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From New York Times (nytimes.com:)
Sathya Sai Baba, the guru who died on April 24 at the age of
84, had a simple eight-word slogan to summarize his
teachings: "Love all, serve all; help ever, hurt never." He
encouraged his followers to meditate and sing devotional
songs, and to take his darshan -- that is, to see him in
person, the better to experience his divine presence. He was
also accused of faking miracles and of being a sexual
predator.
Nevertheless, at his death, he counted among his devotees
industrialists, Cabinet ministers, a former Indian Supreme
Court justice and the founder of Hard Rock Cafe. Perhaps
500,000 people may attend his funeral on Wednesday. His most
famous follower, cricket champion Sachin Tendulkar, had
reportedly been holed up in mourning in a hotel room over
the weekend. P.K. Khandelwal, one of his devotees in New
Delhi, told TIME, "I feel like I have lost everything."
Sathya Sai Baba will be buried with full state honors in the
true tradition of Hindu spiritual leaders, his body wrapped
in orange clothes, the funeral attended by high-ranking
officials and celebrities.
Believing in the Baba was easy. Devotees were not required
to adhere to any particular set of beliefs or renounce
worldly pleasures; non-Hindus did not need to change their
religion. "I am God," he would say. "You too are God. The
only difference between you and me is that while I am aware
of it, you are completely unaware." With that approach, he
attracted a following of some 6 million people and amassed a
fortune in the form of a charitable trust valued at an
estimated $8.9 billion.
I received a forwarded note from Grzegorz Osipiak of Poland,
who said,
"I don't know if you are aware that On 24th April
7.40AM Indian time Indian holy man Sri Sathya Sai
Baba died(left his body). He has estimated 50,000,000 -
100,000,000 devotees around the world.
For many millions he has been worshiped as an incarnation of
God. His passing is enormous tragedy and emotional trauma
for millions.
"I have noticed that on 23th April between 21.00 and 22.00
Global Consciousnes Project graph showed very, very strange
behaviour. Could you please check it for yourself if you have few spare
minutes?"
The GCP event was set for 7:00 to 13:00 Indian time,
beginning about 40 minutes before Sai Baba died, and
continuing for 6 hours to capture some of the immediate
reaction around the world. The result is Chisquare
21057.486 on 21600 df for p = 0.996 and Z = -2.629. The
figure shows that this result is the culmination of a steady
negative trend. It is opposite to our standard prediction,
but it is worth noting that such trends have been seen in
numerous meditation and religious events.
Because Grzegorz Osipiak mentioned that the preceding day
was apparently unusual, I decided to look at the larger
context. Sai Baba's death was near the beginning of the UTC
day of the 24th, so taking the 23rd and 24th of April
provides roughly a day before and a day after the death. The
resulting graph is very interesting, with a huge and
unlikely rise and fall on the 23rd, followed by a continuing
fall (low Network variance) during the first part of the
24th -- specifically during the 6 hour period I had chosen for
the formal hypothesis test. Since Osipiak was not clear
about the time zone for his observation of strange behavior
between 21 and 22:00, we can't be sure how it relates to
this figure. In any case, the high peak (where Netvar
changes from strong positive to strong negative deviation)
occurs at about 21:30 India time.
It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny
statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish
signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be
largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real
signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can
be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of
similar analyses.
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