Tal Brooke And His Tall Tales About Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Introduction To ‘Robert Taliaferro Brooke’ – Tal Brooke:
Tal Brooke is the President and Chairman of SCP (the Spiritual Counterfeits Project); a Christian Evangelical organization located in Berkeley, California (read their Statement of Faith). Tal Brooke is the son of American diplomat Edgar Duffield Brooke. He lived part of his childhood in Europe and the Middle East, and in the mid 1960s was enrolled as a student at the University of Virginia from which he graduated. In the 1980s he graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Tal Brooke’s Involvement With The Indian Guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba:
Robert Taliaferro Brooke (an extreme fundamentalist and evangelical Christian) was the first person to make accusations of sexual impropriety against Sathya Sai Baba (a revered Guru living in India). Tal Brooke published his first Anti-Sai book in 1976 under the title “Lord Of The Air”. It was republished in 1979 as “Sai Baba, Lord Of The Air”, renamed “Avatar of Night” in 1982 with a reprint in 1984, was renamed “Lord Of The Air: Tales of a Modern Antichrist” in 1990 and reprinted again as “Avatar of Night” in 1999.

When Tal Brooke was with Sathya Sai Baba, he began to compose a work called The Amazing Advent. However the completed manuscript was never published and according to Howard Levin (author of Good Chances), Tal Brooke took the manuscript to be blessed by Sai Baba and the Guru refused to bless it. According to Tal Brooke (in his book “Avatar Of Night”), he received a “clear command from the Lord to utterly scrap the pro-Baba book, ‘The Amazing Advent’”.

99% of the allegations and rumors circulating against Sathya Sai Baba can be directly traced to Tal Brooke and his religiously-fueled Anti-Sai propaganda, which started in 1976 and continues to the present day through expensive internet ad campaigns on Google soliciting his Anti-Sai book.

Tal Brooke purposely exaggerated when he claimed he was Sai Baba’s number one Western follower (at best, a dubious and subjective claim). Those who met Tal Brooke in the early 70’s at Sai Baba’s ashram immediately recognized him as a fanatic Christian (contrary to his claim that he converted to Christianity post-Sai Baba). Tal Brooke wrote that Sai Baba was a hermaphrodite based on an alleged story related to him by an unidentified person named “Surya Das” who in turn related a story told to him by another unidentified man named “Patrick”. It was alleged that “Patrick” claimed he had coital (vaginal) sex with Sathya Sai Baba. Because of “Patrick’s” alleged story, Tal Brooke perpetuated the idea that Sathya Sai Baba was a hermaphrodite. Tal Brooke also claimed that Sathya Sai Baba told a man named “Wendell” the following about “Patrick”: “False lies. Blind jealous reaction after I tell him to go. Now others believing lies. His word over Swami’s!”

The only problem with all of Tal Brooke’s tall-stories is that none of the alleged witnesses he cited (who have never been identified as real people) have ever come forward in 30+ years to corroborate his stories.

The scholar Lawrence A. Bapp wrote in his book “Redemptive Encounters – Three Modern Studies In The Hindu Tradition” (which was critical of Sathya Sai Baba), “The animus of Brooke’s book (Lord Of The Air 1979) is too strong for one to have much confidence in its accuracy.”

In Tal Brooke’s book “Riders Of The Cosmic Circuit, The Dark Side of Superconsciousness”, he attacked Hinduism, suggested that enlightenment is an evil path and that God-Men and Gurus are in a state of perfect demon-possession. Tal Brooke believes that Sathya Sai Baba embodies a “timeless, demonic presence”.

Since Tal Brooke heavily relied on subjective, fanatic and religiously-based arguments to draw his conclusions that Gurus are in a state of perfect demon possession and that enlightenment is an evil path leading to Satan, what does this say about the integrity and objectivity of his claims against Sathya Sai Baba?

