Previous chapter: Does Sai Baba Have Complete Telepathic Knowledge?
Lingams are egg-like objects representing the mystery of cosmic creation. On special occasions witnessed by thousands of people Sai Baba has interrupted his own talking to `give birth' through his mouth to one or more lingams.
At about 8 o'clock Mahashivarathri evening, while Baba was giving a discourse in the Poornachandra Auditorium, suddenly he began to choke and weave back and forth as if in pain. To see our great Lord in the throes of what are, in fact, `birth' pains brought me to tears. To me this incredible act represents a sacrifice, the holiest gift of selfless love, through which the Lord personally beckons us to merge with him. Through the love that wells up in our hearts, as our hearts reach out to the supreme master, one experiences the yearning for, and the bliss of merging.
Some say the lingam is formed out of unconditional love in the region of Baba's spiritual heart. The birth itself is very physical as well as ethereal. The lingam is brought up the esophagus and delivered through the mouth in a divine paroxysm- much like the birth spasm accompanying a corporeal birth. I don't know why I should be sad, because this sacrifice is so glorious serving to make the devotee more firmly resolved to surrender more and more of himself to God. Nevertheless, to see Baba in this state was uncomfortable for me. He rocked back and forth, then swallowed some water. Suddenly, in a convulsive burst, a glistening, crystal-clear lingam, perfectly spherical and almost three inches in diameter, erupted from his mouth into his hand. In this supremely holy moment, the Lord allowed his devotees to witness the mystery of the creation of the universe.
Then Sai Baba spoke and Dr. Bhagavantam translated his words:
`The lingam which has just been generated is called the Prutree Lingam. The five elemental substances which constitute the creation of the world are present in this Prutree Lingam. In the past, lingams have been named according to the various attributes which they contained. This Prutree Lingam, signifying the entire creation, holds within it the basis of all creation.'
Too much mystery for me to comprehend, I could nevertheless sense the holiness of the moment.
S. Sandweiss, Spirit And Mind, pp. 170-171.
The lingam has been seen by the writer a number of times. On the occasion of one Mahasivarathi night, I was sitting quite close to Baba. When the moment came, I saw a flash of gold come from his mouth and saw the lingam caught in the silk handkerchief held by his hands. It was of gold. How an object that size came up Sri Baba's throat cannot be explained.
John Hislop, My Baba & I, p. 18
Siva-ratri, the Night of the Siva, is also an equally important festival. Since 1950, Siva-ratri has been celebrated at Puttaparthi, and each year since the declaration of the manifestation, Sivalingams have materialized within His body. Baba has said He often finds it very difficult to postpone or prevent the formations of lingams within Him. In the evening Baba gives Darshan during prayers, and after an hour or so, He begins His discourses. Very often he is interrupted by spasmodic struggles in the stomach. He continues with the speech until the region of the struggle changes to the upper part of the chest and the neck. He seems to be undergoing some kind of physical tension, and suddenly, to the joyous wonder of all, lingams fall from His Mouth....They are about an inch and a half in height...They are then generally placed on the image of Sai Baba of Shirdi, and after the celebrations end, are given by Baba to devotees to be worshipped according to instruction...This producing of the lingams is indeed a unique and mysterious manifestation of the Divine Will.
Kasturi, Sai Baba, Vol. 1 American Edition,1969, pp. 108-109.
Sai Baba states that the lingams form within him. Sai Baba devotees, as is evident above, hold the production of the lingam to be a `birth', `generation', or `materialization' which is inexplicable. However, Baba devotees have not even begun to apply the scientific literature to their question. Houdini in Miracle Mongers and Their Methods, Chari, in "Regurgitation, Mediumship and Yoga", and others have presented many examples of individuals who have publicly performed similar feats. It has been clearly established that individuals can voluntarily control the regurgitation response. In fact yogis teach voluntary control of regurgitation as part of standard yoga training, even for the lay practitioner. Here is an example from a widely available hatha yoga textbook:
Technique: Drink four or five glasses of lukewarm water, preferably with a little salt in it. After a few minutes, do rigorous Uddhiyana Banda [stomach lift]. Shake the intestines well. Press the stomach with the hand and then vomit out the water. If the water will not come out naturally, use the fingers to get it out.
Benefits: All impurities, phlegm, and bile will be washed out.
Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Hatha, Holt Rinhehart and Winston, NY 1970, p. 169.
The reader may not be terribly surprised to learn that regurgitation can be controlled at will; but what about regurgitation of an object the size of an egg? Around the turn of the century, when North American audiences were less squeamish than now, circus performers regurgitated all kinds of large objects. Here is Houdini on how it is done:
A number of years ago, in London, I watched several performances of one of these chaps who swallowed a hatful of stones, nearly the size of hen's eggs, and then jumped up and down, to make them rattle in his stomach. I could discover no fake in the performance, and I finally gave him two and six for his secret, which was simple enough. He merely took a dose of powerful physic [emetic--ed.] to clear himself of the stones, and then was ready for the next performance.
During my engagement in 1895 with Welsh Bros. Circus I became quite well acquainted with a [Japanese] of the San Kitchy Akimoto troupe and from him I learned the method of swallowing quite large objects and bringing them up at will. For practice very small potatoes are used at first, to guard against accident; and after one has mastered the art of bringing these up, the size is increased gradually till objects as large as the throat will receive can be swallowed and returned.
Houdini, Miracle Mongers and their Methods, Coles 1980, (reprint), pp. 160-161.
In order to produce an effect such as the production of the lingam, all that is required is the swallowing of the lingam ahead of time, and its regurgitation at the appropriate point in the ceremony. Note that the description of Sai Baba's swallowing of water prior to the regurgitation, and the churning of the stomach muscles both correspond to the standard hatha yoga technique described by Swami Satchidananda.
The reader interested in further information which bears on this might enjoy reading the Chari article referred to above. In it Chari describes a scientifically studied street performer who makes his living doing regurgitations. He is able to swallow as many as 10 live snakes at a time, and regurgitate them in a `reptilian ball with a diameter of about 5 inches' (Chari, op. cit., p. 168).
Sai Baba performed this lingam ceremony until 1976. Why did he stop? Here are three explanations, not mutually exclusive, for why:
On the morning that ended Mahashivarathri, Baba said that he had to deliver sad news. This would be the last time Mahashivarathri would be celebrated like this; the crowds were becoming too unruly devotees were being injured in the commotion.
Sandweiss, Spirit And The Mind,p.171.
The production of a crystal lingam from within himself is performed by so many other holy men that Sai Baba announced in 1976 that he would discontinue the practice.
Donald Taylor, "Authority in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement", Hinduism In Great Britain, Tavistock, London, 1987 p. 130.
In addition to the reason given by Donald Taylor, the reader may also want to take note of the factor that in 1976, Sai Baba was about to turn fifty. The regurgitation of the lingam is a physically trying ceremony, and it is common sense to consider that Sai Baba upon turning fifty may have also wished to relieve himself of the physical stresses of performing this ceremony.
by
Dale Beyerstein, Leon Mandrake, Lou Crockett,
Lon Mandrake and Velvet MandrakeParapsychologists often lament the fact that the people who come to their attention because of their putative paranormal powers will not subject themselves to study and experiment under rigorously controlled conditions. This is especially true of psychics who are involved in a religion, as opposed to those who simply claim paranormal powers. Such religious psychics often imply that it is in some way `sacrilegious' to subject these gifts to scientific scrutiny. Of course, the parapsychologist does not wish to be accused of this, and realises that further requests for controlled experiments might well cause a rift with the psychic. The parapsychologist then might not be able to gather any further evidence. The result is a dilemma: on the one hand the evidence gathered from anecdotes and from uncontrolled observation is interesting enough to share in print with the public. On the other hand, the parapsychologist does not wish to be accused of simple naivety for endorsing a psychic on the basis of flimsy evidence.
