Response Series, Part Five
Posted by: Barry Pittard.
Date: Thursday, August 7, 2003.
Email:
bpittard@beachaccess.com.au
Note:
A long letter from an SSB devotee named Seema is the basis for this
series, in which the one devotee's letter is readily seen to reflect
many points scattered throughout many devotee letters received by SSB
Exposé
activists.
After my final
reflections over the next fortnight or so, I shall post Seema's
letter, and include some of the responses that I have had from highly
qualified therapists from different countries, including an Indian,
who have read her letter. They have a keen interest in the
psychological in-denial response of those blind to their religious
teacher's failings.
At the end of Part Four, I
raised the issue of the known dangers of so-called lie detector tests,
stating that far supassing most other types of testimony is the good
standing, in their professions, trades and wider communities, of
former devotees.
Seema's remarks are in
red.
Did all of the little homos who went to the
Ashram and claimed that Sai Baba buggered them take proper lie
detector tests? Tell me which one did so and where and who did it?
And send me a copy of the questions that were asked to them.
Were you to take genuine steps towards
investigation, it would then be possible to assist you. One sign of
good faith that you may like to offer is to nominate some properly
qualified and experienced sexual abuse professionals, who can better
judge the validity of how we are proceeding with testimonies, so that
your professionals could have contact with our professionals. They may
also be able to help you see that you are getting lost in
abstractions, irrelevancy, demonising, and homophobic muck racking.
Did the nice little young boy whose
mother was a true Sai devotee ever tell mommy that he had homosexual
tendencies all along and that he was having an affair with someone in
the Ashram, and that when Sai Baba told him that he will inform his
mother he was so ashamed that he made up some stories to save himself
from humiliation. Is he a nice, good boy now or has his experience
with Sai Baba left him so confused that he is single or worse yet gay.
What became of this boy? I can tell you that his mother is a Gem. So
does that make his story credible? His mother?
The very large
numbers of young males I have in mind do not in the least deserve the
sarcastic tone you adopt in these words. If you pre-judge the issue,
starting from a standpoint of sarcasm, I doubt whether Sathya Sai
Baba's primary accusers will want to speak with you. In this case,
their natural resistance will have been created by you alone. It is
because so many Sai devotees have proved so hostile that so many
victims have stopped trying to share their molestation stories with
their former Sai brothers and sisters. Where is the Sai devotees’
Prema (spiritual love)?
However, with
very large numbers of affidavits lodged with governments, the FBI and
other police authorities, Sathya Sai Baba's accusers prepare to
testify at strategic intervals. Fast increasing numbers of former
devotees are resolved to make him and the top leaders of his world
organisation publicly accountable.
I sat down and read Robert Priddy's book
"the source of dreams.'
I trust that you read the rest of the
book better than you did the book's title, which is:
'Source of the Dream: My Way to Sathya
Sai Baba.' (Paperback, Barnes and Noble, December 1997).
In your earlier letter to me you said
that you are "very educated." I wonder if you practise the same
careful, rigorous mind that you seem to expect of others. You mix up
one of history's most famous events, saying that Jesus was hanged. You
mix up the title of a book you claim to have got to the essence of.
You say how much love you feel for everyone yet speak derisively and
sarcastically of former devotees, who you do not even know. As though
to illustrate your tendency to abstractify and depersonalise, you
twice refer to me as Robert, after first calling me Barry. How
important - when you so vehemently demand it of the rest of us - IS
the handling of facts to you?
The man
himself said that Sai Baba told him he thinks too much.
The ‘man himself’ is a person, Seema, a
human being. He is Robert - not but another one of your down-putting
abstractions.
There is another mistake - possibly a lot
worse - which is to think too little.