MAJOR EXPOSURE OF ALLEGED SEXUAL
ABUSES BY SATHYA
SAI BABA
A documented overview of the history and extent of the
alleged sexual
abuses by Sathya Sai Baba and the questions they raise
The Genital 'oiling' of young males by Sathya Sai Baba: Many Western devotees believe that Sathya Sai needs to rub naked genitals vigorously and voluptuously to kiss young men and boys so as to raise their kundalini (i.e 'dormant sexual-spiritual energies')! This is a travesty of so-called 'kundalini yoga', which has long been widely practiced in India and requires absolutely no 'massaging' of genitalia or kissing. Meanwhile devotees proudly claim and believe that Sathya Sai Baba never touches females. Others known to me who are thought to be 'very important persons' in Sai circles (only) still privately defend Sathya Sai Baba's sexual abuse as 'healing' or- more ridiculously - as the repayment/working off of 'terrible past karma', which they see as a great boon for his victims to get! These views, intended to exonerate Sathya Sai Baba from any blame as a sexual molester and pederast, have been published on the internet by someone calling himself Ram Das Awle and are circulated widely among those very puzzled among the blindly faithful who are nonetheless aware that the sexual allegations have real substance. The belief that whatever Sathya Sai Baba does to a person is for his own good, is held by many followers and expressed openly by some! This would include the anal rape of underage boys, as reported by Dr. Naresh Bhatia who described carrying out a medical examination of a young Sai student who he said he found had been raped by Sathya Sai Baba. Sai followers therefore view the great mass of mankind to be misguided that this is a bad thing, since they are defending as 'divine' a low form of depravity.
The fantasies engendered by Sathya Sai Baba's claims easily turn black into white. Both values and facts become gradually more and more distorted by devotees who have got caught up in Sathya Sai Baba's catch-22, pick-and-choose menu of teachings by his powerful manipulations of their desires and dreams, his flattery, primadonna behaviour, great chutzpa, and his all-embracing megalomaniacal claims and pretensions etc.
The many and detailed descriptions by former male devotees of Sathya Sai Baba's various homosexual advances and behaviour towards them, the series of good-looking young European men who have gone through the Sathya Sai Baba 'centre of attention' experience are almost self-explanatory. I say only 'almost' because a number of defendants of Sathya Sai Baba in the Sathya Sai Organization are conducting a damage-limitation misinformation campaign, not least because some of the leaders have admitted in public that they know that Sathya Sai Baba 'anoints' young men's genitals in secret and afterwards warns them to tell no one about it. One leader - Thorbjørn Meyer - has carefully described this unasked for genital manipulation an "age old Indian oil ceremony", without being able to produce even a fragment of documentation for this from Indian scripture or reliable historical sources. Even if he had, it would surely just amount to a primitive and perverted superstition. Another word for 'anoints' could well be 'interferes physically with' or 'sexually molests' young men's genitals. There are yet other verbal alternatives. Such an act is more likely a testing of sexual availability or a prelude to seduction, such as are described in sexual psychopathological works. As soon as we confront these matters from the viewpoint of a propaganda-free, normally non-prejudiced standpoint, they take on a fairly easily understood character.
Major
abuse testimonies world-wide by young men and their relatives: Sharon
Purcell was a devotee for 32 years and together with Elsie and Walter
Cowan, Fritz and Victoria Ellis and her then husband, Gary, started the
first official Southern California Center in the hilltop home of Elsie
and Walter in the
Cowan
Heights
section of
Tustin
,
California. Sharon and Gary Purcell were told by Sathya Sai Baba to name
their child Sathya, which they did. In 1993 Sathya Purcell went to
Sharon
, a founder member of the Sai Organisation in
California
, knew some of those had been forced into sex by
Sai Baba and, discovering this 'incredible' fact, left him and his
organisation well before the internet revelations took place and she contributed
to them via Glen Meloy. Would a person who had devoted her time, energy
and become so deeply involved take such a step for no reason? She is just
one example of over 100 unselfish persons working for the good of all as
other ex-office-bearers in the Sai Organisation who have done the same. Her son, Sathya 'Satch' Purcell later gave a detailed account of his experiences in six parts, beginning at this link.
The results of their inquiries in various
countries were first seen on BBC Channel Two on
June 17th,
2004
. The only direct statement that Sathya Sai Baba made was
"Swami is pure"! and that was a private assurance to the top leader of the
international Sai movement, Dr. M. Goldstein, who has gone on record
reporting it. He accepted it at face value without any further questions,
explanations or investigations. Thereafter he returned unopened all mail from all
former leaders in the US Organisation who tried to contact him making
complaints of sexual abuse. In the
BBC documentary 'Secret Swami' Goldstein tells that Sai Baba told him that
if he wanted to fight "gutter people", he would have to go into the gutter,
so he should forget it. Goldstein claimed that he is a knower of human
nature and tried to intimidate the young lady interviewer by vehement
finger-shaking and a forceful attitude. He said that he is a doctor: "I am a
consummate professional", and claimed he can tell infallibly by looking at
young men whether they have been sexually abused! Viewers judged that he
came across as an authoritarian ego-inflated 'doctor from hell' with raw
conceit and aggression seldom seen even on TV (for it was filmed with a
hidden camera so he would show his true nature). He is the Number One rich
and powerful mover and shaker of the Sai Organisation, which also speaks
volumes about its despotic internal nature.
An entirely undisputed and shockingly
clear account of major sexual abuse by Sai Baba was made on film, firstly on
'Seduced by Sai Baba' (Denmark 2002) and secondly in 'Secret Swami' by the
BBC (June 2004). The young man, who was underage at the time, is Alaya Rahm,
son of Al Rahm, who provides support and his side of the episode. He and his
family tell most convincingly of his ordeals at the threatening hands of Sai
Baba. The despicable actions of Goldstein are documented beyond all doubt on
screen. This documentary amounts to a transparently
damning indictment of Sathya Sai Baba as a fraud, a suspected murder
accomplice and a homosexual abuser. Their experiences and findings were
fully in accord with those of the Danish documentary of 2002.
This footage shows the deceitful and
conceited totalitarian and fanatical nature of Dr. Michael Goldstein, which is shared by
many leaders in the Sai Organisation. The following is an excerpt from the
Danish documentary:
In 1989 when I was 15 years old I went to
...he waved his hand and turned it over and showed me some
oil. And he started to rub it on my testicles and started kissing
me. And as he was kissing me, he started kissing me deeply, you
know. And I started tensing up and, you know, not understanding what
was happening. But it seemed to me as if SB was trying to make my
penis erect.
"One time he had his robe almost completely off and
he tried to have anal sex with me, because he came from behind me
and started climbing up on top of me, you know, and being that I'm
so much taller than him, in order to keep prevent it from happening,
I just stood straight up and didn't allow him to do anything, you
know, and I kind of kept pushing him away and keep him there until
??... I know, I want to talk to you, I want to be with you and I
love you. He said, "You don't love me? You don't love me?" And I
would say, "No, I love you, but I just don't want to have sexual
relations with you."
... But every time we would go back into
the personal room, his wants got to be very intimate. And he was
constantly having me take out my penis and he would hold it,
sometimes put it in his mouth and look at me, and then ask me to do
the same thing or push my head down and lift his robe up. And I was
gagging and almost about to vomit. And, you know, that was probably
the most mentally break down type of thing I've ever done in my
life, because if I didn't feel like at that time, like my life or my
family's happiness or … was depending on it, I wouldn't have done
it. But my mentality at that time … I felt like it was a life or
almost death situation. You know, this was God in human form, but
that was my mental program - this is God in human form. How could I
deny him what he was trying to make me do? There must be some deeper
reason or deeper meaning that what I see."
What really helped me
was when I had some conversations with some other people who had had
similar experiences. Because I felt, that if they had had
experiences as intense, or close to as intense as mine, I could talk
to them about it more openly than I could talk to my dad. So we had
talked about it, and all the people that I had talked about it were
equally confused about it as I was. However, also equally
brainwashed and allowing it to continue to take place. So I would
say that finally I decided that I was not going to put myself into
that position again, because life without SB was going to be a
better life." See full
transcript of the whole
interview.
Timothy Conway Ph.D. - Follower for 22 years,
President of the Sathya Sai Baba Center of San Francisco from 1982-4 wrote
and posted the following:
"We now have trustworthy reports from over two
dozen credible eye-witnesses (and sworn affidavits from many of them)
indicating that probably hundreds of young men and boys have been
molested (far beyond "touching the perineum") and/or forced to perform
oral sex and masturbation on Baba over the last 30 years or more. Baba
has masturbated them and sometimes performed oral sex on them,
sometimes to the point of ejaculation.
Baba has threatened to deny
interviews to many of the boys' parents if the boys resist his sexual
predatory behavior. He has paid or bribed most of these male youth for
sexual favors and for their silence with money, rings, watches, etc.--
up to $10,000 for one boy (an American youth well known to several
former members of our Santa Barbara Sai Center). Baba has also
evidently gotten angry at and berated those male youth who try to
resist his molestations or who fail to become aroused when Baba is
molesting them. He verbally manipulates and coerces them to engage in
sex with him.
It's clear that Baba is not "detachedly" "raising
the kundalini" or "healing old sexual karma" of these male youth. (If
this were the true reason, why is he denying young women and girls,
older men and non-preferred younger men this "healing touch"?) Rather,
Baba appears to be caught up in terrible lust and attachment:
eyewitnesses describe him making "moaning" and "gurgling" sounds,
thrusting his pelvis and erect organ toward the boys and young men,
grabbing them when they try to move away, trying to persuade them how
"lucky" they are to be having this "great opportunity." See
full letter
Many very serious allegations of sexual misconduct - including extreme sorts - have been made openly and in public by a number of named persons. There are over score of detailed accounts of molestations to be found on the web which are credible and have mostly been checked by those ex-devotees who, like myself, have investigated this issue as fully as we could for years. In the following one reads short excerpts of key statements from web postings on several sites.
Several more accounts from around the world alleging sexual molestations by Sai Baba have - in addition to some of those detailed here - been formally signed as depositions or affidavits and are securely in the keeping of a professional person who is willing to be contacted ( such as via this website) for further validation by formal authorities and international bodies, lawyers and serious media persons.
Afshin Khorramshahgol (Iranian) - I travelled to India three times, from 1991 to 1993. On my first visit to IndiaI was already a devotee of Sai Baba and believed he was God.
I had a
total of seven private interviews in the first two trips. In the first
private interview Sai Baba asked me to undo my pants and drop my
underwear.
Since I believed he was God I did as he asked. He had
already ‘materialised’ oil and he applied it in the area between my
penis and anus. In every private interview after the ‘initiation’
private interview, Sai Baba asked me to drop my pants and underwear, and
he would rub my penis. Once he was rubbing it so hard it was obvious to
me that he wanted me to get an erection. I was busy talking to him about
my problems, the problems of my country Iran ,
and my family’s problems, and I was asking him for his blessing for all
of them.
I was not interested in sex or anything, especially with a
guy, and so my penis did not grow, now matter how hard Sai Baba tried.
Finally, he gave up and threw my penis up and turned away with a very
angry face and mumbled something. When he turned back to me, he told me
to put my pants on again and the private interview was over.
You may ask why I didn’t stop Sai Baba doing what he was doing if
it was so obvious to me that he wanted me to get an erection. Due
to my being brainwashed... (etc.) See posting of the document.
Jens Sethi (German) - On 20th January 1996 I got the second interview.
Already days before, he had established a strange eye-contact with
me indicating the coming interview. My wife and I went to the interview
and he acted very disappointed at seeing me together with my wife.
He took me alone into the interview room and said “She is diseased
and much older than you. Please separate from her”. I was really shocked
and replied “She is attached to me”.
I asked him to give her some spiritual instruction, which he readily
agreed to do, but he had something else on his mind.
Without asking permission he started kissing me on my lips for some
time, and later asked me to open my trousers and ‘materialised’ some
oil which he rubbed on the skin above my genitals. I felt very bad
about all of this, but accepted, as I fully trusted Sai Baba.
Then he took my wife into the private interview room alone, and told
her “Either you separate from the boy or I throw you out of Puttaparthi!”.
He appeared wild and furious (my wife told me afterwards) and she
shivered all over. When she reappeared in a very short time, looking
red faced and very scared, nobody dared ask her what happened in there.
He saw me again some days later in darshan and asked whether I had
separated or not. I said “Not yet”. He turned away and shouted so
all people could hear “Bad, Bad boy!!!” He was so aggressive and seemed
to radiate such an aura of evil that I was really shocked. We immediately
left and went to north India for some pilgrimage.
