Sathya Sai Baba Update by E. Haraldsson

Brian Steel

Copyright ©  2013  Brian Steel

News has just reached me that Erlendur Haraldsson has published an updated version of his popular book on Sathya Sai Baba’s miracles. I have ordered a copy and will comment further when I have received and read it.

I shall be particularly interested to see if he has followed my advice of 8 months ago.
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On 6/12/2012 9:19 PM, Erlendur Haraldsson wrote:

Dear Brian Steel:
Did you not write some books and articles on Sathya Sai Baba? I have your
Compendium. I am updating my Modern Miracles and would liketo know what
you have written since the Compendium.
A reply would be much appreciated.
With best wishes

Erlendur Haraldsson
Professor Emeritus
Faculty of Psychology, School of Health Sciences
University of Iceland
Reykjavik 101, Iceland
Homepage: www.hi.is/~erlendur

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:56:33 +1100
Brian Steel
Erlendur Haraldsson
Well! Hello, Erlandur! Due to your prolonged silence on ssb matters, I had assumed that you were either dead or incapacitated. I am glad that I was mistaken.

The shortest answer to your question, for which I thank you, is:
https://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/
This contains 8 years of reporting on the ssb controversy (2001-). But I am afraid it will involve you in a lot of reading if you are serious in wanting to update and balance your ssb writing.
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The longer answer may strike you as less welcome, but for me it is the inevitable consequence of your extraordinary question (request) and the peculiar attitude which it appears to display.

Where have you been for the past 12 (+) years while the wide debate about  ssb’s bona fides and life’s work has been raging,  mainly on the Internet?  Am I to assume that you do not use the Internet? Surely not. Are you REALLY as unaware as you sound? Have you REALLY not heard of (or been curious enough to follow) my research or, more importantly, the voluminous and quite extraordinary contributions of Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard on these matters over 12 years? Unlike me, they are still writing on a very regular and public basis! And since the premature (!) death of ssb, they have shared all sorts of NEW information about him and his SSO sycophants. Did you know anything about all that, or not? (If not, why not?)

If you now wish to make any tangible impact on public opinion, you must also consider all that (and much more) in your research for the new book. By the way, is it meant for a general or an academic audience? If for the latter, I hope you will not repeat the errors of your colleagues Tulasi Srinivas, Smriti Srinivas (who seems to be a devotee) and that PhD (devotee) chap in NZ whose name escapes me for the moment. They have all produced flawed accounts of ssb.

Warming to the subject you have raised and mindful of a few sparse email contacts with you a few yrs ago, I really must ask you if you have forgotten about my 2005 and 2007 150 page Bibliography of SSB, in the first part of which I wrote about your work on ssb. It’s all there on my fossilised website! You don’t need to ask me. Just do your research!

After your crucial (and now inexplicable) absence from the ssb scene for 12 years or more, I pose the question that I have sometimes asked myself: Why have you kept silent for so long on matters which you could have had an important part in elucidating? And another question:

Given the important critical points about ssb which you raise clearly in the now very out of date ‘Mod Mirs.’, why did you not see fit to air them during the Internet debate? For example: the telltale Krishna episode, and the spurious resurrection claims along with your invaluable evidence of their falseness which, together with Premanand’s evidence, totally discredits them - a fact which devotees airbrush from their distorted view of your book as a vindication of ssb’s divinity. I wrote about this important research of yours in the ‘Compendium’ that you mention and in my other 1998 book (also written as a devotee - but already with a few awkward niggling questions, some of them inspired by sections of your ‘Mod Mirs’! For which, my repeated thanks!).

I do hope that even at this very late date, you will be able to redeem your shameful silence over such a long time with a more balanced account of the life (and premature death) of ssb..
I wish you luck.

Brian Steel
PS I have just remembered a contact in 2009, when, at your request, I removed your name from the (partisan) Wikipedia article on ssb. Activist devotees of ssb had added your name to the list of (Famous) Devotees of ssb. I noticed it and reported it to you. I can see why they did that, but I wonder if you can.