Related Groups
Several groups claimed to carry on the original teachings of Paul Twitchell and Eckankar. Sri Darwin Gross (now deceased) used the name Ancient Teaching of the Masters (ATOM), after being precluded from using the Eck terminology, Sri Paul Marché claims to carry on for his Master, Sri Darwin Gross using the name Dhunami, after being precluded from using the ATOM terminology. Other claimants include AKATHA - and Sri Timothy Arnold / Sri Kahtifji (The Mahaji) respectively. John-Roger's Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness appears to have split from the main body of Eckankar, though Gross, Marché and Sri Kahtifji claim to be preserving the originality of the teachings.
Former ECKist Ford Johnson formed a spiritual organization based on the idea that one does not need a master or spiritual guru to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Other former ECKists and their groups, like Sri Michael Owens's "The Way of Truth: Path to God Realization"; Sri Michael Turner's "Yahoo group"; Sri Gary Olsen's "MasterPath"; ex-6th initiate Jerry "Sur Toma" Mulvin's THE DIVINE SCIENCE OF LIGHT AND SOUND; and Evan Pritchard (author, From the Temple Within) could be seen as individuals and organizations that maintain Eckankar-like cosmogonies. All these groups along with Eckankar were founded in the United States in the twentieth century.
David C. Lane, a philosophy professor, discusses the phenomenon of those American teachers. Lane suggests these might be seen more traditionally as an organic continuum or an historical school of "American Shabd" teachings, rather than a "splintering" of any movement. Lane conducted research in the late 1990s concerning perceptions of distortions, plagiarism and concealment involving author Paul Twitchell during the first three decades of Eckankar's existence.
Read more about this topic: Eckankar
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