When Jens and his wife returned to try to clear
up the matter with Sai baba somehow, his passport was confiscated by a
Mr. Reddu of the ashram authority:
On 30th October, late in the
evening, two people whom I know and an unknown person came to our unit
and one of them warned me that my life was in danger and I should leave
immediately.
My wife and I left very early next morning, for
Delhi
. At
Dharmmavaram rail station the police were searching for us, but we
entered the train at Anantapur. There is a police station near the
platform which we had to pass to enter the train, and the very moment I
saw that I told my wife to go into the train separately. My wife heard a
group of policemen talking about searching for somebody and caught the
words ‘passport,
Delhi
and
telegram’. We were in serious danger but fortunately I was dressed like
an Indian, and escaped identification.
So we escaped and reached
Delhi
,
and went immediately to the German Embassy. See posting of the full document with scan of the article in 'Bild', 21st August, 2000 p.3.
Jed Geyerhahn - US citizen. (see brief video clip from the film Seduced with Jed and also Alaya Rahm - 2mbs): I have talked with students at Sathya Sai Baba's school and they have had sexual relationships with Sai Baba. And it's really common knowledge that several students stay with Sai Baba all night on an ongoing basis. And of course nobody talks about what takes place with these students with Sai Baba, but from the students I've talked to (it's) clear that there are sexual relationships taking place. And in fact one student I talked to directly was a person that was staying with Sai Baba. And from the conversation it was clear that it was very difficult for him to come forward with this information, because he'd be rejected by his family and by his culture and by his people, unlike American students who have the support of their culture and society and family. They come forward and talk about the fact that they have been mistreated by Sai Baba.
A 15-year old boy, Neptune Chapotin,
wrote a diary (facsimile of the letter can be seen here)
1st interview: "Oil," he said. "Open." (He started lifting my shirt;
I lifted it up, thinking he wanted to rub it on my navel. Then, with
his left hand, [his right was full of oil.] he motioned downwards
with his fingers. I understood. I untied my pants. He lifted my penis,
put his fingers at the base of it, and started rubbing the oil into
me. It didn't hurt, but he was making a motion as if he was pinching
me there repeatedly with his fingers. He stopped, and waved his hand
again. I guess he made some more oil. He resumed rubbing. With his
other hand, he drew me close. He rubbed some more, and drew me closer.
I could hear him murmuring some things, so I turned my ear towards
him so I could catch what he was saying. He again pulled me tighter
towards him this time by the waist, until my crotch was right by the
side of his leg, and our chests were almost touching. I had my chin
on his right shoulder both arms around him, his hair touching the
side of my face, the front of my pants down. It was so bizarre. I
could now feel him pulling the base of my penis back and forth. It
felt kind of good. He finally let me go, and I pulled my pants up.)
(He looked at me and said: ) "Don't tell anyone. Don't tell Mother.
2nd interview: He
took Papa into the private room for a minute or so, then called me. Papa
left. As soon as we got inside, he pulled me close, gave me a big hug,
and started untying my pants. He dropped them to the ground, then pulled
my underwear below my butt. He grabbed my penis, and while hugging me
again, started masturbating the base of it. He kept repeating
"Purification. Purification." I felt his other fingers grip around my
crack and pull me closer, uptight. I held him tight in return. He turned
his right cheek to me, I kissed it, with his prompting. He turned his
mouth towards me, I gave him my cheek. He turned my head and kissed me
on the mouth for a long time. When h stopped, I started to pull up my
pants. He made sure my shirt didn't get stuck in the knot, and
straightened me out. He kept telling me: "This is good chance; good
chance; look, there are so many people outside. They all want to be
here. It's your good luck." "Sometimes you are wasting money. Sometimes
mother doesn't give. There's no income." (He waved his hand and out
popped six 500 rupee bills. He counted them [Rs. 3000]) "For food. Spend
it. keep it inside. Inside! (I put it in my wallet.) Don't tell anyone!"
even Mother? "Mother you can tell." And father? "not father."
Keith Ord (British) - His written testimony is about his English
friend Michael who had between 10 and 15 interviews with Sai Baba,
but was not his usual self and was holding things back, until eventually,
wrote Keith...
