls for interfaith dialogue.

By DONNA ABU-NASR and ABDULLAH SHIHRI, Associated Press Writers Tue Mar 25, 5:21 PM ET

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The Saudi king has made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews - the first such proposal from a nation with no diplomatic ties to Israel and a ban on non-Muslim religious services and symbols …..

 Boston Globe

Religious leaders welcome Saudi proposal

By Lily HindyAssociated Press Writer / March 26, 2008 

NEW YORK-Several Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders reacted warmly to a proposal for dialogue among the religions by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, welcoming the overture from the leader of the strict Muslim country as a major development in interfaith relations. Specifics of the initiative, including whether Israelis could take part, remained unclear — leading some to caution against too much optimism. Abdullah’s proposal comes at a time of stalled peace negotiations and heightened Middle East tension. It also comes amid Muslim anger over cartoons published in Europe seen as insulting the Prophet Muhammad and in the wake of the pope’s controversial baptism of a prominent Muslim convert [...]

See, too: Has ‘World Saviour’ Missed His Plane?

In his February 16, 2007 so-called ‘divine discourse’, Sai Baba said, “I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly.” But will he? How can he?
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 [...]

Sai Baba Cricket Match International? Claim Was False

I was present at Sathya Sai Baba’s falsely-billed ‘international’ cricket match in December 1997, and taking photos for the magazine ‘Spiritual Impressions’, on which I was soon to take some key editorial duties. It is published and distributed in many countries round the world.

Given that vast sums of money are now being poured into the Sathya Sai International Sports Centre at Puttaparthi, an older article of mine - Sai Baba Vs Kerry Packer - still assumes relevance, if we are to trace conceptual developments in which Sai Baba makes use of sport in his attempt to project himself to as much of the world as he can.

Sai Baba Has Eye On The World

It is, after all, the world that he says that he will save absolutely - having cleaned up India in the last quadrant of his lifetime. He is now well into that - and indeed can be irrefutably documented as doddering, issuing extraordinarily inane instructions (See:  Sai Baba To Be Seen In Moon? But Where Was Moon?), waxing warmly about one of the world’s most horendous dictators, the late Ugandan ruler Idi Amin (See, Sathya Sai Baba’s Deputy Head, Dr G. Venkataraman, Speaks of “Mr Idi Amin”), and so on. But he has, does he not?, a mite of cleaning still to do? Perhaps he will be clean bowled before attempting the job.

Sri Sathya Sai International Sports Centre. Purely-movitated or a stunt? - everything else having failed - to draw international attention to the (so-called) ‘Avatar of all Avatars’.

I quote below from the article just referred to, entitled:  Sai Baba Vs Kerry Packer

In referring to Sunil Gavaskar, I do not, as it were, ’sledge’ a magnificently great cricketer and Captain, but it is important that we look at facts, and that we all of us be accountable.

Gavaskar Bowled Out In A Fabrication

Sunil Gavaskar, the great former Indian Test captain and long-time devotee of Sai Baba, maintained a bare-faced fiction about the match being genuinely international. On a piece for Sathya Sai Baba’s official website, he said:

“So, the Unity Cup was played with players from all over the world including Pakistan”:
http://saibaba.ws/experiences1/
realisingsupremebeatitude.htm

How impressive it sounds - “from all over the world”. Pieces like this are all grist for the ceaselessly grinding mill of Dr G.Venkataraman, Sai Baba’s Dr Joseph Goebbels, who, with his team at Radio Sai, is going all out promote Sai Baba with satellite radio, Sai Global Harmony, beamed to every possible corner of the globe via the WorldSpace Corporation.