In an interview with John Ankerberg, Tal Brooke acknowledged as true that he had “spirit guides” come to him and that he had “out of body experiences”. Tal Brooke claimed that after he played with a ouija board when he was 11 years old, he felt “spirit presences” in his room and then began to have “out of body experiences”. Tal Brooke also stated that he became involved with “psychic stuff” (i.e., psychic gateways, reincarnation and routes to higher consciousness) during his teen years. These alleged experiences were what drew him to India in 1969. In January 1970, he encountered Sathya Sai Baba. However, Tal Brooke failed to discuss the fact that what really drew him to India was a drug-induced hallucination of being self-realized after taking a massive dose of LSD-25 (ten times the normal dose) when he was an undergraduate at at the University of Virginia.

Tal Brooke said of Sathya Sai Baba:

“Baba’s miracles purportedly mirrored those of Christ and baffled India’s top scientists. He drew vast crowds, and his following numbered over 20 million in India alone. Many of the greatest gurus and New Age teachers around the world went to Sai Baba just for his blessing.”

Tal Brooke stated that the reason he left Sai Baba was because he had a “demonic encounter”. When asked to clarify the alleged “demonic encounter”, Tal Brooke (looking perplexed and hesitant) said he had “out of body experiences” that were “very demonic” (new information that Tal Brooke never discussed in his Anti-Sai books). As a result of his alleged “demonic encounter”, Tal Brooke perceived an immoral side to Sathya Sai Baba that was “unbelievable”.

Not only was Tal Brooke claiming “out of body experiences”, hearing the voices of “spirit guides”, seeing spiritual entities and having “demonic encounters” on the astral realm (whose descriptions matched the classic manifestations of sleep paralysis), he also admitted he experimented with LSD and was involved with a pro-LSD organization (i.e., Neo-American Church) founded by Arthur Kleps (who was a follower of the LSD-Guru Timothy Leary). It is entirely possible that Tal Brooke’s alleged “demonic encounter” was actually either a drug-induced bad trip or a hallucination induced by sleep paralysis (whose symptoms —paralysis, hypnagogic hallucinations, buzzing sounds, being held or weighted down, seeing demons, etc.— he described perfectly). For example, Tal Brooke described one such experience and said:

“Then at 2a.m., I experienced the same semi-paralysis and borderline dream state that inevitably accompanied those rare times when I had apparently astrally projected in years past. Just the effort to get a single digit on the little finger to move would require huge will. In and out of this state any number of times, I let go and tried to drift into sleep. It would start up again: first the utter paralysis as though held down by 10 G-forces, then my mind would begin to hurtle, as a loud siren and jet-engine noise would start up in my head. It was during this prone state that I felt a certain baleful presence in the room. I was momentarily pinned down and unable to move. As I drifted deeper into the ‘buzz region’, as I used to call it, a large rat tore through the room, scampering right up the length of my body. When it hit my head, seemingly carrying an explosive static force, I saw a configuration of blue energy crackle around me, first in an electrical pattern, then materializing into the hideous shape of some demonic aerial creature. I broke out of the paralysis and tried to chase it through the wall, slamming into a thick block of mortar and pelting back on the floor mat.” (Avatar Of Night; pp 277-278, Chapter: “Telegram From The Abyss”)

The Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church was briefly in existence in the late 1960’s (around the time Tal Brooke first encountered Sai Baba). Needless to say, this information puts a new spin on Tal Brooke’s packaged and highly polished writings against the Indian Guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba. As it turns out, Tal Brooke’s alleged experiences with Sathya Sai Baba (and his subsequent defection) revolved around hallucinogenic and psychedelic drugs he was experimenting with at the time and hypnagogic hallucinations induced by sleep paralysis episodes (which were not very well documented in the early 1970s).

