Skip to main content
Category

Findhorn Foundation

May 02

Sectarian Internet Terrorism

By Anthony Busuttil, Cambridge University Library, Findhorn Foundation, Gerald Joe Moreno, Internet Terrorism, MIT

Gerald Joe Moreno (sole known image)

Gerald Joe Moreno was constantly trying to ridicule all critics of himself and his guru Sathya Sai Baba (d.2011). The number of Sathya Sai critics escalated from the year 2000 onwards.

Sathya Sai Baba

The many allegations of abuse made against Sathya Sai caused Moreno (alias Equalizer) to become increasingly extremist in his web attacks. He gained the reputation of a cyberstalker and an internet terrorist.

A further blog trespass of Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) misrepresents the final chapter in my book Pointed Observations (2005). In December 2009, his tactic of defamation again emphasised that Kevin R. D. Shepherd was not an academic. Neither Moreno nor myself had academic roles. He attacked both academics and non-academics. Moreno was not an author but a blogger. His abusive approach referred to my “disappointing personal data.”

The Pro-Sai campaigner described me as “a self-serving and duplicitous critic” in stating that I am not an academic. He alleged that I criticised other people because of their lack of credentials. This acute misinterpretation requires correction here.

Written in a different style to the rest of the book, the final chapter of Pointed Observations (pp. 343ff) was entitled Citizen Initiative. This freestyle chapter addressed certain public issues in a direct manner. The problems in contention included the drugs lobby, GM technology, and “new age” alternativism in popular publishing.

The strategy in some New Age books is to have a Ph.D eulogy slyly placed on the paperback cover, intended as a proof to consumers that the contents are thoroughly and legitimately consumable. (Pointed Observations, p. 349)

Some of the endorsements were considered very misleading. Serious accidents have occurred in consumer sectors.

In my hardback book, dispensing with the customary promotionalism so often found in the “alternative” vogues, I expressed my own standing in deliberately low profile terms, to prove that I was not claiming high honours. The unadorned author data was stated in the text, as a demeaning cameo in contrast to the exalted credentials of academic drug advocates like Stanislav Grof, occultists like Paul Brunton (who controversially claimed a misleading doctoral insignia), and diverse “workshop” entrepreneurs like William Bloom:

People often do look at the author data to be convinced of a scintillating career with due status honours. Do not buy this book, therefore, as you will be disappointed on that account. The author data can be given here instead of being placed enticingly on the opening page or back cover. In an attempt to beat the obituary, here it is: Born a Brit in 1950. Left school at the age of fifteen. Lived in the town ghetto at Cambridge. Entered Cambridge University Library in 1981 as an unpaid and entirely unofficial researcher. Became an upholder of citizen initiative. Has written a number of minor books, none of them official, and only some of them having achieved publication (the missing books have never been seen by any publisher). Is getting old now, but still alive in 2003. (Pointed Observations, p. 351)

It was agreed elsewhere, in responsible circles, that I had not claimed any status or notability, unlike some or many of the ideological rivals. Yet Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) chose to present this statement entirely out of context, and furthermore acutely misrepresented me in terms of:

Shepherd castigated numerous people because of their lack of academic credentials (a well known tactic of his against various proponents of the Findhorn Foundation). Kevin R. D. Shepherd even said he would dismiss the PhD or M.D. status of anyone who holds New Age beliefs and boasted ‘The credential of M.D. can signify Mind Damage’. Kevin Shepherd even criticised the research and associations of MIT, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge Universities. (Equalizer blog accessed 29/12/2009)

This bizarre version of the book under discussion tends very much to confirm widespread conclusions that sectarian commentaries are extremely unreliable. Moreno here again confirmed his pronounced out-of-context reporting.

My book does not contain any castigation of academic credentials or the lack of these. There is instead a critical reference to the habit of some new age publishers to promote controversial books with the academic credentials of enthusiastic reviewers on the cover (a factor resented by traditional academe, with whom I am in agreement). I have not criticised the Findhorn Foundation for lacking academic credentials, but for other matters, including an absence of medical credentials in those personnel opting to promote an officially hazardous alternative therapy (hyperventilation) opposed by Edinburgh University.

