I have been accused of many things in the past twenty or so years, but
I have never been accused of "making lots of money" and being "funded
by Christian extremists."
Now it would be very heartening for me to confess that I am really
quite rich and that all my work on Eckankar has been a pot of gold for
me. But alas such is not the case and I have a much less romantic tale
to tell. Since it may explain how and why I wrote about Eckankar in
the first place, I will elaborate, in brief, about the history of my
Eck investigations.
1. I first learned of Eckankar when I was 17, having seen their
advertisements in the market I worked at as a "box boy."
2. From 17 to 20 I periodically read Twitchell's books at the Bodhi
Tree Bookstore, which was my favorite haunt in the 1970s. I especially
enjoyed reading The Tiger's Fang and The Talons of Time.
3. In the Spring of 1977 I took a class on religious cults and sects
at California State University, Northridge, where I was majoring in
religious studies. One of the requirements was to write a term paper
on a new religious movement. I chose Eckankar as my topic of study,
since they were (at that time) heavily advertising on campus.
4. I originally planned to write a 10 page term paper, but a strange
coincidence occurred. I was visiting Del Mar (a beautiful town on the
Pacific Ocean, where Paul and Gail lived just prior to his death) and
happened into a health food store entitled "Kirpal's." Since I knew
the owner must be a follower of the late Sant Kirpal Singh, we got in
a discussion about shabd yoga in general. He then informed me that
Paul Twitchell, founder of Eckankar, was once a follower of his
guru. I was curious, since I was in the process of writing my term
paper. From that moment on I decided to do some more extensive
research on Twitchell's background.
5. I then read almost every piece of literature I could find on
Eckankar; this lead me to several key contacts, outstanding among them
was Dr. John Sutphin, a Professor of Philosophy and a former Eckankar
member, who provided me with a number of excellent leads. I then
proceeded to look at Twitchell's early life and his extensive
plagiarism.
6. As the semester was coming to an end, I had to present my findings
to my Professor. He was duly impressed, as was Jim Peebles (an
Eckankar member at the time and my classmate), who was also writing a
paper and who later left the group (he also got sued, by the way, the
next year by Eckankar).
7. I was pretty naive, so I sent a copy of the report to Eckankar.
Subsequently, I received a letter from one of their attorneys
(Nichols), who threatened to sue me if I ever published my study.
8. This, naturally, struck my curiousity (please keep in mind that I
come from a family of attorneys--my father was a prominent attorney in
Los Angeles, and my sister is currently a managing partner of a New
York firm). Hence, I was not frightened by Eckankar's legal threats.
9. That following year (1977/1978) I took an independent study class
in religious studies at CSUN so that I could do a more thorough term
paper on Eckankar's history.
10. This effort led to a number of interesting contacts: Camille
Ballowe--Twitchell's first wife; Brad Steiger--Twitchell's first
biographer; Dr. Louis Bluth--Twitchell's personal doctor and eventual
President of Eckankar; Ed Pecen--Twitchell's confidante and personal
bodyguard; and a number of key individuals within the movement. All of
these individuals, to greater or lesser degrees, provided me with
important documentary information about Eckankar.
11. I also spent weeks in various libraries trying to trace
Twitchell's earlier articles. I remember spending 10 hour days in the
L.A. public library, UCLA, and other places, researching Twitchell's
various pen names, and various articles (many of these findings I have
not included in the present book). Eventually, Orion Magazine--which
is now defunct--sent me all the original back issues where Twitchell's
byline appeared. I also talked with Roy Eugene Davis and the former
Editor of the magazine, who once remarked that Twitchell was a fairly
awful writer (grammar/spelling mistakes; I never included this in the
book, since I am not exempt from the same criticism).
12. My phone bill was extraordinarily high for a twenty year old. It
was about two hundred to three hundred dollars a month, I remember (my
mother surely remembers). I had a very long talk with a number of
Twitchell's associates, including Iverlet, Ballowe, and others.
13. In the Spring of 1978 I finally finished the manuscript, which was
originally called The Making of a Cult---but was later switched on
the advice of Neil Tessler to The Making of a Spiritual Movement. I
turned in for my class credit; it was about 160+ pages, I believe.
14. At that time the Spiritual Counterfeits Project in Berkeley
contacted me via Jim Peebles (who was clearly upset with Eckankar);
they wanted to utilize my research. I agreed, but wrote a letter to
them clearly stating that I did not agree with their slanted
approach. All of them at the time were highly professional and their
journal still stands as one of the best pieces ever done on a cult
from a biased Christian perspective.
15. That summer (1978) I was asked by Professor Mark Juergensmeyer
(who was at Berkeley at that time, but who is now a Professor of
Sociology at U.C. Santa Barbara) to be his research assistant in India
for a book he was doing on the Radhasoamis. During that trip in the
summer, my manuscript was circulated informally by a number of
Eckists. Eventually one Eckist in Oregon got a hold of it and xeroxed
hundreds of copies of it. I got a flood of mail--also because of my
address being printed in SCP.
16. Thus for the first two years of its existence, the manuscript was
circulated in a photocopied fashion. However, I met Brian Walsh in
1979 at the GTU (he was a graduate student in Consciousness Studies at
JFK); he was newly initiated by Darshan Singh, Kirpal's son; I was
newly initiated by Charan Singh (I was initiated in November of
1978--months after I wrote the second version of my Eckaankar
expose). We became fast friends and he wanted to publish the
manuscript, since he had once been attracted to Eckankar and felt that
the information should be available to the unsuspecting public.
