Sathya Sai Baba’s Birthday, 2012: No Celebration For A Many Worldwide Who Mourn As Victims

For thousands of former Sathya Sai Baba followers worldwide, there is no celebrating the late would-be ‘Avatar’s’ birthday on 23 November. Often without formally resigning, countless left his international Sathya Sai Organization. Many who had thought to join it did not do so. The cult is in terrible disarray.

I am all the more saddened at his vast betrayal, because, for two years (circa 1978-79), I lectured in the three-years Arts degree course at the Sathya Sai College at Whitefield, and will never forget, as I was all too slow in discovering, his and his organization’s profound failure in duty of care for the students. See my article and the BBC television documentary, The Secret Swami: The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

I worked hard, as any conscientious teacher does, to see that the utmost dedication, trust and skill served them as of their complete birthright. I was at my most idealistic – More than just a work force, I wanted to see the building of a soul force.

After my introductory remarks, I have selected a number of my articles about the various Sathya Sai Baba birthday celebrations, mainly since 2007.

In 2001, UNESCO posted a Media Advisory:

The Organisation is deeply concerned about widely reported allegations of sexual abuse involving youths and children that have been leveled at the leader of the movement in question, Sathya Sai Baba.

UNESCO had a Number of Concerns. Inter alia, its Advisory said:

Certain decisions were taken by the Institute of Sathya Sai Education without consultation, such as plans to hold some of the sessions at the Ashram of the Sathya Sai movement in Puttaparthi, and the inclusion of some speakers in the conference programme without their previous consent. Furthermore, the Organization is deeply concerned about widely reported allegations of sexual abuse involving youths and children that have been levelled at the leader of the movement in question, Sathya Sai Baba.

In September 2000, after months of extremely taxing work globally, internationally networked former Sathya Sai Baba devotees succeeded in showing our worthy professional and citizenship credentials. A small number of us coördinated the obtaining, from several countries, extensive, of qualitative documentary evidence. We did likewise in furnishing a number of governments and law enforcement agencies. An extreme difficulty we faced was the untold corruption of government and legal agencies in India. From top to bottom, these were jam-pack with Sai Baba followers. For the barest glimpse of this, see my articles:

On Sathya Sai Baba: Times of India, Ex-Chief Justice Interview. What Judge Would So Opine?

Ex-Chief Justice of India: Sathya Sai Baba “dictated my every single judgement”

Indian Ex-Chief Justice: “Wild, Reckless Claims” about Sathya Sai Baba

Human Rights Commission Probe Fronts Andhra Government On Sathya Sai Baba Treatment“

Sathya Sai Baba’s Promise To “Clean Up” His “Own Back Yard (India) Unfulfilled

Much of the data we submitted to well-reputed authorities worldwide was painful, private and sensitive – coming from families and survivors of Sathya Sai Baba’s sexual abuse of boys and young men, and other great wrongs. As a result, UNESCO and its partner, the University of Flinders, South Australia, withdrew sponsorship of a large international education conference on human values under Sathya Sai Baba’s aegis at Puttaparthi. We also greatly succeeded with many of the world’s leading media.  See, for example:

BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ and British Press Praise

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

Indisputable facts about Sathya Sai Baba by BBC

Since October 1999, I have been one of the most active international researchers (along with, most prominently, Glen Meloy (USA), Hari Sampath (India), Brian Steel (Australia) and Robert Priddy (Norway), yet over a decade of dealing, most often daily, with victims, families and others, I, like my colleagues, have not stopped finding ever more evidences of criminality and spiritual betrayal. It was only after the incredible revelations of Sai Baba’s hidden treasury (See: ‘Secret Swami’ (Late) Sai Baba: Vast Millions In Hoard Found Hidden In His Palace-Temple, Posted by Barry Pittard on June 18, 2011) that I took more still seriously the claim to me personally of one of the world’s foremost experts in international money trails. Now in private consultancy, trained by Scotland Yard in international terrorism and other areas, he was inspector-general of one of the world’s leading crime fighting agencies. He regarded Sai Baba as at the top of 20th century master criminals. (To any ethical, bona fide scholarly or media investigator, I am happy to share his contact details). See:

Glen Meloy (“Standing up for truth and goodness”) – In Memoriam

Hari Sampath: Sai Baba protected by the Supreme Court of India

Robert Priddy: A full exposé site, A home page by Robert Priddy  See Robert Priddy’s bibliography

Brian Steel: Brian Steel Demythologizes Early Foreign-led Sathya Sai Baba Myths

Barry Pittard: Outline at Robert Priddy’s blogsite: http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com/barry-pittard/

The Sai Cult’s Failure: Those Whose Perpetual Cry Is Love and Peace Are Not Loving And Peaceful

From the moment members investigated the criminal allegations and spoke against the international Sathya Sai Organization’s extreme lack of accountability and transparency, many in the Sai cult labeled and defamed them. Commonsense – what to speak of spiritual qualities of truth, right conduct, peace, and love – disappeared.

Here was an organization, which has public meetings, and which actively cultivates mainstream civic, educational and religious organizations, governments, politicians of major parties, etc. And yet it refused all proper accountability processes.

Let any other guru or organization be accountable BUT …. not this one. In typical places, like car parks, shopping centers, workplaces etc., family and friendship affiliations, devotees shunned and maligned those who questioned – those, indeed, whom they had known for decades as truthful, decent and dedicated to high ideals and actions. Terrible attacks on the former devotees sprang up on the internet and in wider communities.

The more networked former Sathya Sai Baba followers investigated the more evidence surfaced. The magnitude of the corruption is barely imaginable. By Sai Baba and his key servitors, to name but a few of the betrayals, we found profound cover up of –

• decades of widespread, serial sexual abuses of boys and young men from many countries
• the 1993 police killings in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom
• suspicious deaths and disappearances
• vast misappropriation of funds
• scams conducted via the Puttaparthi front office, about which Sai Baba refused to act, telling deeply hurt, scammed devotees e.g., “What can I do? My hands are tied”. To which behavior, many devotees who knew the appalling facts, simply replied e.g., “It is all Swami’s leela” (God’s playfulness).
  

….. and all too many other grave scandals

Sathya Sai 85th Birthday. Has Said He Will Soon Rule World, And Not Age

Posted November 25, 2010

Sathya Sai Baba has said:

“In the days ahead, the whole world will be obliged to come to Prashanthi Nilayam” (p. 320 Sanathana Sarathi December 1991)

“The whole world will be transformed into Sathya Sai Organisation and Sathya Sai will be installed in the hearts of one and all”. p. 16 Sanathana Sarathi January 1999)

“In Argentina (Sathya Sai Baba) bhajans are being held in every home [cheers].” Sathya Sai Speaks, XXIII, 29:255 – 20-10-1990, on the alleged 50th anniversary of Sathya Sai Baba’s so-called ‘Declaration’ of his so-called ‘Reality’ as Avatar of all Avatars.)

