Faked emergence of egg-sized golden ‘lingam’ – filmed proof

Mahashivarathri 2004 – Sai Baba vomits into a towel and collapses

Sai Baba said in public the small gold lingam weighed three tons!http://www.exbaba.com/comments_on/_the_secret_swami/sai%20baba%20glory.jpg”> see video clip from BBC where he collapses

Sai Baba allowed an unprecedented live broadcast in the Indian subcontinent of his so-called ‘lingodbhava‘ (bringing the egg-sized ellipsoidal object out of his mouth after what looks like a painful process of ‘regurgitation’). However, one can most clearly see that NO lingam actually emerged at all this year. It seems to have done so in the past, but Houdini was the first to perform this trick (see below)! In 2004, instead, there was only a small spurt of vomited water,

According to some devotees, the lingam which did not emerge as such was actually formed in the towel from vomited ‘liquid gold’. However, this any colour was due to the poor video quality or manipulation, because on the BBC film of the same incident, only transparent water came from his mouth! It is clear that most devotees will believe just anything they are told by him or his cronies. However, the BBC documentary film makers filmed it all close up and one can see clearly that there was no golden liquid or any golden lingam coming from his mouth, as attended by the BBC film-maker – Eamon Hardy – and his team, but one appears “somehow” in the towel he was holding!

A film clip of the ‘actual emergence’ has been posted on the Internet by devotees. One can pause the video and examine each frame separately to analyse the movements. (Click here for the Indian low quality film-clip of the same event as filmed professionally by the BBC in ‘The Secret Swami’).

From before the alleged ’emergence’, Sathya Sai Baba is clearly seen to be holding something just about the size of the lingam inside the towel between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand! Now what on earth could that be, one wonders? After the vomit, he lets go of what he was holding in secret and fumbles to extract it with his right hand, taking the lingam from under the towel just where it was being held earlier, and we see a rather confused and sheepish look cross his features – like resignation at being caught in the act. It seems that Sathya Sai Baba must have lost his nerve on this occasion, for he did not even try producing the lingam from his mouth this time.

I later learned from a key member of the BBC team who contacted me that Sathya Sai Baba collapsed directly after the faked ‘manifestation’ and was in a dreadful state when he was carried off. Very likely partly a reaction to the stress of being on live TV and of realising he had not managed to pull it off convincingly to conceal his fraud from the cameras. But his favourite, Anil Kumar, reported that Sathya Sai Baba had to go away to ‘produce’ two more ‘atma lingams‘ in private out of sight of anyone! (believe it if you can!). Was Sathya Sai Baba feeling too ill, or too camera shy? Those with perspicacious and open minds can decide the nature of this ‘divine mystery’. However, it is also noteworthy that there was suddenly a significant increase in defections from his movement just afterwards. But despite that they claim (very excessively, no doubt) that from 60 to 100 million are still followers!

Surely only a person whose entire mind is already permeated with unfounded religious beliefs and superstitions can credit this. Interestingly, we can also compare this with the words of Sathya Sai Baba as attributed to him directly by his one-time very close servitor Swami Karunyananda, who lived to over 100 years and spent about 4 decades living within Sathya Sai Baba’s apartment. On p. 367 of the first edition of ‘The Glory of Puttaparthi’ (Bangalore, 1980) by V. Balu, we read:-

Sri Karunyananda also enlightened me about the lingam which Sri Baba used to materialise from his body on Shivarathri day. Sri Karunyananda was near at hand once when a solid gold lingam was brought out by Sri Baba. The lingam was quite big and heavy and the corners of Sri Baba’s mouth had been hurt a little as it emerged! What pain the passage of such a big and heavy substance must have caused Sri Baba as it came out through his throat, thought Sri Karunyananda. Sri Baba quieted his doubts; “When I will its birth, it is born only as a very soft, pliable substance. It is soft as it emerges from the stomach and comes up the throat. It hardens only at the time it is ejected from the mouth.”

 

This account has been spread around, such as in the book ‘Sri Sathya Sai Baba – a story of God as man‘ (1985) by former long-term ashram resident M.N. Rao, and so we can all see how Sai Baba has changed his mind about how the lingam is formed, and probably has forgotten how he once explained it.

Further, when Sathya Sai Baba resumed the lingam business again two decades after he stopped the yearly show – when his crisis with the major sexual abuse allegations began and something was badly needed to help slow the thinning out of his followers – he pronounced of the lingam he ‘brought forth’ then: “This lingam will not break even if it is dropped from a height with force. This is Amruthtatwam (symbol of immortality). It is changeless. You cannot see such a manifestation anywhere in the world. It is possible only with Divinity.” (Sanathana Sarathi – March 1999, p. 73). If that were really so, how come that Swami Premananda did exactly the same year upon year up until he won himself a double life sentence for rape and murder in the early ’90s?

Houdini invented the regurgitation trick: The regurgitation of such an object was first performed by Houdini after his careful experiments with a comparable ivory ball (attached to a string at first) before performing it and it since then became known in India as a fakir trick. The trick can also be seen on various films, including a film screened on TV in 1988 ( ‘Das Mysterium Der Shiva – Heilige Männer’ (Ein film von Eberhart Thiem, Helga Lippert, Arno Peik) from a German series called ‘Terra X – Rätsel alter Weltkulturen’).

Finally, if the lingam really is made of gold – which there is little reason to doubt – then it can surely be changed by heating it sufficiently, or putting it under a steam hammer. If not, then Sathya Sai Baba is telling untruths as to what it is supposed to be. If it is so eternal and changeless, then why not clear up all questions by getting an advanced physics laboratory to see if they are able in any way to change one (Sathya Sai Baba has dozens of them)? Yes, why not? Or are they too holy to stand up to any test of truth?

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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