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=== Other News
23. The man believers think is God (Sai Baba)
24. China Sets up Anti-Sect Association, Steps up Propaganda
25. China: Anti-Cult Association meets to discuss cults and human rights
26. All confessions have equal rights in Russia

=== Death Penalty
27. Innocence Project credited with expanding awareness of DNA testing in law enforcement

=== Noted
28. Memory not always solid proof
29. False memory easy to create
30. Godfather makes Jesus big in Japan

=== Books
31. Templar Treasures Hidden on Baltic Sea Island?

=== The Monks Around The Corner
32. Greek Religious Order Belts out 'Monk Rock'


=== Other News

23. The man believers think is God
Ottawa Citizen (Canada), Dec. 19, 2000
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Controversy is raging around Sai Baba, the Indian spiritual leader who is God to millions of followers in more than 100 countries.

Millions of devotees in Ottawa and in more than 100 countries around the world recently celebrated the 75th birthday of Sai Baba, an Indian spiritual leader they believe is God.

But a growing number of leaders of the movement in Canada, Sweden, the U.S. and other countries have quit: they say Sai Baba is a sexual predator.

UNESCO also recently cancelled its co-sponsorship of a conference in Sai Baba's home town of Puttaparthi, India, saying it was ''deeply concerned about widely-reported allegations of sexual abuse involving youth and children that have been levelled at the leader of the movement.''

Raj Midha, the president of Ottawa's brand new $2-million Sri Sathya Sai Spiritual Centre on Hunt Club, is a believer. Like many devotees, he wears a large ring given to him by the guru.

''He materialized it from thin air,'' Mr. Midha says.

Television documentaries produced in Australia, India and other countries have used slow-motion to show that such ''miracles'' are really just clever sleight-of-hand by Sai Baba.

But Mr. Midha shrugs off this and other allegations about Sai Baba. ''With all big leaders, there have always been people who didn't like them. Even Jesus was crucified.''

What Mr. Midha wants to do is tell how Sai Baba has changed his life and others. He shows off the 156,000-square-foot centre with pride, and points to Sai Baba teachings posted on the walls of the building.

He says those teachings can be summarized in eight words: ''Love All, Serve All'', and ''Help Ever, Hurt Never.''
(...)

Sai Baba has taken only one trip out of India, and that was to Uganda. But Mr. Midha and other devotees firmly believe their leader can transport himself around the world at will.
(...)

Conny Larsson, a psychotherapist, and once a well-known actor and film star in his native Sweden, has a very different view of Sai Baba.

He first met Sai Baba in 1978, built his own apartment near the guru's headquarters in Puttaparthi, and remained a devotee until last year.

Mr. Larsson was the spiritual co-ordinator of the Sai Baba movement in Sweden, and says he brought tens of thousands of people to India to see Sai Baba by speaking at conferences, writing a book about Sai Baba, and speaking on radio.

''Now I feel very guilty,'' he says.

For the first five years he knew Sai Baba, Mr. Larsson says the guru regularly practised oral sex on him, and asked that Mr. Larsson do the same for him. The guru's explanation, as it has been for many young men, is that he was correcting Mr. Larsson's kundalini, or cosmic force.

''I was brainwashed,'' said Mr. Larsson in a telephone interview from Sweden.
(...)

By 1986, Mr. Larsson had talked to many young male devotees, most of them attractive blond westerners, who told him they too had had sex with Sai Baba. He believes Sai Baba has had sex with many more reluctant male followers.

Why do they do it? He says it's because ''everyone believes he is divine. They want to believe because they have nothing else,'' he said.

For more than 50 years, Sai Baba has been India's most famous holy man. The number of his followers is estimated at somewhere between 10 million and 50 million, and they include India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vaijpayee; Isaac Tigrett, the co-founder of the Hard Rock Restaurant chain; Simon de Jong, a former New Democrat MP from Saskatchewan; and Kris Singhal, founder of Ottawa's Richcraft Homes. Birendra, the king of Nepal, Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew's former wife; and many other celebrities have also made pilgrimages to see the guru.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people visit Sai Baba's ashram, and what was once a small village now has an airstrip, a university, a hospital and enough hotels and apartment blocks to accommodate tens of thousands of people.

''When you see all these important people moving around there, kings and queens moving around as if they were common people, you start to believe he (Sai Baba) has a divine plan for all mankind,'' said Mr. Larsson.
(...)

What prompted him to quit the organization and start speaking out was the abuse suffered by a young Swedish man who asked for his help as a psychotherapist, after six interviews with Sai Baba.
(...)

Mr. Larsson then brought the man to a meeting of Swedish leaders of the Sai Baba movement, and told his own story as well. The majority of the leaders resigned, and Mr. Larsson, like many other ex-devotees, put his story on the Internet.

Mr. Larsson's story is one of many that appear in another Internet posting, The Findings, a 42-page document amassed by David and Faye Bailey, former devotees who once lived in Puttaparthi, and edited a magazine to propagate Sai Baba's teachings. Mr. Bailey is a British concert pianist and taught students at the Sathya Sai Baba College. When some of his students complained to him about being sexually molested by Sai Baba, he quit the organization and began documenting the stories of abuse.

Glen Meloy, a retired management consultant in California, is another former devotee who is using the Internet to warn others to keep their sons away from Sai Baba.
(...)

Mr. Meloy is now bombarding politicians, the White House, Indian newspapers, and the FBI with allegations of abuse by the Indian spiritual leader.

He says he gets 50 to 100 e-mails and phone calls a day from former devotees, many of them looking for advice on what to do about the tales of abuse they have heard.
(...)

Helen Robitaille said she and the other Montreal-area co-ordinators who resigned wonder why so many others have remained devotees.

''But when you believe he is God, and you have invested yourself in a spiritual community, it involves too much to suddenly decide he is not God. Your whole spiritual world falls apart. It's too hard to bear,'' she said.

V.P. Singh of Windsor has been president of the Canadian Sai Baba organization for the past 30 years.

He said he does not care to read the allegations against Sai Baba, and like most other devotees, he obeys his guru's command not to use the Internet.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. China Sets up Anti-Sect Association, Steps up Propaganda
Inside China Today/AFP, Dec. 24, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING, Dec 24, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) China has set up a semi-official ''anti-cult'' association aimed at opposing spiritual groups such as the Falun Gong and supporting the government's brutal crackdown on the group, state press reported Sunday.

The China Anti-Cult Association held its first-ever seminar this weekend, gathering around 100 Chinese politicians, legal experts, scientists and religious leaders in a round table discussion condemning the Falun Gong, the People's Daily reported.

The association, which was set up last month, also announced the opening of its website (www.anticult.org), which contained official government and state-run press condemnations of the outlawed spiritual group.
(...)

While the 17 month repression on the Falun Gong has been widely criticized by international pressure groups, the seminar unsurprisingly concluded the banning of the sect was in fact an effort by the government to safeguard human rights.

''To oppose religious cults and safeguard human rights has become the common task of every government and people of the world,'' delegates were quoted by the paper as saying.

''The banning of the 'Falun Gong' religious cult by our nation's government is completely aimed at safeguarding and maintaining human rights ... and has offered beneficial experience on safeguarding human rights to all countries opposed to cults,'' they said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. China: Anti-Cult Association meets to discuss cults and human rights
BBC Monitoring, Dec. 25, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Text of report by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)
Beijing, 23 December: The China Anti-Cult Association [CACA] today held its first report meeting and academic symposium at the hall of the China Science and Technology Association on the theme of opposing cults and safeguarding human rights.
(...)

Speaking on recent CACA operations, Zhuang Fenggan stressed: The fight against cults is a protracted, complex, and Herculean mission. In accordance with the association's objective, CACA will carry out in communities at home and abroad all forms of activities to study the current state and trends of cultist organizations of all descriptions, and thoroughly dissect their natures and menaces. We will place special emphasis on exposing and denouncing the perverted theories and fallacies of the ''Falun Gong'' cult to heighten the public's vigilance and ability to discern and guard against evil cults.
(...)

At the meeting, the experts and scholars reported and discussed cult issues around the world in general and in China in particular, the appearance of cults and the characteristics of their activities, the need to do away with the conditions that create cults, the need for religions of different denomination to wage protracted and untiring struggles against cults, the root causes that give rise to international cultist organizations, the deification tricks employed by cults, sociological issues caused the proliferation of cults at the end of the 20th century, and ways to control cults with comprehensive measures.

The attendees pointed out: The rampant cultist forces in recent years have seriously infringed upon the human rights of people of all countries and have caused tragic disasters to countless families and individuals.
(...)

Pan Jiazheng, vice-president of the China Institute of Engineering and CACA vice-president, declared at the meeting the inauguration of the CACA web site, whose official registered domain name is www.anticult.org. This web site, which has textual information of over 10m characters, also has multimedia functions.

The meeting earnestly called on people of all walks of life who want to dedicate themselves to fighting evil cults to join the CACA ranks to play their part in removing the menace of evil cults, and in protecting Chinese citizens' physical and mental health and the state's long-term peace and stability.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. All confessions have equal rights in Russia
ITAR-TASS News Wire, Dec. 19, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MOSCOW, December 19 (Itar-Tass) - Asked about his attitude to the assertion that the rights of religious minorities are infringed in Russia, Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia said on Tuesday all confessions have equal rights in Russia and all are equal before law.

He said it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is the church with the biggest following, which, however, does not give it any advantages.

The patriarch expressed concern over the influx of various sects and pseudomissionaries into Russia. He said their activity is aimed at disuniting the people.

He noted that these religious groups are in a better position than traditional religions in Russia for the reason of being well-funded.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Death Penalty

27. Innocence Project credited with expanding awareness of DNA testing in law enforcement
CNN, Dec. 22, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In 1992, when DNA testing for law-enforcement purposes was in its infancy, attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld founded the Innocence Project to help wrongly convicted prison inmates prove their innocence through DNA tests and leave prison.
(...)

Scheck and Neufeld faced formidable hurdles from the outset. Many law enforcement agencies either did not collect DNA from crime-scenes or destroyed samples soon after the suspect was arrested either out of lack of knowledge about DNA technology or intentionally. Additionally, most states to this day do not allow inmates to prove their innocence after their arrest.

Yet, the attorneys persisted -- and carved a reputation for themselves as top legal experts in the field of post-conviction DNA testing.
(...)

Today, advocates of post-conviction DNA praise the Innocence Project as the nation's first major effort to give inmates access to DNA and educate the public about the importance of DNA testing in ensuring that the criminal-justice system works fairly.

They also credit the Innocence Project with greatly helping convince law-enforcement authorities and federal and state politicians that DNA is an important crime-fighting tool.

Since 1992, 78 convicts have been exonerated nationwide after DNA tests excluded them, Neufeld said. The Innocence Project represented or served as co-counsel in 45 of those cases, he said. And of the 78 who were exonerated, 10 had been convicted of capital crimes, he said.

''Had it not been for the DNA testing done by, and in some ways, forced by the Innocence Project, these people would still be incarcerated or on Death Row,'' said Wayne Smith, executive director of the Justice Project, a Washington-based group that works to overturn the death penalty. ''The Innocence Project has helped save lives.''
(...)

While the Innocence Project currently focuses on post-conviction DNA testing, the group's bigger goal is ''nothing less than the complete overhaul of the criminal justice system with a new awareness of how to make it more reliable,'' Neufeld said.

The Innocence Project is handling 200 cases where the inmates may be innocent and is reviewing an additional 1,000 cases, according to the project's World Wide Web site.

Two dozen law schools across the nation have also set up Innocence Projects to handle the increasing caseload, Neufeld said.
(...)

Scheck and Neufeld, in collaboration with journalist Jim Dwyer, also have written a book ''Actual Innocence,'' which deals with post-conviction DNA testing and other reasons innocent people may be convicted, such as mistaken eyewitnesses and incompetent counsel.
(...)

Elisabeth Semel, director of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project, said the Innocence Project is limited in what it can do.

The problems with the criminal justice system are wide and deep, she said, including factors such as disparate treatment of minorities and inadequate legal representation.

Further, in many instances DNA evidence has either been destroyed or is simply not available at the crime scene, she said.

So people should not consider DNA a panacea, and inmates who are guilty should not mistakenly believe that somehow a DNA test could lead to their release, she said.

''Innocence is kind of the hook into the heart of the American public. It is very emotionally appealing,'' Semel said, adding the Innocence Project has a long list of cases in which it can do nothing even if the person is indeed innocent. ''The public has a gross misconception for whom DNA can provide the key to the cell door.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Noted

28. Memory not always solid proof
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 17, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) With both women swearing that he had attacked them, the case against Gregory was overwhelming. He was convicted and served eight years of a 70-year sentence before DNA evidence proved he couldn't have committed either crime.
(...)

A decade ago, experts thought that cases like Gregory's were extremely rare. But since 1987, at least 76 men have been released from jail in the United States because DNA evidence proved their innocence. Eyewitness testimony played a major role in almost every one of their convictions.

It is difficult to determine how many people are doing time for crimes they did not commit, though estimates by professors Brian Cutler and Steven Penrod in their 1995 book ''Mistaken Identification'' put the error rate at 0.5%, or 5,000 of the 1 million convictions a year.

''It's the major cause of wrongful convictions,'' said Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. ''I'm pretty sure of that.''

An Associated Press review covering more than two decades of psychology research indicates that eyewitness testimony could be sending innocent people to jail with distressing frequency. Countless experiments show that human memory is fragile and malleable, but our justice system often treats it as an indelible record of past events.
(...)

We often imagine our memories faithfully storing everything we see and do.
(...)

Researchers have learned in the past few decades that this system can be fooled. Other people can convince us that we saw things that were never actually there. Things that never even happened can be remembered just as vividly as actual events. And the most confident eyewitness can simply be wrong when identifying the perpetrator of a crime.

In the 1970s, Loftus and her colleagues performed experiments showing that incorrect information provided after an event could distort a person's memory of it. In one experiment, for example, subjects watched a videotape depicting a traffic accident at a stop sign.

If Loftus then mentioned a yield sign being in the videotape, many subjects would pick up the wrong information. When asked later they would swear they had seen ''yield'' on the sign rather than ''stop.''

Further experiments showed that people's memories could be swayed even more subtly. If subjects watched a collision between two vehicles and then were asked, ''How fast were the cars going when they made contact?'' they gave a much lower figure than if they were asked, ''How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?''

Eventually, psychologists found that they could actually plant false memories simply through the power of suggestion. Subjects could be made to remember barns in pictures of empty fields and guns in the hands of robbers armed with screwdrivers.
(...)

Those false memories can wield incredible power. Jennifer Thompson, a North Carolina woman whose testimony sent an innocent man to prison for 11 years, reported dreaming of being raped by Ronald Cotton even long after she learned that he didn't do it. Both of the women who named Gregory in the Breckinridge Apartments rapes still insisted that he was their attacker, even after DNA evidence proved he couldn't have been.

''They don't want to accept that they put the wrong man in prison,'' Gregory said.

The legal system is woefully unprepared to deal with such situations. The U.S. Supreme Court has spelled out five standards for judging eyewitness identifications: accuracy, certainty, the amount of time since the incident, the witness' level of attention during the crime and how good a look he or she got. But experiments by Loftus, Wells and others show that false memories can meet those criteria just as well as reliable ones.

For years, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials denied that the experimental results would ever apply in the police station, much less the courtroom. But in 1996 the U.S. Department of Justice released a report called ''Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science,'' analyzing the mistakes that had led to the first 28 convictions overturned by DNA evidence. In almost every overturned case, eyewitness or victim testimony had been the most compelling evidence.

After she read the report, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed a commission of psychologists, police officers and lawyers to recommend ways to decrease the number of mistakes. The panel's report, released last year, provided a set of guidelines for lineups and other procedures used to identify perpetrators.

''I certainly learned a lot from what the researchers had to share with us,'' said Northampton, Mass., police officer and panel member Ken Patenaude.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Sidebar:
29. False memory easy to create
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 17, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
It's easy to make a false memory. All you need is a friend and this list of words.

Read the words to your friend slowly (about 1 to 2 seconds per word). Then ask your friend to remember as many of the words as he or she can.

Here's the list: bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy.

Most people can remember about half the words. But the amazing thing is, about 55% of people who take this test swear they remember the word sleep -- a word that isn't even on the list.

The reason some people remember the word sleep is that words like bed, snooze and doze remind them of sleep.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30. Godfather makes Jesus big in Japan
The Observer, Dec. 24, 2000
http://observer.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A repentant yakuza gangster is trying to achieve what Jesuit priests and Mormon missionaries have largely failed to do: put a little Christianity into the Japanese Christmas.

Body tattoos, chopped-off fingers and a criminal record have made the Rev Hiroyuki Suzuki into one of the most colourful and famous preachers in Japan, where barely 1 per cent of the population believes in Jesus.

He aims to change the perception of Christmas among Japanese people, most of whom associate the season with shopping and sex rather than religion. Christmas Eve is always the busiest night of the year for the nation's 'love hotels', and department stores have been known to put Santa on the cross in seasonal window displays.

In the past week, Suzuki and seven other born-again mobsters have attempted to add a more spiritual note with a series of topless carol performances (to draw attention to their tattoos), television appearances and magazine articles. Tomorrow they will cap this unprecedented media blitz with the preview screening of a new feature film based on Suzuki's remarkable life story. Underlining the growing prominence of the preacher, even Yoshiro Mori, the notoriously Shintoist Prime Minister, is expected to attend.

This is a stunning amount of coverage for a Christian in Japan, where most people are followers of Shinto or Buddhism.
(...)

Suzuki, however, advocates in-your-face evangelism rather than Bible-study groups. Four years ago he and seven other former gangsters founded Mission Barabas, named after the thief Pontius Pilot freed instead of Jesus. Under the slogan, 'Our boss is God', they have adapted yakuza virtues of loyalty and discipline to their activities. Their territory is prisons and red-light districts. Among those drawn to their small chapel in Funabashi, west of Tokyo, are prostitutes, petty crooks and drug addicts.