Over the years, we have received various reports of Sathya Sai Baba increasingly losing a composure that has been oft-noted in him for decades. But only recently has this type of behaviour been clear for all to see, and in video footage emanating from his own camp. During his November birthday, Sathya Sai Baba – in the midst of being praised for all the good he has done – broke down and sobbed deeply and for some time. To see this video (download 3.9 Mbs), CLICK HERE

“Be happy!” “I have no enemies.. I love all. I am always smiling. Many people think how can I keep smiling? I don’t like castoroil faces.. When you all are happy, I will be happy.” Sathya Sai Baba in his loudly lectern-thumping tirade, Christmas Discourse 2000

Sick and Ailing Sathya Sai Baba 85. His Promises to Look Young Have Failed

Posted by Barry Pittard on November 24, 2010

“That age has its physical and mental ravages is not the point here. Who is not privy to these? …. To which Shakespeare’s Hamlet refers in his famous soliloquy – … “The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” The only point here is that Sathya Sai Baba has made demonstrably unreal and false statements in regard to prophecies about his own physical state.

Puttaparthi Sai Baba Birthday 2011 – Where Have All The Golden Pomp and Circumstance Gone?

Posted by November 20, 2011

After his death in on 24 April 2011, we have seen something of the terrible in-fighting over managerial succession at Puttaparthi, and then of the discovery – not of spiritual treasure but – untold hoarded treasure in Sai Baba’s private quarters. The international Sathya Sai Organization, despite or perhaps in part because of its soviet-style, top-down management style, is in vast disarray. See:

‘Secret Swami’ (Late) Sai Baba: Vast Millions In Hoard Found Hidden In His Palace-Temple and:

Sai Baba: hoarding, secrecy, mistrust, powerlessness, deceit

Sathya Sai 85th Birthday. Has Said He Will Soon Rule World, And Not Age

Sathya Sai Baba Breaks Down and Sobs at 85th Birthday

Posted December 11, 2010

Sathya Sai Baba’s many reported weeping episodes have taken – as from circa the year 2000 – a marked upsweep after the advent of worldwide exposure of widespread serial sexual abuse of boys and young men (See also HERE and HERE); his implication in the massive local, state and central governments’ cover up of police killings in his bedroom at Puttaparthi (See HERE and HERE and HERE); vast misappropriation of billions in funds collected worldwide (See HERE and HERE and HERE); his vast opulence in a land of great poverty, squalor, ignorance and superstition; his failed predictions (See HERE and HERE); and much else that reveals him to be one of history’s great imposters, whatever may be the good deeds that he has sparked off in many of his devotees.

Sathya Sai Baba 84th Birthday Celebrations. Will 21st Century India Tolerate The Shame That Is Puttaparthi?

Posted November 22, 2009 Sathya Sai Anger Mismanagement as demonstrated by Sathya Sai Baba’s international chairman Dr Michael Goldstein of Corvina, California, USA. A BBC hidden camera (in the making of the hour-long documentary that has been seen in many countries, ‘The Secret Swami’ (2004), exposes Goldstein using appallingly bad arguments, and getting angry at the interviewer Tany Datta’s most politely-asked questions. So serious was the compelling mass of evidence from around the world of Sai Baba’s commission of many instances of serious forms of abuse (including that of boys and young men), and the extreme lack of transparency and accountability of the Sathya Sai Organization, that the BBC producers gained a very sparingly used sanction from the highest levels of BBC Management. See: BBC Hidden Camera in ‘Secret Swami’. Ethical?

Many have heard and read where he says that the world will be under his rulership, and that he will return in the name of Prema Sai Baba to complete this work. In a 1961 Discourse, he said: “I shall be in this body for 58 years more; I have assured you of this already.” (Sathya Sai Speaks, II, 18:92.) A year before, he said: “I will be in this mortal human form for 59 years more and I shall certainly achieve the purpose of this avathaar, do not doubt it. I will take My own time and carry out My Plan as far as you are concerned.” (I, 31:198; Prashanthi Nilayam 29-9-1960 – second discourse) Both these statements indicate a death date 2019 (although he would not use the ‘word’ death) of 2019. Other statements in official publications confuse the issue by stating 2022.

He had best get a wriggle on, for he is now terribly ailing. See: Sai Baba – A Degenerative Disease? and Sai Baba’s Tip To Keep Ageing Away and Sathya Sai Baba Is Fast-ailing and Sathya Sai Baba’s Slurred Speech Due To Old Age. ‘Eenadu’ News Report

Sathya Sai Baba Birthday. Brian Steel Examines Birthdate Issue

Posted by Barry Pittard on November 22, 2009

As part of his extensive and challenging opus on Sathya Sai Baba, the Australian academic Brian Steel has written about questions surrounding Sathya Sai Baba’s birthdate. This appears in Chapter 5 of his ’Omniscience and Truth’ (Revised and Enlarged Version). As this Chapter is long, detailed and deals with a variety of topics, I have extracted, to coincide with Sathya Sai Baba’s November 23, 2009 birthday celebrations at Puttaparthi, the relevant section.

Sathya Sai Baba Birthday, 2009. Where have all the “millions” Gone?

Posted November 28, 2009

…. representatives of the major world faiths, whom Sai Baba has long said he is bringing together in amity, are, yet again conspicuously missing from those visiting the ashram in 2009. Here is the so-called “All Faiths” obelisk, the “Sarva Dharma Stupa”. Mostly vacuous in terms of Puttaparthi’s reality, it has long stood at his main ashram, a waste of money in a wasteland of shame.

Former co-founder and head of the Norwegian Sathya Sai Organization and retired academic Robert Priddy has written of the highly exaggerated crowd numbers attending Puttaparthi occasions, such as Sathya Sai Baba’s birthday celebrations. Of his and my dear friend, the late celebrated Indian newspaper Editor, V.K. Narasimhan and some others, Priddy, former co-founder and leader of the Norwegian Sathya Sai Organization, writes:

“The estimated numbers of persons during each of these celebrations was doubtless much in excess of the actual numbers. Figures of from 1 to 3 million have been suggested for the various birthdays! Sathya Sai Baba stated to several persons (Robert and Rita Bruce, V.K. Narasimhan and others) that 3 million were present, which was a total impossibility. VKN told me several times that Sathya Sai Baba regularly multiplied numbers of actual visitors by 10!“

Sathya Sai Baba Video. Too Weak To Cut Birthday Cake

Posted by Barry Pittard on November 25, 2008

See video which reveals Sathya Sai Baba, in November 2007, as unable to cut his birthday cakes any longer

High-powered Minister of State, Renuka Chowdhuri, has to cut 2007 for badly ailing Satya Sai Baba

For some time, he has had a mask-like face, suggestive of a degenerative disease.

Further Reading At‘Call For Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba’

Sathya Sai Baba’s Amazing Predictions

There is no end to his failed predictions. In his February 1 16, 2007 (so-called ‘divine discourse’, Sai baba said:

“I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly.”