Hardly Any Nations Turned Up

The match failed to fetch players from West Indies, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, New Zealand, Australia, and any of the scores of nations where cricket is taken seriously. The ridiculously named ‘world XI’ was captained by Sri Lanka’s Arjuna Ranatunga.  Sachin Tendulkar captained for India. England was slenderly represented by Doug Brown in what otherwise remained a game of Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans. Pakistan sent a few players, including ‘Boom Boom’ Shahid Afridi (players from the past Hanif Mohamed and Zaheer Abbas were non-playing Pakistani guests). Sri Lanka provided six players. Former Test captain Clive Lloyd presented the trophy. India’s national broadcaster Doordarshan televised the match. In the commentator’s box was ‘Kiri’, Syed Kirmani, often hailed as India’s best ever wicket keeper, who became a Chairman of Selectors for India. He was no doubt well ’selected’ for the day’s job at the Sri Sathya Sai Unity Cup, since he quite often dropped all objective commentary of the match being played, instead indulging in rhapsodic eulogies on Sai Baba. I saw the Doordarshan producer repeatedly directing attention of the camera crew to features of the grandiose architecture like Sai Baba’s university, the Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. Segments of the game were telecast round the world, including Great Britain.

India - or rather, one should say, Sai Baba’s propaganda machine - won the day.

Related Reading

International Cricket And The Secret Swami

Champion Tennis At Top Indian Guru’s Ashram

World Gallup Poll. Muslim Project

One of the great attractions to Sathya Sai Baba felt by people from many countries has been his evangel of respect for the various faiths.

Has Sai Baba Kept Promise of Reaching Through to World Faiths?

One can search in vain for any decently researched examples that show any capacity by him or his global Sathya Sai Organization to succeed in interfaith outcomes. See my articles:  Muslim Leaders Initiative Bold. Sai Baba’s Efforts Fail and Will World Accept Sai Baba? He Says Yes. Very Soon).

From time to time, when Sai Baba attracts a prestigious Moslem, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, etc., this individual is keynoted and the impression given to audiences that to a significant degree Sai Baba’s “divine love” is making a significant impact around the world. It is not, as the media or anyone else can readily determine by asking the major international interfaith groups or the spokespersons of any of the world’s great faiths.

One naturally queries, then:  Where, if anywhere, is Sai Baba in the interfaith equation?  What, if any, distinctive contribution to interfaith conferences have Sai Baba and his Sathya Sai Organization made?

The Gallup Poll Project Among World Populations

One vast undertaking to obtain facts about the attitudes and values of people around the world is being undertaken by the Gallup Poll organization. Even one project such as this makes Sai Baba’s statements about creating understanding and unity among the various faiths pale by comparison. It is about practicality, not about preachments. It is also about letting people speak for themselves, instead of being dictated to, which is endemic to the authoritarian, unaccountable, Soviet-style Sathya Sai Baba cult.

“In the largest undertaking of its kind, Gallup will
measure the well-being of the world for the next
100 years, annually polling 95% of the Earth’s adult population. The Gallup World Poll is the largest available source of key world data, providing access to the voices, hearts, and minds of citizens in more than 130 countries and territories”. Source: The Gallup World Poll

Gallup Poll Muslim Project

Here, for example, are its aims for its project on Muslims:

“Gallup’s self-funded Poll of the Muslim World is conducted in 40 predominantly Muslim nations and among significant Muslim populations in the West. It is the first set of unified and scientifically representative views from 1.3 billion Muslims globally, and will provide the basis for the Center’s unique analytical perspective. The Poll of the Muslim World is part of Gallup’s larger World Poll, a self-funded effort aimed at consistently measuring the well-being of 6 billion world citizens (a sample representing 95% of the Earth’s population) on a wide range of topics for the next 100 years”.

