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.
A Question of Dates: Who To Believe?
Harold Klemp or Paul Twitchell?
Paul Twitchell says in the book The Difficulties of Becoming the Living ECK Master that he was 16 years old when he left India and came back to the United States with his sister. According to Twitchell's account, this was after Sudar Singh's death in 1937 (though Twitchell says he could be off a year or two; forgive my sidebar, but i find it personally curious that Twitchell cannot remember the year his first Eck guru died. How many devoted disciples would "forget" the year his/her guru died? Maybe some, but how devoted?)
But, the Registrar at Western Kentucky University, says that Twitchell was "22" when he entered college in September 1933.
And, to top it off, Harold Klemp says Twitchell was born in 1908, which would make him not sixteen in 1937, 1938, 1939 (pick any date), but rather approaching 30 (if not 30 or 31).
16 or 30?
Hmm, Twitchell's first wife says he was 28 in 1940. Hmm, Twitchell's second wife says he was 18 in 1940. Hmm, Harold Klemp says he was 32 in 1940.
These dates may not seem important, but let's look closely at the next one, since it is crucial to Eckankar's theology:
Twitchell says in the Introduction to Eckankar that he first met Rebazar Tarzs "physically" in the summer of 1951.(Twitchell talks about his trip in the human body on a plane, on a boat, and hiking, with no reference whatsoever to "soul" traveling there).
Summer, 1951? high hills of Upper Bengal?
Hmm, his first wife, Camille Ballowe Taylor, states univocally that they never traveled together (or apart) from 1946 to 1955 anywhere outside of the United States. Indeed, she says Paul and her were doing the "Self-Revelation Church of Absolute Monism" at the time and helping to edit their publications.
Okay, what gives?
Soul travel?
But Twitchell says the following (of course, contradicting his dates in Introduction to Eckankar along the way) in "The Difficulties of Becoming The Living Eck Master":
"(Page 70) Well, anyway, in about 1947, it was right shortly after the Indians nation, India, received their freedom from England.... I went over into Darjeeling in the east section of India. Darjeeling is up in the northeast of India, right on the Sikkhim border. . . But it's up in the high country and I went up there at the time after being over in Allahabad, and there wasn't must left ther after Sudar Singh had passed away."
Hmm, again, Camille Ballowe Taylor, Twitchell's first wife, says that in 1947 they were together and Paul didn't travel abroad--neither alone or with her.......
Who to believe?
A guy who lies about his age?
Or a woman with no vested interest?
By the way, check the passport office.....
Rebazar Tarzs: real or fiction?
E-mail The Neural Surfer directly
at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
I want to go back to the home base now.
