E-mail David Christopher Lane
directly at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
Author: David Christopher Lane Publisher: Alt.religion.eckankar Publication date: 1996
E-mail David Christopher Lane
directly at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
I
want to go back to the home base now.
Does Eckankar Literature Contain Racist Passages? A reply to Steve's concern about the BELL CURVE and other research. 1. Twitchell categorically accepts the division of races and their respective traits due to the color of their skin. His ideas are thoroughly racist in the sense that he believes that race indicates temperament: intellectual/emotional/spiritual. Compare Twitchell's "findings" in THE ECK VIDYA, particularly pages 163-177, with any of the "findings" of the BELL CURVE. I think you will find the BELL CURVE much less racist. Of course, that's not saying much. ------------------------------------ Steve, Thanks for your note responding to my post, "Does Eckankar Literature Contain Racist Passages?--The Bell Curve vs. The Eck Vidya" 1. Your claim that I have somehow taken Twitchell's words out of context is completely untrue. All I did, if you remember, was tell you to read a large section (indeed, the entire chapter) in the ECK VIDYA where Twitchell quite clearly states his position on race. I also precisely stated why Twitchell was racist: he believes that there are certain behavioral traits related to race. That's what I said. He wrote it; read it again for yourself. I didn't hold this against Twitchell like you implied. I simply stated the obvious and then said compare Twitchell's work to the BELL CURVE (I know it is an exceptionally long work). I have found the BELL CURVE much less racist than Twitchell's own writings on race. But, as I mentioned before, that's not saying much. 2. You also state that I am misrepresenting Eckankar by saying that its literature contains racist passages. Read it for yourself, it does. You want me to comment on the BELL CURVE and somehow say it is a racist book or contains a racist methodology, but when I do the same to Eckankar (which has, to be sure, much more explicitly racist things to say in its literature--via ECK VIDYA) then I am somehow misrepresenting them. No, all I have done is simply stated the obvious: Eckankar literature contains racist passages. Now if you want to counter-argue that many religious books have passages that are racist, then go right ahead. I wouldn't disagree for a second. 3. You seem to think that I am approaching Eckankar like a sociologist or like a professional researcher, as if this kind of work is part of my academic standing. No, I have no such grand design. Remember, I simply started this project as a 19/20 year old doing a term paper. When I found out lots of funky stuff about their history, Eckankar threatened to sue me (and please never forget Jim Peebles.... poor chap). So I have kept up the investigation on the "hidden" or "untold" side of Eckankar. I was not the first to do it, by the way. Professor John Sutphin, former Eckist and former Chairperson of the Philosophy Department at Mississippi State University, did some groundbreaking work in this area in the mid-1970s. He helped me out tremendously back then. 4. I have never considered myself an "objective or neutral" researcher. I just happen to have fun digging up forgotten information about the life and work of Paul Twitchell and Eckankar. As I have repeated over and over again (mantra 109), it does not matter how biased you may think I am. The point is always the same: Can you replicate what I have stated for yourself? If Albert Hoffman was the worst and most biased researcher in the world, but he still accidentally discovered LSD, nobody would care about his motivations. Why? Because in other labs, one can duplicate his findings. So, here we go again: No matter how biased I may or may not be, the point is that for the major findings I have unearthed about Twitchell I have given you the sources (the formula in this analogy) so that you can see for yourself in your own lab whether they can be duplicated. Unlike Twitchell, I have given you pages numbers, books, magazines, cited interviews, etc. Take the following sample: 1. Plagiarism. Steve, you can say all you want, but just use Twitchell's own criterion or Eckankar's own criterion (try cribbing from Klemp's books the same way Twitchell did from Johnson and see what happens) for what constitutes plagiarism (don't forget the J.R. episode)...... It does not take a rocket scientist to see the similarities. If J.R. had done the same thing to Twitchell that Twitchell did to Johnson, then you can rest assured that Eckankar would have sued. Why? It's called literary piracy. Yet, despite our differences, I have made these findings public, so that interested readers can make their own appraisements. Twitchell did not afford his readers the same courtesy. 2. You can rant on and on about "fraud" or about "bias" or what you wish about me personally (i shall not mind), but that does not disqualify (as you imply) what has been uncovered. Why? Because now that the cat is out of the bag, anybody can compare Twitchell's accounts with the historical record. Anyone can check the formula. Now we may disagree on many things, we may even have heated disputes over interpretations and the like, but that's what is supposed to happen. So go right ahead and say I am biased, slanted, unethical, scum, whatever. I will simply go right ahead and present more plagiarism, more cover-up, more biographical inconsistencies, so that interested readers who want to check the information and comparisons for themselves will have the opportunity to do so. That modus operandi is why footnotes were invented, something that Twitchell didn't enjoy doing himself. Keep ripping, I will keep writing, and the public will at least now have the opportunity to make a much more open-minded decision about Twitchell and Eckankar's history. P.S. Why was the FAR COUNTRY taken out of circulation? This is a serious question, I really don't know. Couldn't be because it was plagiarized, since Steve said Twitchell only copied 1% of his stuff...... just curious.
E-mail The Neural Surfer directly
at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
I want to go back to the home base now.
