The Cover-up Revisited - part 2
KMerrymoon
Name replacements are merely one aspect of Paul Twitchell's invented mythology.
For instance, there is no historical evidence to support Paul Twitchell ever
meeting Sudar Singh or Rebazar Tarzs in a PHYSICALLY VERIFIABLE fashion. Hence,
I have argued that Twitchell created a fictional biography about himself which
intertwined fact and hagiography into a religious mythology.
Thus, I argued that the mention of Sudar Singh in 1964 was itself a literary
invention.
It is nice to know that these are David's arguments, but when it comes to
accusations of a cover-up, I still prefer more than theories. I think we
deserve real facts before we pass judgment on someone else.
It is true that no hard evidence has come to light proving Paul's physical
encounter with Sudar Singh, who according to Paul died around 1936. However,
this hardly counts as proof. We actually have very little documentation of
Paul's encounters before this time.
As far as Rebazar Tarzs goes, to my knowledge every encounter that Paul
describes was either via Soul Travel, or through Rebazar Tarzs manifesting his
presence to meet with Paul. In other words, there is no reason to think that
there should be any physical evidence concerning Paul's meetings with Rebazar
Tarzs, nor would there be any reason to look for any.
Of course if David wants to consider Rebazar Tarzs as a fictional creation of
Paul's, he is free to do so, but this is another matter altogether, which I
have also discussed in detail in my book. This has nothing to do with covering
something up.
It is not hard to see that David fundamentally has a problem with what he feels
is a mythology created by Paul. From a scientific standpoint, this is certainly
understandable. Even an objective review suggests that Paul romanticized
elements of his stories. However, a study of any spiritual teaching or
religious belief can always produce such romanticizing.
There are many popular beliefs these days that suggest we should be coldly
honest with our biographies, and eliminate mythologies in our thinking.
However, it is belief and myth that our dreams and goals spring from. Telling
people that they are not essentially spiritual beings visiting this world to
learn and grow spiritually, but rather mechanical creatures of biology and
chemistry, is simply sentencing people to a life without meaning or purpose,
and a life that cannot touch the heart of God as taught by spiritual teachers
down through the ages. This has nothing to do with honesty, but is just a cold,
scientifically based mythology.
Consider this: Sigmund Freud hated biography. He disliked the whole concept,
and at the age of 29 burned his professional papers so that biographers could
not define his life. Shortly before he died, he wrote: "Anyone who writes a
biography is committed to lies, concealments, hypocrisy, flattery, and even to
hiding his own lack of understanding, for biographical truth does not exist..."
Freud did not believe our lives should be defined and understood, like a fixed
thing, but should become an endless process of re-describing and rediscovery.
In other words, Freud wanted to be a real, living person to people, not a fixed
thing.
Trying to bring a scientific approach to the analysis of a spiritual teaching
is like trying to study a cooking recipe as if it were a political plot. In
other words, you are going to miss the whole of a spiritual teaching if you
judge its message based on looking for physical inconsistencies. The teaching
must be studied from the whole, not the parts. It is a living thing, not a
fixed thing.
This is especially true with mythology. In our modern world, myths have become
synonymous with lies. Unfortunately, the real power of myths to transmit deeper
truths has been lost to our culture because of this blindness. The work of
Joseph Campbell shows how much true wisdom has been rejected by such thinking.
Most of a spiritual teaching is passed on from teacher to student, not by
words, but by working with spiritual currents that bring real experiences and
changes in how we see life. That is what the path of ECK is about - consciously
working with these currents of Spirit and the meaning of Life itself. It is
not, and will never be a fixed thing defined by its pieces.
So, it's not surprising that David finds Paul's writings to be works of
imagination and creative inspiration, because that is exactly the point of what
Paul is writing about and trying to teach. Conscious co-creation with Life.
While I can certainly understand that Paul's teaching style would bother some
people, since he creatively plays with the line of factual reality from time to
time, that just happens to be Paul's style. It's a part of the way he tells
stories. It proves to us nothing about sinister intentions like David is
suggesting.
Paul had little care for the normal conventions of teaching, and chose to be
the individualist playing by his own rules. That just happens to be who Paul
was. He openly admitted it, and he lived this way.
However, this is a far cry from the deceit and cover-up that David is trying to
argue.
