Tulsi Gabbard Has Lauded Religious Leader Accused of Running ‘Abusive’ Cult
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Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as the director of national intelligence, but she has faced suggestions from those close to her that her political ambitions stem from the Science of Identity Foundation, a group founded in Hawaii that has been labeled by some, including former members, as a cult.
Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress who ran for president in 2020, grew up attending schools run by followers of the group’s leader, Chris Butler, and has described her religious practices as “transcendental Hinduism,” a term recommended to her by Butler according to a piece in The New Yorker in 2017.
Former members who don’t speak so fondly of the Foundation and others close to Gabbard have said the group’s influence could be affecting her political motives, according to the report. People have said the Science of Identity Foundation forbids people to speak publicly about the group, requires people to lie face down when Butler enters a room and even sometimes eat his nail clippings or “spoonfuls” of the sand he walked on, The New Yorker reported.
“I know what an abusive, misogynistic, homophobic, germophobic, narcissistic nightmare Chris Butler is. And I know what kind of relationship he has with Tulsi,” Lalita, a self-described cult survivor, wrote on Medium in 2017, 20 years after leaving the Science of Identity Foundation. “I grew up in what is now termed a High Demand, Closed Group. Most people know them as cults, but personally I detest the term cult because it usually conjures images of Kool Aid and terrible TV shows featuring Kevin Bacon…The entire group dynamic is centered around gaining favour of the leader, who uses this dynamic in a controlling and abusive manner.”
Lalita does not have any contact information or a last name attached to her Medium page.
Newsweek has reached out to the Science of Identity Foundation, Tulsi Gabbard and her father, Mike Gabbard.
The Science of Identity Foundation was founded in the 1970s. Butler had taken the messages of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the Hare Krishna movement, and broke of in his own group with followers from Hawaii, Australia and even Southeast Asia, according to The New Yorker report.
Content retrieved from: https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-has-lauded-religious-leader-accused-running-abusive-cult-1985941.
