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 like to add a few of my own. I am an active practioner of lucid dreaming, dream interpretation, projective mind techniques as well as some personally developed techniques (which I have modeled from Ouspenski and Gurdjieff). I spent many years involved in Eckankar and I consider some of the Eckists I met to be some of the nicest people I have ever met. It is true that Eck started as a “Pulp” amalgam of Hindi and Sufi practices strangely melded together with some Twitchell malaprops of Sanscrit and Farsi thrown in for eastern appeal. However, Twitchell spoke a powerful truth when he talked of the light and sound, the inner master and of the projective, creative consciousness. Twitchell was no doubt mercurial as was Gurdjieff, as was Castenada, as was Leary etc. But Eckankar is no Scientology, it is not Crowlian power scheme, rather it is a safe way for people to begin to experience dreams, active imagination, and self realization before they have to stand face to face with the terrible, omnipresent, omnipotent, Impersonal.

Thanks Mark!