Michael said, "that every day he attended darshan, Baba called him
for an interview. And that after a while, he just refused to go."
Keith "Don't you realise that people follow Baba round for ten years
without ever being invited for one interview?" His reply turned me
to stone : "Because he wanted to have sex with me. Every interview
I had with him was the same. All he wants is sex." There was a kind
of stunned silence in the room for a long time; I was trying to digest
what I had heard, wondering what it could mean...
Of his own experiences in the ashram, Keith wrote that he talked
with several other young men: "One was an English boy named Kestrel
Boyle and the other an Australian called Edward --- I can't remember
his surname because he was born of Bangladesh
parents in Australia and 4 was a rather difficult name. I didn't really know what to tell
them, or even if I should tell them, so instead asked them if Baba
had ever done strange things to them in their private interviews.
Edward replied immediately, and in such matter of fact tones that
it surprised me into silence. He said "What, you mean playing with
your dick? Oh don't worry about that, he's done that to me loads of
times. It doesn't mean anything bad - I actually like it, and think
it's good for me.' Kestrel basically said the same kind of thing,
so I didn't dare say any more, but I wondered what else Baba had done
with them."
Conclusion: January 1990 - 'Islington Gazette' carried the coroner's
report on Michael's death, but didn't find anything suspicious - listing
it simply as a suicide. See posting of the full document.
A friend of Keith Ord at the time was Bas Engelbarts, who remained a follower for years afterwards, having not fully taken in the seriousness of th abuses that Keith reported. Bas Engelbarts has delivered another damning testimony about Sathya Sai Baba in which he writes about an interview he attended: "entered, made a left turn to go and sit against the wall, away from his chair. He suddenly turned around and said “No, no, you come”. He took me by the hand as he walked towards his chair. He held my hand while sitting down and placed his right foot exactly on my penis and pushed me down, all the while keeping his foot there, till I was sitting. He held my hand, stroked my arm, ran his fingers through my hair, pulled my nose and my cheeks. I wasn’t shocked, but I knew it was not an accident, that he placed his foot there. So this was going through my mind and also I felt awkward and embarrassed sitting there at his feet, him caressing me, while others were sitting at least 2 meters from him. He was treating me like a father, wasn’t he?" He concluded, much later, that Sai Baba is far from being a father! He then goes on to relate about Keith Ord and much more - see here
Koert van de Velde posted: "The following is an excerpt from a
long article (Published in Spiegelbeeld October issue 2000) by Matthijs
van der Meer,
Holland
.
Matthijs considered himself a victim of Sai Baba's inappropriete sexual
approaches seven years ago, and (since) left the Organization." Nobody
wanted to listen, but now we have the internet and I am no longer
alone...Boys and men from the ages of seven and thirty, if they look
handsome, could count on "special attention" from Sai Baba.He is very
fond of light colored skin and blue eyes". Van der Meer understands
why many adults were molested by this men."In my way of feeling I
had no choice (in the matter). How could I choose not to follow God?",
he wrote in the New Age Magazine "Spiegelbeeld" (The Mirror Picture)"
"...so I
came to remind myself of a story in the Dutch magazine HP/De Tijd of
January '92: the story of the London Keith Ord who declared Sai Baba had
repeatedly sexually intimidated him.
As it turned out when I finally
brought myself into contact with the people interviewed in the article,
one of these devotees had been Keith's friend Michael Pender. Within
one-and-half month after a journey to Baba and 10 interviews, he had
committed suicide.
In June '95 I visited Keith. He turned out to be
an exceptionally beautiful negro boy. We talked and talked and I made
recordings on cassettes. >From one detail to the other Keith related
what he had gone through at the time. About the vilification by devotees
after he had finally opened his mouth while still being there. About a
moment at which he found himself being threatened to be stoned to the
ground. About the initial envy for the interviews he got. About Baba’s
hugs and touches. About the despair, the loneliness, the fear... And
finally, in more detail, about Baba’s striking signs of excitement.
Worst of all possibly was the fact that while after the first palpations
Keith was pulling up his trousers, Baba, putting a finger to his lips,
had summoned him "Don’t talk!"
