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Robert Priddy

Marianne Warren and Shirdi Sai Baba

By Equalizer, Gerald Joe Moreno, Marianne Warren, Robert Priddy, Sathya Sai Baba, Shirdi Sai Baba
In the attempt to cement his position against a growing support for myself, Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) resorted to cheating; he supplied a misleading version of commentary relating to an academic book. A 2009 blog of his bore the title of Marianne Warren PhD Criticised Kevin RD Shepherd. This attack blog was flawed by a typically obsessive mindset, even using once more an out of context and obsolete quote (from my first website) about which I had complained in 2007. This kind of deceptive presentation can be described as entirely lacking in scruple.
The late Dr. Marianne Warren (d.2004) authored a book on Shirdi Sai Baba, namely Unravelling the Enigma (1999). Moreno chose to emphasise brief criticisms she had expressed about an early book of mine, while relegating her acknowledgement of discoveries I had made. He wrote as though I had not mentioned the Warren criticisms, and could thus be accused of dishonesty. Moreno cited a single brief comment from one of my web articles. He followed this up with the assertion:

Kevin Shepherd omitted Marianne Warren’s criticism about him and only snipped out those sections that suited his big ego.

This is a violation of fair comment, revealing a polemical agenda that is extremely misleading.

The Moreno commentary exhibits a total  ignorance of what I wrote at some length elsewhere, including my web article that same year on Shirdi Sai Baba (especially note 43). In my book Investigating the Sai Baba Movement (2005), I gave much space in text and annotations to Dr. Warren’s version of Shirdi Sai Baba, covering both the areas of agreement and disagreement between her and myself. That book (page 320) has a total of 25 index references to Dr. Warren, all of these being omitted by Moreno.

Moreno (SSS108) had even tried to ban the same book from Wikipedia. The reason was my favourable reference in that work to his opponent Robert Priddy, a leading critic of Sathya Sai Baba. Moreno had not read this book and was entirely unconcerned with the major part of the content, which he consigned to oblivion in 2006, via a Wikipedia User page.

Warren’s main criticism related to references I made about the Indian commentator B. V. Narasimhaswami. The context of those criticisms actually originated with Meher Baba. In this respect, Dr. Warren was at a disadvantage, being unable to locate a certain Indian periodical which included a diary of pressing relevance. I had cited that periodical in my annotations to Gurus Rediscovered (1986), a book which followed an academic practice of placing in the notes the publication data of works cited, thus avoiding the need of a separate bibliography. Dr. Warren commented myopically that there was no bibliography, being concerned to emphasise her pre-eminence in Marathi. The diary that she ignored was in English.

In my later book, I cited from the first edition of Warren’s Unravelling the Enigma: Shirdi Sai Baba in the Light of Sufism (1999). Dr. Warren was then a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, who claimed to be a reincarnation of Shirdi Sai and a miracleworker. Some of her controversial beliefs in that direction were represented in her book (and viewed critically by many other Indologists).
Moreno (Equalizer) ignored the contents of my 300-page book. He also completely ignored the fact that Dr. Warren had been influenced by her partisan approach to Sathya Sai Baba, whom she rejected shortly after her book was published. Dr. Warren then became an ex-devotee, horrified at the allegations of sexual abuse which became well known at circa 2000,  via such critical reports as The Findings of David Bailey (exbaba.com, Findings tab).

Dr. Warren contributed a revised edition of her book in 2004. She emphasised her new orientation in the revised author’s preface, eliminating glorifying references to Sathya Sai Baba and instead making critical comments such as:

From an early age he [Sathya Sai] chose to ride the coat-tails of the Maharashtrian sage [Shirdi Sai], linking his name with that of the earlier Sai Baba in numerous speeches he gave in the 1940s and 1950s, and by taking the name ‘Sai,’ affixing it to his own name of Sathya.

Dr. Warren intended to go much further in a denunciation of Sathya Sai Baba. She planned to write another book in this context; the introduction survives (formerly online at saibaba-x.org.uk/7/W/index). Her death prevented new accomplishments.

The Equalizer (Moreno) “hate campaign” strategy, of omitted details, is not to be recommended. The cult attitude distorts history and commentary, acting as a hopeless guide to both.
Kevin R. D. Shepherd
ENTRY no. 24
Copyright © 2014 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.

