Tulsi And Her Guru -- Digby

[erronis]

https://digbysblog.net/2025/01/04/tulsi-and-her-guru/

Wonkette took a look at Gabbard’s cult in its inimitable fashion:

The group is called Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), founded by an acid-dropping white surfer guy named Chris Butler, AKA Guru Dev Srila Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa, AKA Jagad Guru, AKA Sai Young, in the 1970s, as an offshoot of the Hare Krishnas, AKA the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Butler got his start as a guru teaching mediation and yoga, and was drawn to the Krishnas, but he didn’t want to shave his head or wear robes or do other Hare Krishna stuff. So he founded his own thing, which involved him living with two dozen 18-to-22-year-olds in a Quonset hut under a freeway, beating bongos and arranging his followers’ marriages.

Two of his hut-dwellers were Tulsi Gabbard’s parents, Mike and Carol, who joined the group in 1983. After they got married they built an altar to him in their house. According to Mike’s sister, they were “bowing and prostrating to this white surfer guy — it was bizarre.” Butler taught the group that outsiders were not to be trusted, and was paranoid that the mainstream Hare Krishnas were trying to kill him. Like Chuck McGill in “Better Call Saul” he had a fear of electromagnetic radiation, and places he stayed when he traveled were lined with tinfoil. He was a hypochondriac, and at one point he accused disciples of poisoning him through light bulb fumes.

...

Read the whole Wonkette story for the full rundown. Gabbard is a true weirdo, and not just because she belongs to a fringe cult, although that’s plenty weird. (It’s not a real Hindu sect, it’s a cult run by an American con man who is grooming people for political power.)

I just can’t get past the fact that a totally unqualified gadfly who also happens to be a serious member of a cult has been nominated to a job that oversees all of America’s intelligence agencies. It’s mind boggling.

[Hekate]

1. Thank you for this. Bookmarking, but suggest you also save to your files & repost links when Tulski's name pops up again

As we know it will.

The reason I am asking this is that people here have forgotten the abundant info that came out about her back when she ran for president. Actually, maybe not forgotten — just are newcomers here post-2016.

Thank you again for this post.

[erronis]

2. Gladly. She is such a strange case that her mentions will ring the warning bells.

Can't imagine her in charge of anything other than cleaning her nethers.

[okaawhatever]

3. I read that his group was kicked out of HK for not abiding

the rules on hair and marriage.

The leader’s wife Wai Lana is a yoga teacher who has or had a tv show showing yoga and sells yoga related merchandise. She’s been very successful in that field so I’m sure it gives more credibility to her husband.

It’s not surprising that Tulsi is attractive to republicans bc SOI is very anti-homosexual and anti-Muslim. Birds of a feather and all that.

[erronis]

4. I would think a primary attraction is the willingness to lie and grift.

Fits in with her new "Dear Leader".

[UTUSN]

5. k&r

[TheBlackAdder]

6. Wow! The GOP changed from hating on Yoga, to OK with MTG's tantric sex & Gabbard's Hindu cultisms.

[allegorical oracle]

7. Gabbard's not the only nutjob. Rachel Maddow issued a video warning about Billy Long

who is nominated to run the IRS. He's never had a job in accounting or bookkeeping -- never had a career except as an auctioneer. Sounds like a disaster -- the IRS is a massive agency. And Rachel points out that there's no need to replace the IRS commissioners because they serve a five-year term.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rachel-maddow-on-billy-long-five-things-to-know-about-trump-s-pick-for-irs-commissioner/vi-AA1wXfzP?