With a preface by Rigmor Robert - physician and psychotherapist - respected nationally in Sweden as prominent in exposing the Jehovas Witness Cult in Sweden and also the Swedish Pentecostial Church (Pingskyrkan org.) in Knutby, Sweden, 2004, where Pastor Helge Fossmo got a life sentence for involvement in the murder of his wife by his brainwashed assistant, Sara Svennson.

Brief excerpt from Rigmor Robert's preface to 'Behind the Mask of the Clown':

Unfortunately, no. What is needed here is to take a stand and speak out clearly, as Conny has done. One cannot disclaim responsibility for what goes on in closed religious groups by referring to freedom of the will or laws on religious liberty. Conny mentions the fatal shooting in Sai Baba’s bedroom. Four young boys were killed on 6 June 1993. It is not yet clear what happened and why. In the pastor’s villa in Knutby two young women died violent deaths. A third woman had become so convinced of the unreal things of which the pastors had spoken that she was turned into an instrument of murder.

We ‘out here’ must take a stand, because manipulative groups are dangerous. Those who believe themselves to be close to God and wish to remain close to their leaders can become ruthless towards others. Religious liberty, moreover, never applies to the children of believing parents. For children ‘in there’ the religion becomes compulsion. Some believers lose empathy. The most important thing may then become that the children do as the leader says, not how the child feels. Children “must obey” was the rule in Knutby.

The person who is subjected to violation often stays silent. As a boy, Conny was unable to speak at all for many years. The perpetrator would like to think that the violation was not so bad. That the one who exploits and the one who is violated are coconspirators. That they share a secret that is, if not wonderful, then, well … exciting. But it is not a matter of collusion when the victim stays silent. It is shame that constricts the throat, like a poisoned piece of apple in Snow-white. And the fear isolates as much as her glass coffin. It is common for the exploited individual to place the blame on himself or herself."

Note: The first occasion when Sathya Sai Baba sexually molested me I described as follows (Sathya Sai Baba's words in orange):
Then Baba quickly seized the cord and down came my loose-fitting Indian trousers. He repeated the treatment of my Kundalini energy that he had begun the day before. I let myself be swept along by Baba's massage of my penis, which slowly stiffened from the accelerating motion. Should I be ashamed or be grateful? Thoughts flew through my mind while my body reacted to Baba's manipulation. I did not know if it was intended to proceed as far as orgasm, but I could not stop myself. Baba showed his delight when the sperm spurted out. Satisfied, he took the white handkerchief that hung over the side of his chair, with which he usually wiped his mouth, and cleaned my penis and his own sperm-covered hand.

- Very good boy, very good boy.

Up went the trousers in a flash and the private interview could be concluded. I was utterly confused by the treatment and by this attention to me and my person.

To an Indian who stood near him he said,

- This is a very good boy, he will do things for humanity.

The worrying sense of shame immediately left me. I allowed myself to be acknowledged and admired. I had to tell the Swedes over and over again my amazing story of how Baba had asked me to sing, what he had said about my future and about the materialization that I had seen Baba perform. On the other hand, in accordance with Baba's express wish, I kept quiet about the physical and spiritual treatment that he had applied to me. That was to remain between him and me.

The brutal cracking of pistol shots echoed across the dwelling of heavenly peace at Puttaparthi. The inhabitants of the ashram interrupted their meditative rest and streamed out panic-stricken. Soon the temple yard was full of anxious followers of the Indian avatar, the incarnated deity Sai Baba. Rumors spread at lightning speed. An assassination attempt had been made against Sai Baba, murderers had forced their way into his private apartment in the monastery.

Was he dead? Who were the assailants? Just robbers? Fundamentalist Hindus? Families in an internal power struggle?

For several hours people trampled over each other in their urgent quest to find out what had happened. Finally the relieving news arrived. The chief of the local police came out onto the temple terrace and spoke to the people in the courtyard.

- Sai Baba is safe and sound. We have destroyed the enemy. Let this be a warning to all unholy sinners.

Jubilation erupted, the crowd fell to its knees, kissing the sandy ground, the sand over which Sai Baba had walked so many times and manifested holy ash. When it again looked up towards the terrace one could see that six bloody corpses had been dragged out to be placed on public display.

