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22. How do you view the Wikipedia project? Do you see this online “free encyclopaedia” as being progressive or flawed? The CI website describes how you were snubbed on Wikipedia by sectarian interests. Can you enlarge further?
I think that basically, the Wikipedia project is a potentially very productive one, and can convey relevant information. Some entries are detailed, and give quite helpful bibliographies. It is obvious that distinguished academics are willing to have entries about themselves showing on Wikipedia, and these can be quite useful. At the same time, some academics have expressed reservations about the project as a whole. There have been diverse complaints about the accuracy of many Wikipedia entries.
There is the major issue of cults, suspect organisations, and questionable entrepreneurs gaining a foothold in Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there are a substantial number of entries in Wikipedia which tend to glorify cult figures and entities of suspect dimensions. The only indication that gullible readers have of any drawbacks are references to controversies or criticisms, and these (when present) are sometimes too brief or ambiguous for the general reader to decode appropriately.
The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has only very partially redressed the balance by banning a few extremist Wikipedia editors (via an Arbitration Committee). It is arguable that more needs to be done to prevent the potential of this undertaking from being impaired and weakened. Some academic contributors are said to have migrated to Citizendium, a rival project which has different guidelines. The rival, launched in 2007, is viewed by supporters as having more reliable characteristics facilitated by the real names of qualified contributors.
Thousands of anonymous volunteers for the Wikipedia project have been viewed as a drawback by some analysts. There is ample indication of disagreements with the official Wikipedia policies. See, for instance, www.wikipediareview.com. One summary states that “recent and foreseeable changes in the Wikipedia modus operandi are, in fact, a belated acknowledgment of the validity of the unrelenting pressure from its many articulate and brave critics.” This observation comes from Brian Steel, “Wikipedia’s Grudging Recognition of its Self-Imposed Limitations: An Internet Case Study” (April 2008), which is available at http://briansteel.wordpress.com.
The following data in 21 sections is a presentation of the difficulties resulting from a Wikipedia User page of 2006 that is still being displayed on Google Search to my disadvantage. I have never been a Wikipedia contributor, and I have cause to regard the stigmatising User page (of American origin) as an infringement upon my rights as a British publisher.
CONTENTS KEY
22.1 The Sectarian Cordon in Wikipedia
In October 2006, I discovered a Wikipedia User page that was very hostile towards my publishing effort known as Citizen Initiative (CI). The pseudonym of the attacker was here SSS108. I did not at first know who the aggressor was, though afterwards some academic friends were able to trace the identity of this person, who is a salient American internet defender of the controversial guru Sathya Sai Baba. He had become a Wikipedia editor in relation to that guru. His name is known in variants. He has identified himself as Gerald Moreno, and as Joe Moreno, and some commentators have therefore called him Gerald “Joe” Moreno. One of his web pseudonyms is Joe108, and so there is additional reason to use the second name. His date of birth is uncertain, and there are no details of his schooling. It is known that he visited the ashram of Sathya Sai Baba, and he appears to have become a devotee at the age of eighteen. This event apparently occurred about twenty years ago.
The web career of Joe Moreno is notorious for misrepresentation of his opponents. He has gained a reputation for quoting out of context, assuming worst-case interpretations, and employing ad hominem argument. His tactics are ruled by considerations of defending Sathya Sai Baba against all criticism.
I had never referred to Joe Moreno, and had formerly been unaware of him. The sectarian was rather zealously keen to downgrade my books because of critical appendices about Sathya Sai which appeared in only one of my works. He urged that reference to myself should be removed from Wikipedia, employing pretexts that did not convince spectators. This tactic was part of a more general strategy in which Moreno attempted (on Wikipedia) to cordon sources critical of his guru, and more especially the ex-devotee Robert Priddy (a retired academic in Norway). Gerald Joe Moreno twice succeeded in getting the Wikipedia administration to freeze the Wikipedia article on Priddy for editing, a situation that was resolved in favour of Priddy by Wikipedia administrators. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Priddy.
The strongly sectarian slant to the Moreno argument pressed that a detailed book of mine should be censored because it was self-published. The civilised onus should instead be to read a book before dismissing it on grounds of sectarian preference. Academic sectors are aware that there exist very different categories of “self-published” material, ranging from the puerile to the serious. Self-published books of a serious nature have been cited by academics, who are furthermore aware of the superficial nature of many books published by mainline commercial publishers who dominate the book trade. The literate criterion for recognition of a book is due information content. See further no. 9 above.
An attendant irony is that vast quantities of internet materials are “self-published,” including those of Joe Moreno. The only way to determine the validity or value of such materials is to check the content. Dismissive criteria require to be based upon firmer grounds than sectarian aversion to unwelcome details. Wikipedia guidelines perhaps require some firm updating in such respects. Wikipedia criteria for self-published works are reliability and citation; to date several of my books have been cited in Wikipedia articles.
The Wikipedia User page (Oct. 2006) of SSS108, alias Joe Moreno, commenced with a disputed quote in which my name was accompanied by that of Robert Priddy. The latter is detested by Moreno as a rival interpreter. Priddy sources were employed in one of the appendices to my Investigating the Sai Baba Movement (2005). The User page reported a dialogue between four contributors, and there were frequent objections to the dismissive angle by the Wikipedia editor Andries Krugers Dagneaux, who clearly favoured the quote in dispute (which is strongly associated with him). The Wikipedia quote read as follows:
“According to Kevin Shepherd, the former national leader of the Sathya Sai movement in Norway, Robert Priddy, expressed the opinion that Sathya Sai Baba was an accomplice to the 1993 murders, among others based on information given to him by his friend V. K. Narasimhan.”
Moreno employed his disapproval of this quote as a means of applying inconsequential status to Citizen Initiative (my publishing project), and urged the “removal of reference to Shepherd” on the basis of a self-publishing imprint that was allegedly irrelevant to Wikipedia. He emphasised the absence of online references and media articles to the British author, who was clearly despised for having approvingly cited the Moreno “Anti-Sai” rival Robert Priddy.
The controversial “bedroom murders” of 1993 occurred in the private quarters of the guru. The murder of four intruders by the local police became a major issue amongst conscientious objectors, who found that there was no due investigation into, or satisfactory explanation of, the anomaly. Very briefly, four young men armed with knives entered the bedroom of Sathya Sai one night. They were stopped by personal attendants, two of whom were killed in the struggle that ensued. The guru escaped, and the intruders were shot dead in his bedroom by the police. The government did not proceed with a due investigation, though pictures of the bloodstained corpses gained web exposure. There have been different explanations of this violent event.
It may be of interest in more impartial sectors to quote here the passage in my book that was the source for the disputed Wikipedia quote: “During his visits to the guru’s ashram since 1984, Priddy had encountered suspicious details, though he had explained these away according to the method of exegesis favoured within the sect. The crunch came in 1996, when his respected friend V.K. Narasimhan told him in secret some key facts about the notorious murders at the ashram in 1993. The shock caused Priddy to investigate further, a move which led to his increasing disillusionment. The evidence finally convinced him that Sathya Sai was an accomplice to murder.” (Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, p. 293). See also 23.9 below.
In his dismissal of Citizen Initiative, Moreno relied heavily upon his email contact with two agencies who gave inadequate replies. He cited a very brief communication from Sheffield University, whose sales representative stated that she had never heard of Citizen Initiative and could find no trace of that imprint in any list of publishers. Many university outlets in Britain are small, and decline to stock books that are not officially prescribed for academic curricula; they frequently evidence an ignorance of unprescribed books, as myself and others have found. The imprint under attack from the webstalker was in fact listed in a major directory having both published format and online representation, and one which is quite sufficient for most small publishers not claiming giant commercial status. The sectarian Wikipedia User was not aware of this, however.
The unfamiliarity of Joe Moreno with basic matters was content to quote a brief four line communication from booktrust.org, who correctly reported that my books were listed on the Nielsen Bookdata index of books in print, though they inaccurately rendered the imprint of another publisher from whom I have gained distribution rights. New Media Books here became New Media Books Ltd. Laxity in relation to detail is all too common within the book trade.
The sectarian User SSS108, alias Joe Moreno, also implied that the book of mine which he attacked did not use “multiple independent primary sources,” an accusation disproven by due inspection of the 480 annotations contained in that book and which run to over one hundred pages extent (Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, pp.163-268). There are onlookers who believe that the sectarian User had never seen a copy of the book he maligned.
I have been told that I have strong grounds for repudiating the sectarian Wikipedia User page, and not merely because this proscribing gesture was presented by a person soon afterwards banned from Wikipedia indefinitely (in March 2007).
22.2 Redundant Wikipedia User Page Hosted by Google Inc.
Despite such grave setback (via the ban) to his campaign against critics of Sathya Sai Baba, the ex-Wikipedia Joe Moreno retained his defamatory User page on Google, conveying the impression that this was a valid document representing unsullied Wikipedia protocol. It was a deliberate attempt to subvert my Google Search name listing, and is considered a very serious matter by cult investigators and legal experts.
This episode gains extra profile from the factor of an alleged complicity involving Dr. Michael Goldstein, a very prominent American representative of the Sathya Sai Baba sect who is believed by ex-devotees to be giving strong support (and payment) to Gerald Joe Moreno. However, quite apart from this factor, the redundant Wikipedia User page under discussion here exhibits a sectarian thrust that is obvious to careful analysts. Moreno is an American living in New Mexico, and became a devotee of Sathya Sai in his late teens. His primary website saisathyasai.com is an epic of militant apologist strategy, in which all critical voices are adversely depicted in terms of “smear campaigns,” and in which strong allegations against Sathya Sai Baba are routinely repudiated.
The User page at issue was entitled User:SSS108/Kevin Shepherd. This comprised a form of defamation and dismissal aiming at literary and publishing efforts, though based solely upon three appendices relating to Sathya Sai Baba. Those appendices (Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, pp. 269-301) were implied as containing “biased or malicious content,” when in fact they were relaying some rather pressing ex-devotee internet accounts, and also other sources including legitimate BBC documents (available online) concerning the strongly alleged misdemeanours of Sathya Sai Baba. The BBC sources were a consequence of the famed 2004 documentary The Secret Swami, widely regarded as a milestone in televised cult investigation. Yet the pro-Sai activist Joe Moreno clearly wanted to stigmatise my appendices and their contents as “secondary sources” which could be dismissed from Wikipedia files. Whereas academics consider appendices in an annotated work to be a legitimate extension for controversial materials.
Moreno insinuated that the use of online sources is not a reliable measure, which in his case is amusing, as he has only produced online materials, having no published books to his credit. The Wikipedia guidelines in such matters could be considered muddled, at least in the hands of such banned Users as Gerald Joe Moreno. One could easily argue that if internet sources are considered secondary, then Wikipedia can be relegated. However, it has to be stressed again that Wikipedia have banned Moreno, and I am told that they may be upgrading their guidelines. It is now believed that both Google Inc. and Wikipedia should act in concert against the online circulation of misleading documents from banned Users.
There is the further matter of textual content in the misrepresented book snubbed by a sectarian mentality resorting to a Wikipedia User page. The text of Investigating the Sai Baba Movement (pp.1-161) deals with three entities who are now the focus of three different sects, namely Sai Baba of Shirdi, Upasni Maharaj, and Meher Baba. These deceased entities have been controversially appropriated by certain Sathya Sai Baba supporters (not Moreno) as ballast for a “Sai Baba Movement.” This concept tends to strongly revolve around the claim of Sathya Sai Baba to be the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba, who died in 1918. The portrayal by Sathya Sai partisans is not convincing in other sectors, either amongst contrasting sects or the larger audience of readers and assessors. Moreno does not mention any of these pertinent matters in his trite dismissal.
22.3 Rick Ross Complains About Jossi Fresco on Wikipedia
One of the contributors to the dialogue reported by Moreno on his Wikipedia User page is named as Jossi. It is evident from the wordings that Jossi was in basic agreement with Moreno about removing a disputed quote from Wikipedia on the subject of Sathya Sai Baba (although Jossi was not as systematic as Moreno, who was the major opposing contributor). Jossi chose to emphasise the disputed quote in terms of “highly controversial material,” a deliberation which Moreno furthered in terms of “a potentially libellous comment.” So the quote would have to be suppressed, in other words. See also 22.1 above.
I have been told that Jossi is the Wikipedia administrator/editor Jossi Fresco, noted to be a long-standing devotee of the controversial figure known as Guru Maharaji, who led the Divine Light Mission in the 1970s. That project gained the reputation of a cult on the media, and the critical reports caused this guru to change his name to Prem Rawat, while his organisation was renamed Eli Vital. According to cult analyst Rick Ross, “Jossi not only has used his editor’s position to stifle criticism of Prem Rawat, but has also more generally manipulated Wikipedia entries on the subject of cults and related topics.”
Ross further comments that any complaints on such matters are likely to be addressed to the “Conflict of Interest Noticeboard” on Wikipedia. The snag being that “Jossi Fresco created this board.” Ross adds that the Wikipedia supervisors have been informed about the discrepancies at issue, but that nothing has been done to date. Ross concludes with the statement that “Jossi Fresco is a glaring example of why Wikipedia is at times a less than credible internet resource and per its disclaimer no one should automatically accept ‘the validity of information found’ there.” Rick Ross has provided the reader with the relevant disclaimer: “Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here.” See Rick Ross “Conflict of Interest at Wikipedia ‘Conflict of Interest Noticeboard’” dated Feb. 9th 2008 at www.cultnews.com. Such matters are currently of great concern to academics and other researchers in different countries.