Wealthy Americans Prepare Mansions For “God’s” Visit

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 greatest changes ever to occur in history

‘World Hindu’ by 2030. VHP’s Singhal Reports Sathya Sai Baba Told Him

One of India’s most powerful Hindu nationalist leaders, Ashok Singhal, who has an international profile in the Hindu world, has just told an assembly of political and religious luminaries in Delhi of a prophecy he says Sathya Sai Baba shared with him. The Organiser, September 14, 2008, reports …

See articles of Robert Priddy – former head of Sathya Sai Organization, Norway – at his blogsiteSathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed

Ageing and collapse in Sai Baba’s health

Sai Baba’s health – miracle or self-sacrifice?

Sai Baba says his close servants live for 100 years

Sathya Sai miracle of transformation of India?

Sai Baba’s failing health

Sai Baba’s Birthday. Vast, Costly Pomp and Ceremony

Posted on November 20, 2007

Sathya Sai Baba’s Imperial Decay

Pride is said to come before a fall. In the case of Sathya Sai Baba puffery and proudery now come during a fall, since we are now better placed to see the imperial decay suggested in my article The Decline and Fall of The Showman Empire. (For the busy reader, there is a condensed version, Sai Baba’s Undivine Downfall).

Pictures of Sathya Sai Baba’s Opulence and Self-glorification

For a photographic glimpse of the incredible lavish material ‘spendour of Puttaparthi’, see Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia. Or my reader may like to view some Sathya Sai Baba Chariots.

In the selfsame India, there is, with what deepest irony, a profoundly genuine splendour, down thousands of years, of saints and sages living in the utmost simplicity.

Further Reading

THE SATHYA SAI ORGANISATION’S DECEPTION AND PROPAGANDA EXPOSED

(Part One) – By Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard. And Part Two Three Four

Sathya Sai Baba Expose News Extensive website – testimonies, articles, videos

Allegations concerning Sathya Sai Baba A wide range of serious exposé articles.

Ongoing Investigations into Claims and Realities Surrounding Sathya Sai Baba – a thoroughly documented scholarly website by Brian Steel.

Call for Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba – Barry Pittard

Sathya Sai Baba (and Wikipedia) – website of author Kevin R.D. Shepherd

Sathya Sai Baba – The Truth

Italian ExBaba exposé website http://www.exbaba.it
Scandinavian Sai Baba exposé websites Swedish Danish, and Norwegian (Norsk)

Other European languages German exposé website – Polish – Russian.

Exposé in Spanish and second site in Polish

Dr. Dale Beyerstein’s study of Sathya Sai Baba’s claims and ‘miracles’

Kevin R.D. Shepherd blog and The Sai `Baba Movement

Robert C Priddy philosophy and religious issues web log Breaking the spell of religious/’spiritual’ superstitions

Website informing about sects, including the Sathya Sai Baba cult

FRENCH WEB LOG Marc-André

Belief and Sathya Sai Baba: Avatar or Imposter-Trickster?

General

Excerpt From Public Petition (and introduction)

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Subscribe in a readerSubscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Sathya Sai Baba Cults: Some Striking Similarities

In his blog Mind your Mind, Chris Doktor, a Dutch psychotherapist, writes instructively of certain similarities between the renowned cult leader, the late, self-proclaimed Korean ‘Messiah’ and multibillionaire tycoon Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the late Sathya Sai Baba. See:  Grand Send-off to Moon: Strikingly Similar to Sathya Sai Baba in Life and Death.

That charismatic and authoritarian cultic figures like Moon and Sai Baba, can gain such a grip on the masses suggests the need for a serious social thinking. Although it is important to look at the dangers they present, it is also crucial that we consider what rational and emotional deficits exist in society. And, dare we say, in ourselves.

Sathya Sai Baba. For a decade, increasingly succumbing to decrepitude, despite foretelling that, from his 60th birthday, he would not physically age

In his last few years Sathya Sai Baba succumbed to dementia and a raft of other ailments. These troubles falsified his own repeated prophecies – species of his megalamania – that he would look forever young, travel to various parts of the world, die in his 90’s effectively ruling the world by that time, and reincarnate shortly after as ‘Prema Sai Baba’.  Here is but a sample of his well-documented, terribly failed statements, which his followers blindly ignore:

In a February 1 16, 2007 ‘divine discourse’, Sai baba said: 

“I intend to undertake a world tour, shortly”.

“The attributes of the Avatars are beyond human comprehension…. Rama and Krishna were ever youthful. Have you ever seen a picture of Rama or Krishna with grey hair?….. Usually old people have wrinkles on their faces … I do not have any signs of old age. (loud applause). There is not a single wrinkle on My face”. Sanathana Sarathi, October, 2002

“In the days ahead, the whole world will be obliged to come to Prashanthi Nilayam” (p. 320, Sanathana Sarathi December 1991)

“The whole world will be transformed into Sathya Sai Organisation and Sathya Sai will be installed in the hearts of one and all”.  p. 16 Sanathana Sarathi January 1999)

“Swami’s mission has made this turn to face the runway. The 70th birthday was the signal from the tower to accelerate. In the 75th birthday, the airplane will leave the ground”. Sri Sathya Sai Newsletter, USA, 31, Winter 1996-1997, 29.)

“Bhagavan told the group of his students, that His mission can be compared with an aeroplane that is going to take off. Up to 70th birthday his mission would be like an aeroplane going along the take-off track and gaining speed. These days the aeroplane is rushing and speeding up and will take off at the 75th birthday”. Sai Reflections: The UK Sai Organisation. Quarterly Magazine: February, 1997, p.15)

See my articles:  

Sick and Ailing Sathya Sai Baba 85. His Promises to Look Young Have Failed

Sathya Sai 85th Birthday. Has Said He Will Soon Rule World, And Not Age

Sai Baba 83. Has Said He Will Rule World

‘World Hindu’ by 2030. VHP’s Singhal Reports Sathya Sai Baba Told Him

The Danger We Invite In Ignoring Cults and Cultists

If we focus solely on the cult phenomenon – or the other great fault, ignore it – we invite failure to look at the human conditions of which we are a part, which create the hunger for the irrational, and, as too often, the appeal of the authoritarian figure who has all the ‘answers’.  

The threats to the open society of cults increase according to how we tend to ignore them. My writings on society’s powerful turning of blind eyes to insidious problems like pedophilia make, essentially the same point:  it is the social failure to face difficult issues. It is the failure to come clean, and to speak out, and to support those who are speaking out.

Allowing a few whistleblowers and advocates for social chance to shoulder the brunt of the work is, simply, cowardice. It is also unreality, because, sooner or later our own families and communities are stricken. 

Crowds at Sathya Sai Baba’s birthday celebrations at Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, South India, 2008

Chris Doktor notes:

“Like Sai Baba, Moon was a deeply narcissistic man, who reveled in mass adoration and was in dire need of constant and singular attention, claiming to be a special spiritual entity who, if accepted as a personal master, protected you from harm and opened up the gates of Heaven to his true followers”.

Thousands gather for elaborate farewell to Moonie church founder known as their ‘True Father’

By JILL REILLY

PUBLISHED: 08:50 GMT, 15 September 2012 | UPDATED: 10:36 GMT, 15 September 2012
Ten of thousands of followers gathered today at the funeral of Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah who founded the Unification Church. 

He was buried at a church-owned mansion modelled on the White House after a two-week mourning period.

His followers gathered at Gapyeong, an hour outside the capital Seoul, to say a final goodbye to Moon, a man who dubbed himself the ‘True Parent’ of those he married in mass ceremonies and who once proposed himself as ‘supreme chairman” of a reunited Korea.

Family affair: Hyung-Jin Moon (front second right), International President of the Unification Church and youngest son of Evangelist Reverend Sun-Myung Moon, leads the honor guards in carrying the body of his father. 

Well-wishers: A packed crowd watched as the casket carrying Sun-Myung Moon e late founder of the Unification Church was carried at the CheongShim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, about 60 km (37 miles) northeast of Seoul

United: Mourners raise arms after the funeral of the controversial founder

Ornate display: A giant image of the late founder was displayed at the service in front of hundreds of flowers

The church claimed that about 35,000 followers and mourners with some 15,000 from abroad attended the funeral service at the Cheongshim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, about 60 km east of Seoul.

The ceremony was officially titled ‘Sun Myung Moon, the True Parent of Heaven and Earth, Memorial and Ascension Ceremony.’

Men dressed in black suits with white ties and women in white or ivory dresses for the ceremony. 

Many sobbed quietly as the cortege carried Moon’s red-and-gold casket to the altar inside a vast hall in the church complex.

Grieving: Han Hak Ja, wife of late Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, weeps during his funeral ceremony. His wife remains the symbolic head of the mission that oversees the entire Tongil, Korean for Unification group

Red roses: Flowers were a central theme of the service and single red roses encased in cellophane were handed out to mourners

Procession: Moon is survived by his wife and 10 of their 13 children. But his eldest son Hyun Jin, the chairman of UCI, which owns the UPI news agency, did not attend the funeral. Church officials did not give details about why he was not there

Many mourners watched on live broadcasts around the campus.

Some offered roses and lilies, Moon’s favourite flowers, and bowed before the portrait ringed with roses.

Church officials did not give details about why he was not there. 

‘His will is a divine will, different from normal people,’ said 69-year-old office worker Jeong Hye-ok.

‘I believe he will establish a foundation to build a heavenly world that unifies peace on earth.’ 

‘He will be in our minds permanently,’ said Lee Ok-su, a church choir member, her face flushed with emotion. ‘He is our benevolent yet strict father.’

Followers: Critics for years have vilified the church as a heretical and dangerous cult and questioned its murky finances and how it indoctrinates followers, described in derogatory terms as ‘Moonies’

Memorial: Believers of the Unification Church make a deep bow during the ceremony 

Mourning: A family member carries a portrait of late Rev. Sun Myung Moon – he built a multibillion-dollar business empire stretching from the Korean Peninsula to the United States

Remembrance: More than 30,000 mourners, many weeping openly, attended the elaborate, flower-strewn funeral in South Korea

The funeral, which lasted more than two hours, began when men wearing military honor guard-style uniforms carried Moon’s coffin into a multipurpose gymnasium. 

They slowly carried it up red-carpeted steps decked with flowers and placed it in front of a large portrait of Moon. 

Many mourners wept as a top church official said in a speech that Moon was moving into a spiritual world after completing the messianic role that God had asked of him.

Crowds: A funeral car loaded with a portrait of the late Sun Myung Moon drives past followers after his funeral ceremony

Weeping: Men dressed in black suits with white ties and women in white or ivory dresses for the ceremony. Many sobbed quietly as the cortege carried Moon’s red-and-gold casket to the altar inside a vast hall in the church complex

Flower-covered transport: A funeral car containing the body of late Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon drives past followers. He was buried at a church-owned mansion modelled on the White House today after a two-week mourning period

Han Hak Ja (front), wife of late Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, mourns her late husband while his the youngest son of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, sings a hymn 

Legacy: Rev. Sun Myung Moon died aged 92 on Sept. 3 of complications due to pneumonia. The church he founded is now run by his youngest son, while the business entities are run by another son

Popular: Those who could not get into the service watched on live broadcasts around the campus

Moon started the church after claiming Jesus appeared to him while he was praying as teenager 

‘God, why … why did you call back our True Father so hurriedly?’ Bo Hi Pak, chairman of the Unification Church-supported Korean Cultural Foundation, told the crowd. 

‘I’m so sad, and I just want to listen to his voice again,’ said Jeon Myung-hu, a 43-year-old man who said he fasted for four days after hearing the news of Moon’s death. ‘His teachings about peace will remain forever.’ 

About 180,000 people visited Gapyeong during the mourning period before the funeral, according to church officials. 

An estimated 7 million people paid homage at mourning sites around the world, they said. 

The Unification Church claims to have 3 million followers around the world, though critics say the figure is no more than 100,000. 

Moon, a staunch anti-communist who ran a business empire as well as a church and spent 30 years living in the United States, was born in what is now North Korea in 1920 and escaped to the South in 1950 after being sentenced to hard labour.

He died aged 92 on September 3 of complications due to pneumonia. 

The church he founded is now run by his youngest son, while the business entities are run by another son.

Blessing: Moon and his wife bless the brides and the grooms in a mass wedding ceremony at Chamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul in 2000

Mass nuptials: Couples from around the world participate in a mass wedding ceremony arranged by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church at Sun Moon University in Asan

His wife remains the symbolic head of the mission that oversees the entire Tongil, Korean for ‘Unification’ group.

Previously thousands of mourners had gathered for the ten-day as the founder lay in a glass-covered coffin at the headquarters of his Unification Church in South Korea.

Only senior church members and specially invited mourners were allowed to view the body. But that didn’t stop the general public turning up in droves to pay their respects.

Critics for years have vilified the church as a heretical and dangerous cult and questioned its murky finances and how it indoctrinates followers, described in derogatory terms as ‘Moonies.’

Moon is survived by his wife and 10 of their 13 children.

But his eldest son Hyun Jin, the chairman of UCI, which owns the UPI news agency, did not attend the funeral. 

Church officials did not give details about why he was not there.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203645/Sun-Myung-Moon-funeral-Thousands-gather-South-Korea-elaborate-farewell-Moonie-church-founder.html#ixzz2ChPi8MiC 

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA ”INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL

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Australian Royal Commission To Probe Institutional Handling Of Child Sexual Abuse

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Guillard, has just announced a long-term Royal Commission of Enquiry into the way Australian institutions respond, and fail to respond, to sexual abuse in Australia. It begins its work in early 2013, and may continue for several years.