Solvents For Dangerous Misconceptions

Here are but a few findings in relation to Muslim attitudes to 9/11, which should assist in clearing away a great deal of misunderstanding, a result that should obtain, too, as other major faith groups are polled:

“What we have here is the ability to get beyond the battle of the experts” and let “the data lead the discourse” on beliefs in the Muslim world” Source: John L. Esposito, a professor of international affairs and Islamic studies,  Georgetown University

• 93 percent - condemned the Sep 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Substantial majorities in all Muslim countries said they supported bringing democratic principles to their own countries

• 7% saw the Sep 11 attacks as “completely justified”. The results indicate that none in this group employed a religious justification. The view was based on fear of US plans for occupation and domination of the Muslim world

• There were strong Muslims concerns about a perceived “moral decay” in the US and the West. However, these were typical of those widely shared in the West.

Further Reading

Islam-West rift widens, poll says. BBC News Report, Monday, 21 January 2008

World Economic Forum Report Ranks Islam and West Relations.  WEF, Geneva, Switzerland, 21 January 2008

Who Speaks for Islam?
What a Billion Muslims Really Think. This excellent, succinct outline of the book by John Esposito Ph.D, Professor of Religion and International Affairs and of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, and Dalia Mogahed, a senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, is at the Gallup website

William Aitken’s Book Fails to Answer Sai Baba Critics

Today’s blog continues my small series on aspects of Brian Steel’s impressive opus, specifically at:  Bill Aitken and Sathya Sai Baba. A Writer’s Dilemma,  on William Aitken’s book, Sri Sathya Sai Baba. A Life (New Delhi, Penguin Books India, 2004. Paperback edition, 2006).

Steel’s Meticulous Work Invaluable

Brian Steel’s approach in this piece is scholarly, but his writing has long been appreciated by a wider readership. All who are in search of detailed evidence will find Steel’s meticulous, painstakingly researched work (from 2001 on) indispensable. It is vast, and has been groundbreaking from the very first. I think that there will be no independent scholars or other investigators of merit who will be able to find serious fault with his project. He will nevertheless be targeted, I think, by fervent pro Sai Baba polemicists, who will increasingly undo themselves wherever there are attentive, critical and sober readers. Of Aitken’s attempts at demolishing Sathya Sai Baba critics, Steel says:

“Aitken’s preoccupation with the sensational, headline-grabbing sexual allegations (by Tal Brooke, or David Bailey, for example) does not leave him time to deal with more serious aspects of past and present critical research on Sathya Sai Baba, like recurring demonstrations by magicians (and video evidence too, especially of recent Mahasivaratri lingam productions) that some of Sathya Sai Baba’s commonest materialisations are easily replicated by others. As for the counter-evidence his claims of Divinity, it is just possible that Aitken may not have bothered to read them”.

The Supreme Preposterousness of Avataral Claims

Sathya Sai Baba can be documented by any conscientious reader as having made contradictory statements and egregious historical and scientific blunders. These include his remarks on Jesus Christ and Martin Luther . For Steel’s detailed and sharply contextualized discussion, see: Sai Baba and Christianity. Some Observations (2002). Steel remarks here the alarming “extent of Sai Baba’s inventiveness”.  This can be instructively read in concert with his Basic Notes On Sai Baba’s Credibility Problem (2004). Also on the acuteness of the credibility problem, Jorje Reysvera and Robert Priddy have written engagingly on Sai Baba and Magnetism, about his prescientific comments on the nature of magnetism. I have written in the article Huge Sai Baba Gaffes how these stunning inanities in Sai Baba’s discourses are preserved in video materials but quickly expunged by nervy Sai editors from the written records, and of my own first-hand observations of the weeding process when I was editing an internationally distributed Sai Baba magazine and books by Sai Baba devotees. This was at Sai Towers in Puttaparthi, and I saw how those such as Professor Anil Kumar and my late friend V.K.Narasimhan, one of India’s pre-eminent, historic and courageous newspaper editors, did such doctoring. I had a hand in the process myself when Sai Baba’s talk about his mother’s ghost would have raised a few eyebrows if allowed to circulate any further than a public discourse. The extraordinary blunders are excised before they get into publications that go worldwide like Sanathana Sarathi and Spiritual Impressions.