An Indian ex-Sai student whose
credentials were checked by the BBC and who gave them an interview on
film, but who must remain anonymous for family reasons, originally
wrote:- "At the time, i was 17 years old, i am now 32 years old, have
been married and recently widowed. My wife knew of my former faith with
sai baba, but she never knew of this abusive experience. Some of my
family members know the truth now (they are sympathetic to me and want
me to get help). The shame i felt was very bad. I grew up in the bal
vikas program from the age of 10 years old, in the UK.
i knew many sai devotees including Dr Ghadia who travels the UK AND US (where i am now located). I did not begin to speak out until i
realised a few years ago that i am not the only person he has abused. He
is a menace to teenage boys who are to afraid and ashamed to speak up.
Peer pressure from my family made me shut up at the time , but i am an
adult now and i can speak the truth. As what to do about it i dont
know, if he were here in the US he would have been prosecuted and
convicted long ago.He is a pedophile who blankets himself with the
reputation of a god/living saint drawing people to him through his
"miracles", and speeches."
John Purnell of Australia testified to Sathya Sai Baba'a serious abuses on him, including attempted anal sex. The following e-mail which recounts what happened to the Jesuit novice, John Purnell, in Sathya Sai Baba’s private interview room (as in so many other reports) was posted on the web:-
From: John Purnell (June 9th 2006 – 01:50:54)
IP: 58.167.245.154 (CPE-58-167-245-154.wa.bigpond.net.au)
Subject: (Guestbook Submission)
To: SaiSathyaSai.com Guestbook
I would love a response from you to my question……I was a devotee for 7 years and had many private interviews with sai baba….. in the last couple he tried to masterbate me vigorously with oil, then please explain as to why he showed me clearly his erect penis and why the hell did he try to shove it in my mouth complaining that I no longer LOVE him ??? Not to mention forcing me onto the ground of the private interview room and telling me he is God and that all is ok, Trying to shove his erection into my anus ??? Of course I was shattered after all this even to the point of suicide, like many of his REAL VICTIMS I thought he was God…Miracles….. just watch his hands at all times then you will see it is so obvious. My story is the TRUTH that you devotees always claim is paramount…..I am not the only victim hundreds upon hundreds are now telling the TRUTH…..If you can explain why God would want me to perform oral sex on him and WHY the hell God would want to penetrate my anus then PLEASE do email me with your response….I am waiting !!!!!! Look sadly the truth is Baba is a great scam like Rajneesh and ALL Indian God men ….. Look deep beyond the SHOW exterior and all you see is rotten to the core.
LONG LIVE TRUTH because TRUTH will never fail in the end…..My dear dear devotees I know the pain that is in store for you…….be prepared as Baba will fall off his throne oneday and sadly you will be shattered by the TRUTH. You ARE in my prayers.
John Purnell
In a further e-mail clarification of his position (to a questioner – see here) and why he had not fought off Sathya Sai Baba when being abused and why he held back with the full details of the abuses, Purnell gave an account which all investigators of sexual abuse will recognise as very common behaviour in such awkward and demeaning circumstances:-
"i was a healthy young man and he an older man and at the time all this started initially with oiling i believed him to be fully GOD hence when things got more heated i was not really fighting him off….that is why the disgust and shame and embarrasment……even up to the last interview i should have really belted him one but the power of the weak mind rules over common sense in cults as you would be aware of. look at how ALL cults operate….the total mind control at the hands of the leader…..that is why i only initially told about the oilings and that is why i did not as a jesuit novice tell all the details because i was a healthy young man and i stupidly allowed this to happen and continue for longer than it should have. not to mention the fact i did not want my mother to know the details…..even to this day joe i have not told her what i have told you…..it is no longer shame but i just wont tell her yet. many victims of baba take years to come to terms with it and only slowly reveal the full accounts not because they are adding colour to them but because of the stigma attached to allowing freely another older person to have such devoted unquestioning control…….that there is the whole crux of what my, and many other ex devotees , problem begins, that is why i can only now speak the full story. that is why back then in the early days i could not reveal to others all the events in the private room. that is why my 03 account is devoid of the inbetween details. that is why i kept quiet………i was an adult, not a defenceless child……..why and how could i allow an old man to do this without putting up a fight ??? why does ANY MALE allow another older male to rub oil on ones penis without question ??????? that is what i was fighting against"
One is reminded here of a book about his time near to 'the avatar' by the
American devotee Howard Levin, entitled "Good Chances", and one naturally
wonders how that title was chosen. Levin was a young man having very close
daily contacts with Sathya Sai Baba during the 1970s when he reports Sai
Baba as having said those words to him and to other young American men
staying there with him, including Tal Brooke (to whom Sathya Sai Baba made clear sexual
advances, as detailed by him from 1980 onwards in his books). Howard Levin failed to specify what Sathya Sai Baba meant with the phrase 'Good chances' or in which context he said it. There can be little dobubt that it was said - as reported in several other instances - as part of an invitation to a homosexual relationship with him. Howard Levin was one of a group of young Americans at the ashrams early on to whom Sathya Sai Baba gave a lot of attention and who he called 'the rowdies', probably because they were not quite so quiet and subservient as the Indian students have to be.