As the Royal Commission goes about its work, I, for one – given that the enquiry becomes singularly noted for its wisdom and professionalism – shall be encouraging many Australian survivors and their families as possible to witness to the Commission accounts of the Australian Sathya Sai Organization’s appalling treatment of victims, its suppression of testimony, and intimidation and silencing of many truthful witnesses.

See Ms Guillard making this watershed announcement at:  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-12/gillard-launches-royal-commission-into/4367700

Decades too late, she says: 

“There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil”.

Like our own experience when exposing the Sathya Sai cult via many international media, those wilderness voices crying out against institutional corruption can only view such statements with a mixture of the philosophical, the derisory and the darkly ironical.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Guillard announces an ongoing Royal Commission to investigate institutional response, and lack of response, to child sexual abuse

ABC Report

Gillard launches royal commission into child abuse

By Simon Cullen and staff.  Updated Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:28pm AEDT

Quote

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced the creation of a national royal commission into institutional responses to instances of child sexual abuse.

The decision was taken at a meeting of federal cabinet this afternoon.

Ms Gillard had been under pressure to act following growing calls for a 

national inquiry into explosive allegations by a senior New South Wales police investigator that the Catholic Church covered up evidence involving paedophile priests.

A number of senior Labor MPs, as well as key independents, had already voiced their support for action …… 

RELATED STORY: Gillard under pressure to set up sex abuse inquiry

RELATED STORY: Pressure grows for abuse royal commission

RELATED STORY: NSW announces commission into police handling of abuse claims

RELATED STORY: Growing calls for royal commission into Catholic abuse claims

In a way that obscures the failed accountability and duty of care of a great many other institutions, it has been long been a great mistake to single out the Roman Catholic Church. Appallingly, this overfocus lets many other institutions off the hook. Without oversight or process, the abuse in those institutions continues.

I refer to this Church here because its Australian head, Cardinal Pell of Sydney, has been extremely quick and prominent in response to the Prime Minister’s announcement. And because the unhealthy preoccupation with one offender, while obscuring many others.

In Australia, both many Roman Catholics and the public more widely regard the head of the Catholic Church in this country, Cardinal Pell, as an arch conservative. In my view, Pell is symptomatic of a grave and untreated problem quite other than the issue of any continuing institutional cover up. Too often, reform does not get to the roots of a problem, and becomes a different sort of cover up – that is to say, there is a covering up of, or of a blindness to, those very problematic roots. One of these roots problems is a focus on institutional survival. This greatly thwarts the addressing of justice and healing issues that relate to sexual abuse survivors. One area in which this occurs is an institution’s lawyer-mediated, miserable out-of-court settlements. Mr and Mrs Foster’s case is one of a great many which show the cruelty of such arrangements. (See video footage):

Parents’ harrowing story

ABC News Breakfast, November 13:

“Two of Antony and Chrissie Foster’s daughters were raped by a Catholic priest. They shared their response to the announcement of a royal commission with ABC News Breakfast”.

Many perceive that Cardinal Pell does not support or conceal abusers, but maintains, in real terms, a heartless, narrowly legalistic approach. One which fails to bring real justice and healing to the many thousands of clerical sexual abuse survivors in the Roman Catholic Church.

The interview with Mr and Mrs Forster is poignant and powerful in making this point. She Says (AUDIO: Expert hopes abuse inquiry will create new jurisdiction (PM)):

“(Cardinal Pell) was saying there was a smear campaign against the church and there’s not a smear campaign at all,” she said.

“People are merely telling the truth and trying to be heard about their experience with the Catholic Church; the abuse in the first instance and then the treatment from the Catholic Church, and the hierarchy and the processes after that.”

Ms Foster was particularly struck by Cardinal Pell’s insistence that the seal of confession is “inviolable”…..

We Need To Prevent Use Of Legal Practises That In Themselves Abuse Victims

Those of us who have internationally exposed Sathya Sai Baba and his worldwide cult know this phenomenon all too well.  Regarding a case one of our members brought in the Orange County Court, California, USA, Robert Priddy and I coordinated our international group’s statement. It succinctly shows how a rich and powerful organization how can hijack a law case via a cunning technical trick. Served were the world head of the Sathya Sai Organization, Dr Michael Goldstein, and the Sathya Sai Society of America. Added to woes of the Applicant (Alaya Rahm) was his lawyer’s grave lack of alertness and homework at  the discovery end of the legal process. Several of my friends with exceptionally high legal profiles looked at the mess, and were appalled!).  See:  

Alaya Rahm’s Lawsuit vs Sathya Sai Society of America. Joint Statement by the International JuST Group and the Rahm family. (Date: July 16, 2006)

See also Robert Priddy’s and Barry Pittard’s detailed four-part article: 

The Sathya Sai Organization’s Deception and Propaganda Exposed (and Part Two Three Four

With the Australian Government’s Royal Commission looming, the corrupted institutions now rush not to hide what, of course, they have hidden for decades and  can no longer hide. Rather, under duress, they pledge coöperation and reform – while, however, still not substantively honoring survivors of sexual abuse and their families.

In Australia, both many Roman Catholics and the public more widely regard the head of the Catholic Church in this country, Cardinal Pell, as an arch conservative. Interviews show Pell in favor of the Commission. In his current interviews, he strikes me as still, after all these years of dealing with sexual abuse in his church, as essentially unreconstructed in his thinking. Rather than speaking to the victims’ plight, and looking at the various support groups’ reports that serious systemic defects continue, he is defensive, and, for example, blames the media. (See the victim witness video footage and newspaper reports).

In Australia, as elsewhere, the Prime Minister’s announcement will I suggest – and very soon – show the way institutions commit this other kind of abuse:  the cold, calculating legalistic response. As I have said, we should not think that the Roman Catholic Church is somehow alone in this species of systemic abuse. Trustfully, the work of a royal commission with teeth will show how institutions rush – not to hide what, of course, the institutions cannot well hide but – under duress – to pledge coöperation and reform – while, however, still not, in a genuine, pragmatic way, honoring survivors of sexual abuse and their families. This is profoundly unjust.

In the nineties, when he accompanied a pedophile priest to court, Pell shocked many in his own church and far beyond. They pointed to a gross insensitivity to victims. He seemed naive, and without grasp of the power of the terrible iconography implicit in his sitting with the perpetrator and not with the perpetrator’s victims!

Further Resources

ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Key interviews: The road to the royal commission

1. Video
   

   ‘Explosive’ allegations

2. Video
   

   Gillard acts

3. Video
   

   ‘My career is over’

4. Video

   Parents’ harrowing story
5. Video
   

   ‘We will cooperate’

6. Video
   

   Politically messy?