Steel quotes Aitken’s own amazement at Sathya Sai Baba’s well-known pronouncement that “Sanskrit is the parent and core of all languages,” which no respectable language scholar holds. And, indeed, to be amazed by disgrace is appropriate.

Australia Says ‘Sorry’. A Lesson For Sai Baba And Followers

A great day occurred in Australia yesterday, which the global Sathya Sai Organization may do well to note.

There is a strong lesson about admitting mistakes of the past, and responding with heart to the sorrow that one’s actions or one’s group’s actions have caused.

The rest of the Australian nation via its Federal Parliament said a vastly overdue “Sorry” to the first Australians, her indigenous people, for the tragic way in which their families were uprooted down many generations.

The proviso is, of course, that the noble sentiments and concurrence by most in the Federal Parliament and Australia at large are followed up by the appropriate practical actions that lead to true reconciliation between the first Australians and the rest of the nation.

A Genuine ‘Sorry’ Begets A Genuine ‘Thank You’, and Preludes Healing

The ‘Thank You’ message emblazoned on the tee-shirts of some the thousands of indigenous people who came to the national capital Canberra for the profoundly moving ceremonies should not escape notice. When we say sorry, and mean it, there springs a connection of the heart between people who have been at odds with each other. It is the prelude to a healing. It is the first breakage in the walls of sorrowful division.

The standing ovations for the recently elected Prime Minster Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, were accompanied by thunderous applause. There were deep and unconstrained flows of weeping.  For some, it was as members of an afflicted race of a proud and ancient people so long traduced.

Other tears came from those of many other Australian communities who are capable of seeing the all-important connection - but too often missed when a heart connected imagination fails - between benefits long received, and still daily received, that profoundly stem from the defeat of our original inhabitants, leaving many of them, to this day, in appaling conditions that no nation can with any honor sustain.

The Sathya Sai Organization Needs to Learn to ‘Say Sorry’

The Bernie Taupin words to the Elton John song go to the heart of the matter - “sorry seems to be the hardest word”. Those who have tried to “talk it over” with Sai Baba’s key leaders have been everywhere greeted by authoritarian obfuscation and the most shocking psychological states of denial, something of which, caught by hidden camera, was seen by millions who viewed BBC’s The Secret Swami (2004).

 Sai Baba world head, Dr Michael Goldstein of Covina California USA, manifesting sublime love

The Taupin lyrics do great justice to the situation:

Its sad, so sad
Its a sad, sad situation
And its getting more and more absurd
Its sad, so sad
Why cant we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

A History Denied Maintains The Wounds Into The Future

The leaders and many in the Sathya Sai Organization know very well that many decent, highly regarded individuals and families around the world have left it because of the seriousness of the allegations, which are far from confined to the serial sexual molestation of boys and young men, but contain many other issues of great substance.

What the core leaders know, above all, is that there have been genuine attempts by former followers to raise their concerns in a responsible way. They know that those in dissent are not - as with great untruthfulness they have told their rank-and-file members - a ‘mere handful of disgruntled followers’. As the head of one of Australia’s leading private schools, Christ Church Grammar School Perth, Garth Wynne, informs me that he told the 2004 Sai National Conference (I rely on my carefully taken notes):  When serious allegations keep coming over years, they need to be dealt with properly. Unlike other major institutions in Australia and elsewhere who have broken off afflialiation with the Sathya Sai Organization, the school did not cancel the Sai Baba national conference booked at its prestigious venue. However, the message to the conference of Garth Wynne, the Principal (who acted in handling the Sai Baba matter on behalf of the then Anglican Archbishop of Australia, Dr Peter Carnley) was this - as he himself told me:  The accusations against your founder have kept on coming year after year. It puts an institution like ours, as well as your own organization, in a difficult position if you do not follow the appropriate procedures of investigation and accountability

Further Reading

For full text of Mr Kevin Rudd’s ’sorry speech’,  National Nine News, Wednesday February 13, 2008.

