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Eckankar & Scientology
I’ve been studying both the roots and offshoots of Scientology lately. It’s family tree seems to extend a great deal in both directions. A group that you’ll sometimes hear mentioned as an “offshoot” of Scientology is Eckankar, appearing publicly for the first time in 1965. Eckankar, to me, seems more like a mish-mash of Eastern philosophy than anything else. But I guess suppositions that it’s connected to Scientology go back to the fact that it’s founder, Paul Twitchell, was a student and friend of L. Ron Hubbard’s. Whether it’s necessarily fair to say that anyone who’s studied Scientology is necessarily a Scientologist forever and ever, the connection seems at least worth exploring.
The official website of Eckankar has a biography of Twitchell in which it readily admits that he was “quite a rascal.” They suggest that he underwent all kinds of experiences in order to become fit as a spiritual master. This includes, apparently, obfuscation:
Paul loved his privacy. Early in his youth he was involved in a variety of activities, but he made it a point to obscure any facts associated with his life. In so doing, he left a trail so clouded that it’s going to take our historians years to piece it together. […] He kept adding and changing so many things that it’s taking a while to unscramble it and figure out who he really was.
One item they do mention though is that Twitchell had a stint in the Navy during World War II. During that time, he allegedly wrote for pulp magazines, and worked writing public relations copy for the Navy. This is interesting, because I recently read (though I forget where) that L. Ron Hubbard also enjoyed a stint writing magazine articles to support the Navy’s war effort. None were ever published.
I’m not sure if this is just a passing coincidence or what. Maybe the two men crossed paths in the Navy, although Hubbard’s naval war record is so clouded that we’ll likely never know the truth. Incidentally, hiding or creating details about their personal lives seems to be yet another odd talent the two men shared.
The Eckankar site admits the two men knew each other, but is very vague about the details. Referring to some time in the late 1950’s they write:
During these years, Paul Twitchell came in contact with Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard. They knew each other, and Paul learned a lot from him.
Another site claims that Twitchell worked for Hubbard, and had attained the status of “clear.” Other sources claimed that he not only “learned a lot” from Hubbard, but stole a lot as well. An anonymous article on Geocities suggests that Paul Twitchell actually worked for Hubbard for a time, selecting and editing articles for Scientology magazines. Twitchell himself also wrote articles which appeared in them. It’s also alleged that during this time period, Twitchell appropriated a number of teachings from Scientology, which he later switched around and used in Eckankar. Another anonymous whistleblower suggests that there are so many plagiarized items in Twitchell’s work that “revealing them to you would almost be a full-time occupation”.
I’m not in a position to prove or disprove that information, but it seems worth mentioning here that in the Twitchell bio on the official Eckankar site, they not only call him a “rascal” but relate an anecdote from Twitchell’s earlier life (at 27 years of age) in which he intentionally distorted the truth. He wanted to be placed in a Who’s Who in Kentucky publication, and managed to secure mention of himself among eminent state leaders by “exaggerating and twisting the facts”. Reading such a thing, it’s only natural to wonder just when it was that this spiritual master finally dropped the charades - if ever.
June 26th, 2005 at 5:27 am
Interesting you bring this up. I’ve actually met more Eckists (as they refer to themselves) here in Alberta than I have Scientologists. I had a dear and beautiful friend of mine from high school that was raised Eckist, which I lost due to her uncomfortability with my devout interest in the occult and “darker side of things.”
She was quite loyal to the ECK, as her keychain illustrated, and volunteered in camps and other events to guide other children in youth events under the banner of Eckankar. However, cult phobias aside, she actually was a genuinely good, caring individual. She also went on to study diligently at the Calgary College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture and now, I presume, is doing well for herself in said field.
She never tried to turn me, but always preached love, peace, and forgiveness. Her distaste with me was my constant anger towards the atrocities of the world… that wonderful angst that many of us have in our younger years as we begin to open our own eyes, of our own volition.
I picked up a book on Eckankar and it did just come across as a hodge-podge of Eastern thought symbolically crossed with some Kabbalistic structures. Or that’s what I recall, at least.
But in the end, as far as religions go, if it works, who am I to criticise, right?
June 26th, 2005 at 9:26 am
I’ve met a couple of eckists as well, and they seemed like very nice, if somewhat softheaded people.
the earlier comment points out what i think is the crucial detail. I have no reason to doubt that eck is a benign fraud of a true intitiatory tradition, but it’s still a fraud, and I think it’s very telling that the only criteria that seems to hold up for a ‘worthwhile religion’ these days is whether it makes you a ‘nice person’. not to criticise the person above at all, but it’s a sentiment I’ve come across time and again.
I can only think it’s a symptom of so much nonsense and hokum out there, and paucity of real gnosis.
If I were feeling conspiratorial I’d put eck in the same category with all the psuedo-initiatic bunk that purports to be a path, but really acts to disable and pacify true seekers, and wonder further what might be behind the sheer weight of disinformation out there.
