Oprah Winfrey Show On Male Sexual Abuse: Sathya Sai Baba Cult Survivors Should Watch
Posted by Barry Pittard on July 21, 2011
At this juncture of preparations to litigate against those in the Sathya Sai Organization or allied with it who have sexually abused, or permitted to be abused, I copy below some details and links relating to a November 2010 Oprah Winfrey Special on sexual abuse of males.
It is important for those survivors of Sathya Sai Baba’s and his accomplices’ serial and profound wrongdoings to raise their awareness of a number of psychological and social issues, including various forms of remediation that are available.
I had earlier spoken to an Oprah Winfrey producer about the Sathya Sai cult cases, but nothing came of it.
Activists – strong in the truth and justice of their cause – who take on powerful antagonists invariably come to know two things especially. They learn how powerful vested interests are, and to what extraordinary lengths they will go to defame, libel, threaten and bully, and to distort and lie. They also know that only dogged persistence, unblinking, unyielding, will finally win the day. In the article: Fighting Multi Billion Corruption Takes Longer. Posted by Barry Pittard on March 10, 2007, I remarked:
“Former Sai Baba devotees worldwide are ready, as indeed many times before over several years, to submit our credentials and findings to bona fide independent third-party adjudicators.
In an attempt to obtain proper investigation of the allegations against Sathya Sai Baba and his powerful and influential worldwide organization, we have closely cooperated with major world media and other reputed agencies and institutions. He and the entity he calls the “Divine” instrument for bringing about the greatest spiritual revolution the world has ever seen, the Sathya Sai Organization, have not”.
As only to be expected, since there are constraints on the young that would prevent their crying hearts from speaking out, these are men who have come forward to share their experiences. This they did in front of one of the biggest audiences television history.
However, let us bear in mind that large numbers of those whom Sathya Sai Baba sexually abused, or in other cases, whom those around him abused (including, as teachers around the world will be unhappy to learn, certain teaching Staff) are now men.
There Comes A Time When Men Have To Stop Acting Like Frightened Children
I would like to think that those boys I taught (1978-790 at Sathya Sai Baba’s Whitefield College (via Bangalore, South India), and many other boys who have passed through Sathya Sai education institutions, will start to mean what they have so often uttered about Vedic and other sacred injunctions to be fearless.
These men, now gathered and pledged to powerful litigation against corrupt Sai Baba forces, will longer will be silent. As I have mentioned in my last few posts, considerable wealth has been generated that is now at the disposal of that part of our cause which is to make accountable as many of the abusers that we can.
As I have elsewhere pointed out, a measure of legal success has already been achieved in a Bangalore law court BUT it was a success was achievable only at the cost of conditions of mutual non-disclosure.
But the shameless men who were thus exposed should now entertain the notion that large legal remedies are not closed off.
For it is non-disclosure that permits that very silence and secrecy in which the sexual abuse of the young so collossally thrives and infects. A key figure in the exposure of the rampant sexual and other abuses within ISKON (the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, Pratyatoṣa Dāsa, dealt with the renowned Turley law firm states:
“Mr. Turley also said that sexual abuse of children, if not routed out and cured in it’s infancy, spreads like an infectious disease, and this, unfortunately, is exactly what happened within ISKCON.”
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Important Breakthrough!
Litigation against the Sathya Sai Baba forces of serial sexual and other criminal abuses is now powerfully on the move. World class law firms are being consulted. Millions of dollars are on call for this fight on behalf of one of history’s profoundly righteous causes.
SPECIAL NOTE: Those who wish to litigate or in other ways support legal actions against those who supported the years of homosexual abuse of boys and young men, and other abuses, can, with assurance of strict confidentiality contact my close and trusted colleague Robert Priddy: rero@getmail.no or myself, Barry Pittard at: bpittard@westnet.com.au or Jay Narain (former Sathya Sai student) client of Hunt and Hunt law firm (see below) at: jnarain05@hotmail.com
A TWO-DAY OPRAH SHOW EVENT: 200 ADULT MEN WHO WERE MOLESTED COME FORWARD
- Search our sexual abuse resource center for help and support
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Busy journalists, scholars, institutional researchers, and the probing reader in general can do with shortcuts. See:
Barry Pittard’s Guide To His Articles On The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Exposing Sai Baba)
Posted by Barry Pittard on June 6, 2010 – is a guide to my articles written across some six years on the BBC’s one-hour documentary, The Secret Swami (2004) which, according to the BBC itself, has been aired in some two hundred countries. The articles referred to in this guide are those mentioned below. To give enquirers – in one fell swoop as it were – the opportunity to view the scope of these articles in prospectus, the guide has key quotations from each of the articles.
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Further Reading
Another Sathya Sai Baba Multi Million Haul Found At Puttaparthi
Posted by Barry Pittard on July 20, 2011
Young Male Sex Abuse: Legal ‘Locomotive’ Hurtles Towards Sai Baba’s Accomplices
Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011
Young Male Sex Abuse: International Legal Challenge Will Confront Key Sathya Sai Baba Men
Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011
Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action
Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011
For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time
Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011
Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
Subscribe to Call for media and government
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Barry Pittard’s recent blogs | Forum for critics of Sai Baba & his cult said
[…] Oprah Winfrey Show On Male Sexual Abuse: Sathya Sai Baba Cult Survivors Should Watch […]
chrisdokter said
On the Issue of Dealing with Sexual Abuse
This is one of the main things Barry Pittard points out at the beginning of his post.
I could not agree more.
