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.

Tulsi Gabbard arrives to speak before Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, Sunday, November 3, 2024. The nominee to serve as director of national intelligence has had influence from a group that…


AP Photo/Matt Rourke

“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.

Butler created television specials, which featured him surrounded by students. One of which was Mike Gabbard.

Butler’s estranged brother, Kurt, told New York Magazine that the classes “gradually evolved into a full-fledge cut.”

Gabbard moved to Hawaii in 1983. Her family joined Butler’s disciples, and a young-Gabbard learned the spiritual principles.

“I’ve never heard him say anything hateful, or say anything mean about anybody,” Gabbard told The New Yorker of Butler in 2017. “I can speak to my own personal experience and, frankly, my gratitude to him, for the gift of this wonderful spiritual practice that he has given to me, and to so many people.”

Gabbard had attended schools run in the Philippines by Butler’s followers, which Lalita said “a lot of the kids were traumatized by the environment, as it was almost prison like.”

For Lalita, she wrote that “Chris Butler held this larger than life presence in my childhood.”

“Everything I did I had to think about how it benefited him,” Lalita wrote. “I was raised to believe Chris Butler was God’s voice on earth, and if you questioned him or offended him in any way, you were effectively offending God…He was this imposing force in our life that we weren’t supposed to offend, which is frankly terrifying when you’re a small child.”

Lalita, who said that when she spoke out about the group her family cut ties with her, went on to describe how Butler would “ridicule the intelligence of anyone he didn’t like,” how people were told “they weren’t allowed to eat because they didn’t make food to his like” or how others needed to ask Butler’s permission to work or get married.

While Lalita said she has “no issue” with Gabbard, she did call the politician a “victim” because “she was groomed from an early age specifically for the path she is now on.”

The Science of Identity Foundation has had political ambitions for at least almost 50 years, when its members created the political party Independents for Godly Government. Members ran for local offices, and in 1977 the Honolulu Advertiser published a series about them called “The Secret Spiritual Base of a New Political Force.”

Party chair Bill Penaroza is the father of Gabbard’s former chief of staff, Kainoa Penaroza. Gabbard told The New Yorker that Penaroza as her chief of staff was a similar situation to her congressional colleague from Hawaii, Democratic Senator Brian Schatz, who was Jewish and had a chief of staff who was also Jewish. She joked at the time, “So there must be some great plan of the Jewish community in Hawaii to advance this Jewish leader and those around him?”

A number of the Science of Identity Foundation’s reported ideals have appeared to filter into Gabbard’s political stances, particularly anti-LGBTQ measures. Gabbard has argued against a bill to establish civil unions for same-sex couples, calling it “dishonest, cowardly and extremely disrespectful to the people of Hawaii.”

Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard speaks before Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, on October 27, 2024, in New York. The nominee to serve as director of national intelligence has faced questions about her…


AP Photo/Alex Brandon

In the 1980s, Butler had written that same-sex desires are bad, and he called bisexuality an uncontrollable “sense gratification.” The New Yorker reported he warned the progression from bisexuality was pedophilia and bestiality.

Gabbard and Butler have called the foundation a resource rather than a religious organization. But Butler told The New Yorker that Gabbard has a “servant attitude” that comes from the foundation and follows her “in politics or anything else.”

In 2022, Gabbard’s aunt Carolina Sinavaiana Gabbard, told The Independent that Gabbard’s political ambitions come from the group, all of which she called “problematic and deeply troubling.”

“What I am concerned about is the control I know Chris Butler has over her, the influence he has over her ability to make decisions, decisions that could become law and impact a whole lot of people,” Lalita wrote. “I hope one day Tulsi does reject Chris and finds her own voice. She has done amazing things and it makes me sad to think that another victim who was been abused and manipulated her whole life isn’t able to have the career she’s worked so hard for, free and clear of Chris’s toxic influence.”

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