Professor Anthony Busuttil

The Moreno duplicity above-cited fails to mention earlier chapters in the same book, where I mention that the Holotropic Breathwork team of the Findhorn Foundation promoted the controversial therapy without any medical credentials (Pointed Observations, pp. 175, 196), and in defiance of the official negative recommendation from the Scottish Charities Office, who commissioned a report from Edinburgh University in 1993. I became noted for supporting the views of Regius Professor Anthony Busuttil, a forensic pathologist (Edinburgh University Pathology Department), both in print (Pointed Observations, pp. 198-99, 387-88) and on the internet (my Citizen Initiative website, 2007, relaying epistolary material, including letters to Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator).

Moreno typically ignored the relevant web complaint in my Postscript: Further Proof of Internet Terrorism (Oct. 2009), where the matter of his misrepresentation was specified. His acutely misleading mode of attack was not justified by his saisathyasai  role as a “guru defender.”

As is well known, my criticisms of the Findhorn Foundation do not relate to a lack of academic credentials, but instead to the acute suppression of dissidents, to promotion of the officially disapproved Grof exercise known as Holotropic Breathwork, and to the juxtaposition of UN ecology with commercial “workshops” in pop-mysticism and alternative therapy. See, e.g., Myth and Reality (2007),  Kate Thomas and the Findhorn Foundation (2009), Commercial Mysticism (2008), and Complaint to David Lorimer.

Harvard are fleetingly mentioned in earlier chapters of the same book Pointed Observations (see the index) in relation to the controversial episodes of Timothy Leary and Ira Einhorn, whom many academics lament for being Harvard affiliates. Einhorn was a murderer who tried to hide behind his Harvard facade. “He was also a lecturer at Harvard, and this academic veneer of propriety likewise served to shield him” (Pointed Observations, p. 127).

As for MIT and the two British universities, the relevant citation is:

Even Cambridge and Oxford are rumoured to be under pressure from big business to modernise and to make a much stronger commitment to technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is well funded, but conceivably lacks the perfect philosophy to face the ecological problems so strenuously denied and camouflaged in some areas. (Pointed Observations, p. 350)

On an earlier page, I praised MIT for having “contributed to an open-ended project that was prematurely dismissed” (ibid:324), meaning the Club of Rome manifesto.

The brief reference to mind damage, in association with the M.D. credential, is found in an earlier chapter relating to the very controversial activities of Dr. Rick Strassman (an M.D. and psychiatrist at the University of New Mexico). Strassman “injected DMT more than 400 times into sixty volunteers” (ibid:158). Some of the victims were in a state of terror. Nearly half of them experienced strong hallucinations of the severe type for which the powerful drug DMT is notorious. Many orthodox medics and psychiatrists, in different countries, felt this to be a lunatic procedure at the time, capable of seriously affecting mental balance. Therefore I commented: “The credential of M.D. can signify Mind Damage” (ibid).

The vindictively misleading commentary of Gerald Joe Moreno, on such matters, is surely proof of a lack of scruple and inattention to detail. His manic campaign against all critics, both of his guru and himself, is no proof whatever that complaints are wrong.

The attack blog of Moreno was entitled Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s Disappointing Personal Data, dated 25/12/2009, bearing his cult name of Equalizer at blogspot.com. This very substantially misleading item was duplicated at his blog geraldjoemoreno, though here showing the superficial title of Kevin R. D. Shepherd Left School At 15 But Thinks He’s A Scholar. I think of myself as a writer and citizen philosopher, as I have clearly stated. Further, a school-leaving age is no guide to subsequent long-term research on academic premises (Cambridge University Library in my case).

The intention of mockery failed in many directions. Some critical observers said that Gerald Joe Moreno here confirmed his role as a sectarian cyberstalker with an abusive and defamatory blog agenda.

The attack blog in his own name dates to the end of 2009. Moreno there declares himself to be a “professional artist” (accessed 08/02/2010). This assertive phrase has been considered objectionable, in view of his attempt to deny the validity of my library research that does not claim professional honours. Gerald Joe Moreno did not write any books, and had no academic or library research history.

The various slurs and libels, improvised by Moreno, had the underlying objective to offset attention from abuses strongly associated with his guru Sathya Sai Baba. For instance, Moreno reacted strongly to the BBC documentary entitled The Secret Swami (2004). This feature relayed the testimony of Alaya Rahm that he was sexually abused by the guru from the age of 16, in the Puttaparthi interview room. There was an element of coercion involved.