Erlendur Haraldsson faced this dilemma in his study of the Indian `God-man', Sathya Sai Baba. In his 1987 study, Miracles Are My Visiting Cards, subtitled, `An Investigative Report On The Psychic Phenomena Associated With Sathya Sai Baba', Haraldsson investigates several reports of Sai Baba appearing in two places at once, resurrecting people from the dead, knowing things by telepathy, materialising objects, and displaying other wondrous powers. He and Dr. Karlis Osis also witnessed on several occasions Sai Baba supposedly materialising objects out of thin air. However, Haraldsson points out throughout the book (pp. 25, 26, 31, 32, 49-51, 289) that Sai Baba repeatedly rebuffed his requests for controlled scientific studies. Thus, Haraldsson ends up with a `on the one hand..., but on the other ....' judgement about Sai Baba's psychic powers:
Experimental science has one way of approaching the truth; descriptive science another. Our judicial systems have evolved interrogation and corroboration of witnesses, investigating relevant contemporary documents and so on, as ways of accruing evidence...In dealing with... well-known weaknesses of human testimony our courts rely primarily on quantity of testimony or on the reliability of witnesses. This has been our approach. Numerous followers and critics as well with extensive observations of Sai Baba, arrive at a general consensus about the paranormality of the frequent appearance of objects in his presence or on his body on certain occasions...Of course any vigilant skeptic will certainly come up with the sleight of hand hypothesis. During a brief visit to Puttaparti [the village with Sai Baba's main residence ed.] an amateur magician viewed Baba from a distance as he produced vibuthi [holy ash, the `materialisation' of which is a staple of Sai Baba's ed.] by a wave of his hand. Such a poor observation sufficed him to conclude that Baba used sleight of hand, though another skillful amateur magician, Dr. Fanibunda, with his plentiful experience of Baba considers this hypothesis absurd. In my view, such a meagre, poor observation does not prove anything either way... This example shows how easily one may come to quick superficial solutions pro or contra by a shallow weighing of only a tiny portion of the available evidence. (pp. 290-1).
Haraldsson's advice not to jump to hasty conclusions is well taken, but we maintain that it is possible to follow his courtroom analogy more rigorously. If this is done, it is possible to arrive at a more definite conclusion than Haraldsson was able to do in this work.
First of all, Haraldsson's many witnesses of materialisation of objects only testify as to the general effects which the scientist wishes to explain. This is roughly equivalent in the legal analogy to a multiplicity of witnesses confirming that at such and such a time gunfire shots rang out, and somebody then fell to the ground dead, apparently of gunshot wounds. If the question is whether the shots which killed the person came from the East or the West, ballistic experts must be called in to examine the bullets, the location of the wounds in the body, etc. In this case expert magicians, not amateurs, must be brought in to examine the evidence.
Second, Haraldsson mentions using contemporary documents. The advantage of this, of course, is that it alleviates to some extent the fallibility of memory. The best document for the purpose of studying Sathya Sai Baba's claims would be a videotape of his materialisations. A videotape has the advantage of being a direct record of the event rather than a verbal description. And even more, a videotape can be examined using the pause button, so that the hand positions can be studied in detail. In this way one can obtain the best assessment of the situation possible given Sai Baba's steadfast refusal to be tested under controlled magic-proof conditions.
Now, it just so happens that there is a videotape ready to hand, produced by Richard Bock, a Sai Baba devotee residing in Los Angeles, until his recent death. The video is called Christ In Kashmir, The Hidden Years, and has been circulating amongst Sai Baba devotees and the curious for several years. It is commercially available through Sai Baba centres and elsewhere. We obtained a copy of it through an Oregon distributor which makes available a wide variety of religious articles, meditation aids, videos, and the like. Haraldsson makes no reference to this tape in his book, nor does he give any information which would enable the reader acquainted with sleight of hand technique to acquire any film records of Sai Baba materialisations.
Also we should state our qualifications at this point: four of the five authors of this paper (DB is the exception) are more than amateur magicians. One of the authors Leon Mandrake has for 50 years been a professional magician, performing under the name "Mandrake The Magician", and has exposed countless alleged psychics over the years. Lou Crockett has performed professionally for years under the stage name `Taylor Steele'. And both Lon Mandrake, and Velvet Mandrake have years of solid professional performance experience in sleight of hand, and magic in general.
A careful examination of this videotape, using the `pause mode' feature reveals several instances of by professional standards, very elementary sleight of hand routines used by Sai Baba in producing his `materialisations'.
And the three-minute segment showing one of Sai Baba's most famous materialisations, that of vibhuti from a supposedly empty upturned urn, and the causing of the vibhuti to pour all over a statue, provides good evidence for the normal explanation as well.
In this paper, then, we present our analysis of those segments of the Richard Bock videotape which show Sai Baba `materialising' objects or streams of vibhuti from the `empty' upturned jug.
I.
