The Guru Trap. Will India Be Forever Trapped?

Tehelka is regarded by many observers as one of few newspapers in India which can show some investigate clout and courage. It has sustained tremendous pressure by Indian governments and other power brokerage forces in India. Below is an excerpt from Tehelka, which points the need for India to come clean and act decisively about her frequent cultivation and protection of nefarious gurus. Sathya Sai Baba gets a reference.

Some Related articles at http://barrypittard.wordpress.com

Indian Gurus Stifle India’s Chance To Excel 

Why Might There Be Religious and Political Disconnects?

P.N. Bhagwati, India’s Ex-Chief Justice: Wild, Reckless Claims

Renowned Indian Editor VKN. Diary and Letter Scans Reveal

NOTE: The Tehelka article reference to UNESCO involvement, in which it, along with the University of Flinders, Australia, backed out of a major Sai Baba led international education conference, is available HERE, and related is my article: BBC Caught UNESCO Head Bowing To Indian Government

For the full story clink on the Tehelka story title:

THE HUB
 
Holy ghost! Unholy fathers
Three godmen in one month, charged for raping, killing. Gullible victims, a society steeped in spirituality. The gory trail.

By Chinmayee Manjunath

 In the past month, two godmen have been charged of sexual molestation. Swami Premananda in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu has been accorded life imprisonment and Swami Gnyanachaitanya in Kottakal, Kerala was arrested and is now on bail. These are just additions to a list of famous names, accused of similar charges. Chandraswami. Sathya Sai Baba. Yet, in a society steeped in the spiritual, no amount of sordid cases seems to taint the lure of ochre ….

“There is no spirit of critical inquiry in our society,” says Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalists Association in New Delhi. “People want to surrender their problems to godmen and believe them to be supernatural. They don’t question them. There is an element of fear also.” Dr Mathew Chandrankunnel, Centre for Study of World Religions, Bangalore adds, “It’s the fatalistic attitude. People might be disturbed by what these swamis do but accept it as part of their fate” …..

The Sathya Sai Baba, despite sordid allegations of sexual abuse and a boycott by unesco, continues to have the powerful falling at his feet.

“When people need solace, they believe anything associated with spirituality,” says Edamaruku. This is, perhaps, linked with the mirage of instant gratification. Rising trp ratings of religious shows on TV are indicative of this. Praying to an unseen, silent god pales when compared to talking to a swami who can do something immediately.

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’s Airport Up For Sale, Reports Business Standard

Stop Press. It is reported that Sai Baba’s airport, which has long had capacity for international flights, is up for sale.

Especially when devotees see scenes such as a jumbo jet landing at the Sathya Sai Baba airport from Hong Kong, heavily laden with a panoply of sets and costumes to celebrate the Chinese New Year at Puttaparthi, they cannot but smile. The Kingdom of Sai is surely at hand! See, my article - Will World Accept Sai Baba? He Says Yes. Very Soon

Knowingly, they observe - Ah, Swami has promised to physically go abroad very soon. All these devotees coming from around the world, alighting at Puttaparthi by plane, and what with a railhead now all the way up to Puttaparthi, praise be - it cannot be long before the whole world accepts him as Lord of all!

Is Sai Baba Flying or Well Grounded

But rather, our reports are of greatly declining numbers visiting Sai Baba from abroad.

In the face of 7 years of the most intense exposure for former devotee forces both on and off the Internet, is the Sathya Sai Organization having a grave liquidity problem?

If it is, perhaps, big donors like minerals magnate James Sinclair, Isaac Tigrett, former creator-owner of the Hard Rock Cafe and the House of Blues, the Rai family in India, etc., who may have to come extra good for the sheer capital just to keep hugely costly Sathya Sai programs, building and plant going. But then, are these individuals free of their own liquidity problems?

When Exposed, Recruit - and Fast

Although it has long been ordered by Sai Baba not to promote, we saw his cult more recently hiring very costly venues - places where the rich are bound to feel comfortable, and perhaps generous.  Places such as the Sydney Superdome (built for the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia), historic town halls in major cities, Cooper’s Union (where Abraham Lincoln once gave a talk), New York; La Mirada Theatre; Los Angeles County, Hilton Ballroom; Sheraton Hotel & Towers, both Chicago; Copley International Conference Center, San Diego; etc. See article by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard: Sai Organization’s Spending Spree In Super Dome, Sydney.

