Don’t say they weren’t warned. Honolulu Civil Beat reports:
A former member of a secretive Hawaiʻi religious sect is warning members of Congress about the potential dangers of confirming Tulsi Gabbard as President-elect Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence.
Anita van Duyn says she spent 15 years inside the Science of Identity Foundation, a fringe offshoot of Hare Krishna that was formed in the 1970s and has been described by defectors as a cult.
She has sent the letters only to Democrats so far, so I don’t know how effective that will be. And as the article acknowledges, Senators are loathe to criticize anyone for their religious beliefs(well, unless the person is a Democrat in which all bets are off.) Most DC types seem to think they should really go near this issue.
But Gabbard hasn’t been nominated to be the head of Housing and Urban Development she’s been tapped to be the head of all the Intelligence Agencies and she’s a lifelong member of a cult! And it’s a real one:
The van Duyn letters outline what she says are Butler’s long-standing political ambitions and the ways he groomed and supported his disciples, Gabbard included, in their pursuit of public office while promoting his own ideologies, which include a long history of espousing anti-gay rhetoric.[…]
Throughout her public life, Gabbard has been dogged by her ties to the Science of Identify Foundation and Butler, in particular, who has openly described Gabbard as a star pupil.
“Everybody is thinking her allegiance is to Trump, but in reality her allegiance was already given away to her guru,” van Duyn said in an interview with Civil Beat. “You can’t just go in and out of that. That’s a lifetime commitment.”
Gabbard has been vague about her own experiences in the group and in 2017 told a reporter for The New Yorker magazine she’d never heard Butler say anything mean or hateful about anyone. “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,” she said.
Both her former and current husbands are lifelong members of the cult and remain involved as do her parents. So is she:
Throughout her political career, Gabbard has maintained ties with Butler and his followers, whether hiring them to staff her congressional office or work on her 2020 presidential campaign. Her husband, Abraham Williams, has deep roots in the organization.
Science of Identity members have donated to her campaigns, sign-waved on her behalf and even staffed her most ambitious political endeavors, most prominently her run for president. In some cases, these followers were simply volunteering their time and efforts. In others, they were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Gabbard has always been very weird. And this is likely the source of most of it. She’s a member of a strange religious cult and she is following the agenda of its leader. That’s not an acceptable thing for someone going into the position for which she’s been nominated.
I realize that may seem odd considering the fact that Trump himself is the leader of a massive cult that has distinctly religious overtones. But at least we know what we’re dealing with with him and can fashion some kind of resistance. We don’t have a clue what Tulsi and her guru are all about and there is no way that she should be anywhere near a national security job.
Having said that, I suspect she’ll be confirmed. Trump wants her and the GOP wants what he wants. Let’s just hope that if there is indeed a “deep State” that they can exercise some of their apparent magical powers to thwart anything nefarious.
And the mainstream press could be paying more attention to this too. Whether they will, I don’t know. The big bosses seem intent upon gifting Dear Leader with whatever he wants these days so who knows?
Update — A little more info from Business Insider:
…In 1977, Butler splintered from the Hare Krishna movement to start the Science of Identity Foundation. He began to further deemphasize traditional Hindu texts and practices, and began to expound his own controversial views.
Butler taught that homosexuality is evil, using virulent homophobic rhetoric, and that public schools and the outside world were not to be trusted. Children of followers were homeschooled, and some — including Gabbard — were later sent to schools the SIF created in the Philippines.
The SIF amassed a tightly-knit community of around a thousand followers in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Among them were Mike and Carol Gabbard, who would name one of their daughters after “tulasi,” the Sanskrit word for the holy-basil herb that appears in the Bhagavad Gita as an offering to the Lord.
Tulsi Gabbard and her siblings were raised as Hindus and vegetarians, she told the Indo American News before her first run for Congress. She grew up largely among fellow disciples, singing or chanting sacred Hindu songs on the beach, the New Yorker reported.
Gabbard met both her first husband and her current spouse, freelance cinematographer Abraham Williams, in SIF, according to New York Magazine.
While Gabbard has described her experience growing up in the group as one that was seemingly positive, some other ex-members have described themselves as survivors of a cult.
“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,” someone who identifies as a former member of the SIF wrote in a 2017 Medium post. “Questioning the leader was spiritual suicide, which was seen as worse than death.”
Another former member told New York Magazine that Butler was vulgar and vindictive, excoriating people for small slip-ups like driving poorly or failing to clean water cups properly.
Butler has denied these claims, and Gabbard told the New Yorker that these experiences didn’t chalk up to her own: “I’ve never heard him say anything hateful, or say anything mean about anybody,” Gabbard said. “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.”
Both Butler and Gabbard also said the foundation is a resource, not a religious organization, though Butler acknowledged that he does have “disciples” as “Jagad Guru,” or “teacher of the world,” the New Yorker reported.
Gabbard has often downplayed the influence of Butler, telling the New Yorker that she has “had many different spiritual teachers, and continue[s] to.” But she acknowledged that he had shaped her Hindu identity, referring to him as her “guru dev,” or spiritual guide. Gabbard also told the New York Times in 2019 that Butler and his work still guide her.
Come on. This can’t happen.