Archive for July 23rd, 2010

A Sathya Sai Saga. Barry Pittard Recollects. Part 2

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 23, 2010

The series continues from: A Sathya Sai Saga. Barry Pittard Recollects. Part 1. Posted by Barry Pittard on July 20, 2010

In October 1999, I read Terry Gallagher’s startling accounts, and, increasingly those of others. He was the first head of Australian Sathya Sai Organization and an agricultural scientist and businessman of Kiama, New South Wales, Australia. His brother-in-law, Neville Fredericks (a past mayor of Kiama)succeeded T.Sri Ramanathan as head of the Australian Sathya Sai Organization. Following his extensive investigation, Terry Gallagher’s revelations spoke of Sathya Sai Baba having sex with boys and young men, and being complicit in other disturbing crimes. He discovered disturbing facts about the local, state and central government cover up of police killings in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom at Puttaparthi on June 6, 1993. He and others in various parts of the world resigned. Many simply left the Sathya Sai Organization, without formal resignation. Sai devotees in centers around the world have heard their leaders state the allegations are made by a handful of disgruntled former devotees. Yet the Sathya Sai Organization holds aloft the value: Truth …

The Editor of the Australian magazine Nexus (published in a number of countries), Duncan Roads, had found the Gallagher article along with two other accounts of former Sathya Sai Baba devotees on the internet. The Gallagher document was in the form of a letter to David and Faye Bailey. Duncan Roads wrote:

I had heard the many rumours about Sai Baba’s sexual impropriety over the years, and like many, dismissed them as disgruntled devotees. Later on, I actually took those attacks as ‘evidence’ that Sai Baba was growing in influence, and that this was the ‘system’ attacking him …

Unlike Sai Baba believers, I have an open mind, one which allows me to read and listen to things that Sai Baba believers refuse even to allow into their consciousness. I read some of the more recent testimonies, and decided to investigate for once and for all to put an end to the rumours …

I ended up speaking to many victims, parents of victims, former Sai Baba centre ‘leaders’ and some respected ‘figureheads’ from the movement. All confirmed the same pattern of abuse and sexual misconduct …

I did not want to believe any of these testimonies, but I also had to be true to what I was uncovering. Sai Baba is, and has, been involved in sexual misconduct with boys and young men. The effects of this misconduct has caused unestimatable damage within many many families, including suicides

Photo below: David and Faye Bailey. Authors of ‘The Findings’. An historic and lengthy indictment of Sathya Sai Baba and his charismatic cult, by two former and exceptionally close disciples.

David and Faye Bailey. Authors of 'The Findings'. An historic and lengthy indictment of Sathya Sai Baba, by two former and very close disciples