Sathya Sai told the American victim: “If you don’t do what I say, your life will be full of pain and suffering.” The guru even threatened to cut off his penis if the victim was unresponsive to oral sex. The devotee no longer looked happy when approaching the interview room. He is reported to have been abused in nearly every single interview. His devotee mother eventually had to face the facts of abuse, having previously told her son to trust completely in the predatory guru.

The father of Alaya Rahm had himself been a recipient of the “oiling ritual” at the age of 18, during the late 1970s. The pater accepted the assertion of Sathya Sai that this was a ritual healing process. Many male devotees had their genitals oiled by the promiscuous guru, a number of them finding that molestations ensued. One of these was Mark Roche, a Californian who first heard of Sathya Sai in 1969. The guru told him: “I am giving you a great chance.” Roche responded by putting his penis in the mouth of the insatiably demanding avatar. This devotee subsequently regretted his compliance, appearing many years later as an ex-devotee in the evocative BBC documentary The Secret Swami.

Kevin R. D. Shepherd

May 2014 (modified 2021)

ENTRY no. 26

Copyright © 2021 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

Apr 02

Wikipedia Editor Alex Jamieson

By Findhorn Foundation, ICSA, Internet Terrorism, Jimmy Wales, Robert Priddy, Stephen J. Castro, Wikipedia
Stephen J. Castro
The cyberstalker tactic of Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) encompassed Alex Jamieson, who contributed a Wikipedia article about myself in late 2009. The superficial Moreno commentary on Jamieson described him as a “Kevin Shepherd devotee,” which is impossible in this instance.
Jamieson was the pseudonym for Stephen J. Castro, a civil servant and science enthusiast who had argued with me years before, not accepting some of my views. I had not seen him for several years. He had since read works by and about the neuroscientist Roger Sperry (1913-1994). Castro now credited a convergence of that material with one of my books (Meaning in Anthropos), which he considered to be unusual. He  was accordingly well disposed to my output as a whole, which he had read.
Castro had little patience with the “new age and guru” scene, was not a follower of anyone, and had written a critical book on the Foundation Foundation, being an ex-member of that body. Moreno had wrongly interpreted this book as one of my own publications. The truth is that Castro himself published Hypocrisy and Dissent within the Findhorn Foundation (1996), in the face of suppression by the Foundation management and staff. He was applauded by ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association), the prestigious American project of academic relevance. See Cultic Studies Journal (1996) 13(2):212ff.
Moreno (Equalizer) was clearly antagonistic to Jamieson because he supported me on Wikipedia. The misinterpreter went to the extreme of calling Jamieson (Castro) an “internet hit man and internet terrorist.” This was a retaliation against my own use of those phrases in relation to Moreno (phrases credited by many readers as accurate). 

Some informed readers were astounded to find Moreno asserting that I had called him an internet terrorist “simply because Moreno’s webpages are indexed on search engines.” This typical third person reference did not absolve the blogger from all responsibility. I had complained at the nature and content of his webpages and attack blogs, which gained a strong degree of salience on Google (Internet Terrorist).

In a similar vein, and on this same blog, Moreno (Equalizer) deceptively stated that I had attacked him “simply because Moreno [third person]  succeeded in getting a reference to Shepherd’s self-published material removed from the Sathya Sai Baba Wikipedia article.” What he had actually done in 2006 was to create a User page on Wikipedia/Google which effectively denied the legitimacy of my entire output. Moreno was here in acute reaction to reports by ex-devotees of Sathya Sai that were included at the end of one book. The Moreno phrase “simply because” is thoroughly unreliable.

The diverting phraseology occurred at the Moreno website under the apologist heading: Exposing Critic’s Smear Campaigns Against Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. This was the well known credo of saisathyasai.com. In my case, much of the argument had little to do with the guru.
Moreno resented Jamieson because he had incorporated reference to Moreno blog excesses in his article about myself; a Wikipedia administrator deleted the Criticism section of that article. Moreno apparently complained to the Wikipedia administration. His blog avoids stating the content of the deleted section, which remains valid, especially in view of the fact that his agitating SSS108 User page of 2006 was later deleted from Wikipedia by Jimmy Wales.

