“THE OPINION OF THE SCIENTIST” - From the magazine GENTE
Professor Pietro Zeglio - (1911-1993) Professor of Medicine at the University of Turin - studied and documented the phenomena of young Swami Roberto for many years. In the 80s he was interviewed by the most important Italian weekly magazines.
Prof. Pietro Zeglio with his wife Dr. Pierina Vercellese«At the beginning, the case of Roberto Casarin was only that of a patient, of whom I was called to investigate on the let’s say “abnormal” manifestations.
It was only on a second moment that I had to recognize that those manifestations were not at all contemplated by science and that they did not find any justification even in the light of the latest cognition of parapsychology. To say that some of those manifestations are still in progress and, at least to me, they assume such a great relevance to induce me to consider them as the projection of divine forces, worthy of being thoroughly investigated, would solicit an exemplification from which I must necessarily abstain because of the indispensable discretion that I owe to my profession…
Roberto has never declared himself similar to some of the many ascetics whom the Church counts in its long history. Roberto prays as I have never seen anyone pray, speaks as nobody has done before, writes demonstrating a culture and a knowledge that he does not have, composes poems without having studied metrics, and quotes the fathers of the Church or the Pontiffs’ Encyclicals as only one who had investigated thoroughly the text could do.
All this is unexplainable and has no precedent. But this is not all, because there is much more…
“I have seen such phenomenal happenings which I, as a doctor, can only describe as extraordinary…”
But, Professor, do you personally believe in the transcendence of those phenomenal events?
“You are asking me that? I believe in them not only as a man of faith, but also as a man blessed with quite long experience. I do believe in them because I have been able to verify how normal scientific limits are often surpassed by Roberto’s intervention. I can assure you that, even where it would serve no purpose to restore irreversible physical conditions, Roberto has been able to bring about at least the miracle of acceptance: A peace of mind and a strength that are difficult to attain and almost impossible to maintain”.
You have followed him as a doctor and as a scholar, you have been testimony to the facts that you have just told me and to those on which you keep silent. What do you think, thus, of this extraordinary boy?
“By me Roberto is a mediator between Divinity and Earth.”
Excerpted from articles by the journalist Piero Capello
on the Italian weekly magazine GENTE
Prof. LUCIANO ROCCIA - Surgeon
“Roberto is definitely a special person, probably with a destiny to fulfil. Gifted with an extraordinary sensitivity, with a unique intuition, and undoubtedly with an acute sense of observation, he enters into your heart with his keen glance and sees clearly the problems that beset you.
He is the modern "Shaman" of a western world in which humanity is badly affected by the problems caused by pollution, and an unstoppable progress. Not only is man being hurt physically, but above all he suffers the loss of spiritual values. Roberto, with his holistic outlook and with gifts that many consider beyond scientific explanation, gathers around him thousands of people who find relief and comfort with both their spiritual and physical problems. He has been banished and opposed by the Catholic Church because he dares to say publicly that God belongs to everybody, not only to the Catholics. He also says that good and righteous people are still good and righteous whatever their religion. He has founded a Movement of his own, named "Universal Soul", which is truly ecumenical. The need for ecumenism is much preached "by words" by the different religions, but the reality is quite the opposite, as several religious wars of the past have proved; the same wars that are still affecting the whole World today. It is not only hypochondriacs who meet Roberto but even the seriously ill. These often receive relief that orthodox medicine is not able to give them.
Roberto does not profess to cure people. He says that curing is the job of the physician and he co-operates with many of them. However a word or a prayer from Roberto, is often more effective than any medicine.”
Prof. Luciano Roccia
Director of the Italian Institute of Acupuncture,
former Professor of general Surgery
at the University of Turin.
MARCO COLUMBRO - Popular Italian TV actor
Lecture at the Congress Centre Torino Incontra - Cavour Hall, Turin, Italy on 4th May 2000.
“In Roberto I have found an extremely important person, he with his Church Anima Universale. An important seed is the lack of proselytism and, therefore, the respect for other’s convictions… I may be a Jewish and attend the Universal Church of Roberto in order to thoroughly investigate, for example, some aspects that I do not find in my religion, or being a Catholic I attend Roberto anyway, out of my own motivations of knowledge, of search. An other important aspect is knowledge as an instrument to become aware of one’s own divine essence. I mean that we do not need ministers, if not as carriers of an instrument, until we ourselves become ministers; but not to depend on them. So I would say that all these aspects, beside my own personal acquaintance, have made of the friendly relationship between me and Roberto Casarin a true and deep friendship. I have attended his centres, we have talked at length; we often talk of problems relevant to spirituality, to spiritual research; this is a pleasure that I often share with other friends and with the Ramias. We are living in an age of great mutations, but mutation is important to life, in order to be able to live life; otherwise one becomes a monolith, a sclerotic. Not even knick-knacks remain always equal to themselves. I believe that the greater religion that is waiting for us in the next millennium, be the religion of truth, the only true religion, because I believe that truth cannot be sought by dogmas, nor by faith alone: we need also a full awareness, and the awareness to be willing to search: only these instruments together allow us, maybe, to reach the truth.”