22.4 Wikipedia Bans Joe Moreno in March 2007
However, the Wikipedia hierarchy were alert to the factor of Joe Moreno. That sectarian gained a reputation in Wikipedia for making personal attacks on other editors. The Wikipedia administrator known as Mel Etitis was in friction with Moreno, whose truculent disposition contributed to his official and indefinite ban from Wikipedia in March 2007. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sathya Sai Baba 2. See also 22.14 below. Moreno subsequently posted complaints about Wikipedia that were viewed by many spectators as a distortion of events. Critics said that he did not at first refer to the fact of his ban, but instead gave the impression that he had decided to withdraw from Wikipedia. Cf. Moreno, My Ban on Wikipedia at saisathyasai.com. This item is also entitled “Mel Etitis and his ‘Peter J. King’ Sockpuppet Cover-up on Wikipedia.” As the title indicates, the item is strongly pitched against the Wikipedia administrator Mel Etitis (associated with Oxford University), who reprimanded Moreno for expressing personal attacks against other Wikipedia editors.
Another item found on the Moreno primary website is Sathya Sai Baba Wikipedia Article: Biased and Controlled by Ex-Devotees. The theme here is that Moreno attempted to alter the bias during his tenure as a Wikipedia editor of the article in question. The pro-Sai activist here refers to his rival Andries Krugers Dagneaux (another Wikipedia editor) as “a highly critical ex-devotee.” Such credentials are evidently considered reprehensible. On Dagneaux, see also 22.9 below.
In general, Moreno became known for his personal attacks and all-out resistance to critics of Sathya Sai. He aimed continually at ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba, especially prominent ones like Robert Priddy of Norway, a retired academic of Oslo University who was Moreno’s primary target during his Wikipedia phase. One of those who took exception to this tendency was the Wikipedian Martin Alan Kazlev, who has described the Moreno problem in several web memos. The attitude of Kazlev to guru movements is in general rather mild, yet he notably describes Moreno in terms of “a degree of shadow projection that I have not seen associated with any other guru movement I have investigated.” Kazlev was formerly sympathetic to Moreno, which has been considered a significant factor. See the commentary at http://www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/Anti-SaiBaba_deceptions.html. See also Kazlev, “Gerald Joe Moreno’s Google infovandalism,” at www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/Moreno_google_disinformation.html. See also Kazlev, “Gerald ‘Joe’ Moreno: A Case Study of a Sai Baba Polemicist,” comprising several items available at www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/Moreno_index.html. Kazlev has described himself as a former long-term devotee of Sathya Sai Baba.
Moreno has objected to a psychological profile of himself in the Kazlev counter; he has attacked Kazlev as a believer in new age lore. Ironically, it was the rather broad-ranging interests of Kazlev that initially led him to take the Moreno website seriously, prior to perceiving major discrepancies relating to Moreno descriptions of the detested “Anti-Sai” rival exegetes. The latter were supposedly conducting a “hate campaign” against the guru, and were viewed by the attacker in stridently uncomplimentary terms. When Kazlev contacted the rivals, he found that they were quite different to the hostile pro-Sai depiction, and he ended up agreeing with them.
For a convenient checklist of critical sources, see also Brian Steel, “Gerald Joe Moreno: The Methodology of an Internet Propagandist” at http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/joe_morenos_mo.htm
22.5 Sectarian Attack Against Objection Relating to Wikipedia Cordon
In late August 2007 appeared the objecting webpage Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia, available at www.citizeninitiative.com/sathya_sai_and_wikipedia.htm [subsequently amplified and updated]. This four-part commentary on diverse events was composed by me with some assistances, and was left in the third person on pressing advice. The contents dwelt upon the cordon created in Wikipedia by Joe Moreno prior to his ban, and also defended my publishing venture against his Wikipedia User page. Some additional details were given, including the FAIR versus INFORM controversy in Britain that is of current interest in relation to cults and suspect organisations.
A month after (late September) appeared the acutely disparaging webpage by Joe Moreno on his primary website saisathyasai.com. This was entitled Citizen Initiative and Kevin R. D. Shepherd, and displayed a set of headings clearly designed to repudiate. There were seventeen headings, and fourteen of these specified my name. The denunciation and defamation was accompanied by a blog boast from Moreno on digg.com which asserted that he had exposed me as “a shabby and biased researcher.” See 22.8 below. However, the consensus of informed opinion has been that Moreno’s reaction to my defence was extremist, typically attempting to depict his subject (myself in this instance) in the worst possible light, and with pronounced rhetorical flourishes and missing context. Moreno gave the impression that I was a literary criminal who had very unfairly attacked him from the standpoint of a fanatical critic of Sathya Sai Baba. The gist here is that he was totally in the right, and that I was totally in the wrong.
The overall complexion to this situation merits the description of Gerald Joe Moreno as a sectarian aggressor, which is a stronger phrase than sectarian apologist. Bearing in mind that the apologism of Moreno is the unyielding kind, flaws not being acknowledged. Extremist apologism might be the most accurate description in this respect. Alternative descriptions are extremist pro-Sai polemicist and arch-activist for sectarian psychology.
The attack webpage commenced with a libellous preamble and then arrayed accusations ranging from Moreno’s sectarian disapproval of The Guardian newspaper and a major BBC documentary (The Secret Swami) to his customary misrepresentation of Wikipedia events and his usual snubs of ex-devotees. The preamble is markedly hostile and has been regarded as an excess of sectarian animosity. That item is partially entitled Kevin R. D. Shepherd Reveals his Bias. This was discernibly a retort to the title of Part One of my webpage, which includes the phrase Gerald Moreno’s bias against Robert Priddy and Kevin R.D. Shepherd. That phrase applies in a context of the cordon achieved by Moreno’s Wikipedia editorship in 2006. Wikipedia protocol enjoins a “neutral point of view” as a mandatory ideal, and it is obvious that Wikipedia arbitrators did not feel that Moreno had achieved the requirements for editorship when they banned him indefinitely in March 2007.
Other analysts say that Moreno repeated his defect of belligerence in his attack webpage, which was keen to eliminate my defence against his hostile Wikipedia User page. The difference being that the sequel was more extreme than the User page. Elements of the popular American blog style were incorporated in the sequel that do not show on the User page. Moreno’s basic medium of communication has been blogs and other web media of the compact variety. Many items on his primary website reflect a blog idiom or format that not every visitor finds compelling as a reference source. His habit of grading other (non-Moreno) sources according to a pro-Sai activist set of priorities is a further deterrent to non-sectarians.
The vehement sectarian now accused me of not representing his contributions, when in fact I had linked to his primary website (containing those contributions) and quoted from his FAQ. My detailed coverage of that FAQ included the complaint of Moreno that “Anti-Sai” websites did not link to his own website, a factor which he has interpreted in terms of an “agenda of hate.” Because of this accusation, I was careful to link to the Moreno website in the bloc of web links I supplied on my Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia webpage. Moreno chose to ignore my gesture, and the accompanying libels and snubs tend very much to indicate that Joe Moreno is the party cultivating an agenda of hate. To date I have retained the link, though I have been advised to remove it in view of the extreme belligerence of the sectarian activist in my direction.
Some ex-devotees will not link to Moreno webpages for technical reasons that are understandable (see 22.21 below). As an outsider to the sect, I was an exception to their tendency in making a link to Moreno that was clearly visible in a bloc of web links relating to sources. It is obvious that such gestures of inclusion are wasted upon the sectarian activist.
The Moreno contributions do not prove the innocence of Sathya Sai Baba, but instead attest an extremist tactic extending to mockery and character assassination of outspoken critics. The markedly partisan tone of Moreno web output lends support to the ex-devotee contention that he is in league with Dr. Goldstein and the international Sathya Sai Organisation.
The renewed Moreno offensive dismissed my complaint at his Wikipedia User page. That complaint was mere “whining and snivelling” according to the belligerent sectarian. Gerald Joe Moreno is obviously beyond criticism in his own estimation, and complaints at his severity are clearly deemed the stuff to be trodden down. We are here back in the medieval era in too many respects. The Moreno treatment of objectors to Sathya Sai Baba, and to his own sweeping judgments, is quite stupefying.
The renewed offensive included a hostile dismissal of testifiers to abuse, mainly Alaya Rahm and Ullrich Zimmermann. The former is associated with a BBC documentary; he was reared from infancy by his devotee parents to believe in Sathya Sai, though even the parents changed course when their son was sexually abused. See 23.6 below. Zimmermann is unusual for lengthy video interviews which have been covered on ex-devotee websites. Some rather confusing references employed by Zimmermann have been acknowledged by the commentator Robert Priddy. It is obvious that Zimmermann and other Western devotees were afflicted by concepts and syndromes deriving from the “miracle” projection which Sathya Sai encouraged at their expense. Some of them could not think clearly in emerging from their predicament. Zimmermann expressed misapprehensions about such matters as “genital switch miracles,” and became further distracted by Ramtha channelling.
However, the confusions in this case were not what I meant by the statement “one of the most arresting testimonies has only recently been duly evaluated.” The due evaluation (by Priddy) is completely ignored by Moreno, who indulges in the injurious subversion of context for which he is notorious amongst ex-devotees. Under such adverse influences, it is no wonder that many devotees remain confused about basic problems.
A very distorting view is presented by Moreno in Kevin Shepherd’s Reference to Ullrich Zimmermann, a superficial item which does no justice to my perspective or even the reports and commentary upon which it was based. He has furthermore ignored my qualifying remarks in the Response to Moreno (see 22.9 below). Diverse analysts have concluded that it is useless to compose responses to such a sectarian agent of misrepresentation.
Despite confusions in the reports of Zimmermann, that source does testify to sexual abuse and the common acceptance of this disparity at the Puttaparthi ashram of the guru. Zimmermann narrates a personal experience of oral sex with the guru, and says that the homosexual activities of Sathya Sai were well known to many ashram residents. Such details serve to confirm other accounts such as those of ex-devotee Conny Larsson, whom I have elsewhere reported (in Response to Moreno) as describing the ashram situation in terms of “choreography for paedophile activity.” Larsson was a devotee for over twenty years until 1999, and has written a significant book about his experiences of the guru. See 23.10 below.
Such details are evaded by the Moreno tactic of presenting Zimmermann as a “new age follower of Ramtha” whose testimony against Sathya Sai is somehow invalid. Moreno’s basic line of defence is invariably to distract attention from unwelcome details and instead magnify the supposed errors of critics. This recourse is exemplified by the stratagem in his superficial item about my reference to Zimmermann. Moreno here tries to make readers think that “these are the ludicrous stories (e.g. genital switch miracles) that Kevin Shepherd endorsed, believed, and described as being ‘most arresting testimonies.’” This verbal twist clearly violates my statement that “one of the most arresting testimonies has only recently been duly evaluated.”
Some alert academics are able to perceive the underhand nature of Moreno polemic. Those analysts can see that I did not endorse or believe ludicrous stories, any more than did Robert Priddy in his critical commentary on Zimmermann. The poverty of Moreno argument can only seduce those with little or no critical acumen. Due evaluation of one arresting testimony (i.e., Zimmermann) will eschew both the devotional confusions and the pro-Sai activist commentary committed to denigration of any critical perception not in favour of the guru.
The Moreno diversion has also argued that I was in such error not to have mentioned his (very dismissive) contributions on Zimmermann that he is “sure this information is going to be very disillusioning to Kevin Shepherd’s readers and admirers (as few as they are).” Note the superior tone of the sectarian activist, who allegedly has a much more significant readership, despite his flippant blog mode of commentary.
The source on Zimmermann to which I linked was “Ullrich Zimmermann’s Three Interviews on Sathya Sai Baba,” now at Ullrich Zimmermann's Shocking Interview with Sathya Sai Baba. The relevant commentary of ex-devotee Robert Priddy is here critical throughout, and does refer to the “dual sexuality” or “genital switch” reported by Zimmermann. Yet the tone of commentary is very different to the denunciations of Moreno. Priddy informs that Zimmermann was only 14 years old when he first contacted the guru, and that his revealing interview experiences with Sathya Sai occurred in his early twenties. The much later video interviews of Zimmermann were his bold attempt at discussion of anomalies. Priddy commences analysis of the videos by observing:
“Rather like myself before 2000, Ullrich was not in a position fully to see through the deceptions to which I consider we were all subject. I now understand the major part of the whole Sai Baba question in a completely different light to what I did formerly. So I will here take issue with some of the assumptions and beliefs expressed by Ullrich at that time (of the videos) for the sake of any who may study them in detail. Particularly the first of the video interviews gives an unfortunate impression (though soundly refuted by Ullrich in the third one) of Sai Baba as God Incarnate. There he was doubtless portraying how he had felt at the time (of being in contact with Sathya Sai).”
Another entity has received dogmatic sectarian representation. The disputed Wikipedia quote abovementioned (see 22.1) includes reference to the deceased devotee V. K. Narasimhan. Moreno has imposed an inflexible view that this ex-journalist cannot have been prone to any reservations about Sathya Sai. Moreno is here mainly concerned to deride the firsthand reports of Robert Priddy (a salient ex-devotee and retired academic) as being mere hearsay, a dogmatic judgment not accepted elsewhere. See 23.9 below.
Moreno has sourly attempted to eliminate Priddy from serious consideration by referring in a libellous manner to that retired academic’s long past experimentation (in the 1960s) with LSD that was formerly documented by the experimenter in glowing terms. Priddy posted three LSD articles on the web in the 1980s. He has since frowned upon any resort to LSD, and identifies his web testimonies to LSD experimentation in terms of a lack of resolution incurred by devotional thinking. The obsessive anti-Priddy argument is not at all convincing, even to those like myself who are strongly opposed to the use of LSD. The defamation has been contested by the sympathetic Wikipedian commentator Martin Alan Kazlev at www.kheper.net/topics/gurus/Moreno_slander_against_Robert_Priddy.htm.
In the July 2007 update to my Sathya Sai and Wikipedia webpage, I took exception to the Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy slur that Moreno had just begun to promote on one of his pseudonymous blogs bearing the name of Equalizer. On the same blog Moreno had entered two early compositions of Priddy about LSD, and was misrepresenting him. Those articles were eulogistic of psychedelic experiences but contained clear warnings, including the statement: “all psycho-chemicals of this nature should be avoided.” I made a point of telephoning Priddy to ascertain his exact position on LSD, and he assured me that the warnings understate his later phase of deliberation on this subject, occurring after he had written his pro-Sai book Source of the Dream (1994), which also briefly mentions his LSD resort in 1963. Priddy now strongly repudiates that book and his phase of subscription to the claims of Sathya Sai Baba (lasting until the late 1990s). He told me that he had eliminated his LSD articles (three in all) from his website because he needed the space for more important matters relating to Sathya Sai, and also because he no longer rated the articles.
Moreno has proffered a very inaccurate version of my remarks in his offensive item Kevin R.D. Shepherd and Robert Priddy’s Praise of his LSD-Induced Hallucinations. He there says that I “selectively cited a few lukewarm anti-drug comments by Robert Priddy” but discrepantly adds that I failed to cite or link to the LSD articles. The anti-drug comments come from those articles. There was no need to link, as those articles were in evidence on the Moreno blog to which I linked. Moreno omits the basic context, which comprised my objection to his libellous and anonymous blog sathyasaibaba at wordpress.com.
Lack of context is a frequent failing in Moreno blogtalk. The pro-Sai activist made a further incursion upon due context, asserting that “he (Shepherd) is willing to compromise his anti-drug views by defending Robert Priddy’s pro-drug articles.” Pro-Sai activism engenders excessive distortion and misinterpretation. I have not compromised any anti-drug view in resisting the sectarian attempt at libel of Priddy. I have no affinity with the content of Priddy’s LSD articles, though he added due warnings and has not ingested LSD for many years. To be an anti-drug exponent is not the same thing as being an unjust attacker compatible with the preserve of cult libel in which Moreno specialises. There are many senior academics who took drugs such as LSD in their early years, and it would be morally wrong to censure them for something that happened so long ago.
The applicable context of my remarks can here be further exhumed from the grave created by Moreno subversion. For instance, the July 2007 update included my complaint that Joe Moreno had asserted: “his (Shepherd’s) reference to Robert Priddy’s anti-Sai propaganda is highly suspect, non-credible and obviously poorly researched.” This matter had nothing to do with LSD articles, but pertained to the Wikipedia quote that Moreno had disputed on his Wikipedia User page (22.1 above).The bone of contention here was the 1993 bedroom murders. Everything about Priddy must be wrong, according to the sectarian argument, and so anyone who references Priddy is likewise in error and guilty of poor research. Only sectarians are good researchers in this desultory argument, despite the fact that they opt for libel as a defence mechanism.
(A noticeable subcurrent to the LSD issue is Moreno’s accusation that Priddy once “stole” his webpage titles, keywords, metatags, and javascripts. Whereas Priddy emphasises that Moreno has frequently appropriated and reproduced copyrighted materials of his without gaining due permission, including the LSD articles. From another source, I have recently learned that international legal consultants have been in agreement that Moreno portrayals of ex-devotees and critics amount to serious libels).
The acute aversion of Joe Moreno to Robert Priddy is notoriously associated with the appearance of Priddy website details on a porn site. Some ex-devotees say that nobody else but Moreno (or a very close colleague of his) could have been responsible for this form of stigma, as no other party would be interested in misrepresenting Priddy. That argument is very difficult to avoid, though Moreno denied the accusation in his renewed offensive in my direction. He stated the absence of proof that he was the party responsible. However, he also asserted his inclination to believe that Priddy himself was responsible for the porn site event, and that Priddy wished to use the porn site as a means of promotion. While it is true enough that there is no actual proof of Moreno’s engagement in this unsavoury activity, his argument as a whole is very unconvincing and remains a factor for strong suspicion.
Moreno’s evident desire to implicate Priddy in porn site activity is viewed by ex-devotees as a dubious factor casting substantial doubt upon his (Moreno’s) declared innocence. With more justification, the sectarian has emphasised incongruous remarks of his opponent Reinier Van Der Sandt in relation to child pornography. However, Moreno has used those remarks in an attempt to implicate others (including myself) as being in error. I disowned that matter in the Response to Moreno (November 2007), which the apologist has not acknowledged (see 22.9 below). I am not responsible for any remark made by ex-devotees or their affiliates, being an outsider to that contingent. My complaint about a Wikipedia User page, and an attendant cordon exerted by Moreno in Wikipedia, has been obsessively misrepresented on the primary Moreno website in terms of something quite different. Sectarian polemic is seriously flawed.
The Moreno reference to Van Der Sandt occurred in the item Citizen Initiative: ‘Preoccupation with Porno Sites’ Claim. Again, this is located on the primary Moreno website. My brief reference to porno (porn) sites had no relation to any imagined interest of Moreno in pornography, but occurred solely in connection with a quoted letter of Robert Priddy which mentioned the latter’s grievance at being misrepresented on porno site media. (See Part Two of Sathya Sai and Wikipedia). The culprit was alleged to be Moreno, who is known to be the major opponent of Priddy to an appreciable extent, and who took some delight at an earlier date in declaring the porno site inclusion of the hapless Priddy URL.
The quoted letter of Priddy (dated Jan. 2007) included the statement: “Moreno uses dirty tricks, like posting names of his opponents on porno sites, then publicising it; someone has posted my website URL on a porno site (at some expense).” In extension of this information, I commented:
“The bizarre preoccupation with porno sites appears to be related to what has been defined by Alan Kazlev as ‘his (Moreno’s) strongly puritanical personality – look through his website for frequent allegations concerning pornography or sexual misconduct on the part of ex-devotees’.... The same source reports that Moreno observes complete celibacy as a consequence of Sathya Sai’s instruction to him.”
I have nothing against celibacy, only against misrepresentations. Because Moreno objected to the charge of puritanism (which was not made by me), I subsequently deleted that paragraph from my webpage, and replaced it with an acknowledgment of Moreno’s denial of the porno site allegation. This concession made no difference to the sectarian attitude of acute hostility.
Only towards the end of his “pornography” item did Moreno refer to Priddy, after dwelling upon three other opponents of his, including two I had not even mentioned. One of these was the Indian ex-devotee Sanjay Dadlani, who has been the subject of strong attacks by Moreno. The sectarian states at the end of his item that “not even one Anti-Sai Activist can prove that I submitted their websites to any porno site.” I only mentioned Priddy in respect of porno sites, though two other persons (Dadlani and Van Der Sandt) have also been stipulated in ex-devotee sources as victims of Moreno porno site tactics (see 23.5 below).
In that same Porno Sites item, Moreno neglected to mention his now well known exercises in distorting certain images of his opponents, even while declaring himself to be innocent of all improprieties. See 22.6 below. He also made the extremist statement that “ex-devotees attempt to take a moral and ethical stance against Sai Baba, yet have no morals or ethics themselves.” This evidently reflects a wish to believe that critics of Sathya Sai Baba are hopelessly in the wrong.
Another critic strongly disliked by Moreno is Martin Alan Kazlev, who dared to report his findings that ex-devotees were not as they were depicted by Moreno. The latter contrived an argument against me which urged that the “new age” affinities of Kazlev precluded serious consideration of that Wikipedian, and therefore Kazlev was an uncitable source against Moreno. I was now guilty of having cited Kazlev, especially as I am known to be critical of new age beliefs. Observers view this argument as a novel deflection of criticism. I do not have to accept everything that Kazlev believes in order to credit that his side of the argument in relation to ex-devotees is rather more well balanced than the “fundamentalist” version of Moreno. Juridical circles have established that beliefs are not necessarily any barrier to effective testimony in courts of law. However, if magistrates followed the dogmatic reasoning of Joe Moreno, the legal system would be a hell resembling the inquisition assemblies of the late medieval era.
Observers notice that Kazlev has adopted a feature of Aurobindo’s teaching to designate an “intermediate zone” of unfledged mysticism. Kazlev has employed this concept to describe deficient gurus. That is not a new age doctrine, and is more compelling to some analysts than apologist arguments.
Moreno has complained that Kazlev wrote an inaccurate psychological profile of him. In my Response to Moreno (November 2007) I expressed an explicit consideration in that respect. Yet Moreno has ignored the Response, as though it had never been written. Instead, he has retained his accusatory wordings against myself, with no amendments, and has also added a further barb that is quite uncalled for in my direction. This is one of the reasons why careful analysts do not take his pro-Sai polemical strategy seriously.
In April 2008, Moreno made a brief addition to his attack webpage. The (undated) insertion stated that Kazlev had (in the past) composed two cyberpunk articles of a pornographic nature. I certainly do not accept the relevance of such articles, which are nothing to do with me. Moreno should address himself to Kazlev on such matters. Nor do I accept the contemptuous assessment of my readership in terms of “as few as they are.” This slur comes from the supplemented item Kevin Shepherd Referenced M. Alan Kazlev Against Joe Moreno at saisathyasai.com (accessed 30/08/2008). Moreno insinuates that my inconsequential readership will flag as a result of his opposing webpage. Moreno sectarian tactic can easily be questioned in his policy of downgrading all critics of Sathya Sai Baba abuses. The Moreno “new age sectarian” guide to accomplishment includes distorted images of opponents (see 22.6 below) and a five line boast on digg.com (see 22.8 below).
The Moreno insertion regarding the cyberpunk articles implied that Robert Priddy was in affinity with such questionable web compositions. The specific phrase used by Moreno reads “according to Robert Priddy’s moral standards” (accessed 30/08/2008). I was totally unfamiliar with the cyberpunk articles, and was careful to email Priddy for elucidation on this matter in May 2008. The reply from Priddy included the following statement: “I learned only very recently that Kazlev wrote some cyberpunk articles. The (Moreno) reference to me is an attempt to smear me by deception that there is an association. I have not commented upon the cyberpunk articles in any way, as I see this matter as being superfluous. Those particular materials (the cyberpunk articles) are NOT in accordance with my moral standards.”
22.6 Joe Moreno’s Undeclared Distorted Images of Opponents
In his renewed attack on myself, Gerald Joe Moreno denied any truth to an accusation he associates with Robert Priddy, and which included the detail that “he (Moreno) posts photos of critics of Sathya Sai Baba with distorted faces and added bodies of a pornographic kind.” Moreno stresses that he had repudiated the accusation. I mention this matter here because my quotation of that web accusation met with the Moreno retort that “Kevin Shepherd is either totally oblivious to these facts (proving he is incapable of elementary research) or he purposely ignored my rebuttals (which a neutral researcher would not do).” Retort accessed 30/08/2008. Unfortunately for the Moreno argument, the facts of this situation involve tangible tokens which bear out the accusation.
There is extant an image of one ex-devotee with female breasts and another image which reveals an enlarged nose. These rather pronounced embellishments clearly represent the artifice of Moreno. Go to www.saibabaexpose.com/libeller.html for the oversized nose applied to an image of Reinier Van Der Sandt. Also documented is the more extreme and pornographic image created of the Indian ex-devotee Sanjay Dadlani. This can be found at www.saibabaexpose.com/GeraldMoreno.html and also even more definitively at www.saibabaexpose.com/MorenoBlog.htm. That very questionable image appeared in 2005 on a Moreno blog against Dadlani, who has been the major target of the pro-Sai activist in a campaign which has allegedly employed numerous rigged porn site entries.
I did not believe the Moreno rebuttals (of the ex-devotee accusation) in view of the contraindications existing in the files of former web entries. Some ex-devotees imply that Moreno deleted his own image (reproduced below) because he feared that they would distort it in the same way that he took liberties with the images of certain opponents. I do not know how accurate that explanation is, but it may be more reliable than the Moreno rebuttals.
Moreno evidently covered up his web escapades promoting the images abovementioned, and used this devious ploy to place myself in a bad light. That factor of contrived stigma strongly negates Moreno denials and rebuttals. I complained at the discrepancy of image distortion in my subsequent Response to Moreno of Nov. 2007, linking to the ex-devotee website exposing the oversized nose. That is evidently one of the reasons why Moreno has to date ignored the Response almost completely. His duplicit policy has maintained the libellous webpage against me on his primary website, which conveys the impression that he is completely innocent of any inappropriate actions. However, it has become obvious to careful investigators that Moreno webtalk is acutely unreliable, and that both the accusations and defensive strategies of the pro-Sai activist exhibit serious defects.
22.7 Paul Lewis and The Guardian Newspaper Article
The evasive Gerald Joe Moreno berated me for omitting a “pivotal word” from a US State Department warning. He omitted to give the context. The missing word ["unconfirmed"] occurred because I followed verbatim the quote in an article by journalist Paul Lewis in The Guardian newspaper. That article was covered in Part Four of Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia on the CI website. The relevant quote can be found in paragraph seven of Lewis, “The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards,” The Guardian, Nov. 4th 2006, p. 3 col. 1. The quote was enclosed in inverted commas and stated “inappropriate sexual behaviour by a prominent local religious leader.” I left nothing out of the quote. The preceding words "unconfirmed reports of” did not appear in the Lewis article, and were therefore not employed by me. [In at least one version of the State Department warning, the word "unconfirmed" appeared in a subsequent sentence.]
The Lewis quote refers to the many cases of strongly alleged sexual abuse relating to Sathya Sai Baba. Though officially unconfirmed (as is widely known), the alleged abuses have been too strongly and consistently reported to ignore with any degree of propriety (see 23.10 below). This despite the prevalent political situation of evasion existing in different countries, and which has been the subject of complaint elsewhere (e.g., in my Response to Moreno).
The fourth paragraph of my Part Four (Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia) clearly gave the reference to the Lewis article for the quote under discussion. Moreno failed to mention this, and instead preferred to give the impression that my quote was an independent one interpretable as some kind of conspiracy in defiance of US State Department wordings.
The article by journalist Paul Lewis was quite detailed, and the quote from the US State Department warning was a fleeting ingredient only. The topics included the British royal family and FAIR, a victim support organisation who were very concerned at some events described, and who edited the Lewis article in their news bulletin (and I cited both sources). Moreno typically used a pretext of error (i.e., the missing word “unconfirmed”) to ignore the matters covered both by myself and Paul Lewis. Diverging from the major data, he interposed his obsession with the ex-devotee Sanjay Dadlani, whom he has represented as being morally depraved. The version of this conflict from other ex-devotees is rather different.
I will here retreat from both sides and give my own plain view. Moreno and Dadlani were involved in a blog contest of the type encouraged in subscribers by commercial American web enterprises such as Google Inc. Neither of the contestants actually proved anything, and the consequence has been observer confusion at the peculiarities in evidence on both sides. The only parties who have derived any tangible benefit are surely the commercial agencies setting the trap for deflected attention.
Some ex-devotees lament that Dadlani indulged in some contemporary blog language (associated by traditional British tastes with the American misuse of English that has developed since the Dirty Speech Movement of the 1960s). However, the informants also say that Moreno has extensively abused Dadlani, having misrepresented him by email to his acquaintances as a pervert and also having falsely associated him with numerous porn sites. If this version of events is true, then Moreno is in a league of error all his own.
As I have already made clear on the CI website, I have nothing to do with Dadlani, never having contacted him. He is not mentioned in the Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia webpage to which Moreno was responding. I am not an ex-devotee, and am strongly opposed to many fashionable blog idioms, which in my view represent a cultural decline. Even the famous American author Ken Wilber has used indecent language on a blog, and the continuing downward spiral of bad form is not impressive to non-bloggers. I strongly object to the Moreno subversion of my legitimate complaint (at a Wikipedia User page) with lurid ex-devotee materials totally extraneous to my output.
Moreno cannot effectively distinguish between different entities or different arguments. Having decided that Dadlani is a depraved ex-devotee, the sectarian polemicist tries to view all other critics in this light, or as something closely related, or as “conspiratorial.” Moreno has repeatedly demonstrated this psychological peculiarity, which evidently clouds his judgment of numerous matters. The Moreno denigration of Paul Lewis extended to the accusation that the journalist “gave an incorrect age” for Sathya Sai Baba. Lewis stated that the guru was 79 years old, which was correct. The Lewis article also specifically referred, both in a heading and in the text, to the guru’s eightieth birthday that was closely pending.
The Lewis article is represented by Moreno as having been instigated by ex-devotees. See Kevin Shepherd’s Reference To ‘The Guardian’ Article at saisathyasai.com, which is a sectarian misrepresentation of my version. Moreno reports internet remarks of Dadlani expressed in the blog idiom emanating from America. Many bloggers, including Moreno, have something to learn about improved standards of language conduct. Fortunately, the Lewis article in The Guardian was not written in a blog idiom but in a restrained manner that incorporated the pressing views of The Hon. Tom Sackville (Chairman of FAIR) and MP Michael Gove. The Lewis article is primarily associated with FAIR, not with ex-devotees. That article did give useful indication of current events in Britain that are very difficult to find in other coverages. Intemperate blogs do not count by comparison.
22.8 The Boast of Joe Moreno on Digg.Com
The sectarian activist Gerald Joe Moreno has tended to specialise in numerous brief entries posted on commercial blogs and bulletin boards. Academics refer to such conveniences as “junk web,” and generally regard this category of postings in terms of a low level of communications activity.
The harassing tactic of Joe Moreno in my direction has included a boast posted at the popular American blogsite digg.com on September 29th, 2007. This was posted by Joe108 (alias Moreno) as a promotion for his critical webpage on myself. The digg.com entry was five lines only, and mainly comprised the assertion: “Attempting to portray himself as a serious researcher into the Sai Controversy, Kevin Shepherd wrote a rambling diatribe against Joe Moreno. Moreno responded to Shepherd and exposed him as a shabby and biased researcher.”
The excelling abilities of Joe Moreno may be questioned; his very defamatory contributions to the “Sai Controversy” are not a commendable model for emulation. I did not claim to be a researcher into the “Sai Controversy,” which is an apologist phrase, but merely referred to some relevant data. The specified Controversy here boils down to the Moreno website, which he implied that I was unfamiliar with, discrepantly ignoring my link to that source and coverage of his FAQ.
The full entry on digg.com has been reproduced in the Postscript of my Response to Moreno (see 22.9 below). The so-called “diatribe” was my complaint arising from Moreno’s censorious Wikipedia User page against my publishing venture. The complaint did not ramble, but made a point, as is evident from the acute reaction of the sectarian. The due complaint was uploaded on 31st August 2007 at www.citizeninitiative.com/sathya_sai_and_wikipedia.htm.
The Moreno boast to have exposed me is not agreed upon elsewhere, and is instead regarded as a sectarian shortcoming exemplifying excessive zeal. The pro-Sai activist maintained his digg.com boast into 2008, when it was still visible by link. My lengthy Response to Moreno was totally ignored, living in the shadow of the five line frivolity posted on digg.com. Exactly what comprises shabby research is a matter still to be resolved in zones like digg.com, where trifling ads and popular blog tactics are testimony to superficial assessment and acute contraction of data.
22.9 Response (November 2007) to Joe Moreno’s Defamation and Stigma
The September 2007 Moreno blog and website attack in my direction has been described as blog idiom cult sabotage that effectively disproves the “Love All Serve All” sloganism associated with Sathya Sai Baba. Gerald Joe Moreno has been considered a very bad advert for the guru, demonstrating a vindictive temperament habitually expressing personal attacks and defamations. He employs some web referencing tactics which at first sight can seem convincing to readers unfamiliar with the context. Yet his interpretations of references and quotes are part of a rigorously partisan attitude committed on principle against any criticism of the guru. Critics of himself and the guru are depicted as categorically wrong and seriously defective in their psychology. In this strident manner, Moreno justifies his shortcomings that are evident to a wider community of analysts. It is said that the pro-Sai activist is incapable of fairly representing his critics.
l to r: Michael Goldstein, Gerald Joe Moreno
In November 2007 appeared Kevin R. D. Shepherd in response to Gerald Joe Moreno. This was an answer to the hostile webpage of September 2007 which had failed to achieve due perspective. The response linked to numerous Moreno and ex-devotee web sources. Moreno was strongly represented. See www.citizeninitiative.com/sathya_sai_and_wikipedia.htm#response. Nine months later, Moreno has not directly acknowledged my response, and has instead adopted an evasive approach. His dismissive webpage at saisathyasai.com merely quotes a passage from my response without identifying the different document found on the Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia webpage at the Citizen Initiative (CI) website. In that way Moreno has ignored nearly all the content of a lengthy response document which is evidently too difficult for him to assimilate. He has not revised his emphases, nor made any concessions, a fact which is particularly reprehensible in view of the objections made in my lengthy response. Certain of those objections might be extended into legal points against him.
The evasive tactic of Moreno is typical of the standard cultist attitude which assumes a monopoly of accuracy and propriety. The Moreno misbehaviour occurs under the main heading of “Exposing Critic’s Smear Campaigns Against Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.” That declaration of intent is a salient feature of the primary Moreno website, which is notorious for a policy of blacklisting critics of the guru and pouring scorn upon these “Anti-Sai” exponents.
Gerald Joe Moreno signifies a strong dose of pro-Sai activism. He has created numerous attack blogs aimed at specific individuals. His combative webpages are replete with a terminology mirroring the underlying sectarian standpoint associated with officials like Dr. Michael Goldstein. The modus operandi of the pro-Sai attack campaign is that criticisms must be ridiculed and offset, and this is accompanied by an unyielding attitude that allegations of abuse are unconfirmed and concocted by deceitful Anti-Sai parties. The phrase “Anti-Sai” is invested with criminal implications admitting zero tolerance.
It is well known amongst objectors (who include Wikipedians and ex-devotees of Sathya Sai) that Moreno is allergic to criticism. He applies derogatory descriptions to any criticism of himself. His role as lacerating defender of the guru does not countenance any opposition or complaint. He preferred to call my CI webpage confronting him as a “rambling slop,” which is considered an acute misdescription by others who have read it.
Moreno’s retrospective version of his Wikipedia User page is very misleading. The relevant item in his Sept. 2007 webpage is entitled The Kevin Shepherd Citation on the Sathya Sai Baba Wikipedia Article. This brief item appears over halfway through his webpage, and is the only acknowledgment of my defence against his originating attack. The pro-Sai activist begins the item by stating that “Kevin Shepherd repeatedly whined and sniveled about my objection on Wikipedia to the inclusion of a quote from his self-published book Investigating the Sai Baba Movement.” Readers should note that the quote mentioned here was not from my book, but instead comprised the end formulation by Jossi Fresco of a Wikipedia quote. It is obvious that Moreno had never read the book specified. See 22.1 above for the quote. The Moreno derogatory phrase “whined and sniveled” is considered atrocious by academic analysts and very suspicious by legal analysts.
Moreno excuses his tactic on Wikipedia by asserting that “Wikipedia generally does not allow self-published material to be used as sources.” He adds that my book “makes derogatory and highly questionable hearsay allegations that have never been referenced in reliable or reputable sources.” As he had never read my book, he accordingly did not know about academic and other relevant materials contained in it, and was solely concerned to eliminate reference to his detested rival Robert Priddy in a Wikipedia quote which he (Moreno) misattributed to me. Moreno literacy is very much in question. The Wikipedia criterion for self-published sources is reliability, and Joe Moreno is not the most likely candidate for impartial assessment of such matters.
In the brief and very misleading item of Sept. 2007, Moreno also stated “although Kevin Shepherd would like to make it appear that I was alone in my grievance, I was not.” This assertion totally ignores the palpable reference in my Sathya Sai and Wikipedia webpage to two other collaborators with Moreno (including Jossi Fresco) in the dialogue reported on his Wikipedia User page. My reference reads:
“The subversive file comprised a discussion between Moreno and three other contributors to the Sathya Sai Baba entry in Wikipedia. All except one of these contributors expressed biases in favour of the guru.” (Sathya Sai and Wikipedia, Part One).
Moreno preferred to take a reductionist angle by employing (without sufficient detail) the reluctant concession of Andries Krugers Dagneaux, the fourth participant (“Andries”) in the discussion who only modulated at the very end of the dialogue (saying he would “re-consider”) after arguing in my favour throughout. Moreno gives the impression that his version is impeccably complete, to the extent that he justifies his very misleading item with the blog refrain: “Don’t expect Kevin Shepherd to accurately relate these facts without his typical spin.” There are some bloggers who cannot separate facts from sectarian agendas, as diligent observers have noticed in this instance. Lack of due context in Moreno blogtalk is a flaw, not an achievement.
The Wikipedia editor Andries Krugers Dagneaux was also the subject of a separate Moreno item entitled The Wikipedia Arbcom Ban Against Andries and SSS108. I referred to this item in my Response to Moreno, which has been ignored by the sectarian. In the confusing item now at issue, Moreno says that I failed to obtain pertinent facts despite my “alleged in-depth research into this topic.” Nowhere have I claimed any such in-depth research into Wikipedia matters, and the allegation may be attributed to the imagination of Moreno. All I did was to draw attention to two basic components of what I called the “cordon” in Wikipedia that was temporarily achieved by Joe Moreno. He successfully agitated for the Robert Priddy entry (or article) to be blocked from Wikipedia, and also blocked a reference to myself that was favoured in a Wikipedia quote associated with Dagneaux. That quote was strongly opposed by Moreno, whose vehemence was assisted by the pro-cult administrator Jossi Fresco (see 22.1 and 22.3 above).
Ignoring his role in the suppression of the Priddy article, Moreno indicts Dagneaux in the Andries and SSS108 item. He says that Dagneaux was “formerly banned on the Robert Priddy Wikipedia Article.” Moreno adds that “I was never banned from the Robert Priddy Wikipedia Article. Enough said.” Others disagree that enough was here being said. The phrase “enough said” is a Moreno hallmark, and does not have to be regarded as definitive. The relevant article was attended by heated arguments and complex manoeuvres, and was twice blocked in the Wikipedia intrigues so strongly influenced by Joe Moreno.
Readers are told by Moreno that Dagneaux “included voluminous amounts of non-reputable and non-reliable sources” in relation to the Sathya Sai Baba entry on Wikipedia. These sources were officially removed, and we can be more suspicious of the opposition in that Moreno states “my thorough documentation about Andries Anti-Sai agenda” resulted in a new ruling by an arbitration committee. The Moreno-inspired ruling facilitated removal of “links to critical websites which contain original research or which consist of personal accounts of negative experiences with Sathya Sai Baba or organisations affiliated with him.”
The cordon was thus in force. Dagneaux struggled to retain Priddy materials and other dissident data for the contested Sathya Sai entry in the nominally democratic online encyclopaedia. It was Dagneaux who favoured reference to my 2005 book (with 480 annotations) that was contemptuously opposed by Moreno as a self-published work of no relevance to Wikipedia. Dagneaux and Moreno were rivals with contrasting viewpoints. Moreno gained the upper hand prior to alienating other Wikipedia editors with his confrontational style. We are told that the “huge blow” administered via Moreno to Dagneaux and “Anti-Sai Activists” in this Wikipedia drama entailed a situation in which the opponents “whined and hissed about it on their own Anti-Sai Websites.” Moreno never whines or hisses, it is apparent. It is a fact that some analysts have been amazed at how such sectarian drives could occur on American media in the twenty-first century.
Moreno has thus confirmed the cordon in Wikipedia of which I complained at length on the CI website. Yet his abbreviated “enough said” polemic makes me the one who failed to obtain the data. He does mention that I expressed a reservation about the official Wikipedia ban of Dagneaux in March 2007 along with Moreno. A number of others also expressed sympathy with Dagneaux, who is closely associated (in an editorial capacity) with the prominent Exbaba.com website. I have been told that he relocated in Citizendium, having a good reputation amongst academics.
On the basis of a single sentence reference (of mine) to Dagneaux (crediting him with impartiality), the sectarian webmaster says contemptuously: “For once, get your facts right, Mr. Kevin Shepherd.” It is a fact that other analysts have been able to find numerous errors and unfounded jibes in the 19-page print-out from the Moreno webpage which castigates me for daring to resist his sweeping dismissal of all my published output.
The pro-Sai activist has not even had the decency to correct his extremist reference to the publishing firm of Routledge, whom he represented (in his preamble) as turning away a manuscript of mine (otherwise unspecified) because my “material is controversial, convoluted and conspiratorial.” That is the cultist version of Minds and Sociocultures Vol. One (1995), a book which Moreno had not read. He is obsessed with imagined conspiracies. The first draft of this work was mentioned to Routledge in the early 1980s, but declined by them for reasons of uncommercial length complicated by serious annotations not generally associated with readily saleable new authors. Routledge never saw the manuscript, which afterwards grew longer in defiance of commercial output. No publisher ever saw any of my manuscripts, except the one who published Minds and Sociocultures Vol. One. See also no. 9 above.
The sectarian polemicist misleadingly asserts that “publishers do not wish to be associated” with my works, a statement of no validity in view of that fact that I have never contacted any other commercial publishers since the early 1980s. I have not needed to do so, and did not follow up recommendations for potentially interested parties.
The Moreno lack of scruple in reporting has been too obvious for years, and in many directions. The internet cowboy even retains his assertion that “Kevin Shepherd’s publications under various self-publishing names is indicative of vanity publishing” (accessed 30/08/2008). I have only ever used two publishing imprints, not the four which cultist polemic has invented. Furthermore, informed academic opinion considers the tag of vanity publishing to be an insult in view of the criteria followed in all my books. The cultist vanity in presuming inviolable mandate is a subject yet unplumbed, and is extensively compromised by the many grave allegations against Sathya Sai Baba which Moreno seeks to offset and eliminate in so many dubious ways.
In the opening lines of his misleading webpage, the cult aggressor states: “Kevin Shepherd can often be seen boasting that his research is objective, well researched, serious, etc.” (accessed 30/08/2008). This is a typical distortion with evident intent to deceive. I have nowhere else mentioned on the media my research background save on the CI website, and the context is there very different to what the libeller says. My defence against his Wikipedia User page is here construed as “boasting,” which is a known habit of Moreno about which ex-devotees have complained. As informed parties are aware, I formerly maintained a low profile over the years until the onset of cult hostilities from Moreno, who is allegedly paid by Dr. Goldstein to harass any critic of the guru. The fact that Wikipedia banned Moreno after he had produced his hostile User page is perhaps a point in my favour, not in his, and legal scrutiny notices such factors, not being impressed or fooled by jibe rhetoric.
I have nowhere said that my research is “objective” or “well researched.” I have stated a serious intention, which some academics have acknowledged. That intention has complied with the general academic requirement for annotations in serious writing. I have described in my Response to Moreno how some academic friends (including philosophers) generously inclined to the view that I covered more subjects, and with a greater variety of annotations, than many academic philosophers who adhere to one discipline (i.e., philosophy). Moreno has ignored such details, and instead persisted in blatantly misrepresenting this matter in terms of a “self-laudatory” gesture on my part. In the academic world, polemicists who do not acknowledge relevant data or responses are guilty of serious error, and Moreno comes under that category in academic assessment. He is solely concerned to attack, and not to reason or evaluate in a wider context than sectarian interests.
It is well known that academic philosophers generally refer to Zarathushtra merely in passing, when they refer to associations in a work by Nietzsche. My treatment of Zoroastrianism in certain books has been credited as an unusual excursion into territory unfamiliar to academic philosophy. Further, many academic philosophers do not cover subjects like Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam, their career role not being oriented to such additional fields, which are instead left to other specialists in very different departments of expertise. These matters are so well known and accepted that they would not normally need comment. Yet the most elementary factors are violated by cultist polemic, which is not concerned about anything except repudiating alleged abuses committed by the favoured authority figure. The sectarian belligerence has no conception of what is denoted by the phrase “citing sources to a greater extent than many academic philosophers.”
A major reason which Joe Moreno gave for his adverse reflections on my research and books (which he had not read) was that I did not attempt to contact him before uploading the Sathya Sai Baba and Wikipedia webpage on the CI website. That webpage was the basis for his renewed attack, and not my books, with which he showed no acquaintance. He objected to the criticism of his Wikipedia User page and related circumstances. Criticism of Joe Moreno means that I am “a thoroughly biased conspiracy theorist incapable of formulating a sober argument, let alone conducting any semblance of adequate or impartial research” (accessed 30/08/2008). Should anyone dare to criticise such a paragon of impartial sectarian pronouncement? Why did he not contact me before deploying his Wikipedia User page against my publishing project?
The conspiracy syndrome is a well known attribute of diverse cliques who imagine that people are plotting against them. Objection to a Wikipedia User page and the attendant circumstances of cordon did not amount to any form of conspiracy theory. The Moreno denigration was clearly devised as a justification for lack of sober argument in militant cult verbalism. Vehement assertions do not necessarily persuade people outside the sectarian fold.
Who could have been expected to contact Joe Moreno in view of what was known about him? Especially when he had maintained on Google Search his very hostile Wikipedia User page against my publishing project, which was clearly being stigmatised for all to see. Furthermore, in July 2007 he had also placed on Google his blog slur Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy. See 22.16 below. Moreno argument is so heavily weighted in favour of his sectarian hostilities that it does not command a ready assent outside devotional ranks.
I learned about the invasive Moreno tactic of emailing the acquaintances of victims, a tactic designed to elicit details or to convey adverse reports. Furthermore, many emails sent to Joe Moreno have been paraded on his primary website in a manner that does not inspire universal approval. Those emails include some from the son of Robert Priddy dated January 2005. The non-devotee Kai Nicolai Priddy objected to being drawn into stigmatising web coverages along with his ex-devotee father. He repeatedly requested that his image and personal information should be deleted from the primary Moreno website saisathyasai.com. The Moreno responses were aggressive, and unyielding with regard to the image of the protester. Moreno excused his action in this respect by arguing that he had merely published a screen capture of a public domain image.
Gerald Joe Moreno also justified his action in retaining the Kai Priddy image by accusing Robert Priddy of posting images on his webpages such as those of Michael Goldstein (“taken in the privacy of his own home”) and V. K. Narasimhan. Go to saisathyasai.com/baba/emails-kai-priddy.html. There is a very big difference between a non-participant and the official leader (Goldstein) of the international Sathya Sai Organisation who is answerable to ignored complaints (see 23.11 below). A relatively minor consideration is that the images of Goldstein in his own home became well known due to the BBC television coverage in 2004; BBC public images are not generally considered a private matter. Priddy was surely entitled to post an image of the deceased Narasimhan in view of his personal connection with that devotee, a connection which is very tangibly documented (see 23.9 below). Moreno also described the website of Robert Priddy as a “hate site.” The Priddy websites are dissident sites, not “hate” sites, and this is obvious enough to spectators outside the sphere of sectarian zealotry.
22.10 Defamation of Barry Pittard
The email strategy of Gerald Joe Moreno was used to contact the former partner of ex-devotee Barry Pittard in Australia. She was resistant to the interrogation, and Moreno subsequently “maliciously misrepresented” information on her website to mean that Pittard fathered a child with a 15 year old girl. This extremist recourse meant, in Moreno pro-Sai terminology, that Pittard could be depicted as being guilty of “paedophilia.” The web militant (under the pseudonym of vishvarupa108) was also eager to supply the interpretation that “another high-ranking Anti-Sai Activist comes tumbling down off his moral soapbox.” This forced verdict was expressed on yahoo.com as Message 47482, and dated 4th February 2006.
Pittard had to post a decisive rebuttal of the misrepresentation, though Moreno was markedly reluctant to admit errors. The rebuttal was so decisive that Moreno was obliged to retract his allegation. A web report states that “his reaction was most grudging and manipulative in its wording – a single line buried among a mass of self-justification.” Moreno did not offer any apology, but instead blamed the former partner of Pittard for not answering his intrusive email questions. The defeated accuser subsequently persisted with a variant in his brash attempt at defamation. This very revealing and disturbing episode can be found at Barry Pittard Libelled.
The severe defamation of Pittard has aroused wonder and also consternation. Despite the fleeting retraction of his allegation, Moreno “continued to post his defamation on his website and bulletin boards over several weeks, and still purposely distorts and avoids central facts of the matter.” It is very obvious that Moreno’s belief in the priority of Sathya Sai Baba entails a categorical dismissal of any criticism as being a manifestation of perversity or conspiracy. This could mean that his internet campaign has socially damaging attributes which should not be ignored.
Barry Pittard is one of the most salient ex-devotees, well known for his industry in supplying information. He was a devotee for over twenty years, and initially taught in the Sathya Sai College at Whitefield, near Bangalore. He maintains an informative blog in criticism of the sect at http://barrypittard.wordpress.com. He has been notably restrained in his response to Moreno, despite the extreme provocation to which he has been subjected.
22.11 Serious Amateur Activity Misunderstood by Sectarian Polemic
Joe Moreno is still dogmatic in his assertions about the phrase “serious amateur,” which he associates with myself, though he shows no understanding at all of the complexities involved. He lives as an American non-academic in New Mexico, and is not an expert on Cambridge University, despite the airs of Moreno webtalk. He mentions two university websites (Cambridge and Oxford) which do not provide any exhaustive index to “serious amateur” terminology, there being no actual need for those websites to do so, as the non-statutory phrase under discussion has always applied to a clear minority of writers, researchers, and enthusiasts who were not usually part of academic curricula. In general, Cambridge was more democratic towards amateurs than Oxford.
The polemical sectarian insists that the phrase “serious amateur” applies only to astronomy, botany, and photography. In reality, that phrase had been applied at Cambridge by the 1980s to diverse scientific and scholarly endeavours. Bestowal of the phrase was sometimes purely informal, but could also appear in learned literature. A criterion for qualification was suitable annotations lacking in the commercial sphere. This was prior to the 1990s internet boom which endorsed the decadence manifest in widespread contemporary abuse of the English language. Moreno does not employ book annotations but web references, which have an ambivalent status in academic channels, depending upon applicability and mode of use. His web references to “serious amateur” are now a subject of amusement to academics, as those references indicate his acute lack of comprehension in such matters.
Fortunately, cult exegesis does not have priority in British Universities, and some of the more literate inhabitants of Britain are aware that I was admitted to Cambridge University Library (CUL) in January 1981 on the basis of being a prospective or actual “serious amateur” (nominated in epistolary format by a senior Fellow of Corpus Christi College) desiring to study learned journals and rare books not elsewhere available. That was the criterion for admission, and I fully agreed to the rules of library deportment. My first published book states in the preface that “my especial thanks are due to the Cambridge University Library and all concerned for the use of its excellent services” (Psychology in Science, p. ii, preface dated 1982). Joe Moreno has never been enrolled at any Cambridge library, and nor at any equivalent in America insofar as is known.
It is evident from phraseology that Moreno knew nothing about the context of the “serious amateur” tag. A frivolous quip dating to Sept. 2007 was used to sub-title his insulting disparagement of my defence on the CI website. I am still referred to on his primary website as “the ‘serious amateur’ non-academic writer who conducts seriously amateurish and biased research” (accessed 30/08/2008). I know of one academic who says that he would give Moreno full marks for rhetorical flourishes, but none at all for content.
Moreno evidently believed that the phrase he abused was merely a figure of speech. After my Response to Moreno appeared, the pro-Sai activist added a few lines about “serious amateur” without referring to the Response. It now transpired that he had looked up two websites and found that the quip phrase was tangible in academic sectors. He discreetly deleted one of his very superficial references, but was now an expert on the subject, in his own estimation at least. The tendency to assume knowledge as a consequence of internet surfing is one of the drawbacks found in contemporary society.
I have only referred to the phrase “serious amateur” because the connotation means something to liberal academics (and academics alone can assess the work involved in annotated books, especially those with solid indexes). The phrase under discussion became associated with me at Cambridge, where the ecological physicist Glen Schaefer tried to persuade me to accept a Ph.D. nomination in 1985. Professor Schaefer was a Canadian academic working at a scientific research establishment in Britain. Yet my own preferred designation for my activity is citizen philosopher, which has no association of scholarship or scientific endeavour. Moreno does not mention such context in his bizarre misrepresentation of the CI website.
To sum up here, the cult version of Cambridge activities is not the most reliable one. I should add that I was studying at CUL, with some intervals, until 1993. Two years later was published at Cambridge a 1,000 (one thousand) page annotated book of mine. On the basis of such factors, the tag arose in my direction of “serious amateur.” There is no law against such an ascription, except perhaps in cult polemic, where standards of expression are abnormally slanted against objectors to sectarian zeal.
22.12 Joe Moreno Fails to Comprehend a Non-Sectarian Project
The overbearing impudence of Gerald Joe Moreno uses the word “alleged” in relation to my establishment of IRCA (Intercultural Research Centre of Anthropography). Being determined to stigmatise all protesters to his very questionable web tactics, he has no scruple about making inappropriate comments. He would not be likely to understand the non-sectarian guidelines that were included in the project he seeks to disparage. The establishment of IRCA in 1984 was mentioned on the author page of all my books published at Cambridge in the mid and late 1980s, a page which stated that “anthropography takes particular account of the heritages of non-Western peoples,” and more specifically designating “a cross-cultural relevance to Western, Islamic, Jewish, Indian, Chinese, and other culture-groups.” My books have sold, e.g., in Islamic countries, both Sunni and Shia, whereas Joe Moreno is not a name in the book world or in Islamic sectors.
The Moreno attack asserts that I am “incapable of formulating a sober argument, let alone conducting any semblance of adequate or impartial research” (accessed 30/08/2008). People who have read my books and consulted the CI website more objectively have concluded that it is Joe Moreno whose argument leads nowhere except to pro-Sai activism, a stance which has increasing difficulties attached.
22.13 Joe Moreno Libel in Publishing Terms
The errors of the sectarian activist are such that he has not bothered to revise his glaring misattribution to my output of the logo New Media Books Ltd. Gerald Joe Moreno evidently acquired this error from his very inadequate interchange with the British book trade. The real New Media Books (not Ltd) never published any of my works. Real life publishing events have to be separated from sectarian imagination. The sectarian agent of libel and misattribution cannot discern the errors he has placed on the web, but there are many other readers who are able to do so.
Despite the explicit objection made in my Response to Moreno (paragraph six), the misleading web presence has not bothered, after nine months, to revise his accusing assertion that I self-publish through four imprints (accessed 30/08/2008). This assertion was intended as deadly stigma designed to write me off as a mere vanity merchant. I have only inaugurated two publishing imprints, and both of these have gained some academic recognition. Two imprints, not four. Furthermore, one of the two imprints (Anthropographia) is no longer current as a publishing venture. Joe Moreno’s acute evasionism on such very basic points is quite sufficient to indicate the nature of his distorting and harassing campaign against objectors. Ex-devotees have been suffering his harassment for four years or so, and some observers believe that Google Inc. should penalise web miscreants who screen out due protocol with defective cult agendas.
The vehement Joe Moreno delights in improvising such calculated snubs as “Kevin Shepherd’s subject material interests a very small and exclusive reading population.” That statement appears along with related assumptions at the commencement of his libel against Citizen Initiative on saisathyasai.com. He is entirely ignorant of such matters as book distributors and library suppliers in different parts of the world, including America and India, who have transmitted my books to different populations since the 1980s. Some of the reading populations entailed here may object to being considered “very small,” a phrase which Moreno has rendered in bold print to accentuate the inconsequential nature of those receptive to my output. Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, and other reading populations are not obliged to defer to the American cult insinuation of superiority. Bearing in mind also that Moreno is widely said to be addressing an audience of Sathya Sai Baba devotees whom he relies upon to be unfamiliar with the sources he snubs and reviles.
22.14 Joe Moreno Insults Academics and Wikipedia
The misleading web lore of Gerald Joe Moreno does not merely seek to cast aspersions upon myself but also upon academics with distinctions, including a university role exemplar holding a Ph.D. who has been involved with Wikipedia. Yet their credentials merely amount to “comical citations” of mine, according to the anti-Wikipedia commentator who seems intent upon being a know-all in respect of the online encyclopaedia.
The Wikipedia editor Jedermann was one of those liberal academics who responded to my circulars of 2006 that are included on the CI (Citizen Initiative) website. He is a bona fide senior academic in a British University who expressed to me his inclination for Citizendium due to some problems he encountered in Wikipedia transmission. The approving comments of Jedermann on Wikipedia in relation to my books evidently enraged Joe Moreno, whose repudiation of my supposedly “comical citations to anonymous scholars” arises from a discernible factor of sectarian bias.
In an ominous update (October 6th 2007) to his website attack on myself, Moreno refers to The Communicator, meaning a Wikipedia contributor whom the pro-Sai activist wishes to hold in contempt. This academic, possessing a declared master’s degree in philosophy, has clearly stated on Wikipedia that he works at “a major Australian University.” Yet Joe Moreno chooses to imply that the academic disclosure represents an untruth instigated by me. This breach of courtesy has amazed some academic observers, who consider the sectarian spokesman to be a hazardous commentator of the first rank. They have concluded that nobody with legitimate credentials is safe from cultist misconceptions. Other academics are still assimilating the situation in which Moreno web invective has been banned from Wikipedia. That invective only enjoys status in the Sathya Sai Baba sect.
There are one or two academics in Britain who believe Moreno to be a crazed devotee. Others say that he is calculating to a perverse extent. However, the consensus of informed opinion is that Gerald Joe Moreno is extensively confused by his cult auspices, which comprise the danger factor in encouraging extreme assertions and aggressive tactics.
The dogmatic pro-Sai activist states of The Communicator that “his alleged credentials cannot be verified whatsoever” (accessed 30/08/2008). This statement is very much open to contradiction.
The pro-Sai polemicist not only insulted the academic in Australia, but also brazenly stated that “Kevin Shepherd attempted to do damage control and had ‘The Communicator’ update his Wikipedia page” (accessed 30/08/2008). That is an outright fabrication and lie which I repudiate categorically. Academics are quite independent in their decisions of Wikipedia statement. The Moreno policy is to stigmatise critics and objectors, and attempt to make them look invalid and suspicious. Responsible parties in America are urged to consider what the outcome will be if American cult attitudes gain ascendancy in the new world, bringing back medieval European standards of inquisition and false testimony operating under the influence of rabidly obsessive beliefs.
The official policy of Wikipedia is one of pseudonyms, which are a respectable front in such protocol situations. That policy is not everywhere agreed upon. Academics sometimes know the real identity of one or other Wikipedia contributors, but would not normally disclose such details. Moreno himself had the User name of SSS108, though his real name soon became known to academics. His conflict with the Wikipedia administrator known as Mel Etitis became operative some weeks before he was banned from Wikipedia by an Arbitration Committee. Such a ban very rarely occurs, and can only happen under strong provocation. For months afterwards, Moreno attacked Wikipedia personnel on the web, and it seems that he will use any pretext to subvert in that direction. He clearly resents the Wikipedia transmission for downgrading him.
Ex-Wikipedia Joe Moreno indulges in an extremist digression about how I am supposedly involved in “some sort of collaborated scheming on Wikipedia against Stanislav Grof, Holotropic Breathwork and the Findhorn Foundation” (accessed 30/08/2008). There is no evidence of this whatever. I am not a Wikipedia contributor. The Moreno fantasy is based upon my references to The Communicator in my webpage Grof Therapy and MAPS located at the CI website. Contrary to sectarian disapproval, it is not illegal to write critical articles about Grof and to mention current discussions of that subject found on Wikipedia. Moreno complains that The Communicator added links to my website, and this also is not a crime. Other academics have done the same thing.
The Communicator was involved in a critique of Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork on Wikipedia talk pages, and was justified in using my name in view of my published critiques of Grof which had been ignored by the supporters of that innovator. The Findhorn Foundation were also mentioned in the relevant discussion, being closely associated with Holotropic Breathwork. This discussion was a legitimate Wikipedia activity, and Moreno shows his total ignorance of the materials involved.
Moreno has rashly attempted to cast doubt upon The Communicator’s academic background by mentioning the episode he refers to as the Essjay Wikipedia Controversy. That episode is described in terms of a 24-year old college drop out falsely claiming (under the pseudonym of Essjay) to be “a tenured Professor of religion at a private University.” It is known that Wikipedia pseudonyms can be abused (as in the instance of SSS108 and a redundant Wikipedia User page). Yet Moreno goes so far as to state that I “attempted to con the general public with anonymous and alleged ‘scholarly’ references” (accessed 30/08/2008), here meaning those of Jedermann and The Communicator. Moreno is here inviting repercussions of a grave nature in association with libel. The offensive aspersion appeared in the acutely erroneous item entitled Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s Comical Citations to Anonymous Scholars at saisathyasai.com.
The Communicator refers in his talk pages to a correspondence he had with medical authorities in 1994-5 on the subject of Holotropic Breathwork, a controversial therapy improvised by Stanislav Grof at Esalen in California. The Communicator notably contacted the Pathology Department of Edinburgh University about the Breathwork problem. This matter can be independently verified, as the Wikipedian was known to Stephen Castro (now of the Inland Revenue, UK), who was the major documenter at that time of Holotropic Breathwork in Britain, and more especially at the Findhorn Foundation. Castro wrote a significant book entitled Hypocrisy and Dissent within the Findhorn Foundation (1996), which is now considered to be a major dissident work of the 1990s in reaction to bad management of the type found in “alternative” organisations.
At that period, Stephen Castro was sent (confidential) copies of the academic correspondence (of The Communicator) with Regius Professor Anthony Busuttil of Edinburgh University. This correspondence evoked a relevant confirmation from Professor Busuttil about the contents of a special report the latter had composed for the Scottish Charities Office. That report was not publicly available, but had been crucial in the train of events. The participation of The Communicator in debates about Holotropic Breathwork is totally justified in view of his direct involvement in this academic and medical issue of the 90s, which gained both official and media representation in Britain.
In 2006, The Communicator took strong exception to the glorifying Wikipedia entry on Holotropic Breathwork, which lacked all critical sources and all due critical discussion. He accordingly filed a complaint on talk pages, and considerately informed Stephen Castro and myself of his counter-measure. Other academics also knew of that due measure, which was relevant to public information. As a consequence of intervention by The Communicator, the Holotropic Breathwork promotionalism was obliged to add some critical sources to their “commercial ad” entry on Wikipedia (though the dimensions of that presentation are still unsatisfactory).
Gerald Joe Moreno has been trying to misrepresent a situation that he does not comprehend. He displays a complete ignorance of the details, being instead preoccupied with sectarian objectives of aggressive polemic unrelated to educational priorities. His basic motivation here is to insinuate that condoning comments made by The Communicator about myself on Wikipedia must be “inherently slanted, subjective and defensive.” That is because critics (such as myself) of Sathya Sai Baba or Joe Moreno cannot be viewed in Moreno argument as having any validity whatever. Only sectarian activists (and their gurus) are objective and non-slanted and non-defensive. Other Wikipedians had formerly discovered just how assertive and unreasonable Gerald Joe Moreno can be.
On January 24th, 2007, the Wikipedia administrator Mel Etitis reprimanded the aggressive Joe Moreno by commenting: “If you make personal attacks on other editors, such as calling their edits duplicitous, you will be blocked from editing.” That communication has appeared on Wikipedia. The misgivings of Etitis found a ready response from some other Wikipedians at that time, who likewise found Moreno to be continually quarrelsome and unyielding. One Wikipedian is on record for having warned him about attempting to discover the real name of contributors, which amounted to a violation of a Wikipedia code against harassment. Yet the pro-Sai activist continued to be difficult, resulting in the indefinite ban by the Arbitration Committee in March 2007. Joe Moreno had been told by Etitis that Wikipedia was not “a playground game of name-calling.” The playground continues in other web formats where diverse objectors and victims are given the name-calling treatment by the vehement champion of Sathya Sai Baba.
To give an example of playground verbal style, at the end of his militant webpage dismissing my defence against his redundant Wikipedia User page, Moreno calls me “just another foaming-at-the-mouth Anti-Sai ruffian.” That polemical name comes from the apologist angel representing “Love All Serve All” sentiment, which may be regarded as a farce for propaganda purposes.
Conclusion
Sectarian name-calling is but a pleasantry by comparison with other militant web strategies described above. In my defence against the proscribing Wikipedia User page placed by Gerald Joe Moreno on Google Search, I used two legitimate quotes from Wikipedia contributors on the subject of my literary and publishing output. Those quotes were dismissed by an extremist sectarian argument designed to give no quarter to my defence. This Moreno tactic has demonstrated a rabid attack mentality sufficient to evoke the description of “internet thug.” The fact that the sectarian Moreno webpage can currently pass muster as a valid web entry at the top of my Google Search name list, is proof to some analysts that the Google algorithm is a defective assistant of web harassment, which has been banned from Wikipedia. See also 22.21 below.
22.15 The Joe Moreno Bust Portrait
The increasingly notorious Moreno webpage Citizen Initiative and Kevin R. D. Shepherd at saisathyasai.com has maintained the taboo on publishing (in books) the only publicly known photograph of Gerald Joe Moreno. The sectarian attempted by email to prevent his image from appearing on the CI (Citizen Initiative) website. It is evident that he wishes to remain as anonymous as possible, so that nobody will recognise him behind all his numerous pseudonyms, personal attacks, and defamations. Moreno Prohibitions has, however, gone to an excess in using images of myself and my mother, and so the sole available image of the extremist sectarian is reproduced above in web format. This bust portrait, with a mandala background, originally appeared on a Moreno website prior to deletion by the subject and subsequent preservation by ex-devotees.
The forbidden image also exists on the CI website, having appeared there in August 2007. Yet that event was subsequently under threat in a curt email to myself from the exemplar of harassment and libel. That email was briefly reported in my Response to Moreno abovementioned, a document which is not allowed to surface in the suppressive sectarian files of saisathyasai.com. In his email of September 2007, Moreno threatened to report me to my web host for reproducing his image. In Britain however, it is considered appropriate that web entities engaged in public controversy should be identifiable by their image. The suppression of image representation leads to suspicion about motivation, which in this case is clearly related to sectarian objectives.
The desire to preserve an anonymous profile while engaging in sectarian attacks and defamations is not acceptable within non-sectarian circles (and there are many who agree with me on this point). This reservation is not altered by the threat of “hefty damages” expressed by Moreno in relation to inclusion of his image in any prospective book. See the item Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s Copyright Infringement: A Warning at saisathyasai.com. There are no plans for any such book on my part. If Gerald Joe Moreno is unhappy with the bust portrait he formerly employed, then he should provide another image for identity purposes, and that will be used instead. Moreno cannot reasonably expect victims of his sectarian animosity to condone his anonymous web presence, even though he prefers to remain unaccountable in terms of criticism or due identity. Pseudonyms like Equalizer, or even Joe108, are not sufficient for public profile in web milieux.
The sectarian tactic of threat and libel should meet with due opposition from other parties with different objectives.
22.16 The Joe Moreno Blog and Tag Harassment on Google Search
In the autumn of 2007, in the wake of Gerald Joe Moreno’s attack against me on his primary website, there appeared on my Google Search name list (Kevin R. D. Shepherd) a stream of anonymous entries conveying insidious themes that were not in my favour. Entries on commercial American blogs, together with tag items, were conspicuous. It was obvious from the tone and general context that these were Moreno harassments, though outsiders to the subject would be led to imagine that a number of opponents were involved. Probably the most offensive of these ephemera was the tag item juxtaposing Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy with a media report of a murder in which the American casualty had the same name as myself. Ex-devotees commented that Moreno was getting desperate in resorting to such formats. My friends found all this very disturbing. I duly mentioned the new harassments in the 10/11/2007 Postscript to my Response to Moreno.
The harasser resorted to a disclaimer that evoked gasps of disbelief. The only ingredient of the lengthy Response that Moreno acknowledged was part of the brief Postscript, and more specifically, the tagging issue. To this effect he added an update of January 14th 2008 to his denigratory webpage against myself on saisathyasai.com. The abrasive sectarian there quotes a passage from my Postscript, but misinterprets to a noticeable degree. He presents me as “exhibiting the symptoms of a person afflicted with paranoia,” and interprets the quoted passage to mean that I was accusing him of a “conspiracy to influence ‘uncritical devotees’ that he (Shepherd) was involved in some sort of murder.” What I actually said was that a certain tagged and juxtaposed item “refers to an actual murder which has nothing to do with me,” a statement which appeared in the Moreno quote. The sense is very different, as other analysts can see.
Furthermore, with regard to the uncritical devotees, what I actually stated was that “Joe Moreno is clearly attempting to influence uncritical devotees via his websites and blogs and tagging system.” Ex-devotees have pointed out that Moreno aims at an audience of devotees, not analytical assessors who consult the sources of both objectors and pro-Sai activists. Moreno knows that devotees will take his version for granted, and he does not want any obstruction to that situation.
In the same update, Moreno launches into an extremist theme of how I cannot distinguish my entity from that of other Kevin Shepherds. “Kevin Shepherd...thinks he is the only ‘Kevin Shepherd’ on the planet.” The format of this very forced argument is not at all flattering to the pro-Sai activist camp. My complaint related to the juxtaposition on a wordpress.com blog of a very misleading Moreno item with a murder event relating to the name of Kevin Shepherd. In no way did I ever imagine that I had been murdered, or was an accomplice of any sort to such an event. Only web transgressors like Joe Moreno can distort verbal statements in this exaggerated manner. Some academics see in this instance indisputable proof that Moreno is unreliable to a degree rarely encountered in website media. The conclusion is pressing that the sectarian activist believed he could bluntly disown the harassment while ignoring all the rest of the lengthy Response.
The American murder referred to was the shooting of Kevin Shepherd by Steven Lovendahl, an event occurring in Utah during 2007. This event surfaced on my Google Search name list in the form of a commercial item juxtaposed with Moreno’s agitating and misleading slur entitled Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy. That slur, dating to July 2007, was strongly promoted by Moreno and has appeared in different entries on Google Search. Priddy is a salient ex-devotee loathed by Moreno as an opponent or rival. The coincidence or juxtaposition of my name with the murder event was construed by a number of observers as a very questionable web presentation, one that savoured of a negative suggestion, and one which evidently occurred with Moreno’s compliance. It was not wordpress.com who instigated the slur, but Joe Moreno.
I never said that Moreno wrote the “Kevin Shepherd murder” item, as he vainly implies. Nor did I say that he owned the relevant wordpress blog, or that he created the wordpress tag for the discrepant murder item. My clear meaning was that his combined website, blog, and tag tactic, so visible on Google, encompassed extremely objectionable means of format and content, and was being used to influence uncritical sectarians.
It was no accident that the Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy slur was represented on wordpress.com (a blog media associated with Google Inc.). This slur became prominent on Google Search due to the campaign of Moreno to denigrate critics of Sathya Sai. Moreno viewed my published coverage of Robert Priddy’s dissident documentation as proof of error, and this sectarian interpretation was again eager to stigmatise my publishing imprint of Citizen Initiative. That form of pro-Sai aggression was a continuation of the proscribing attitude found on Moreno’s Wikipedia User page abovementioned.
The Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy slur had first appeared on the Moreno blog entitled sathyasaibaba at wordpress.com, and was conspicuous on Google Search from July 2007. Now (in November 2007) it was being tagged to provide a separate entry on Google Search, evidently part of an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) drive at the expense of those named. The slur was anonymous, having been promoted under the Moreno pseudonym of Equalizer. The pro-Sai activist was thus screening his personal identity while tweaking the deficient Google algorithm to abet his rating on Search. His mentality in responding to complaints is that of an internet libeller and SEO manipulator who has become accustomed to getting his own way due to the deficient Google system of monitoring and control.
Moreno does not mention any of the relevant contextual details in his very calculated update of 14/01/2008. Instead he ends his reversal of the blog and tag issue with the contention that “Shepherd’s asinine arguments against me are without credible or factual basis.” Saint Joe adds another loaded sentence which assessors have underlined in red: “These types of conspiratorial and puerile accusations argue more that Kevin Shepherd is an ‘internet hit man’ who assaults others with his formidable ignorance about the internet.”
So the sectarian activist wants to depict me as the hit man, while he himself is implied as an innocuous internet expert who is always doing the right things with his great knowledge. It is relevant to add that his campaign on Google Search also dominates the name listings of various other critics and objectors with his purportedly innocent contributions of invective and libel. He clearly thinks of opponents and objectors as being asinine fools, a judgment which is evidently a pretext for him to assert his manipulative skill in too many ways.
In June 2008, the Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy slur reappeared as a tag item on page one of my Google Search name list (Kevin R. D. Shepherd). This was again a wordpress.com/tag, and the intention was evidently to strengthen the Moreno presence on that list. The same slur already comprised the second entry on my name list, and so the tag was quite superfluous save as an exercise in SEO manipulation. The first entry on my name list was the Moreno attack on myself at his primary website. Strangely enough, the renewed tag did not appear on page one until my own two entries had overtaken the offensive Wikipedia User page of SSS108 (alias Joe Moreno), which had formerly been the third entry. Close analysts are able to decode such web manoeuvres.
22.17 An Offensive Metatag on Google Search
Gerald Joe Moreno was unable to create an offensive metatag directly from his (basically illicit) Wikipedia User page that he had retained on Google after being banned by Wikipedians. So instead he used the Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy slur to promote a Google Search metatag which comprised a direct lift from his belligerent Wikipedia User page militating against my publishing venture (though with the addition of the word “absolutely”). That metatag appeared in July 2007 and continued to read “there are absolutely no online references about Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s qualifications, notability, personal information, credentials or schooling.” This harassment is still visible on my Google Search name list (Kevin R. D. Shepherd) in August 2008 (and in a slightly abbreviated form).
The markedly offensive and stigmatising metatag has been employed for the Moreno blog sathyasaibaba.wordpress.com as shown on Google Search for my name listing. The blog here specified has not shown the name of Moreno, but the pseudonym of Equalizer, a factor which has been interpreted as culpable anonymity.
[On September 1st 2008, the offensive metatag was temporarily transferred to the primary Moreno website as an expedient to maintain dominancy on my Google Search name listing.]
The loaded and very hostile gesture signified by the sustained metatag message abovequoted has been viewed by close analysts as direct web harassment, evading details found on the CI (Citizen Initiative) website. The offensive metatag has also been viewed as a serious misuse of Wikipedia User associations. The potential in this matter is one of a legal footing that could seriously contradict web cowboy operations associated with cult harassment.
It has been deduced by academics and legal analysts that the person who really does lack online references about personal information and schooling is Gerald Joe Moreno, whose background is shrouded in obscurity. Even his photograph has been zealously confined (by him) to the zone of perfect publishing anonymity. However, there is no current British law to prevent a victim of Moreno harassment from displaying the only known image of that evasive American entity on the web. Unresolved problems should be made known in case these get worse under the cloak of anonymity or obscurity. Joe Moreno is very much in evidence on Google Search, whatever his attempts to divert attention from this. His various web pseudonyms have included vishvarupa108, Equalizer,
JM108, and GM108; these cover identities have been traced by ex-devotees.
22.18 Joe Moreno as Internet Terrorist
The Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy slur was attended by other superficial blog items and tag devices bearing my name and publishing imprints without my consent; these were multiplying on my Google Search name list at the time I wrote the Nov. 2007 Postscript (which referred to this clearly visible harassing operation). Gerald Joe Moreno has specialised in such crudities of junk web, and these flotsam have been implicated as an ingredient of his alleged SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) manipulations on Google. Most of the ephemera designed against me vanished soon after my complaint in the Postscript, and some believe that Moreno knew he had gone too far and was now too visible as a web harasser.
Ex-devotees have been complaining about his offensive tactics for the past few years, and those tactics are the reason why Joe Moreno is viewed as an internet terrorist. The strongly harassing and defamatory nature of his web output (often anonymous) tends to justify accusations (see, e.g., 22.10 above). He dislikes being called an internet terrorist, but he has been demonstrating this tendency on Google Search name listings even while repudiating criticisms to that effect. It is a fact that he has dominated the Google Search name lists of several ex-devotees and critics (including mine at the present time).
It has been claimed by ex-devotees that exercises in negative SEO are involved in these dominations and infiltrations. Quite apart from that factor, the animosity of Moreno towards critics of Sathya Sai Baba is blatantly obvious. He has denied using distorted images of opponents, but certain images in that category have been preserved from his web output (see 22.6 above). Joe Moreno has denied placing details of opponents on porn sites, but there is strong accusation in this respect that is difficult to ignore (see 23.5 below). Some critics have deduced that his acute aversion to having his own image reproduced (see 22.15 above) is because this exposure of appearance offsets his preferred anonymous (or pseudonymous) identity, which is extensively employed in his infiltration of Google Search with libellous and misleading materials.
A recent ex-devotee despatch (August 2008) informed that lawyers in three countries (Australia, America, and Britain) have confirmed the severe nature of the libel tactics used by the “determined fanatic named Gerald Joe Moreno” of New Mexico. The report states that the victims of libel have complained to Google and Zoominfo, the latter being an internet Who’s Who. The information is supplied that Zoominfo has given an assurance that “they will remove spurious material which purports to be Who’s Who entries from some 8 members of our worldwide group but which, in fact, lead straight to a nest of Gerald Joe Moreno blog and websites.” The activities of Moreno are evidently moving well beyond the bounds of legitimate controversy. Furthermore, the same despatch informs that Wordpress.com had acted on the intervention of the US copyright authority, which had disapprovingly examined scurrilous Moreno versions of material by Robert Priddy. Wordpress.com are here stated to have removed significant “amounts of the stolen material, which had been defamatorily misused.”
It is evident that the role of Joe Moreno as sectarian aggressor is justified in his psychology by his extreme belief about allegations made against the guru. Moreno asserts that “all of the allegations against (Sathya) Sai Baba are based on hearsay, rumour, gossip, conspiracy theories, anonymous accounts and stories from six non-anonymous and alleged victims” (accessed 30/08/2008). This very dogmatic and misleading statement comes from the Moreno denigration of myself on his primary website, and from the section entitled Kevin Shepherd’s Unsupported Terrorist Claims. Compare this strongly diminished version of allegations with the report of Dr. Timothy Conway (see 23.10 below).
Moreno decries my reminder that Sathya Sai “is closely associated with terrorism.” This association is a fact, and quite apart from the notorious bedroom murders of 1993. The reports of Basava Premanand (and his colleagues amongst the Indian Rationalists) refer to various other murders and harassments which are not so easily explained away by sectarian preferences. Moreno has been notably opposed to Premanand, the major Indian critic of the guru who has exposed the “miracle” feats of Sathya Sai as deceptions. See 23.7 and 23.8 below. That factor alone is sufficient reason to take Premanand seriously, and it is impossible to realistically discount the terrorism factor. Furthermore, Premanand has been in protest at what the Indian Rationalists see as a perverse obstruction to the truth in the shape of Gerald Joe Moreno. Indeed, Premanand has contributed a recent book on this subject (Failed Sabotage by Sathya Sai Baba through Gerald Moreno, 2007).
All the contrary factors against the sect are dismissed by activist Moreno as “assumption, blind belief and conjecture.” This is the basis supplied by Moreno for his sectarian assertion that “Kevin Shepherd makes the case for me that he is a thoroughly biased (and shabby) researcher who lacks genuine critical thinking skills” (accessed 30/08/2008).
Thus the prospect for critical analysis could be very bleak for non-subscribers to sectarian dogmatism if Moreno infiltrations continue on Google Search. The harassment of various kinds might merely become glorified as angelic activity in which nothing can ever be wrong, because of the “genuine critical thinking skills” supposedly possessed by sectarian aggressors.
22.19 Harassment Tactics Extend Abuse on Google
The vindictive nature of sectarian aggressor tactics has recently been confirmed (April 2008) by the Moreno gesture of placing five images of my mother (Kate Thomas) in a row on his webpage Citizen Initiative and Kevin R. D. Shepherd (which is prominently visible on my Google Search name list). Gerald Joe Moreno has supplied a derisive caption to those images, and in a context related to his wildly erroneous deductions about Wikipedia editors (see 22.14 above). This excessive gesture accompanied a libellous phrase lifted from the Findhorn Foundation internet stigma of 2002. That stigma included the erroneous description of Kate Thomas being an “ex-housemate” at Forres, a description repeated by Moreno on his primary website (accessed 30/08/2008). See 13. 21 above. The description is totally invalid, but is still being employed by Moreno, who is insensitive to a notable degree.
Images of Kate Thomas (mother of Kevin Shepherd) abused by Joe Moreno. Copyright Kate Thomas.
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The accomplice to libel had already been warned in my Response (November 2007) that the Findhorn Foundation internet stigma had been annulled elsewhere and was an inadvisable recourse. He has completely ignored this, as with so many other matters detailed in the Response. Moreno has instead chosen to prove that the Sathya Sai devotee slogan “Love All Serve All” really means “Hate All Abuse All” outside the cult.
This matter illustrates the extent to which outsiders to the Sathya Sai cult are in jeopardy. Kate Thomas is eighty years old and has never expressed more than a few words in print about Sathya Sai Baba. At the Findhorn Foundation, she was noted for her pacifist policy of never saying anything adverse about him. In contrast, Moreno displays the militant mood of pro-Sai activism. He has sided with a “new age” error incorporated in a repressive tactic of vaunted “intentional community,” a tactic that does not win the approval of more impartial analysts than cult activists.
Kate Thomas has repudiated the Findhorn Foundation repressive tactic at some length, and in serious legal dimensions; there is now the closely attendant possibility that Moreno will be the subject of a legal complaint filed by her in relation to the Findhorn Foundation. The formative legal issue entails unusual complexities that might not easily be surmounted by the Foundation. Yet even the Findhorn Foundation did not use photographs in their infamous internet ploy, and so Joe Moreno is actually worse in some respects than the “new spirituality” version of cult libel. The Findhorn Foundation and Joe Moreno are now bracketed together in some assessments of abuse, though that close relation is not necessarily to the mutual advantage of those offensive parties.
The accomplice to libel mistakenly says that I publish the writings of Kate Thomas and Stephen Castro. Wrong again. In recent years I have been able to distribute (not publish) three of the books involved, that is all. Moreno also says erroneously that I constantly cite Castro and Thomas in my writings. This is proof that he has never read my books. In a laboured passage relating to his misapprehensions about Wikipedia personnel (see 22.14 above), Moreno accuses me of “advocating against Stanislav Grof, Holotropic Breathwork and the Findhorn Foundation” (accessed 30/08/2008). He renders in bold print the word “against.” Moreno may therefore be regarded as a tactical sympathiser with Grof doctrines, an affinity which makes nonsense of his contradictory attack on Robert Priddy as an LSD eulogist. Moreover, his evident preference for Findhorn Foundation propaganda places him in strong ideological affinity with that controversial organisation.
The matter of Findhorn Foundation stigma gained comment in my Sathya Sai Baba and the Moreno Strategy, a document circulated within FAIR in late 2007. The Foundation are there referred to as “an organisation who are now in a predicament with suppressed data.” That privately circulated document also says that “Moreno made only a fleeting reference, and yet his increasing notoriety does not add to the prestige of the ‘new spirituality’ centre in Moray.”
FAIR are not happy about the performance of the Findhorn Foundation, which has acquired a reputation for exercising cult-associated characteristics. In a letter to Kate Thomas dated 1st October 2007, the Chairman of FAIR commented that the Findhorn Foundation “should not be classed as an NGO.”
See further Kate Thomas and the Findhorn Foundation (2009). See also The Findhorn Foundation: Problems (2009) and Letter to Robert Walter MP (2009).
22.20 Joe Moreno in Tandem with the Findhorn Foundation
Similar to the “Love All Serve All” hypocrites of the Sathya Sai Baba cult, the Findhorn Foundation has also been masquerading under false sentiment. The latter have frequently adopted the exaggerated auspices of “unconditional love.” The negative aspects of performance which the Findhorn Foundation have been anxious to conceal include: (1) a strongly alleged case of child abuse in the early 1990s which gained police attention (2) an official recommendation to cease a dangerous alternative therapy that caused adverse effects in some clients over a period of five years commencing in 1989 (3) serious economic problems which required the resignation of a management team in the late 1990s, involving details that were concealed from public view due to the simultaneous acquisition of NGO status (4) severe repression of a dissident factor that manifested in published books and media articles. See also no. 10 and no. 13 above.
The thematic convergence of Gerald Joe Moreno and the Findhorn Foundation (in relation to Kate Thomas) might easily be regarded as an ominous marriage of (a) insidious internet cult screening against strong allegations of abuse (b) new age evasionism of the politically devious kind demonstrated for twenty years or more by bad management in the far north of Scotland. On the latter problem, see www.citizeninitiative.com/letter_of_Kate_Thomas_to_UNESCO.htm.
In reality, the wildly exaggerated sentiment of “love” may amount to the hazard emerging in such reports as that of the suspiciously murdered Tamil who met a very painful end in the backyard of Sathya Sai Baba. “He had his stomach cut out while he was sleeping and they found him still alive in the morning” (Shepherd, Investigating the Sai Baba Movement, 2005, p. 297). The identity of the murdering party is uncertain, though Sathya Sai Baba reportedly did nothing to assist a due investigation into the crime.
Moreno ignores all complaints and warnings, being solely intent upon a vindictive campaign of libelling objectors (and their families) with no due justification. The unprincipled and aggressive nature of cult activity on the internet is now considered a social menace. The problem employs junk web (cheap blogs and tags etc) and pro-Sai activist website as instruments of misinformation and harassment. Allegedly paid by Dr. Michael Goldstein, Moreno is tangibly desperate to defame critics and even neutral observers in his offensive career as cult defender and libel perpetrator.
22.21 Misuse of Google and Lax Monitoring by Google
Though banned from Wikipedia, Gerald Joe Moreno is still at large on Google, where the full significance of his activity is known to close assessors. His aggressive sectarianism has gained ascendancy on Google Search name listings of his victims and critics. This questionable situation is now inviting due attention. The means by which the pro-Sai activist has achieved this unmerited dominance is facilitated by the primitive system of ranking sustained by the giant web mediator. Google Inc. have not yet arrived at any genuine democratic process, a prospect usurped by web ranking anomalies that require thorough investigation.
Attack specialist Moreno has been able to take full advantage of deficient Google ranking. The reason why ex-devotees will not link to Moreno web materials is because backlinks assist Moreno tactics of gaining ascendancy over opponents on Google Search name listings. This issue is fraught with grave implications for manipulative abuse of the blind Google algorithm because of the defamatory attacks continually mounted by Moreno. The significance of this development has recently begun to register with a larger field of cult analysts, though Moreno himself is clearly aiming at an audience of devotees who are not in the habit of consulting dissident or critical sources. His backlinks from other pro-Sai websites assist his campaign, though additional recourses are also involved and implicated.
Some observers now consider Joe Moreno to be a major sectarian manipulator on Google. He has created his own network of “at least 14 interlinked websites and blogspots” (see 23.5 below), and this ballast is sufficient to exercise a strong influence on search engines. The scope for abuse is prodigious in such a situation if the mode of operation is geared to the derision and libel of rivals or critics. This drawback happens to be a Moreno speciality.
The varied web strategies of Joe Moreno, such as tag devices (see 22.16 above), are evidently aimed at boosting the power of his network on Google Search, and thus gaining the upper hand via SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) over critics and victims, whom he constantly disparages and libels with his barbed sectarian polemic.
When I objected to Joe Moreno’s sectarian snub of my publishing effort on a disputed Wikipedia User page, his extremist response ignored the fact that I had linked to his primary website in my protest, and even quoted from his FAQ in some detail. He preferred to give the impression that I had ignored his contributions in my allegedly “shabby research.” See 22.5 above. Observers have drawn the conclusion that it is superfluous to link to Moreno web sources. Critics are only critics, whatever they do, and Joe Moreno represents the miracleworking guru who must not be faulted.
Some ex-devotees are perhaps totally justified in their obdurate policy of abstention from linking to Moreno webpages and thereby assisting his leverage derived from computer backlinks. His defamations are greatly boosted by those backlinks, which are now so much in question. See further www.citizeninitiative.com/sathya_sai_and_wikipedia.htm#response for Kevin R. D. Shepherd in response to Gerald Joe Moreno. Here I supplied many links to Moreno materials, though I have since deleted those links after being warned by computer analysts only to cite the URL and not to link, as the linking process (creating backlinks from websites) facilitates the cult efforts at dominancy on Google Search. Google rankings award a priority to backlinks, and are relatively indifferent to quality of content. This situation is lamentable, amounting to a perfunctory commercial procedure devoid of advanced criteria.
The page rank system of Google supposedly values websites that are popular and useful, but there is obviously pronounced scope for confusion in the Search algorithm. Moreno entries (including blogs) are permitted by Google ranking to move higher than rival websites resistant to cult emphases. This process has been clearly visible on the Google Search name lists of rivals and critics.
Observers have noticed that the page rank dominating Joe Moreno has ignored my copyright proviso in the Response to Moreno, in which I allowed him one image of myself against the one of him on the Citizen Initiative website. He has recently (April 2008) posted two further images of myself contrary to the proviso. He has taken this liberty even while maintaining that the sole known Moreno image must NOT be displayed in books under threat of heavy damages for copyright infringement. In defiance of any proportionate quota, the cult aggressor has now posted three images of myself and five of my mother (all copyrighted) on a libellous webpage that evidently serves the purposes of the hypocritical Sathya Sai Organisation, which has gained increasing associations of internet misuse (see 23.12 below).
The three images of myself are saliently featured (August 2008) in an excessive cluster at the top of the hostile webpage, in an obvious gesture of denigration. Whereas the sole image of Moreno is inset well into the text (Part Two) of the relevant Citizen Initiative webpage. The clear differences have been registered by observers. Caveat all outsiders to the Sathya Sai Baba cult, which in America poses a threat via Google Search to international citizen rights and considerations.
A major feature of the overall pro-Sai harassment issue can here be pinpointed, namely the ability to misuse the internet under the auspices of Google Inc. of California. This factor now perturbs cult analysts and academics. The tactics of Gerald Joe Moreno on Google have been dubbed infovandalism; those tactics have also been described in more sinister terms of SEO manipulation. He has gained high ratings on Google Search due to the prolific nature of his output, much of it ephemera and attack blogs. That questionable output is greatly assisted by Google-approved backlinks from sectarian websites operating under the aegis of Sathya Sai Baba. This is a grave matter affording testimony to the inadequacy of Google standards and precautions for public wellbeing. Strong complaints are now in the offing. See also no. 2 above.
The inadequate algorithm of Google Inc. is viewed as a social affliction by sufferers and critics. The fact that cult tactics are permitted such ascendancy on Google Search (in the name listings of victims and objectors) means that there might be no limit to the future misrepresentations condoned and purveyed by lax web media possessing only a rudimentary system of control. Caveat all potential victims on a global scale.
The current situation in which American web transmission (i.e. Google Search) saliently hosts an American cult activist at the expense of international victims and objectors, is now deemed a pressing issue by informed spectators. The fact that Wikipedia has indefinitely banned the strident sectarian is some proof of justification for grievances, quite apart from various other factors now visible. See further my web article The Internet Terrorist Gerald Joe Moreno. [See also Hate Campaign Blogs of Gerald Joe Moreno.]
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