Robert Priddy and VK Narasimhan

By Robert Priddy, Sathya Sai Baba, V. K. Narasimhan, Wikipedia
V.K. Narasimhan and Robert Priddy, 1994
Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) was a militant supporter of Sathya Sai Baba (d.2011). He maintained extremist descriptions of ex-devotee Robert Priddy, a retired academic in Norway. Moreno wrongly presented  Priddy as an LSD advocate. Priddy had taken LSD long before in the 1960s; his own report invalidates the accusation. “My involvement with LSD ended many decades ago.” The LSD defamation was spread extensively on the web by the cyberstalker tactics of Moreno, who was confronted for his infringement of copyright.
Moreno bracketed me with Priddy, to the extent of creating a blog feature entitled “Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy.” I was presented as a virtual accomplice in Anti-Sai crime with the leading Western critic of Sathya Sai Baba. In actual fact, I had never met Priddy. I was not an ex-devotee (or devotee), but an independent critic. I merely corresponded with Priddy during the period of Moreno web aggression (2006-2010). I was sympathetic to his substantial dissident data; Priddy was informative to a surprising degree. However,  I did not share his outlook as a whole, which tended to be sceptical in the materialist sense (there is abundant latitude for scepticism, but this does not have to be “materialist” to possess validity).
In 2006, a Wikipedia article on Priddy cited my book Investigating the Sai Baba Movement (2005). This development prompted a censorious Moreno campaign in my direction, at first on a Wikipedia User page. When I objected to this treatment, Moreno (SSS108) targeted me at his notorious website. I was even depicted by Moreno as participating with Priddy in a “constant bashing of Sai Devotees as liars.” In reality, I protested against the aggression and manipulation of Moreno, which commenced against me on Wikipedia.
Moreno (Equalizer) made elaborate complaints that Priddy had made huge mistakes in his report of V. K. Narasimhan (d.2000), a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba who lived at the Puttaparthi ashram. The idiom was: “It is entirely possible that Robert Priddy fabricated or embellished information about V. K. Narasimhan to further his venomous campaigns against Sai Baba.” That was one of the more restrained Moreno assertions.
When inspecting the relevant materials, I found that Moreno was avoiding the crucial point. I expressed this disagreement on my first website, as a consequence being treated to a volley of attack strategy that quickly showed on my Google name listing. Moreno asserted that one of his webpages provided “concise and damning information about him [Priddy] that proves he is not credible.” The word proves was here rendered in bold print, part of the blog tactic designed to emphasise Moreno key words as being unassailable.
The attack was extended in such phrases as: “Robert Priddy’s attributions to V. K. Narasimhan are subjective and non-verifiable hearsay.” The word subjective was here emphasised. Nobody was supposed to argue with such finality of judgment; to do so was a crime of major proportions and an offence punishable by libellous blog campaign.
The Equalizer blog “Kevin Shepherd and V. K. Narasimhan” was typically tyrannical and condemnatory. For example, “Kevin Shepherd’s position about V. K. Narasimhan undermines his self-professed integrity and highlights his bias and unsupported viewpoints.” I had never made a case of professing integrity, instead objecting to the misrepresentation achieved by Gerald Joe Moreno.
Priddy published online his early diaries dating from the 1990s and earlier, when he was a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba and in personal contact with Narasimhan (the content formerly online at saibaba-x.org.uk/16/Priddy’s_Notes). These diaries furnish adequate proof of his contentions. Priddy himself was at first puzzled. “My very first discussion with Narasimhan… left me perplexed, because he openly ridiculed those who insisted that Sai Baba was omniscient and omnipotent.” Moreover, Narasimhan “always harboured doubts about Sathya Sai Baba’s extravagant assertions” (quotes from saibaba-x.org.uk/16/Narasimhan_RobertPriddy).    
Narasimhan was an atypical devotee, formerly a journalist of repute; he is reported to have been deeply critical of varied events and policies relating to his guru Sathya Sai Baba. This instance serves to underline that prohibitive mandates about “what could not have happened” require due caution in the analysis of guru phenomena.
Narasimhan was blind in his right eye. Sathya Sai had advised him to have an eye operation, but Narasimhan  left the hospital before the doctors advised. His eye became swollen. The guru applied holy ash (vibhuti) in his accustomed manner. Instead of a miracle cure, the swelling increased, and the sufferer was soon blind in that eye. In many other instances, Sathya Sai tended to avoid medical treatment, as a consequence becoming notorious outside the ranks of devotees.
The critic Basava Premanand referred to cases of promised cures that never occurred. Because of Sathya Sai, patients frequently did not seek medical assistance. This guru affirmed that cancer could only be cured by the grace of God, a belief closely associated with his own proclaimed identity as an avatar (divine incarnation). The official journal of his movement, Sanathana Sarathi, declared that the best treatment for cancer was to abandon doctors in favour of the Puttaparthi guru. Critics concluded that Sathya Sai was ignorant of cancer; he gave “incomprehensible medical advice.” Ex-devotee Faye Bailey reported that his counsel “nearly caused permanent damage to her, before she at last resorted to Western medical treatment” (All Boys are Golden – The Untold Story, 2009, exbaba.com).
Kevin R. D. Shepherd
January 2014 (modified 2021)
ENTRY no. 17
Copyright © 2021 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

Ullrich Zimmermann and Sathya Sai Baba

By Basava Premanand, Equalizer, Gerald Joe Moreno, Michael Goldstein, Robert Priddy, Sathya Sai Organisation
Ullrich  Zimmermann
In October 2008, the Equalizer (Moreno) blog Kevin Shepherd Exposed reproduced the gist of earlier Moreno assertions about Ullrich Zimmermann. This ex-devotee had provided three lengthy online video interviews describing his relationship with Sathya Sai Baba (d.2011). 
Gerald Joe Moreno (Equalizer) opted to caricature my comment that Zimmermann had contributed “one of the most arresting testimonies of sexual abuse” in relation to Sathya Sai Baba. Critics said that Moreno was desperate to distract attention from the basic issue of abuse. 
Zimmermann was confused on many points by his indoctrination at an early age; he was only fourteen years old when he first contacted Sathya Sai in the ashram at Puttaparthi. An activity of sexual abuse is discernible in his reminiscences of the guru, accompanied by exaggerated references reflecting some devotee beliefs. Clinically, this sort of material is very evocative, and deemed important by psychiatrists and other specialists. 
Robert Priddy composed the report Ullrich Zimmermann’s Shocking Interview with Sathya Sai Baba (2007, exbaba). Moreno countered by saying that the testimony of Zimmermann was unbelievable. The Pro-Sai campaigner invented a series of verbal diversions. 
Avoiding the crux, Moreno resorted to a puerile argument that Kevin Shepherd, a “strong Anti-New Age advocate” was citing the testimony of “a New Age follower against [Sathya] Sai Baba.” I was supposed to be “giving credence to New Age beliefs.” Moreno diverted attention from the basic issue by stating that Zimmermann was “a New Age follower of Ramtha.” This theme was further twisted into the erroneous statement that I was “willing to give credence to New Age beliefs by claiming that New Age followers are intelligent, honest, credible and reliable.” 
What I actually wrote on this subject earlier that same year contradicts the Moreno tangent: 

It is obvious that Zimmermann and other Western devotees were afflicted by concepts and syndromes deriving from the ‘miracle’ projection which Sathya Sai encouraged at their expense. Some of them could not think clearly in emerging from their predicament. Zimmermann expressed misapprehensions about such matters as ‘genital switch miracles,’ and became further distracted by Ramtha channelling…. The due evaluation (by Priddy) is completely ignored by Moreno, who indulges in the injurious subversion of context for which he is notorious amongst ex-devotees…. Diverse analysts have concluded that it is useless to compose responses to such a sectarian agent of misrepresentation. 

Despite confusions in the reports of Zimmermann, that source does testify to sexual abuse and the common acceptance of this disparity at the Puttaparthi ashram of the guru. Zimmermann narrates a personal experience of oral sex with the guru, and says that the homosexual activities of Sathya Sai were well known to many ashram residents. Such details serve to confirm other accounts such as those of ex-devotee Conny Larsson. 

