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
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