Thousands of these documents and emails from the covert Science of Identity political operation have been independently examined by the Washington Post. The content on this website is attributed solely to the site's author.
Inside the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), reporting a child's sexual abuse was treated as the sin; the abuse and the abusers were protected, even elevated. Speaking up was branded "gossip" and victims were blamed. Tulsi's guru, Chris Butler, taught that criticizing him or a fellow "devotee" was a spiritual crime that would instantly cut them off from God. Butler and SIF leaders built a culture of cruelty and silence.
In the Science of Identity Foundation, Tulsi Gabbard's guru "Jagad Guru" Chris Butler built and enforced a system designed to keep silence at all cost. The rules were simple: do not criticize, do not gossip. "Gossip" was defined as speaking up about anything Butler and his disciples did not want people to know, such as sexual abuse. The number one rule was to protect the reputations of the group, never to protect the victims. This system of silence was enforced by both Butler and his "senior disciples".
Two of those "senior disciples" are Richard Bellord and his wife, Lisa Bellord. They live in Leander, Texas, the same city where Tulsi Gabbard, Tulsi's sister, and I all live. According to my source, Tulsi is regularly at the Bellords' home. The Bellords' son is married to Tulsi's sister. These are not fringe acquaintances. They are among Tulsi Gabbard's closest associates.
They criticized the people who reported abuse, not the abusers
In case after case, SIF leaders did not deny that the abuse happened. In many cases there was irrefutable evidence that it had. What they disputed was what should be done about it.
Their answer never changed: the victims were to blame, silence had to be upheld, the predators deserved recognition and "forgiveness," and the people who spoke up deserved to be punished. That, and only that, was their issue with me and with everyone else who refused to stay quiet. Not that we were lying. That we would not be silent.
The issue was never that the abuse happened. Their only concern was that victims, and the advocates for victims, stay silent.
Reporting sexual abuse was branded "gossip"
In 2012, within the SIF Austin community, a young SIF woman had been sexually abused. We know this because Richard Bellord, a senior disciple who goes by the religious name "Ramakrsna das," stated it himself, in writing, describing the man responsible and the community's decision about it.
"Everyone involved with helping Mathew and April had decided that to keep the name of the girl that Mathew sexually abused very confidential for the sake of her reputation."
Richard Bellord ("Ramakrsna das"), SIF community email, May 8, 2012 1
The man Bellord names, Matthew Krohnert, is a longtime family friend of both the Gabbards and the Bellords. The response to a sexual assault he is said to have committed was not to call the police. It was to keep the victim's name quiet and to manage the community's awareness of it. (Matthew Krohnert is the same man who later viciously attacked my 12-year-old son, and the same man SIF leaders used to get me falsely arrested.)
When word of the abuse began to spread, Bellord did not address the abuse. He sent the community an email with a one word subject line, GOSSIPING, recasting any discussion of the crime as the real offense.
"I would like to remind everyone that gossiping about people is a very displeasing activity... We should treat this knowledge in the strictest confidence and not use it as a source of casual amusement."
Richard Bellord, "GOSSIPING," May 8, 2012 2
His very first reason exposed the trap: to raise a concern about someone's conduct was, by his definition, a sin.
Gossip "places the gossiper in a superior position by criticizing/judging others and finding fault with them."
Richard Bellord, "GOSSIPING," May 8, 2012 2
The abuse of a young woman was something to be kept "in the strictest confidence." Speaking about it was the punishable act.
Victims were blamed to protect their abusers
The SIF leaders' doctrine fell on children as heavily as on adults: a girl is responsible for not "tempting" men, and a woman is "50% responsible" for a man's "destructive behavior." Follow that to its conclusion and an abused child becomes, in this theology, partly the cause of her own abuse. That is precisely why the instinct was to shield her abuser and hide her name. The doctrine had already assigned her the blame.
And the abuse, and the silence that followed it, was never limited to girls. Boys in SIF were abused too. The same machinery, treat the report as gossip, protect the abuser, blame or isolate the child, shielded those responsible all the same.
In the moral universe Butler built, a girl who is sexually abused has a reputation problem, and the "nice" thing to do is bury her name so no one thinks less of her.
That logic is taught openly, including by the group's senior women. In 2019, Lisa Bellord ("Bgd dasi") emailed the women of the community a dress code, for themselves and for their daughters, and the principle she built it on could not be more explicit: a person is held responsible for what a man does.
"If I create a temptation that leads someone to do something destructive (and it is within my control not to create that temptation), then I am 50% responsible for the karmic reaction resulting from that person's destructive behavior."
Lisa Bellord ("Bgd dasi"), SIF community email, "Clothing," September 2019 3
From that premise, the policing of bodies follows automatically, and Bellord made explicit that it applied not only to grown women but to children. Girls' clothing, she warned, could "trigger" the men around them.