In contrast, Moreno (alias Equalizer)  chose the superficial and duplicit strategy of emphasising his “New Age” lore. He presented this distraction in a manner which supposedly passed the final judgment, and much to my detriment. “This information is going to be very disillusioning to Kevin Shepherd’s readers and admirers (as few as they are).” 
Again the note of contemptuous dismissal. Of course, in such a Pro-Sai argument I only had a few readers, whereas Moreno was obviously claiming a much larger number, meaning devotees of Sathya Sai Baba who believed his distortions and libels. Zimmermann was only one of the many testifiers to abuse. Moreno could not stop the passage of relevant information. 
Another defector from Sathya Sai Baba was the American therapist Elena A. Hartgering,  whose account includes the following

Dr. [Michael] Goldstein and other officials in the [Sathya Sai] organisation are suppressing information, and attacking former devotees who have testified against Sai Baba. There is, for example, a letter from a woman in California which was sent to all [regional] Center presidents. In our center it was suppressed by the president and devotions coordinator because they were told to do so by the regional president…. Sai devotees resent the organisation being labelled a cult, yet these are clearly cult practices [of suppression] and mind control techniques. 

A favoured argument of Moreno was that Sathya Sai Baba had never been convicted of any crime, therefore allegations of abuse were irrelevant. This theme is evasive and misleading, in view of contextual data concerning the compromised Indian police, the influence of prestigious devotees in Indian law courts, and reported events at the Sathya Sai Colleges. 
The Indian rationalist Basava Premanand informed that a youth was murdered in 1987 after fleeing from sexual abuse. This victim was “murdered by burning in the [Sathya Sai Baba] College campus in daylight.” The contested police verdict was suicide. Other students at the College protested to the police, with the consequence that their parents were given a warning of police action against them. The Puttaparthi guru and his Trust exerted a monopoly of control over devotee jurists and bribed police officials (some of these also being devotees). 
This episode has further detail in another account.  The victim was Lokayya Pujari, at the village of Alike, near Mangalore in Karnataka. That village was the site of a Sathya Sai College, where Lokayya was a student. His corpse was found in charred condition. The College authorities  pronounced a verdict of suicide. This explanation did not match the circumstances. Protesters mounted a hunger strike at the local police station, thereby gaining a hearing. According to the suppressed version, a College warden had hit the boy when he complained of discrepancies. He died on the spot. Kerosene was allegedly poured on the corpse to make the death look a suicide. One allegation urged that the victim here reacted to sexual abuse in the precincts (another explanation was alcohol and meat consumption). A due enquiry, conducted by Karnataka state government, was successfully offset by the Sathya Sai Central Trust based at Puttaparthi (Narendra Nayak, Investigating the Murder at Sathya Sai Baba’s College, published by Indian Skeptic, 1987, available online at exbaba.com).
Devotees were unable to believe that murders were in process. Basava Premanand suggested, in 1998, that murders occurred at Puttaparthi via the “electric crematorium of Sai Baba.” Premanand knew more about Puttaparthi than any other critic, his resistance to Sathya Sai dating back to 1968; nothing he said can easily be disregarded.
Sexual abuse of substantial extent was evidently occurring over the years at Puttaparthi and Whitefield (the second ashram, near Bangalore). An Indian student, at one of the Sathya Sai Baba Colleges, refers to a group of seniors who were themselves homosexual molesters of many boys at the hostel where he lived. More than fifty boys are here mentioned as victims. The molesters justified their paedophilia with the refrain: “Swami (Sathya Sai Baba) likes it [predatory abuse]” (Testimony from gsmprasad, 2001, exbaba, Witnesses tab). These complicit abusers were attendants in the dreaded private interview room (at Puttaparthi) where Sathya Sai molested many victims over the years. Another regular scene of abuse was the guru’s bedroom, where his giant bed suggested activities in excess of repose. 
A revealing report of sexual abuse at Puttaparthi was mediated by Premanand in his Indian Skeptic journal. This  described events of the 1990s and earlier. The report, in a letter dated December 1998, was composed by one of the students at Puttaparthi. Premanand accordingly wrote a letter to the Vice Chancellor of the Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, requesting some investigation into the glaring improprieties. There was no reply. Premanand decided to publish the two neglected epistles in his journal.
Sathya Sai Baba with form boys dressed as gopis
The responding Indian schoolboy victims of sexual abuse were known as “form boys” and “intuition boys.” They were groomed from a young primary school age, being stripped naked by the guru in his private interview room where oral sex was the criterion for existence. “Miracle” gifts were enticements to further intimacy. If the respondents were “out of form,” chastisement could ensue. The Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (at Puttaparthi) is here revealed in a less than flattering light. A senior teacher, Surendranath, is described as a pimp “who has sent countless young boys toward the cauldron for sexual molestation” in return for power and status.