DAVID LANE CONTINUES:
Now on to the meat of Doug's intriguing theory:
Why David says this I don't know. How he could consider my next comments the
meat of my theory is completely baffling. In fact, what follows is something I
consider only of incidental interest. It is rather more of an ironic accident.
Hardly the meat of my theory.
However, let's see what David has to say:
DOUG MARMAN WROTE IN CHAPTER ELEVEN:
However, what did come to light, strangely enough, was the fact that David
himself had redacted one of the names in Paul's writings, in his own book. Ken
Stoltzfus wrote the following post about this surprising news that Rich Smith
had discovered:
Let me see if I understand this correctly. In the original "Making" book, David
Lane skipped over the name Sudar Singh and replaced it with "...". Then in the
web version he simply DELETED the name, ellipsis and all? Which in effect
changed the intended meaning of the author?
If that's true then it's pretty clear that David Lane changed the words that
someone else wrote in order to present his theory in a better light. He
deliberately deceived his readers...
And Joe laughs it off while Lurk ignores it, all the while calling Paul
Twitchell a liar because he changed *his own words*.
Michael's right. This is bizarre.
DAVID LANE REPLIES:
If you read that section of the book closely, you will see that I highlighted
TWO historical figures to illustrate a point. I did not use the entire
advertisement but only that section which underlined the fact that Paul
Twitchell had indeed mentioned Kirpal Singh and Swami Premananda by name in an
early proto-advertisement. The use of ellipsis was not meant as deceit since I
included a photocopy of the ENTIRE advertisement in my original book (and I
have also posted the complete advertisement on the web).
Why I used only a small portion of that advertisement was to underline the
point that I was trying to make about how Paul Twitchell had indeed mentioned
Premananda and Kirpal Singh. If one reads the preceding two paragraphs leading
to this excerpted advertisement it is obvious what I am trying to highlight.
Here is the exact quote (including the edited version sans the ellipsis):
"In the 1970's, the International Headquarters of Eckankar vehemently denied
that their founder was ever initiated by the late Kirpal Singh, or that
Twitchell considered the Ruhani Satsang adept a Master. In pursuance of
Eckankar's official stand on this issue, I sent a letter of inquiry to their
headquarters in Menlo Park. Below are excerpts of what I received:
"Kirpal Singh and the Radha Swoami [sic] tried to "claim" Paul Twitchell and
use him for their own purposes, as have other groups from the East and West.
Paul mentioned this several times and at one point wrote a letter to Kirpal
Singh and his associates stating that he, Paul, would take Singh and his
associates to court if necessary. Due to the threats and harassment and
material Kirpal Singh and Mr. Khanna tried to use against Paul Twitchell by
faking Paul's signature on many papers. Paul wrote that letter that his widow,
Gail Twitchell, gave me permission to read. . . "
It is obvious from the above extract that Eckankar strongly denies their
founder's involvement with Ruhani Satsang. Their position, however, on Kirpal
Singh's alleged forging of Twitchell's signature on "many papers" is without
any documentary basis. Neither has Darwin Gross or Gail Atkinson (also
initiated by Kirpal Singh) adequately explained why if Twitchell was never a
follower of Kirpal Singh did he state both in articles and in letters that he
was? A paradigm for the whole matter comes from one of Eckankar's first
"proto-advertisements." In 1965, a few months prior to Eckankar's official
inception, Twitchell distributed his "Bilocation Sheet." It reads:
PAUL TWITCHELL PRESENTS:
New Concepts on the Ancient Teachings of Bilocation Paul Twitchell, author,
traveler, and lecturer gives a new presentation of the ancient art of
bilocation, out-of-body experiences, in a series of public lectures. . . He has
studied under Swami Premananda, Self Realization Order, Washington, and Kirpal
Singh to name a few.
I think the fact that the ellipsis are absent in the later editions is a
mistake and I will correct it, but the reason behind the abbreviated quote is
obvious.... to underline the issue of the prior paragraphs that Paul had indeed
mentioned the names of his former teachers in one of his advertisments.
I find this whole issue strangely ironic, as Ken said, which is the only reason
I brought it up. It is hardly a serious matter, or the "meat" of my theory.
However, the first question to ask is why would David remove Sudar Singh's
name? I don't get it.
The quote should say: "...He has studied under Sudar Singh of Allahabad, India,
Swami Premananda, Self-Realization Order, Washington, and Kirpal Singh to name
a few."
Why leave out only Sudar Singh's name? It may not significantly change the
point that David is making in his book, but it certainly is relevant, given
that he goes on to claim that Paul used Sudar Singh as a cover name for Kirpal
Singh or Swami Premananda. David just told us a few paragraphs earlier that
Sudar Singh was introduced as a cover name for Swami Premananda, and yet here
he is removing Sudar's name, which was side by side with Premananda.
Why modify Paul's quote just so that it will say only what David wants it to
say?
Like I have said, I don't see this as a big deal, but the irony is that David
is caught "redacting" one of Paul's teachers from Paul's writings. David is not
editing his own writings, but Paul's writings. It sure seems odd.
What is even odder is that David would have to explain himself to clear up the
confusion. Why do I say this? Because Paul never had such a chance to explain
his own name redactions, since he died long before this ever became an issue.
In other words, it is strange that David doesn't see the double standard here.
This is exactly what Ken's point was: It's okay for David to redact Paul's
writings, but not for Paul to edit his own words. Why? Well because David is
still alive to explain himself and believes he has a good reason.
As for David's quote from his book, I object to his characterization of
ECKANKAR's response to him as something they "vehemently denied." David does
not tell us that ECKANKAR's letter began like this:
Dear David:
Thank you for your letter of March 19th requesting some information about Sri
Paul Twitchell in conjunction with your comprehensive report on the ECKANKAR
movement. I trust I can be of some service along this line.
The letter then goes on for five paragraphs, offering what Bernadine Burlin and
Darwin felt was relevant information concerning Paul and his relationship with
Kirpal. The letter then concludes like this:
David, we thank you in your interest in ECKANKAR, and we would very much like
to have a copy of your completed report for our files if this is possible. You
may send it to my attention and I will pass it along to Sri Darwin Gross.
Sincerely,
Bernadine Burlin.
The letter hardly comes off as a "vehement" denial of anything. In fact, it
seems genuinely friendly to me. Although, once again, we find that Darwin and
BB were misinformed about Paul studies with Kirpal Singh, it certainly does not
read as if they were trying to cover anything up here, but simply correct what
they thought were mistakes made by a college student who was writing a term
paper on a teaching he had only studied from the outside.
David continues with his rebuttal of my Chapter Eleven:
DOUG MARMAN WROTE IN CHAPTER ELEVEN:
David tried to argue that Sudar's name in this article was a name replacement
for one of Paul's other teachers, but Sudar's name was side by side with
Kirpal's name, as well as Swami Premananda's name.
DAVID LANE REPLIES:
In the MAKING I did not make an argument along these lines.
I didn't say that David said this in his book. Chapter Eleven from my book,
which David is quoting here, is a chapter devoted to the Internet discussion
that developed from my book. David most definitely did state this during our
Internet dialogue.
DAVID LANE CONTINUES:
My point is actually simpler: Sudar Singh is an invented character and
Twitchell has employed him to create a fictional biography about himself. Thus
in this early advertisement Sudar Singh may or may not be used as a name
replacement (L. Ron Hubbard?), but is nevertheless an invention. I think this
literary invention is used by Twitchell to create a mythology about his past
and also as an all-purpose cover-name when needed.
More theories, more imaginary motivation and intentions, but no real facts to
prove his assertions. Unfortunately David's whole idea of cover-names falls
apart since there is not even one piece of evidence that Paul ever replaced a
name of one of his teachers in his writings until after mid-1966, as I
described above, and then he changes all of them.
David already tried to suggest that Sudar Singh in this article was a cover
name for L. Ron Hubbard, during our Internet dialogues. Apparently he forgot
that this doesn't work, since Paul's "proto-advertisement" as David calls it
was focused on his teaching of "bi-location", which as Paul says was a practice
that few Westerners knew anything about. That's when Paul goes on to tell us
about his teachers from the East.
L. Ron Hubbard was hardly an Eastern teacher, and Paul knew far more than
Hubbard ever would on bi-location before Paul even met Hubbard.
So, we can see that David is just casting negative aspersions on Paul with
nothing to back up his assertions. All we are finding out here is what David
imagines to be true. It's a real shame that David can't simply stick to the
facts and put all of his theories aside until we've had a chance to interpret
the evidence for ourselves.
DOUG MARMAN WROTE IN CHAPTER ELEVEN:
I have since found two other early articles of Paul's, that show the same
thing: An article that ran in Fate Magazine in early 1966 called, Can You Be In
Two Places At The Same Time?, shows Sudar Singh, from Allahabad, India, along
with Bernard of England, a Self-Realization Swami who has a retreat in
Maryland, Kirpal Singh of Delhi, India, and Rebazar Tarzs, a Tibetan monk.
DAVID LANE REPLIES:
Are you sure this article, "Can You Be In Two Places At The Same Time." was
published by FATE Magazine? My copy of the same was published in SEARCH
MAGAZINE (not FATE) in September 1965.
In addition, in that very article Paul Twitchell writes the following:
"Kirpal Singh who is still at his own ashram in India, has the ability to
appear to his own people, in his Nuri Sarup body, no matter where they may be.
A skill which almost anybody can learn who gets the knack of bilocation. Among
my numerous discourses from many gurus in the flesh and those on the inner
planes, are those taken down when Kirpal Singh appeared in my apartment in
Washington, D.C., in his light body, although his flesh self was six-thousand
miles away in India."
Later when Paul republished this article (apparently from SEARCH in 65, though
you claim it was from FATE in 66. Can you, Doug, post the page numbers of FATE?
I got my quote from SEARCH, page 22, September 1965) he redacted the name of
Kirpal Singh and replaced it with "Sudar Singh." In addition, Twitchell changed
the location from Washington to New York.
My point? Sudar Singh is what I would call a fictional utility player. He is
used by Twitchell whenever he wants to change his biographical narrative.
In looking back at the copy of this article that I have, I can see that I may
have been mistaken about Fate magazine, since I can't find the magazine name on
the pages anywhere, but it appears that I have a different version of the
article than David does.
The article I have starts on page 14 and ends on page 18, which is definitely
different than David's Search Magazine version.
Also the quote David gave is different in my version. It starts off the same,
but goes like this:
Kirpal Singh who is still living at his own ashram in India, has the ability to
appear to his own people, in his Nuri-Sarup body, no matter where they may be.
A skill which almost anybody can learn who gets the knack of bi-location, i.e.,
a number of my own students in the California Parapsychology Foundation
workshop can verify this.
Among my numerous discourses from many gurus in the flesh and those on the
inner planes, are those taken down when Kirpal Singh appeared in my apartment
in Washington, D.C., in his light body, although his flesh self was six
thousand miles away in India. This is also true of Rebazar Tarzs, a Tibetan
monk, who appears quite frequently in my house in San Diego.
My guess is that this article also starts differently than David's version does
as well. My copy starts like this:
The woman who met me in the auditorium of the California Parapsychology
Foundation, in San Diego, just before my workshop in Bilocation, was excited
but still a little apprehensive over her first out-of-the-body experience.
So, what does all of this show us? That Paul liked to re-use his own writings
and edit them along the way. We can see he used this article at least three
different times, and they each were changed a little bit each time.
Paul didn't waste his previous writing efforts after he wanted to stop
mentioning Kirpal's name, as I mentioned above. He simply replaced the name,
made any other editing and changes that he wanted to at the same time, and kept
the rest the same.
For example, in the version that later appeared in the book, Introduction to
ECKANKAR, first printed in late 1966, the opening paragraph drops the mention
of San Diego and changes the term Bilocation to ECKANKAR.
I don't see the big crime in any of this.
DOUG MARMAN WRITES IN CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The second article was called, The God Eaters, and ran in the November 1964
issue of The Psychic Observer. In the article Paul talks about Rebazar Tarzu
[sic], who he "made contact with...through bilocation," and Kirpal Singh as his
teachers. These examples clearly show that both Sudar Singh and Rebazar Tarzs
were referred to, side by side with Kirpal Singh. It was not until late 1966
before Paul suddenly stopped referring to Kirpal Singh.
DAVID LANE REPLIES:
Yes, it is true that Paul Twitchell mentioned the name of Rebazar Tarzs and
Sudar Singh and Kirpal Singh in the same article.
That is not disputed.
However, the point that is key here is that Sudar Singh is a literary
invention.