LUCIA DI SPIRITO, journalist for TV Sorrisi e Canzoni
Translation: Make yourself a gift: meet Swami Roberto during his darshan at Leinì (Turin, Italy) every Sunday at 10 a.m. It will be an extraordinary experience; He will bring the sun in your heart!
Posted on Facebook on 5th Oct 2009
GIORGIO MEDAIL - Television reporter
«We have found all the ardour and the sacred fire, which once probably animated the brothers who followed S. Francis, at Leinì in the surroundings of Turin (Italy), in a shed transformed into a small church.
It is Saturday afternoon and a crowd struck by a singular religious fervour gathers together in order to listen to the mystic rosary of Roberto, of twenty-four, youngsters of God. […]
I think back to the words of that pilgrim - “with Roberto I found my faith” - and realize with a little bitterness that today we can meet that faith everywhere, also in that shed; for sure it has left the deputed spots that officially manage its image. God, if existing, has never been so far from his official sponsors.»
From the TV programme “Mysterious Italy” - Channel 5
Mr. Romano Fea, journalist
“I went to his house with mutual friends.
We briefly talked with Roberto of the serious vicissitudes which concern him, of the abnormal facts which have always been accompanying him; but above all Roberto speaks of prayer, of suffering, of love, of contact with people. The reporter is embarrassed: he has a tape inside the recorder full of deep and clear thoughts, unforeseeable in a boy of poor school culture, pronounced without hesitations and with serene fluency, as if from many more decades he had only been studying and meditating on every argument of the conversation.
The reporter had come to talk of Roberto and then is continuously finding himself speaking of God, of the love which bind God to man and of human suffering”.
From the “Gazzetta del Popolo” on 10th Dec 1983
BY PIPPO FRANCO - Popular Italian TV actor
Excerpted from the magazine “Anima News” of Milan:
ANIMA UNIVERSALE, A STYLE OF LIFE
An example of lived spirituality narrated by a popular showman, who beyond his comic ‘mask’, is a researcher of the soul.
«Anima Universale is a community founded by Roberto Casarin, widely known as ‘Swami Roberto’. Although it does not have an economy of sustenance, is able to reach far places where survival is not taken for granted, and there it builds hospitals, public structures and so on. Meeting Roberto one is immediately struck by his blue, penetrating eyes, by his young age and by his thin, winning voice. One immediately understands that those eyes see ‘beyond’ perceiving, with who knows which depth, the subtle bodies that surround human beings, animals, and plants… One understands that Roberto is aware of human and transcendent truths, which we do not see or see only partially, and one understands where his fame as a seer who is able to anticipate where illnesses come from. But what strikes most is the variety of people who crowds his Sunday meetings: people of different culture, profession and of different spiritual traditions. All participate with enthusiasm in his not at all rituals songs, in the joie de vivre that Roberto expresses with great simplicity …
I know him personally, I know his extraordinary story as a seer and I know, out of experience, that approaching Roberto means to hope in serenity that his presence seems to foster, if not to bring about: the young people and the adults who make up his community are always serene, as if enlightened by a light that leaves no room for worries of any kind.» …
Prof. GIANLUIGI MARIANNINI:
«I thank Roberto for having come among us… Roberto has done the greatest charity to us: spiritual charity. Material charity is quite easy to do, because often money is cheap. Intellectual charity is quite that which I try to do. Spiritual charity is the most difficult, because the world is really poor when it is far from God.»
Prof. Mariannini
on the occasion of a lecture
at the circle “I Ciclopi”
Father GIUSEPPE GRASSIS - Catholic Priest
“A boy gifted with a very special charisma.”
“One winter evening, we were greeting Roberto before returning to Turin by car. There were three of us. The driver was a little concerned about the fog. Roberto told us: ‘Don’t worry. I will follow you’. It seemed it was just something he said to make conversation. In fact, Roberto did not move. We left and after travelling some distance, the driver turned to me and with some irritation said to me, “what are you doing Father? You are hitting the brake”. I looked at the pedal and saw with my own eyes that it had gone down. Someone really was braking!…”
Testimony issued by Father Grassis
to the writer Mrs Marisa Di Bartolo