Here is
another account sent to me by a young man, Greg Gerson from Houston , USA, who was 'oiled' by Sathya Sai Baba:-
"During my visits I had five interviews. The first four of which I
received private interviews alone with Sai Baba. Sai Baba also gave me
two rings: one is silver with his face in gold and the other is a "green
diamond". I no longer wear either. During one interview, which occurred just before I was scheduled
to fly home to America, while we were alone, Sai Baba had me pull down
my pants. He then "materialized" oil and pulled down my underwear and
applied the oil on my lower abdomen below my navel and above my penis.
He did not touch me sexually or ask me to do anything to him. He did
embrace me for what seemed like a long time (perhaps 30 seconds or more)
but nothing else. During that visit I was 26 or 27 years old. At another
point in this interview when I was with three or four others in the
smaller interview room, Sai Baba slapped me across the face quite hard
when I was not looking.
I injured my green gem ring in about 1996 and
discovered the silver foil inside. I took the ring to a qualified
jeweler in Houston and he confirmed that the "gem" was worthless
junk.
I spent almost a year and a half of my life living in Sai
Baba's ashrams. I heard stories from other young men to whom Sai Baba
applied oil. So perhaps it is not especially noteworthy. I also heard of
a young man who Sai Baba kissed on the mouth and another young man Sai
Baba touched inappropriately (on his genitals).
But, as I am sure
you are very aware, these types of second and third hand stories are
useless. What is desperately needed is the Indian students of Sai Baba's
schools who supposedly underwent true molestation to come forward with
their stories (apparently there are a lot?). Only then will progress be
made in exposing Sai Baba appropriately."
One of my friends had this sexual experience with swami and then new never told any one about it. He got interviews many time and I used to wonder why is he so confused and flabbergasted every time he stepped out after the interview. I also saw him reluctant to come any more for darshan. He was afraid to sit in the friend. He started hiding a lot. So I began to suspect that something is going on and one day I confronted him. I clearly asked him if swami is molesting him. He beat around a bush for a while and then later realized that it is better to share the experience with someone else as it relieves some pain. He told me that swami used to rush towards him in the interview room and hug him and kiss him longingly in the mouth. Baba has the nasty habit of not only kissing but also sucking the lips of the victim. Then swami had oral sex and during this time would say “This is oneness with god, this is union with god”. My friend is like a girl in a lot of aspects like talking walking and speaking thus attracting “divine” attention. I also knew a wonderful human being called C. and he used to be a mandir boy. What it means is this guy slept in swami’s room. His life was a miserable and painful one. He had a porn star kind of a life with swami and he was so fed up with it that he nearly lost sanity. He finally found some caring woman and fled puttaparthy. Such is the situation with swami’s chosen boys. As for me, I never had a sexual experience with Swami but I believe my friends and trust them.
There is something I wish to clear, swami’s college has 300 odd students in each campus and it is portrayed that all these students are homosexuals and immoral. I sincerely believe that these men and women are of a very good nature. I trust them to do well socially. However, there are a few perverts there. Some form boys molest other students and some of these students are teachers now still molesting other pupils. Here the most perverted teacher is Ravi Kumar of Whitefield College. I have personally seen him escorting boys to his room and molesting them later."