Several photographers had rushed forward and now took a flashing series of pictures. Pictures that were later to be published in the media all over the world as evidence of how Puttaparthi's effective police force had protected the deity against the treacherous attack. As a warning to other apostates from the true faith.

The dead included four young devoted students from Sai Baba's own school who had bravely sought him out to discuss their profound doubts about the sexual acts in which they were all regularly forced to engage..

Midsummer ended that year with a fretful sense of disquiet, and the Sai family dispersed with a completely new realization that our living deity was not invulnerable. For me, who had also come to know the dead students through my proximity to Baba, the story seemed like a nightmare.

Once I was back in my everyday life I increased the intensity of my work in the treatment home Kärnan and buried myself in activities. I just did not know how to handle the emotions that had arisen within me and the events at Puttaparthi.

- I want you to go home, Sathya.

That was the name he had assigned to me earlier, one that meant 'truth'. It was actually the first time he addressed me by the name he had given me. I looked at him with a questioning look.

- You mean Sri Lanka? I asked.

- No, I mean Sweden.

- Sweden. What shall I do in Sweden?

- You should go home and take care of the poor, the drug addicts and the criminals.

What did Sai Baba mean? Was I to leave him and Puttaparthi? Surely he realest that I now owned nothing, as I had given it all away on his advice. I was completely in his hands.

He continued to stare into my eyes for a while.

- Go home and do your duty, serve the ones in need, create a home for the homeless.

From the chapter MY TUULA'S NEW MAN: Tuula was, a girl who I had met in Sai circles in Sweden, Tuula worked together with me at my drug rehabilitation centre, our work being financed by the Swedish authorities.

A growing family feeling developed at the home. Sai Baba had made it clear to me earlier that I was not cut out to live with women, being cast in a different mould. He also regarded me as being spiritually married to himself, which ought to be the focus in my life. Tuula, on the other hand, thought that we ought to get married.

- Do you want to marry?

- Only if it is okay with you.

- You want to marry this woman? said Baba, pointing to Tuula, who smiled back at him. She is fire and you are butter; you know what happens to butter in the fire?

- Yes, it melts, I answered.

- Do you want to melt?

- No, no, I don't want to melt.

- Stay away from this woman; you are married to me.

Now he turned to Tuula and said that she should leave me alone; I was not intended for women. She should stay at Puttaparthi; I should return and continue my work in Sweden.

What remained the day after the man was laid on the wood pyre and cremated was scraped together by the Indians, who made every possible effort to find the gold ring. When I asked what they did with the ashes I was told that they were packaged and distributed during the various interviews that we Westerners were granted with Sai Baba. Many a time I had seen small packets of vibuthi that were heaped, in particular, on the female visitors after the interviews.

Baba had explained to me that I was not like the others and had asked me to stay outside the Sai movement. Our relationship was sacred, he had said, and it could never be understood by anyone except him and myself. That had made me avoid involving myself in anything except the treatment home.

Why did I never wonder why? Why did I accept their evasive explanations that they wanted to move on in their search? The guilt pursues me to this day.

I found Tuula living in an apartment outside the ashram. The apartment was used as a love nest for her and this new man. I was shaken, but I did not feel I was entitled to have any views on Tuula's love for Anil, as I had left her behind at Puttaparthi in obedience to Baba's orders.

Sai Baba had again acted in ways that were not in accord with the five human values. After all, by Indian standards Tuula had been made into a concubine, and that with the blessing of my God.

I could not be so presumptuous as to believe that I could determine what was right or wrong when it came to such a colossus as Sai Baba, who had shown the way to so many thousands of people. More educated persons than I had found a refuge in this incarnation of God, so who was I to sit in judgment on the one who was regarded as the new Messiah of our age. I had to acknowledge and take the consequences of my choice to leave Tuula in favor of the road indicated by Baba.

Then Baba locked the outer door and only he and I remained. I brought up all the practical issues that we confronted in the treatment home, but he suddenly interrupted me.

- Why are you not in the organization?

Baba had previously told me to stay outside it, as the people involved in it did not have the right 'energy'. If I needed anything it should go through Sai Baba directly and not through intermediaries.