'Our allegiances have changed, but in many other ways we are still yakuza,' says Suzuki, dressed in a white robe and dog collar. 'There are many similarities. We call each other ''brother'', we are bound by blood - though this time it is Christ's not our own - and we fight for our boss, but not physically against other gangs as in the past, but spiritually against Satan.'

True to the style of the yakuza - who often go out of their way to draw attention to themselves in the way they dress and behave - Suzuki the preacher is also Suzuki the self-publicist. Rather than hide his background, he milks it in an attempt to gain new followers. He has written a book, carried a huge wooden cross the length of Japan and lectured overseas. Two years ago he was invited to a White House prayer breakfast.
(...)

It was through his Christian wife Mariko - a South Korean-born hostess - that he entered the church and rebuilt his life. Now, he says, he is determined to teach others that they can do the same.

'For most Japanese who don't believe in God, Christmas is just another festival. But I want to show them that the birth of Jesus was a gift to humanity, a chance to change our lives.

'I hope that people will look at me and say ''If a yakuza can start again, then so can I''.'
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Books

31. Templar Treasures Hidden on Baltic Sea Island?
Reuters, Dec. 24, 2000
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant may have been hidden by a secretive religious order of crusaders, the Knights Templar, on the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm some 830 years ago, according to a new book.
(...)

No one knows exactly what the relics actually are but the ark is believed a box-type container that held the stone tablets inscribed with the 10 commandments which Moses received from God on Mount Sinai.

Legends differ about the Holy Grail but it is most widely thought to be the chalice which Jesus and his apostles drank from at last supper before he was crucified.

Some scholars speculate that treasures amassed by the Knights Templar ended up in Rosslyn chapel in Scotland. Others have hinted at locations in Ethiopia, Spain and Canada.

In a 194-page book ``The Templars' Secret Island,'' Denmark's Erling Haagensen and Henry Lincoln of Britain say medieval round churches were built at sites on Bornholm based on the sacred geometry used by the Knights Templar elsewhere in Europe, most famously at Rennes-le-Chateau in southern France.

The book, studded with graphs, plots the churches' geometric layout with mathematical precision and the authors suggest the design may be a map to hidden treasures.
(...)

The European Templar Heritage Research Network (ETHRN), a non-profit making association of scholars not affiliated to any religious or political group, says it has been historically documented that the order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon -- the full name of the Knights Templar -- was founded by aristocrats from the French region of Burgundy early in the 12th century.

The order's classic round churches founded on octagonal geometry, supposedly based on the design of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, are a lasting heritage of the Knights Templar era, the ETHRN says.

Historical records and 20th century archaeological digs indicate that a group of Knights Templar were searching for something under Jerusalem's Temple Mount between 1118 and 1127.

Haagensen and Lincoln say that on returning to France in 1127 the crusaders reported to Bernard of Clairvaux that their ''mission'' had been accomplished.

A carving on a pillar at the cathedral in Chartres, France, suggests the mission had been to find the Ark of the Covenant.

Legends say Mary Magdalen, to this day the village saint of Rennes-le-Chateau, and Joseph of Arimathea, who according to the Bible buried Jesus, took the Holy Grail to France.

Evidence of the belief in this tale is found in historical records about the Nazis searching for the Holy Grail at Rennes-le-Chateau during World War Two.
(...)

The Knights Templar viewed the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant as their rightful possessions because of their bloodline to the House of David, scholars say.
[...more...


=== The Monks Around The Corner

32. Greek Religious Order Belts out 'Monk Rock'
Fox/AP, Dec. 24, 2000
http://www.foxnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[...more offbeat news...]
After soaring up the pop charts in the summer, a group of Greek Orthodox monks is working on another music video for an upcoming single about the dangers of technology without restrictions.

The video features a gold-garbed man who represents an evil computer user, armed with personal data. The bearded monks belt out the lyrics to ''Tsipaki,'' or ''Little Computer Chip'': ''I'm a chip, so small, that will lead you to slavery.''

Somehow, these monks, known as Eleftheri or ''the free,'' compete with Madonna and dozens of superstar Greek singers.

''It is not the music but the lyrics that are an issue,'' said Archimandrite Father Nektarios Moulatsiotis, one of five monks who contributed to the 10-song compact disc, I Learned to Live Free, released last year. ''Today's music is sterile of messages.''

The CD went platinum in Greece, selling more than 52,000 copies. It was distributed without a bar code, which some Orthodox faithful consider a sign of technology's encroachment.
(...)

Their songs offer traditional Christian themes as well as views on the possible dangers of globalization and rampant technology - all with a modern beat.
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