Robert Priddy's Telepathic Claims

ROBERT PRIDDY'S TELEPATHIC CLAIMS

Robert Priddy claimed that when he was a devotee of the Indian Guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba, he shared a telepathic and psychic connection to him. So convinced was Robert Priddy of Sai Baba's inexplicable psychic abilities, he documented several of his alleged experiences in his Pro-Sai Book, Source Of The Dream:

Source Of The Dream Page 68: I formulated my prayer in words, including just what sadhana or spiritual practices I would promise to carry out in the future if my condition should allow it. On this I concentrated as deeply as I could, in silence and with eyes closed, for perhaps 30 minutes.

When I felt it time to open them and look, there was Baba, twenty-five yards off, instantly turning on his heel and hurrying over toward me. Coming close, he fixed me with one sympathetic brown eye as if to say, “Agreed then?” and the stopped to stand firmly and wave his right hand. A dozen hands shot out eagerly from all around me. He beckoned me to put mine out and then his own easily found a space through the jumble of outstretched hands as if they were simply not there. The very fine-grained vibuthi fell down exactly into my palm. Sai Baba flicked his thumb, and I saw it send a large speck onto the hand of a tall Swedish boy beside me, with whom I had become acquainted during our stay there. I could not see that so much as a grain was spilled!

Source Of The Dream Page 70: One morning, seeing that Sai baba was unexpectedly visible in the compound, I hurried to the men’s gate and on the way had to pass the temple’s central entrance. As I did so, I clasped my hands in greeting and, to my surprise, saw that Baba was actually standing right in the line of my greeting, under the roof of the porch some thirty yards away. He was standing sideways to me and talking to a man, but his head turned instantly in response to my namaksar and he regarded me for some moments. It was very unexpected and, not knowing why, I moved a little and repeated my greeting. Again he turned immediately and looked at me - a striking instance of his extraordinary awareness and wordless communication.

Source Of The Dream Page 71: Meanwhile, I was still uncertain about all this at afternoon darshan and was hoping for some sign to confirm that I need not bother about church services. I saw a smile flicker across Sai Baba’s face as he passed me. After a brief round of the compound, he was soon hidden from my view by the pillars of the crowded porch. I thought to myself, “He must be standing there just about where he was when he acknowledged my greeting.” Just then, his torso popped into view, bent forward at a right angle, and he looked right toward me.

Source Of The Dream Pages 71 & 72: That day he also answered some questions of a very private nature, which I tried putting to him mentally as he sat on his chair keeping the beat for the music during the afternoon bhajans in the temple. With my background in logic and scientific skepticism, I was very loath to accept interpretations of meanings or significances that are not securely founded in the facts of a matter, and all the less so where vital personal matters are at stake! Still, I was already convinced that Sai Baba is telepathic, and the answers he gave each question, immediately, by looking straight at me with expressive and affirmative nods and one negative head-shake, were so unmistakably for me - even though I sat amid a hundred others - that I had to marvel at the ease and clarity of the communication.

In fact, one of the questions about a spiritual goal sprang into my mind unannounced. This question was of a nature that I had never even contemplated before and came ready-worded in a symbolic way that was very unlike my way of thinking - yet I found I had already “asked” it of him unthinkingly (not my way at all!). His very definitive nod came a split second later. This left me surprised and befuddled, but also very grateful too! I am convinced that he actually put the idea into my mind and influenced me to ask it! Following the example and advice of close devotees, I keep to myself the content of interchanges that are close to the heart, as in this case.

Source Of The Dream Page 117: One evening the bhajans went on into the dusk. Baba came out and walked along about ten yards away from my place at the rear of those seated on the sand. As he came opposite me, though it was too dark to see his eyes at that distance, I sensed that he was looking straight at me, and as if in confirmation of that fact, I saw two pinpricks of light shining in his eyes! It was a striking “physical impossibility,” and even would have been so had there been artificial lighting around, yet there was not, and I definitely saw these pinpoints fixed on me! In retrospect, I marvel how, with that leela, the tailor episode, and several other subtle but unmistakable signs, he was evidently ensuring that my expectations were to reach a maximum buildup.

Source Of The Dream Page 142: Though I had long believed in Baba’s many miraculous manifestations, I had now physically witnessed quite a few. Because some people are incurable skeptics who yet zealously believe that they know in advance what is and is not possible, even the old adage, “Seeing is believing” does not always hold true. Yet there is a difference between believing and seeing at first hand. I now therefore had the personal experience for confirming to others that these physical phenomena are empirical fact, not just something I believed in, at second hand, from the testimony of others...

I “presented” my plan for approval one day during bhajans in the temple by asking Sai Baba to give a sign if he approved and give it the moment I mentally asked for the answer. Indeed, he looked my way immediately, looking at me where I sat many rows back amid a hundred people and giving some satisfied nods.

Source Of The Dream Page 164: Since out previous visit, the only thing I had thought I would ask of Swami in an interview, if I got the opportunity, was to sing the bhajan “Love Is My Form” for us. I had seen the Italian film Love Is My Form, in which he sang it in the interview room in a sweet and soft voice that appealed particularly to me. As if in answer to this six-month-old unexpressed thought, Swami suddenly began signing it...but in even softer and sweeter tones than in the film - like a small innocent boy!

Source Of The Dream Page 178: Thus, Sai Baba communicates with exactitude, precision and timing across time, proving how he knew the idiosyncrasies of my mind. Every gesture, every word he addresses to anyone, it seems, has a meaning that will be clear sooner or later, even a meaning within a meaning. This helps one penetrate matters, both through deep self-analysis and contemplation of facts.

Source Of The Dream Page 180: On an occasion in the Prashanti temple, sitting cross-legged amid a large crown during bhajans and feeling severe shoulder and neck problems, I sent a mental prayer to Baba, who was seated about twenty yards off before me. Directly his eyes looked straight toward me and he put his hand on his own shoulder, exactly where my aches were worst.

Amusingly, this is not the first time that Robert Priddy claimed a telepathic connection to another person. Robert Priddy also claimed he shared an "unspoken telepathic awareness" with his friend Eric Steadman when he tripped on LSD (Ref).

Robert Priddy's alleged telepathic and psychic connections with Sathya Sai Baba inspired him to write the following words:

Source Of The Dream Page 201: Some societies in northern Europe are now so fundamentally materialistic in thought and belief, so uninformed even about paranormal facts that have been well-known in other cultures and throughout history, that most of their members have been educated into cynicism and cultural bigotry. I leaned somewhat in that direction myself when I was a much younger and less experienced fool than I may appear to be now. While studying philosophy and science, my views tended at times toward the academic norm and the intellectual’s peculiar brand of misplaced and commonplace common sense, which I now recognize as most unhealthy in the long run, because it conceals from oneself the very purpose of life, or even that there is one! On two occasions already related, when people who had been in India and experienced some of the wonders of Sai Baba came to tell me about it, my supposed breadth of scholarly achievement and comprehensive reading, etc. etc., kept me from following up on the matter. Now that I am at the other end of the stick, I can sympathize with those who continue for whatever reason to forego the opportunity and thus lose many precious years of access to the marvel and the love of Baba.

Source Of The Dream Page 202: Baba has established in me what I feel to be an unshakeable faith in the omnipresence of the Divine, including its reflection in other people - and myself. Furthermore, a sense of security in the cosmos and confidence before the world and all its ills has increased, and indeed passed a threshold some years ago, so that I am now convinced that I will not lose it. And, not least, I have gained growing insight into the challenges presented by my altered physical and social circumstances, for the consequent redirection of my activities and mind have, in fact, much improved the quality of my life. In all, I now flow with life more easily, find pressures have relaxed from within, and have also been able to know the self-fulfillment of realizing certain of my dearest dreams. All this grace, through Baba’s love, is beyond repayment, I feel, by any other form of thanks than following up his call as best I can.

Even after his defection from the Sai Movement, Robert Priddy had the following to say about Sai Baba's paranormal powers:

"Some of what I experienced of SSB's extraordinary and positive powers through many years is undeniable, even after the most rigorous skeptical investigations, and I do not regard him as any ordinary human being. I have simply had to realize that his actions in the worldly and human sphere are not infallible and are not always setting a perfect example for others."

Robert Priddy also believes that Sai Baba has "inexplicable psychic powers", is "psychically sensitive" and can materialize "apports".

Although Robert Priddy was never sexually abused and never witnessed an incident of alleged abuse, he gullibly believed all the Anti-Sai stories he read on the internet. Almost immediately, Robert Priddy undertook an aggressive and feral Anti-Sai Campaign, utilizing online propaganda, rhetoric and even outright prevarication to revenge his being "defrauded" by Sai Baba.

The fact of the matter is that Robert Priddy is not credible. He is obsessed, bitter, angry and dishonest. For further reading, see: Vishvarupa.com: Robert Priddy - Oslo, Norway.