www.kevinrdshepherd.info

Home Aspects Of Citizen Philosophy Kate Thomas & Findhorn Foundation Findhorn Foundation: Problems
Letter To Robert Walter MP Ken Wilber and Integralism Internet Terrorist Gerald Joe Moreno Shirdi Sai Baba & Sai Baba Movement
Climate Change Complexities Hazrat  Babajan Desert Fathers and Christian Philosophy Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Meher Baba and Yazd The Kundalini Phenomenon Aleister Crowley

 

THE  INTERNET  TERRORIST  GERALD  JOE  MORENO

There are religious sects that do no harm, and others which tend to become aggressive, comprising a social problem. The difference between harmless religious sects and those organisations which become suspicious cults, has been much discussed. A cult can so easily violate norms of social behaviour and flout basic etiquette. Dissent within a sect can become ruthlessly regarded as a punishable offence; this is one symptom of the cult mentality. Critical outsiders are also prone to being castigated by the cult mentality, an ominous development that can potentially pose crises for the social majority.

 

Gerald Joe Moreno prohibited the use of his image. This is an ex-devotee version of the situation.

CONTENTS   KEY

1.         Harassment  on  Google  Search
2.         Hate  Campaign  of  Gerald  Joe  Moreno
3.         Offensive  Descriptions on  Google  Search
4.         The  Findhorn  Foundation  Misattribution
5.         Misleading  Tactic  of  Gerald  Joe  Moreno
6.         New  Age  Confusions  and  Sectarian  Misinformation
7.         Defamatory  Sectarian   Blog
8.         Self  Publishing  as  Distinct from  Vanity  Publishing
9.         Web  Harassment   Requires  Exposing
10.       The  Militant  Sectarian  Campaign  of  Gerald  Joe  Moreno
11.       Penetrating  the  Blog  Underworld
12.       Duplicated  Items  on  Pseudonymous  Blog
13.       The  Reductionist  Anti-Guru  Label
14.       The  Anti-Sai  Complexity
15.       The  Proof  of  Internet  Terrorism
16.       The  Sheilawaring  User Name

Postscript: Further  Proof  of  Internet  Terrorism

1.    Harassment  on  Google  Search

Gerald Joe Moreno
(d.2010) was an aggressive American defender of  Sathya Sai Baba (d.2011). That famous Indian guru claimed to be a divine incarnation. However, disillusioned ex-devotees maintained that this claim was misleading. One of the favoured devotee maxims was “Love All Serve All.” Ex-devotees have presented events in a rather different light. Moreno can be interpreted as the exact opposite of the benign sentiment quoted. Gerald Joe Moreno of New Mexico became a web harasser, a role which he demonstrated in relation to an outsider, namely myself (who has never been a devotee or an ex-devotee). See Web Tactics of Pro-Sai Activism.

The sectarian blogger mistakenly identified me with with ex-devotees. I am not one of that unfortunate category. Those people have frequently expressed their grievances on the web, in a variety of formats. I do not agree with all the idioms and strategies visible in that field.

Sathya  Sai  Baba

On November 1, 2008, Moreno sent me a brief email of a mocking complexion. He invited me to sample his recent web attack on myself. “Happy reading,” he said, in an obvious spirit of contradiction. His email address was here saisathyasai@gmail. During the next few days, numerous new Moreno attacks against me appeared on my Google Search name listing (Kevin R. D. Shepherd). Such a blitz had occurred before, the previous year. However, the sequel was more acute. I was now able to count nine new Moreno attacks. Three of these quickly disappeared when the major one had emerged. There were already four in evidence.

There was a final total of ten Moreno harassments visible on my Google name list. Only one of these bore the real name of the obsessive aggressor. The anonymity of Moreno on Google Search lists was pervasive.

The desire for anonymity, in this disputed instance, resorted to several web pseudonyms such as vishvarupa108 and Equalizer. Gerald Joe Moreno attempted to justify this tactic by affirming that some ex-devotees had posted anonymously. This argument will not suffice in relation to attacks upon outsiders who never employ pseudonyms. Moreno  eliminated his only publicly known image from his web record. When this image was subsequently made visible on the web by a victim (myself) in 2007, Moreno reacted with obvious hostility, even threatening legal action if his image should appear in a book (which did not happen).

Gerald Joe Moreno became known as a cyberstalker; he displayed fanatical tendencies to a web manhunt. His attacks on critics and victims were frequently abusive and distorting. His tactic was to invade Google Search name lists with multiple hostile entries. His prolific blogging output was compared adversely to the web propaganda of Scientology.

2.     Hate  Campaign  of  Gerald Joe  Moreno

Gerald Joe Moreno

Gerald Joe Moreno denied being a devotee, a contradictory recourse. He was very obviously a Pro-Sai activist pursuing a programme of internet harassment. See Pro-Sai Activist Gerald (Joe) Moreno. In my direction, the sectarian blogger employed eccentric arguments and blatantly obvious distortions.

Some observers of the Moreno harassment classified this phenomenon as “hate campaign,” a phrase sometimes encountered in relation to sectors of extremist cult activity. Anyone who targets a Google Search name list with up to ten (or more) hostile entries has an intention that is not benevolent. Gerald Joe Moreno classified his web operation in specific terms of a campaign. His Pro-Sai activist interpretation of this manoeuvre assumed a justifying context for his aggression. A variety of observers concluded that the Moreno campaign was transparent as an unjustified hostility, one quite distinct from the mandate of anything resembling a divine cause.

The activities of Moreno were compared with those of Scientology. The latter movement has been variously defined as a church and a cult. An ex-Scientologist (Tory Christman) described how Scientology crusaders flooded the internet with their version of hate campaign. She worked in the branch known as the Office of Special Affairs. Christman testified that the personnel in this branch posted every day and all day; one of these propagandists used five separate computers and five separate anonymous identities to refute any criticism of the Church of Scientology.

Christman left Scientology in 2000, afterwards becoming a media critic of the disputed organisation. Subsequently, Wikipedia was a haven for the propagandists, who gained a reputation for continually attempting to edit entries of the web encyclopaedia. Several court cases occurred in this connection, leading (in 2009) to a Wikipedia decision to ban contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and their associates.

Gerald Joe Moreno gained a reputation for incessant computer industry in refuting any criticisms of Sathya Sai Baba. He used diverse pseudonyms. He appeared on Wikipedia as an editor of the Sathya Sai entry in 2006, afterwards being banned indefinitely in March 2007. His main website, entitled saisathyasai.com, was notorious for an aggressive Pro-Sai stance. Moreno maligned critics while declaring a cause of love and spirituality. He also maintained a series of attack blogs at blogspot.com. His pseudonym on those blogs was Equalizer.

3.    Offensive  Descriptions  on  Google Search

Several of the new hostile descriptions (of myself) by Moreno, appearing on my Google Search name list, included the insistence that I am “a vanity self-publisher.” This statement was described by some observers as a malicious error. The vehement slur was a sectarian response to my repudiation of Moreno descriptions as publishing libel in my instance. He had  gone so far as to attribute me with publishing imprints that were not my own; he even rendered the name of one of those imprints wrongly, adding a superfluous Ltd. See
Joe Moreno Libel in Publishing Terms (2008).

Gerald Joe Moreno had not himself written any books, only web compositions, meaning anonymous attack blogs. People who have not authored books are often envious of those who have. Vanity publishing is a different category to self-publishing. Many vanity books are one-off creations; the author is rarely heard of again. In contrast, serious self-published works have been rated by academics, especially when these contain annotations.

Moreno had formerly accused the ex-devotee Robert Priddy of “vanity publishing” and lack of notability. Priddy was a retired academic closely associated with Oslo University. The Moreno jibe was clearly inappropriate. Moreno subsequently offended Wikipedia personnel, being banned indefinitely from Wikipedia in March 2007. He regarded Priddy as an arch-rival because of the latter’s websites opposing Sathya Sai Baba. Moreno’s initial antagonism in my direction was rooted in the simple fact that I made reference to Priddy web sources in an appendice of my book Investigating the Sai Baba Movement (2005). That book was despised by Gerald Joe Moreno because the content made favourable reference to Priddy.

By forced (and totally inaccurate) association with Priddy, all my books became a target of animosity to Moreno, who had clearly not read them. To this effect, he produced an agitating Wikipedia User page in October 2006, bearing his pseudonym SSS108. See Wikipedia Issues and Sathya Sai Baba.

In more general terms, Moreno became identified as a libellous web molester. Victims consulted legal experts in different countries. Those experts confirmed that Moreno attacks could frequently be regarded as libel. Ex-devotees urged that Moreno had clandestine links with the Indian branch of the Sathya Sai Baba sect, which appeared to indirectly condone his activity, despite his openly aggressive standpoint far removed from any “Love All Serve All” perspective (associated with his guru).

While imposing upon me a Ltd company publishing imprint, which did not exist in reality, Moreno denied my intellectual identity. He stated that I "alleged" establishing the Intercultural Research Centre of Anthropography (IRCA) in Cambridge during the 1980s. He insisted, on his libellous blog, that "no remnants of it [IRCA] can be found in any credible or scholarly sources." Such statements were easily disproven, and furthermore confirmed that Moreno had never read the books he dismissed. IRCA appeared in several of the prefaces to my early books, denoting their origin in IRCA. Not only that, but a separate descriptive page "About the author" appeared at the end of each book, giving details of IRCA and stating myself as the founder in November 1984. The IRCA programme is there described in such terms as "the geographical distribution of mankind is given a polymathic focus," with the supporting phrase "a cross-cultural relevance to Western, Islamic, Jewish, Indian, Chinese, and other culture-groups."

Furthermore, the IRCA identity was additionally maintained by a series logo for those books on the title page, a detail which can be verified in library holdings throughout the world. Those books of mine were effectively published by IRCA. The sectarian unfamiliarity with non-sectarian literature was unable to recognise such obvious facts, instead choosing to defy the evidence. See further Serious Amateur Activity Misunderstood by Sectarian Polemic (2008) and Joe Moreno Fails to Comprehend a Non-Sectarian Project (2008).

The Moreno distortion of events appeared in his blog hoax entitled Introduction to Kevin RD Shepherd (October 2008), bearing the pseudonym of Equalizer. Sectarian web activity is in general noted for obsessive characteristics, employing apologist beliefs and insistences as a validating factor. Sectarian zealots will frame victims with inaccurate portrayals.

4.    The  Findhorn  Foundation  Misattribution

In November 2008, Moreno described me as “a vanity self-publisher and author whose writings mostly revolve around (or include numerous references to) the Findhorn Foundation.” This description remained visible on page one of my Google name list, accompanying a blog mediated via the Moreno website sai-fi.net.

The inaccuracy of the web harasser may be gauged from that assertion. By that time. eleven books of mine were advertised on Amazon. Only three of these included numerous references to the Findhorn Foundation. None of those books revolved around that organisation. Furthermore, two of the three books stipulated have only a short section relating to the Foundation, a section in no way central to the whole. The third book has one out of eight parts on the Foundation. Moreno had evidently never read or seen my books. He also inaccurately described me, on his new “exposed” blog, as a “Findhorn Foundation Radical.” In reality, I have never been a member or affiliate of that organisation.

