Hello dear and patient readers.
It is now
well over a year since chats and letters began between Mr Charlie Hogg, director and vice president of the company Brahma Kumaris Australia, and myself, regarding some aspects of governance within BKA. My suggestions for discussions leading
to possible improvements in governance, citing examples of what I saw as questionable practises, were dismissed out of hand by Divine Brother Charlie.+BK AUSTRALIA: NEWS! Legal exchanges did not bear fruit.+FLAMBOYANT
ZALI!
As
a result I passed my concerns on to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission (ACNC) for their consideration. In turn the ACNC gave certain information to the NSW police. ACNC informs me that although some of the concerns fall within their
(limited) purvue, ACNC will not necessarily take any action: I am told that government instrumentalities are wary of becoming involved with religious groups. Fair enough.
So over the
next week or two, as promised, I will briefly share some of my concerns, as brought to the attention of Divine Brother Charlie… as well as to the BKA board and BK senior management, who have also not responded to my concerns. I do so in the interests
of BKA stakeholders, and perhaps the wider public if they chance to come across this site. CHAPTER 1 is below CHAPTER 2, which promises to be even more diverting, will follow shortly…and perhaps CHAPTER 3 if you are still around.
CHAPTER 1.
PART 1.
A certain BKA board member, with a very credible and trustworthy career path, used his/her credibility and his/her position of trust and regard on the BKA board, to obtain substantial funds from BKA stakeholders for ‘investment’, for which he/she
had questionable qualifications, and clearly as a BKA board member it was absolutely inappropriate. These funds were apparently ‘embezzled’. A number of people lost substantial sums, but fortunately others who were approached to ‘invest’
declined the offer. Funds were eventually returned to one BK associate, who threatened to make a big fuss if they were not: the others, rather more docile, as per BK culture, did not, and have suffered . The ‘investor’ continues to hold his/her
position on the BKA board, however, fully supported by Mr Hogg.
PART 2. Australian Dr Wendy Sargent, official BK historian pointed
out significant errors in the BKA promoted backstory: ‘the real story is quite different ‘ she wrote in her unreleased report to management. Mr Hogg,
ignoring Dr Wendy's research, says that ‘original documents do not reveal significant errors in the history’..Dr
Wendy rightly observes that ‘ decisions will have to be made about about how to deal with factual discrepancies in present Bk books DVDs and so forth’. Charlie
recently appointed an untrained BK, with little interest in the true tale, to make a further report attempting, rather clumsily, to discredit Om Mandli (BKWSU) documents recently discovered in the British and New York public libraries, as well as the late
Dr Wendy’s fine academic work.+DR WENDY SARGENT
PART 3.Brahma Kumaris and its ‘Centres for Spiritual Learning’, are recognised
as schools in Australia, and as such are allowed attractive taxation concessions. However, the schools do not provide access for teachers and students to any documents outlining
the real ideological history of BK: in fact the true story of how BK came to understand that The One True God of All Religions Has Descended into Our Ashram is deliberately with held. As well, the schools teachings are heavily redacted by leadership,
but BK teachers and students are unaware of this. Mr Hogg claims these redactions are ‘minor edits’ which is untrue as the teachings are now half the length
they were as printed originally. The complete texts are nowhere available for the teachers to teach from, or for the students to study: in present day Australia this is not acceptable scholarly practice. The ideology presented in the schools is highly controversial, and very much at odds with current thinking, so the schools need to be clear, open and honest about the BK ideological story, as well as their teachings, to
avoid accusations of acting covertly to attract students, and misleading taxpayers.
PART
4.Some years ago accusations were made by an 18 year old attending a BKA school, of male rape committed by a resident senior BKA teacher. The matter was hushed up by BKA and the alleged perpetrator sent to another country. The alleged victim
appealed to Mr Hogg to be allowed to speak to seniors in the BK headquarters, and seek redress. Mr Hogg reportedly refused to facilitate this. The alleged victim reportedly went on to spend thousands of dollars in counselling. While out of Australia, the teacher
reinvented himself with a spurious biography claiming he worked in a senior post at the UN, was a counsellor to Bali bombing families, counsellor at Ground Zero, etc etc. So convincing was the teacher, that he soon became a major speaker on the BK world
stage, appearing with BK leadership, even financially supported by a senior Australian diplomat on a speaking tour, who believed the teacher’s fictions. Mr Hogg was informed of the teachers fake CV, but took no action.The teacher continued to hold unsupervised
retreats for youth in Australia and elsewhere, all the while promoted and protected by Mr Hogg, with whom he shared private lodgings on his speaking tours to Sydney. The teacher held no counselling qualifications, though students were regularly sent to him
by Mr Hogg for counselling, sometimes with unfortunate consequences, as reported to me in emails. Eventually the teacher’s bogus CV was exposed in an Asian newspaper. Divine Brother Charlie then appointed the teacher to reside and give
spiritual discourses in a major BKA school. Recently parents informed me that the teacher had inappropriately touched their 10 year old child. I suggested they report the matter to Mr Hogg. However, the charismatic teacher continues
to hold unsupervised classes and lectures for the public and BKA students in the BKA school, apparently with Mr Hogg’s full approval. The public and BKA students have no idea of their teachers backstory, or more recent events. We do note that the teacher
is apparently ‘firewalled’ from giving Brahma Kumaris spiritual discourses beyond his present city.
"ethical issues are
never obvious and they never go away"...Ridley Scott 'The Good Wife''
E🙂ND OF CHAPTER 1
#brahmakumariaustralia,#charliehogg,#wendysargent