The Secret Swami

I've just finished watching a BBC documentary called "The Secret Swami." It's about a guru called Sai Baba who "is the founder of the Sathya Sai Baba Society, and is perhaps the dominant guru in India, having over 20,000,000 followers in that nation; through his writings he is also having an impact in America."

"His alleged 'miracles' have been exposed as fake. Many former devotees around the world accuse Sai Baba of sexual molestation." Sound familiar? The stories of abuse in the documentary have some similarities to what occurred in TF.

In the documentary, one of his devotees and financial supporters, Isaac Tigrett, who is founder of the Hard Rock Cafe and very rich, astonishingly declares that even if there was evidence that proved that Sai Baba is a pedophile, which he implicitly admitted there is, it would not change his devotion and belief that Sai Baba is the living God.

This notice is probably too late, but for anyone with cable or satellite access to Canada's CBC Newsworld, the documentary repeats tonight, July 13 at 8 p.m. pst. Here's a blurb from the CBC website:

"It has been estimated that Sri Satya Sai Baba, India's biggest spiritual leader, has up to 30 million devotees around the world. But increasing numbers of former followers are alleging that he has sexually abused them or their families. As the country's biggest "God-man" - a human being who declares himself divine – he professes to be the reincarnation of a Hindu God-man from the 19th Century. Has this "God-man" been wrongly accused or does his status mean he is immune to criticism?"

It has already aired in Britain and elsewhere, but before it aired here the presenter described it as a controversial documentary and announced that the station had received hundreds of calls and emails urging them not to air the documentary because of all the good charity work the guru has done around the world. Sounds like a tactic straight out of the handbook for cult PR spin-masters.

Here's a website with more info on this God-man cult:

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s11.html