Tal Brooke’s Alleged Picture Of Looking Like A Demon
Tal Brooke alleged a picture was taken by a friend of his when he was in the “wilds of Puttaparthi” on his way to a well for a swim. When the picture was taken, Tal Brooke claimed he made a conscious effort to surrender to Sathya Sai Baba. Upon viewing the developed picture with a magnifying glass (and later having the picture enlarged) Tal Brooke was shocked to discover he looked like a demon. Tal Brooke said:

“My face was grossly distorted – monstrous beyond normal limits. One eye, huge, globular, baleful, was four times the normal size. The other eye, a thin Mandarin slit, resembled the eye of death. The composite picture of both eyes resembled an ancient occult enemy staring up from the photograph. But for the horns missing, it was a powerful likeness to the Goat of Mendes, the Satanhead. I felt this was no accident, whatever the cause of it. A deep chill went through me.” (Avatar Of Night; p 281, Chapter: ‘Telegram From The Abyss’)

Needless to say, the alleged demon-picture was not provided in Tal Brooke’s book (although seven other pictures of him during his devotee-phase were). In all seven of Tal Brooke’s devotee-phase pictures, he looked very content, non-demonic and his eyes were definitely proportionate to the rest of his head.

Constance Cumbey Alleges Tal Brooke Is Anti-Semitic
Constance Cumbey, a devout Christian and Michigan lawyer, has openly accused Tal Brooke of being Anti-Semitic and that he plagiarized her writings. Constance Cumbey said:

“For the record: Tal Brooke IS anti-Semitic and aggressively so. This is one reason why I understand Ron Enroth (no angel as I am concerned myself) resigned from SCP. Tal Brooke was aggressively promoting Eustace Mullins’ writings! In my opinion, he did not leave the New Age Movement — he merely joined a different (disinformation) division! You may check with John Loeffler. He was one of the recipients of Tal Brooke’s threats that he would be blackballed in Christian media if he continued to associate with yours truly.” (Reference)

“To the best of my knowledge, although Tal Brooke’s publisher acknowledged it was my work, I had neither a correction nor an apology from Tal Brooke who has never once spoken to me, even though I tried to reach him by phone and told he was available — and then I was told he REFUSED to take the call. SCP is listed in my oldest New Age directories under its original name and present address on Dwight Street in Berkeley, CA as a New Age community ‘where people live together in order to get on with the aims listed under Center’. I too deeply admire Lee Penn’s work — but I’m not sure what Tal Brooke’s angle is in publishing it, but as St. Paul said, ‘For whatever motive they are preaching the gospel, still the gospel is being preached.’ I so very much admire your work and blogspot! Keep up the excellent work.” (Reference)

“Privately, Tal Brooke has been circulating some of the worst of the worst Jew baiting theories and giving his personal endorsement to same. Some have been passed on to me.” (Reference)

Eustace Mullins is the author of the virulently anti-Jewish book “The Biological Jew” (Faith and Service Books, Stauton, VA, 1968). Mullins, in this lengthy comparison of Jews with biological parasites, wrote:

“The Jew has always functioned best as a panderer, a pornographer, a master of prostitution, an enemy of the prevailing sexual standards and prohibitions of the gentile community….

We must remember that there is no Jewish crime per se, since the existence of the Jewish parasite on the host is a crime against nature, because its existence imperils the health and life of the host…

This religious ceremony of drinking the blood of an innocent gentile child is basic to the Jew’s entire concept of his existence as a parasite, living off the blood of the host…

The Jews do not want anyone to know what Nazism is. Nazism is simply this–a proposal that the German people rid themselves of the parasitic Jews. The gentile host dared to protest against the continued presence of the parasite, and attempted to throw it off. It was an ineffectual reaction, because it was emotional and ill-informed…”

Mullins’ writings are a standby on the Klan/neo-Nazi circuit. A recent Sons of Liberty book list included Mullins titles such as “Jewish TV: Sick, Sick, Sick,” ”The Jewish War Against the Christian World,” and ”Easter,” which the catalog tells us give a ”look at the 5,000 years of history in the ongoing war between the Satanic-Jewish forces and their Babylonian religious system and the rest of humanity.” (Sons of Liberty Fall 1992 catalog, New Christian Crusade Church).

In an interview hosted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PlnFT0ksbQ&NR=1 [dead link]), Mr. Mullins once again alleges that ritual human sacrifice is (i) a central tenet of Judaism; and (ii) the singular source of anti-Semitism. It appears in this interview that Mr. Mullins believes that the Rockefeller/Rothschild funded Zionists were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

The Bombshell Truth About Tal Brooke by Lisa De Witt:

The Bombshell Truth About Tal Brooke and His Connection to the U.S. Information Agency and CIA

Christian fundamentalist Tal Brooke was the first person to make lurid accusations against the famous Indian holy man, Sathya Sai Baba in his book, Lord of the Air. In the first of several revised incarnations Lord of the Air was published under his legal name, Robert Taliaferro Brooke, by Lion Publishing in 1976. The 1990 edition again titled Lord of the Air, then retitled Avatar of Night in 1999, was published by Harvest House Publishers-a Christian owned publishing company. Just two years earlier, in 1988, former CIA Director and then U.S. Vice President, George H. W. Bush chose Harvest House Publishers to print and market his autobiography, Man of Integrity. There was a photo of Bush Sr. with the Harvest House owner, Bob Hawkins Sr. on the company website until this article was published and that page has since been removed. The archived link is posted below in the reference section. You may have to re-enter the link into the archive.org. wayback machine to see the page.

In another twist, Tal Brooke admits to taking LSD and being involved with a group called the Neo-American Church (new members received five peyote buttons and a membership card). The Neo-American Church was a pro-LSD organization founded by Arthur Kleps, a follower of LSD guru Timothy Leary. Kleps was alleged to be anti-semitic, first by the Dutch police who expelled him from the Netherlands and later a church associate who was so disturbed by Klep’s fascist ideology he separated his Colorado-based Neo-American Church from Kleps. This should probably come as no surprise given the name of Klep’s organization.

Tal Brooke, who graduated from the 1963 Class of George Mason High School in Falls Church, Virginia, has also used the alias Tai Brooke. Brooke writes very little about his family in Avatar of Night, other than to say his father was an American diplomat in London and an atheist. In the preface of a book titled Harvest co-written with Chuck Smith, Brooke also wrote, “I grew up in an atheistic home.” In a later interview with Dan Wooding on Brooke’s Spiritual Counterfeits website he revises his father’s belief system to agnostic. In his mother’s obituary on the savannahnow.com website, Tal Brooke’s father’s name is listed as Edgar Duffield Brooke. According to a National Security Files memorandum from the Kennedy Library, Edgar D. Brooke was appointed Director of Media Content for the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) by Edward R. Murrow in 1961. This bombshell evidence, which Tal Brooke has failed to reveal, shows Brooke’s father was in charge of the worldwide distribution of propaganda during one of the U.S.’s most racist periods in history. Famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. would be assassinated in 1968 and in 1971 it would be revealed there was a COINTEL program to discredit blacks and other worldwide organizations considered to be a threat to the U.S. agenda.

This information regarding Brooke’s father opens the question as to Tal Brooke’s true purpose in going to India in the late sixties. When Tal Brooke left India after two years, he alleges he had just canceled the publication of his pro-Sai Baba book and feared retaliation. Brooke opines in his book (1990 Harvest House edition),“What the enemy might do I had long ago anticipated, was trump up a civil offense charge against me that would be enough to incarcerate me for years.”

In a conversation with an inspector, Brooke further opines, “Listen to me. I came here on a diplomatic passport. Do you think I came here to do anything other than my intended mission of inquiry?” Since a person with a diplomatic passport has diplomatic immunity, Brooke’s fear doesn’t make sense. The only way Brooke could most likely lose his diplomatic immunity is if he had been found to be a spy.

So the question is, why was Brooke traveling under a diplomatic passport and why was Brooke so afraid of being held even though he had a diplomatic passport? What was his intended mission of inquiry? Was he a spy?

This would certainly explain why Prime Minister Vajpayee and two former Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of India have signed a public statement declaring the allegations against Sathya Sai Baba to be concocted and malicious.
by Lisa De Witt
©2004 LisaDeWitt (Reference)

Tal Brooke’s Conspiratorial Views And Beliefs:

Brooke has been a controversial figure in his writings that oppose New Age spirituality. Part of his interpretation of New Age is framed around a conspiracy theory. He regards New Age as a Satanic conspiracy through which people are spiritually seduced and they may even be controlled by demons. He also interprets New Age as part of the human impulse for self-worship, and tries to chart those impulses in the context of late Twentieth century western culture. However, his advocacy of a conspiratorial interpretation of New Age differs from the standpoint that was taken by the staff of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project prior to his presidency such as in the SCP Newsletter (January-February 1984) and in the SCP book The New Age Rage (published in 1987).