Contrary to the Moreno insinuation, Jamieson (Castro) did not need my permission to insert the Criticism section in his article.  He himself felt strongly on this issue. I did grant him permission to use my photograph, which he requested, although he misunderstood about copyright. Jamieson correctly stated that he was new to Wikipedia, a fact which Moreno questioned on the basis of his computer skill, even confusing him with Jedermann (Dr. M. E. Dean). Castro had acquired IT certification. 
Gerald Joe Moreno was now developing a strong habit of inverting accusations made against his overbearing and bludgeoning dismissals. For instance, he stated in the same Equalizer blog about Jamieson: “Moreno [third person] defended himself with factual information against Shepherd’s numerous misrepresentations, shabby research and outright prevarications.” This basically represented a hijacking of my own earlier complaint about Moreno, who had dismissed my published output and misrepresented my role. 
The sectarian apologist was frequently noticed to copy words he found used by opponents, including myself. Moreno apparently copied the word rhetoric from me. He overworked this word in some of his blogs. In this way, the anti-Jamieson blog bore the assertion that “all writings associated with pseudo-philosopher Kevin R. D. Shepherd are rich in rhetoric, poor in research and propagandistic in nature.” The accuser  had never read my books. Nor does the condemnation match other assessments of my web articles. 
The purport of this vehement accusation explicitly boiled down to myself being a supposed “fierce defender and promoter of Psychic Trance Medium Conny Larsson and LSD Advocate Robert Priddy.” In other words, the objectivity of cyberstalker language is strongly in question. My assessment of Priddy did not converge with that of Moreno. The sectarian libeller continually ignored the context I provided for my reference to Larsson. 
Jamieson (Castro) discovered that Wikipedia was afflicted with cult supporters and passive parties who played along with them, the latter sometimes being deceived by the former. He changed to his real name,  composing a distinctive article about Paul Brunton and Meher Baba. However, he soon found that the Meher Baba article on Wikipedia was dominated by exclusivist devotees who disliked outsiders and due critical apparatus. In disgust, Castro exited from the discussion page of that article in 2012, after observing petty animosities and obstructive attitudes which rejected his own composition (later made available online in an independent manner). 
Moreno stigmatised both Jamieson and myself as pseudo-philosophers. “They obviously have been sipping too much cuckoo juice.” The juice-sippers were accused of thinking they were “paragons of morality and wisdom.” Ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba (d.2011) had made a very similar criticism of Moreno. Jamieson (Castro) never identified himself with the word philosopher (he was too science-oriented). I had described myself as a “citizen philosopher,” but  not claimed wisdom or paragon status. The word philosophy currently means a form of analysis, not wisdom or morality. 

The brunt of Moreno’s distaste was revealed in a quotation he delivered at the end of his blog, citing with approval Henry Louis Mencken (d.1956) as the author:
Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself. 
The dismissal of philosophy by Moreno (Equalizer) is quite pointed. The scenario is that of a sport for jackasses and bibbers of cuckoo juice. Mencken was an American journalist who admired the nihilistic European philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Mencken relativism was now championed by American Pro-Sai “guru defender” cyberstalking.
Kevin R. D. Shepherd
ENTRY no. 23
Copyright © 2014 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.
Mar 18

Findhorn Foundation

By Conny Larsson, Findhorn Foundation, ICSA, Sathya Sai Baba, Stephen J. Castro
In September 2009, Equalizer produced a blog entry glorifying the Findhorn Foundation. This was evidently intended as a counter to my criticism of that “commercial workshop” organisation.
This development aroused speculation that Equalizer (Gerald Joe Moreno) was an affiliate of the Foundation. Meaning as a consequence of the former association of the Findhorn Foundation with Sathya Sai Baba. The activity of “channelling,” under the auspices of Sathya Sai, had been popular in that new age centre. The critical assessment of “channelling” can be severe. 
Critics observed that Moreno’s elevation of the Foundation contradicted his loudspeaker critique of ex-devotee Conny Larsson, whose “workshop” activities were to some extent reminiscent of the Foundation counterpart. Moreno mentioned approvingly such controversial workshop exemplars as Caroline Myss, William Bloom, Eckhart Tolle, and Neale Donald Walsch. All of these entrepreneurs had made appearances at the Findhorn Foundation, with Myss and Bloom being regular attractions. On the internet, Eckhart Tolle TV became regarded by many critics as another “new age” consumer distraction. The “power of now” is a soporific exercise following on from the 1960s Baba Ram Dass inflation. 
A very different approach to the Foundation can be found in such web articles as Myth and Reality. Workshop commercialism was also repudiated by Stephen J. Castro in his book Hypocrisy and Dissent within the Findhorn Foundation (1996). This work was afflicted with a misleading classification by Moreno, even while academic status ICSA (in America) were recognising the merits of that annotated book as an important statement in the face of questionable new age managerialism (despite the CIFAL promotionalism).  
Moreno had erroneously described the relevant publishing imprint of Hypocrisy and Dissent as my own. The real publisher was Stephen Castro. The latter was not a “vanity publisher,” to use misleading Moreno language. Castro demonstrated considerable courage in publishing his book at Forres, in the close vicinity of the Foundation, who were notorious for their extremist reactions to criticism. The Foundation management had even attempted to place a legal interdict upon a former dissident book, though without success. Democracy is not a feature of the American and European new age. 
Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) was so uninformed about events in Forres that he even rendered the logo of New Media Books as New Media Books Ltd, perhaps wishing to give the impression of capitalist vanities. In actual fact, Castro only published two books under that imprint; he was far from possessing company status. As to the content of those books, perhaps a long time will elapse before the “alternative” society arrives at any due recognition of past events and current critical priorities. 

While the Findhorn Foundation were indulging in a putative “channelling” of Sathya Sai Baba, some of his followers were becoming very disillusioned. One of the ex-devotees wrote in an Open Letter to the guru: “[People] should not ever let their children go to Puttaparthi [ashram] or to any place where you, Sai Baba, reside, since they all [the children] would risk being at your altar of sex.” Testimonies of sexual (and paedophile) abuse are more realistic than “channelling” fantasies.

The significant Open Letter to the abuser observed that the well known sentiment of “Love All Serve All” amounted to “Hurt All – Rape All” (Conny Larsson, Open Letter to Sathya Sai Baba, 2000, exbaba.com). The same epistle noted the tendency of Sathya Sai and his devotees to openly state that “your rapes and molestations are of divine nature.”

The apologist tactic of Moreno was designed to offput attention from the sordid details of sexual abuse and other forms of affliction.

Kevin R. D. Shepherd 
March 2014 (modified 2021)
ENTRY no. 21 
Copyright © 2021 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.
Jan 26

Kevin RD Shepherd Not a New Age Promoter

By Conny Larsson, Equalizer, Findhorn Foundation, Gerald Joe Moreno, Sathya Sai Baba

Sathya  Sai  Baba
 

The Pro-Sai campaign of Gerald Joe Moreno entailed an excessive and blanket denunciation of all critics of Sathya Sai Baba and himself. This activity involved an acute tendency to misrepresent his opponents.

The misleading blogtalk of Gerald Joe Moreno (alias Equalizer) presented me as a “New Age Promoter.” In a 2008 blog bearing this title, I was assailed as “a vanity self-publisher and author whose writings mostly revolve around (or include numerous references to) the Findhorn Foundation, Stanislav Grof and Holotropic Breathing.” 

This judgment reveals an acute misconception, or manipulation, that is not supported by my writings. Not having read my books, Moreno invented capricious themes of an extremist nature. My first website did frequently mention the Findhorn Foundation (in a critical context), and to a lesser extent Grof, but that factor is no gauge of my output as a whole. 
A related peculiarity was the assertion of Equalizer that “Kevin Shepherd typically references Kate Thomas (aka “Jean Shepherd,” his mother) and Stephen J. Castro in his writings.” Uninformed readers gained the impression that all I wrote about in my books and web articles were my mother and one other writer. The convenience of this contraction for Pro-Sai polemic was considerable, at the expense of truth. See further my bibliography of books and web articles. 
In the same blog, Equalizer arrived at the disputed conclusion that “these verifiable facts leave Kevin Shepherd looking rather pathetic and foolish and reeking of hypocrisy.” This demeaning verdict appeared in the same paragraph as the incessant Moreno theme that I had endorsed the “psychic trance medium Conny Larsson.” I had done no such thing, as inspection of my output will reveal. 
I had merely cited the FECRIS report of ex-devotee Conny Larsson concerning sexual abuse on the part of Sathya Sai Baba (d. 2011). In contrast, the Larsson workshop adventures in “psychic trance” and Vedic mantra may well amount to confused ex-devotee activity. Such lapses could hardly be more objectionable than the vituperative polemic of an aggressive blogger like Gerald Joe Moreno. 
Kevin R. D. Shepherd 
ENTRY no. 18 
Copyright © 2014 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.
Dec 03

Kevin RD Shepherd Not An Academic

By Craig Gibsone, Cyberstalking, Equalizer, Findhorn Foundation, Gerald Joe Moreno, Holotropic Breathwork, Sathya Sai Baba
Craig Gibsone
Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) was incensed when some ex-devotees (of Sathya Sai Baba) described me as a scholar. He went to elaborate lengths to snub this classification. His blog Kevin RD Shepherd is NOT an Academic appeared in 2009, and notably capitalised the negative word.
Since 1983, when I first emerged in print, I have made clear that I am not an academic, both to avoid confusion and to allay any grievances of specialist academics. The Equalizer treatment of this issue, in 2009, was memorable even by the vehemently distorting standards of Pro-Sai web campaign:
Kevin R. D. Shepherd is a sectarian bigot who obsessively, unremittingly and fanatically attacks and stalks everything and everyone affiliated with the Findhorn Foundation. 
Equalizer (Moreno) here relinquished completely any credence to accurate reporting. It is well known that I am not a member of any sect. My criticisms of the Findhorn Foundation do not come under the sectarian category, as is obvious to diligent readers. Nor do I criticise “everything and everyone” affiliated with that organisation.
Informed readers concluded that the extremist Moreno assertion closely reflected his own ill-repute as an obsessive  stalker of “Anti-Sai” critics and ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba (d.2011). Moreno was much more than a troll, gaining the repute of a cyberstalker who went to almost unbelievable lengths to blacken the reputation of his adversaries. For instance, he was reported to distort images of ex-devotees, and to harass victims by emailing their contacts with adverse portrayals. He targeted Google name lists with multiple entries visibly agitating against the victims. At one time there were seven hostile Moreno web entries listed in a row on my own Google listing,  with many others following in a more scattered density.
The peculiar spite of Equalizer (Moreno) was evidenced in his concluding remark at the NOT blog. “The only thing that trumps Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s non-academic role is his big ego.” Equalizer also had a non-academic role, referring to Moreno in the third person, and making many mistakes in his vituperation. The lack of context in his stigmas became a source of amazement, not merely notoriety.
Equalizer urged that my “big ego” was proved by my pointing out the lack of academic credentials in others. The only instance he supplied was that of Craig Gibsone, an influential member of the Findhorn Foundation. No further information was given. The missing context is relevant here.
I had indeed criticised Craig Gibsone, and more than once, but not for a mere lack of academic credentials. The reason was because Gibsone had been disastrously influential in pioneering commercial Grof therapy (Holotropic Breathwork) in Britain. He could only be offset by the combined warning of Edinburgh University and the Scottish Charities Office in 1993. Even this setback did not prevent Gibsone’s further resort to dubious “workshop” practices of hyperventilation, connoting a medical risk. I had pointed out that Gibsone and his team did not possess medical credentials in their “new age therapy” pastime, a deficit posing a potentially substantial risk. See further my Letter to BBC Radio, dating to 2006.
Medical doctors considered my objection to be perfectly valid. However,  in cult lore, such reservations are caricatured in terms of “big ego.” To extend that argument in due proportion, the Equalizer category of “big ego” discrepantly covers many medical doctors, psychiatrists, and other professional parties of scruple. Ethical complaint at discrepancy is set at naught by cult lore, an endangering activity involving a blanket dismissal of criticism and a hate campaign against any objector.

Observers of this situation pointed out that the Moreno (Equalizer) slurs, aimed at diverse victims, comprised an attempt to distract attention from the “allegations” of sexual abuse made against Sathya Sai Baba. The solid testimonies are revealing.
A well known testimony came from Jens Sethi, a German who encountered Sathya Sai Baba at close quarters during the 1990s. In the notorious interview room at Puttaparthi ashram, “he [Sathya] commanded me to remove my trousers, unzipped my fly and went with his right hand into my underpants. Sathya Sai Baba the divine touched and massaged my genitals unasked. He expected some erection, but this didn’t happen for I did not feel any sexual excitement, no lust in the presence of a seventy year old man. I was really disgusted. Then he had the impudence to say, ‘It is very weak, don’t waste energy.’ When I looked at him I realised the truth about him and was shocked indeed” (Experiences of an ex-Sai Baba devotee I, exbaba.com, Witnesses tab).