The links to the Oprah Show(s) on male sexual abuse on boys/men, the video fragments you get to see there, the added links to other stories, the sites on the web, each and every one of them is very worthwhile, and wisely chosen.
Whilst the information therein is in my view invaluable, I’d like to add some extra information concerning this issue of male sexual abuse, especially because it cannot but return time and again when dealing with the subject of Sathya Sai Baba and his effect on the worldstage.
Even if it helps just one person to understand the psychology of abuse a little better, and by doing so, gain some compassion for what he has experienced or maybe is still subject to, I will be content.
Feelings of shame and selfloathing, often resulting in blaming oneself in stead of the perpetrator(s), are common when molested or abused. Either denial or shutting down often is the (traumatized!) end result. In both cases, the abuse remains a secret, leaving the victim utterly lonely inside, but alas, also, a frozen bystander to the continued abuse suffered by others. A recent poll among students, done at the University of Twente a few years ago, showed that, together with concerns around academic failure, students, ranging from late adolescents to young adults, are prone to intense feelings of shame and guilt about WHO they are. Keeping in mind that many of Sai Baba’s and his affiliated co-abusers’ victims are/were teens and students, it is no wonder that up til now relatively few have come forward. Intense shame, selfappointed guilt, peer pressure, issues of family loyalty, a society more geared towards collectivism and conformity than individuality, like India’s, insecurities about identity, both sexual and otherwise, and last but certainly not least, sheer fright for the (real and/or imagined) formidable power of Sri Sathya Sai Baba and his Central Trust, all contribute further to keep the veil of secrecy in place.
This is not to say that the veil of secrecy has been lifted in Europe or Australia or on other continents. We’ve only come to know the tip of the iceberg, I am afraid. Here in the Netherlands, and its surrounding countries, I know of very few people who have come forth, for instance, and we flocked to swami by the thousands upon thousands for decades.
Nonetheless, the sad truth of the matter is that many, many more boys and young men from India must have fallen prey to the selfacclaimed avatar and his eager henchmen than those from abroad, be it the United States, Australia, Europe or South-America.
Below I have added, with permission, in essence three sources of information and clarification: an abstract from a recent study, and the required hyperlink to read the full article (1.); the name and details of a web based organization that aids victims of abuse (2.); and some groundbreaking information by a Dutch organization, because precious little has been made public for Dutch victims, and we hear precious little from victims in my home country (and neighbouring ones, for that matter) (3.).
1. The following is an abstract of a recent scientific study, published in the British Journal of Social Work (2010, 1-18). It is called
'Exploring Coping Factors amongst Men Who Were Sexually Abused in Childhood'For a download of the full article, which offers important new insights, click here: Oxford Journals.
University of Queensland Campus, Brisbane, Australia
2. There are very many, fine organizations worldwide on male sexual abuse and related matters. I picked one that I found so interesting as to highlight it here. It is a leading web based organization in Australia on male sexual abuse, called Living Well.
Living Well is headed by Dr. Gary Foster, an acknowledged expert in the field of male sexual abuse of male children and/or adults. Feel free to visit them at their website http://www.livingwell.org.au/. They offer fine help from what I can see. Their site, I find, is practical and up-to-date. It provides valuable info for victims, their families, supporters and loved ones.
One of the latest ‘Webinars’, issued by Dr. Gordon, which gives a nice overview of all possible issues and consequences surrounding this subject, can be found in his presentation here:
Webinar presentation
The accompanying YouTube film(s) can be viewed as added info alongside:
Personally and professionally I find both the Powerpoint presentation and the added audio expose on YouTube moving as well as enlightening.
The Weerribben, national park The Netherlands
3. The following presents some useful info for Dutch ex-devotees who were abused and/or molested, either by swami himself or by others within the Sri Sathya Sai Baba Organisation. It is a 24-page leaflet called ‘Voorbij het zwijgen’ (‘Beyond the silence’), published by MOVISIE.
Movisie is the leading organization and knowledge base concerning social development issues in the Netherlands. This paper was published in 2009. It was written on behalf of men whose sexual boundaries have been overstepped when they were young/younger (child, adolescent).
Voorbij het zwijgenVoor mannen van wie seksuele grenzen in de jeugd zijn overschreden
Auteur: Serkei, B.; Brants, L.; Janssens, K.
Beschrijving:
Iedereen kan te maken krijgen met seksueel misbruik: het komt voor in alle lagen van de bevolking, onder alle geloven, bij niet-gelovigen, van blank tot zwart. Als je uit een gezin komt waar verwaarlozing en mishandeling voorkomt loop je extra risico.
Vaak zijn jongens die misbruikt worden jonger dan 16 jaar, maar het kan ook volwassen mannen overkomen. In alle gevallen gaat de dader over de grens van de jongens/mannen.
Deze flyer geeft mannen van wie seksuele grenzen in de jeugd zijn overschreden meer informatie en adviezen om hiermee om te gaan.
De folder kan worden gedownload via deze link naar de site van Movisie: Voorbij het Zwijgen.
De volgende link brengt je naar de homesite: Movisie.
For people from outside the Netherlands, who speak English, MOVISIE has a separate, international homepage, which is accessible by clicking on this link:
Movisie International Site
Ship on the Westerschelde
Let me for now finish by expressing my abiding appreciation for the incalculable work that Barry Pittard and Robert Priddy are doing and have been doing for so long. Please examine their sites carefully if you want to gain insight into and knowledge about Sathya Bai Baba from longstanding ex-devotees, who in my honest opinion have painstakingly tried their utmost to stay as unbiased as humanly possible, given the things they found out.
Chris Dokter