The web harasser Gerald Joe Moreno imposed upon materials his strong inclination to misrepresent critics, even when this recourse was patently ridiculous to informed assessors. Moreno had been relying for several years upon an audience of devotees. These people were unfamiliar with my writings.

Several of my web compositions, and reproduced letters, do contain numerous references to the Findhorn Foundation, being specific critiques of that organisation. Of my 25 articles showing at kevinrdshepherd.net, only two of these are about the Findhorn Foundation, with a few other articles having  brief and incidental references to that subject.

The incongruous statement in the Moreno blog text, relating to the Findhorn Foundation, extends to Stanislav Grof and Holotropic Breathwork. The same considerations apply to those subjects, which are marginal in my books. There are numerous references to Grof in my Pointed Observations (2005), but he is by no means pivotal to that work.

Moreno created the pseudonymous blog entitled kevin-shepherd-exposed. An outsider to the Sathya Sai sect had now become a target of the Moreno series of attack blogs formerly aimed at ex-devotees. The innovation was viewed as menacing, in social terms, by non-sectarian assessors. The Moreno series of attack blogs (at blogspot.com) were notorious for anonymity, the author using the name of Equalizer.

Symptoms of acute obsession are known to arise in sectarian psychologies who rebut all criticisms of their sect in an aggressive manner. The point of danger is sometimes believed to exist at the interface between repudiation of defectors and aggressive repudiation of outsiders.

5.     Misleading  Tactic  of  Gerald  Joe  Moreno

Gerald Joe Moreno reacted to my new website kevinrdshepherd.net by employing an extremist tactic. Instead of revising his earlier 2007 webpage (on his primary website) in the light of due objections lodged, he maintained intact the grossly distorted webpage. He did not even alter his libellous and wildly inaccurate statement that I self-published via four imprints. Furthermore, he duplicated numerous items in the disputed webpage on his new blog (October-November 2008), which he chose to call kevin-shepherd-exposed.

The earlier misleading items were presented on the pseudonymous "Equalizer" blog without revision or due reference to the relevant material in articles 22 and 23 of my new website kevinrdshepherd.net (uploaded in September 2008). This screening tactic was considered underhand. Moreno contrived a number of very hostile and misleading descriptions that showed on Google. 

Moreno ignored my complaint that, after nine months, he had failed to acknowledge the contents of Kevin R. D. Shepherd in response to Gerald Joe Moreno (Nov. 2007). The complaint was made in Response (November 2007) to Joe Moreno's Defamation and Stigma (2008). The relevant quotation is: "Nine months later, Moreno has not directly acknowledged my response, and has instead adopted an evasive approach." Subsequently, the worsening tactic of the web harasser not only ignored my Response of 2007, but also the lengthy article 22 at kevinrdshepherd.net.

Moreno was notorious amongst ex-devotees for being acutely reluctant to revise his web statements. He customarily ignored protests, acting as though his assertions were unassailable. He blamed ex-devotees for not revising their criticisms of the guru. He spoke as the ultimate judge of “Anti-Sai Activists,” to use his pet description. His tone of expression was habitually one of contempt. The evasion of basic considerations, relating to an outsider, is widely considered a reprehensible sign of dysfunction in the apologist attitude under discussion. 

The sectarian libeller added two new items to his “exposed” concoction. One was pitched against  the American ex-devotee Dr. Timothy Conway.  Another was aimed at ex-devotee Conny Larsson (section 6 below). Both of these items included in small print the URL of article 23 on my new website of 2008. See further Sathya Sai Baba: Problems.
Gerald Joe Moreno flippantly misrepresented my reporting, even describing me as a “New Age Promoter” of Larsson. This error again demonstrates the heavily weighted form of distortion to which the polemicist resorted in desperation.

The attack blog at issue featured many unrevised assertions, such as the statement  maintaining that I “repeatedly whined and snivelled about Moreno’s objection on Wikipedia to the inclusion of a quote from his (Shepherd’s) self-published book.” This statement of Moreno (Equalizer) comes from The Kevin Shepherd Citation on Wikipedia. Observers noted the contemptuous tone of the assertion, also the inaccuracy in referring to a quote. The quote mentioned was not from my book, instead comprising a Wikipedia editorial quote. Complaints about Moreno tactics were mere whining and snivelling, in this sectarian perspective. Moreno outlawed the quote in his campaign against Robert Priddy, who featured  prominently in that quote. See Ex-devotee Robert Priddy.

A duplication of New Age Promoter Kevin Shepherd  appeared at the Moreno website sai-fi.net, bearing the pseudonym of Joe108.  Distorting and aggressive blogs bearing pseudonyms are classified by some analysts as sick troll blogs, especially when these harassments are promoted in terms of a campaign (section 10 below).

6.     New   Age  Confusions  and  Sectarian  Misinformation

My Google Search name list showed a new glut of Moreno entries in November  2008.
An item on the attack blog showed the title of New Age Promoter Kevin Shepherd. This misleading attribution related to Moreno's dislike of ex-devotees Conny Larsson and Dr. Timothy Conway.  The title of another anonymous Moreno blog at wordpress.com stated, in a related idiom: “Kevin Shepherd Endorses Psychic Trance Medium.” The so-called “trance medium” was ex-devotee Conny Larsson of Sweden; I had only cited him as an ex-devotee, not endorsed him as a psychic.

A further anonymous blog hostility was entitled Sathya Sai Baba: Kevin Shepherd Cites Timothy Conway. This item, dated November 4, 2008, bore the Search description: “Kevin R. D. Shepherd not only endorsed and cited Guru Advocate and New Age promoter Timothy Conway, he also endorsed and cited Psychic Trance...”  Psychic trance here means Conny Larsson. Conway and Larsson were two major targets of Moreno, who was trying to blame me for sanctioning them. Citation of any author is not equivalent to endorsing all their views, whether that author is a professor, a journalist, an ex-devotee, or whatever.

The hysterical Moreno commentary on citation assumed that when an outsider to the sect cites ex-devotees, then all the views or actions of the latter are being endorsed. The truth is that extremist interpretation suited the disposition of Gerald Joe Moreno for aggressive verbal conduct that is transparent to any close scrutiny.

l to r: Conny  Larsson, Sathya  Sai  Baba

Moreno blithely stated in New Age Promoter: “Kevin Shepherd publicly endorsed, promoted and solicited the integrity and credibility of Conny Larsson, a man who happens to be a cult-like leader and guru who claims he is a psychic trance medium for the spirit of Vyasa.” The latter sage is a legendary figure in the lore of Hinduism, and frequently invoked in varied mythologies. Vyasa is popularly associated with texts of Hinduism.

What were the facts here? I had included only one paragraph on Larsson in my article Sathya Sai Baba: Problems appearing at kevinrdshepherd.net.  The section (23.10) there entitled
Testimonies of Sexual Abuse refers to Larsson’s testimony of abuse, his autobiographical book, and his talk given at a FECRIS conference in 2006. There is no reference to any psychic trance mediumship. I certainly did not endorse any such role, which was not specified in the reports available. Gerald Joe  Moreno contrived statements having no validity. Reporting a testimony is not the same as endorsing a New Age role of any kind. I described Larsson in 23.10 as a testifier to abuse, which is the literal truth. I also referred to him as “the former leader of the Swedish branch of the [Sathya Sai] sect.”

The sectarian argument was often very forced. I am still critical of psychism and “channelling,” and still do not endorse the  role of Larsson in what resembled channelling “workshops.” However, to be critical of psychism and channelling is an attitude that should not interfere with reporting a testimony, especially at the level of FECRIS conferences. In law courts, the religious or other beliefs of witnesses are no barrier to due judgment of their testimonies. Otherwise a virtual inquisition would be the result, as in the blogs of Gerald Joe Moreno.

The acute disillusionment of Larsson is obvious in relation to his being a former long-term devotee of Sathya Sai Baba. Another ex-devotee reported Larsson as being in disagreement with the exotic role conferred upon him in faulty reports. To quote Larsson on that point: “I could keep on interpreting the texts for hours, and in that sense people sometimes make their own opinion that I’m channelling, but in fact it is only me speaking out what  is in my own intuitional knowledge” (this quote appeared in an email to myself from ex-devotee Robert Priddy dated December 2008). The same source also relayed that Larsson had denied being clairvoyant, clairaudient, or telepathic.

Larsson was not a cult leader (though he claimed many followers, which may be considered an extravagance). The appropriate description of him would seem to be that of a professed intuitive with tendencies to crystal therapy, Vedic mantras, and other exotic activities. His alleged “guru” role is related to the Western partiality for “workshop” syncretisms and innovations, commencing in California during the 1960s. Psychologists could interpret such participation, in the workshop vogue, as a reassurance factor compensating for Larsson's acute disillusionment with Sathya Sai Baba. That factor would not invalidate his testimony at all. I am, however, very critical of his workshop activities.

Conny Larsson related to a website in which the main attraction was a "Vedic master class," denoting an interest in "Vedic mantra meditation" and Hatha Yoga. Larsson was here described as an "author and psychotherapist." There was reference to "interpretation from Vyasa," meaning the ancient rishi. The meditation and Hatha Yoga vogue has been popular in the West for many years. This is not a criminal activity; however, varied criticisms have been lodged.

The vogue for “channelling” has contributed to  widespread popular confusions in Western countries. Sparked by such controversial American developments as A Course in Miracles, even Indian gurus became assimilated to this bizarre trend. Sathya Sai Baba became strongly identified with “channelling” at the Findhorn Foundation, where “workshop” entrepreneur Carol Riddell was influential in her devotional presentation of this  guru.  Riddell even claimed that the “signature” of Sathya Sai  was involved via ethereal messages she purportedly received from him. The guru is reported to have blessed her accounts of such channelling when she visited his ashram at Puttaparthi. Riddell was active in Germany and elsewhere during the1990s.

Larsson was conceivably influenced by such events at the time. If so, then he subsequently contradicted the Riddell model in his reliance upon antique Hindu texts. Larsson thoroughly rejected Sathya Sai Baba, deeming him to be a charlatan and sexual molester. He described personal experiences of the anomaly. Larsson memorably affirmed that the ashram situation of Sathya Sai Baba was "choreography for paedophile activity."

Moreno employed an eccentric expression indicating his personal sense of identity with Sathya Sai. Google entry descriptions, relating to his blog at wordpress.com, stated “sathyasaibaba wrote.” The reference is  to assertions of the Moreno blog sathyasaibaba. However, some uninformed persons  imagined that the guru actually made such statements, being unaware of the anonymous Moreno.

Moreno ignored the book by Larsson (Behind the Mask of the Clown) and the review of that work by Priddy. All “Anti-Sai” literature was customarily dismissed with contempt by  the strident pro-Sai activist. Moreno insinuated that Larsson paid for his coverage by the FECRIS organisation. However, it is well known that FECRIS do not operate in any manner accepting bribes. As for myself, I have never been in contact with Larsson.

The American ex-devotee Dr. Timothy Conway was also detested by Moreno as an opponent or “Anti-Sai Activist.” Much of my coverage, at 23.10 of kevinrdshepherd.net, focused upon the Conway report concerning sexual abuse testimonies. Keeping strictly to that report, I did not endorse any "New Age" views expressed by Dr. Conway, contrary to the extremist assertions of Pro-Sai activism.
Conway had a legitimate argument with Moreno, who tried to cast doubt upon the authenticity of certain documents (the John Hislop letters) which gravely compromise the Goldstein-Moreno attitude of denying abuse.