17. I agreed and Brian put up about 200 bucks or so and published a
xeroxed, revised, version of the manuscript; it sold out very
quickly. However, since Brian was selling near to costs, no profit was
made, except that he could do another larger printing--which he did.
18. In the meantime I was working on my MA at GTU in Berkeley and
tried to get a few major publishers interested in the book. Each of
them found the work interesting but were scared off by Eckankar's
legal threats (a decade later, Garland Publishing agreed to do the
manuscript, but had to back off due to the persisting legal threats of
Eckankar--it is for that reason that it was advertised by Garland in
their catalogs).
19. In 1982 I moved to Del Mar, California. Brian Walsh moved there
shortly after me. In 1983 he wanted to publish a legitimate paperback
version of the book. He put up 3000 dollars and started Del Mar
Press--we both agreed to share the work and eventually start a
journal (which we did), called Understanding Cults.
20. 1000 copies of the Making of a Spiritual Movement were published
and the book sold steadily for two years, eventually exhausting its
initial print run. (By the way, Brian gave 100+ copies for free to an
interested Eckist in Lagos, Nigeria).
21. Concerning the profits that were garnered from that print run,
Brian Walsh did not make his money back; indeed, he lost a couple of
thousand, because we kept giving free copies away to various
countries who could not afford to pay the taxes, etc.
22. In 1983 I was contacted by defectors of John-Roger Hinkins'
movement; Brian and I started Understanding Cults; the first issue was
devoted to J.R.
23. As is pretty well known, I was robbed by John-Roger personally on
October 5, 1984; my home/office was completely ransacked and all of my
research work (plus names and addresses to our mailing list) were
stolen.
24. During the next year Eckankar's international headquarters
received a package of stolen goods (items which were taken from my
home); Eckankar very swiftly and very professionally sent the
materials back to me, knowing that they were being used as a
middle-man (J.R. wrongly assumed that I would blame Eckankar for the
robbery if they somehow used the stolen material; Eckankar was wiser
than that and immediately handed over the materials, which had--by the
way--J.R.'s handwriting all over the papers.).
25. We did five more issues of UCSM and closed operations. Why?
Because I lost too much money, got tired of repeated death threats,
and had to finish my Ph.D. at UCSD.
26. However, there were still lots of people interested in the book,
so I (Walsh had moved from Del Mar in the late 80s) published enlarged
versions of the manuscript in limited print runs.
27. Finally, in 1992 I contacted Garland Publishing about the
possiblity of publishing the book in new, slightly revised version. I
signed a contract and they advertised the book. However, as people
must know by now, Eckankar legally threatened Garland over the book.
Eventually, Garland had to back down since they did not want to get
into a prolonged legal battle--especially when the book was not going
to make them much money anyways.
28. Thus I decided to "reactivate" Del Mar Press (it was dying a very
slow death in the early 90s) so that I could publish a paperback
version of Making. It cost about 4,000 to do one thousand copies
(including, of course, laser costs, etc.). I put the money up from my
teaching salary (I am a tenured professor of philosophy at Mount San
Antonio College) and decided to charge 15 bucks a piece for Making so
that any extra money could be channeled back into Del Mar
Press--finally trying to make it stand on its own legs without me or
others infusing money into it.
29. Although it is a bit embarrassing (and does not reflect well on
Walsh's or mine's business acumen), Del Mar Press has never made a
profit; indeed, I estimate that it has lost several thousand dollars
in the past decade. This is due to a number of reasons, but primarily
because Walsh and I never really intended to make money. We simply
wanted to have a means to get certain information available to the
public. Moreover, it was fun putting the whole operation together.
30. As we move into the mid-1990s, I have put most of my other books
with signficant publishing firms (Garland Publishing has published THE
RADHASOAMI TRADITION and EXPOSING CULTS--which is due out in August of
this year); I am currently working on SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE:
EINSTEIN'S ARGUMENT WITH NIELS BOHR AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF QUANTUM
THEORY with Aaron Talsky (Harvard University; U.C. Irvine). It should
be ready for the publisher in Fall of this year.
But to underline Mark's claim, I am sorry to report that I have not
made any profit on the Eckankar materials.
However, I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and I think it is a nice
impression that Mark leaves when he claims that I have made lots of
money. Perhaps I should not have written the preceding, since then my
fellow newsgroup readers will think that I live in a big house on the
beach (I live in an apartment); that I own an expensive car (I drive a
88 Nissan Sentra--with about 140,000 miles on it); that I hang with
the stars in Hollywood and go to the best restaurants (being
personally a strict vegetarian, my options are limited); that I am an
avid fundamentalist Christian (actually I was raised Roman Catholic,
having attended their schools for some 12 years and having taught in
the same for five years [Concerning my own religious heritage, I was
initiated by the late Maharaj Charan Singh of Radhasoami Satsang Beas
in November 1978]).
Presently I teach five classes a semester (ranging from Introduction
to Philosophy; Introduction to Major World Religions; and Introduction
to Sociology) and surf two to three times a week.
But, Mark, you could change my financial status and confirm your
suspicion of me very quickly. Just buy lots of copies of THE
RADHASOAMI TRADITION from Garland and they will send me a larger
royalty check. Best not to bother with Del Mar Press, since we have
never made money from that.
I don't know about the "handlers" you claim I am in contact with.
Give me their names and addresses; maybe they can buy me the new
surfboard I want.
Keep up the shredding, however. I don't mind, especially when you make
me out to be a financial wizard!
Excerpted from a letter by Dr. Louis Bluth, former President of
Eckankar, one-time follower of Sawan Singh, and Paul Twitchell's
personal doctor when the Eck leader died in 1971: