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Second Open letter to Harold Klemp First Open letter to Harold Klemp
THE TRUTH REVEALED
Frequently Asked Questions Copyright © 2002-2004 Friends of Truth. All rights reserved.
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Reproduced from:
Confessions of a God Seeker: A Journey to Higher Consciousness
By, Ford Johnson
Chapter 9 — The Psychology of Paul Twitchell
Footnotes with source documents available at www.thetruth-seeker.com
Footnotes (all)
Chapter 9 — The Psychology of Paul Twitchell
Throughout this book, we have encountered the strange mix of Paul’s sincerity, brilliance, and spiritual insight as well as his fabrication, plagiarism, and deceptions. The scope and frequency of Paul’s prevarication leave little doubt of their being normal behavior or responses to life. Paul’s actions cannot be glossed over with sanctimonious references to his spiritual mission. Having exclusive access to all of Paul’s documents, Harold and possibly Darwin knew of or suspected Paul’s character flaws. In fact, Harold’s defense is highly revealing; it provides information for understanding the conundrum of Paul Twitchell. We shall now explore this conundrum and show it to be consistent with an abnormal state described in psychological literature.
First, let us consider the meaning of dogma. Given what we now know, a reasonable question might be, What enabled the fiction “Each Living Eck Master has served as the Mahanta, which is God made flesh on earth”1 to persist? Why did no one question this presumptuous statement: “The Living ECK Master is the only manifestation of the SUGMAD [God] on earth?”2 The answer lies in the power of dogma, which Webster’s defines as:
Something held as an established opinion: a definite authoritative tenet: a code of such tenets: a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds: a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church.3
The remarkable thing about dogma and its attendant doctrines is that they do not have to be true or even make sense. The “proof” and power of dogma lie in the belief followers place in it, not in anything intrinsic to it. Dogma is given life and power by the believer’s faith in its originator, his teachings, and successors. For Paul’s successors, it didn’t matter whether they had any personal validation of the mystical power that supposedly inhered in the Mahanta. Paul said it and wrote it, therefore, it had to be true. Such was the belief and confidence Eckists had in his integrity, honesty, and even the beings with whom he claimed to communicate.
Darwin’s belief was based solely on the love and confidence he placed in Paul and his writings. Harold’s belief, in turn, was built upon the confidence he had in his two predecessors, that is, until he excommunicated Darwin for acts detrimental to Eckankar and the Mahanta — an ironic but revealing turn of events. After being exposed to the frauds Paul’s records reveal, Harold could only look to the dogma of Eckankar and faith in Paul as the foundation of his belief. Initially, Harold felt compelled to debunk the dogma that deified the Mahanta, the Living Eck Master, but ultimately, he returned to and fully embraced it.4
What we have, then, is Eckankar’s powerful dogma, which is based on belief in its founder, whose record cried for scrutiny and could not stand up to it. Even as I discovered distortion after distortion in Paul’s writing, I continued to believe in his sincerity and the truth in his works. But his sincerity and deceptiveness were incongruous to me. I could not understand a man who could write about such magnificent truths one moment, then put forth an immense lie the next. The ethics of this cliff hanger completely eluded me.
Then during a staff meeting, I described this remarkable conundrum. I mentioned how he could announce the founding of Eckankar in the sixties one moment, then proclaim it an ancient spiritual path the next. Someone jestingly observed, “Paul Twitchell had some issues!” We laughed and continued our discussion, but the comment stuck with me. I could find no explanation for his paradoxical behavior that made any sense by standards I knew or by those in his writings. The discussion on standards describes what he presumably believed about truth and the principles that should guide the life of a God-seeker. Then, as example after example of a life lived startlingly contrary to his principles became clear, I began to find a common thread, a reconciling concept to explain these troubling anomalies.
During my research, I used the expression “serial prevaricator” as a euphemism, not appreciating the truth that lay in the term. Every time I tried to move past the issue of Paul’s psychological state to another part of this book, something kept pulling me back. After combing through books on psychology, articles in professional journals, and the vast data on the Internet, an answer began to emerge. I found a thread tying things together and explaining this enigmatic man. The answer lies in an analysis of his distortions, inconsistencies, and lies as well as the psychological state that permits an individual to exude sincerity, belief, and aplomb. Paul, I came to conclude, went beyond the “rascal” Harold described, and behaved consistently with what psychologists call a “pathological liar.”