“Most of the sexually molested ‘Form’ boys who have become moral and physical wrecks, leave the institution.” Education prospects were dictated by homosexual activity. If a boy did not comply with demands of the abuser, he could too easily be harassed and expelled from College. Such rejects did not wish to become “a male prostitute.” The students for “higher learning” were “forcibly being converted into homosexuals.” Some boys could no longer concentrate on their school studies because of the distractions imposed. Explicit details are provided:

[Sathya Sai] Baba thrusts his erect sexual organ in the poor boy’s mouth and asks the boy to suck and lick it and forces the boy to do so. Finally the boy is forced to suck and drink the ejaculated semen of Baba. Baba also licks and sucks the sexual organs of such boys. 

At the interview room, a curtain separated these sordid encounters from general view. “One can sometimes actually see boys being molested if the curtain moves.” Moreover, “some have actually seen boys being molested with their own eyes, but keep mum [silent], for their own selfish survival, branding this dirty act as spirituality…. They [the witnesses] just act as pimps.”

Sathya Sai regularly organised holiday expeditions to certain places such as Kodaikanal, solely for the purpose of intimacy with “form boys.” These victims were even molested in the motor car and bus en route, the guru caressing their genitals in his obsessive manner. Victims were always enjoined never to talk about what happened. The “intuition boys” were often terrified of any disclosure to their uncomprehending devotee parents (who could react strongly to any suggestion of impropriety). Devotee dogma was unyielding, like the guru himself.

One of the “intuition boys” demonstrated an aberration that could occur in these circles. He himself abused about forty small innocent boys in the school system of this bizarre milieu of “higher learning.” The graphic account by the Puttaparthi student also refers to “crazy foreign ladies who are not allowed inside and are sometimes beaten up.” The guru was not partial to women, only men and boys; he is known to have made strong attempts to break up male and female partnerships. Another ominous reference is made by the student to “bodies of mostly young women which are found in the hills and also the bodies of young women which… are either burnt near Chitravathi or buried near it” (B. Premanand, Sai Baba and his Students, The Indian Skeptic, August 1999, an article also appearing online).

Kevin R. D. Shepherd 

ENTRY no. 15 
December 2013 (modified 2021)
Copyright © 2021 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved

Gerald Joe Moreno and Sai Critics

By Barry Pittard, Robert Priddy, Sathya Sai Baba
Moreno (Equalizer) blog depiction of Robert Priddy, 2008
Equalizer (Gerald Joe Moreno) furthered a web campaign of purported exposure. A number of his blogs bore the proclaimer of “Sai Critics Exposed.” The Sai reference denotes Sathya Sai Baba, not Shirdi Sai Baba (I had then written two books featuring favourable accounts of the Shirdi entity, but Moreno lore and libel completely ignored these).
The contested Equalizer blogs also bore an explicit campaigning motto, worded as: “Campaign to Stop Anti-Sai Activist’s Abuse.” This motto was deceptive. Anti-Sai was a favourite slogan of Moreno, who declared his own orientation in terms of Pro-Sai. The “abuse” here referred to testimonies of sexual abuse, plus other problems, in relation to Sathya Sai Baba (d.2011). Moreno did not recognise the validity of testimonies from ex-devotee victims.
There were nine Moreno blogspot features pillorying “Sai Critics.” Seven of these were ex-devotees, including retired academic Robert Priddy and Dr. Timothy Conway. Reinier van der Sandt (the Dutch musician) was not an ex-devotee; he was described to me as a webmaster of exbaba.com, a major website for critique of Sathya Sai Baba. I was the only non-activist represented. The attack and defamation was thus being extended into the public sector. I was not an ex-devotee, nor a web activist against the guru. However,  I was definitely an objector to Moreno tactics in my direction. 
Three images of myself were used by Equalizer (Moreno) in a much duplicated composite. That triple image is symptomatic of cultist excess. Ex-devotee Robert Priddy received a despising pictorial representation as a primitive ape-like creature. Of course, nobody was supposed to show an image of Moreno, as he prohibited this practice, in relation to his sole known photograph. 
Another ex-devotee on the hit list was Barry Pittard of Australia. He was treated to a very misleading “exposure” as a sexual aberrant. Moreno misrepresented data on a website to mean that Pittard was guilty of “paedophilia,” a verdict posted on yahoo.com. The rebuttal was so decisive that the accuser was obliged to retract his allegation, an action that “was most grudging and manipulative in its wording – a single line buried among a mass of self-justification.” Moreno continued to post his defamation on his website and also bulletin boards. See Defamation of Barry Pittard
In 2008, I had cause to comment: “It is very obvious that Moreno’s belief in the priority of Sathya Sai Baba entails a categorical dismissal of any criticism as being a manifestation of perversity or conspiracy.”

The numerous testimonies of abuse have withstood denials, providing a realistic guide to events that cannot be dismissed because of devotee preferences to the contrary.
A well known testimony was made by Hans de Kraker. In the interview room at Puttaparthi, he found that Sathya Sai Baba promised to give him everything. This transpired to be a dubious honour. The ex-devotee related:

He [Sathya Sai] now takes my head, and pushes it quite firmly into his groin…. Now I am holding his buttocks and wonder what the hell my divine master is asking me to do! I let go my arms and now I am even more shell shocked… he pulls up his dress [robe], presents me his half-erect penis and invites me to take up my Good Luck Chance. “This is your Good Luck Chance.” I am now on my knees facing his erect penis, being asked to perform oral sex [the guru now insisted that the reluctant devotee take a “Second Good Luck Chance” in this sordid procedure]. I refuse and get up without saying anything. I am now angry, confused and dazed…. A very clever manipulator and professional deceiver had just trashed the fundamentals of the past eight years of my life. (Personal Experiences from Hans de Kraker, 2000, exbaba.com, Witnesses tab)

Kevin R. D. Shepherd 
December 2013 (modified 2021)
ENTRY no. 14 
Copyright © 2021 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.

Missing Image of Gerald Joe Moreno

By Gerald Joe Moreno, Reinier van der Sandt, Robert Priddy, Sathya Sai Baba, trolls
An ex-devotee version of the forbidden Moreno image
In the normal way, I would supply an image of my subject. Unfortunately, in the case of Gerald Joe Moreno (alias Equalizer), this proved very difficult while he was alive. There is only one known image of Moreno that has ever been reproduced online. This originally appeared on one of his sites, and was subsequently preserved by ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba.
The image of Moreno reveals a handsome man, apparently in his early thirties, with neatly groomed hair in conventional style. There is no “hippy” look or anything else suspicious. However, when I reproduced this image on my first website in 2007, the subject reacted strongly, even sending me an email demanding that I withdraw his image.
Some time elapsed before I could fathom what was going on. I consulted my web host, who commented that there was nothing wrong, according to British standards, about reproducing an image, providing that the image was not tampered with in any way. So I retained the image of Moreno, especially as there was no other form of visual identification for names like SSS108 and Equalizer. 
I also consulted ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba on this matter, a contingent from whom the image was derived. I was informed that there had been much acrimony about images between Moreno and ex-devotees. Some of the latter had suffered distorted images at the hands of Moreno. I was shocked by this revelation, being supplied with proof that appeared on the web.

Reinier van der Sandt with an imposed large nose. Courtesy Gerald Joe Moreno.
Sathya Sai critic Reinier van der Sandt and ex-devotee Sanjay Dadlani are well known victims of image distortion. Moreno embellished their respective images with a big nose and exaggerated breasts. Robert Priddy also received extremist treatment in a notorious depiction.
One rumour circulated that Moreno feared exposure of his image in case anyone disfigured this, as he himself had done with the images of ex-devotees. Another interpretation is that he was simply averse to being recognised in his private life, also during his travels in India to the Puttaparthi ashram of Sathya Sai. Whatever the precise reason, he continually aggravated against my use of his sole image. He declared that this image was copyrighted and must not be used by anyone.
Eventually Moreno contacted my web host, proving so insistent that this agent now advised me to remove the image. I did so forthwith, deleting the Moreno image from all three sites where this was showing. That development occurred in April 2010. Certain other parties were pointedly rebellious against the prohibition by Moreno; they  continued to show his image
Many people noticed that, despite my polite gesture of removing the contested image, Moreno (Equalizer) continued to display three of my images in a derogatory context of blog defamation. The “triple image” of myself was displayed on both his major attack site and his blogspot extension.
Critics say that, by refusing to concede the need for standard procedures of visual identity, Moreno justified his classification in the category of trolls, who are adversely noted for their visual anonymity. 
Kevin R. D. Shepherd 
ENTRY no. 11 
Copyright © 2013 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.