Sai Baba has performed countless `materializations' of pieces of jewellery. The Indian magician and Chairman of the Indian Committee for the Scientific Claims of the Paranormal, B. Premanand has published a nine page list of pieces of gold jewellery and other precious gems allegedly materialized by Sai Baba, representing only those pieces whose production is on record in Sai devotee publications. (See B. Premanand, Satya Sai Baba and Gold Control Act, pp. 24-32). There is no doubt that there is a good deal of gold changing hands around Sai Baba (as well as other gems), and the question is, how is it produced?
As it happens, there are a number of examples of necklace and pendant materializations in the Bock video, and it is possible for the reader familiar with the basic methods of stage conjuring and sleight of hand to play the tape, stopping at the crucial moment in `pause mode', and observe Sai Baba's techniques of `materialization' at work.
In the first materialization, of a necklace (at the 33 min. point in the tape) Sai Baba enters holding his left arm with his right hand. This is a most odd walking position, but it is extremely convenient if he happens to have the object to be `materialized' in the palm of the right hand, and otherwise in danger of falling at the wrong time, being spotted in the hand, or arousing questions about why his hand is fisted. In this case, the finger positions during the materialization are fully consistent with sleight of hand technique. However the thumb is on the wrong side of the camera, so it is best to review the finger positions in describing `materializations' in which the thumb positions are visible.
At the 38 minute point in the film a second necklace is produced. However, the editor of the film has chosen to cut out the wave of the hand which usually precedes Sai Baba's `materializations' and shows the necklace only after it has been produced. Given the results of an analysis of the hand waves in other `materializations' in which the thumb activity is visible, one cannot help but wonder why the editor of the film chose to eliminate the hand wave in this case!
The third `materialization' of a small object occurs at the 44-minute point in the film. Sai Baba produces a necklace with a little circling of the hand. The pause mode analysis of this circling of the hand, however, shows definite evidence that Sai Baba has `thumb palmed' the necklace. The thumb is held tightly against the palm of the hand in a manner whose significance will not be lost on anyone familiar with the art of the magician. The fingers are relatively free, as is to be expected, and stretched out to maximize the effect. After some circling, the fingers begin to fist, so that the thumb-palmed object may be held in a finger palm briefly. Now, for the first time, the thumb is seen to be free from the side of the palm, which confirms that a transfer from thumb palm to finger palm has taken place. The hand with fingers curled now turns upright, and the edge of the object begins to be visible. Of particular significance is the fact that the thumb begins to push the object forward. The necklace had been gathered in a bunch in order to palmable effectively, and so it appears as though a dab of glue or small thread might have been used to keep the necklace bunched up. The pressuring motions of the thumb not only push the object down onto the fingers, but also ensure the breaking of the thread if it has not been broken by the handling. The thumb having accomplished its task, we then see Sai Baba flick the necklace open. The `miraculous' production is complete, and a smiling Sai Baba presents his gift.
The fourth object produced is a ring, also at the 44 minute point. The editing and camera angles make it difficult to see the relevant aspects of this event. However, it is clear that ample opportunity was available for a transfer of the object finger-clipped in the left hand to be dropped into the right hand, which `takes the load' just prior to the production of the ring.
The fifth small object materialization on the film occurs at the 45 minute point. Here, once again, we have direct and clear evidence of elementary, if not clumsy, sleight of hand. The details are functionally identical with those of the third materialization: the thumb is not free until the object has been transferred. However, in this materialization, the thumb, apparently, is unable to work the object free from its bunched up condition. This explains why Baba's left hand comes over to the rescue, working the chain free. When it is free, Baba holds the chain with his two hands, and offers it.
It is further instructive to notice the little kinks in the chain when it is being presented, confirming that it had been kept in a bunched up condition for some time, and was not freshly materialized in an unkinked condition as would be expected for a true materialization.
Finally it is instructive to observe that Sai Baba's right hand is open and visible at close range when he presents the chain. The hand then disappears and reappears shortly afterwards, but held fisted. After this, the right hand `materializes' vibhuti. Thus the vibhuti has been picked up (by one of a variety of well known methods) just prior to its return in closed or fisted position.