And See, news report just released. 

Sai Baba`s airport up for sale

S Kalyana Ramanathan / Chennai October 31, 2007  

Trust puts floor price at Rs 600 crore 
 
The airport’s owner, the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, which manages the religious and philanthropic assets and work of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, has invited bids for it and put the floor price at Rs 600 crore. 
 
One big attraction of this airport is that it is only 70 km from Bangalore International Airport, coming up in Devanahalli. The vantage location will allow airlines to feed the southern sector, which currently has 30 major and minor airports. 
 
The other is that, to sweeten the deal, the Trust is throwing in 2,000 acres of adjoining land. 
 
The additional land could be used either for real estate development or for setting up a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility. 
 
The airport is spread over 450 acres. Its runway is 2,230 metres long and currently being used mostly by chartered aircraft. Of late, Kingfisher and Indian have been using this airport as a stopover for their Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam services. 
 
The buzz in the industry is that G R Gopinath, who pioneered low-cost flying in India with Air Deccan, has tied up with a Mumbai-based public figure to put in a bid. Gopinath, however, has denied reports. 
 
Besides, the buzz was not clear whether Gopinath, were he to bid, would do so through Deccan or on his own. 
 
It is being said that Dubai-based real estate developer Limitless LLC could also be in the fray. Limitless is an integrated real estate development company and a business unit of Dubai World, one of Dubai’s leading business groups. 

Further Reading

Sathya Sai Baba Exposure, Media Source List

Is Humanity One Big Cult?

There is a fundamental mistake that defenders of those accused of serious abuse keep on making.

Accusations of substantive abuse do not have to be proved. They have to be investigated.

An organization that does not have genuine policies and practices of transparency and accountability is per se condemned.

Many Exposés of Cults Reveal Same Abuses and Rationalizations

Statements such as that an organization’s founder and his or her core leaders have never been brought before a court are crude and dishonest in the extreme. Repeatedly, across the various exposure of leaders, the patterns of denial, obfuscation and outright deceit are to be observed. Meetings between dissenters from various cults, who have left because they found profoundly betrayed the noble aims concerning which they joined, can tend to get off to a flying start, for participants are deeply struck by the many commonalities of experiences. I shall not say more of this aspect at present. For it is good that increasing contacts mature between those who have experienced spiritual betrayal around the world and the monumental cover-up of it can mature and prosper. And, indeed, that the perpetrators are left to wonder what alliances and resource-sharing and joint ventures might effect in educating greater publics of the great and insidious threats posed by cults of various kinds.

Cult defenders persistently employ a number of blunt tools: demeaning, name-calling, demonizing, slandering, stalking both on and off the Internet, intimidation, distortion and misinterpretation of what has been said. They muck-rack like McCarthyites, and attack individuals, quite commonly for faults they have not committed, instead of address issues. The use of ad hominem arguments and tu quoque retorts is very typical, and they confuse the difference between legitimately naming an individual and criticising their statements or role and illegitimate practice of slandering a person, and thus avoiding the central issues being presented. Their smokescreens choke horizons like a bad bushfire on a gusty day. Often, they appeal to popular prejudice. They get caught up in the narrowest interpretations of dissenters’ intentions or actions. Each individual who speaks up, they will assume the worst of, and defame - one after the other. They avoid the substantive questions and arguments, and accuse others of doing so. One is damned if one should respond to them, and damned if one does not. But then why should one bend to respond to those so antagonistic? It’s damned well good at least not to be down in the gutter.

There is no diving equipment adequate to diving into sewers. Those among the dissenters such as the hotheaded and bloody-mindedly quarrelsome who do respond end up in endless dogfights, which are far removed from the very reasons - which can be ideals most would agree to be noble, humane, spiritual and so forth - which led one to be a part of a self-enhancement group in the first instance. Many dissenters have, however, done years of hard self-development and of unstinting service to the poor and needy in their communities and other worthy causes. They may fight, but they will not dogfight.