Topics: law-crime-and-justice, royal-commissions, community-and-society, religion-and-beliefs, catholic, child-abuse

Abuse victims sceptical of Pell’s royal commission response

By Samantha Donovan and staff

VIDEO: Cardinal Pell criticises ‘negative’ media coverage (Lateline)

RELATED STORY: Pell accuses press of exaggerating Catholic abuse

RELATED STORY: Victims hail royal commission as bittersweet victory

RELATED STORY: Whistleblower detective alleges smear campaign

MAP: Australia

Some of the victims of sexual abuse by the clergy do not believe the Archbishop of Sydney’s statement that the Catholic Church has learnt the error of its ways.

In the wake of the Prime Minister’s decision to call a royal commission into institutionalised child abuse, Cardinal George Pell said he believed many claims involving the church were exaggerated and historic.

“We are not interested in denying the extent of misdoing in the Catholic Church. We object to it being exaggerated,” he said.

“We object to it being described as the only cab on the rank.

“We acknowledge simply with shame the extent of the problem and I want to assure you that we have been serious in attempting to eradicate it and deal with it.”

AUDIO: Abuse victims disagree with Pell over church response (PM)

The leader of Australia’s most powerful Roman Catholic diocese said he would cooperate with the nationwide inquiry, but told reporters the church had improved its processes in dealing with abuse allegations.

“I have just been attempting to explain [over] the past 16 to 20 years, we have addressed [the issue], these are adequate procedures,” he said.

“Nobody has written to me saying this procedure is inadequate or that procedure is inadequate.

“What we have had is general smears like, with due respect, I suggest you are making that we are generally inefficient, that we’re covering up, we’re moving people around.

“Where that is done it’s against the protocols.”

The Melbourne response

But in Victoria, some are still critical of the so-called Melbourne Response, which Cardinal Pell set up to handle complaints in the late 1990s.

Cardinal Pell confirmed again he had accompanied paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale to his court hearings several years ago.

But he said he did not realise at the time the impression this would give to victims.

They just still don’t get it because I think they are afraid because so many bishops over the years have been so culpable of so many crimes, particularly cover-ups, that I think they are afraid of what’s going to come out.

Abuse victim Stephen Woods

Ridsdale, from the Wimmera region in western Victoria, was jailed in 1993 after admitting he abused more than 20 children.

In 2006, the priest was sentenced to an extra 13 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to further charges.

Melbourne man Stephen Woods was 14 when he was raped by Ridsdale.

Mr Woods listened to Cardinal Pell’s comments with interest and told ABC radio’s PM program: “He seems to be setting up a narrative that the Catholic Church is now the victim, that they are the ones who are just one of many assaulters in the society.

“Yet I can’t think of any other organisation that has had so many, even though there are many clergy, but they have had so many paedophiles.

“And of course, tens of thousands of victims.”

VIDEO: Sanctity of confessional box under question (7pm TV News NSW)

‘Failed systems’

Cardinal Pell said the Melbourne Response had been “very well regarded” by many.

But that is not Mr Woods’s impression.

“Working for (support group) Broken Rites we’ve had cause to come across a lot of people who have said that the Melbourne Response, as well as the Towards Healing, are both very failed systems,” he said.

“They offer very small amounts of compensation and they are very lawyer-intense and very legalistically concerned.

“So people have very often come out of it just feeling far more assaulted.”

Mr Woods believes the Catholic Church is not responding well to news of the royal commission.

“They still don’t get it. They just still don’t get it because I think they are afraid because so many bishops over the years have been so culpable of so many crimes, particularly cover-ups, that I think they are afraid of what’s going to come out,” he said.

‘No smear campaign’

Chrissie Foster’s two daughters were raped by their parish priest when they were in primary school.

AUDIO: Expert hopes abuse inquiry will create new jurisdiction (PM)

“(Cardinal Pell) was saying there was a smear campaign against the church and there’s not a smear campaign at all,” she said.

“People are merely telling the truth and trying to be heard about their experience with the Catholic Church; the abuse in the first instance and then the treatment from the Catholic Church, and the hierarchy and the processes after that.”

Ms Foster was particularly struck by Cardinal Pell’s insistence that the seal of confession is “inviolable”.

She believes it is one of the big issues for the royal commission to consider.

“I know he was insistent on it not being looked at, but I think there needs to be mandatory reporting within the confessional about child sexual assault,” she said.

“This canon law is the law of a foreign state, the Vatican. How can a foreign state law overrule our civil laws in Australia to protect our Australian children?

“My daughter suicided. My other daughter binge drunk and then got hit by a car.

“She received 24 hours care. And all the care Emma had up until she died; the church didn’t pay for that.”

The Federal Government has released information for those who want to provide information that may be considered by the royal commission, which is likely to begin in early 2013.

Recent Blogs At This Site On The Sir Jimmy Savile, the British Entertainment National Icon

• Pedophilia: Why Do Most Of Us Protect the Jimmy Saviles Everywhere?
• Serial Pedophile Issues and Comparisons: Sir Jimmy Savile and Sathya Sai Baba

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA ”INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL

         

Top Magicians Derren Brown, Keith Barry and Others: Exposing How We Get Deceived

Those who are gradually – and often painfully – coming out of their experiences of scam artist tricks – such as those which corrupt gurus like Sathya Sai Baba typically practise – could do well to view some of the tricks of outstanding magicians, mentalists and illusionists. There are many excellent books and internet resources.

Sathya Sai Baba Fakes ’emergence’ of the sacred golden lingam – stills from BBC film

See also:

        Sathya Sai Baba Cheating with lingam 1

        Sathya Sai Baba Baba cheating with lingam 2

        Sathya Sai Baba Cheating with lingam 3

Master Magicians Expose The Ability To Trick The Minds Of Millions

Brilliant performers like Derren Brown and Keith Barry use their professional magician skills not only to perform but also to educate their large publics against unscrupulous deceivers.

See:  

          Derren Brown Interview (1/6) – Richard Dawkins 

          Derren Brown – Miracles for Sale

Although the second program above is around 73 mins, it is a masterly presentation of a master magicians’s elaborate deception. The object is to expose masterly deceivers.

Over months, Brown intensively trains a fairly ordinary but intelligent and conscientious man, Nathan, in techniques of fake faith healing. The television documentary team’s journey reveals a huge part of American culture, much exported to other countries – comprising the corrupt so-called ‘Faith Healers’ and the millions of vulnerable, gullible citizens who, sometimes with tragic results, part with vast sums of money. Just as with Sathya Sai Baba, people die because devotees, pinning their faith in the teacher’s words, refuse to take standard, life-saving medical treatments. The victims are unaware of the roles played by manipulation of emotion, and the human mind’s trickablity. Cleverly adapted, the delusive techniques work irrespective of an individual’s sophistication or lack of it.

and: 

          Keith Barry: Brain magic

(Note:  This program of around 19 minutes is one of the many highly prestigious ‘TED Talks’ on a large range of topics vital to intelligence, imagination and creativity in the 21st century. ‘TED’ is the acronym for: Technology, Entertainment, Design, a visionary, not-for-profit organization with global outreach).

