What We Can Actually Prove About Bhakti, Rainbow, KN¿WHERE and Raven’s Knoll
In the last post, I approached the connections we have been finding through the lens of Organizational Behaviour.
The conclusion was fairly simple:
What we appear to be seeing is not evidence of one secret organization. We are seeing an overlapping social network.
That raises an obvious question.
Can we actually map it?
More importantly, can we distinguish between a relationship we can document, a repeated association, a weak connection and something that remains speculation?
Let’s try.
First, the Rules
For this exercise, I am using four categories.
CONFIRMED: A publicly available source directly establishes the relationship.
REPEATED: The same individual or organization appears repeatedly within the same network, making the relationship stronger than a single appearance.
WEAK TIE: There is some evidence connecting two parts of the network, but not enough to establish an organizational relationship.
NOT ESTABLISHED: We looked for the connection but currently do not have sufficient public evidence to say it exists.
This distinction matters because appearing at the same festival does not make two people business partners. Performing at an event does not make someone an organizer. Knowing somebody does not establish control.
The Network in One Picture
ONTARIO RAINBOW FAMILY
|
| documented association
v
ERIC MANDALA
|
| performer / facilitator
v
BHAKTI BLISS <---------- REBECCA WHITE RAVEN
| ^
| |
| helped organize
| |
| BHAKTI IN THE WOODS
|
| recurring participants
|
ANDREW SASS
JUSTINE HOANG
OMBUDS
REBECCA WHITE RAVEN
ERIC MANDALA
|
|
v
RAVEN'S KNOLL
^
|
| venue
|
KN¿WHERE
That is the basic network.
But the individual connections deserve a closer look.
CONFIRMED: Bhakti in the Woods → Rebecca White Raven → Bhakti Bliss
This may be the most important connection we have uncovered because it is considerably stronger than simple performer overlap.
A public biography for Rebecca White Raven states that she helped organize Bhakti in the Woods and, after that festival ended its ten-year run, initiated Bhakti Bliss as a not-for-profit organization.
That means Bhakti in the Woods and Bhakti Bliss are not merely two unrelated yoga festivals that happened to attract some of the same people.
There is a direct human bridge between them.
From an Organizational Behaviour perspective, this is an example of organizational continuity through people.
An organization or event may disappear while portions of its community, knowledge, practices, relationships and culture continue through a successor organization.
That does not mean Bhakti Bliss and Bhakti in the Woods are legally the same organization.
It means there is a documented line of continuity between the two.
CONFIRMED: Bhakti Bliss → Raven’s Knoll
This connection is equally straightforward.
Bhakti Bliss was held at Raven’s Knoll in August 2023. The event listing identifies Raven’s Knoll as the venue and lists a substantial program of music, yoga, workshops and ecstatic dance.
The relationship continued. Bhakti Bliss’s own 2025 lineup identifies Raven’s Knoll as its location, and the official Bhakti Bliss site identifies Raven’s Knoll as the location of its August 7–9, 2026 festival.
So Raven’s Knoll is not connected to Bhakti Bliss through a speculative chain of acquaintances.
It is the festival’s documented recurring venue.
CONFIRMED: KN¿WHERE → Raven’s Knoll
The KN¿WHERE connection is just as direct.
The festival’s official website identifies its June 5–7, 2026 event as taking place at Raven’s Knoll, 10441 Highway 60 in Eganville.
That gives us our first very important piece of the network map:
BHAKTI BLISS
|
v
RAVEN'S KNOLL
^
|
KN¿WHERE
These events do not need to share organizers to be connected.
They already share the same venue.
CONFIRMED: Eric Mandala → Ontario Rainbow Family
Publicly indexed material from the Ontario Rainbow Family community repeatedly contains Eric Mandala’s postings about Ontario Rainbow gatherings and his Rainbow Tribe activities. One indexed Ontario Rainbow Family result identifies him as an administrator. Other results promote “Eric Mandala & The Rainbow Tribe.”
Eric himself has also publicly posted material from an Ontario Rainbow Gathering in Canada.
Whatever broader interpretation one places on that relationship, the basic association is not speculative.
Eric Mandala is publicly associated with the Ontario Rainbow Family network.
CONFIRMED: Eric Mandala → Bhakti Bliss
Eric also appears repeatedly within Bhakti Bliss.