"Prabhupad has made it clear that women should not present themselves as a temptation or distraction to others (especially to men)... It's easily implanted in the mind and visually triggered by woman and girls wearing tight or revealing clothing."
Lisa Bellord ("Bgd dasi"), "Clothing," September 2019 3
She then instructed every mother to enforce the code on her daughters directly, making children, not just adults, responsible for managing men's desires.
"We as women are responsible for how we dress, and we are also responsible for how we teach our daughters to dress... [We] would like to ask you to comply with, and to have your daughters comply with, a dress code."
Lisa Bellord ("Bgd dasi"), "Clothing," September 2019 3
And this was no vague call for modesty. The rules were granular and extreme, dictating exactly what women and girls could and could not wear, down to the strap width and the bra.
"Pants should not be so tight that they show the contour of the hips, buttocks, and thighs. Leggings should always be covered by a skirt or dress that comes down to at least the tips of your fingers... Shorts should not be more than a couple of inches above the knee... Tops should have a modest neckline (staying close to the level of the collarbone) and should ideally cover the shoulders. If sleeveless tops are worn, they should have a wide strap (not spaghetti straps)... The torso should always be covered; no midriffs or openings in the back. Underwear should not be showing, including bra straps."
Lisa Bellord ("Bgd dasi"), "Clothing," September 2019 3
And mothers were reminded that, for their daughters, compliance was not a request.
"Ultimately we DO have control over what they wear while they are under our care, guidance, and responsibility. We need to exercise that authority."
Lisa Bellord ("Bgd dasi"), "Clothing," September 2019 3
SIF leaders promoted the teaching that "women enjoy rape"
The culture of blame went beyond modesty rules. One SIF leader enforced the teaching that women enjoy rape and claimed it was scriptural, and therefore could not be questioned. When a longtime meditation teacher, a friend of his, refused to teach it, SIF leaders ran a smear campaign against him: his Facebook account was hacked, fraudulent charges were made in his name, and people who had known him for 15 years or more cut him off overnight.
When I alerted SIF leader Allan Tibby, Tulsi's guru Chris Butler, and Tulsi's parents about this sickening teaching, again all they cared about was that I stay quiet about it.
My own then-husband, an SIF member, defended his position in writing. He went further, claiming on paper that even molested children "respond with joy."
"...children that are molested go through a similar thing. Their bodies respond with joy. They like it." Written statement by the author's then-husband, an SIF member, defending the "women enjoy rape" teaching. Messages preserved.
Tulsi Gabbard's own mother told me that, while serving in Congress, Tulsi took time off to attend one of this same SIF leader's retreats in Eastern Europe.
The cardinal sin was to criticize, because criticism was "blasphemy"
Why would otherwise loving people accept this? Because Butler spent decades teaching them that the gravest spiritual crime is to criticize a devotee or question a spiritual authority. He devoted entire lectures to it. One 1985 talk is titled, simply, "Blaspheming Vaishnavas." 4
In his teaching, merely to analyze or find fault with a holy person is an offense, because it places you above them.
"One of the most offensive things... is that it places your... guru on a lower platform than yourself and you, with your mind, are now going to analyze and figure it out."
Chris Butler, SIF lecture, "Pleasing Our Spiritual Master," February 25, 1996 (G13A2-B) 5
And the consequence of holding such a critical attitude was framed as total: spiritual annihilation.
"No. This will destroy you. If you continue with holding onto that attitude, it will destroy you, finish you."
Chris Butler, SIF lecture, "The Teachings of the Bonafide Guru Are Complete," February 6, 2000 (D40A3-B) 6
If criticizing a devotee is blasphemy, and blasphemy will "destroy you, finish you," then reporting a devotee who abused a child is not a moral duty. It is a mortal sin against your own soul. Butler never had to order a cover-up. He had already taught his followers that speaking up would damn them.
Those who spoke up were threatened and ostracized
For anyone the doctrine did not silence, there was enforcement. People who grew up in SIF and later told the truth became targets. I was told by a person close to the situation that after a young man who grew up in SIF wrote a book about his experiences, he received death threats from Butler's followers. 7
I experienced the wrath of Butler's inner circle myself. When I raised concern about the abuse described above, I was the one named in a group email as the problem, the "gossiper." A single senior disciple in this network can organize a widespread smear campaign against one whistleblower. In my case, according to my own sources, hundreds of people were drawn into the campaign to target me. 8
Tulsi Gabbard's personal associates ran a community that punished the person who reported a crime against a child, and protected the person who committed it. That is not confusion about right and wrong. It is a decision that the group's image matters more than its children.
