Sai Slurs, Part Seven

Sai Slurs / Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight /

Part Nine

 

Posted: Thursday October 29, 2003

Author: Barry Pittard

Email:
bpittard@beachaccess.com.au

Those who see the evil in Baba see their own inner reality as in a mirror

Would anyone see evil in him if he had nothing to hide, and if he and the top leaders in his organisation were not involved in profound cover-up, and increasingly damage control? Is there any scrap of difference between the cover-up of many other institutions who have hidden the extensive occurrence of sexual abuse among clergy and the profound refusal of the Sathya Sai Organisation to respond to the many allegations by members around the world of his sexual molestation of boys and young men?

 

Pro-Sathya Sai Baba activists repeatedly sidestep issues and evidence that we present. Out of the great wealth of material posted on former devotee websites, they often clearly have read no more than bits and pieces. They jump to erratic conclusions. The see evil in us. They hurl insults. They Sai Slur. Any reasonably honest, intelligent person can see the integrity that informs the general former devotee websites: ex-baba/engels/ and http://www.saiguru.net/, and the websites of notable former devotees and academics such as Robert Priddy (Norway): http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/enigma and Brian Steel (Australia): http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/index.html. That Sathya Sai Baba devotees engage with former devotees at all is curious, for their guru has told them to shun the Internet.

 

Dr Terry Gallagher, an agricultural research scientist, was a highly respected Spiritual Coordinator of the Australian Sai Organisation. At considerable personal effort, he investigated the allegations against Sai Baba of male sexual molestation, including talking to a number of Sai Baba's college boys, and even confronted Sathya Sai Baba with the issue. He has told me that his efforts to properly investigate the allegations of sexual molestation had been, long previous to the seminal September-October 1999 Nexus article, suppressed by T. Ramanathan. His was one of the three articles in the same Issue of that magazine, along with those of Hans de Kraker (Australia) and Jens and Gurprit Sethi (Germany). In conscience, Dr Gallagher resigned - as have many office-bearers and rank-and-file members since, the world over. (A number of former devotees around the world are preparing a long, long list, and foresee producing it when the time is right). Some related comments by Dr Gallagher are at: ex-baba/engels/witnesses/terry.html.

 

Another highly respected leader was Stephen Carthew, a South Australian documentary film maker and a former South Australian Spiritual Coordinator. Shortly after the Nexus article, he called a meeting of devotees in Adelaide so that the allegations in the article, and from beyond it, could be made known and discussed openly by the Sathya Sai Organisation. He told the meeting that he had already by this time "spoken to three parents who have sons who have been asked to give gross sexual favours to Swami. These people are quite sane and quite clear that these events have happened to their sons." He told the meeting that "any organisation that denies the process of investigation of the alleged misconduct of one of its leaders is an organisation that falls quickly into the category of 'irregular' or even 'cult like.'" Typical of his oft-noted authoritarianism, Ramanathan cast him out. See: ex-baba/engels/letters/carthew.html. Worldwide, other courageous and truthful individuals received the same draconian treatment. For a similar bloody-minded ejecting of a former top leader of the Russian Sathya Sai Organisation, see Serguei Badaev's report: http://saiguru.net/english/articles/10disqualification.htm.