Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The trial has been on the cards for quite some time now. A family of supposed psychics in South Florida have been defrauding grieving folks out of millions (I blogged about them back in last August here) … and so they have been finally put in the dock. (Yep, that’s four of them in the … Read more
Now, to put this in context, he was listed by the Watkins Review as one of the 100 most spiritually influential people in the world (yea, I’m also bothered by that meaningless word “spiritually”, but worry not, the review itself does not mean very much, its just a bookshop review). OK, lets try a few more numbers. There is a claim that he had about around 6 million adherents, and his organization, the Sathya Sai Organisation, reports that there are an estimated 1,200 Sathya Sai Baba Centers in 114 countries worldwide. I’ll not quibble about these numbers, not because I think they are right, (I suspect not), but rather … I simply don’t care to quibble about such numbers. The fact that I don’t dispute is that he had quite a following, and apparently that included presidents and prime ministers from India and beyond.
OK, so lets put our skeptical hats on and take a quick tour.