Now Baba adopted that hard meaningful look that I could not interpret. He ordered me to take over the spiritual leadership within the Sai organization in Sweden as soon as possible. When he saw how surprised I was, he gave me to understood that he would arrange it all and I had no need to worry about it. For me, who had only sought to rest in a sense of family with a strong father figure, spiritual leader or deity, this now hit me like a bomb. Was I to take over the responsibility of leadership for the Sai movement in Sweden? Was the treatment home not enough? Could I combine two such demanding activities?

Again I was unexpectedly given an unwished-for assignment that I thought I should simply tackle straight away. He pinched my cheek, held me with one hand by the nape and pulled me towards him. He put his arms round my neck and we stood there for a long while, body to body. I felt that Baba was trembling a little. I leaned my confused head on his shoulder and heard him say,

- I'm within you, I'm outside you, I know everything about you, and I shall always help you.

The love flowed between us again. I completely forgot about my questions regarding Tuula.

It was thus because of Mikael that I returned to Sai Baba and Puttaparthi again.

Despite the fact that Mikael had just fallen in love and was about to become a father, he insisted on going to see Sai Baba as soon as possible to experience for himself the fantastic things I had told him about. The girlfriend was delighted that we went off.

It was a very different experience to arrive at Puttaparthi after the serious incident. They had installed metal detectors, like those at airports, which one had to pass through a couple of times a day. There were always policemen and soldiers within sight in the ashram. The number of sevadal servants had been increased, and there were now hundreds of them everywhere.

The feeling of being regarded as a possible assassin was disagreeable, and it may seem strange that I did not react more strongly to the obvious suspiciousness about everyone, this close to my own God. But for me and all the others who were there Sai Baba's health and security were paramount.

Now Mikael saw with his own eyes how Sai Baba manifested holy ash. He was so moved that he burst into tears. Everything I had told him was now confirmed when he could personally see that Baba handled matter as he wished.

- To look into Sai Baba's eyes is like looking inside myself, he said afterwards.

I noted out of the corner of my eye how he used his big toes to play with Mikael's hands, which rested on his crossed legs where we sat on the floor. He seemed to pinch him with his toes, and I was very surprised that Sai Baba showed his appreciation so openly. That only used to happen during private interviews in the inner room. We regarded it all as a blessing, as Mikael was my patient.

In the book I describe in detail how Mikael was given two private interviews from which I, his therapist, was barred, even though Mikael knew hardly a word of English. Both times I saw his trousers were in disarray after the interview, and Mikael was silent and looked more and more bewildered afterwards.

On his return to Sweden Mikael moved in with his pregnant girlfriend. I regarded that as confirmation of Sai Baba's miraculous ability to liberate people and free them from their traumas and dilemmas. Then came the great day when Mikael became a father. It was not a boy, however, as Sai Baba had predicted, but a little girl.

Mikael had now quickly been restored to a normal life as a stable and harmonious family man. It was therefore a tremendous shock when we had a call one evening from Mikael's sister-in-law, who informed us that Mikael had taken his own life. He had swallowed sleeping tablets, which he had been collecting for some time from various people. The fact that he, the young father of two children, should suddenly have decided that he did not want to live any longer did not make sense to us who were close to him. What had happened to him?

- Now I must meet Sai Baba myself; I have to know. It was what I least of all wished for. Being in a state of shock myself, I felt absolutely no need to travel to India again. It was Lennart's needs that decided the matter, however. I realised that it was very important for him to meet Sai Baba as a real live person.

We thought we would have time for the trip before the funeral. Lennart had been a diabetic from childhood and took daily injections of insulin, so everything had to be carefully planned. I arranged our journey and lent Lennart some money, and soon we were on our way.

When Lennart was at his first interview, Sai Baba put his questions, which Lennart could not answer as he, like his brother, did not know a word of English. Baba gave him a friendly smile and told him to go to the inner interview room, calling on me at the same time and asking me to accompany him. Lennart told Baba his brother's story and cried uncontrollably. Sai Baba consoled him,

- I will help, I will help.

Just before we left the interview room I saw Sai Baba smack Lennart's backside, which Lennart tried to avoid. Before we returned to the outer interview room Baba said that Lennart did not understand Sparshan (the divine touch). I explained the meaning of the smack to Lennart. Baba showered him with packages of vibuthi, which he was to take as medicine for his diabetes.

