Prof. Haraldsson Politely Asserts Genuineness of Sai Baba miracles in UK Radio Talk Show in 2012
Last updated on November 1st 2013
I came across, "Past Lives, Apparitions and Sai Baba with Erlendur Haraldsson",http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Note: The part transcripts below may have some minor inaccuracies/typos but I believe they have captured the sense of the matter properly. I am not able to spare the time to review the part transcripts for errors.
The Erlendur Haraldsson part of the video (audio) starts at slightly after 33 min. This part starts with the talk show hosts mentioning that Prof. Haraldsson has been featured on BBC, Discovery channel and Channel 4.
On being questioned about how he got into study of the paranormal, Prof. Erlendur Haraldsson (EH) mentions interactions with Prof. Hans Bender (in Germany),http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The interview then covers EH's investigations into interactions with the departed (contact with the dead) that some people (in Europe) have had.
Then it moves onto EH's investigations into past lives remembered by some children in places like Sri Lanka and Lebanon.
Around 01:04:55 one of the (two) talk show hosts moves the topic to Sai Baba - the host says that his parents were devotees of Sai Baba for some time in London and that he too had attended numerous prayer meetings. The hosts then jocularly mention that they were not aware that EH was an investigator of the "miracles, shall we say" of Sai Baba. The host says that Sai Baba has passed on (the interview seems to have been conducted sometime in the middle of 2012). [Ravi: The way the hosts jocularly mention miracles shows how much they doubted it. The media, especially the Western media, as well as the scientific/rationalist establishment has ensured that such a wrong view of Sai Baba's miracles has been spread among its readers/viewers.]
Around 01:07:20
EH says, "So I spent a lot of time studying Sai Baba and I wrote, in the end, a book about him, Miracles are my visiting cards. In America it was published as Modern Miracles. So I became quite involved with the study of the phenomena of Sai Baba. And he was really very remarkable. There were claims of paranormal phenomena, or miracles, if you like, that are very unique. And some of them even look like the miracles described in the New Testament." [Ravi: Wow! I salute Prof. Haraldsson for courageously stating his view based on his observations. Such statements can invite horrific attack from some rationalist and atheist-scientists who try to tear apart the reputation of scientists making such statements. Very few scientists and academics have the courage that Prof. Haraldsson has shown to publicly make positive statements about Swami's miracles as they perhaps are afraid of the attack they will come under from their peers, especially from the West.]
...
EH says, "One thing was very striking that he would do this so often (materialization miracles - rings, pendants, fruits, sweets etc.). I think my estimate was that he might produce like twenty everyday and that was just day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And he gave all this material away. But then, of course, magicians can let appear in their hands various things. But they don't give it away (laughter). They do not give away gold rings, jewellery."
...
Talk show host talks about magic tricks' charges. Around 01:09:57 EH says, "Unfortunately the critics - and I have studied them very carefully and interviewed some of them - his most severe critics as far as the normal explanation is concerned have never really come close to him. They have never observed him. They have never bothered to look up the whole evidence - not just individual, single instances. Maybe it was trickery, but then it was trickery of a greater kind than we have ever seen by any magician before."
...
"He would produce things, like on the spur of the moment. And so it was a response to something that came up in the conversation. Like I remember once when we were trying to get him involved in experiments. And he always wanted to talk about religion and religious life and so on. But we were, of course, interested in experiments and scientific view. He said, one day, that daily life and spiritual life should be like a double rudraksha. Well, I had never heard what a rudraksha is. My colleague, Karlis Osis, didn't know what a rudraksha is. So I asked him what is a rudraksha, what is a double rudraksha? And he tried to explain but couldn't do it. Our interpreter couldn't understand it - couldn't explain it either. But I was very insistent on this and asked him some 3-4 times. So in the end he seems to lose patience and then just waved his hand and then opened the palm and showed me - this is it. And then there was a rudraksha in his palm. So sometimes these things seem to appear spontaneously."
Talk show host, "What is a rudraksha?" EH says, "Well, you asked like I did. (Laughter). A rudraksha is a kernel of a fruit like a (stone) plum. And a rudraksha is a very famous kernel of fruit in India ..."
Around 01:13:30 EH says, "Vibhuti serves a similar role in Hinduism as bread or wine in Christianity. And he often produces this - more often than anything else. And gives it to people very freely. Sometimes this vibhuti appears on like photos of him or other *** deities and for (in) an inexplicable way - and I have visited many, many such places in India, in Sri Lanka, even in England, in London, and in United States. ...
