Sathya Sai Baba miraculously ‘shows’ 10 avatars

One must ask, by what kind of deceptive suggestion or ‘hypnosis’ was Sathya Sai Baba able to get people actually to believe they experienced former avatars? The ‘spiritual seekers’ Prof. N. Kasturi and Ra. Ganapati evidently took these fantastic fables – and literally all the miracle stories told by villagers – at face value. How real or meaningful are experiences which are had only by some persons present, but not by others? Well, there are illusionists who can do such things under TV cameras… see more below the following quotes.

“… the Purohit of a family whose guest Baba was at Mysore was granted, quite unexpectedly, a Vision of Narasimha, and the Srivaishnava Brahmin swooned and did not recover consciousness for several hours.” (Prof. N. Kasturi in Sathyam, Sivam, Sundaram Vol. 1, page 64f.)

“The Dasavathara Forms were vouchsafed to another gentleman now deceased, a relative of the Karnam family. As a matter of fact, he passed away, because his physical frame was too weak to contain the joy of the Vision. Baba took him to the river and asked him to watch the reflection, His own reflection, in the water. The man announced later that he saw at first Sathya Sai Baba Himself, then, only the halo of hair that surrounds His head, and then all the ten avathars in the order in which they are mentioned in the Puranas; the Kalki avathar on horseback had the form or Baba Himself!” (Baba: Sathya Sai by Ra. Ganapati, p. 81)

“Svami is seated on the Chitravati bed with His devotees. The fullmoon is filling the sky with its cool radiance. Svami has a look at it. Does He think that it looks like His face? Does He further think, ‘Why should it not have a dark wig like my hairy halo?’ As He moves His fingers here on earth an extraordinary phenomenon takes place in the lunar sphere. A halo appears round the moon, like Baba’s tresses! Is that all? The pointed fingers of Baba write something from here on the dark dome. There appears on that heavenly hair-do, the Sankha and Chakra (conch and disc of Vishnu) streaked in lightning. With a further wave of His hand, the conch of lightning dives down into Svami’s hand itself and converts itself into a gleaming white shell-variety as of this earth. Svami pours amrit from it in the mouths of more than a hundred devotees. That conch is still enshrined in the Prashanti Nilayam Puja.” (Baba: Sathya Sai by Ra. Ganapati, p. 81).

Historically or scientifically these tall tales are about as worthless as any non-credible ancient legend… such as that of the churning of the ocean in the Ramayana, and the subsequent appearance of a most beautiful damsel bearing the nectar of eternal life!

Yet Sai Baba often relates them to his students as if they were sheer fact!

Many popular TV shows in the West have so-called ‘hypnotists’ make volunteers ‘ see’ and ‘hear’ all manner of extraordinary and ridiculous things, and to do all kinds of involuntary actions – often absurd (for entertainment). The ‘subjects’ are interviewed afterwards and express astonishment at what they experienced or did themselves. These illusionist showmen include the famous Paul McKenna, the former FBI expert in illusion and magic, Mark Salem and not least the remarkable sceptic Derren Brown, who many consider a great psychic despite his explanations on the series of BBC Channel 4 TV programmes that no psychic powers are involved. See Derren Brown in action here and here for a start.

One should note that the ‘stories’ published about Sathya Sai Baba by Kasturi, Ganapati and many others are attributed to anonymous or completely untraceable persons. In many cases they have been gathered by hearsay at third hand, and are therefore to be considered highly unreliable and certainly not proven by any means acceptable to serious investigators.