June 26th, 2005 at 11:40 am
Then again I’ve heard there are also a lot of “blinds” in many occult books such as the writings of Aleister Crowley, i.e. misinformation intended to make you go through the work and learn things for yourself. Blinds can be useful too.
June 26th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
Yeah, I am on the fence with this, I suppose. How does one exactly go about and claim that it’s a “fake”? I’m not saying I support Eckankar, I have issues with it just from seeing what I had in person, but overall it’s members genuinely seem educated in metaphysics and perform their own trance and meditation works, and generally lead a happy and peaceful life.
My issues was with my friend’s seeming inability to to allow her to explore the entire gamut of human emotion, anger being one of them. However, now I look back and she may have been the wiser of the two of us. We are as we like to program ourselves, and she wasn’t stupid in regards to that in any way, so her embrace of love and forgiveness was her path to exploring her new paradigm and letting those powers emenate from her, in turn affecting her reality.
I’ll never know, she doesn’t speak with me anymore. She was an inspiration to me in beauty and love, though, so regardless of her “system,” she has all the respect in the world from me.
Like David said, there are so many errors and muck-ups in occult translations, and so many new authors spewing this and that, it can be difficult just for someone to get their foothold in it all. I don’t consider the occult a religion at all, it’s a objective approach to working with internal machinations (which can, in turn, affect perceived “outer” machinations, blah, blah, blah). I am not well-educated on Scientology, but I know the Eckists have their methods for exploring their inner-space and working with very similar concepts as seen in popular occultism and dream work.
June 26th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
These are all great points. I especially like what Zacharius has said up here about how it seems like we’re only left with “does the person seem happy” as a way of objective criteria to find out the worth of their path. It goes back to an earlier point I made, but I’ll try to rehash them both together in a separate post. Great conversation!
June 26th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Thanks, Tim. Just completed a long post on the subject over here…
goldenbraid.blogspot.com
BAM!
June 26th, 2005 at 3:46 pm
[…] chemical Braindamage (excellent blog, by the way) left a rather keen comment earlier on my Eckankar post: I think it’s very telling that the only criteria that seems […]
June 26th, 2005 at 3:59 pm
any attempt at systemization of occult process always results in this hodge-podge of subjrct-object blurring of planes; and paul twitchell is a fine example of a man’s iconoclatic synthesis and attempted systemization of his discoveries in terms of eck; which in my opinion is where they all go wrong’ l. ron hubbard, theosophy, etc. must of necessity be incomplete as so much depends on the unique constitutions and occult vitalities of their proponents. the truth rests with the adept and is in no way a democratizable phenomena that all can partake of through writings, etc. in the absence of the power bearer. for this reason all that is the successive chain of their particular currents as this or that occult teaching, is by it’s very nature a blind, for the only priority is man’s own self un-doing, or deconstruction for the sake of transformation, initiation, regeneration, enlightenment etc. and for this reason will forever and always be a secret art; a royal art priveledged of few, though desired of all.
June 28th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Eckankar is actually more of a plagiarization of a modern, Indian gnostic movement called Radhasoami or Sant Mat, which I’ve been intrigued by and reading about for the past four years or so. The definitive book on that tradition from an social anthropological persepective is “Radhasoami Reality” by Juergensmeyer (don’t quote me on the spelling) and Lane. In regards to Eckankar and Radhasoami, David Lane’s book “The Making of a Spriritual Movement” is the best and it really sticks in the craw of the Eck organization. You can find it on his website: http://elearn.mtsac.edu/dlane/2005index.htm. The Radhasomi guru Twitchell studied with and plagiarized was named Kirpal Singh–but there are tons of professed Radhasoami Masters to this day who tend to try to claim themselves as the one true master, though this isn’t true for all.
Definitely check out Radhasoami for the gnostic connection. They call the Demiurge Kal or Kal Naranjan and I suspect Kal may be related to the Hindu god Kali, though I’ve yet to find anything definitive to say so with certainty. Basically, the movement teaches a method of triggering out of body experiences through meditating on a set mantra of five “holy names” that only initiates receive (but if you read some of the older literature from the group out of Beas, India, you can figure out what the five names are)…if you meditate on these names with enough focus on your third eye you will hear the holy “Nam,” which is the Sound of the true god (Radhasoami) who exists above and beyond all the gods of the various world religions, who they see as tools or manifestations of Kal aimed at keeping you safely bound to the material world. Anyway, you follow this divine sound out of your body and through various higher dimensions until you attain union with the one true god and/or have an internal vision of the Radhasoami Master. On that last point, you can see where having this experience doesn’t necessarily prove anything other than that you’ve attained a very powerful hypnotic trance, especially since Radhasoami’s tend to have pictures of their guru all over the place…(Is it a surprise then that they see this guy in their astral travels?) Big long ramble, but thought it might interest you.
June 28th, 2005 at 9:02 pm
thanks! that’s a great connection
July 26th, 2005 at 11:36 am
[…] de
A read named Mark emailed me the following response to my piece comparing Eckankar to Scientology: I have read several of your comments and I would lik […]