the eck masters (2)
A
What of the rod of power ?
--------------------------
Could there be anything to the "rod of power", is it possible that
anyone who is not a spiritual master holds such an enormous power over
others ?
Eckankar states that Paul Twitchell received the rod of power from
Rebazar Tarzs. I think enough proof has been presented to indicate
that Rebazar Tarzs is a fictitious character (see other chapters and
Lane's works). So obviously there is no ontological reality to this
concept besides the power that a believer gives to the EMs over
himself.
Dean Edwards who set ARE into motion tried to justify the use of that
concept in the following way in one of his articles:
"An interesting area to look outside of Eckankar would be inder the
concepts of the Cosmic/World Column or Pillar and Axis-Mundi Even more
specific references are made under the term "hail in the sky" among
certain Ural-Altaic peoples.
[...]
The whole discussion on the concept of the Rod of Power touches on
something that goes beyond Eckankar or any group. It is a sacred
archetype that each person must explore. [...] I am writing here of
the Rod itself, not about this discussion about the Rod of Power (as
it is known in Eckankar)."
But, as he says himself, he is speaking about something else than the
"rod of power" as used in eckankar: an archetype is nothing one single
person can hold, pass to a successor and handle for others. Thus the
eckankar version of the rod of power is not an archetype, nor does it
have much in common with one except that Twitchell may have used an
archetypical image to build up personal power.
What then of the psychic abilities that Twitchell and his successors
are supposed to have had ?
First of all, it doesn't take particularly high spiritual advancement
to develop psychic powers, nor do they necessarily occur in advanced
practicioners. They seem to be necessary for spiritual freedom as much
as a muscular body, although the reverse is true much more often: many
high masters do have extraordinary psychic powers. But even if every
frog was green, that doesn't mean that being something green is an
indication of being a frog, not even that it is an indication of being
a frog more likely than a non-frog.
Therefore, having psychic powers in itself is not an indication of
spiritual advancement at all. A spiritual master may have such
abilities but hardly shows them for frivolous purposes. One can be
sure that one is not very advanced, however, when someone makes great
claims for powers while a closer look reveals his lack thereof.
Let's take a look at the Twitchell's actions in this light, and use
the example of his supposed prophetical abilities: he made dozens of
prophecies which can already be checked for accuracy, none of which
turned out right. Examples are predictions concerning the next
president of the United States, the future of the eckankar movement
(e.g. eck temple in Nevada), and (true to his hang towards science
fiction) a "moon plague" that would extinguish more than 30% of
mankind after man would visit the moon.
One of the more revealing predictions concerned his own life and
future:
His "prophecy" in 1965 when he founded eckankar was that he would step
back as the LEM after five years. By then, however, his "Tiger's Fang"
had started to sell, a success that he had probably longed for as an
unsuccessful science fiction author for years and years. Also now he
was practically God for many.
Half of the eckists left the movement in 1970 when Twitchell said that
the next Mahanta is at least 15 years away, and his term was extended
for at least five years. He also said that the coming master to serve
in between was still a child (see "Influences of tha astral worlds"
WW1970 tape): the omniscient master had made a wrong prophecy. He
tried to justify this by inventing the story of having been poisoned
in Spain. In the same breath, however, he had made two other wrong
prophecies: the truth was that both Klemp and Gross were adults at the
time, and that he himself he died less than a year later of
arteriosclerotic heart disease in '71 [under very embarrassing
circumstances (see below **)].
He didn't even know he was going to die on the very night that he did
because that night he announced plans that filming should be done with
him, tracing back the stations of his life (that he had in reality
never seen, of course - see "Difficulties of becoming the Living Eck
Master").
People might argue that it is hard to make prophecies because the
future isn't fixed. However, there have been examples of very precise
prophecies over very long time spans. For example, the prophecies of
Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) have amazed people for more than a
thousand years. So there are genuine prophets, and even if their high
percentage of right predicitons may not be exactly 100%, this wouldn't
be a justification for a would-be-prophet's total failure to give
better predicitions than flipping a coin would. Also, Twitchell failed
with predictions about the very near future, not only about very long
periods for which the flexible future argument would be worth
considering. But even if the future is actually so incredibly flexible
that prophecies are likely to turn out false, then the prophet should
be the first to realize this and not give any.
In light of all this, the alleged psychic abilities of Twitchell will
have to be considered mostly projections of his admirers. This is not
to say that he didn't have any at all (any teenager has moments where
he can read the mind of his beloved), but they certainly have not been
outstanding, besides that even that wouldn't mean much.
(**) about Twitchell's death in my email:
[person1->]
"Concerning the personal stuff on Twitchell, it is a bit lurid.
"I was informed on a number of occasions by Ed Pecen and Dr. Louis
Bluth about what happened with Twitchell the nite he died. He was
with another woman (I know her name--she even did a tape, which Pecen
has, describing what happened); apparently Twitchell died during or
after having sex with the alleged woman. Apparently there was also a
number of sexual aids/pornographic materials in the room also--which
Bluth and Pecen cleaned up when they discovered the body.
"It was difficult for Eckankar to explain why another woman, not Gail,
was with Twitchell when he died. The official story is that she wanted
to be with a master when he translated (of course, Eckankar didn't say
that she also wanted to sleep with him before he died).
"There was also some reports about Gail's relationship with Darwin
before Twitchell's death, which Pecen went into some detail about.
Paul Twitchell also apparently had a few encounters with Eckists
(women)
"I have a lot more detail about this, but I would have to go to my
previous stored files [...]"