The 2023 Bhakti Bliss program at Raven’s Knoll lists Eric Mandala & Zu Zen among its musical performers and lists Eric separately as one of the ecstatic dance facilitators.
Bhakti Bliss also listed him in its 2025 programming, and its official site promoted his return for a kirtan performance at the August 2026 festival.
This creates another documented chain:
ONTARIO RAINBOW FAMILY
|
v
ERIC MANDALA
|
v
BHAKTI BLISS
|
v
RAVEN'S KNOLL
Eric therefore qualifies quite comfortably as what Organizational Behaviour and social network theory would call a boundary spanner.
He visibly participates across more than one community.
But there is an important distinction.
His presence demonstrates a bridge between networks.
It does not demonstrate that Ontario Rainbow Family controls Bhakti Bliss or Raven’s Knoll.
But Eric Is Not the Only Bridge
This was one of the questions that originally prompted this investigation.
If Eric were the only person connecting these communities, we would have a fairly simple network.
He is not.
Rebecca White Raven independently creates another route:
BHAKTI IN THE WOODS
|
v
REBECCA WHITE RAVEN
|
v
BHAKTI BLISS
|
v
RAVEN'S KNOLL
That is important.
It means the Bhakti-to-Raven’s-Knoll connection does not depend upon Eric Mandala at all.
CONFIRMED: Andrew Sass → Bhakti Bliss
Then there is Andrew.
We need to be particularly careful here because searching festival material produces several people named Andrew.
The Andrew we can positively identify within the Bhakti network is Andrew Sass.
The 2023 Bhakti Bliss program identifies Andrew Sass by name in partner yoga with Justine Hoang and in a songwriting workshop. It also lists the Om Buds as “Justine & Andrew.”
The identification becomes considerably stronger through material from the OMBuds themselves, which describes Andrew Sass as an OMBuds member and songwriter.
Bhakti Bliss continued to feature Andrew Sass in 2025, listing him both as a yoga instructor and musician.
And Bhakti Bliss has promoted his return again for its 2026 festival.
So this is not a one-off appearance.
Andrew Sass is a recurring participant within the Bhakti Bliss network.
CONFIRMED: Justine Hoang and the OMBuds
Justine Hoang is another recurring connection.
Public event records place her within the Ottawa-area kirtan community and around Bhakti in the Woods programming, while Bhakti Bliss programs repeatedly include her individually and alongside Andrew Sass.
Andrew Sass and Justine Hoang are also publicly connected through the OMBuds.
This starts producing a cluster rather than a single line:
REBECCA
|
|
BHakti in Woods--+----Bhakti Bliss
/ | \
/ | \
Andrew Justine Eric
\ /
OMBuds
That is what an informal organizational network actually looks like.
There is no need for everyone to report to the same leader.
There is no need for a central office.
There is no need for a secret organizational chart.
The relationships themselves create the network.
A Correction: The “Andrew” Question
This investigation also illustrates exactly why names need to be checked carefully.
KN¿WHERE’s publicly indexed Facebook material associates one of its posts with a person named Andrew Phillips Cadogan.
The Bhakti participant we have documented is Andrew Sass.
Those are different full names.
I have not found reliable evidence establishing that Andrew Sass and Andrew Phillips Cadogan are the same person, and there is no responsible basis for treating them as such.
At this stage, I therefore do not consider Andrew Sass → KN¿WHERE a confirmed connection.
That is exactly the type of distinction this mapping exercise is intended to preserve.
REPEATED: The Bhakti Bliss Cluster
The 2023 Bhakti Bliss program is particularly useful because several names we have encountered elsewhere appear together in one documented event at Raven’s Knoll.
Among them were Eric Mandala, Rebecca White Raven, Kevin Guerette, Justine Hoang and Andrew Sass. The program also included the OMBuds.
By 2025, Andrew Sass, Rebecca White Raven and Justine were again appearing in Bhakti Bliss programming at Raven’s Knoll.
That is what changes this from random co-appearance to a recognizable community network.
The same people continue to circulate through the same organizational environment.
The Venue May Be the Most Important Node
Initially, we were concentrating heavily on people.
But the network map suggests something else.
Raven’s Knoll itself may be one of the most important boundary-spanning nodes.
Consider what is documented:
BHakti in the Woods
|
| Rebecca
v
Bhakti Bliss
|
|
v
RAVEN'S KNOLL
^
|
|
KN¿WHERE
Bhakti Bliss repeatedly brought one cultural network onto the property.
KN¿WHERE brought another.
Raven’s Knoll is the place where those otherwise quite different festival environments intersect.
That does not prove that one caused the other.
It does demonstrate that Raven’s Knoll became capable of accommodating both.
Where Does Rainbow Fit?
The Rainbow connection is more specific.
At present, the strongest documented bridge I have found runs through Eric Mandala.
ONTARIO RAINBOW FAMILY
|
v
ERIC MANDALA
|
v
BHAKTI BLISS
|
v
RAVEN'S KNOLL
That is a real connection.
But it would be an overstatement to transform that into:
Rainbow Family → controls → Bhakti Bliss → controls → Raven’s Knoll.
We have not established anything resembling that.
The evidence shows overlapping participation and relationships.
And Where Does KN¿WHERE Fit?
Interestingly, KN¿WHERE remains somewhat separated from the personal network we have mapped.
Its strongest confirmed connection to everything above is presently the venue:
BHAKTI NETWORK
|
v
RAVEN'S KNOLL
^
|
|
KN¿WHERE
I have not found evidence establishing that Eric Mandala organizes KN¿WHERE.
I have not found evidence establishing that Andrew Sass organizes or performs at KN¿WHERE.
I have not found evidence that Ontario Rainbow Family organizes KN¿WHERE.
And I have not found evidence demonstrating that Bhakti Bliss organizes KN¿WHERE.
Those distinctions need to remain explicit.
What Is Actually Significant?
The interesting finding is therefore subtler than a claim that everything is connected to everything else.
There are really several layers.
Layer One: Organizational succession.
Bhakti in the Woods is directly connected to Bhakti Bliss through Rebecca White Raven.
Layer Two: Recurring community participants.
People such as Rebecca, Andrew Sass, Justine Hoang and Eric Mandala repeatedly appear around Bhakti Bliss and related spiritual, yoga, kirtan and ecstatic-dance communities.
Layer Three: Boundary spanning.
Eric Mandala provides a documented bridge between Ontario Rainbow Family circles and Bhakti Bliss.
Layer Four: The venue.
Bhakti Bliss and KN¿WHERE independently converge on Raven’s Knoll.
What We Cannot Say
This research does not establish that Rainbow Family operates Bhakti Bliss.
It does not establish that Bhakti Bliss operates KN¿WHERE.
It does not establish that KN¿WHERE is a Rainbow event.
It does not establish that Raven’s Knoll belongs to some larger hidden organization.
It does not establish wrongdoing by any of the individuals named here.
And sharing a venue, performer, organizer or social connection is not evidence of wrongdoing in itself.
What We Can Say
We can now say something considerably more precise.
Bhakti in the Woods and Bhakti Bliss have a documented line of organizational continuity through Rebecca White Raven. Bhakti Bliss has repeatedly operated at Raven’s Knoll. Eric Mandala provides a documented social bridge between the Ontario Rainbow Family environment and Bhakti Bliss. KN¿WHERE independently connects to the same Raven’s Knoll venue. Around those core relationships sits a recurring Ottawa-area network of kirtan, yoga, ecstatic-dance and spiritual-community participants.
That is not speculation.
That is what the publicly available relationships presently support.
And From an Organizational Behaviour Perspective…
This is almost a textbook example of why an organizational chart alone cannot explain how communities operate.
The important structure is partly invisible.
It consists of:
- personal relationships;
- recurring participants;
- trusted performers;
- organizers who create successor events;
- people who move between communities;
- shared cultural practices;
- and venues capable of bringing otherwise separate networks into the same physical space.
That is the informal organization.
And something else becomes apparent once we draw the relationships rather than simply listing names.
Eric Mandala is a bridge, but he is not the bridge upon which the entire network depends.
The Bhakti in the Woods → Rebecca White Raven → Bhakti Bliss → Raven’s Knoll route exists independently of him.
Likewise, KN¿WHERE’s connection to Raven’s Knoll exists independently of the Bhakti network.
What we therefore have is not one chain.
We have several chains converging on common people, communities and eventually a common place.
That is a network.
And now that we can see its structure, the next question becomes much more interesting:
When did these relationships begin converging on Raven’s Knoll, and can we reconstruct that evolution year by year?
Because if we can, we may be able to see not simply who is connected, but how Raven’s Knoll’s event culture changed over time.