The suspicion that the founder of Eckankar was a pathological liar was initially difficult to entertain. I had read, studied, and followed his teachings for almost thirty years. Being suddenly forced to acknowledge that much of my belief was based on the works of such a person was a difficult pill to swallow. But I knew that if I did not confront the truth, whatever it was, I would never be free of Paul’s and Eckankar’s insidious effects on me. Paul’s life has to be examined against what is known about pathological lying.
The following definition is the most comprehensive in describing this phenomenon:
Pathological lying is falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view, engaged in by a person who, at the time of observation, cannot definitely be declared insane, feebleminded, or epileptic. Such lying rarely, if ever, centers about a single event; although exhibited in very occasional cases for a short time, it manifests itself most frequently by far over a period of years, or even a lifetime. It represents a trait rather than an episode. Extensive, very complicated fabrications may be evolved. This has led to the synonyms: mythomania, pseudologia phantastica.5
William and Mary Healy offered this definition in their respected study on the subject. This book is significant for its recognition of the need to look at the pathological liar as a special category of psychological phenomenon. They wrote:
A clear terminology should be adopted. The pathological liar forms a species by himself and as such does not necessarily belong to any of these larger classes.6
A. Delbrück, a late nineteenth-century German psychiatrist, conducted the earliest studies of this condition. He coined the term “pseudologia phantastica,” later adopted by other writers on the subject. Delbrück’s work provided early warnings of the harm such liars cause to families and society in general by their falsifications and deceit. During this same period, another German psychiatrist, Koppen, contributed to the analysis of the pathological liar and the nature of the lies he told:
The pathological lie is active in character, a whole sequence of experiences is fabricated and the products of fancy brought forward with a certainty that is astonishing. The possibility that the untruth may be at any minute demolished does not abash the liar in the least. Remonstrances against the lies make no impression. On closer inspection we find that the liar is no longer free, he has ceased to be master of his own lies, the lie has won power over him, it has the worth of a real experience. In the final stages of the pathological lie, it cannot be differentiated from delusion.7
In an excellent and comprehensive 1997 compilation on mythomania, its editor asserts:
Deception and truth are polar opposites on a continuum with various degrees of departure from blatant dishonesty to unbending truth. A small dose of duplicity may interfere little with family and social duties. . . . It may either pass unnoticed or receive endorsement within a culturally stipulated range of conduct. By contrast, some flagrant falsities that violate cultural codes by their ineptitude, absurdity, or extravagance . . . have long attracted the attention of the medical profession.8
Another closely related condition is “ megalomania:”
A psychopathological condition in which delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence predominate; an obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions.9
In an elaboration of pseudologia phantastica, Bernard Risch in 1908 noted several important characteristics of pathological liars. He observed that they typically had mental processes similar to those with literary gifts. The same passion and creativity found in novelists, poets, and playwrights are found in pathological liars. Both are able to forget who, what, and where they are, and create a new and often convincing reality. The difference, however, is that the artist is creating this reality within a socially acceptable context: we know it is his art to fabricate a reality of sorts for our entertainment. But the pathological liar is an artist without a socially-valued talent; his audiences are unaware of their roles in his works. He plies his art to whomever he meets or to whoever reads his creation. He does not distinguish art from reality and wants us to believe that they are one and the same.
The more I compared Paul with these definitions, the more things fell into place. Paul, I came to see, was a talented but frustrated poet and writer, whose work did not win him the recognition or monetary reward he had hoped for. Paul published some of his novels through Eckankar later in life, when followers were always eager to praise his genius and reward his erudition. He was quite accomplished in the novelist’s skills of character development and plot construction. Yet he was not always willing to allow his novels to carry the label of fiction. Instead, Paul wanted his audience to believe that some of his fictional creations were factual accounts of his life.