Well, I can tell you one story. I was (once) going to Sri Lanka. But I had to stop in Lebanon and they hadn't had the time to get my visa for Sri Lanka, here in Iceland. ... So I decided to get my visa for Sri Lanka in the embassy in Beirut. So I went there, filled out the form. They told me, if I had patience I could wait for it. Then after a while one of the secretaries came and told me, the consul would like to see me. So I went to see the consul. Then he was with my passport in his hand. And said, your name sounds familiar to me. Did you not write a book about Sai Baba? Yes, I had written a book. Then he told me then I must tell about something that happened to me. He told me that he had a daughter - he was an elderly man, about 60 or little older - and she had, at that time, been very sick. And he feared about her life. So he decided - he had been told that sometimes it might help to pray for (to) Sai Baba for help - and he did that. And his daughter recovered for whatever reason. Then he was so happy with this that then he got a photograph of Sai Baba in a large frame and hung it up in his apartment.
Then he told me, soon after that, there started to come some dust on the cover of the photo. And he told me - I live upstairs in this building. Would you like to see it? So he invited me up to his apartment. And there in his bedroom opposite to his bed was a large framed photograph of Sai Baba ... Then I saw that on the glass were streaks of vibhuti on it. Also between the glass and the photo. And he had never opened the frame. So it was a mystery to him how this had happened. But this man, this consul, he told me that he had never seen Sai Baba. He had no particular connection with him. But apart from his praying for help at one time, and being impressed with Sai Baba since. So, how did this happen? (At a) long distance. And there are many distance phenomena like that.
Those who say that this is all easily explainable, I think they do not consider, they do not look at the full picture. They just take one or two little instances which may be explained easily."
[Ravi: I think Prof. Haraldsson has made a vital point. Those who try to explain away Swami's miracles take a few instances and focus only on them. They do not look at the full picture! Once one brings in the full picture - many materializations of great variety day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year - explaining them away as normal magic tricks simply does not sound sensible. It is the observation and interrogation of devotees that Prof. Haraldsson has done over a span of four decades that makes him state that Swami's miracles, when taken as a full picture, cannot be explained away (as normal magic tricks). He has not made this statement or arrived at this conclusion casually and hurriedly. He has been thorough about his investigation and interrogation over a large span of time and then arrived at this conclusion.]
Around 1:22:30
Talk show host - "You were there and you saw him. What was your feeling about the whole thing, about him? How do you feel yourself about him? The man. Do you think he actually had paranormal powers?"
EH says, "Well, when I look at the cases I studied and also some of the things I observed it is hard not to think that he had some paranormal abilities.... And there really hasn't been anyone like him."
Talk show host, "No. And I have known of nuclear scientists and all kinds of people who were devotees of Sai Baba. ... Most impressive type of people."
--------------------------
I later had some exchanges with some correspondents - Sai devotees and non-Sai devotee friends of mine. I felt it appropriate to share one exchange, which the correspondent okayed, and my part of the exchange with others. Please note that I have deliberately not used divine titles for Bhagawan in these exchanges as that currently is not the norm for scientific and media (especially Western media) circles as well as non Sai devotees.
A friend (non Sai devotee) raised a possibility that Prof. Haraldsson may have been fooled.
I wrote him (slightly edited):
Thank you for your response.
You are certainly entitled to your view. My view, however, is that Prof. Erlendur Haraldsson (EH) is not one of the scientists who are "the easiest to get fooled".
Please note that his concluding statement is a guarded one. I repeat it below for clarity:
EH says, "Well, when I look at the cases I studied and also some of the things I observed it is hard not to think that he had some paranormal abilities.... And there really hasn't been anyone like him."
From a science point of view certainly the above views of Prof. Haraldsson have to be treated as his individual views and not something that has withstood scientific scrutiny. [As that requires objective verification in Lab. conditions and some mainstream scientists may even demand repeatability of the 'miracles' by scientists in a Lab. before it is considered a scientific fact!] But from the point of view of non-scientific knowledge it is up to the reader to decide the "weight" of Prof. Haraldsson's opinion.
I would like to share a sensitive part of the interview which I hesitated to mention in my initial mail.
Around 1:20
EH says, "There were also claims from some of the students around him that he would be keeping things in chair and so on in his later years. But I think that came rather late in his life."
So it seems to me that Prof. Haraldsson would be willing to consider that some of Sai Baba's materializations later on in his life could be "magic tricks".
[I personally am not in a position to make an authoritative statement here. I have seen many materializations (Vibhuti, necklace etc.) in the hall where he gave Darshan (Sai Kulwanth Hall) but never saw any evidence of trickery associated with those materializations. They usually were in response to some good acts or good dramatic/musical performances and gave most of the assembled people a lot of shared joy. But then I am not an expert in these matters and so I cannot judge whether these materializations were paranormal materializations or magic tricks. My paranormal experiences with Sai Baba have been in the area of him showing me that he knew about my thoughts while I was in front of him and my thoughts and actions while I was physically away from him as well. But they are individual and subjective experiences unlike materialization which was viewed and experienced by many people at the same time. I must also say that I feel my experiences of paranormal capabilities of Sai Baba were very appropriate for the relationship I had with him which was that of a spiritual seeker and a Guru. He taught that his materializations are a small part of him (his reality/divinity) and that spiritual seekers should not focus too much on it - so I tried to follow that. Perhaps worldly materializations were more appropriate for devotees who had material expectations in their relationship with Sai Baba or perhaps had a need for such materializations in their spiritual and material journey.]