The very distorting account of Gerald Joe Moreno says that, in citing ex-devotees associated with New Age views, I look "rather pathetic and foolish and reeking of hypocrisy." To the contrary, it is obligatory to report allegations such as those featuring in Larsson's talk at FECRIS. Close analysts can plainly see that I do not endorse New Age views.

Observers said that Moreno was a hypocrite for claiming to represent "love and spirituality," while being active as a vindictive libeller and internet terrorist. He is now widely considered to represent the official policy of the Sathya Sai Baba sect, dismissing testimonies to abuse on the part of the guru. Moreno's elevated pseudonym of "sathyasaibaba" (on wordpress.com) was quite insufficient to offset due criticism.

The misconstruction imposed by Moreno web harassment even described me as an alleged “academic” author, which is flagrantly untrue. I have never described myself as an academic, as  informed readers well know. My own basic description of my career was completely ignored by the harasser. The role of a citizen philosopher is distinct from sectarian polemic.

7.    Defamatory Sectarian  Blog  

Google Search analysts interpreted the pseudonymous "Equalizer" blog of Gerald Joe Moreno as a pursuit of SEO advantages against my own entries on Google. The extremist kevin-shepherd-exposed blog of 2008 duplicated, amongst numerous other earlier items, the Moreno agitation entitled Kevin Shepherd and Ullrich Zimmermann. This grossly distorts my approach to the case of an ex-devotee who testified to sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba.

The laboured theme of Moreno, that I endorsed idiosyncrasies of Zimmermann, is entirely disproven by my own commentary, suppressed by Moreno in his blog concoction. The relevant entry is Sectarian Attack Against Objection Relating to Wikipedia Cordon (2008).

Perhaps the most objectionable item, duplicated on the new Equalizer (Moreno) blog, was the deceptive Introduction to Kevin R. D. Shepherd. The original version of this defamation prefaced the hostile Moreno webpage against myself at saisathyasai.com. The contemptuous slur is regarded as an instance of the extremist sectarian tendency to vilify critics protesting at unfair representation.

The blog defamation of 2008 was an almost word for word repeat of the preamble to the Moreno webpage at saisathyasai.com, originally posted in September 2007. Like the numerous other articles transferred from that website to the exposed blog, the so-called "Introduction" is a symptom of   manic sectarian inability  to assimilate contradicting data  supplied by the victim of libel. The main difference between the website and  the  blog is that Equalizer (Moreno) now referred to Moreno in the third person. The presumed objectivity is not convincing.

The misleading "Introduction" was an exercise in calculated disparagement by a web terrorist believing that he had the last word in every argument, because of his elite position as a defender of Sathya Sai Baba. His role as Grand Inquisitor of New Mexico, whether or not paid by Michael Goldstein in neighbouring California, was seen as a warning by many persons preferring a more temperate expression in matters of argument.  The contrivance under discussion was the Moreno reaction to being countermanded for proscribing on Wikipedia a book relating to the “Sai Baba Movement.”

The superficial "Introduction" asserts that I write "tabloid-like diatribes." This was a rhetorical response to my valid criticism (on my first website) of the sectarian's prohibitive attitude on Wikipedia. Joe Moreno web compositions were something in the further range of literary extremism, being strongly inclined to character assassination and extensive libel. His act of shouting down all critics was evidently viewed by his camp as a sign of superiority reflecting from the guru, making Moreno infallible.

Equalizer (Moreno) affirmed that I “am incapable of formulating a sober argument.” Are we to leave sober argument to the web terrorists? Sectarian "sober argument" was committed to denial of very convincing testimonies to sexual abuse.  The remarks of Moreno about  the Cambridge phrase “serious amateur” are considered a mockery of British activities and  standards substantially removed from hostile  sectarian  webtalk in New Mexico. See Serious Amateur Activity Misunderstood by Sectarian Polemic.

The cult  libeller even stated on his blog that Cambridge University Library (CUL) is “not to be confused with Cambridge University itself.” Of course he knew best, as he represented Sathya Sai  Baba and the sensational miracles contested by the Indian Rationalists. Cambridge University Library (the highest University building in Cambridge) is here represented as a purely secondary feature of the landscape, because of the association with myself, who had dared to criticise Gerald Joe Moreno. CUL was clearly viewed as an obstruction to the Google ratings of Moreno websites and blogs. The eminent librarians of CUL, their vast holdings, the Rare Books Room, and even the elite Manuscript Room, were discounted in the sectarian blog domain.

Gerald Joe Moreno was well known amongst ex-devotees for being very reluctant to revise any of his offending web statements. Not a word was altered in such sectarian assertions as: “Kevin Shepherd’s material is controversial, convoluted  and conspiratorial.” That unappealable verdict refers to my published  books. The message of Moreno "sober argument" is that all critics are conspirators, even if the cultist has not read their books and knows nothing whatever about these.

A very misleading statement heads the banal Introduction.  Equalizer (Moreno) says: “This blog was created to refute and respond to Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s articles against Joe Moreno on KRD Shepherd’s citizeninitiative.com and kevinshepherd.net domains.”  He had not in fact responded to the second article, but instead ignored the contents of that lengthy feature entitled Wikipedia, Gerald Joe Moreno, Google (2008).

Gerald Joe Moreno implied that I was the web aggressor, not him. Observers can plainly see that Moreno started his misrepresentation of myself on both the October 2006 Wikipedia User page and his July 2007 blog entitled Kevin Shepherd and Robert Priddy (in sathyasaibaba) at wordpress.com. That was before any of my comments appeared online. Further, his attacks on ex-devotees abundantly confirm  an extensive exercise in web harassment. The Google Search name lists for Robert Priddy, Barry Pittard, and others, displayed many anonymous Moreno entries unfavourable to the subject. The sectarian countered that his own name list showed many ex-devotee incursions. The crux was one of ascertaining who attacked first.

The web harasser was unsuccessfully trying to relegate the detailed argument in my 21-section internet article entitled Wikipedia, Gerald Joe Moreno, Google, describing the sequence of web entries and the slurs contested by me. The Moreno blog attack ignored the unwelcome article. He had formerly ignored nearly all the content of Kevin R. D. Shepherd in response to Gerald Joe Moreno (Nov. 2007). The evasive tactic of Moreno bypassed the numerous complaints and complexities outlined in that response.

The defamatory blog kevin-shepherd-exposed amounts to a very distorted version of a webpage appearing on my  first  website. In addition, there are two or three fractional references lifted out of context from my website kevinrdshepherd.net. The militant blog format of Moreno was blatantly presented in terms of a campaign (see 5.10), a word prominently appearing in the margin, where three copyrighted photographs of the victim were repeatedly presented with obvious intent to stigmatise for sectarian attention. My complaints at misrepresentation were abrasively dismissed in terms of whining and snivelling.

Amongst my contacts was a legal expert who undertook to inspect at some length the web materials of Moreno in relation to myself. In a communication dated 02/01/2009, this damages expert stated:

I  think that [Gerald] Joe Moreno has been quite defamatory, and I would be very surprised if he has not taken the precaution of ensuring that no property of any value is in his own name, and thus not available to execute against action exerted to satisfy an award of Damages for Defamation. His web writing comes across to me as that of a petty and fanatical lout who always needs to have the last word, and that in itself makes me wonder about his motivation and, thus, to doubt his good faith and his credibility. His output realistically amounts to little more than a hopefully face-saving smokescreen for the benefit of his own cheer squad.

8.   Self  Publishing  as  Distinct  from  Vanity  Publishing

The exercise in derogatory metatags and blog descriptions, undertaken by Gerald Joe Moreno in early November 2008, included the jibe: “Exposing Vanity Publisher and Author Kevin R. D. Shepherd.” Moreno was relying heavily upon his hollow stigma of vanity publisher to justify his originating attack expressed on a Wikipedia User page in October 2006.
Possessing only a superficial knowledge of the book trade, and not even having read the books he dismissed, Moreno's sectarian libels about a “vanity publisher” were regarded elsewhere as a malicious web harassment. 

Moreno was keen to overlook the complexities dividing the spheres of vanity publishing and serious self-publishing. A vanity publisher contracts with authors who pay them to publish a book; the quality of the book is too rarely a factor of consideration. In contrast, a self-publishing author takes on the entire cost of publication and also conducts the marketing operation; some books in this category have serious content.

The majority of both self-published and vanity press books have featured  paperback bindings, with hardback being increasingly considered a value feature. Academic and other exacting book appraisers afford a premium to hardback binding, restrained cover designs,  and  time-consuming additions such as annotations and indexing. Further, if an author or self-publisher  shows consistency in such output, a higher rating is generally awarded. Long term consistency in these respects is considered an even stronger basis for approval.

By 2007, my own output over twenty-five years had qualified for some ratings in the “selective” bracket. All my self-published works had included annotations and restrained cover designs. The two shortest books of mine lacked an index, but both of these featured annotations. All my other books had an index. Only one of my books appeared in  a  paperback binding, and that was a notably upmarket work relying heavily upon academic subscribers. All the other books  were hardbacks.  See further Self-published works.

The most rigorous appraisers in this field  award a premium to works of academic interest rather than to general interest, fiction, or poetry. It has been said that all of my self-published works qualify for this consideration in some department or other – varying from the history of science to philosophy and Asian studies. The book trade is dominated by the giant mainline publishers who generally eclipse small publishing companies and other enterprises. Unusual self-published works can be more notable than  some or many works produced by commercial publishing giants.

The situations arising have led some successful self-publishers to bypass well known retail outlets and chain stores, being able to reach their own audience.  A minority of self-publishers do not aim at profit margins, but at educational  horizons. Their priorities are not generally well known. They are frequently content to aim at getting their money back rather than achieve a profit; they endeavour to keep prices low in various ways.  

The history of self-published works is relevant. The first systematic defence of the individual right to publish was contributed by John Milton in the 1640s. His Areopagitica was a self-published work opposing censorship, arousing controversy in a monarchical  state dominated by political and ideological restrictions. In later times, many self-published works eventually became recognised classics. Some of the famous names here include William Blake, Walt Whitman, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Henry David Thoreau, George Bernard Shaw, and Gertrude Stein. Self-publishing was not judged negatively in those earlier times; however, economic hazards were both recognised and encountered.

I was not impressed by the fate of many books in the field of commercial publishing. These were too often remaindered after two or three years, not achieving anything resembling a high survival value in the secondhand book market. This sometimes happened even in the case of some fairly well known authors. Indeed, the survival value of an author is measured by academics and connoisseurs in different terms to that of the commercial market. This factor can easily elude superficial assessment.

I never contracted runs of less than a thousand copies. Remaindered books are sold by commercial publishers for a trifle, whether the production run is a thousand or five thousand. The dispenser view in these instances is that the “short life” of the book has ended. The “sell by” date has expired. In contrast, the survival value of a book that continues to be in demand (however selectively) will not be affected by vagaries of the commercial market. It is the cognoscenti who  determine survival value, not the general reader impressed by the colourful paperbacks marketed by short-term consumer strategies.

My first book Psychology in Science (1983) sold to over one hundred academic (and other) libraries throughout the world. I learned that this was unusual for a first-time author in the amateur category. Sales were strong in other areas, including university bookshops. I did not have to remainder that book, nor any others. In the 1990s, a book trade consultant told me that most of my prices were very low, and that if I wished to be more financially successful, then I should double most of the prices, which would  be quite legitimate in my case. Though I respected his advice, I nevertheless disagreed, and acted accordingly with respect to price lists.

My two shortest books became popular in America.  This was confirmed by a rise in secondhand prices. A Sufi Matriarch was promoted to over seventy dollars in some lists, whereas the British retail price was less than £8. I was indignant at the time. However, I learned that the anomaly was proof of my survival value. A number of my books may prove to be in the “high survival” category, especially in view of international interest at academic and bibliophile level.

Gurus Rediscovered  became cited in learned literature on Indian religion, being recognised as the first attempt to cast Shirdi Sai Baba in the realistic light of Islamic Sufism.  Shirdi Sai Baba (died 1918) has  increasingly appealed to a Muslim audience in recent years, thus restoring the balance in a rather weighted “Hinduised” adventure befalling source materials. Over the years, certain of my books gained interest in Turkey, Arabia, Iran, India, and Pakistan. Remembering that there are many Muslims in other countries also. More recently, two further books of mine about Shirdi Sai Baba were published in India by a third party publisher of New Delhi, selling mainly to Hindus.

In serious self-publishing, the writer abandons the constraint to publish for purely financial reasons, or to cater for routine public tastes, which are so frequently banal and manipulated by media interests.  In 2004-2005, the self-publishing imprint of Citizen Initiative added a new dimension to my output, leading me into website composition. This internet extension is not a commercial activity, the priorities being educational.

The policy of some commercial publishers is disputed. In 2005, I  reported: “Recently, the present writer visited a large bookshop of repute which had decided to incorporate a substantial and rather visible array of paperbacks on wicca and closely related subjects; some of these books  made  frequent and  very superstitious reference to love spells, which was the clear speciality in certain cases. They were prescribing love spells for a contemporary audience of enthusiasts”
(Pointed Observations, 2005, p. 352).

To conclude here, I have produced annotated works having an actual and  predicted survival value. The terminated project of Anthropographia Publications is viewed by sympathisers as an unusual exercise in self-publishing, one furthermore strongly associated with Cambridge intellectual output. This effort represented an unofficial research programme, conducted via library study undertaken without any official funding. The project of Citizen Initiative continues in an internet format.

9.    Web  Harassment  Requires  Exposing

Gerald Joe Moreno displayed a marked blogging zest for allegedly “exposing” varied critics and victims. Anybody who criticised Sathya Sai Baba, or his defender Moreno, was liable to receive the castigatory treatment. Moreno profiled his opponents as aberrant, perverted, conspiratorial, dishonest, ludicrous, or whatever. He ignored all objections to this programme, acting as if his opinions were beyond question. A disconcerting blog exploit of Moreno, in October 2008, represented the ex-devotee Robert Priddy in terms of an ape-like primitive. This made the basic attitude of Moreno glaringly obvious.
See Ex-devotee Robert Priddy (2009).


Joe  Moreno  blog  presentation  of  Robert  Priddy, 2008

The background of Moreno is very obscure. Becoming a devotee in his late teens, some while later he emerged on the web in 2003, becoming strongly associated with internet “bulletin boards” and discussion forums relating to Sathya Sai Baba. Such web milieux are notorious for censorious expressions of antipathy for anyone not in agreement with favoured opinions.  Salient  Australian ex-devotee Barry Pittard was a victim of Moreno libel as transmitted by a Yahoo message in 2006. Moreno unjustly accused Pittard of being a “paedophile,” an evident attempt of tit for tat in view of accusations made against Sathya Sai Baba by ex-devotees.

Pittard expressed the restrained observation: “No doubt, most Sathya Sai Baba devotees, inasmuch as they view these related topics on the internet, are appalled by the shocking departure by the main pro Sathya Sai Baba defenders from civil discourse.  There is extensive resort to poor arguments, distortion of contexts and character assassination. Likewise, most former Sathya Sai Baba devotees find abhorrent the crudeness, nastiness and vilification evinced by an extremely small minority of former devotees.” Quoted from Barry Pittard, Timothy Conway Ph.D (July 2008).

The enduring conflict between Moreno and ex-devotees is the subject of diverse web memos. See Moreno and ex-devotees. Both sides expressed strong accusations. Some ex-devotees were much more restrained than others. Moreno was continually trying to prove that ex-devotees were in error. See also Gerald Moreno and Analysis of a Cultist Defamation. The militant web industry of Moreno created a network of about twenty blog features and websites, predominantly the former.

Anyone caught (like Moreno) with ten [and up to twenty] hostile and maligning entries, on another person’s Google Search name list, is in a seriously suspect category of obsessive harassment tactics. In my own case, I objected  to an American Wikipedia User page (instigated by Moreno) that discredited my British publishing venture. I was not guilty of anything save to write a single book appendice which happened to briefly profile the web pages of Moreno’s rival Robert Priddy. Because of this, my entire publishing output was maligned in aggressive  passages of the SSS108 (Moreno) User page.

In Western countries, many devotees left the Sathya Sai Baba sect in disillusionment. The internet reports were many and varied. Testimonies to sexual abuse, and reports of economic manipulation, became well known when British ex-devotee David Bailey made available his document The Findings in 2000 (see exbaba.com, Findings tab). Less well known is the fact that Bailey chose to retire into obscurity, after being the victim of reprisals from dogmatic devotees refusing to accept that the guru could have done anything wrong. Some attackers even concocted the story that Bailey had been sent to jail as  a paedophile (Shepherd, Investigating the Sai  Baba Movement, 2005, p. 295). 

Gerald Joe Moreno continually depicted ex-devotees and others as liars and deceivers. He maintained that testimonies to sexual abuse are mere stories. His primary website (saisathyasai.com) showed his name and declared the aim of “exposing critic’s smear-campaigns against Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.” The sectarian attitude was glaringly evident. Ex-devotees informed that  Moreno ingloriously represented certain of his victims on porn sites, including the hapless Robert Priddy.  He notoriously distorted online images of at least two opponents. See Joe Moreno's Undeclared Distorted Images of Opponents
(2008).


l to r: V. K. Narasimhan, Robert  Priddy

In reality, Robert Priddy did not resemble a primitive creature, as Gerald Joe Moreno was so desperate to suggest. Priddy provided literate criticisms of the guru, and revealingly detailed his contact with the late V. K. Narasimhan (d.2000), a salient devotee of Sathya Sai at Puttaparthi ashram who was formerly a noted journalist. The notebooks of Priddy reveal the doubts of Narasimhan about certain complicating events at Puttaparthi. Moreno vehemently denied the relevance of those notebooks, insisting that his own partisan version was the truth. However, the dissident data is impossible for other parties to ignore. See The Case of V. K. Narasimhan (2008).

10.   The  Militant  Sectarian  Campaign  of  Gerald Joe  Moreno

Moreno is associated by ex-devotees with the backing of Dr. Michael Goldstein, leader of the Sathya Sai Organisation. There is as yet no proof for this persistent belief. However, Goldstein certainly made no attempt to stop the Moreno campaign of web harassment. Living in California, Goldstein was the key figure in the interface between American and Indian devotee contingents. 


Michael  Goldstein

The BBC found Goldstein to be so evasive and uncooperative, about answering questions on the sexual abuse issue, that they resorted to a hidden camera technique in his case. A revealing interview with Dr. Goldstein appeared in The Secret Swami, a BBC documentary broadcast in 2004, widely considered to be a major televised feature on cult anomalies. Goldstein was notably dismissive of the many testimonies to sexual abuse in relation to Sathya Sai Baba. See Michael Goldstein and The Secret Swami Documentary. Moreno repeatedly denounced the BBC documentary. This programme nevertheless afforded interviews with both partisans and critics of  Sathya Sai Baba.

Ex-devotees urged that Moreno was secretly and adroitly endorsed, by both influential American and Indian devotees, in a project of web harassment. This situation amounted to a strongly adverse reflection upon the integrity of the Sathya Sai Organisation (SSO). The SSO failed to reply to a pressing letter of complaint from ex-devotees in March 2008. See Complaint at Massive Libel and Disinformation Campaign.

The threat posed by sectarian internet libels and misrepresentation is potentially severe. Dire implications relate to any situation where no sceptical observer can report allegations, or discrepant web behaviour, without incurring sectarian harassment.

The harassment was accompanied by a computer animation device showing on Moreno blogs, including kevin-shepherd-exposed.  Such IT animation emblems do not prove any ideological claim. The Moreno emblem included the logo Campaign to Stop Anti-Sai Activist’s Abuse. The word “Abuse” alternated here with “Defamations,” “Libels,” and “Dishonesty.” This questionable device was placed directly underneath three copyrighted images of myself that were abused by Gerald Joe Moreno. The  fourfold logo can be described as a sectarian ploy to conceal objections made by the victim, in this case a complete outsider to the Sathya Sai Organisation.

The animation logo was sectarian justification for the web terrorism repeatedly demonstrated by Moreno in relation to myself (and also ex-devotees). The ex-devotees were complaining about reported abuses on the part of their former guru.  I merely happened to refer to those abuses, which are legitimate for comment  because of the large number of disillusioned ex-devotees. Yet above all, I dared to criticise the militant tactic of Moreno, who presented complaint in such derogatory terms as “whined and snivelled.”
The fanatical campaigner was viewed in the light of inciting psychopathic devotees against critics and victims of Moreno.

In 2008, an ex-devotee received a threatening email from an obscure supporter of Sathya Sai Baba. This named man (not Moreno) was apparently an American. A copy of the email was sent to me by the recipient. The offensive communication, littered with vulgar words, is not suitable to reproduce here. There was an underlying threat expressed by the extremist attacker, who announced his intention of hacking a website. "Your days are numbered" was one of the ominous statements appearing in the abusive proclamation. The inspiration for such outpourings is very much in question.

11.    Penetrating  the  Blog  Underworld

The web harasser Gerald Joe Moreno perpetuated his militant campaign by, e.g., ignoring the relevant data and arguments at Wikipedia, Moreno, Google. That lengthy article, featuring 21 sections, was uploaded on 23/09/2008, comprising a specific analysis of Moreno commentary and misrepresentation.

The evasive response of the sectarian blogger, to that article, was one of  reproducing under a pseudonym the misleading items he had  placed on his primary website the previous year  (2007). Now Moreno merely duplicated these items at blogspot.com, a superficial ploy that supposedly “exposed” me. This transparent tactic of evasion involved reference to Gerald Joe Moreno in the third person, the blog author being  named as Equalizer (a recurring pseudonym of Moreno, a fact which he elsewhere expressly acknowledged). 

The web harasser evidently hoped to deceive the world at large with this convenient presentation. He was obviously trying to give the impression that Moreno was not here duplicating earlier items, but instead some other web agent.

