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Internet Terrorism

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.

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.

Copyright Muddle of Gerald Joe Moreno

By Cyberstalking, Equalizer, Gerald Joe Moreno, Internet Terrorism, Kate Thomas
Images of Kate Thomas (Jean Shepherd) abused by Gerald Joe Moreno. Images copyright Kevin R. D. Shepherd.
In his web campaign to offset all criticism of Sathya Sai Baba (d. 2011), Equalizer (Gerald Joe Moreno) proved his talent for confusing argument in what he called the “Copyright Issue.” This was a reductionist ploy of 2009. I was here described in terms of “foamed-at-the-mouth, gnashed his teeth and raised a huge wail about Joe Moreno [note third person] violating his copyrights for duplicating pictures of himself and his mother.”
The accusation was misleading. I had indeed complained about the excessive use of images, three of myself and five of my mother. Equalizer flagrantly reproduced these eight images yet again on the “Copyright Issue” blog page, demonstrating his defiance against reasonable complaint. 
Equalizer (Moreno) added that “Shepherd implied he may take legal action against Moreno” for duplicating images. This was incorrect; my reference to legal action had implied the libellous tactic of Moreno, not image copyrights. Equalizer thus gave the convenient impression that only photographs were at issue. In reality, the extensive train of misinformation, personal attack, family harassment, and other matters were being monitored by legal analysis which had reached very negative conclusions about Gerald Joe Moreno, alias Equalizer.  
The cyberstalker then launched into his favoured theme that his sole image was copyright protected, and therefore must not be used by anyone. He had placed five images of my mother with an insulting caption on his attack website, yet no image of Moreno could be used by me. The discrepant nature of this situation was clear to observers.
The obnoxious blog was entitled “Kate Thomas aka Jean Shepherd.” The family attack associations were made quite explicit by Equalizer when he presented another of his misrepresentations on that page. The militant guru defender stated that “Jean Shepherd is a widely solicited public figure and critic in regards to the Findhorn Foundation.” He added in brackets “albeit exclusively through her son and self-publisher.”
The word “exclusively” was here rendered in bold, meaning that Moreno discourse was irrefutable on this point. In actual fact, the emphasised word was a fiction.
My mother (Kate Thomas) had authored books (in the plural), none of which were published by me. She was celebrated in numerous press reports of the 1990s, including major British newspapers. She also appeared prominently in an annotated book by Stephen Castro that was not published by me, and which furthermore gained recognition from  ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association).  The magnitude of error on cult web deserves acknowledgment. 
The misleading blogger next opted to describe me as “a self-serving hypocrite.” This charity of Pro-Sai defamation is a testimony to what can happen on the American web to members of other nations. This strike was masked by another banal item of camouflage: the accusation that my complaint about images was negated by my own use of images in relation to such people as Eileen Caddy (deceased), Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber, and Frank Visser. The issue of Moreno libel and distortion was here totally bypassed. Caddy was dead, Cohen and Wilber were controversial entities whose images were well known, while Frank Visser had no objection to his image being reproduced by me. 
Equalizer concluded with an extremist expression of a type that many readers found unconvincing. I was here called an “internet terrorist” and “sectarian cyberstalker.” The criterion here was that I had “pirated” the sole Moreno image by showing this on my sites. 
Critical analysts were easily able to decode the rhetorical devices employed here. I had complained that Moreno was an internet terrorist and sectarian cyberstalker. This met with ready agreement from victims and close analysts of the situation. However, in Equalizer/Moreno blog justification, this meant that the critic was an internet terrorist and cyberstalker.  Tit for tat response.
The logical effect of these blogger devices, if taken seriously, would lead to situations such as: anybody complaining of a murder would be labelled a murderer by the criminals. Anybody complaining of a theft would be regarded as a thief by the apologists. Any counter-accusation would be justifiable if blog deception was the criterion for judgment, even if regarded as blogspot.com state of the art. 
A secondary consideration here is that pseudonymous trolls lacking a web image may need to be identified in such cases of evasion. 
Kevin R. D. Shepherd 
ENTRY no. 20 
Copyright © 2014 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.