Delivering Our Minds From Deception By Self and Others 

Those who are self-honest, and ready to face up to the discomfort, will be able to see how those they once admired, and in some cases adored and even worshipped, used mind deceiving techniques by which to deceive others.

A benefit of this sort of ‘facing up to the music’, is that we begin to free our minds from their own trickability. A further benefit is that we are able to aid others to free their minds, too. It is an antidote to the flawed thinking that, somehow, by forgetting our experiences, we are ‘moving on’.

Below, I give links to some of my articles that expose Sathya Sai Baba’s decades of deception via tricks that, in many cultures, magicians/mentalists/illusionists use. 

Harry Houdini performs needle trick.  He ingests a dozens of needles and, separately, a long thread. He regurgitates  these – BUT now the needles, in a long series, attach to the thread. 

See:

Sai Baba No Shiva. Gold From His Gut Is Regurgitator’s Trick

Posted by Barry Pittard on August 5, 2007

Centuries of Magicians Have Produced Objects By Regurgitation

Magicians have long produced objects – both precious and trivial – from out of their stomachs. A contemporary example is the British regurgitator Stevie Starr. The website:  http://www.steviestarr.com/index.php tells us that:

“He swallows live goldfish, pool balls, numbered coins, even dry sugar, and manages to bring them back up in order, on command (and in the case of the sugar, completely dry!)”

If you feel that you can control your own stomach, you can see a video clip (4.4mb) of Stevie Star at work HERE

BBC and Other Film Footage Shows India’s Top Guru Sathya Sai Baba Faking Miracles

Posted by Barry Pittard on June 11, 2009

Sleight Of Hand. The Sleightness of Sathya Sai Baba (Exposing film clips)

Posted by Barry Pittard on March 10, 2009

The Ease of Learning and Performing Basic Magic Tricks

Most children and adult libraries books on the how-to of a lot of magic tricks. These show that, without much ingenuity or skill, most people can pick up a few, with a fundament being, of course, sleight-of-hand, not to mention the use of confederates (But can you always trust them?)

For the clear use of a confederate, you can see Doordarshan’s – Indian national radio and television broadcaster –  video footage showing Sathya Sai Baba’s palming of a necklace from beneath a trophy handed to him by his flunky. This film the then Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, a Sathya Sai Baba devotee, quickly moved to censor:  Censored Indian National Television Film of Sai Baba Cheating

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

Posted by Barry Pittard on March 8, 2009

Repeatedly, on footage of Sathya Sai Baba’s apparent miracles of the materialization type, an observer – other than one stricken with blind faith – can see the same technique that magicians use, the world over.

His One Hand That Knows What The Other Is Doing (more than just slightly), But The Recipient Doesn’t

Watch Sai Baba’s right hand. It goes beneath the pile of letters (taken from the seated crowds) he holds in his left hand.  Note the swift movement as, with his right hand, he extricates the solidified material from his left. This material has yet to be crushed by the fingers of his right hand.

Quite literally, he is ‘pulling a swifty’.  Had he carried a hat instead of the letters he might have pulled a rabbit out by the ears.

If he were naturally, and without trickery, manifesting the vibhuthi (sacred ash), there would be no need for this frequent characteristic of reaching under the letters.

In short, the solid (pellet) material that is waiting to be crushed into the powder is already in his left hand.

It took many decades before Indian news reports adverse to Sathya Sai Baba and his cult could be seen.  There is the irony that non-resident Indians around the world saw the BBC documentary, The Secret Swami. (See:  Barry Pittard’s Guide To His Articles On The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Exposing Sai Baba). Many other world leading media, too, have exposed Sathya Sai Baba and his worldwide cult – an opportunity which the heavily gagged Indian media almost exclusively denied to their readers and viewers.  See:  Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba. Media Source List.  Sathya Sai Devotees Suspect Foul Play In Guru’s Health Crisis. Seek Court Order

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA ”INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL

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Pedophilia: Why Do Most Of Us Protect the Jimmy Saviles Everywhere?

It is one of the biggest exposures of a revered figure for serial pedophilia. And now, after his death in October 2011, the extraordinary, Sir Jimmy Savile pedophile revelations in the UK keep on coming.

High level Government and major media investigations will spotlight situations where many in positions of authority knew of but remained silent about Savile’s serial sexual rampages.

There are now two independent enquiries. Dame Janet Smith, former High Court of Appeals judge, will head a panel to look at BBC culture and practices when Jimmy Savile worked there. Nick Pollard, former executive of Sky News, will investigate the suspicious spiking of BBC’s Newsnight exposure of Jimmy Savile, shortly before a BBC tribute to Savile was due to be aired. Pollard’s report is due in December. The Smith report is due in the Spring (UK, March to May) of 2013.

Sathya Sai Baba with Indian PM, Manmohan Singh. Many investigators – such as suppressed Indian police, journalists in major media, government officials, judiciary and those working other areas – know that Manmohan Singh, along with other Indian Prime Ministers, Presidents and powerbrokers across the Indian political spectrum, has long covered up Sathya Sai Baba’s vast, sexual abuse of boys and young men and other crimes. A former Inspector General of a major police force spoke to me of Sai Baba as a candidate for arch criminal of the 20th century. (For serious media and other investigators, I am happy to share his name).

(For more comments, see my article: Serial Pedophile Issues and Comparisons: Sir Jimmy Savile and Sathya Sai Baba. Posted by Barry Pittard on October 30, 2012). In this article, I wrote:

“Indian leaders, many of them strongly complicit across political divides in decades of cover up of the Sathya Sai Baba sex and other scandals – and already being shamed by the powerful pan Indian movement against political and corporate corruption – would do well to take five minutes of their time to look at the sort of official questioning increasingly being mounted in the UK in the Savile case”.

The Indian government Minister mentioned in the following reference, Renuka Chowdury, is a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba. Despite the report, India still lags far behind in addressing child abuse:  

“A study into child abuse in India has found that more than half the children questioned said they had been sexually abused. Researchers spoke to more than twelve thousand children. Two-thirds said they’d experienced physical abuse. India’s Minister for Child Development, Renuka Chowdury, called the findings disturbing and said it was time to end the conspiracy of silence surrounding child abuse. The extremely revealing research was commissioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of the Government of India and carried out by independent researchers. It is supported by Save the Children and UNICEF and is a major and authoritative and highly representative social psychological study which goes into great detail and spans the whole of India.” See the whole report at: http://www.wcd.nic.in/childabuse.pdf.

But will too much of the UK investigations focus on a few figures like Savile and a handful of criminal accomplices and another handful of officials who failed in their duty of care?

See the video clip at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20039602

In Blaming Public Institutions, Do We Fail In Our Own Civic Or Personal Duty of Care?

A few deauthorized heads rolling does relatively little to change the passive acceptance by most of us of one of the most insidious evils that stalk society. When we fail to protect the most vulnerable in our society, we are, ourselves, dangerous fools. Proper protection of my children includes the proper protection of your children. Those too blinkered to see this point unwittingly aid and abet the insidious predator cultures.