Do I think Twitchell was inventing a past to cover his real one?
Most certainly.
The point that is key here is that these are nothing but David's theories.
David has not proven that Sudar Singh is a literary invention. And the idea
that Sudar Singh is an invention to cover his real past makes no sense, because
as we can see Paul openly talked about his other past teachers during this
time. If he was trying to cover up his real past, then why was he talking about
it?
It wasn't until mid-1966 when Paul began removing references to his previous
teachers, and all that he did was simply substitute the names of the ECK
Masters because he wanted to re-use his previous writings.
No big crime. No big cover-up. Simply editing his own writing, and no longer
referring to his previous teachers to avoid associating them with his teaching
when Paul realizes that they would not want to be associated.
DOUG MARMAN WRITES IN CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The whole problem with David's argument is that Paul merely edited his own
writing. There is nothing wrong with this. David is trying to tell us, however,
that Paul's motivation for doing this was to cover up his past. David doesn't
have a single piece of evidence to support that this was Paul's motivation, but
for over 20 years David has been proclaiming this as if it were a fact.
DAVID LANE REPLIES:
When an author writes an autobiographical piece which describes verifiable
historical events in his life and then CHANGES those very historical details
(real names, real cities, real books, real authors) while retaining the
narrative thrust of his piece then it is most certainly A COVER-UP of one's
biographical past.
Paul Twitchell really did live in Washington, D.C. when he began writing down
the words of Kirpal Singh. Indeed, he presented his words to fellow satsangis,
like Betty Shifflet.
However, when Paul started Eckankar and republished that same AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
piece he changed not only Kirpal's name (a real person) to Sudar Singh (a
literary invention) but he also changed the locale from Washington, D.C. (where
he did, in fact, live) to New York City.
This is called a cover-up in the precise meaning of the term.
Paul's early articles, lest we forget, are in part autobiographical admissions.
When he republishes those very autobiographical admissions he changes names,
places, and book titles to literary inventions which almost always have no
historical or verifiable reference.
That is called a cover-up.
Covering something up and replacing it with something new, different, and
fictional.
David is very clever at finding fancy ways of positioning his arguments. There
is no question that David is a real artist at this kind of sophistry.
Unfortunately, there is one big problem with what he writes above. Paul was not
writing an autobiography. Paul was writing an article on Bilocation, which he
later called Soul Travel. His writing was about out-of-the-body experiences,
and learning to control them. What difference does it make if he changes
Washington to New York, or Kirpal to Sudar? Who cares about these kinds of
changes?
Perhaps to someone like David, who lives on the insignificant details it is a
big deal, but I don't think it would matter to the readers of an article on
Soul Travel. As far as I can see, neither version changes the impact of the
article one way or the other, which is why Paul felt free to edit them.
The point here is that for David to prove a cover-up, he can't just show us
that Paul edited his own writings. David has to prove that Paul was
intentionally trying to cover something up. With Watergate, this meant people
admitting that Nixon called the shots and knew what was going on, while Nixon
claimed that he didn't.
That's a real cover-up. But David has no such witnesses or evidence.
In fact, David doesn't even have any quotes of Paul telling us any such
intentions, nor any witnesses telling us this either.
The closest we get to a glimpse of Paul's intentions is when he mentions that
he mentioned Kirpal's name in the first place because he felt that Kirpal was
sympathetic to Paul's work. This sure doesn't sound incriminating to me. In
fact, it makes perfect sense why Paul would no longer want to use Kirpal's name
once he learns that Kirpal had become openly critical of him.
We must also remember that Paul was publishing almost a book a month, along
with dozens of articles, while writing new discourses and giving talks and
workshops. He was working day and night to get ECKANKAR off the ground. Do we
really need to call him a criminal for cutting some corners by re-using his
previous writings and editing out the names of his teachers after he realized
his previous teachers would not want to see their names associated with his
teachings?
That is hardly a cover-up, but I find what David is doing is distortion of the
worst sort. He's trying to twist Paul's article on Soul Travel into an
autobiography so that he can make these insignificant facts in his writings
become the main focus. But once we see that Paul is simply telling stories to
explain the subject of Soul Travel in a few short pages, these little details
return to the insignificance that they deserve and the cover-up vanishes.
Continued in part 3.