But in buying a religion, youre supposed to wear these narrow blinders, so that if anybody disagrees you can block it out. Eckankar teaches that the soul is eternal, it exists because God loves it, and it is journeying to self-realization and God realization. In a way it was like an abandonment. Because Gross had been in Eckankar less than two years, his appointment shocked and disturbed many Eckists. For a hundred bucks per year he gives you the divine connection. As late as December 1993, Gross sent out a memo to all his readers defending Paul Twitchell and the corporation he started against Lanes attacks. Shortly after . Yelman received hers while at an Eck seminar in Hawaii. Eckankar is not affiliated with any other religious group. Eckankar teaches that it is possible to experience the Light and Sound through the proper use of spiritual exercises. So who was this mysterious Paul Twitchell? Since its early days Eckankar has always really been a religion. We close our eyes and chant Hu together for several minutes. Not the truth itself. I dont go into Eck centers and walk around and say, Here, read my book. All Im saying is that Twitchell was lying to his constituency. The minute he saw me he canceled all of his appointments and spent six hours with me., Lane leans across the table toward me and grins. I imagine them as the tormented souls of all the cultists who have lost their faith because of Lane. David Lane lives in the San Diego area, but the location is a closely guarded secret. Lane and his friends playfully call one another by the names " of Eck Masters. Well, the upshot of it is, we were friendly for five years, and then in 1983 four of his closest disciples defected. I am afraid my beliefs will cause conflict within the Eckankar community and it may be best that I leave Eckankar. Ellen Burstyn, maybe.) Im under your spell, but how can I help it. There is a double edge to this torch song; from the way she keeps glancing affectionately over at Gross, it is the Masters spell that Driggs cant be blamed for falling under. In my copy of The Making of a Spiritual Movement, he signs himself the Kal force, Dave. The Kal force, remember, is the power of negativity. And the sex though Eckankar in no way encourages sexual contact among its members with that degree of trust and the sense of two souls meeting, the sex was great. They knew what I had done with Eckankar, and they thought, Well, he can do this with J.R. So there was a secret meeting in a Santa Monica condominium with these defectors. No, I sigh, Im not afraid of those people.. His disciples told me he would pick a guy every night out of the staff and claim that they needed to have sex with him in order to increase their aura or they needed, pardon my language, a rectal innerphase in order to burn off karma., He has thus thing called aura innerphasing, where you do aura balancing, soul balancing, etheric balancing. When I ask him what Eckankars position is on Lanes research, Richards, whos been in Eckankar for 20 years, says he doesnt know. If you were going to visit a new city, wouldnt you want a guide, wouldnt you want to stay away from the places where the prostitutes are, from the dark streets and the hoodlums? Disillusioned Eckists left the movement in droves. Finally, in 1992, Garland, a publisher of hardback reference books, accepted Lanes manuscript for its library series. A line will leap out and inspire you. Nobody wins, so we just let it sit there. At one Eckankar seminar in Florida, a panhandler happened to station himself outside the hotel where the seminar was held. It was like in my imagination. The experiential aspect to Eckankar really interested me, and thats how it started.. I ask Lane to tell me about Twitchells mysterious death. After a year or so, he branched off and started his own group, MSIA, claiming that in 1963 he had a kidney stone operation and that after nine days of being in a coma he had been commissioned to be the Mystical Traveler Consciousness. At first Hinkins thought it was the legendary Rebazar Tarzs who came to him on the inner planes and passed on the keys to the Kingdom, but later, after seeing a photo of Radhasoami guru Sawan Singh, Hinkins decided that it was really Sawan Singh who had given him the mantle. Today it is perhaps the most successful religious movement to come out of the 60s, claiming a worldwide membership in the tens of thousands. The way to get more income is to have new material, speculates Lane. The suggested annual membership donation for individuals is $120, a bargain in the miracles-and-freedom market. I didnt know why it happened. Paul Twitchells the past; weve evolved out of that. I got one of his disciples. We zone out on lounge music for an hour and a half, then Dawn walks to the front of the room and says, Thats it. I ask Lane if hes going to introduce himself. He never had much money. The skies themselves seem to be weeping with loss. The report made claims of tax irregularities and personal misconduct by an Eckankar leader. in his book, and on every single page I just had to make my own notes. As Yelman laughs, her stiff, angular body quivers with excitement. One time he said, I want to take you someplace. I said okay! Not long afterward I joined Eckankar, unaware of the dissension. Hes a character who has seized the imaginations of Eckists as completely as Ahab or Falstaff has seized ours.) When she begins her next selection, My Funny Valentine, I lose all objectivity*. I was on the Holy Grail of research.". In October, at a seminar in Las Vegas, Gross was revealed to be the new Living Eck Master when Atkinson walked over to him and handed him a blue carnation. Man, it was a nasty conversation. I ask, ever so casually, Is it true that you have some friends who are Eckists?, How do they justify that you are doing things that might damage the group?, They differentiate the message from the medium. 