Divine Downfall The Age (Australia)/November 12, 2000 By Padraic Murphy For Hans de Kraker, a trip to India to see Sathya Sai Baba, a self-proclaimed god with a following of up to 25 million devotees, was a spiritual quest. But he said the pilgrimage ended when the 73-year-old guru tried to force him to perform oral sex. Mr de Kraker, who now lives in Sydney, has gone public to alert devotees to a sex scandal that is threatening to undo Sai Baba, by far the most popular of India's new-age gurus. "It is devastating to realise the man you see as a spiritual master is simply conning people for his own sexual gratification," Mr de Kraker, 32, said. "After a while you notice that the people chosen for private interviews tend to be good-looking young males." Mr de Kraker, who first visited Sai Baba's ashram in 1992, said the guru would regularly rub oil on his genitals, claiming it was a religious cleansing, and eventually tried to force him to perform oral sex. He was kicked out of the ashram after alerting senior officials in 1996. Mr de Kraker's story is not an isolated one, and a growing list of alleged victims is threatening to engulf the Sai Baba organisation, which has an estimated worth of $6billion. Droves have left after allegations of paedophilia and the rape of male followers. The organisation has been shut down in Sweden after revelations that Conny Larson, now a film star in that country, was molested by Sai Baba. The FBI is looking into similar allegations made by American children and there are investigations into the sect in France and Germany.