There is one last materialization on the tape worth study. At the 44 and a half minute point, Sai Baba, with his back to the camera, produces a slightly larger than palm size object, a necklace chain with a crescent shaped pendant at the bottom. Watching the film at normal speed one's response is that the angle at which the film has been taken effectively prevents one from witnessing the `materialization' as it would have appeared to its intended audience. Nonetheless, pause mode analysis is revealing. What we see is Sai Baba twisting his body position so that his left hand is for the briefest moment held behind his back, and so that his right hand which is making two large circles in the air is enabled to come closer to the edge of the wall at the left of Sai Baba than it would otherwise have been able to do. The sequence reveals that at the point of the circling, Sai Baba is abutted adjacent to a window ledge. This area and the window ledge itself provide an ideal place for the pendant to have been concealed. Three or four possibilities immediately come to mind, all of them obvious, no doubt, to people familiar with the art of conjuring. All that is required is that Sai Baba get his right hand over to the window ledge in an apparently smooth and natural way, and the quick body shift, which is revealed clearly only in slowing down the video, would accomplish just that.
II.
The `vibhuti abheshekam' is an annual ritual performed by Sai Baba. An urn is suspended upside down, held by an assistant. Sai Baba places his hand in the urn, and vibhuti, ie., holy ash, streams down from it onto a venerated religious statue, in apparently larger quantities than the urn can hold or so the devotees claim. The holy ash falls out of the urn only when Sai Baba's hand is in the urn; it stops when Sai Baba takes his hand out, or when he switches hands in the urn. At the beginning, Sai Baba's hand is barely into the jug, and he gently twirls his hand; but as the ceremony progresses, his hand goes farther into the jug, and his hand movements become more and more agitated.
The reader may well be entertained by learning to perform the `miracle' of producing holy ash from an `empty' jug. To do this, one need not experiment with such a large jug as is used in this ceremony. Familiarity with material that has the consistency of vibhuti will show how Sai Baba or anyone, for that matter can perform this ritual.
Vibhuti may be obtained from many Hindu temples and/or Sai Baba groups. Talcum powder available in any drug store has the same consistency for the purposes of demonstrating how this miracle may be done. Take about 100 ml of vibhuti or talcum powder and mix with just enough water to produce a paste. (Add the water bit by bit to ensure that it doesn't get too wet.) Fill one or two sockets of a muffin sheet with the paste. Place the muffin sheet in the oven and bake for an hour and a half to two hours at a medium or medium-low heat, or until the water is gone and the vibhuti paste has become a vibhuti (or talcum) cake. Allow it to cool. When the cake has cooled, you will find that you can hold the muffin sheet upside down and no vibhuti powder will be released. Someone who cannot see under the upside down sheet will conclude that it is empty. Now lightly brush the vibhuti cake with your finger while the sheet is upside down. Lo and behold! A stream of ash is produced. Now remove your hand. Lo and behold! The flow of ash has ceased. Now gently twirl again. Miracle upon miracle the flow of ash starts up again! You are a miracle worker, and have just performed the miracle of vibhuti abishekam in miniature.
An analysis of Bock's videotape supports the hypothesis that the vibhuti is in the jug from the start and that it is either all in cake form, stuck onto the sides of the jug, or some of it is in cake form, and some of it is in powder form in `compartments' released by Baba in the course of the performance. This is the crucial point of what we mentioned earlier, that Sai Baba's hand is not far into the jug at the beginning of the ceremony but by the end his hand is placed very high up into the jug. This suggests that at the beginning of the performance he is scraping off the caked vibhuti around the lip, and as the performance proceeds, he has to reach farther into the jug to scrape off that which is farther up the sides and on the jug-bottom. The shape of the jug is such as to catch loose vibhuti even when upside down so that almost none will fall out when Baba's hand is removed.
Also a pause mode inspection of the falling stream reveals what appear to be larger chunks of vibhuti on one or two occasions, further suggesting that some of the vibhuti is in cake form in the jug, and is made to powder by the touch of Baba's hand.
Finally, experimentation with material of this consistency and the size of the jug in the film will establish beyond any doubt that a little vibhuti goes a long way and that the jug will easily contain the amount of vibhuti seen to be produced in the film record.
