Seth W. Spellman is an attorney based in Alachua, Fla., who is also on the faculty of ISKCON’s Bhaktivedanta College in Belgium. He has served as president at two U.S. temples and has been a member of ISKCON since 1973.

Ravi Gupta is a member of the faculty at ISKCON’s Bhaktivedanta College in Belgium and is director of the religious studies program at Utah State University in Logan. He is an expert on the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism.

Ananda Vrindavan is a priest at ISKCON of D.C. (located in Potomac, Md.), where she writes an inspirational blog that often touches on the 40-year-old temple’s environmental activities.

Dharmasetu Dasa is a priest at ISKCON of San Diego, one of the largest Hare Krishna communities in the U.S. He joined ISKCON in 1974 and has served at the San Diego temple since 1977. He has been an administrator and a teacher at two Hare Krishna schools, one in California and one in Mississippi.

Maria Ekstrand is a professor and psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. Her primary research interests involve primary and secondary AIDS prevention, with a focus on India. She was involved in the development of the Hare Krishna movement’s child abuse investigation guidelines. Ekstrand is co-author of a book about the history, development […]

Joshua M. Greene is a Long Island-based author, television producer and lecturer. He is the author of Swami in a Strange Land: How Krishna Came to the West: The Biography of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada; Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison; and Gita Wisdom: An Introduction to India’s Essential Yoga Text.

Nori J. Muster is a writer and artist based in Mesa, Ariz. Her 2001 book Betrayal of the Spirit: My Life Behind the Headlines of the Hare Krishna Movement chronicles the years she spent as a member of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, as well as the movement’s inner workings and eventual decline. She has […]

Burke Rochford is a professor of religion at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt. His teaching and research focuses on contemporary religious movements and communities in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the Hare Krishna movement. He is the author of Hare Krishna in America, as well as numerous articles on the development of the Krishna […]

UM Action is part of the Institute on Religion & Democracy, a faith-based alliance of Christians working to monitor, comment on and report on issues affecting the church. It was founded in 1994 by Mark Tooley, IRD’s president, with the goal of bringing greater transparency and accountability to United Methodism through reporting and advocacy work. John Lomperis is […]