See full text here http://www.exbaba.com/witnesses/sri.html
Edvin X, the Netherlands posted:
"During an interview Sai Baba touched me in the groin once
under the pledge that he would give me a woman. Although at the
time I did not regard this as an indecent act, the way he did it
I thought peculiar. After studying the overwhelming number of negative
experiences given on the sai baba exposed website see posting here my doubts were confirmed. Now I think that his feeling my private
parts is not the worst. The worst thing of all I find is the enormous
waste of time, the deception, the feelings of huge insecurity and
self-doubt that have weighed on me all those years. I am very much
aware that I, having all this happen to me, must bear responsibility
for it. But it is Sai Baba's responsibility to practice his own
teachings and be true to his self-proclaimed divinity. I tell you,
in reality he is shockingly different from what he pretends to be."
Andries Krugers Dagneaux, a friend of Edwin X, also testified to having been told by him about the sexual abuse in detail - but also of thers he knew who were also abused by Sathya Sai Baba - see 'Calumny’ Confirmed'
One young man - who needs to be anonymous because he experiences persecution in Denmark by Sai devotees - did not believe the allegations, so he visited Sai Baba and wrote:-
"I am a 34 years old male who
has just survived a 11 weeks trip to Sai Baba.
Sai Baba is teaching us that all religion is welcome and that he
is God himself. After his return he wrote: I created a whole theory
about how he was the messiah and the creator of it all as described
by Isaiah. In my mind I was on the brink of surrendering to him
as I could see that my prayers to him had helped me out of several
troubles. Then I finally got an interview during which he "made"
a watch for me (while I was looking the other way). I then got into
the inner interview room where he told me that sometimes I have
very very bad thoughts. I told him that it was certainly because
of the darkness in me. He said that he would remove everything,
and he then told me to take down my pants and then he massaged my
lower stomach with oil. I couldn't help wondering that the atmosphere
was more one of desire than of the divine.
Notice how he always talks about his desires for... ! I then got
out of the inner interview room and after talking to some other
devotees he told me to come into the inner room again. Then I was
told to kiss his feet, but I couldn't really surrender to him as
I really didn't feel anything divine. Then as he was standing up
he told me to put my head to his hip; he then gave me a massage
on my back as he told me to forget everything and just let everything
go (to him). I still couldn't surrender. He then gave up. I had
some question about the divine Mother Mary, so I said what about
Mother Mary. He just said: I will find a good girl for you. Then
I said that I just want to serve God. He looked at me as if I was
a hopeless case and then the interview was over."
Said Khorramshahgol from Iran ,
wrote a long article, from which the following excerpts are taken
verbatim:
"My first two trips I had seven interviews and a
total of seven private interviews, with just me and Baba in the
private interview room. Baba had materialized a gold ring with three
stones which he told me were diamonds. In my first private interview,
Baba did a ceremony... putting oil on his hand and pushing his hand
upward between the front testicle and the back area. That area is
supposed to be a special area which is very important to spiritual
practice of the devotee.
In every private interview after that Baba would ask me to put down
my pants while he massaged my testicle. I would reason that Baba
perhaps is passing some energy to that area. In one occasion, Baba
was not just massaging it, he was trying to give me a hard on...
he was pushing his hand back and forth on my testicle, I was telling
him about many different things on my mind. Of course, I was so
sure that he is doing the best thing for me that I was thinking
of something else. I was telling him about the problems in my country
of Iran ,
how the people are suffering, the problems of my family and my own
problems. He couldn't get me hard so all of a sudden with anger
and an angry face he threw my thing up against my stomach and with
an angry face he turned his back to me. This was the only occasion
which he kept some distance between me and him while he was playing
with me. Every other time, he would hug me and do it. In almost
all of such interviews, Baba would breath harder and sometimes he
would make noises too.
In one interview, he stood up while I was kneeling on my knees.
With his right hand, to took my head and put it against his stomach.
With his left hand he took my right hand and put it against his
testicle. He rubbed my hand there for a short while and this time
he was making loud noises of .... I tried to look up to his face
to see it, but he pushed my head hard against his stomach and did
not allow me to look up. So, I didn't try again. While he took my
hand there, I felt his testicle, although I didn't grab it, I just
let him direct my hand and do whatever he wants. At the same time,
I would touch him by the outside part of my hand. As I said before,
he was making loud voices while he was doing that. This took about
two minutes before he let go of me and my hand and said "This is
God"!!!"
Said Khorramshahgol's account of the effects of Sai Baba and his
teachings etc. can be read at http://members.tripod.com/~dlane5/saideb3.html