Of course, the question arises why the vibhuti is not noticed at the beginning of the ceremony. There are several simple answers. The faithful audience believes it has been shown an empty jug as soon as the jug has been held upside down and nothing comes out. (See, for example, the devotee's account in Haraldsson's book, p. 116: "There would be an empty vessel...Swami...would just put his hand into the upturned vessel...The vibhuti would start pouring out".) The lip is small relative to the rest of the jug, and so as long as nobody has a chance to shine a flashlight down it, it will be undetected especially in the context of a moving religious ceremony. Those who hold the jug might be fooled by the construction of the jug into thinking that it is heavier than it is. Alternatively, and far more likely, given human nature and given some of the remarks made by interviewees of Haraldsson, those close to Sai Baba know full well that there is vibhuti in the jug at the outset, and the `miracle' for them, if they think there is any at all, consists only in the amount produced. (See ibid. page 226.)
Our conclusion, then, is that there are a great many ways of doing the vibhuti abhishekam ceremony with few or even no assistants helping. The proffered miraculous explanation of the Sai Baba organisation is the least plausible of them.
III.
We have presented clear evidence of conjuring from the Sai Baba organisation's own evidence in Part I, and a natural explanation consistent with the visual evidence in Part II. We are also confident that more evidence for our conclusions would be forthcoming if we had a chance to examine the part of the original film or video left on the cutting room floor.
What does this evidence say about Sai Baba's putative paranormal feats in general, and the question whether he has any genuine powers? Must we rest content with Haraldsson's `wait-and see' attitude? We think not. By his own criterion, that of the analogy to evidence satisfactory in a court of law, we have examined the best evidence for Sai Baba's miracles that is available. At worst (the evidence from Part I) it is damning, and at best (a charitable interpretation of Part II) it is inconclusive. Given (1) no reliable evidence inconsistent with the sleight of hand hypothesis, (2) Sai Baba's steadfast refusal to be tested by scientists knowledgeable in magical tricks, and (3) direct evidence of frequent use of sleight of hand by Sai Baba in videotape material put out by the Sai Baba devotees themselves, Sai Baba's extensive reliance on sleight of hand in the materialization phenomena is established beyond reasonable doubt.
Beyerstein, Mandrake, Crockett, Mandrake, Mandrake: First published herein.
Haraldsson, in Miracles are My Visiting Cards (p. 213) summarizes his data relevant to determining whether Sai Baba is using conjuring methods in his materialization, suggesting that Sai Baba hasn't been exposed as using sleight of hand during the performance of a ritual. Premanand, however, states that at least one such an incident occurred:
In 1968 the god had to stop using thumbtip [a standard piece of magical apparatus --ed] because when he came to Kerala one of us went to the stage and removed his thumb suddenly, and people got so wild, thinking that our person had cut the finger, cut the thumb of the god. The thumb was shown. People thought God lost a thumb. But God didn't. He lost only the thumbtip. He stopped doing that, and now what he does is he keeps the ball [of holy ash, or vibhuti ed.] between the thumb and the pointing finger, like this...
B. Premanand, lecture sponsored by Science World, Vancouver B.C. Canada, Dec. 15 1988; videotape record with Science World.
Haraldsson also places emphasis in his summary of the evidence (for example, p. 290-1, quoted in 85 above) on the fact that Dr. Fanibunda, once an amateur magician, has found no evidence of fraud in Sai Baba's materializations. The degree of reliability of the checks made by Fanibunda can be gauged however, by the check made by Fanibunda of the Cowan resurrection story. The reader may wish to compare Fanibunda's account with 16 26 below. Here is his presentation of the Cowan resurrection events:
Apart from listening to Divine discussion by Baba and attending other functions, the author witnessed a most remarkable incident which proved to him that Baba's omnipotence embraced not only the manifestation and control of the physical universe but also the very basis of existence, that is Life itself. Baba revived a dead man approximately five hours after he was dead. In brief, this is what happened. In the early hours of the morning of 25th December 1971, Walter Cowan an elderly American gentleman who was a devotee of Baba, died in the Connemara Hotel after a short illness of pneumonia. He was shifted to the hospital in Madras where the attending doctor certified him dead on arrival. After stuffing his ears and nostrils with cotton wool, the hospital authorities had kept his body in a separate room. At about 10 am. that day, Baba visited the Hospital and gave Walter Cowan back his life.
E. Fanibunda, "Vision of the Divine", as quoted in Indian Skeptic No. 3 p. 31, July 1988.
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