My understanding of Prof. Haraldsson's statement/view is that Sai Baba's materializations and other paranormal capabilities, when taken as a full picture (over decades of Sai Baba's life), is genuine.
The critics have focused on showing a few instances as "magic tricks". Perhaps their contention may be that if one instance of trickery is proved then all of Sai Baba's materializations are magic tricks. That would be like saying that if one is proved to have lied once, even if it is a white lie, then all statements of that person are lies. [Of course, the credibility of a person takes a major hit if he/she has been proved to be a liar in non-trivial situations (non-white lies) but it does not mean that the person always lies.]
My view is that even if some instances seem to be tricks (nothing proved, mind you, but a view that is heavily spread by the media and on the Internet), you cannot dismiss all materialization instances as tricks. If you want to form a proper view of a person's paranormal capabilities you have to look at the full picture/full evidence and then come to a conclusion. Prof. Haraldsson, being a balanced, veteran and eminent scientist, has chosen the full picture/full evidence view to form his opinion, even if the opinion does not suit the needs and motives of powerful Western media outlets and some other powerful Western groups. I again salute Prof. Haraldsson for his courage to state his view publicly in a Western radio talk show (media) and in his book (previous edition and hopefully the current edition/new version has the same view). Prof. Haraldsson, in my humble opinion, has been a truth-seeker and has spoken the truth about Sri Sathya Sai Baba, even if many powerful people in the media and scientific circles do not want to hear and know such science-shaking truth (to be more precise, current mainstream science shaking truth).
--- end response to friend (slightly edited) ---
I followed up with another mail whose contents are given below (slightly edited):
I am not pressing the issue here. Just sharing something to give you a feel of the atmosphere in which Sai Baba would materialize objects during the days that I was able to see some of his materializations in Puttaparthi.
I was browsing for genuine Sai Baba miracles and came across this youtube video,http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Around the time this materialization was done, Swami was quite severely physically impaired. The chair shown in the video during this sequence is his detachable car chair - he would not walk in public - I think he needed great assistance for walking at this time. I believe his hand was not very steady and so he needed fair bit of assistance. Note how he struggles a bit when the necklace gets stuck in the hair of the student.
I think if he were to use trickery to produce necklaces and rings when he was so severely challenged physically, at least some times he would have fumbled which would have exposed any hidden recess from which he procured the item. But I have not seen any such slip-up in quite a few materializations that I saw, though from some distance, during the last years of Swami's life when he was very severely physically challenged.
BTW the video goes on to show some other materializations - I have no comment on those.
--- end response to friend (slightly edited) ---
The last follow up mail (so far) was this one (slightly edited):
This youtube video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
At 05:38 one can see clearly that the palm could not have been holding a necklace. The waving motion starts - the sleeve of the robe is visible - the palm does not go anywhere near the chair arm.
At 05:42 the necklace is hanging down his palm (perhaps being held by his fingers though that is not so clear)!
Please note that this was during the last period of his life when he was very physically challenged - he is seated in the portable car-chair and would not (maybe could not) walk in public.
--- end response to friend (slightly edited) ---
Finally and rather fittingly for this mail I would like to share an exchange (slightly edited) I had with a long-time Puttaparthi resident (and Sai devotee, of course), which brings in the Divine and holy perspective.
Correspondent: Swamy once said at Kodai, " What i create and give you may be available in market outside but what you cannot buy is the power behind, which i give with the article"
Ravi: Very appropriate Swami message in this context. Thank you so much.
Correspondent: "Miracles are my visiting cards" is the most simplest reason Swamy gives for the creations he does and he himself asks people not to attach importance to them once you get into his fold as a devotee.Once you get into his fold you are given a spiritual caning ! He would exhort us to seek the creator and not his creations, the kingmaker and not the king.
Seeing Swamy wave his hand to create anything, is a very very holy experience.
Ravi: I entirely agree. It was awesome for me when I saw the first materializations as an eyewitness. Later, even after the novelty faded, I enjoyed it both as a demonstration of spiritual power and as something which gave so much spiritual joy to the people who could witness it.
Correspondent: Those who enjoy it is because they are enveloped in his loving grace. You never feel He is tricking you. It is for those who are out of his fold.
Swamy once said about criticism on Him thus, " Let that 'daridram'/misfortune not befall you to be out of my fold and hearing all that. There will come a time when all those who criticize me will not even be on the horizon anymore but SAI will continue to remain, choose between the two"
Ravi: A vital choice indeed! The spiritual aspect of life, as the material aspect of life, is strewn with choices - it is upto the person to make the choices and thereby decide a major part of his/her future.
--- end exchange with longtime Puttaparthi resident (slightly edited) ---
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