Several members of the group naturally reacted against Sai Baba's opinion that the insulin should be replaced with holy ash. Lennart himself was firmly convinced that his illness would now be cured through Sai Baba's divine intervention, and it was touch and go that we could persuade him not to leave out the insulin altogether.

Note: At the next interview, Lennart was in a private interview alone with Sai Baba.

Lennart came out into the room where I was waiting. He smiled at me hesitantly and avoided eye contact. The colour of his face was bright red, in stark contrast to his blonde hair and his normally pale face. I realised that Baba had given him a real going over. Lennart seemed confused and yet happy.

Sai Baba had showered him (i.e. the Golden Boy, whose name is protected) with manifestations of pure gold: a watch, a bracelet, a necklace and rings. He had apparently been granted as many as six interviews before we arrived at the ashram! He was generally called the Golden Boy, and we were so proud of all the attention that was being lavished on the Swedish group.

We had a cup of tea together in the canteen and I told him that I had also had many private interviews over the years. We got on to the matter of the caressing of the sexual organs and gradually realised that we had both experienced masturbation and oral sex in the sacred presence of Sai Baba. The Golden Boy was utterly confused by the sexual attention from Sai Baba. Of course he, too, had been told not to say anything to anyone else.

The pattern was quite familiar to me. The difference was that he was a heterosexual young man, while I was bisexual and had to some extent participated willingly. He was extremely unhappy that Sai Baba treated him like this. He had after all come here to seek God, not to be sexually abused.

He also told me that he had sought out the Swedish physician who was the leader of the Sai movement in order to get his advice. The physician's assessment of the situation was similar to mine; it was to be regarded as a heavenly experience.

For the Golden Boy there was no turning back now. He wanted to get to the bottom of it all, even if he had to confront Sai Baba himself at any further interviews. I began to sense that we were only two out of thousands. I had started to see the warning signs but had stubbornly dismissed them during all these years.

I had been close to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for ten years before my disappointment with his organisation led me to abandon it and to seek out Sai Baba instead, without noting the similarities between them. My religious longing and my background had made me blind and undiscriminating. I was following a pattern. When I realised that something was wrong I sought to get even closer to the core of the problem instead of fleeing from it. Instead of putting a stop to it as soon as everything became clear I turned myself into a passive observer. That causes me pain to this day.

The Golden Boy and his group were summoned twice more, with subsequent private interviews. He was again subjected to abuse, without daring to protest or being able to defend himself. Had he shouted or protested, it would have caused complete chaos in the outer interview room, where the others were devoutly waiting for Sai Baba. The boy simply did not dare to do anything except what was expected of him, a factor that Sai Baba presumably counted on.

The Golden Boy later told me that Sai Baba had pretended to manifest a thousand dollars, which he gave to him, which he handed over to him with a request that he come to his summer residence at Koodaicanal, where he would be allowed to live in Sai Baba's own apartment. Other boys among the initiated ones had also told me that it was known in the ashram that Sai Baba used to pay the students whom he exploited sexually between 200 and 500 rupees a time, a large amount of money by Indian standards and for boarding-school students. Western boys were offered even larger sums.

The above are only the barest bones of the whole story I have told in my book, where my experiences as a close attendant of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the deep psychological reason for my being so vulnerable to gurus and not least to sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba are included. I also give a full account of the effect of our revelations on former friends and devotees in the Swedish Sai Organisation, which many have since left, including a number of young men I knew who were also sexually abused by Sai Baba, but who do not wish their names to be known. Two young men have, however, told on this website how they were somewhat more mildly sexually molested - 'groomed' by Sai Baba.

See also review by Robert Priddy of 'Behind the Mash of the Clown' here

See also 'Politics, Sex, Cults and Truth' talk by Conny Larsson at the Brussels FECRIS Conference
(FECRIS = Fédération Européenne des Centres de Recherche et d‘Information sur le Sectarisme
European Federation of Centres Research and Information on Sectarianism)
Testimony- 'When I met Sai Baba' by Gabriel M.
Testimony - A young Swedish man speaks out about Sai Babas sexual behaviour
Book launch presentation in Stockholm, 2005

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