By Barry Pittard. 08-01-05
A pro Sai Baba writer has stated that I deliberately posted my article ‘SATHYA
SAI BABA EXPOSÉ: AN UPDATE’ on a holocaust denial website. In fact,
I did not, and would never have done so. This article is an overview of the
Exposé of Sathya Sai Baba and his international cult. It was first posted
to Exbaba.com in September 2003.
Since I wish to focus the issue and not deal in personalities, I choose not
to name the individual involved. Former devotees who have spoken out about the
allegations against Sathya Sai Baba and the cover-up by many of his foremost
leaders and successive Indian governments commonly attract slander, distortion
of our views, and false attributions regarding our motives. In my own case,
because I will not trade ill for ill, I have constantly let many vicious attacks
pass (and, for many months, including this one) but colleagues have persuaded
me not to let an accusation of anti-Semitism pass.
In fact, my life has at all times been absolutely free from any taint of racism
or anti-Semitism and from any knowing association with those who hold such evil
views. I may add that one of the great attractions of Sathya Sai Baba to most
of us, now former devotees, was his emphasis on non-discrimination on the basis
of race, caste or creed. I gave no permission to put writing of mine on this
website, of which I did not then know, and which contains views that I find
profoundly repugnant.
Because an author’s article appears on a website it does not mean that
he or she has therefore been consulted. It is difficult not to conclude that
a writer who claims falsely that I was consulted has an agenda to hurt, harm
and destroy my cause by means of linking me with an emotion-charged issue like
the holocaust and the denial of it.
Before success in getting the webmaster of the offending site to take the article
off, I made several attempts, both by email and phone to get him to do so. Much
later, I discovered that yet another article of mine was posted on the site.
I find that the postings occurred because another individual, with whom I had
briefly corresponded on an entirely unrelated matter, who equally is no associate
of mine, had passed my material along to this webmaster. That my attacker should
assume that an author’s material cannot pass into other hands without his
knowledge, would suggest either thoughtlessness or deliberate intention to discredit
no matter what risk of injustice and the hurting of a person’s good name.
An Exbaba.com worker, who was at some stage combing the Internet for Sai Baba
related items relevant to exposing him, copied the page in question to Exbaba.com
entirely without my knowledge. Again, my assailant leaped to a worst-case, conspiratorial
interpretation, not acknowledging that this occurrence can happen without an
author’s knowledge. Since the original posting of my update article was
on Exbaba.com, this copying was superfluous. If the worker who copied it had
actually read it before posting it he would have seen extraneous Adelaide Institute
material on the same page that does not even belong to my article. Furthermore,
the offending website’s spin on my article was evident in the title it
put above it: “Parallels with Holocaust Believers is Striking.” Still
further was the post mindless because the extraneous material on the same website
had utterly no thematic (or moral and ethical) purpose to appear on Exbaba.com.
The Exbaba.com staff member has since granted that it was a serious oversight
that it was posted, and has apologised to me, conceding the importance (indeed
courtesy) of seeking an author’s permission, not to mention taking more
than a cursory glance at what on earth they were copying!
Indeed, my own radio programme, “Collective Spirit,” reflected timeless
values inherent in the great moral and ethical traditions, and won friends from
many faiths, including leaders in the Jewish community. On one occasion, I heard
two fundamentalist Christian presenters make an anti-Semitic reference on the
community radio station I worked for. I made strong and immediate protests to
the Management, and the offenders, who were unrepentant, were made to leave.
Indeed, the then leader of the local Jewish community and her husband were complementary
of my programme, and she had appeared on it at my invitation. What is more,
they graciously had me in their home to share in a Jewish celebration during
Pesach (Passover), and we are in touch to this day, as I am with other close
Jewish friends, many of whose families perished in the holocaust, as did so
very many families of my co-students at University. Over the years, I have similarly
been drawn into a circle of friendship and sharing of Jewish ceremonies by those
Sai devotees from Israel with whom I enjoyed such loving relationships. I dwell
rather on such happy occasions than give further thought to my antagonist’s
cruel and outrageous slander, but wish especially that those newly coming out
of the Sathya Sai Baba cult will not be misled by the ugly and persistent slanders.
Alan Kazlev presents his testimony regarding Barry Pittard and examined Joe Moreno's allegations against Pittard
Kazlev writes (relevant excerpts from his web page):-
"Now, I met Barry some 25 years ago, and felt him to be a very sincere person. I find that same sincerity in his recent emails, but it is upto the reader to make up their own mind regarding all this"
"It is rather ironic that I began with very strong sympathy and respect for Joe, but, while I do still consider that he is following his own conscience and doing the right thing in as much as he understands things, this is not the way I would do things, or even an attitude to others that is in any way laudable (although who knows maybe I am completely wrong).
A number of things have brought me, very reluctantly, to this position"
....
---- "The third is his response to Barry Pittard's position regarding anti-semite claims. Joe posted his reply here, as if Barry was writing only for him only and it is Joe's job to disprove it. When it fact Barry was simply stating how this misunderstanding came about for the public record. The astute reader will notice that Joe fails to address the heart and soul of Barry's reply, preferring to look for little points of detail to attack and criticise. Regarding his debunking of the existence of Barry's "Collective Spirit" radio programme, I have made your own careful enquiries and satisfied myself as to the authenticity of the facts.
When I mentioned the above radio show on an earlier version of this page, and
in an email to Joe, I naturally assumed that he would look at this subject from
the Heart, the way I do. i.e. how can someone who has been involved for some
time in a radio show which sympathetically and consistently features Jews and
other cultures in a positive light, possibly in any way condone neo-nazism?
But instead Joe set out to test (and when he couldn't find results to his satisfaction)
debunk the above claim, with the assumption that Barry invented the whole thing
(for someone like myself who has come to know Barry fairly well, that claim
is ludicrious). What this shows is not that Joe is deliberately seeking to mislead,
or is consciously lying - indeed i have never seen evidence of him doing either
(those ex-devotees that accuse him of deliberately lying are in error) - but
rather that he approaches this whole matter in such a way that he is all head
and no heart, all analytical physical mental faculty and no empathic emotional
feeling. It is this one-sidedness that results in an obsessive and paranoid
approach to things in general. This is because the Mental faculty lacking the
balance of Heart or Divine Soul empathy (the basis of every spiritual path)
automatically becomes subject to the powers and beings of the Affective Universe;
resulting in paranoia. This problem in human nature is actually a universal
one, I only mention it here because it is a major factor in this ex-devotee
- anti-ex-devotee war (just as it is a major factor in so much of human society
and interaction). The only cure for this problem is to come from the Heart,
otherwise you will trapped by suspicion and paranoia and incorrect analysis
of facts forever. And I have found precious little in the way of Heart or Empathy
in the anti-ex-devotee forum or website, only an attitude that sees the other
side as the Enemy. Hence my criticism here."
The above Kazlev material is taken from his web page at http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/Anti-SaiBaba_deceptions.html