Sathya Sai Baba’s broad lunatic fringe

Robert Favour – a Dutch former follower of Sathya Sai Baba met various devotees who can only be described as belonging to the ‘lunatic’ part of the movement, as follows:-

“- Once in India we had two English friends visiting us, who both believed they had been Maria Magdalene in a previous incarnation. They did not know that from each other. That gave funny discussions. One woman had heard this from a spiritual counsellor who channelled the Akashic Records with the help of Sai Baba. I do not doubt the existence of past lives and the Akashic Records (the collective data bank of the earth, where the sleeping prophet Edgar Cayce also found his knowledge), but not to a sense that more souls can have lived the same life. It goes against all knowledge from Hinduism and new age thought.

Later I explained the incident to a friend. He said he was not surprised; according to him there were at least ten women in the ashram who had been Maria in a previous life.

– But even well developed authors like Joshua Stone did not see his tricks: Joshua wrote a whole book on him without seeing him in person. He claimed he would come to India when he was able to teleport. Maybe the phenomenon exists, but to my opinion not for this Californian PhD. He has never been seen circling above the ashram in India. He never went looking for himself and has never investigated what was really going on in India. What he did do was taking everything for true what Sai Baba told him in his inner ear; he dedicated the title of his book to Sai Baba. – In general this ‘holy man’ created little objects out of thin air, but sometimes he materialised a bigger Ganesha statue, but that only out of the sand if he put his hands in it. Many were blind for the possibility that the object had been put there before his miraculous creation.”  (from http://www.exbaba.com/witnesses/robertfavour.html)

I knew an American lady called Marge who told my wife and I – as a confidence – that she had been Mary Magdalene in her former existence. She claimed that Sai Baba had made her aware of this. She was a middle-aged person who had left her husband and children and was having an uncercover affair with a Christian minister in Norway (who would have lost his post if the relationship had become known).

In my many years as a leader and visitor to Sai Baba’s ashrams I met numerous people on the verge of normal sanity – and a number who went completely insane at Prashanthi Nilayam. I was called up by people who thought the green ‘diamond’ ring Sai Baba gave me was able to cure them. One asked me to save him money this way as he wanted all his amalgam fillings removed.

Among those who had to be taken to mental hospitals was  German man who confided in me that he had shot his own father, he was left by the ashram staff to wander in a filthy state in his ‘pyjamas’ for several days until they sent someone with a straightjacket and a car to take him away. He managed to thow himself from the car after it has got up some speed. That did not help him, as he was carted off. Then there was a young Danish woman who decided that ‘Love, Love, Love’ was the order of the day and stripped off, wandering around the ashram for days until the useless ashram staff humbly asked our group (mostly Danes) if we could somehow get rid of her! We achieved contact with her father in Denmark, a medical doctor, and she was admitted to a mental hospital in Bangalore. Such lunatic events occur with great regularity… my wife observed an American lady who lay on the sand of the compound when Sai Baba came out and she made the motions of giving birth, shouting “I am giving birth to the next avatar!”

There was the amusing ‘teeth-clacking’ medium too – see here.
Another instance is found here
Lunatic Devotee claims he is Prema Sai

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Information on the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
See also Devotee attacks on the Sai petition and petitioners

Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and his Worldwide Organization
View ex-follower signatures
(Spanish version PETICIÓNPÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES)