Joy Thomas and group interview June 1994

An interview with Sathya Sai Baba at Trayee Brindavan on June 2, 1994, was attended by Joy and Raye Thomas, a group from San Diego, another from Canada, some Indians and a student. The photos are all from that event.

Sai Baba signing a Joy Thomas’ book in 1994

Raye Thomas with some San Diego devotees. Joy with pen at the ready

Sai Baba Interview
Brindavan 1994

Both Joy and Raye Thomas, who I had known somewhat since 1985, were very forward with Sai Baba, and managed through the interview to get him to sign both her latest manuscript and a series of cards and photos. Joy was still holding out more objects for blessing when we were exiting the room! She had to hobble to the sofa from her wheelchair, never having had her condition improved, though Sai Baba had made her walk (with assistance) into the interview room on her very first visit, which was trumpeted around as a miracle cure. Despite that, she was utterly convinced of all his claims about himself without exception. She was told by him, after doctors had found she had cancer, that it was not so. Yet she died of cancer a few months later.

Her writings demonstrate that she was a highly suggestible and most credulous person, yet more so than her husband Raye. Their comments about Sai Baba and their relations with him were most fanciful and the way they praised him to the highest heavens was confounding… easily hoodwinked by anything he said or did. Whenever I met Raye he flaunted every book, photos of themselves with Swami and related their blessings. The pen-at-the-ready-for-Sai-signings is visible in the photos here. I can only compare them to spoilt children, completely wrapped up in themselves and needing constant affirmation.

Joy Thomas’ peculiar authorship – more here