A Man Called God

A Man Called God is a remarkable movie that has its roots in the 1970's in the careers of two men: Blaxploitation actor Christopher St. John, whose best-known credit is probably as the leader of the "Lummumbas," the Black nationalist group who work with Black detective John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Black businessman in the original 1971 Shaft. He was married to a white actress and had a son, Kristoff; then they broke up and he married another white actress, Maria, and the couple raised Kristoff. In 1972 Christopher St. John wrote, produced, directed and starred in Top of the Heap, but then got a reputation in Hollywood as a troublemaker and got blacklisted. At loose ends, Christopher and Maria St. John drifted into an involvement with Eastern religion and eventually became devotees of a guru named Sathya Sai Baba. For anyone whose mental image of an Indian guru is an old guy with long hair and an unkempt beard -- the appearance of Paramhansa Yogananda, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Meher Baba and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh -- the first sight of Sai Baba in this movie is going to be startling: he was baby-faced, clean-shaven and, quite frankly, looked more African than Indian: he had a broad nose and his hair was in a tall "natural." He always dressed in an orange robe -- at least during his public appearances -- and though his background was Hindu, he claimed to be synthesizing all the world's major religions in his teachings. He also literally claimed to be God on Earth and to have (presumably in a previous incarnation) fathered Jesus Christ. Christopher and Maria St. John got so involved in Sai Baba's organization that they ended up living in his main ashram in Puttaparthi, India -- the tiny village where Sai Baba had been born and which turned into a major religious center as his movement grew. Because he had movie-making experience, Christopher St. John was hired by Sai Baba to make a documentary film that would hopefully recruit more people to the movement. The bulk of the film consists of the footage Christopher St. John shot during his months at the ashram, which came to an abrupt end right after Sai Baba's elaborate 55th birthday celebration in November 1980; when Sai Baba threw him out he demanded that St. John leave all his film behind, but the elder St. John got the film out of India with him and resettled in Hollywood -- where the footage sat for over two decades until his son finally hit on the idea of making a