The Canon · No. 119
Eckankar
The Religion of the Light and Sound of God
1965 CE – present · New Religious Movement · Living · US (Minnesota), Nigeria, Ghana, worldwide
VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT
How many
Estimated 50,000–100,000; the organisation does not publish figures. Notably strong in West Africa.
Who began it
Paul Twitchell (c.1908–1971), who founded it in 1965 claiming an ancient lineage of ECK Masters.
What it is for
Direct personal experience of the divine through the inner Light and Sound, and the accelerated unfoldment of the soul.
What it worships
SUGMAD, the ineffable source, not worshipped anthropomorphically. The Mahanta, the Living ECK Master, is the current spiritual leader and inner guide — presently Harold Klemp.
What it holds
Soul is eternal and is the individual's true identity; the body is a temporary vehicle. The ECK is the divine Audible Life Current, experienced as light and sound, which pervades everything. Karma and reincarnation. The purpose of life is God-Realisation, achieved by conscious travel through the inner planes with the Master's guidance. The teaching draws heavily and, according to independent researchers, largely unacknowledged on the Indian Sant Mat and Radhasoami traditions, in which Twitchell had studied.
What it does
Spiritual exercises, chiefly chanting HU, a name for God, in twenty-minute sessions. Soul Travel, deliberate out-of-body experience. Dream study as a serious discipline, with dream journals. Contemplation. Initiations through successive levels, granted privately by the Master. Vegetarianism is not required.
After death
Reincarnation until the soul completes its education; karma governs the sequence. Between lives the soul occupies one of the inner planes according to its development. The goal is release from the wheel and residence in the pure spiritual planes as a co-worker with God. Eckankar teaches that the Mahanta meets the soul at death and guides it — the movement's central pastoral promise, and it has no hell.
Its texts
The Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, presented as the ECK scripture. ECKANKAR: The Key to Secret Worlds. Harold Klemp's extensive output.
Its branches
Eckankar under the Mahanta; the Ancient Teachings of the Masters, founded by Darwin Gross after his expulsion; MasterPath and other Sant Mat derivatives.
Of note
Eckankar is the clearest Western example of an Indian initiatory tradition — Sant Mat — repackaged with a new vocabulary and an invented lineage. Its practices work for its members regardless, which is itself worth noticing about how religions get built.
Its timeline
- 1965 CE Twitchell founds Eckankar in San Diego.
- 1970s CE Scholarly criticism. David C. Lane's research documents extensive unattributed borrowing from Radhasoami literature and from the writings of Julian Johnson, and disputes the claimed lineage. Eckankar disputes his conclusions.
- 1971 CE Twitchell dies; Darwin Gross succeeds.
- 1981 CE Harold Klemp becomes the Mahanta; Gross is later expelled and litigation follows.
- 1986–1990 CE Headquarters relocate to Chanhassen, Minnesota; the Temple of ECK is built and dedicated in 1990.
- 1990s–present Substantial growth in Nigeria and Ghana, where Eckankar is one of the larger new religious movements.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.