Science of Identity Foundation

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The Science of Identity Foundation is a spin-off from the Hindu International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Their followers live mainly in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

Origin and history

Chris Butler, a young yoga teacher from Hawaii , left college without a degree and then gathered a group of young yoga students around him in the 1960s. In 1971 AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada , the spiritual head of ISKCON, came to Hawaii. The then 23-year-old butler was very impressed by him and joined ISKCON with all the students. Bhaktivedanta gave it the spiritual name Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa . His students had to chant , practice bhakti yoga and vegetarianism and stay away from drugs and “illicit sex”. Sexual contact was only allowed a few times a month among married couples. In 1976 supporters of Butler took part in elections in Hawaii as a party called the Independents for Godly Government . The same strict moral rules applied to the candidates as to all group members, in addition they had to distribute half of their income to the citizens of their constituency. However, they did not make their connections to ISKCON public; they only became known through a newspaper article. After Bhaktivedanta’s death, Butler founded his own group, which he eventually renamed Science of Identity Foundation after several name changes . He emigrated to New Zealand with his followers and to Australia in 1981 .

Structures

Butler's supporters had to take their children out of public schools and home schooling until the group set up schools in the Philippines in the 1980s . US Congressman Tulsi Gabbard , whose father was one of Butler's supporters, spent two years of her childhood in one of these schools and remembers the atmosphere there as lively and liberal: she developed skills in martial arts , worked a lot in the garden and read a lot, encouraged by hers Parents. However, other students remembered a cult around Butler, which was considered to be the incarnation of God. They had to listen to his recorded sermons for an hour a day. Anyone who contradicted him was allowed to do so as a punishment. B. do not eat or sleep. Butler taught that women are less worthy as human beings and subject to men and damn homosexuality . In the 1980s, Butler appeared as a guru on the Hawaiian television show Jagad Guru Speaks . Today there are supporters of the Science of Identity Foundation in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The religious scholar J. Gordon Melton attributes the Science of Identity Foundation to the Krishna tradition of consciousness.

Sources and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Who is Mike Gabbard? , Ronna Bolante, Honolulu Magazine, August 1, 2004
  2. ↑ What Does Tulsi Gabbard Believe? , Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, October 30, 2017
  3. ^ Tulsi Gabbard Had a Very Strange Childhood , Kerry Howley, New York Intelligencer, June 11, 2019
  4. ↑ To Insiders Perspective on Tulsi Gabbard and her Guru , Lalita, medium.com, September 24, 2017
  5. ↑ Reflections on Hindu Demographics in America: An Initial Report on the First American Hindu Census , J. Gordon Melton and Constance A. Jones, A paper presented at the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics & Culture meeting in Washington, DC, April 7-10, 2011, p. 14