----- Original Message -----

From: Joop.M.Houtkooper@psychol.uni-giessen.de

To: Pittard, Barry bpittard@beachaccess.com.au

Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 2:16 AM

Subject: Re: Sathya Sai Baba

 

Giessen, 3 April 2003.

Dear Barry Pittard,

Thanks for your comments on Sai Baba. I am not belittling this, but I am just not taking a moral stance on what is going on with him. I have known the reports on homosexual contacts for years.

The point is that I am no devotee and I haven't ever been.

What interests me is the reports on paranormal phenomena such as materialisations occurring with Sai Baba and what significance these have for scientific parapsychology. Also, I am interested in the difficulties encountered by researchers when they try to do research on these phenomena under the actual circumstances. A religious setting results in particular difficulties. There are reports on fraudulently produced phenomena, although the rationalists are known for drawing conclusions without first-hand observations.

With all best regards,

Joop M. Houtkooper

________________

Dr. Joop M. Houtkooper,
joop.m.houtkooper@psychol.uni-giessen.de

Center for Psychobiology and Behavioral Medicine,
Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen,
Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10,
D-35394  Giessen
Germany
Tel.: +49-(0)641-9926273/26081
Fax: +49-(0)641-9926099

 

 

 

Topic: Barry Pittard to Dr. Joop M. Houtkooper, Parapsychologist

Posted: Barry Pittard, Australia 

Email: bpittard@beachaccess.com.au

Sent to: www.exbaba.com

Date: Thursday, May 1, 2003           

References: www.exbaba.com Saturday, March 22. SSB Discussed at the University of Utrecht, May 3, 2003, by Ex Baba

 

Dear Joop,

I am glad that you have responded, and contextualised your approach for me. 

> I have known the reports on homosexual contacts for years.

Many former followers of Sai Baba are concerned that the many reports relate to serial, wide-scale homo-paedophia. If he were homosexual in an adult and consenting manner, simply, then the most we could say is that, in preaching celibacy and in relating his swamihood to the celibate tradition in India, he is being hypocritial.

> What interests me is the reports on paranormal phenomena such as materialisations occurring with Sai Baba and what significance these have for scientific parapsychology.

Ca. 1992-5, while I was still devoted to Sai Baba (an affair of twenty-five years), I wrote up a number of my direct experiences of (to my satisfaction) exceptionally paranormal experiences that, both in his own person and remotely elsewhere in my movements about the world, related to him. In fact, I resigned my teaching post and spent three years, often working eight to twelve hours a day on the MSS. 

Every now and then, I find myself wishing that a few celebrated, die-hard rationalists had had the same extraordinary experiences. Even then, I guess they would have rationalised the experiences away - somehow!

However, since I have taken up an advocacy role on behalf of many young males, families and others who, from many parts of the world, allege the most shocking experiences of homo-paedophilia by Sai Baba (not to mention other most serious allegations), I have made a personal decision which has caused me much soul-searching.

Let me explain: on the one hand, I have a strong commitment to the surfacing of scientific fact. However, from the practical point of view, I see that the sheer power of belief that Sai Baba is associated with profound miraculous phenomena is a major obstacle to exposing the "dark side" to Sai Baba. Therefore, I and others have concentrated on producing much material such as affidavits - sent to Interpol, FBI, CBI (India), and other national police forces round the world - and exposing our material via UNESCO, governments, quality television/radio and print media, former devotee websites on the Internet, and what have you. Yes, it is true: I have not shared my experiences of the extraordinary as related to Sathya Sai Baba - and wish to do so only if I can come up with a tight presentational framework which will neither compromise the integrity of my account of the supraphenomena that I experienced nor harm our efforts to obtain justice for the many who accuse him of most terrible crimes.

> There are reports on fraudulently produced phenomena, although the rationalists are known for drawing conclusions without firs-hand observations.

A nightmare I would most dread would be to witness an argument by a fundamentalist religionist with a fundamentalist rationalist. I set myself the vastly difficult task of researching Nadisastra (some components of which resist rational refutation), and, no matter that my study proceeded along open-minded, questioning lines, I received the utmost rudeness from rationalists, prominent ones not least, even though I had not shared my counter-intuitive findings. In my experience, with regard to probity and rationality, both believers at large and rationalists at large tend to be a scientific lost cause. To avoid lapse into a solipsistic universe, I tell myself that I know of some happy exceptions.

Best Regards,

Barry

 


See also In Memoriam to Glen Meloy