[eckist->]
"Yeah well, Paulji and the babes. And Darwin and more babes. Harold
has been considerably more circumspect, probably even genuinely
faithful to Marge, then Joan. But then there is the Ecclesiastical
Impulse accumulating under his aegis... grrrrooooaaaannn... May we
have the babes back, please... ('just kidding).
"The bit about Paul and A'a I knew. She is an old friend, one of my
first real influences in ECK. Brilliant, beautiful, extremely
charismatic individual -- and believe me, she paid the piper in the
years following Paul's death. [...]"
[person3->]
"It was Anya Foos-Graber. Today she's a student of Satya Sai Baba I
think, she's into "deathing", going through the death experience as a
therapuetic thing."
[eckist->]
">Concerning the personal stuff on Twitchell, it is a bit lurid.
>[blah, blah, blah from p1...] It was difficult for Eckankar to
>explain why another woman, not Gail, was with Twitchell when he
>died. The official story is that she wanted to be
"Actually (though I CAN NOT believe I am responding to this stuff...),
Paul and Gail had been separated for about three months before his
death. My opinion is that A. was every bit Paul's equal on many, many
levels, and the fact that he modelled the heroine after her in at
least two of his novels is testimony to something like serious
devotion.
">individual -- and believe me, she paid the piper in the years
>following Paul's death.
"By this I meant a number of things having to do with A.'s overall
well-being, which took a real beating (like any bereaved lover would,
but she had absolutely no way to get the social support that should
come with this condition...)
">p3 sez: It was Anya Foos-Graber. Today she's a student of Satya Sai
>Baba I think, she's into "deathing", going through the death
>experience as a therapuetic thing.
"A. bailed out during the DG administration -- being that DG was
giving her unmitigated hell about HER non-authoritarian stance
vis.a.vis the teachings. And just for the record, her thanatological
work predates by many years her involvement with Paul. See
'Skycleaver' for details.
"See you on the rebound..."
---
An Exist commented doubts about Dr. Bluth's reliability on ARE:
"Timmy spaked thusly:
">Doc Bluth was really mad when he didn't become Paul T's
>successor.......
"Actually, Chet Tuttle was really mad when he didn't become Paul T's
successor.........
"Doc Bluth was (is?) a no-nonsense guy and had no patience for such
foolishness. And yes, I was there and did know them. I'll never forget
delivering the first edition of the Eck World News to the Las Vegas
Headquarters and watching Chet Tuttle disdainfully point out the he
considered the overinflated ego of the editor, Patti Simpson. This was
very shortly after Paul's death and it was obvious the power struggle
was already on.
"Wouldn'tsteeryouwrong,guy Sam"
Common argumentation:
---------------------
"It is the inner master that counts, not the outer"
On the one hand, if only the inner master counts why would one cling
to the outer one ? On the other hand, if one's inner develeopment is
somehow mysteriously connected with the outer master after all, then
how could one possibly dream of being uninfluenced by the severe
negativity that the outer masters have practiced?
Also, is this statement in accordance with the teachings of eckankar ?
Chapter Eight of "The precepts of eckankar" teaches:
"It is a fixed spiritual law that only a physically embodied man can
act as the Sat Guru for those who are still in their physical bodies."
I didn't think this up, nor do I say it is right or wrong. But it
expresses the teachings of eck, according to which which Eckists who
see the outer master (and consequently his flaws) as unimportant are
deluding themselves.
Jeff Hayes answered to the inner/outer justification on ARE:
"The help I always needed was on the outer. I have had out-of-body
experiences but never while contemplating. Eck [...] was of little
value in connecting me to the Sound and Light. I have been able to
manage some interesting things on my own - but Eck has not been a big
part of the growth."
"When saying that Twitchell is fraud you mean that he has copied
other teachings or that he didn't have any spiritual experiences ?"
I mean he claimed to be someone he wasn't.
"Twitchell was driven by God to do what he did"
Being habitually bitter and driven by activism is obviously opposite
to having found peace. People keep suggesting that Twitchell was so
active because God demanded him to. But in order to write what eck is
about, even all different aspects, three books would have been
enough. He went to great lengths to create the illusion of many works
and scriptures (that were all just repetitions from the same
materials) so that it takes a while and a lot of studying to see
through the meagerness of the teaching and through the
confusion. Apparently, that's what drove him, not god. If one is being
driven, he obviously hasn't found peace. Does it take my opinion to
see this ?
"Why can't Twitchell just have been a little confused concerning his
teaching, and nevertheless helpful on our way to freedom ?"
Creating and fostering confusion is incompatible with promoting
spiritual freedom because spiritual freedom is simply the absolute
absence of confusion.
It was Tom Flamma who saved some truths about Twitchell from being
lost, since he quotes Twicthell's "Paradox of the lie" which expresses
his view that speaking a lie isn't bad when people want to be fed
lies. See "Paradoxes" in "Metaphysics - A Bridge to Eckankar".
Obviously, neither Twitchell nor Flamma cared whether they spoke truth
- they enjoyed the "creativity" of producing their own myths.
All of Twitchell's interpretations of the world and other teachings
simply had one goal: to make himself and his teaching appear to be the
highest in the world, and to make other teachings appear to have
gotten stuck somewhere. He never cared if what he said was true but
practiced a lot of concept-juggling until the poor listeners were so
confused that they finally settled for thinking that there must be
something to it although they don't understand a word he's saying.
Henosis Sage
Graber, Gail Twitchell separated from Paul Twitchell circa June 1971,
and circumstances surrounding his death in Cincinatti.