Sethi continues his narration of events:

I came into contact with other devotees who had similar and even worse sexual experiences [with Sathya Sai], and came to the conclusion that there is indeed a pattern of behaviour towards his victims. First he establishes contact and checks the devotional potential of the devotee. Afterwards, once he has decided to molest a person he starts by kissing the same [on the lips]. The next step is massaging the genitals with oil or vibhuti [sacred ash], and finally [he] is masturbating them. In the end he asks [the victim] to do oral sex! This is nothing but the truth. Also, [there are] testimonies from Indians who have been sexually molested through Swami [Sathya Sai] even in the early seventies [1970s]. Now it becomes evident through many testimonies that he had sexually molested and raped young boys for a very long time.  This made me very sad and it broke my heart…. To cover up the awful incidents, he builds more and more buildings to distract innocent devotees from his evil motive. He wants to become more famous than Krishna and is after name and fame. (Experiences of an ex-Sai Baba devotee II, exbaba.com, Witnesses tab)

Some Western victims tried to justify their plight by inventing bizarre justifications. The oiling ritual was invested by these alarmed devotees with supposed significances of “kundalini energy,” a Tantric theme becoming popular in the Western new age. This excuse also became associated with the Sathya Sai action of kissing the lips. Some victims referred to the “balancing” of kundalini, a fantasist belief in Western sectors created by entrepreneurs.

Apologist devotees subsequently resorted (by 2006) to a belief that “spiritual healing” was being accomplished in sordid activities of the interview room and the bedroom. Others denied that the abuse had ever occurred. Sathya Sai himself apparently favoured the “spiritual healing” interpretation. A prominent Dutch devotee insisted that the abuse was a remedy for “karmic debts and sexual lust” (Dogged Denial).

Western victims were often very confused. One of these was Gerald Joe Moreno, who early stated that he had experienced the oiling ritual in 1988, at the age of eighteen. The Pro-Sai activist subsequently attempted to justify (and to ignore) such guru eccentricities, which complicated his apologist tactic. Ex-devotees pointed out the discrepancies. This was no proof of their “big ego.” To the contrary, they were opposing a guru who claimed to be God while pursuing phallic and paedophile preoccupations in numerous instances. One devotee justification for all discrepancies was the assertion: “Swami (Sathya Sai) is God.” They were repeating the guru’s own inflated emphasis.

Kevin R. D. Shepherd

December 2013 (modified 2021)

ENTRY no. 13
Copyright © 2021 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.
Nov 30

New Age Sceptic Kevin RD Shepherd

By Equalizer, Esalen, Findhorn Foundation, Gerald Joe Moreno, LSD, Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof
In 2008, Gerald Joe Moreno duplicated some contents of his aggressive website (saisathyasai) on blogspot, producing a blog cycle pitched against me. This hostile feature bore his pseudonym of Equalizer, with Moreno being deceptively referred to in the third person. Of course, Moreno really had nothing to do with the hostility; he was merely mentioned in this troll exercise. At least, that is what some uninformed surfers were led to assume. 
The header title of this fresh attack comprised the words: 

Exposing the vanity self-publisher, pseudo-intellectual, Findhorn Foundation and Stanislav Grof critic, new age sceptic and pseudo-philosopher Kevin Shepherd. 

Equalizer (Moreno) was here demonstrating the aggressive nature of trolling. This manifestation of zealous “guru defender” campaign did not convince all observers as to the propriety of blog graffiti. 
Equalizer evidently believed that he could not have been a pseudo-intellectual, or indeed pseudo in any way; he was promoting the authentic cause of Pro-Sai activism. He emphasises his point by repeating the accusatory word pseudo. My books included 4,000 (four thousand) annotations, which is not the sign of a vanity publisher, as the book trade knows very well. 
The category of new age sceptic is not stigmatised outside cult circles. To be a critic of the Findhorn Foundation and Stanislav Grof  is not necessarily any proof of dire error. In my case, this disposition can  be viewed as a symptom of resistance to new age capitalist pursuits such as Grof Transpersonal Training Inc., which gained an influential presence at Esalen and the Findhorn Foundation. The Grof activity has notably included LSD “psychotherapy,” which is not one of the conventionally accepted enterprises. 
Kevin R. D. Shepherd 
ENTRY no. 12 
Copyright © 2013 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.
Oct 19

Introduction to Kevin RD Shepherd

By Cambridge University Library, Cyberstalking, Findhorn Foundation, Gerald Joe Moreno
Cambridge University Library
In October 2008, Gerald Joe Moreno (alias Equalizer) duplicated his “vanity publisher” theme on a blogspot feature, under the heading of Introduction to Kevin RD Shepherd.  This was examined by my legal adviser, who expressed a negative verdict.

