Butler’s followers practice a form of Hinduism that involves devotion to a single deity, in their case Krishna, and certain expectations around meditation, yoga and diet.
Some former members, however, have called the group a cult and said disciples were isolated from the outside world, characterizations the group has denied. Former devotees had been telling me for weeks that Butler controlled his followers’ major life decisions and demanded total obedience and secrecy. They said he spent years working to extend his reach into politics — and they suspected Gabbard’s rise in Washington was the culmination of that effort.
Now that Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, had been picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be director of national intelligence, I wanted to understand: Just how much influence did Butler have on her?

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Dozens of attached memos appeared to document directives and advice for Gabbard from her time in Congress. Some contained instructions on what legislation she should propose, which policies she should embrace and how she should conduct herself on television. They had an air of authority. A memo about a proposal to partition war-torn Iraq into three states quoted an unnamed person as saying it was “time for TG to come up with this idea.”

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