Much decorated – including by the Queen and the Pope – Sir Jimmy Savile is now subject to a vast horror file of pedophile revelations, which seem to extend for six decades. Allegations rain thick and fast that many in the entertainment industry, in the charity sector, the police, the government, and well beyond, knew of his sexual deviancy. They turned a blind eye. They shut up. And there was silencing of those who tried to investigate the corruptions. News articles – by intrepid investigators get spiked. Superiors frighten and muzzle conscientious journalists, police, social workers, nurses, and many others, who are doomed to terrible professional frustration.

The much overused expression ‘icon’ is certainly apt in Savile’s case. Millions of Britons regarded him as a great national icon. Exposed is a whole culture of institutional failure – in governments, police, the BBC, various charities, the entertainment industry, and beyond.

However, it is one thing to focus on these sectors. Yet, as those such as Robert Priddy and myself, who have long experience in exposing corruption in the highest places, have learnt, all too acutely, that in focusing only on institutions, we can fall into a grave error. Namely, that in not exposing public apathy and cowardice at large, we risk focusing on others, and not ourselves. Who is to blame? Never us. Oh no. We who so mindlessly idolize stars, and when they are, at last, exposed either refuse to believe the duplicity of our guilty as hell heroes and heroines or else join the mob in now reviling them.

But who averts eyes from the sexual abuse and other crimes about us – in our own families, workplaces, schools, colleges, universities, neighborhoods?

Who morally and in other ways fails to support whistleblowers who, at great cost to themselves, speak out?

Who fails to insist that our representatives address issues like proper support for social workers, social justice advocates, police, teachers, helpline people, and many others who daily battle to aid those who fall prey to criminal abuses of various kinds?

Who fails to spend even a few moments in signing petitions to parliamentarians on a range of justice issues, or writing Letters to the Editor, etc?

Who fails to use their social networks to tell others, and thus to support those who campaign, and face constant attacks on their integrity, because they fight so alone and so unsupported?

Who – may one ask – has children of their own and yet acts as if oblivious of the great many skilled, and increasingly well-organized, pedophiles at work everywhere? Or who, at least, is watchful in regard to their own children, and shows little or no pragmatic care for other children?

Forgetting constraints like social embarrassment, preening self-image and so on, each of us can send across our networks the following link for the British ITV1 Panorama television documentary, which has done so much to surface the testimony of women in the UK who speak of Sir Jimmy Savile’s sexual abusing them when they were very vulnerable teenagers. The interviewer is former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who has a strong record as a police investigator in child abuse.

“Exposure – The Other Side of Jimmy Savile”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nHDZfSl36g

Today’s news ….

New Savile allegations add to pressure on BBC

Reuters / London Nov 01, 2012, 01:06 IST

Facing questions on how suspicions about Savile were handled are BBC head George Entwistle and his predecessor Mark Thompson, new CEO of the New York Times co. Two independent inquiries and a police investigation are under way. Fresh allegations emerged on Wednesday of sexual misconduct by late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, further damaging the corporation’s reputation and increasing pressure on its management.

Police looking into the hundreds of allegations, mostly from the 1970s and 80s, of sexual abuse involving Savile — who died last year — arrested 1970s pop star Gary Glitter earlier this week. More arrests are expected.

Savile was regularly allowed to take “star-struck” young women into private bedrooms at a hospital in northern England, Terry Pratt, a former porter there, told the BBC on Wednesday.

Savile, a fund-raiser for Leeds General Infirmary, would regularly arrive at the hospital late at night with two women, go to the nurses’ flats and leave before dawn.

“He would go up and see the lad on the desk … he’d take the key and … would walk out and the two women would follow him towards the nurses’ home,” he told the BBC. Pratt said the women seemed “star-struck” and “not very streetwise”.

The hospital said in a statement: “We continue to be shocked by each new allegation. It is important that they are investigated properly”.

The report came a day after a former royal aide said Savile’s behaviour on visits to Prince Charles’ residence, St James’ Palace, had aroused “concern and suspicion”.

Dickie Arbiter told the Guardian newspaper Savile would greet young women working at the palace by “rubbing his lips all the way up their arms”.

An ex-patient at the secure hospital Broadmoor has shed light on how difficult it was for individuals to come out against Savile at the height of his fame.

According to the tabloid Sun, the woman was put in solitary confinement for six months after telling a nurse Savile had sexually assaulted her.

The nurse accused her of “bizarre made-up thoughts”.

An inquiry into whether the BBC’s culture and practices enabled sexual misconduct to go undetected in the Savile years began this week, led by former Appeal Court judge Dame Janet Smith. She is expected to publish her findings by December.

Today’s news ….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9762000/9762331.stm

Culture, Media and Sport Committee

MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee have taken evidence on the BBC’s response to the Jimmy Savile case on 23 October 2012.

The committee heard evidence from George Entwistle, director general of the BBC.

Police have launched a criminal inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse against former BBC presenter and DJ Jimmy Savile, who died in October 2011 aged 84.

They have described him as a predatory sex offender and believe he may have sexually abused many people, including young girls, over a 40-year period, sometimes on BBC premises.

Mr Entwistle has announced two inquiries regarding the sex abuse claims.

The first is looking into why a Newsnight investigation into the claims was shelved and is being led by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard. It is expected to report in December.

The second will be led by former High Court judge Dame Janet Smith and will examine the culture of the BBC during the years that Savile worked there. The results are expected in spring 2013.

On Monday, the Newsnight editor responsible for dropping the report into claims Savile sexually abused people stepped aside.

Peter Rippon’s move is for the duration of the inquiry into Newsnight’s handling of the planned report.

Earlier this month, in a blog, Mr Rippon explained the editorial reasons behind his decision to axe the report.

The BBC has now issued a correction, calling the blog “inaccurate or incomplete in some respects”.

Media videos

• MTV video music awards 2012: One Direction big winners of the night

  07 Sep 2012
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  Jimmy Savile: celebrities frightened of being implicated, says Max Clifford

  27 Oct 2012
  2:41
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  Ed Miliband backs BBC director general over Jimmy Savile scandal

  25 Oct 2012
  1:07
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  Jimmy Savile 2009 evidence to be reviewed by DPP, says Cameron

  24 Oct 2012
  1:25
• 
  Jimmy Savile inquiries must get BBC’s support, says culture secretary

  24 Oct 2012
  0:48
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  BBC chief George Entwistle faces MPs over Jimmy Savile scandal

  23 Oct 2012
  2:54
• 
  George Entwistle tells MPs he regrets BBC’s Jimmy Savile tribute

  23 Oct 2012
  3:13
• 
  George Entwistle makes statement following MPs’ grilling

  23 Oct 2012

  

  Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

  There is a Spanish version available:

  PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA ”INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL

  Subscribe in a reader