THE HISLOP
LETTERS & THE SAI ORG.'S COVER-UP ON COVER-UP
Part
One /
Two
/
Three /
Four
ON THE MAJOR SEX REVELATIONS
ABOUT SATHYA SAI BABA IN THE SAI ORGANISATION AROUND 1980/1
A glaring
example of how the Sathya Sai Organisation
suppresses freedom of speech and
accountability through secret top-down
decisions and destruction of evidence is
clearly demonstrated by a number of letters
from its US leader in 1981, Dr, John Hislop.
This has been continued and even
strengthened under the present International
Chairman and US leader, Dr. Michael
Goldstein, as exposed on BBC TV.
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Date: 02-28-05
By: Robert Priddy
The first main
scandal about Sathya Sai Baba's homosexual abuses in the West was
effectively covered up by the Sathya Sai Organisation, not least due to
the lack of any organisational means of the injured parties for
publicising the facts. This was nearly a decade before the international
exposure took off due to the Internet link-up that made it far easier
for the disaffected who left or were thrown out of the Organisation and
the ashrams to inform one another. It is educative again to see the
manner in which the Sathya Sai organisation at that time handled the
complaints they received, and not least that Phyllis Krystal, Michael
Goldstein were even then active parties to the whole affair. The typed
letters, sent by Dr. John Hislop (President of the US Sai Org.) only to
top office-bearers in the Organisation and later rigorously suppressed
by them, were not all destroyed. They have been scanned here so that
devotees may see they are certainly no invention of exposé activists.
The first Hislop letter speaks of
a complaint received by
letter from Mrs. (Diana) Payne. This was but
one of a number of like complaints to Hislop before or around that time
from different devotees in the USA of being abused by Sai Baba,
including Mark Roche (who went to India with Hislop and the Cowans). It
was also the time when the scandal arose quite separately in Malaysia,
where numerous persons left the Organisation and Malaysian students left
Sai Baba's colleges for the same reason.
An analysis of Hislop's
letter follows after the text.
Downright crazy" sends a clear
prejudicial, negative signal. Hislop wants to discredit the accusers,
and he referred to their accounts 'false stories' even though admitting
he can give no explanation as to why they asserted what they did. All
too ready to cling to any shred of a reason, Hislop writes urgently to
the accused ( i.e. Sai Baba) to explain why people accuse him falsely.
With this kind of non-investigation, Hislop was unfit for any public
office. But from the whole tone of the letter, anyone can see that he
chose to believe what suits him best, nothing less, and to use the
Organisation further to propagate this untested belief. Throughout, he
is more concerned about preserving faith and holding together the
organisation which he heads than serving the truth. This lack of
open-mindedness in a person who heads an Organisation of such size and
such pure pretentions is nothing short of a betrayal of person he knew
well to be upright and honest, and thus a betrayal of all followers.
Self-defeatingly, however, he points out that "Gov't leaders are Swami's
strong devotees", which also means that they were all too willing to
exert their influence to cover up and save face. Hislop marks himself
out as a determined victim of the 'true believer' syndrome with a
prejudiced mind.
Hislop gives no consideration
to the fact that "such a situation could exist" for decades (as it did
in the Catholic Church and other large organisations) without the
victims or their families being able to adjust to it and to mobilise
efforts to indict such a powerful person in India in an Indian court.
The natural inclination is to want to forget the whole matter and not to
have further trouble, heartache and upset from it... not least not to
make themselves a target for the suspicions of 'craziness' as thrown
upon them by Hislop and Co. (not the most dharmic action!), but also the
vilifications of blind faith devotees.
Please read the extra article from
Reidun Priddy:
February 2005
28:
Reaction to the letter of Dr. John Hislop
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