Euphoria and Topic Avoidance

There is often in guru and cult defenders an appeal to popular prejudices - such as that media inevitably sensationalizes and misreports or that dissenters are people who did not get attention from the group’s guru, etc. The defensive tactics reveal the depth of problems of personality which a leader and cult, despite grand claims, has not, amidst the unreal euphoria and avoidance of topics where hard questions are raised, been able to heal or to solve. It is, of course, a problem that can as easily afflict dissenters, unless they have done some hard work on themselves.

Humanity - One Big Cult?

A far wider problem exists. One can point to cultic tendencies in this or that group. But then if we emphasize qualities of group-think and non-think in groups termed (accurately or not) ‘cults’, we will end up comforted, with our fingers pointed out, rather than considering our own capacities. Is there a grand unquestioning that is the tendency of a cult called Humanity? A cutting across all the ’isms’ - except one:  bias-ism. So normal that we feel normal. So huge that we don’t recognize it, just as we might tend to assume without thinking that the sun will rise in the east on the morrow or that the sky still coheres above us.

No need to click on ‘Register’ or ‘Join’. No need to pay annual subsriptions. Our forebears have already enrolled us.

If we are all afflicted, we had best find a better way of getting out of the millennially built-up sludge. But no use ‘fessing up unless we can find ways to do it without exploitation, shouting, clubbing, and reversion to division and the manning of battlements.

The Example of The Muslim Leaders

Perhaps the Muslim and Christian clerics, theologians and academics who are busily writing to each other right at this moment will find ways to express commonalities which lead to love and compassion, and still face the differentiations that tests the goodwill, and in a way that works beyond the lovey-dovey. I think there is a tendency, which the leaders will have to address, to assume that religions are what make the world go round, rather the cynical machinations of realpolitik. Never mind, any genuinely caring way might be the way out of the sludge - even if by happy accident, or some millennial crawl to a new paradigm.

We can all be members of the clubless club of the great unwashed, which has but one essential thought. That we are washed, even if others are not. And one essential risk: that we can, all too easily do bad dirt on good people - if there happen to be any around.

Further Reading

The Muslim leaders’ bold document is available in .pdf format, courtesy of the BBC, HERE

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

Why Might There Be Religious and Political Disconnects?

These short extracts from Shantanu Dutta’s article, Power of godmen, can provide a stimulus for discussion on the issue - are godmen (and godwomen, one supposes) beneficial or baneful or an intriguing mixture of both? (see extract below)

Of a statement by TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi) president K. Chandrasekhara Rao, Dutta says:

 “Apparently (it) indicates that in the political mind there is a big disconnect between the teachings and thoughts shared in discourses and the course of action that naturally follows as a consequence”.

It Can Take Two To Disconnect

And the disconnect no doubt is not just disconnect by politician from spiritual leader, but the reverse as well.

It is surely a situation which is relevant to religious leaders of any country. Are they fortified by ivory towers or dreaming spires - or can they genuinely relate to the day-to-day issues of people in general? If they cannot, then a disconnect is bound to occur. Might, for example, a lay person think the best counselor to go to in quest of a solution to practical marital problems is a lifelong monk or nun?

That is one side of the question. But then, suppose that a spiritual leader - whether worldly-wise or not - has some useful insight into a public matter. I agree with Dutta. Why should Sai Baba, or anyone for that matter, shut up about important issues? In regard to the greater public weal, who is not a stakeholder of one degree or another?

The issue of religious leaders speaking out arises as an explosive one when few speak out. Let only a few do it and they are a novelty - even a shocking one.

What is the case when abstracts or ideals, are preached? What would be needed to bring about a connect?

Ought We Disconnect from Disconnected Gurus?

Here, are but two questions some of my readers might like to run with their spiritual leaders - whether at a mandir or temple, synagogue, mosque, vihara, church, and so forth:

1. what is our Faith’s specific, injunction or declared statement - if there is one - on sexual abuse?

2. What policy guidelines - if any - are there for dealing with offenses, proved or as yet alleged - within the ranks of the authority or amongst the congregation? (Please be so kind as to write to me with the details. I am interested. Email: bpittard (at) optusnet.com.au)

There is bound to be conflict when a preacher does not grapple with the question of how lay persons can, without great stress - and indeed hypocrisy - act out the precepts in practical and meaningful ways.

