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

In Puttaparthi, 2004, a BBC This World television team led by producer Eamon Hardy was evicted from the Sai Baba Ashram for asking about the worldwide male sex abuse allegations that face Sai Baba.

Caught by BBC hidden camera: an angry and shouting Sai Baba’s world chairman, Dr Michael Goldstein. He dismisses the BBC interviewer’s point about organization accountability and transparency and says of the worldwide serial sex abuse allegations against Sai Baba, “I would know it in my heart because I am what I am – a consummate professional. Can you understand that?”

Fortunately, before they were summarily thrown out, the BBC crew had shot close up valuable footage that clearly shows Sai Baba faking the miraculous production of a pure gold Shiva lingam or lingodbhava – a ‘cosmic egg’ from his stomach. He then – there are no signs of him faking this – faints. A few minutes later, in but one of his many statements that question the rationality of his devotees as well as his own, Sai Baba told his vast audience,

“Out of the stomach emanated Shiva Lingas of the weight of three tonnes. That’s the reason why some strain on the face and the body“.

The final film documentary was The Secret Swami, which has been screened in many countries. 

BBC producers say that Sai Baba’s top officials at first thought, on their own entire assumption, the documentary would present a ‘positive image’ of their guru and the works of his organization to the world. Hence the rare permission for the BBC to shoot at Sai Baba’s ashram.

The ashram authorities extended highly guided tours to the BBC by Central Trust Secretary K. Chakravarthy and other leading officials, including the world head of the Sathya Sai Organization Dr Michael Goldstein of Covina, California, never before granted to a television corporation. In November or December 1997, Indulal Shah (then world head of the Sathya Sai Organization) told me that, over the years, a number of big overseas television companies had sought permission to shoot in the ashram but that ‘Bhagavan had not permitted it’.

A few days into the film shoot, the BBC asked for a comment on the worldwide allegations against Sai Baba of sex abuse of young males. The ashram authorities then peremptorily ordered them to leave, and Dr Goldstein (who was in Puttaparthi at the time) sent a prompt  instruction to all Sai Baba centres throughout the world that no-one must cooperate with the BBC.

Haunted By Other Media Exposure

Quite apart from other exposure in leading media, the exposure by Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster DR can only have haunted the minds of Sai Baba and his officials. This was in its 2003 documentary Seduced (renamed Seduced By Sai Baba in the English language version by Australia’s national multicultural broadcaster SBS), seen by millions in Denmark, Norway and Australia. At this time, the top Sai leaders in Denmark and Australia made unavailing threats of legal action. In Denmark Sai Baba’s leaders Thorbjörn Meyer and Jørgen Trygved, hiring the top litigation talent in the country, took, between them, as many as ten court actions, all of which failed. In a scene reminiscent of Dr Michael Goldstein’s angry outbursts caught by the BBC’s hidden camera, Thorbjörn Meyer, one of the highest ranking of Sai Baba’s world leaders had, I am reliably informed, to be ordered out of the office of the distinguished head of Denmark’s top national television and radio Director of DR, Christian Nissen.

So much for such cultist. From his grave, the perennially and sorely relevant Sir Karl Popper must be desperately trying to write an update of The Open Society and Its Enemies.

For Viewing

See The Secret Swami HERE. Available in broadband and modem

Further Reading

The BBC’s The Secret Swami – A Revision.
The Genesis of the BBC’s The Secret Swami (Sai Baba)

For a detailed examination relating to Sai Baba’s production of the Shiva lingam, see the article HERE. Its author Robert Priddy, was formerly head of the Sathya Sai Organization in Norway, and is a retired academic in Philosophy and Social Science from the University of Oslo.

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