Sathya Sai Baba Reported Miracles

Reported Miracles

In some books, magazines, filmed interviews and articles, Sathya Sai Baba's followers report incredible miracles and healings of various kinds that they attribute to him. Sathya Sai Baba is said to sometimes take on the illnesses of devotees on himself. Daily, he is observed to allegedly manifest vibuthi (holy ash), and sometimes food and small objects such as rings, necklaces and watches.

In devotees' houses all around the world, there are claims from observers, journalists and devotees that vibuthi, kumkum, turmeric powder, holy water, siva lingams, statues of deities (brass and gold), sugar candy, fruits, herbs, amrita (a fragrant, nectar-like honey), gems, colored string, writings in ash and various other substances spontaneously manifest and materialize on the walls, furniture, pictures and altars of Sathya Sai Baba.

Frank Baranowski, who specialized in kirilian photography and seeing auras, reportedly analyzed Sathya Sai Baba's aura and concluded that Baba was not a human being but a divine personality because his aura was unlike anyone he had seen before. Baranowski claimed that Sathya Sai Baba's aura was so extensive, it appeared to extend beyond the horizon and contained silver and gold bands that he had not observed before.

The retired Icelandic psychology professor Erlendur Haraldsson wrote that he did not get Sathya Sai Baba's permission to study him under controlled circumstances. Nevertheless, he wrote, he investigated and documented the guru's alleged miracles and manifestations through first-hand interviews with devotees and ex-devotees. Haraldsson's research yielded many extraordinary testimonies of reported miracles. Some of the reported miracles attributed to Sathya Sai Baba included levitation (both indoors and outdoors), bilocation, physical disappearances, changing granite into sugar candy, changing water into another drink, changing water into gasoline, producing objects on demand, changing the color of his gown into a different color while wearing it, multiplying food, healings, visions, dreams, making different fruits appear on any tree hanging from actual stems, controlling the weather, physically transforming into various deities and physically emitting brilliant light.

These devotees and ex-devotees also claimed that they witnessed Sathya Sai Baba materialize many substances from his hand such as vibuthi, lost objects, statues, photographs, Indian pastries (both hot and cold), food (hot, cold, solid and fluid), out of season fruits, new banknotes, pendants, necklaces, watches and rings. Haraldsson wrote that the largest allegedly materialized object that he saw was a mangalsutra necklace, 32 inches long, 16 inches long on each side. Haraldsson wrote that some miracles attributed to Sathya Sai Baba resemble the ones described in the New Testament, but also with some differences. According to Haraldsson, although healings certainly figure into Sai Baba's reputation, his impression is that healings do not play a prominent role in Sathya Sai Baba's activities as in those of Jesus.

Sathya Sai Baba has explained the phenomenon of manifestation as being an act of divine creation, but refused to have his materializations investigated under experimental conditions. Critics claim that these materializations are done by sleight of hand and question his claims to perform miracles and other paranormal feats. In April 1976, Dr. H. Narasimhaiah, a physicist, rationalist and then vice chancellor of Bangalore University, founded and chaired a committee "to rationally and scientifically investigate miracles and other verifiable superstitions". Haraldsson stated that Narasimhaiah wrote Sathya Sai Baba a polite letter and two subsequent letters that were widely publicized in which he publicly challenged Baba to perform his miracles under controlled conditions. Sathya Sai Baba said that he ignored Narasimhaiah's challenge because he felt his approach was improper. Sathya Sai Baba further said about the Narasimhaiah committee that "Science must confine its inquiry only to things belonging to the human senses, while spiritualism transcends the senses. If you want to understand the nature of spiritual power you can do so only through the path of spirituality and not science. What science has been able to unravel is merely a fraction of the cosmic phenomena.

According to Erlendur Haraldsson, the formal challenge from the committee came to a dead end because the negative attitude of the committee was obvious and perhaps because of all the fanfare involved. Narasimhaiah stated that he considered the fact that Sathya Sai Baba ignored his letters as one among several indications that his miracles are fraudulent. As a result of this episode, a public debate raged for several months in Indian newspapers. Narasimhaiah's committee was dissolved in August of 1977.

According to a 1994 article written by Alexandra Nagel, a critic of the guru, the 1992 work of the Canadian skeptic, Dale Beyerstein convincingly negated supernatural stories of all kinds circulating about Sathya Sai Baba. In the 1995 TV documentary "Guru Busters", by UK's Channel 4, Sathya Sai Baba was accused of faking his materializations and a videotape was supplied alleging fraud. The same videotape was mentioned in the Deccan Chronicle, on November 23, 1992, on a front page headline "DD Tape Unveils Baba Magic". Erlendur Haraldsson stated that he and his associates carried out a careful analysis of the videotape shown in the "Guru Busters" documentary and mentioned by the Deccan Chronicle. Haraldsson stated that the videotape's quality and resolution left much to be desired and limited the inferences that could be drawn from it. Haraldsson claimed that Dr. Wiseman took the video to a company that specialized in corporate fraud, and which possessed some of the world's best equipment designed to enhance poor quality videotapes. According to Haraldsson, after the videotape was enhanced using a threefold process, the resulting tape contained no firm evidence of fraud. The same company analyzed several still frames from the videotape, enhanced and enlarged them and the images still did not reveal any further information. The "Guru Busters" documentary also reported that Sathya Sai Baba's followers include some of India's intellectual elite, including T.N. Seshan and that professors from national research institutions who are experts in engineering, aeronautics and geology gather to worship a man they believe has supernatural powers.

The magazine India Today published in December 2000 a cover story about the Baba and the allegations of fake miracles quoting the magician P. C. Sorcar, Jr. who considered the Baba a fraud.[68] Basava Premanand, a skeptic and amateur magician, asserted that he has been investigating Sathya Sai Baba since 1968 and believes the guru to be a cheater and charlatan. Premanand sued Sathya Sai Baba in 1986 for violation of the Gold Control Act for Sathya Sai Baba's materializations of gold objects. The case was dismissed, but Premanand appealed on the ground that spiritual power is not a defence recognised in law.Premanand also displayed, in the 2004 BBC documentary Secret Swami, that he could duplicate some of the same acts that Sathya Sai Baba presents as miracles; such as materializations by sleight of hand and the production of a lingam from his mouth. The BBC documentary reported that even some of Sathya Sai Baba's critics believe that he has genuine paranormal powers.

The British journalist Mick Brown discussed in his 1998 book that Sathya Sai Baba's claim of resurrecting the American Walter Cowan in 1971 was probably untrue. His opinion was based on the letters from attending doctors, provided in the Indian Skeptic magazine (published by Premanand). In this same book, Mick Brown also related his experiences with manifestations of vibuthi, from Sathya Sai Baba's pictures in houses in London, and felt that these miraculous manifestations were not fraudulent or the result of trickery.[75] Brown wrote with regards to Sathya Sai Baba's claims of omniscience, that "skeptics have produced documentation clearly showing discrepancies between Baba's reading of historical events and biblical prophecies and the established accounts."