The troll blog stated that I am “a garrulous writer adept in writing loose, tabloid-like diatribes composed of rumour, hearsay and poorly researched claims.” More specifically, Equalizer asserted that his blog was “created to refute and respond to Kevin RD Shepherd’s articles against Joe Moreno.” Third person Moreno did not tell the reader that those three articles were written in protest at his stigma and libel. 

The invective of Gerald Joe Moreno was expressed in the original 2007 sub-heading “Kevin Shepherd: The ‘serious amateur’ non-academic writer  who conducts seriously amateurish and biased research.” Moreno did not understand the academic tag of “serious amateur,” himself being a non-academic blogger who had not written any books. He was attempting to justify his cordoning tactic on Wikipedia, an episode which had preceded his indefinite ban.

Moreno expressed the erroneous verdict that the unofficial phrase “serious amateur” was used exclusively in relation to astronomy, photography, and botany. He derived this acute contraction from a very literal reading at the websites of Cambridge and Oxford universities. This tactic reveals the dependence of bloggers on web entries, as distinct from active participation in research activities. 

On his Equalizer blog, third person Moreno repeated his error of misrepresenting me as having four publishing imprints instead of two. He blatantly  ignored my clearly expressed complaints on this score. He even reproduced his error of New Media Books Ltd, there being no publishing imprint with that name. In contrast, New Media Books did exist, the point being that I was not the publisher of the two books bearing this logo. The only two imprints that were my own were Citizen Initiative and the discontinued Anthropographia. 
Moreno had become notorious for never altering his statements; no revision was applicable to him, who was always right. Complaints and protests could be totally ignored as trifling reflections of victims who had dared to counter Moreno, the blog campaigner in the cause of Sathya Sai Baba. 
The accusation was made: “Kevin Shepherd has no claim to any sort of academic credentials.” This is not a crime, especially as third person Moreno had no such credentials, no history of library research, and no books to his credit. He contemptuously mentioned my “private research project” at Cambridge University Library (CUL). Equalizer was here anxious to reiterate that CUL was “not to be confused with Cambridge University itself.” This improvisation ignored the major participation of CUL in the life of Cambridge University. 
Third person Moreno went on to accuse me of having boasted that I followed “academic rules in citing sources to a greater extent than many academic philosophers.” The context of this reference was lost upon the sectarian apologist. I had protested at the confusion in my Response to Moreno (2007). The objection was completely ignored by Moreno, whose reporting proved unreliable to an acute degree. 
Very briefly, some academics had noticed my annotations in published books; they commented that these were more detailed and extensive than the notes found in many works by academic philosophers. The latter are rarely historians, and often employ conceptual sources only, drawn from philosophy. Whereas I did employ references to a variety of scholarly works, including journals and books applying to the history of science, the history of religion, and also social science. I do not claim any distinction in this respect; I have merely pointed out that the academic assessment did occur in relation to citizen books. 
Because of the gross misinterpretation, I had removed the afflicted reference the previous year from my (first) website. Moreno failed to report this action. With typically misleading negligence, he instead gave the impression that the abused quote was ongoing at my site.
A curiosity in Equalizer blog labels was noticed. One of these read “Findhorn Foundation Radical.” This was an erroneous definition of myself. I have never been a member of the Findhorn Foundation. I am known as a critic of that organisation, and in a completely independent capacity. 
Some blog readers received the impression that I was some sort of new age rebel from the Findhorn Foundation who had wandered into a scruffy minor library in Cambridge, there to boast about my achievements in citing sources, and ultimately to slur the angelic blog giant Joe Moreno with “tabloid-like diatribes.” 
Beware of blog introductions, in case these are misleading. 
Kevin R. D. Shepherd 
ENTRY no. 6 
Copyright © 2013 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.