Brooke’s controversial stance on conspiracy theory formed part of a brief news report by Robert Digitale in Christianity Today magazine in January 1990. Digitale speculated on the apparent shift in perspective at the Spiritual Counterfeits Project under Brooke’s presidency and with changes in the personnel of the ministry’s board of directors.

Other evangelical countercult apologists, such as Elliot Miller (Christian Research Institute) and Douglas Groothuis, have rejected the conspiracy interpretation of New Age as proferred by other apologists such as Dave Hunt and Constance Cumbey. Although Miller’s and Groothuis’ books were published prior to Brooke’s When The World Will Be As One, many of the points Miller and Groothuis cite in objecting to conspiracy theories generally seem to apply to Brooke’s argument.
Tal Brooke Wikipedia Reference

Even the internet is not immune to Tal Brooke’s paranoia and conspiratorial views. In Brooke’s book Virtual Gods (“Lost in the Garden of Digital Delights”, page 176), he argued that virtual reality on the World Wide Web will inevitably lead to a Godless universe. Brooke described global computer networking as the “Tower of Babel” and believes that the internet fosters an environment of “the worst kind of alienation – from reality and from God”. Brooke believes that by connecting to the internet, people are inspired to hide from “reality” and play God. Despite this amusing and poorly reasoned belief, Tal Brooke, the SCP, numerous Christian organizations and numerous Christian churches are all heavily invested and involved with the internet and their online solicitations pose an interesting contradiction.

Tal Brooke believes that Hollywood is also part of a conspiracy against Jesus Christ because it “vigorously injects Eastern mysticism” into the American culture through television, movies, dvds, etc. (as related in Tal Brooke’s interview with Russell Chandler, Redwood City, Calif., 23 November 1987). Some of the movies and films that Tal Brooke believes are brainwashing the public with demonic, satanic, New Age and Wiccan themes include: Clockwork Orange, Rosemary’s Baby, the Exorcist, Dr. Strangelove, Cocoon, Angel Heart, Harry Potter, Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (also see “Spellbinding a Culture: The Emergence of Modern Witchcraft”, SCP Journal 24 no. 4 year-2000: 8). Most of the articles that Tal Brooke authors or co-authors have to do with conspiracies against Jesus, conspiracies against the Church, conspiracies against the Bible and the “great lies” of Paganism, the New Age and the Occult.

There seems to be no end to Tal Brooke’s conspiratorial views. Everything non-Christian is taboo and holds the possibility of evil in Tal Brooke’s eyes. Therefore, it is of little surprise why Tal Brooke’s self-aggrandizing accusations (which have never been corroborated in 30+ years) and his smear campaigns against Sathya Sai Baba have had such little effect on Sai Devotees. As a matter of fact, it appears the only people who have gullibly swallowed Brooke’s Anti-Sai pabulum are fellow Christians and bitter Ex-Devotees (who can often be seen bashing Christians and Christianity).

Tal Brooks – Lord Of The Airways:

Tal Brooks – Lord of the Air ways
by Bon Giovanni

Over the years many folks have written me to say, “I read a book by an ex-disciple who tells of his experiences with the Sai Baba. Some of the experiences (of a sexual nature) are shattering my belief system.”

My view is that ‘belief systems’ which are based on secondhand stories deserve to be shattered because they can never support actuality.

Belief systems that do not support reality are most useful when they are outgrown. So, I say to my correspondents, do you want to outgrow yours in due course or do you want to burst it before the chrysalis opens? You see, more than one person has expressed alarm after having read Tal Brook’s opus, “Lord of the Air”, and some have felt ‘oh no, there goes my faith’. One can almost hear the chrysalis pop as doubt grows.