The impression of new materials was conveyed by the date of October 31, 2008, supplied on the blogspot.com attack for the first entries posted by Equalizer. The textual resetting was very minimal. These entries were all heavily outdated transfers from saisathyasai.com. More duplications followed in November. This feat amounted to a web smokescreen, designed to distract attention from my counter-argument that Gerald Joe Moreno did not wish to reveal. 

The web terrorist improvised a disdainful heading at the top of these misleading items in the new blog archive. That heading stated: “Exposing the vanity self-publisher, pseudo-intellectual, Findhorn Foundation & Stanislav Grof critic, New Age promoter and Anti-Sai  extremist  Kevin R. D. Shepherd.” Not the slightest proof is supplied for the description as a vanity self-publisher. The gloss of “New Age promoter” is likewise known to be a misnomer invented by the unscrupulous internet harasser.  

The aspersive heading requires careful evaluation on the part of anyone unfamiliar with the sources.  I have not written any books on Sathya Sai Baba, have only contributed on that subject three appendices, a web  article principally relating to Wikipedia, and a critical web article considered an appropriate reference to diverse materials by literate assessors outside the cult blog domain.

The only acknowledgment made by the flippant blogger, of my recent extensive objection, was to reproduce the domain name of my new website (kevinrdshepherd.net).  Moreno even got that detail wrong by missing out my initials in the same domain name, reproduced at the top of his scurrilous item entitled Introduction to Kevin R. D. Shepherd.  This blog offering comprised a repetition of his libellous preamble to the hostile webpage against myself featuring on his primary website saisathyasai.com. The so-called Introduction flouts basic rules of fair reporting throughout, while preserving the erroneous accusation that I self-published through four imprints. The totally misleading reference to the publisher Routledge was also left unaltered.

Gerald Joe Moreno has the reputation of being in the category of “tirade” bloggers. He was manifestly obsessed with personal attack, in a manner calculated to ridicule his opponents and victims. There was clearly no other motive involved, in much of his disreputable project, other than to degrade any critic of himself or his guru.

Moreno presented ex-devotees as the evil party conspiring against love and spirituality, which he supposedly represented. Obsessive webstalking and harassment were his speciality. He fits a clearly defined set of psychological characteristics charted by international assessors of cult hostility. His web operations were unusually intensive.

12.    Duplicated  Items  on  Pseudonymous  Blog

The duplicated items, showing on the attack blog kevin-shepherd-exposed,  include disparagements varying from Gerald Joe Moreno’s dislike of the BBC to his incessant depreciation of ex-devotees like Robert Priddy (a retired academic of Oslo University). The latter is represented by the hostile feature Kevin Shepherd’s Friendship With LSD Advocate. Moreno’s hatred of Priddy was acute.  I was not actually a friend of Priddy, never having met him; however, I knew enough about him to contest the facile theme that he advocated LSD. I had been in intermittent correspondence with Priddy for a few years, solely in relation to events concerning ex-devotees and Sathya Sai Baba.

Robert Priddy did not advocate LSD in any way. Many years ago, he did publish online certain documents relating to his 1960s experimentation with the danger drug. He eventually removed those documents. Moreno subsequently violated copyrighted materials of Priddy; the latter’s wife contacted DMCA Safe Harbour, a group of concerned web experts who forwarded copyright claims on behalf of claimants. Moreno was afterwards obliged (in 2008) to remove Priddy copyright materials  from his wordpress.com blog sathyasaibaba, being considered guilty of infringement.

The Moreno (Equalizer) duplications also related to other ex-devotees, who were the subject of aberrant arguments designed to implicate me as endorsing their diverse views and statements, including those of a “New Age” complexion. The extremism of Moreno exegesis was sometimes quite fantastic. If such a sectarian ideology became more widespread in society at large, nobody would dare to cite anyone with divergent views from their own, in case they were certified for sharing  exactly the same outlook or  opinions as  the persons cited. All scholarship would cease.

Moreno adopted the absurd attitude, in my direction, that if anybody is a guru advocate or new age enthusiast, then I should not be citing them because I do not belong to those categories. The erroneous nature of such reasoning is plainly obvious.

Another inappropriate recourse of the internet terrorist (in Sept. 2007) was to insinuate my endorsement of certain pornographic statements made by two of his “Anti-Sai” opponents  (neither of whom I had cited). Despite my explicit rebuttal of this extremist ploy in my Response to Moreno (Nov. 2007), the web harasser had not remedied this matter. See Pornography Ruse (2007). I was able to emphasise that my strong opposition to pornography had recently been expressed in my book Pointed Observations (2005).  To quote here some of the argument in relation to contemporary laxity:

As might have been expected, there were increasing vindications of pornography, which became fatally acceptable on the media as ‘entertainment.’ The basic principle to grasp is that many people were able to make more money out of garbage.” (Pointed Observations, p. 110)

In addition, I also specifically opposed child pornography. “America became notorious as one of the leading sources of child pornography, and the Internet was a means for pornographers to evade British laws” (ibid:113).

A further duplicated item on the “exposed” blog is Kevin Shepherd Cites Anonymous Scholars. Joe Moreno (Equalizer) here made a sweeping assumption about two Wikipedia contributors, whom he downgraded as being virtual imposters because they expressed approval of my published output. That approval was unpardonable to the sectarian judgmentalism of Moreno, despite the fact that he had not read my books. He derided the academic background of the two contributors, strongly insinuating their pseudo status. A link with an Australian University was here repudiated by Moreno as an invention. 
Simon Kidd subsequently declared his real name identity (see also Kidd, Wikipedia and Kevin Shepherd).

The two insulted Wikipedia contributors were both academics, as is now well known. Both declared their real name identity.  Moreno ignored the statement of Dr. M. E. Dean on Citizendium in March 2007, supplying details of real name identity, a disclosure occurring six months before the Pro-Sai campaigner first depicted "Jedermann" in dismissive terms. See further Joe Moreno Insults Academics on Wikipedia. See also Criticism and Zoroastrian Issue.


13.   The  Reductionist  Anti-Guru  Label

Presenting me under the label of “Anti-Guru,” Gerald Joe Moreno conveniently suppressed relevant information that he did not wish Sathya Sai devotees to see. For instance, my recent web article on Hinduism made discernible concession to both Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar. See Hinduism and gurus (2008).  I also mention there my early connection with Swami Ghanananda (1898-1969), a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order. On that figure, see further Vedanta for East and West: Swami Ghanananda Memorial  Number  (116) Nov.-Dec. 1970.                        

  l  to  r:   Shirdi  Sai  Baba,  Upasani  Maharaj

Sectarian hostility also obscured the fact that my early book Gurus Rediscovered  (1986) was in empathy with the two subjects covered, namely Sai Baba of Shirdi (d.1918)  and Upasani Maharaj of Sakori (d.1941). The former was an unorthodox Muslim and the latter a high caste Hindu. That book was distributed in India by the prominent publisher Motilal Banarsidass. The coverage gained extension in my later work Investigating  the  Sai  Baba  Movement  (2005). My treatment of Ramana Maharshi, in another book (Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals, 2004, pp. 153ff), is also sympathetic.

There is a further contradiction to the reductionist label. I produced a favourable (though non-sectarian) account of the Zoroastrian-born Irani mystic Meher Baba (d.1969), regarded by many Hindus as a guru figure. See Shepherd, Meher Baba, an Iranian Liberal (1988). Meher Baba's father was Sheriar Mundegar Irani.

14.    The  Anti-Sai  Complexity

The stigma of Anti-Sai was continually used by Gerald Joe Moreno. The connotations are those of severe disapproval and censure. "Anti-Sai Activists" were devils in the Pro-Sai landscape of Moreno polemic. They were considered evil and base, fit only for contempt, being deceivers at best. The activity of Moreno has been described as a web manhunt, eager for revenge against any criticism of Sathya Sai Baba. Any measure was justified in the mind of the harasser.

Not only ex-devotees, but also journalists and the BBC, were zealously castigated. The BBC documentary The Secret Swami (2004) was blacklisted by Moreno, though elsewhere regarded as a significant milestone in the televising of cult anomalies.

In the sectarian argument, the "Anti-Sai" sources can only be wrong. Gerald Joe Moreno was always right, himself being the champion of the guru who must not be criticised. Allegations were derided as lies and subterfuge. Testimonies to sexual abuse were discounted as mere inventions. Daring to question the policy of Gerald Joe Moreno was deemed an intolerable sin, even though he was banned from Wikipedia, and even though his language was frequently defamatory and offensive.

The Anti-Sai idiom encounters a problem in relation to the original Sai Baba. I am here referring to Sai Baba of Shirdi (d.1918), now frequently known as Shirdi Sai in order to distinguish him from Sathya Sai, who was born eight years or so after the precursor died. The name of the Shirdi saint was appropriated by the young Sathyanarayana Raju, who became known as Sathya Sai Baba. The latter claimed to be the reincarnation of the former. That claim did not meet with universal agreement, and has been in strong dispute amongst  the Indian devotees of Shirdi Sai.

Hazrat  Sai  Baba  of Shirdi

The original Sai Baba was a Muslim Sufi of liberal tendency. This is evident from numerous details supplied in the early sources on the Shirdi saint, including the Notebook of Abdul Baba.

Sai Baba, in his early years, was steeped in the Sufi tradition and community of the Deccan.  It was only late in Sai Baba’s life with the influx of Hindus mostly from Bombay, many of whom were highly educated and literate and who wrote about Sai Baba in the light of their own tradition, that the issue became clouded. (Marianne Warren, Unravelling the Enigma: Shirdi  Sai  Baba in the Light of Sufism, first edn, New Delhi: Sterling,  1999, p. 205)

Sathya Sai Baba was among the agencies who “Hinduized” the portrayal of the Shirdi saint. One is accordingly more at liberty to disbelieve the reincarnation claim, and to emphasise the Islamic (and Sufi) religious link that is realistically discernible.

In this enlarged context, the American cudgelling arm of the Sathya Sai movement may be considered an usurping factor.  Gerald Joe Moreno can be regarded as anti-Muslim according to the standards of his own sectarian argument, which supported the "Hinduising" reincarnation associated with Puttaparthi. His application of the phrase “Anti-Sai  Extremist,” in my direction, savours strongly of an acutely censorious orientation within the Sathya Sai sect. Cf. Shepherd, Sai Baba of Shirdi: A Biographical Investigation (New Delhi: Sterling, 2015); Shepherd, Sai Baba: Faqir of Shirdi (New Delhi: Sterling, 2017).

See further on this website, Shirdi Sai Baba and the Sai Baba Movement.

15.    The  Proof  Of  Internet  Terrorism

In late November 2008, my own two websites at last headed my name list showing on Google Search, overtaking the Moreno website saisathyasai.com, which had formerly dominated that listing for over a year. My sites had now gained more links from sympathetic and interested parties. However, the harassment continued to remain in strong evidence.

In December 2008, Gerald Joe Moreno achieved no less than six distorting entries on page one of my Google Search name list. He  abundantly confirmed his role as a web harasser in such visible strategies. He was now widely considered to represent the worst aspect of the movement he supported, which in India has  been implicated in  activities  amounting to murderous elimination of unwanted persons. Certainly, the Indian Rationalists (led by Basava Premanand) have made strong allegations to that effect.

The six hostile Moreno entries can be summarised as follows:

(1)  The primary Moreno website saisathyasai.com, presenting the phrase: “Exposing Vanity Publisher and author Kevin R. D. Shepherd.” The description is invalid. A vanity publisher contracts with authors regardless of the quality of work. I am not in that category, being in the past a self-publisher of serious annotated books having an academic interest. See section 8 above.

(2)   A wordpress.com/tag in the category of libellous blog tactic. This entry stated “sathyasaibaba wrote 4 weeks ago: author Kevin Shepherd  endorses psychic trance medium; Kevin R. D. Shepherd is a vanity self-publisher.” Neither of these assertions are correct, as pointed out above (5.6 and 5.8); both come under the category of hate campaign improvisations. Moreno was the writer here referred to, not his guru; the pseudonymous identity aroused strong queries about the mode of blog presentation. In contrast, the so-called "psychic trance medium" Conny Larsson used his real name; he was cited by me, but not endorsed by me in any psychic capacity.

(3)   The outdated and invalid Wikipedia User page of SSS108 (Gerald Joe Moreno) which prominently appeared on my Google name list despite the fact that Moreno was banned indefinitely from Wikipedia in March 2007.  His User page of October 2006 was intent upon stigmatising my literary and publishing output (at a time when I had not even heard of him). In 2012, Wikipedia manager Jimmy Wales deleted the SSS108 User page from Wikipedia; see also Wikipedia misinformation.

(4)    The similarly distorted and inaccurate entry relating to the Moreno website sai-fi.net, which stated: “Kevin R. D. Shepherd is a vanity self-publisher and author whose writings mostly revolve around (or include numerous references to) the Findhorn Foundation.” The extensive error involved in that statement is obvious to literate parties who do not subscribe to sectarian hate campaigns. References to the Findhorn Foundation comprise only a very small part of my book output and only a part of my web output.

(5)    The Moreno blog sathyasaibaba at wordpress.com, supporting the extremist wordpress.com/tag specified in (2) above.  The hostile entry here stated: “There are absolutely no online references about  Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s qualifications, notability, personal information.”  This continuing aspersion conveniently ignored my two websites, Amazon book reviews, a Wikipedia talk page, and other favourable references to myself on varied web media. The unrevised Moreno entry was dated 10/07/2007. The sectarian web assassin typically did not give his name.

(6)    The notorious and pseudonymous blog entitled kevin-shepherd-exposed, bearing the name of Equalizer (a cover name of Moreno). This contrivance ignored my detailed responses and objections on my two visible websites, instead duplicating very misleading materials from the primary Moreno website. Equalizer stated: “This blog was created to refute and respond to Kevin R. D. Shepherd’s articles against Joe Moreno.” Observers noticed that  there was no due response, only continued vilification from an acutely dogmatic (and evasive) sectarian standpoint committed to a total resistance of all criticism.

Taken together, these six entries were widely considered to be a grave reflection upon Gerald Joe Moreno and the Sathya Sai Baba sect.  Only one of the six entries listed here was actually in the name of Moreno, the other five being typically anonymous (or pseudonymous). The ruse of the internet terrorist was transparent enough to close analysis. The more he tried to hide, the more Gerald Joe  Moreno became visible as a vindictive and libellous harasser.

Eight months later, these six maligning entries were still visible on my Google Search name list, and four of them on page one.

The purported identity of Moreno as “sathyasaibaba,” on wordpress.com, was but one of  the reasons to question his web validity. The sathyasaibaba blog of Moreno was in outright support of the sect he favoured, notably castigating critics of that sect and also critics of  himself. Close analysts construed the pseudonymous ploys as an indicator of cult psychopathology, which can so easily assume overbearing honours and become extremist in the “manhunt” obsession.

Gerald Joe Moreno was strongly associated,  by ex-devotees, with an undeclared policy of the Sathya Sai Baba movement to harass and undermine objectors to their activities. Some consider that Moreno was proof of such a policy in the sect at large, whether or not he was directly supported or paid by Michael Goldstein of California (the official leader of the Sathya Sai Organisation).

16.    The  Sheilawaring  User  Name

Gerald Joe Moreno posted a blog dated 23/12/2008, under  the name of Equalizer. This was entitled Kevin Shepherd and the ‘SheilaWaring’ Lie. That blog commenced with a quote from my web article Wikipedia, Moreno, Google (2008). The quote informs that Moreno “has resorted to many web pseudonyms such as Equalizer, vishwarupa108, and sheilawaring.” The past tense served to emphasise that not all of these pseudonyms were necessarily current, the last one specified being relatively inconspicuous. The information was obtained from ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba.

Moreno acknowledged that he used the name Equalizer. He also acknowledged vishwarupa108, which he excused on the basis of an email address. The problem remained that  most  readers/surfers were not acquainted with such admission of identity, tending to imagine that different authors were involved. Equalizer referred to Moreno in the third person, thus perpetuating the illusion of two separate identities.

Equalizer (Moreno) stated: “Joe Moreno has never (ever), at any time, used the name ‘sheilawaring’ on digg.com, netscape.com (now propeller.com), or anywhere else.” This statement contrasted strongly with an ex-devotee report.

My reference to the sheilawaring name was only fleeting, based on ex-devotee accounts. I subsequently added in square brackets the qualifying word "allegedly" to the sheilawaring attribution. Moreno neglected to mention this in his extended version of 'Sheilawaring' Lie (which discrepantly bore the same date as the original). I did not refer to digg.com or netscape.com. As an outsider to the argument about a user name, I will report something of what has been said about that name by opposing parties.

Equalizer (Moreno) said that he searched for the user name of sheilawaring on 23/12/2008 in relation to digg.com and propeller.com, finding only error pages. On the basis of this very recent web search, Moreno asserted that references to himself using the name sheilawaring were untruths. The ex-devotee camp countered by affirming: this only means that Moreno (or his close colleague) is not currently using the disputed name. The major informant here was Robert Priddy, the retired academic of Oslo University.

According to Priddy, the web focus for sheilawaring was netscape.com. For some time he and Barry Pittard made duplicated blog entries about Sathya Sai Baba on digg.com and netscape.com. It is independently known that Moreno appeared on digg.com, using the pseudonym of joe108. On that popular site, he boasted in a five line entry (dated September 2007) that he had worsted me in argument, an assertion not credited elsewhere. See The Boast of Joe Moreno on Digg.com (2008).

Priddy informed that the entries from both himself and Pittard about the guru, on these popular sites (netscape and digg.com), met in every case with continual  adverse comments from Moreno, alias joe108 and JM108, who persistently supplied links to his own libellous web pages. Priddy adds that Moreno was here supported by his colleague Lisa de Witt, alias CO2000. The hostile comments evoked complaints.

Eventually, netscape blocked both sides in this contest,  which was deemed too controversial and agitating. Priddy says that all  the relevant entries were removed by the administration. Yet not long afterwards,  Moreno descriptions and links are stated to have reappeared on netscape under the user name of sheilawaring, whose contributions were quickly removed by the administration. Priddy unearthed some documentation in support of his version, comprising screenshots dating to 2007.

Google cache scans for netscape.com are dated 09/07/2007. These show the user name sheilawaring, revealing that sheilawaring was a member of netscape on that date. User participation is here represented by a lengthy list of links to Moreno web sources, most prominently the primary Moreno website saisathyasai.com. The linked entries bear the user name JM108, alias Moreno, who submitted these entries a few months earlier according to the official details.  The entries show descriptions by Moreno of his articles. There are such familiar themes included as “Exposing the smear campaigns against Sri Sathya Sai Baba.”  There is a typical statement of “the lies, deceit  and dishonesty of critics.” Gerald Joe Moreno was constantly saying that his opponents were liars.

The preserved screenshots were interpreted by ex-devotees as proof that "sheilawaring" reposted Moreno entries on netscape in July 2007, in an attempt to outmanoeuvre the official blocking. There is no actual proof that Moreno himself was the user sheilawaring; ex-devotees conceded that he may have encouraged a close colleague to assist him.

The web item joe108-sheilawaring (2009) [formerly at saibabaexpose.com/sheilawaring.html] reproduces the screenshots abovementioned, commenting: "The identity of sheilawaring was concealed, but it is not hard to understand that this was either Moreno himself, or one of his proxies - it makes no real difference."

The anonymous sheilawaring was subsequently banned from netscape. A scan preserved by Priddy records the official netscape verdict on sheilawaring: “This member has been removed from the system for violating our Terms of Use.”

Netscape.com subsequently terminated, “so nothing can now be found” (to quote a Priddy email of January 2009). However, the Google scans (screenshots) are testimony to the disputed user name. These scans also reveal that the Moreno entries were "sunk" or disqualified by a majority verdict. The average negative rating was 2 votes versus 5 sinks. Robert Priddy says that ex-devotees had participated in the sinks against the two or three voters; they all had user names, as did the Moreno party. The votes and sinks visible on netscape did not reveal the user names involved.

When Joe Moreno saw the screenshots on the web (in 2009), he altered his blog Kevin Shepherd and the 'Sheilawaring' Lie. The revised version focused on the screenshots, which he had evidently not known to have existed formerly. Moreno now asserted that the sheilawaring user name belonged to an "Anti-Sai Activist." No further identity is given. The explanation from the Pro-Sai commentator is that the user sheilawaring was sinking all the Moreno postings.

Priddy contested the Moreno version, emphasising that no ex-devotee would have posted Moreno entries (email July 2009). The Moreno postings had already been removed by netscape, so there was no need for any critic to take action. The verdict of Robert Priddy about the Sheilawaring Lie blog reads: "Moreno is trying to make out that sheilawaring was 'sinking' her (or his) own entries, which is wholly unreasonable" (email dated 20/07/2009).

In a further attempt to justify his extreme position against an outsider, Equalizer, alias Joe Moreno, says accusingly (on his SheilaWaring Lie blog) that several ex-devotees/critics have resorted to web pseudonyms. This is obvious enough, but they do not attack outsiders to the sect. Only one of the persons he mentioned in this context has been in any contact with me, namely Robert Priddy.  No doubt some ex-devotees (including Priddy) did use pseudonyms in the backward web fashion emanating from America. I do not myself agree with the fashion. Some of these people were expressing their grievances in web discussion forums about Sathya Sai Baba. This activity cannot be compared to the extensive polemical campaign of Joe Moreno, undertaken from a militant network of websites and blogs employing pseudonyms like Equalizer.

In a letter of 2007, Robert Priddy complained to me that Moreno had sometimes confused him with anonymous postings of the ex-devotee Tony O'Clery (another major target of Moreno). A general tendency of Moreno was to blanket association of different writers who had made critical references to his guru. One or two of those writers probably were extremist, converging with Joe Moreno.

The Pro-Sai activist Gerald Joe Moreno chose to ignore my lengthy objections to his defamation. He even cited his own references to pseudonymous ex-devotees as support for his aspersion that I am a "pseudo-intellectual." Moreno (alias Equalizer) here asserts: "Unlike pseudo-intellectual Kevin Shepherd, Moreno backs up his claims with references and verifiable sources" (Kevin Shepherd and the 'SheilaWaring' Lie, accessed 03/01/2009). However, that assertion was deleted from the revised version of the "Sheilawaring Lie," in which the dominant emphasis is against the arch-enemy Robert Priddy. Moreno (Equalizer) exercised his prolific imagination by stating, in relation to the Google screenshots abovementioned, that:

Kevin Shepherd, Conny Larsson and Robert Priddy (all claiming a 'scholar' or 'professional' status) are too idiotic to read posts correctly (akin to their idiotic inability to read IP headers correctly, even attributing IPs generated by their own computers to Moreno). (Accessed 17/07/2009)

I have never claimed professional status. The proof of this are my references to "serious amateur" output and the role of a citizen philosopher. I have never been involved in such IP generation, and was totally new to computers in July 2007, being on a beginner's course at that time. I was not part of the netscape episode, which I only heard about in retrospect the following year, and which lacks context in the Moreno version. Further, Larsson does not appear to have claimed professional status as a scholar, having an entirely different career background. Priddy claimed to be a retired academic, which was the literal truth. The conflatory and distorting tendencies of Joe Moreno were extreme.

Such blog tactics were resisted on Wikipedia, where the Moreno habit of "name-calling" was prohibited. The "game of name-calling" was one of the accusations made against the Pro-Sai activist by Wikipedia editors. See the closing statements in Joe Moreno Insults Academics on Wikipedia (2008).

The abusive language of Moreno (Equalizer) was widely noticed. For instance, I had formerly complained  about the description of “whining and snivelling,” which the harasser applied to my objection concerning the 2006 SSS108 (Moreno) tactic on Wikipedia.

Equalizer  contemptuously  ignored  the complaint, repeating his derision found in the original version of his Sheilawaring Lie (December 2008), where he stated: “Kevin Shepherd whined and sniveled about Moreno’s alleged ‘pseudonyms’ ” (accessed 03/01/2009).

Those incognito names were more than just an alleged factor. Moreno acknowledged certain pseudonyms to be his own, including Equalizer. He avoided the context of my complaint, meaning that of parading libellous statements on Google Search under pseudonyms, misleading many unversed readers into believing that a number of writers were involved.

In the latest version of Sheilawaring Lie (2009), Moreno substituted "ex-devotees" for my name in relation to whining and snivelling. He did actually make a very rare amendment here, while allowing his negative preoccupation with ex-devotees to cloud the image of outsiders in a different category.


Kevin R. D. Shepherd
July 2009, modified April 2019

Postscript: Further  Proof  of  Internet  Terrorism

After the appearance of this article on the web in August 2009, Gerald Joe Moreno posted five further blogs against me on his blogspot.com contrivance entitled kevin-shepherd-exposed, referring to himself in the third person while using his cult name of Equalizer. Those blogs were dated September 2009, and are further evidence of aggression. There was again no acknowledgment of my complaints, and no attempt to revise his misrepresentations. Instead there was further abuse, also further misrepresentation of my eighty-one year old mother. Moreno (Equalizer) confirmed the widespread suspicion that sectarian abuse of outsiders is a hazard that society at large can do without.

The  Equalizer blog entitled  How Not To Argue Against LSD is an attack upon Moreno’s constant target Robert Priddy.  Moreno attacked Priddy many times in the context of LSD; no informed party takes this extremist tactic seriously. Priddy was the number one target for Moreno (Equalizer), who went to fantastic lengths to implicate anyone else as being in error for citing the supposedly evil ex-devotee from Oslo University. I made quite clear that I did not agree with the former views of Priddy about LSD. However,  that was not enough for Moreno, a cyberstalker engaged in a sectarian manhunt improvising shallow excuses for attack. "LSD advocate Robert Priddy is the person with whom Kevin R. D. Shepherd openly professes alliance."

Priddy did not advocate LSD, and complained at length about the web attacks of Moreno. Furthermore, I did not profess alliance with Priddy, not being an ex-devotee. I do not agree with all the views of Priddy, including his version of Indian religion converging with the atheistic interpretation of Professor Richard Dawkins. I also do not agree with the associated views of Susan Blackmore, Aldous Huxley, and Gerald Heard. I have critically discussed the last two writers in one of my books. See further Ex-Devotee Robert Priddy (2009).

I have clearly stated on the relevant webpage (Wikipedia Issues and Sathya Sai Baba) that my views do not converge with those of ex-devotees, myself being an independent assessor. Ex-devotees have been able to honour this factor, while Gerald Joe Moreno was unable to match their standards. A quotation from my Preliminary Statement (2009) reads:

I have found much of relevant interest in the ex-devotee accounts. However, I do not agree with all the extraneous beliefs, idioms, and activities of ex-devotees.

The blog entitled Findhorn Foundation comprises the attempt of Moreno (Equalizer) to project this organisation as being undeserving of the criticisms I have expressed on behalf of a number of dissidents, especially my mother. His calculating promotion ignored the many flaws on published and internet record, known to persons familiar with the subject over many years, in fact two decades. Correspondence with solicitors, dating to 2008-2009, is revealing. The Findhorn Foundation here committed a major blunder in relation to membership details of a specific dissident. The evasion was so transparent that the case against their “spiritual and educational” claims is further strengthened. See Kate Thomas and the Findhorn Foundation.

As an apologist for the Findhorn Foundation, Gerald Joe Moreno was now viewed as certifying the extensive commercial "workshop" activities in new age mysticism promoted by that organisation. He says approvingly: "The programmes are intended to give participants practical experience of how to apply spiritual values in daily life." The endorsement by Equalizer extends to listing the controversial names of Eckhart Tolle, Neale Donald Walsch, Caroline Myss, and William Bloom. These entities, strongly associated with commercial strategies in pop-mysticism, have been sceptically viewed by the scientific community in universities and elsewhere.

The blog entitled Kevin Shepherd & Psychic Medium Conny Larsson is a further instalment of the Moreno antipathy for a prominent Swedish ex-devotee who contributed a testimony of sexual abuse (against Sathya Sai Baba) that is impossible to ignore. To offset that testimony, expressed in a published book and online media, Moreno (Equalizer) again went to prodigious lengths to insinuate that anyone who cites the testimony of Larsson is aberrant. Despite the fact that I had clearly stated my reservations about Larsson’s role as a “workshop” celebrity, Moreno now launched into a further misplaced tirade about the “psychic medium,” who nevertheless gave a valid talk at a FECRIS conference.

This cult strategy resorted to such totally unfounded assertions as: “He (Shepherd) will cite an entire slew of New Age practitioners, self-professed psychics and/or Guru promoters to support his agendas.” That blatant deception appeared in the first paragraph of the manic blog. Some readers wondered if Gerald Joe Moreno was dyslexic or perhaps suffering from some other disability. All I did was to cite the FECRIS lecture of Larsson, plus the latter’s book, and reflect critically upon his "workshop" career in the "vedic master class" avenue of expression.

To repeat here, I do not believe in the relevance of Larsson’s “Vedic” role, whatever that actually comprises, and which has moved into fashionable areas of healing. In my opinion, he would be better off doing something else. My opinions do not affect the relevance of Larsson’s strong testimony against his former guru Sathya Sai Baba, whom he knew for many years. In the very confused field of contemporary "spirituality," realistic reports are all too rare. A further consideration is that Larsson himself was liable to cause confusion via his "Vedic" exploits.

The person who really did cite an "entire slew of New Age practitioners," to support his agendas, was Gerald Joe Moreno, whose promotion of the Findhorn Foundation explicitly mentions (without any criticism) a number of very controversial exponents and alternative therapists. Larsson was not well known by comparison with these famous entities, who proved lucrative at the Findhorn Foundation. The contradiction is acute.


Images of  Kevin R. D. Shepherd  abused  by  Gerald  Joe  Moreno. Images  copyright  Kevin R. D. Shepherd


The Pro-Sai blog, entitled KRD Shepherd is Not an Academic, illustrates the extent of sectarian aggression in my direction. Moreno had formerly implied, very misleadingly, that I had described my role in an academic context. Now he quoted from my reminder that I had not done this at all, never having presented myself as an academic. Instead of apologising for his error, Moreno (Equalizer) now castigated me for not being an academic, treating this as virtual proof that I am aberrant. His hate campaign was abundantly evident in such eccentric blogs.

He even cited a comment no longer appearing on my websites, with no due explanation whatever. The comment was altered in 2007 (and subsequently deleted) because of the crude misunderstanding that he created about it. This matter is described in my Response to Gerald Joe Moreno (November 2007), section  24 entitled Out of Context. The deleted comment appeared in my Publishing Retrospect, since revised and expanded. I do not claim to be a scholar, though I have undertaken some library research.

Bad blog practice is increasingly an issue. The defamatory argument of Gerald Joe Moreno included such refrains as: "The only thing that trumps Kevin R. D. Shepherd's non-academic role is his big ego." Anyone who criticised Joe Moreno was treated to blog vandalism. The underlying problem is the cult psychology underlying those attacks.

Moreno also referred to me as "a sectarian bigot." This was one of his notorious tit for tat responses to any criticism of his own evident sectarian role. I am not a member or affiliate of any sect, as is well known. The desperation of Moreno, in trying to evade his glaring identity as a web harasser, is plainly evident in his reference to my " 'sectarian polemic' publications and viewpoints." Because he had been (justifiably) accused of "sectarian polemic," Moreno (Equalizer) vainly tried to use the same accusation against a critic.

He very erroneously stated that I am "a sectarian bigot who obsessively, unremittingly and fanatically attacks and stalks everything and everyone affiliated with the Findhorn Foundation." This fabrication merely indicts the evasive Equalizer. I am not a sectarian. I have only criticised by name a small proportion of Findhorn Foundation personnel and affiliates, primarily in relation to management strategies against maltreated dissidents. The context of my criticism is very different to that of the Equalizer programme, which attempted to quell and eliminate ex-devotees and critics.

Gerald Joe Moreno was clearly trying to cover up for his own notorious and explicit sectarian campaign against critics of Sathya Sai Baba. That campaign was demonstrated by, for example, no less than nine vehement attack blogs found at blogspot.com, each one specifying a different individual. Moreno is widely viewed as an excessive attack blogger, one who aggressively claimed to "expose" his victims. Gerald Joe Moreno gave the Sathya Sai Baba Organisation a bad name, even more so in attacking outsiders who are not ex-devotees.

He repeated his fanatical slur about myself being a vanity self-publisher. That ploy was designed to abet and justify his earlier tactic on Wikipedia of censuring my books, an extremist gesture based on the fact that I incorporated an appendice of nine pages on the writings of his arch-opponent Robert Priddy.

Moreno misled readers by referring to Craig Gibsone (former Director of the Findhorn Foundation), implying that my observation about his lack of academic credentials was arbitrary. The context of my references (both published and online) was Gibsone’s total lack of medical credentials as an active practitioner of Holotropic Breathwork, a clinically untested commercial therapy receiving a negative verdict from Edinburgh University Pathology Department. Gibsone blithely ignored the consequent official warning for many years afterwards, a fact on detailed record.

