Ti, Cannabis, and Lavender Part 2

The New Zealand connections to Hare Krishna offshoot the Science of Identity Foundation

By Bronwyn Rideout

Content warning: This article will include links to Rama Ranson's blogs which include language, themes, or imagery which can be triggering or upsetting.

This week, we are continuing our exploration of the NZ connection to the breakaway ISKCON sect, Science of Identity Foundation. I finished last week with the failure of the Chris Butler written, directed, and co-produced film The Lost Prince and the various legal troubles that followed.

While the defamation case demonstrated that Alec Neill was barking up the wrong tree with regards to his specific fears about Butler and the Ti Leaf production, the decades since gave some life to the question of whether Neill was actually in the right forest. Bevan Hurley's 2015 reports on drug smuggler Patrick Bowler illuminated the Chris Butler connection and Allan Tibby's enduring relationship with the group even as his own star “rises”. Christine Gralow's superb 2017 investigation is explicit in pointing out both the financial malfeasance of individual members as well as the high-control environment members, including children, found themselves in Hawai'i and in SIF boarding school. Ex-followers Rama Ranson and Ian Koviak name New Zealanders Allan Tibby and Patrick Bowler as key financial supporters of Butler and SIF while Tulsi Gabbard's political career, which should have been a SIF success, put Butler's beliefs and the greater Gabbard political dynasty under intense scrutiny.

While chatter about the sect today seems to be limited to the Cult Education Institute Forums and the occasional Tulsi-centred podcast, consideration of the ongoing ties between SIF and New Zealand (often through the business dealings of Tibby) remains a worthy exercise.

In the midst of their legal troubles the Baikies were able to freehold part of the 12,000ha run in March 1999 and stated their intention to subdivide and sell lifestyle sections along the Lake Pūkaki. Tibby would later state in government documents that the partnership between companies Fountainblue Ltd., Southern Serenity Ltd., and Pukaki Tourism Holdings Partnership (of which he was the majority shareholder in all three companies at the time) had owned Pūkaki Downs Station since June 1999.

I have been unable to assess the total accuracy of this statement. Fountainblue was the oldest of the three companies, and the likely purchaser of the land if Tibby's timeline is true, having been incorporated in February 1999 by Gloria Rennie. Butler acolyte Allan Ranson was a director from 2003-2008 with Allan Tibby joining in 2007. Southern Serenity was incorporated until August 2022 with a fax sent by Ranson from a SIF-aligned health food store in Hawai'i called Down to Earth; Tibby would not be listed as a director until 2007. Pukaki Tourism Management was the youngest company being incorporated in 2008, with Tibby listed as director from the beginning.

In 2005, Tibby registered Shangri-La Holdings with a man named Joseph Bismark out of Whenuapai. Again, I've been unable to find out what the purpose of this company was and it was a short-lived alliance as the company dissolved in 2006. However, Joseph Bismark was no business lightweight or an unknown in the SIF world. Rama Ranson reports that Bismark's name in SIF was Japa das and had been a follower of Butler since the age of 17; Ranson adds that Bismark's devotion to Butler would include gifting a home to his guru.

Bismark also co-founded QI Group with Vijay Eswaran which includes MLM QNet (aka GoldQuest, QuestNet) as well as the Down to Earth groceries stores mentioned above. Qnet operates legally in some companies but has been sued in others, selling gold commemorative coins and household products. QNet frequently falls afoul of India's India's Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes Banning Act and Tibby has allegedly been wanted by Indian police on money laundering charges alongside Vijay according to documents provided by Gralow. As best as I can gather from the e-court documents, the case has been disposed of and Tibby faces no further charges at this time.

Source | Digital evidence of charges against Allan Tibby

It is possible that QNet was attempting to expand into New Zealand as Bismark and Eswaran incorporated Rythm New Zealand Limited in 2005 with Wilfred Royce Lane and Kurt Rinck of Hong Kong. Rythm Asia is the social impact arm of QI which is still in operation but nothing appears to have come from the New Zealand arm as the company was liquidated in 2008 due to a disagreement amongst directors. It could also be that three of the four directors faced serious overseas legal troubles in 2007 for their involvement in QNet. On the other hand Lane, a lawyer and professional billiards player, was accused by Questnet of misappropriating funds in a Hong Kong court and the judgement was also registered in NZ courts in September 2007.

Sometimes, reporting on sects with wealthy supporters feels like handling an unrelenting matryoshka doll. And if it's all a bit confusing, Christine Gralow did sum up some of the connections quite nicely in this Venn diagram from hell:

Source | The Chris Butler Venn Diagram of Scams and Sects

It becomes oddly refreshing that Patrick Bowler kept the source of his alleged financial contributions to drug smuggling. I say alleged as Bevan Hurley reported that SIF denies Bowler was a member despite evidence sent to Gralow and posted by Ranson listing Bowler (aka Paramahamsa Das) as a cash contributor to the Philippine boarding school.

The timing of many of these revelations between 2015 and 2017 might not have been ideal for Tibby; He stepped away from his majority shareholder-role in the Pukaki-based companies in 2017 in favour of touring and teaching.In 2021, an application was made to the charities commission to register the Pukaki Trust as the parent organisation. By 2022 The Pukaki Trust, which Tibby stepped away from in 2017, owns nearly 4000ha including Pūkaki Downs and 19.34ha site called Pukaki Village. Amongst the activities of the Trust are Pukaki Lakeside Getaways, a Lavender Farm, a Forestry arm, and Yoga/Meditation training. What the site doesn't tell you is that there are a lot of connections to SIF. Meditation NZ (aka the New Zealand School of Meditation) was at one point the sister organisation of the Science of Identity Foundation. In 2015, ex-adherent Rama Ranson identified both his mother and his uncle Blake Foster as SIF followers that managed the Lakeside Getaways and the Lavender Farm respectively.

A June 2020 report on the Mackenzie Basin reports that Pūkaki Downs Station contains a wilding conifer forest that is one of the major seed sources for the spread of wildings in the Basin. Wilding conifers are an invasive species which require multiple methods to control. The forest was accepted into the emissions trading scheme and carbon credits help fund the control programme to the tune of $400,000 per year. The Pukaki Trust advertise their pioneering use of mechanical removal methods over chemicals and it appears that this work had a net positive effect. In September 2020, a massive fire in the Mackenzie Basin caused millions of dollars of damage on the property. The cause of the fire was deemed to be accidental and due to an electrical short circuit igniting dry vegetation several kilometres away from the village.

With much of the current interest in Science of Identity centering on Tulsi, so too shall be the last NZ connection I will make here. Tulsi Gabbard's father, former senator Mike Gabbard, visited New Zealand in 1975 and in 1977 and went to the Auckland ISKCON temple before being directed to write to Butler. Tulsi would later marry New Zealand-born videographer Abraham Williams, whose family was also involved in SIF with his mother working both for Tulsi during her political career and for a company that distributes products under the name of Butler's wife, Wai Lana.

The future of SIF, both in New Zealand and abroad, appears relatively secure. Many members of the second generation appear to still be devout and, on the surface, associated businesses have been able to avoid the label of money laundering that dogged Ti Leaf and other ventures. From the outside, Tibby appears to be the most likely spiritual successor to the reclusive Butler but Bismark (and Bowler at one point) is the man with the money while the Gabbard's represent the political side. While these three sides seem to be working well together at present, Butler's eventual disappearance from the physical plane will serve as the real test of group unity and the true determinant of whether SIF survives the next 50 years.