But then, that is after all Tal’s function: to bring doubt up and into view, and to bring it up sooner rather than later.

To aid that burgeoning effect, among Tal’s fans it is now claimed that “all (3000) original copies of his first book were mysteriously destroyed”— as if some Darth Vadar like force had made the books vanish,or as if Tal is now a hero for making that book available, ( and for only $15.00– a mere nine times the cost before the entire first printing mysteriously vanished.) Frankly the claim that Tal was “silenced” is absurd, in that Tal has been talking for a long, long time. Besides, I bought one of those 3000 allegedly destroyed copies in Higgenbottoms Books on MG Road in Bangalore, right out in the open, in 1978, long after the books were supposedly “destroyed.”. I suggest therefore that Tal had not been the “victim” of any dark force other than the green kind: money and envy. By that I mean that when Tal first published LORD OF THE AIR, he made no money on it, drew attention from but few carpers in India, but then a few years later apparently saw the bucks and the attention to be gotten from American fundamentalists. Poof. “All the copies vanished”, but are now available (at much higher cost).

Surely Tal deserves that, because according to Tal he is but an humble evangelist battling against Satan, waging holy war against all those dark forces that want to Silence The Son of God, battling like a simple man against mighty odds, with nary but a quill and a will. [cough]

I note that any humility in that battle, however, has never been Tal’s strong suit, since he intimates in print and on tv over and over, that Tal was THE number one disciple of Sai Baba– or when Tal explains that the HEAD of the Ramakrishna Order was “prepared” to hand him monkhood, presto, just like that. Further, Tal is not surprised at any honour, since he was just soooo “spiritually advanced”, doncha know. (For those unfamiliar with the Ramakrishna Order, Tal’s story is like claiming the Pope saw you in a crowd, came over to you and said, “You, yes You, I know you are not Catholic, but because you are so holy, I am naming You as Cardinal of Rome, now”. Still, if you were like Tal, you would turn it down, as a station not becoming a person so Chosen and Special and Humble as yourself.)

As far as I can tell, Tal’s “humility” is like that; it is paramount to hubris– at any rate, his fundamentalist talkshow appearances as well as his later books evidence why I hold that impression.

But no matter how proud or humble the fellow seems, at least Tal speaks from his own first-hand experience when he relates gossip. That establishes another honour for Tal: it makes him unlike the vast majority of all other online critics, in that Tal went to see Sai Baba for himself, (even though he later altered the experience to fan his fantasy. In his later stories, Tal enhances his 14 months in India into either ‘many years of intense discipleship under Sai Baba’ or as ‘several years of close personal intimacy with Sai Baba’). Nowadays on talk shows Tal almost always “mentions” that he was ‘the number one western disciple of Sai Baba’– a title which is not only bogus, (and is a title which Tal alone gave himself), but which is a status noone else with him in India attended.

In whatever way fourteen months has now become several years, or however whichaway scant interest in his first book somehow becomes ‘satanic forces arrayed against Tal’, his later efforts do show he has since advanced in one area in particular: he has learned the value of using “doubt” as his shill. But then, that is after all Tal’s function: to bring doubt up and into view, and to bring it up sooner rather than later.

Since you have read this far in my webpage, you know I feel doubt is very valuable, and certainly is not to be feared nor ignored. At least, that is true about doubt which arises from one’s own experience. Doubt that rises due to gossip, as Tal’s doubts example, is however just a word-vampire’s delight: it feeds on assumption, not fact, and leads to delusion, not clarity.

Still, over the years I have come across many folks who say, “I read a book by Tal Brooke in which he tells of his experiences with the Sai Baba. Some of the experiences (of a sexual nature) are shattering my belief system.” GOOD! Why? Why because it is good to stop imagining things. For example, some folks imagine Tal tells of his own experiences ‘of a sexual nature with Sai Baba.’ That simply is not in the book. My correspondent, having read Tal’s Press Releases, might then say, “Well, maybe so, but still Tal renounced the Baba and then turned to Christ and only then wrote this book.”

I might then reply: “Do you think so? It looks to me like Tal simply re-wrote his journal, changing specifics here and there for drama, but please, tell me: What is it about Tal that convinces you he has turned to Jesus? As far as I can tell, Tal is using Jesus now in the same way he tried to use Sai then: as a front man. Tal is still promoting Tal; that is what he has ever done. Tal says he was The Number One Western Disciple Of Sathya Sai Baba, yet in fact he was neither numero uno, nor was he a disciple, nor was he chosen to be the Saint Paul of the Sai movement (as he ever strives to paint himself). So, please, just look closely at what Tal tells, and does not tell. For example, do you find him making any mention of Jack Hislop ?”

If, however, you yet enjoy Tal’s doubts, then know there are also three or four other such authors (such as Beyerstein and Premanand — although Tal is unique in believing that Swami does real miracles– because Sai is, according to Tal, The Devil incarnate. The other carpers assert only that Swami is “just a fake out for the cash”.) What matters to me however is not what others “report” second or third-hand, but what I experience.

Does your experience matter to you? If so, then what have men like Brooke or Beyerstein to do with you? Since you have read my webpage, surely you know I will say, “examine *your* heart, examine YOUR experience, experience YOUR doubt. If you go around picking up the doubts of others so eagerly, then when will you ever address your own?”

One devotee read the first few chapters of Tal’s first book, then wrote to me saying, “I am torn and do not know what to think.” My reply is that then it is high time you looked very closely at the basis of your beliefs, is it not? That is the way to avoid any further tears. Why fear? After all, the TRUTH will set you free, you know.

“My faith in Baba was just growing and now I’m very confused.”

Faith that is not based in your own direct experience is not faith at all, it is imagination. Faith however will come when you root out imagination; it will come as a RESULT of your inquiry into the BASIS of your present doubts. So rather than fretting, I suggest this Tal story could be a very good thing for you, if you will undertake genuine sadhana and enquire within. “I’ll bet you never expected to get this kind of letter.” Ok, but please note that perhaps because I am so vocal online, I get letters from truly regal doubters more often than you can imagine. I think folks like to tell me about their secondhand doubts because they know I went through the same thing when I first heard Tal’s tale. (Tal is very good at what he does: sprouting doubts.) In the spiritual realm, like can attract like– you know.

Relax; the truth is greater and more wonderful than any story anyone can spin– and the truth is so far beyond gossip and fiction that doubt itself shudders in fear of seeing itself unmasqued.

Enquire within. Enquiry ends doubt.

But perhaps that sounds too distant or cold. If so, then for another view of the time Tal talks about, consider the first hand report of a fellow present there with Tal, but who saw it a mite differently than Tal did. The book is GOOD CHANCES , and is available from Toronto Bookstore. Still, since you have interest in Tal, you may know he has many more books at his own site , including a newsletter, videos, and cassettes, plus ample sermons.

Whatever you decide, my hope is that the Lord of all beings ever blesses you with His Loving Presence, so that doubt is seen as a conscious tool, not a hidden master.

Books By Tal Brooke

• America’s Waning Light: The Betrayal of Our Christian Heritage
  Author: Tal Brooke
• AVATAR OF NIGHT The Hidden Side of Sai Baba
  Author: Tal Brooke
• Lord of the Air: Tales of a Modern Antichrist
  Author: Tal Brooke
• Lord of the Air (Aslan Paperbacks)
  Author: Tal Brooke
• The Mystery of Death
  Author: Tal Brooke
• Riders of the Cosmic Circuit, the Millennial Edition: The Dark Side of Superconsciousness
  Author: Tal Brooke
• One World
  Author: Tal Brooke
• Harvest (Gang members, drug addicts, mental patients, society’s rejects…Chuck Smith’s amazing story of Calvary Chapel and the unlikely leaders God called.)
  Authors: Chuck Smith and Tal Brooke
• The Conspiracy to Silence the Son of God
  Author: Tal Brooke
• Virtual Gods
  Author: Tal Brooke
• When the World Will Be As One: The Coming New World Order
  Author: Tal Brooke

Reference

Also see: Rationalist And Christian Movements Against Sri Sathya Sai Baba