Gibsone felt so convinced of the legitimacy of Holotropic Breathwork that he presumed to conduct this therapy without any medical qualifications. To point out the clinically untested nature of this therapy was to no avail. (Shepherd, Pointed Observations, 2005, p. 175)

The other members of Gibsone's Breathwork team likewise lacked due credentials. "No medical credentials are in evidence for any of the team" (ibid., p. 196). Gibsone was also involved in the ill-fated project known as Findhorn College of International Education, which advertised an academic programme, despite the inadequate academic qualifications involved, a deficiency criticised even within the Foundation. In the sectarian polemic of Moreno, all this becomes acutely distorted. He asserted that I point out "other's lack of academic credentials as something compromising their credibility, as he [Shepherd] did with Craig Gibsone (a vocal member of the Findhorn Foundation) and others. If a lack of academic credentials is a negative, then Kevin R. D. Shepherd just shot himself in the foot. The only thing that trumps Kevin R. D. Shepherd's non-academic role is his big ego."

In Sathya Sai Baba sectarian lore, commercial hyperventilation amounts to a legitimate pursuit in which a Regius Professor of forensic medicine (at Edinburgh University) can be ignored in favour of alternative therapists. That is what the Gibsone team demonstrated so reprehensibly. Any objector to these tactics might deviously be accused of egotism by those with cult names like Equalizer.

The support of Moreno for the Findhorn Foundation indicates a possible collusion in relation to his vindictive treatment of Kate Thomas. That organisation has for many years been the major centre for commercial workshop activity in Britain, including Grof therapy. Gibsone’s history of drug use (including LSD) means that his defender Gerald Joe Moreno created for himself interpretive problems contradicting the Pro-Sai campaign against Robert Priddy. The same contradiction applies in relation to the erratic Conny Larsson, whose "workshop" activities did not extend to the Holotropic Breathwork problem sanctioned by the Findhorn Foundation, a problem which frequently caused hallucination, trauma, vomiting, and screaming, amongst other extreme manifestations.

The Moreno blog entitled Kate Thomas aka Jean Shepherd is an acute distortion of events.  Gerald Joe Moreno (cult name Equalizer) here deviously avoided mentioning the context of my recent web articles on the Findhorn Foundation, relating to clearly documented wrongs against dissidents on the part of Foundation management and staff. Instead he deceptively asserted: “Jean Shepherd anonymously attacked the Findhorn Foundation for many years under the pseudonym ‘Kate Thomas’.” That is typically inaccurate. Many extant reconciliatory letters to that organisation were signed Jean Shepherd. The Findhorn Foundation were familiar with her author pseudonym, for which she explained the reasons; they tried unsuccessfully to place an interdict upon her book in their meaningless role of “conflict resolution.” The Findhorn Foundation solicitor would not further their extremism, knowing how unreasonable and impractical this was.

Moreno, alias Equalizer, commenced his superficial  blog on Kate Thomas with an attempt to justify his abuse of three copyrighted images of myself and five of my mother. He says: “Kevin R. D. Shepherd implied he may take legal action against Moreno for duplicating his and his mother’s public domain internet pictures.” That is very misleading. I did not threaten legal action for any abused images. See The Joe Moreno Bust Portrait (2008), where I observed how Moreno "has gone to an excess in using images of myself and my mother, and so the sole available image of the extremist sectarian is reproduced above in web format." That was the second time I reproduced the Moreno image, having done this only once previously, in defence against pseudonymous censure on Wikipedia.

I had formerly permitted Moreno one image of myself against his sole known image which I had obtained. See Joe Moreno image under threat (November 2007), where I stated: "He (Moreno) has incorporated an image of myself on his own website; no more than one image of myself is permitted, as those images are all recently copyrighted." Moreno contravened that consideration by soon afterwards appropriating two more images of myself, with all three appearing in a libellous context on his primary website, a context subsequently duplicated on his vindictive blog cycle at blogspot.com.

It was not image copyright that I complained about, but libellous and misleading statements made by Gerald Joe Moreno. Nevertheless, the fact is that my three images were abused by the cyberstalker in a misleading context, likewise the five images of my mother.


Images of  my  mother  abused  by  Gerald  Joe  Moreno. Images  copyright  Kevin R. D. Shepherd.


The duplicit sectarian omitted all reference to his libel accompanying the five copyrighted images of my mother, a libel that he derived from the Findhorn Foundation. His misleading statement about a copyright issue was very sceptically viewed by legal analysts and other close investigators. They concluded that he was totally unreliable, even when he supplied quotations from some sources, as he invariably distorted the overall context.

Moreno emphasised that the sole existing web image of himself was copyrighted and should not have been duplicated. He deleted that image from his website, leaving no image of himself online, so that nobody could identify him. In such heavily compromised circumstances, in September 2007 he sent me an email threatening to report me to my web host for reproducing his sole image in my defence against his pseudonymous censure (a censure expressed on a Wikipedia User page of October 2006). Dated 14/09/2007, his email read as follows:

You have published a picture of myself without obtaining my permission to do so. Please remove the image immediately or I will report your website to your hosting company (123-reg.co.uk) for copyright infringement. Joe Moreno.

Moreno made no mention of the fact that he had not sought my permission to censor and degrade my books and publishing effort under his Wikipedia pseudonym of SSS108, prior to his being banned indefinitely by Wikipedia in March 2007. His hostile Wikipedia User page prominently showed on Google Search; he quickly continued his attack, under the name of Equalizer, on a blog at wordpress.com. I had never said a word against him at that date.

My web host did not give the Moreno email any credence when this was communicated to them. They pointed out that in Britain, no web presence who remains anonymous, without an image identity, can be taken seriously. Furthermore, the censure of myself on Wikipedia was conducted under the Moreno pseudonym of SSS108; in such circumstances, the real identity of the attacker is considered relevant and legitimate by numerous parties other than the sectarian movement (Sathya Sai Baba Organisation) represented by Equalizer.

Over a year later, I sent Robert Priddy a copy of the Moreno email, in response to his request to see this communication. Priddy subsequently made this email available online at Moreno dares not show his face (April 2009). That blog was primarily concerned with other matters than myself and the Moreno email, including an image of Priddy's son which the sectarian had refused to delete from his website in 2005. Priddy's son had personally requested Moreno to remove his image and personal information, only to find that his emails were defiantly reproduced on the Moreno website, along with unyielding replies of the webmaster. The Moreno email service gained notoriety.

There are serious errors and omissions in the Equalizer account of this episode:

Kevin R. D. Shepherd refused to comply with Moreno's request and forwarded Moreno's email to Robert Priddy & Co. so they could attack him. As a result, Moreno duplicated relevant pictures [of Shepherd].

The truth of this matter is that the response of my web host 123-reg.co.uk rendered the Moreno email invalid for Britain. I forwarded this email solely to Priddy over a year later, in early 2009. Moreno had long since appropriated three images of myself in a hostile context on his primary website, indeed one year before Priddy saw the email under discussion. Another significant error, in the Moreno version, is that he says his email requested me to "remove his [Moreno's] copyright protected picture from his websites [note the plural]." I only had one website in 2007.

In 2009, Moreno was reported as being in complaint to get his sole known image remaining offline at wordpress.com, where ex-devotees employed that image on their blogs. The sectarian web aggressor evidently wanted to remain in visual  anonymity while attacking so many other persons, including those with a respectable image identity.

In his blog Kate Thomas abovementioned, the devious Equalizer resorted to the false premise of copyright issue that he attributed to my devising. In actual fact, Moreno threatened me with heavy damages for duplication of his sole known image. His website saisathyasai.com stated in September 2007:

Let Kevin Shepherd be forewarned that should he dare publish my copyrighted picture in any of his published books, he will be sued for copyright infringement and he will sustain hefty damages.

The sectarian employed his blatant misconstruction to portray me as being in contradiction by duplicating the images of other persons on my websites. There was no contradiction, only in the deceptive portrayal of an obsessive web terrorist. This is another example of how Gerald Joe Moreno framed victims with false data, using the superficial idiom of the attack blog, one of the worst verbal formats invented in the history of the English language.

The desire of Moreno for visual anonymity was no gauge for the rest of society and due documentation, whether on the web or in print. Passports and driving licenses are fortunately not subject to the cult preference for immunity to recognition.

The ruse of Equalizer resorted to an accusation that I duplicated images of various celebrities without obtaining their permission. He included the names of Eileen Caddy, politician Robert Walter, UN official Marcel Boisard, politician Michael Russell, Ken Wilber, Frank Visser, and Michel Bauwens. Unlike Moreno, other persons and celebrities generally accept image reproduction in relevant accounts; public figures, and also figures engaged in controversy, are not supposed to be evasive on the web in that respect. They certainly should not conceal their identities in a cult-like manner while producing a prolific number of attack blogs. This was the preferred career mode of Gerald Joe Moreno.

One could add that Eileen Caddy was deceased, that MP Robert Walter sympathetically intervened in the Kate Thomas issue, that Ken Wilber was mature enough to permit his image online, that Visser and Bauwens were part of the reaction to Wilber theory at www.integralworld.net, where my web article on Wilber reached the top ten in the Reading Room list, with the approval of webmaster Frank Visser for his own images to be reproduced.

In the entry under discussion, the Moreno blog idiom starts with the acutely erroneous description of myself as having "foamed-at-the-mouth, gnashed his teeth and raised a huge wail about Joe Moreno violating his copyrights for duplicating pictures of himself and his mother." That is the only acknowledgment an outsider could expect from a rhetorical sectarian after permitting him the use of one image in return for his own sole image. Moreno invented the fiction of my "copyright blathering," more accurately a description of his own protracted indulgence.

Objections to internet terrorism were described by Equalizer in terms of: "Kevin R. D. Shepherd is a self-serving hypocrite whose 'holier-than-thou' rants expose his biased and bitter mindset." That statement was also part of the "copyright blathering" ploy devised by Moreno to disguise the real issue.

The extremely misleading "copyright issue" blog ends with the inverted statement: "He [Shepherd] is an 'internet terrorist' and a 'sectarian cyberstalker'." Again the extremist verbal mode of tit for tat, to avert any suspicion that Gerald Joe Moreno could be what was glaringly obvious to so many observers: an obsessive cyberstalker in the cause of Sathya Sai Baba. Moreno was strongly accused of, e.g., libel, image distortion and caricature, blatant misrepresentations of data confirmed by the sources he cited, also the notorious porno site strategy allegedly employed against certain opponents. Lawyers in three different countries commented upon the libellous nature of Moreno web attacks. One or two of these experts made some rather more pointed remarks.

To conclude, the danger to  normal society from cults and sectarian agents is stronger than ever in web dimensions. The retarded psychology of those agents is geared to believe that, for instance, they are divinely endorsed and cannot be wrong. The Equalizer mentality has afforded proof of a public hazard, magnified by cyberstalking, which takes various forms.

Kevin R. D. Shepherd
October 2009
, last modified December 2020

UPDATE  April   2010

Soon after the Postscript above appeared online, at the end of 2009 Gerald Joe Moreno launched an extensive new blog entitled geraldjoemoreno.wordpress.com. This continued his blog attacks on ex-devotees and myself. The attacks on myself are often duplicated by their author, appearing under the names of both Equalizer and G. J. Moreno. A significant proportion of entries on my Google Search name list have been traceable to the hostile output of Moreno. See further Hate Campaign Blogs of Gerald Joe Moreno (2010). In view of his continual complaints at his sole known image being made available online, I have deleted that image from certain of my websites. The desire of Gerald Joe Moreno to remain unidentified is considered very questionable elsewhere.