Quote from recently elected Australian Prime Minister Mr Kevin Rudd:

“We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country”.

Video Footage of Prime Minister Rudd’s speech

Barry Pittard article, Truth Commission Model May Assist Sai Baba Devotees

William Aitken Fails on Prof. E. Haraldsson and Dr K. Osis

As promised, I shall take some further looks at the work of Brian Steel. See my articles: 

• A Host of Sai Baba Hagiographers

• William Aitken’s Sai Baba Book Major Flaws Says Scholar

• Sai Baba Researchers’ Huge Debt To Scholar Brian D. Steel

In this blogging and some upcoming ones, I shall be looking at Brian Steel’s article: Bill Aitken and Sathya Sai Baba. A Writer’s Dilemma,  on Aitken’s book, Sri Sathya Sai Baba. A Life (New Delhi, Penguin Books India, 2004. Paperback edition, 2006).

 

Aitken speaks of his book as a counterweight to “excesses of hagiography”. Steel’s textual analysis, however, reveals beyond any dispute that the book is strongly, despite its claims to the contrary, hagiographical. It isolates “headline grabbing” and superficial views contra Sai Baba, while ignoring the large body of serious criticism by former devotees and other critics that has been taken seriously by many third parties. For example, see below for clickable video material from the BBC’s The Secret Swami and DR’s Seduced. See also, my fairly extensive resource compilation, Exposure of Sai Baba: Media Source List.

 

Brian Steel criticises Bill Aitken’s work for carelessly elevating a minor player, the US parapsychologist Dr Karlis Osis, to major importance and yet leaving out of account Osis’s more relevant and well known research partner, Professor Erlandur (other spelling=Elendur)Haraldsson, author of Miracles Are My Visiting Cards. USA Title, (1988). Modern Miracles. An investigative report on psychic phenomena associated with Sri Sathya Sai Baba. New York: Ballantine Books, 304 pp. This is a work, sold in the many thousands, which Sai Baba devotees commonly - and very mistakenly - hail as ‘proving’ that his so-called miracles are all real.

 

Steel says:

“The author’s preference for Murphet’s quote about the minor participant (Osis) and his inexplicable lack of curiosity about one of the most influential books in the SSB literature is an important flaw in the research for this book, especially since Aitken fleetingly mentions Haraldsson’s book (on p. 220), but merely to recommend its coverage of miracle stories”. 

Dr E. Haraldsson, Emeritus Professor of the University of Iceland, Reykjavík, a leading academic parapsychology researcher. Incorrectly and widely cited by Sai Baba devotees as having ’proved’ Sai Baba’s claims to have extraordinary psychic powers. 

 

Professor Haraldsson’s careful and exhaustive investigations discredited Sai Baba’s claim to have ‘resurrected’ Walter Cowan, which the crypto-/ virtual devotee Aitken fails to note. Morover, Osis is promoted as an expert in Kirlian photography. In fact, ‘photographs of auras’ have been shown to be explainable by physics other than by any supposed ‘aura’. There is an interesting Wikipedia article which notes how Kirlian photography has been discredited in the scientific community.

 

To be continued shortly

For Viewing

See The Secret Swami HERE. Available in broadband and modem

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

Seduced

(21 MB, Modem)

Further References

• Dr Elendur Haraldsson, University of Iceland Faculty of Social Science. Dr E. Haraldsson’s webpage (English version), with his email contact details
• Erlendur Haraldsson, Wikipedia entry
• How Not to Study Paranormal Phenomena. Book Review by Babu Gogineni, Director, International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). This looks at critically at Haraldsson’s work on Sai Baba, and says that the former has not responded to the points made.

A Host of Sai Baba Hagiographers

In the heyday of Sathya Sai Baba’s mission, some devotee writers with various professional backgrounds influenced many, particularly his more educated followers.