Nowhere is this clearer than in The Drums of Eck. In the opening of this account of the life of Peddar Zaskq (which later caused much confusion about where and when Peddar Zaskq [Paul Twitchell] was actually born), Paul betrays concern his book might be received as a mere story:
The narrative which is laid down in this book, The Drums of ECK, may appear to the reader to be fiction but it is a true story.10
This tendency to blend fiction and reality in Eckankar found fuller expression in the Vairagi Masters. He diligently and cunningly developed their personalities and histories with great attention to detail. Paul’s efforts, as we have seen, resulted in names and brief histories for about 125 of the 971 masters who had supposedly served before him. He knew that if he did his job well, the imagination of the individual would kick in and bring these characters to life in the inner and often the outer realities of followers.
Risch also observed that the pathological liar is predisposed to play the role of the person(s) in his fiction. The line between fiction and reality is blurred, and he believes in and becomes what he has created. Though Paul had studied the traditions of the Radhasoami Satsang Beas teaching and observed the ways of one of its masters, he cut off his association with this spiritual line. But it later suited his purposes to become a master, which necessitated a new line of masters, whose invented tradition he would step into and carry forth. He artfully created a new line of Eck Masters and became the 971st Mahanta, the Living Eck Master.
It was not enough simply to create a line of masters; it had to be the oldest, greatest, and most powerful line of masters. Here, we see Paul’s disposition not only to fictionalize, believe in, and become what he created, but also, consistent with the tendencies of megalomania, to exceed in his creation anything heretofore known to mankind. Paul understood how to tell the Big Lie. He not only played the role of the Mahanta, but also evinced such strong belief from followers that, in his mind, he actually became the Mahanta. There is an interesting story in Eckankar circles of an encounter between Paul and a famous Hollywood starlet. Desiring to have a spiritual consultation with him, she gave him her address and directions. Paul is reputed to have mused, “Who does she think she is, if I’m who I think I am?”
Risch describes the pathological liar as demonstrating strong egocentricity. True to this form, Paul declared that, as the Mahanta, he was “God made flesh, the Son of God, and the most developed human on the planet.” These and numerous other references are about as egocentric if not megalomaniac as one can get, at least not without delving into outright insanity.
Another tendency discussed by Risch is reduction in powers of attention. The pathological liar is unable to remember and eliminate discrepancies in his story. Paul demonstrated remarkable abilities in this area. He knew when to be vague and how to thwart the likelihood of detection. But even he could not pay attention to all of the details in the elaborate fiction of his many lives. This accounts for the discrepancies in his life and the history of Eckankar we have seen in previous chapters. Paul liked to tell of his military exploits during the Second World War. He relayed stories of his combat experience to his biographer, who dutifully wrote:
Once in the Pacific when the fleet was under attack by Japanese fighter planes, Paul was serving as gunnery officer with a small crew of men on a twenty-millimeter gun in one of the forward tubs aboard ship.11
Harold couldn’t abide by that one and, in The Secret Teachings, he admitted:
For some reason he never got assigned to combat duty. When his Navy bosses discovered his gift with words, they put him into public relations.12
But he could not let on that it was part of a pattern.
Finally, the pathological liar demonstrates debility in judgment. While demonstrably sound in most respects, there is disjuncture between ethics and actions. His judgment is also lacking in the ability to discern whether or not others perceive his mendacity. Paul had the remarkable ability to believe in and act in accordance with the fiction of Mahanta and other myths. He was not troubled by the flood of memories and inner warnings that alert most people to inconsistency between present statements and actual past. His inability to presage the inevitable discovery of his distortions and fictions shows a failure in judgment.
