ECKANKAR (ECK), a Westernized version of the Punjabi Sant Mat or Radha Soami Satsang spiritual tradition. ECKANKAR was founded in 1965 by Paul Twitchell (c. 1908–71).
The Sant Mat tradition was established by Param Sant Ji Maharaj (1818–78), who taught surat shabd yoga, the yoga of the “Sound Current.” He believed that the universe was created by a series of sound waves emanating from the transcendent Divine and that, as the Divine Sound Current descended into the realm of matter, it became imprisoned. Humans, according to his teachings, are sparks of God trapped in a cycle of reincarnation who nonetheless can return to God by listening to the Divine Sound and repeating the Divine Names (mantras). Practitioners of Sound Current yoga require the assistance of a master who has already transversed the levels of reality between the material world and God.
Twitchell was a student of Kirpal Singh (1896–1974), one of the master teachers of surat shabd yoga who claimed to be spiritual descendants of Param Sant Ji Maharaj. Twitchell believed that Sound Current yoga had existed since antiquity and that his knowledge and his teaching authority stemmed not from Kirpal Singh (who visited the United States in 1955 and 1964) but from an ancient lineage of ECK masters of which he was the 971st. Moreover, he claimed he was taught directly by two masters who were no longer in their bodies, Rabazar Tarzs and Sudar Singh.
Drawing on what he had learned but dropping the Indian cultural trappings, Twitchell offered students a means of “soul transcendence” through techniques that placed them in contact with the Divine Light and Sound. ECK departed from Sant Mat by multiplying the number of spiritual exercises and adding many more temporal concerns (healing, harmony, and problem solving). Twitchell also rejected the Sant Mat ideal of ultimate oneness with God, suggesting that the goal of life is to become a “coworker” with God.
When Twitchell died in 1971, he was succeeded by Darwin Gross, who in 1981 passed his authority to Harold Klemp. Shortly after Klemp assumed authority, religious studies scholar David Christopher Lane charged that Twitchell had falsified much of his account of the origin of ECK. Klemp later acknowledged some truth in Lane’s accusations but asserted that the essential truth of ECK was unaffected. Shortly thereafter, he oversaw the movement of ECK from San Francisco to suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a headquarters and temple complex were constructed. By the late 1990s there were 367 ECK centres worldwide, of which 164 were in the United States. Estimates placed total membership at 50,000.