These included Professor N. Kasturi, Howard Murphet, Dr John Hislop, Dr Samuel Sandweiss, Ra. Ganapati, Dr Satya Pal Ruhela, V, Balu, Shukuntala Balu, Robert Lowenburg, etc.

Where Hagiography Fails Ethically

The name of William ‘Bill’ Aitken has now to be added to the list of these hagiographical writers on Sai Baba. In coming days I shall be looking at Bill Aitken and Sathya Sai Baba. A Writer’s Dilemma, by the Australian scholar Brian Steel  writing on Aitken’s book, Sri Sathya Sai Baba. A Life (New Delhi, Penguin Books India, 2004. Paperback edition, 2006).

The Blind Misleading of Blind Yearning

The willingness of those searching, often with a great and aching longing, for peace of mind can conceal from their readers, even well-educated ones, just how hagiographic these works really are.  The role of educated writers who forsake time-honoured principles of rigorous questioning of phenomena needs to be looked at in relation to Sai Baba and his hagiographers. They bear a tremendous responsibility, and I think that history will treat them harshly. They have been, in effect, among the prime recruiting agents for Sai Baba, commanding many thousands of readers, and show no sign of the same careful investigation of the allegations that many former devotees and other critics, as well as major institutions such as the BBC and UNESCO, have made. These writers have profoundly failed in their duty of care - in standards of critical research, and in bringing any accountability to Sai Baba or his global Sathya Sai Organization. Our worldwide network shows no sign that they have attempted to meet or in any way engage with our former devotees, who number many who are honored in all their walks of life, and were so honored when they were so very dedicated in their work in various programs of the Sathya Sai Organization. The scale of the shunning of those in dissent has been simply enormous. 

Spurious ‘Appeals to Authority’ Rampant Among Sai Devotees

A professional standing (e.g., teacher, journalist, psychiatrist and so forth) imparts, quite spuriously, an added aura of authority. In the Sathya Sai Baba movement, this logical fallacy of ‘appeal to authority’ has long served as high octane fuel in the promotion of this guru. There is the appearance of urbane reason but in reality an abandonment of questioning. The guru - especially in regard to his own self-concept - is unchallenged and a myriad of inconsistencies are typically explained away in phrases common to devotees, such as: “Baba’s little leela (guru’s sport)”, his “unfathomable mystery”, his “testing of the devotee’s faith, spiritual progress”, his “wiping clean the devotee’s karmic slate”, etc.

Further Reading

Bill Aitken and Sathya Sai Baba. A Writer’s Dilemma

William Aitken’s Sai Baba Book. Major Flaws Says Scholar
Sai Baba Researchers’ Huge Debt To Scholar Brian D. Steel

Sai Baba - Miraculous or Disastrous?

It may not necessarily be fun for religionists and rationalists to find themselves on roughly common ground. Especially when it comes to the topic of Sai Baba’s so-called ‘miracles.

The Disaster of the ‘Miraculous’

Many religious people place little or no importance on miracles. For example, the Buddha inveighed against them, viewing preoccupation with them as problematic for one’s spiritual growth. Likewise, Sri Ramakrishna and many spiritual teachers of various paths. No matter what Sai Baba may say about his (alleged) miracles being of the relative importance of a flea to an elephant, large numbers of his devotees are extensively concerned with them.

No rationalist will surely cede to a notion of the miraculous, and perhaps even if a shower of them occurred would not be too impressed. His or her likely position would be:  whatever the cause, there will be, if there is not in our present state of scientific knowledge already, a non-theistic, non-deistic explanation for the phenomena. Such touching trust - and again a certain likeness to so many religionists. Anyone, by the way, who has not met a fundamentalist rationalist, hindu, jew, christian, buddhist, etc., is missing out on one of the great treats of life - the resemblances are almost awe-inspiring! 

Some Devotees Silent On Miracle Topic

In reflecting on their personal experience of extraordinary phenomena that they would deem far from psychic or occultic, I think Sai Baba devotees and former followers would agree with the following statement:  it can be uncomfortable speaking with those who have not experienced like phenomena, including many fellow devotees. There is tension between those who perceive themselves to have experienced directly and those who have not. There can be odious comparison, which can be unhelpful when not all the experiences are of the same type. There can be jealousy from those ardent to experience but for whom no miracle has occurred. And, for experiencees, there can be a difficulty in quantifying in mere words something felt to be sublime. (Let us leave aside in what those phenomena may actually consist).

Devotee Intelligentsia Can Fear Professional Ridicule

The topic is more broad, and not confined to the Sai Baba fold. There are scientists and other usually hardnosed professionals who have experienced phenomena far beyond what can be readily explained - and they often shut up about it. This is not to say that sophisticated intellects are unabatingly sophisticated, and beyond gullibility. A clever, seasoned magician or a crafty scam artist can surely testify to that, if only we could afford to listen to them. 

In the Sai Baba cult (leave aside the question of elsewhere), there is no shortage of those in many professions, and of none, who have observed, and in some cases been the immediate recipients of what appear to be, supraphenomena in homes and other places around the world. There are various reasons for their silence - for example, not wanting to endanger terms of university employment or preferment, or simply not wanting to be embarrassed in social circles. A well-known example of professional and student ridicule that can be generated is referred to by Professor Samuel Sandweiss MD in his book The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist. Birthday Publishing Company, San Diego, Southern California. 1975.

 

Once it became known that Dr Sandweiss was partial to an Indian guru (Sathya Sai Baba), he suffered around his university no end of taunts, whispering campaigns and nastiness by colleagues.

India A Fast Breeder of Rationalists

In passing, I would note that in India (where I lived for several years) for a respectable Indian intellectual to hold that supraphenomena can exist is nowhere so difficult as in western countries. This fact makes India a fertile ground for rationalists. In my years there, I was struck by how aware were wide cross-sections of educated India of rationalists such as (late) A.T. Kovoor, (late) Professor H.Narasimhaiah, Basava Premanand, Professor Narendra Nayak, Prabir Ghosh, and others. This was no sleeping issue.

Silence Motivated by Spiritual Aspiration

Another reason for remaining quiet is a time-honored traditional one - when embarked on a spiritual path, an aspirant wants to eschew egotism. In experiencing phenomena that appear divine (let us imagine for the moment that the phenomena to which they refer is not the mere spooky or occult), the sense that oneself is somehow special, singled out and blessed by the divine is hard to avoid, and this may or may not manifest in crudely in blatant egotism. The mind, having its own rich complement of tricks, can manifest a subtle, but none the less still powerful, egotism, which cannot be wished away.

‘Miracles’ Are More Than Sai Baba’s ‘Visiting Cards’

Sai Baba makes a belated pretence at downplaying his so-called miracles, yet boasts of them constantly and performs these apparent feats often - although falling back on legerdemain. His very denial of the importance of the miraculous is lost in his behavioural performances, just as his very denial of sex is lost in his having of it with boys and young men, and his emphasis on not collecting funds by his Organization is lost in ‘backdoor’ methods of fundraising.

Sai Baba devotees tend generally to be very excitable about his ‘miracles’. Many revel in accounts (very poorly provenanced) such the supposedly 17th century Islamic Shi’a  Mehdi Moud prophecies from Iran, about which I shall shortly blog. This has become a part of Sai myth-making, along with so many other references to miracles and wonders, and is featured in the multi-million dollar Sai Baba Chaitanya Jyothi Museum, built to glorify him. Typically, when confronted by doubt, Sai devotees tend soon resort to telling what miracles they have received or others have received - including ‘miraculous’ occurrences often far beyond Sai Baba’s physical presence. A highly manufactured and managed ‘Glory of Puttaparthi’, ‘Advent of the Avatar’, ‘India’s National Treasure’, etc.

Endemic Devotee Exitability

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