Current psychological discourse about this pathology starts with the classic description of “antisocial personality disorder profile,” of which pathological lying is a part.13 While many characteristics of the antisocial personality were evinced in Paul’s life, our discussion will deal with only one of them. This characteristic focuses on pathological lying and forms the basis of the pathology “mythomania.” This pattern includes:
Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit and pleasure. . . .14
As will be shown in the summary below, Paul’s pattern of behavior is festooned with lying, making his life a living billboard for this characteristic. Harold has admitted that Paul frequently used aliases.15 Paul used them not only for pseudonyms for his stories and articles, which, after all, is a fairly common practice among writers; but also for self-promotion by submitting stories and write-ups about himself, in which he “exaggerated and twisted the facts.”16 He was quite successful in these efforts and had articles containing fictionalized accounts of his feats printed in Who’s Who in Kentucky17 and (ironically) Ripley’s Believe It or Not.18 He would even create a buzz at public gatherings by dishonest means:
Paul was a born promoter. His wife told me that Paul would attend county fairs and pay to have himself paged so people would hear his name. She gave me a postcard Paul had made up in the early 1940s of a lavish mansion . . . printed on the front was “Home of Paul Twitchell American Author” of course, Paul had never lived there.
Paul
never traveled out of the
As we have seen, Paul engaged in numerous deceptions and flat-out falsities that are easy enough to disprove. The false and misleading statements about his life were so easily uncovered that one wonders why he engaged in such blatant prevarication to begin with. I believe Harold recognized what Paul had done, and, in an attempt to clear the record of many of his indiscretions, admitted that Paul had a proclivity to exaggeration and impishness:
To say he had a checkered life is an understatement. In many ways he was quite a rascal.20
Paul’s self-promotion knew no bounds. I had many questions when examining articles in the Paducah Library’s material on Paul Twitchell. They struck me as just a bit too promotional and rarely gave a date or the newspaper from which they came. Apparently, he wrote articles about himself, had a friend print them professionally, and then sent them to the local library where they masqueraded as legitimate news stories to be kept for posterity.21 Many of Paul’s apologists point to these articles as proof of his accomplishments and legitimacy, but in reality they are more instances of his deceptiveness.
Some of Paul's claims are undoubtedly true and are validated by information in Harold’s The Secret Teaching. Other claims, however, simply fill the ledger of probable fiction in the life and times of Paul Twitchell. His claims most likely untrue are in boldface. Those most likely true are in regular type:
Star high school athlete22
Star college athlete23
College athletic trainer24
Member of two college faculties25
Professional baseball scout26
River traffic manager for an oil company27
Public relations officer28
Professional boxer29
Cabin boy on a Mississippi riverboat30
Pearl diver in South America31
Gold hunter in New Guinea32
Student of voodoo in the West Indies33
Accomplished mountain climber, almost dying while scaling an Alaskan mountain in mid-winter34
Student for one year in an Indian monastery35
Member of an Indian religious cult in Maryland for five years36
Writer
for a magazine published in
“Ancestry
traced back to 1085 when Alvered De Inspannic, a Spanish gentleman of adventure received twenty-six
districts in which was the district of Turchet,
from William the Conqueror, for his services in the conquest of
“According to word received here Paul Twitchell . . . is rated one of the highest in the history of free lancing in selling and publishing during the first year of any writer. Twitchell [since] 1940 has sold published more than 100 articles, stories and poems.... His works have been received by such institutions as Harvard, Yale, University of Michigan, Dartmouth and many others....38
“In his best writing year, Twitchell says he sold 1,200 stories and articles.”39
“Of
the five novels he’s had published (four of them in
Some acts of dishonesty and self-deception are part of almost every person’s life. It is simply a matter of degree. When we tell ourselves we look fine, though in reality a loss of ten pounds is necessary, esthetically and medically, we are engaging in a form of self-deception and avoidance. There are times we refuse to see excess weight and deceive ourselves through strategic amnesia. This foible affects all of us in some respect. Whether by elaborating our past or modifying aspects of our personal life (age, weight, accomplishments), most everyone has at some point engaged in some puffery or omission. Paul’s behavior goes beyond these venial examples of deception and fits the description of the states of pathological lying and mythomania. Paul’s tales of masters, inner temples, and of his own life compose a body of fiction and myth that is phenomenal in scope and audacity.
The sincerity and conviction in Paul’s writing also fits one of the key characteristics of the pathological liar. Paul had the capacity to believe in the stories he had created. Paul’s conviction was so absolute that he could talk and write at length about Sudar Singh and Rebazar Tarzs, although the evidence establishes they were fictional characters substituted for Kirpal Singh and other real masters. Yet, the unwary reader senses and is moved by the strength of Paul’s belief in his words. When the ability to believe in the moment is accompanied by a disregard for the truth, there is a monumental problem created for all who have trusted and believed. With Paul,
. . . a whole sequence of experiences is fabricated and the products of fancy brought forward with a certainty that is astonishing.41
As shown in a previous chapter, he wove and obfuscated the facts to make Eckankar synonymous with spirit and therefore the source of all knowledge and life in the entire universe. He made proclamations so fantastic that they exceeded every example of mythomania, if not megalomania, that could be found in a comprehensive review of the literature.
Pathological lying manifests over a period of years or even a lifetime.42 From what we know, Paul’s life followed this pattern. When the characteristics of the pathological liar are compared with Paul’s life story, the parallels are remarkable. Paul’s own family and those who knew him in his youth speak with one voice on his life-long tendency to tell tall tales. The widow of Paul’s brother states that much of Paul’s early life, as contained in Brad Steiger’s biography, is untrue:
Almost all of what Steiger wrote was a fanciful yarn developed over the years by Paul himself.43
In a painfully candid letter, Paul’s brother-in-law, Paul Iverlet, writes:
In
his book [In My Soul I Am Free] he states he was an illegitimate
child and that his mother referred to him as “you bastard.” This is
a lie. His mother was a good Christina [sic] woman, a member
of the Church of Christ and so was his father.
He goes on to say that his Grandmother was an old lady who used tobacco
and was quite a gay old blade, and who financed a trip for her granddaughter,
my wife, to study in
An interesting side bar is an article in the Twitchell Collection at the Paducah Library. One of the articles had the startling headline:
Friction in Twitchell Camp of Liar’s League:
Charter members quibble on best qualified for presidency
Two weeks ago, the Paducah Press started something when it proposed to organize the Paducah Press Liars League. It started out of fun, but now the liars are quibbling as to whom [sic] is the biggest liar and deserves the presidency of the league. . . . Paul Twitchell, head of the city recreation department, was the leading candidate for the crown last week but as we go to press, there is friction in the Twitchell Camp. . . . So all of you will know what the trouble is, here’s a little inside information. The league is being organized to create a closer feeling among local amateur liars with professionals being ineligible. Now the amateur status of Mr. Twitchell is questioned. . . .45
As Harold read the details of Paul’s life, contained in his private papers and unpublished books that Gail Twitchell sold to Eckankar, he obviously knew something was amiss. Describing his thoughts after reading letters Paul had written over the years, Harold wrote:
His correspondence was so diverse that there were times I couldn’t quite figure out if this was the real Paul Twitchell or if it was one of his masks.46
The “masks” to which Harold referred were part of the deception Paul used to great effect. He did not see a pattern of consistent honesty that one would expect from a normal person. Not that there would be no difficulty in completely understanding Paul, but one could reasonably expect to find a single face, an openness about his past, and a plausible alignment of facts. But, as Harold had to admit, Paul started his pattern at an early age:
Early in his youth he was involved in a variety of activities, but he made it a point to obscure any facts associated with this life. In so doing, he left a trail so clouded that it’s going to take our historians years to piece it together.47
This account fits the pattern described by the Healys when they wrote:
[I]t manifests itself most frequently by far over a period of years, or even a lifetime. It represents a trait rather than an episode.48
As Harold likes to say, it couldn’t be clearer. Paul started at an early age, warping the facts of his life so that there would be conflicting and exasperating evidence.
This also recalls the first characteristic in the definition: proneness to “falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view.” While the pattern of many of the lies in later stages of Paul’s life has specific objectives and are quite calculated, these early distortions have no discernible end. At this point, “early in his youth,” Paul’s distortions are better described as part of a character fault, an inclination to mislead and create a reality different from the truth. Harold helps us to see the seeds of this behavioral pattern. They had been highly developed by the time he decided to create Eckankar. In reviewing the written records of Paul’s life, Harold provides us with a glimpse of Paul’s reasoning and his strategy in obscuring his record. He likens it to a tax protestor trying to hide from the responsibility of paying taxes:
[O]ne way to obscure your record is to provide the computers with such a mishmash or volume of information that no one could keep up with it.49
Only Harold has access to these records, and only he is in a position to characterize what he has seen. In any case, it is difficult to square Harold’s description with Paul’s admonition about the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Harold provides even more evidence of this pattern:
At 27 years of age, the most Paul had ever done was to teach physical education. But by the time he wrote it all up, exaggerating and twisting the facts, he had worked up a nice little paragraph about all the grand achievements of one Paul Twitchell.50
Obviously, Harold’s description of Paul’s actions as “exaggerating and twisting the facts” is a euphemism. Harold tried very hard to paint things in the best light possible and attributed most of his findings to the experiences that Paul had to go through to become the Mahanta, the Living Eck Master. How else could a true believer or someone whose position depends on true believers describe it?
Some of Paul’s more egregious distortions and lies include:
His date of birth and allowing such distortions to persist51
His place of birth, in this lifetime and in a past lifetime52
His birth mother and her background53
His birth father54
His spiritual master55 and training in India56
His experience and achievement to get into Kentucky’s Who’s Who57
His background and experience to get published in Ripley’s Believe It or Not58
His military service59
His association with Kirpal Singh60
Lies about his experiences in The Tiger’s Fang (claiming that Rebazar Tarzs not Kirpal Singh accompanied him)61
Hundreds of instances of plagiarism over many years; and persistence in the practice of plagiarism even after it had been demonstrated 62
The line of 971 Vairagi Eck Masters with cunning and imagination, and fabrication of historical references and histories for more that 125 of them 63
A super-deity called “the Mahanta, the Living Eck Master,” endowed with such mythological powers (e.g., “God made flesh,” “Son of God,” etc.) as to constitute megalomania 64
Attribution of writings and plagiarisms to fictional Eck Masters rather than revealing their true source65
Origins of terminology, concepts, and principles in the Radhasoami Satsang teaching
Sources of inner planes to distinguish Eckankar’s cosmology from that of Radhasoami Satsang from whom he copied it.
Normal writers openly carry their pasts with them. It is what constrains excess and causes them to hold to the truth in their work. The conviction in their writing comes from an inner comfort that they have been true to their past. There is even a perceivable note of caution in their writing as they scan their memory for inconsistencies. But the pathological liar has no such constraint. He is able to dive into his work and create a personal and self-serving reality that is complete and self-contained within a particular story line. His chief concern is that the story be consistent with what has been said or written before.
Lest we think the pathological liar is without charm or amicability, we are reminded that:
While the normal liar and swindler is forced to be on his guard lest he divulge something of the actual state of affairs, and is therefore either taciturn or presents an evil and watchful appearance or, if a novice at his trade, is hesitating in his replies, the pathological liar has a cheerful, open, free, enthusiastic, charming appearance, because he believes in his stories and wishes their reality.66
As one reads the various accounts of Paul’s personal life, as told by Patti Simpson, Harold Klemp, Brad Steiger, and others, Paul comes across as a kind, considerate, totally serious advocate for the Eckankar teaching. His cheerfulness and enthusiasm were infectious and evoked great dedication from Eckists:
The one thing every single person remembered the most was the great love that Paul had for others. . . . He showed kindness and consideration for even the smallest concerns of others.67
These characteristics as much as anything make it difficult to ascribe malevolent motives to Paul. But these positive traits are consistent with those of the pathological liar. They are part of the act. Such a kind, considerate, and loving person, one is prone to believe, would certainly not lie. In assuming that Paul would always speak the truth, the seeker would also feel that the master was someone who could be trusted, and in whose hands she could surrender her spiritual life. Paul evoked total devotion from his followers. His warm personality was so disarming that no one ever publicly suggested that something underhanded might be at work. Such a revelation would have helped many Eckists who struggled to understand how a spiritually gifted man could indulge in something so base as plagiarism and distortion. That virtually no one connected the dots to see the pattern to Paul’s behavior helps to explain how Eckankar has survived so long.
This leads to a fascinating question. What awaits the person who defends the life and teachings of a pathological liar? What price does he pay for misleading and allowing others to be misled by a teaching he knows to be false? Harold’s writings show the dangers of defending the indefensible. Devotion to truth is replaced with devotion to an individual, an organization, and its dogma.
This was apparent following my last talk to an Eckankar audience, when I spoke of “ the ONE” (God) and said that the true inner guidance comes from within, from soul. I presented techniques for tapping the inner power each of us possesses. I discussed how everyone must look inside for answers and not to a master. I likened the master’s role to that of a parent or teacher: it is initially important but must eventually come to an end. Interestingly, these ideas are found in Paul’s writings (contradicted in his later writings, of course) but are no longer part of Eckankar doctrine. It is the imperious passages of the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad to which the attention of the Eckist is now focused. It is the dogma about Eckankar expressed in these volumes that is now the core of the teachings of Eckankar.
For such heresy, I received a letter from Eckankar reprimanding me for pronouncements inconsistent with “Eckankar doctrine” — their very words. They directed that I should no longer speak in the name of Eckankar. They were right of course, for, by that time, I had uncovered much of the truth revealed in this book and could no longer teach their doctrine, as they wanted. As a God-seeker, I could only communicate the truth as I knew and understood it. I have stated that truth is the sacred connection that we have with the infinite. It is the infallible road to the awareness of ALL THAT IS, of which we are all a part. To abandon truth for the fool’s gold of a self-appointed master, the lure of pious initiations, and the promise of never having to reincarnate is to delay or abandon the quest for God-Realization.
Instead of the noble path of helping others toward God-Realization, Harold has detoured souls into an illusory world from which spiritual liberation is necessary before the journey to God-Realization can resume. Having chosen this course, Harold must now stand guard to defend his organizational prize from pretenders and reformers who would wrest it from him. For now, he has locked himself in his headquarters and linked his fate with the defense of a lie. Harold’s attempt to rationalize deception and dishonesty betrays the path he has chosen. Harold is now the apologist-in-chief for the mythomania in the life and teachings of Paul Twitchell.
This does not mean that Paul and his successors did not integrate a measure of truth in their writings and teachings. They have, as I have tried to make clear. Had this not been so, the hundreds of thousands who have read and been influenced by Paul’s writings and also those of Darwin and Harold, would have abandoned Eckankar long ago. Even when the fiction of the Vairagi Masters, the manufactured history of Eckankar, and the deification of the Mahanta, the Living Eck Master, is removed, important truth remains amid the shambles.
The journey to awareness of our oneness with the infinite has only experienced a brief detour, but perhaps a salutary one. The God-seeker need only disengage from personalities, organizations, and dogma and reaffirm truth as the center of life. There is a great deal that can be retained as she moves on in her spiritual growth. We have all been at this juncture before. Once realigned, her course is righted and she emerges from the experience wiser and stronger. There should be no regrets, for this is how soul learns and grows. The test is whether soul knows when to let go and move on to the next step in the journey.
| Chapter 6 | Eckankar: Revealed by Truth |
| Chapter 7 | Twitchellian Techniques of Spiritual Creativity: The Ten Devices |
| Chapter 8 | The Origins of Eckankar Doctrine |
| Chapter 9 | The Psychology of Paul Twitchell |
| Chapter 10 | Eckankar Following the Twitchell Years |
1. Paul Twitchell, The Spiritual Notebook (Golden Valley: Illuminated Way Publishing, 1990), p. 223.
2. Ibid., p. 224.
3. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition (Springfield: Merriam-Webster, 1993), p. 343.
4. Harold Klemp, “The Wisdom Notes,” The Mystic World of Eckankar 34 (2002): 8.
5. See William Healy and Mary Tenney Healy, Pathological Lying, Accusation and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology, Chapter 1, at http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext96/ pathl10.txt.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., Chapter 2, p. 4.
8. Michael S. Myslobodsky, The Mythomanias: the Nature of Deception and Self-Deception (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), p. 2.
9. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, at http://www.bartleby.com/61/92/ M0199200.html.
10. Paul Twitchell, The Drums of ECK (Las Vegas: Illuminated Way Press, 1970), p. 5.
11. Brad Steiger, In My Soul I Am Free (Menlo Park: Illuminated Way Press, 1968), pp. 54-55.
12. See Harold Klemp, The Secret Teachings (Minneapolis: Eckankar, 1989), p. 144.
13. See American Psychiatric Association (2000), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV. 4th ed., at http://www.psych.org/clin_res/dsm/dsmintro81301.cfm.
14. See http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe04.html.
15. See Chapter 7 of the present work.
16. Klemp, The Secret Teachings, p. 143.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., p. 195.
19. See Message 362 at http://www.angelfire.com/sys/ popup_source.shtml?search_string=tuzahu.
20. Klemp, The Secret Teachings, p. 139.
21. “Another local Eckist also was very close to Paul, Mary Hald. She and I became such close friends. She used to own a printing company. On a number of occasions she would print up what would look like newspaper clippings of events about Paul. He would call or write her with a news brief and she would print it on her old printing press on newsprint so it looked like it was a clipping from a paper. She and I never considered the facts of the events weren’t legitimate.” See http:// www.angelfire.com/hi2/eckankarsurvivors/tuzahu.html, Message 357.
22. See The Courier-Journal, Roto Magazine, Louisville, Kentucky, (November 7, 1943), from Dean McMakin, “The Life Of Paul Twitchell Modern-Day Founder of Eckankar,” (Documents from the McCracken County Public Library Special Collections, Paducah, Kentucky, 1992). See also http:// www.thetruth-seeker.com.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid. Paul was a student at two colleges, never graduating from either and never a confirmed faculty member of either.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. See Jack Jarvis, “Paul Twitchell, Man of Parts,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 9, 1963. See www.thetruth-seeker.com for photo-copy of article.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. See Hardin County Independent, Elizabethtown, Illinois (August 10, 1939), from Dean McMakin, “The Life Of Paul Twitchell Modern-Day Founder of Eckankar.” See also http:// www.thetruth-seeker.com.
38. See “Local Writer Attaining Wide Fame for Work” from Dean McMakin, “The Life of Paul Twitchell Modern-Day Founder of Eckankar” (Documents from the McCracken County Public Library Special Collections, Paducah, Kentucky, 1992). See also http://www.thetruth-seeker.com.
39. See Jarvis, “Paul Twitchell, Man of Parts.”
40. Ibid.
41. William Healy and Mary Tenney Healy, Pathological Lying, Accusation and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology, Chapter 2, p. 4, at http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext96/ pathl10.txt.
42. Ibid.
43. See accounts of Mattie Twitchell, in Wilson, “Courier Journal Magazine,” (January 10, 1982), quoted in David C. Lane, The Making of a Spiritual Movement: The Untold Story of Paul Twitchell and Eckankar (Del Mar: Del Mar Press, 1993), p. 20.
44. Letter from Paul Iverlet to Jim Anderson, March 31, 1975, at http://members.tripod.com/~dlane5/iverlet1.html. Also quoted in Lane, The Making of a Spiritual Movement, p. 14.
45. See “Friction in Twitchell Camp of Liar’s League,” from Dean McMakin, “The Life of Paul Twitchell Modern-Day Founder of Eckankar.” See also http://www.thetruth-seeker.com (emphasis added).
46. Klemp, The Secret Teachings, p. 139.
47. Ibid., p. 141.
48. Healy and Healy, Pathological Lying, Chapter 2, p. 4, at http:// ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext96/pathl10.txt.
49. Klemp, The Secret Teachings, p. 141.
50. Ibid., pp. 142-43.
51. See Chapter 7 above, Device One.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., Device Three.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid, Device Two.
63. Ibid, Device Four.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid., Device Five.
66. Healy and Healy, Pathological Lying, Chapter 2, pp. 9-10.
67. Klemp, The Secret Teachings, pp. 152-153.
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