2023 San Diego Reader. In Understanding Cults, Lane published The Criminal Activities of John-Roger Hinkins, a laborious account of Hinkinss alleged break-in and smear campaign. All rights reserved. On October 22, 1965, Twitchell claimed to have received the Rod of Power from Rebazar Tarzs, becoming the 971st Living Eck Master. The waiter arrives with our check, and Lane and I bicker over whos going to pay for it. My personality is I want to do, ( not sit ) in a Satsang and discuss. Lane does arrive, at one oclock Thursday afternoon, on time to the minute. For the past 20 years, Lanes books and articles accusing several new religious movements of plagiarisms, lies, inconsistencies, and scandals have raised a fury among true believers. Again, I am reminded of Houdini, whose interest in spiritualism was awakened with his dearly loved mothers death. According to Lane, all three letters are printed in the same typeface with the same malfunctioning capital A. Second, everybody has to dream at night, or most people dream at night, and Eckists dream about Fubbi Quantz or Rebazar Tarzs or Paul Twitchell. I cant understand why he would be doing this, because the Eckists have never gone out of their way to hurt him; but he claims that they did, I think, in one regard. Mother Teresas group. When I leave Richardss office its dusk. Clearly he is more comfortable with the fluid topography of waves, of meditation, of philosophical inquiry. So I do. Hes listed in Ripley's Believe It or Not as having sold an article every day. Actually, Eckankar is the one who has kept me going because they keep [after] me every time I try to come out with something. Lane says, He got them from his Indian books on Radhasoami, or Julian Johnsons The Path of the Masters, or from With a Great Master in India. Del Mar Press agreed to change the cover on future editions. The loss of my old loves and Grosss loss of status become merged in an ineffable sadness. I would just close my eyes and he would be there, and I would be there with him too. He resigned in June 1993 following a direct threat to kill from another member, Ebenezer Egunjobi, and a series of violent and disorientating mind control attacks emanating from the leader, Harold Klemp. Then, Lane says excitedly, John-Roger committed the biggest mistake. Because that was my condition if I could just study in the closet, then I would join. The human soul is eternal and is on a spiritual journey of reincarnation to discover and improve the true self thereby realizing his own true inner divinity. The Cadillac of Cults. I want Eckankar in some weird universe to keep going, because its fun for me. I dont think Twitchell imagined that Eckankar would blossom the way it did. Peoples experiences dont matter to David Lane. Hes big, coughing, not in the best of health, and he doesnt have any money. Be very careful with Eckankar. Yet it has a sweetness to it. No, I was excited that somebody would pay attention to my research, Lane exclaims. Through a process that Lane himself does not completely understand, someone photocopied this manuscript and circulated it around the country. I dont believe anything until its proven to me. , Im sure they said that about Jim Jones; Im sure they said that in David Koreshs group. After a few more tunes. He went nuts. I imagine we have a wide spectrum. Known the world over as the Eckankar mafia because of slippery manoeuvring behind the scenes wrecking marriages friendships livelihoods and demographics where ever they plant themselves. My only regrets were that I sold all my rock albums to pay for my membership. Eckankar Pre Philosophy. Since I dont want to play the awkward game of trying to figure out who one another is in public, I haggle. I like you and Im enjoying our talk, but nothing youre saying is very seductive. You can explain it in a lot of different ways. Remember, hed been kicked out of Swami Premanandas church in 1955. Do people get mad at Ralph Nader for saying that a Pinto blows up? Pine Avenue, right next to where I was living when I was doing my books in the 80s. I think of Rumi, the great Persian poet, who said, with all these false coins abounding, theres got to be something genuine in the midst of it.. I get the sense his gentleness does not comes naturally, that it has been worked at, with great success. Dont you all have innocent" friends visit you and live near you? Id really start believing Id had a spiritual experience, Id wake up feeling like, Wow! Eckankar works because it doesnt make you have experiences that are impossible to have., What about soul travel, visiting higher planes of existence? Lane swallows his pizza. Youre not going to say, Well, Im a dumbshit. Recently I have had a spiritual crisis where I stopped believing in the concept of the Abrahamic God. Hes sitting on a couch in the small lobby outside the conference room. The 69-year-old joined the broadcaster in 2008 after 22 years in football management. Lanes green eyes turn serious. . And who knows? The program Lane and I attend at the Best Western Hanalei is called The Universal Basics of Life Through Music. It costs $35 at the door. In 1942, after a stint in the Navy, Twitchell moved to New York, where he continued his journalism career, attended many churches, and read extensively on spiritual subjects. Hi, Im Dave." The problem is that nobody uses Occams Razor when it comes to spirituality. . I hook my mike over the breadbasket and turn on the tape recorder. Sitting at a table outside Monsoon at Village Hillcrest, surrounded by potted plants and curving walls of mango orange, gold, deep purple, and rusty red, Lane sips a Coke and tells me the history of his involvement with alternative religious movements. The transaction was conducted ethically but the Left's attacks on Justice Thomas have nothing to do with ethics. I did my spiritual exercises daily as much as probably anyone in eckankar. Twitchell was living in Point Loma in 1965 when he started teaching workshops and selling booklets on how to leave your body. I was one of the those stooges for decades until I came down with a pathological. Hes now in Scottsdale, Arizona. At this stage of the game I cant buy the crap that permeates religion, not just new religions, but religion in general. The Rod of Power was passed on to Harold Klemp. Founded in 1965 by Paul Twitchell, one-time disciple of Swami Premananda, Kirpal Singh, and L. Ron Hubbard, Eckankar owes much of its theology to Radhasoami. This was in 76 or 77, and I was 20 years old, so its like All the President's Men. The sound current was very loud. It has its positive aspects, a sense of community, a sense of focusing on the individual and his or her experiences of the divine.
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why i left eckankar