That is to say - connected.
  ——————————-

Shantanu Dutta Article Extract

“The other Godman in the news was Sri Sathya Sai Baba. He didn’t get accolades of course for his remarks on Telengana and his opinion that those who talk in terms of the division of the country are actually committing a sin. His remarks led to a huge agitation and even violence. The TRS president , K Chandrasekhara Rao commenting on the Sai Baba’s remarks suggested that the Baba stick to singing Bhajans and other dharmic activities. Apparently that statement indicates that in the political mind there is a big disconnect between the teachings and thoughts shared in discourses and the course of action that naturally follows as a consequence”. Power of godmen, by Shantanu Dutta. MeriNews. 25 January 2007, Thursday. Link at begining of this blog. Dutta’s  article is also available at Desicritics.org - HERE

Further Reading

See my article, Sai Baba Sparks Political Furore. At the foot of it there are plentiful links to articles from major Indian newspaper sources. My point here was not whether Sai Baba was correct or not in speaking out about a hot political issue. It was this: He has, at 81 years of age, deviated from long decades of non-entry into hot political topics. My view is that, from time to time, he speaks without full control because of his increasingly visible and audible loss of mental faculties. This deterioration his close servitors have gone to great lengths to hide. In an extremely rare moment, the BBC was able to film this happening. It is little wonder that the ashram authorities evicted the BBC documentary makers, who began to ask perfectly reasonable questions - truthful answers to which the public has a right to know. See various film clips, including one where Sai Baba collapses and afterwards, by way of explanation, utters almost certifiable inanities before a vast crowd, HERE. Or for the whole of the BBC’s one-hour documentary (2004), go HERE for broadband and HERE for dialup modem. My detailed review-article The BBC’s The Secret Swami - A Revision is Here

Truth Commission Model May Assist Sai Baba Devotees

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

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

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

Starting points are:

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

Criticism of Sai Baba No Reflection On Hinduism

Many Sathya Sai Baba devotees assume that any questioning of him equates to a denunciation of Hinduism. However, Hindus at large do not make this assumption in the least.

A major national Hindu leader has emailed me (December 5, 2006) in the terms I quote below. (Except to those in the responsible media who may wish to obtain a statement from him, I will not disclose his identity). However, Hindus who wish to make enquiry in their own associations as to current views of Sai Baba will be able to establish the factuality of the strong trend inimical to Sai Baba to which my correspondent points): 

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

Travel widely across India and you will know the exceptionally widespread disdain for Sai Baba - whatever may be the praise for the undoubtedly good social uplift work his devotees perfom in his name. This is especially due to his:

-  emphasis on miracles
-  his claim to be the prime manifestation of God in all history. Quote: “The whole world will be transformed into Sathya Sai Organisation and Sathya Sai will be installed in the hearts of one and all.” (Sanathana Sarathi, January, 1999. page 16). For many more examples, documented in his own official publications, of Sai Baba’s self-deification, see HERE
- the vast pomp and circumstance that surround him, his fleet of luxury foreign cars. See commentary and incredibly revealing pics, Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia
- his cultivation of the rich, his giving special seating positions at darshans to the rich, his flattery of the rich and famous … See, Dare Songstress Nora Jones Touch Sai Baba

His flattery of various visiting Indian Prime Ministers is - embarrassingly for his cause - unwittingly, documented across issues of Sanathana Sarathi (the official Sai Baba organ distributed worldwide), including the case of Narasimha Rao, who was sentenced to years in jail, convicted on a slew of corruption charges relating to kickbacks from secret arms deals with the Swedish firm Bofors. It was the Narasimha Rao government which inititiated the profound Indian government cover-up of the circumstances surrounding the police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom on June 6, 1993, a suppression that has been strictly maintained by each succeeding Indian government to this day. See, Robert Priddy’s The Unresolved, Covered-up 1993 Murders In Sathya Sai Baba’s Bedroom Revisited

Further Reading

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ - A Revision
The Genesis of the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Sai Baba)
Serial Sex Molestation and Bedroom Killings. But Much More

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Some Key Cultic Responses To Critics

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

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

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

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

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

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

*  The attribution of mental illness to those who criticise

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

* Missing the points being urged and instead highlighting peripheral issues

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

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

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

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

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

* In some cases, threats against life or limb

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

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

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

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

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

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

… And so, woefully, on ….

Further Readings

International Cultic Studies Association

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

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony to BBC - After Years of Silence

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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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