Eckankar is a new religious movement combining elements of several belief traditions that was founded by Paul Twitchell in 1965. It is today one of the larger new faiths coming out of that period, with as many as 100,000 adherents worldwide in more than 120 countries, with significant communities in the United States, Canada, Nigeria, and Ghana.
Twitchell was born in Kentucky, most probably in 1909 though he also provided 1912 and 1922 as the years of his birth. Later Eckankar leaders would concede that Twitchell deliberately muddied some parts of his biography to maintain his privacy and to enhance the mystique surrounding his origins.
After returning to the U.S. after World War II, Twitchell, a professional writer, began a long period of spiritual seeking. In 1950, he joined the Self-Revelation Church of Absolute Monism in Washington, D.C., led by Swami Premananda. He served as an editor for the church’s publications until being expelled from the church following a series of altercations that also led to the end of his first marriage.
He next Kirpal Singh, the founder of Ruhani Satsang and a prominent teacher of the yogic tradition Sant Mat. While still practicing Sant Mat, Twitchell became an early proponent of L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics and Scientology. He worked closely with Hubbard as a publicist for the new Scientology organization and claimed to have attained the Scientology state of “Clear.”
Twitchell created Eckankar in San Diego in 1965. Throughout the new religion’s early history, Twitchell would invent new words based on terms from other traditions, and it is believed that “Eckankar” is derived from “Ik Onkar,” the “One Supreme Reality” of Sikhism. Twitchell launched the new creed by lecturing on bilocation — the ability of the soul to be in two places at once — which he rebranded as “Soul Travel.”
Twitchell said that these ideas were not new but in fact dated back hundreds of thousands of years, and that he was the 971st in a lineage of “Vairagi Masters” or “ECK Masters” who were called “Mahantas,” a corruption of the Hindu term “Mahatma,” meaning “great soul.” Twitchell provided names for some of these figures, including Kata Daki, Gopal Das, and Fubbi Quantz, as well as a very ancient ECK Master named Gakko who lived on Venus.
Twitchell said that he was trained in Soul Travel by a 500-year-old Tibetan monk named Rebazar Tarzs who lived in a hut in the Himalayan mountains and communicated with him through both physical and spiritual means. Scholar and Eckankar critic David Lane says that Twitchell may have borrowed the name “Rebazar Tarzs” from a highway sign in Baja California denoting a no-passing zone.
Twitchell offered an elaborate cosmology for Eckankar. He said that the soul is a spark of the divine Sugmad, a neologism for God, that has become entangled in the lower worlds of matter, energy, space, and time — the “MEST universe” concept from Scientology. The goal of the Eckankar practitioner, called an ECKist, is to achieve self-realization and eventually God-realization by rising through a series of spiritual planes. The primary spiritual practice introduced by Twitchell was the chanting of “HU,” which he said was an ancient name for God. Eckankar practice continues to be centered around HU chanting.
Twitchell introduced “spiritual consultation,” a concept similar to Scientology auditing, and adopted some of Hubbard’s organizational tactics such as the use of “Discourses” and monthly subscriptions for members. Hubbard eventually took notice of these similarities and in 1968 officially labeled Twitchell and Eckankar as a “suppressive person.” Most notably, Twitchell borrowed from Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom” by introducing a series of 14 levels of enlightenment through which the ECKist must proceed.
Twitchell’s sudden death from a heart attack in September 1971 left a leadership vacuum. Having not formally named a successor, the responsibility fell to his second wife, Gail Atkinson Twitchell. She controversially selected her lover Darwin Gross, a handsome young musician who had only been in Eckankar for several months and who was at the second of Eckankar’s 14 degrees of initiation. At a Las Vegas ceremony, Gail Atkinson handed Gross a blue carnation and announced that he now held Eckankar’s “Rod of Power.” He took the spiritual name Dap Ren and was declared the 972nd Living ECK Master.
Gross was rapidly advanced to Eckankar’s 14th degree of initiation, and he and Gail Atkinson Twitchell got married several months later. The two presided over lavish Eckankar events as a sort of royal couple, seated on thrones above the crowd. Though Gross did continue to direct the publication of Twitchell’s writings, Eckankar’s focus began to shift toward veneration of the ruling couple, causing rifts within the movement. Gross spent liberally, straining the group’s finances, a situation that was exacerbated by the anti-cult panic of the late 1970s that hurt membership.
In 1981, Eckankar’s Board of Directors executed a coup against Gross, forcing him to step down as Living ECK Master. Despite the name, the Living ECK Master is a temporal post like the papacy, not one based in reincarnation, so it is possible for current and former Living ECK Masters to be alive at the same time. Gross was given a new title and fairly generous salary. The Board had him pass the Rod of Power to Harold Klemp, a Board member selected mainly because he was not considered controversial to anyone. Klemp became the 973rd Living ECK Master, a position he would hold for the next 45 years.
Gross’s continued presence within Eckankar proved unsustainable, and in 1983, he was pushed out entirely. In 1984, Klemp wrote a letter to Gross stating, “Do not directly or indirectly associate yourself or your activities with the sacred teachings of ECK or Eckankar in any way.” In ensuing litigation, Goss was charged with “failing to support and assist the Living ECK Master in spreading the message of ECKANKAR” and “teaching and spreading doctrines which, in the opinion of the Living ECK Master, are not consistent with the teachings of ECKANKAR,” among other offenses. Gross was declared to have never been a legitimate Living ECK Master, though Klemp maintained his number in the lineage, with the 972nd mastery unaccounted for. Gross went on to found a splinter group called Ancient Teachings of the Masters (ATOM) and returned to performing music, much of it with Eckankar-related themes. He died in 2008.
Klemp, who took the name Wah Z, began a campaign of modernization. In 1986, he commissioned the construction of the $8.2 million Temple of ECK in Chanhassen, Minnesota, a ziggurat-style building constructed on 174 acres of land. Klemp took a pastoral approach to the leadership of Eckankar, leaning into his soft-spoken nature. He modified the Soul Travel doctrine to the “Art of Spiritual Dreaming,” teaching that bilocation can be achieved naturally through the dream state. He also addressed controversies surrounding Twitchell’s biography and allegations of plagiarism in the founder’s writings.
In Eckankar practice today, ECKists are encouraged to engage in HU chanting for 20 to 30 minutes each day while visualizing a blue light or the face of the Living ECK Master. ECKists are taught that their state of mind directly influences their spiritual progress. Negative emotions like anger, greed, and vanity are seen as “passions of the mind” that tie the soul to the lower planes, while practicing “selfless love” allows for faster spiritual growth. ECKists also adhere to the tenet of non-interference, directed not to impose their will or beliefs on others. Eckankar is therefore not an evangelical or proselytizing religion. While Eckankar does promote its message, it does not actively try to attract converts.
The primary holy text of Eckankar is the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad or “Way of the Eternal,” a text of about 500 pages in two volumes written by Twitchell in 1970. However, Twitchell’s voluminous other writings, as well as discourses written or delivered by Klemp during his long tenure as Mahanta, are also considered holy. The discourses are intended for private study and are not shared with the general public, as they contain specific instructions for the higher initiations. The lower levels of initiation may be achieved through by-mail study, while the higher rungs of the 14 levels involve in-person ceremonies.
On October 25, 2025, Klemp announced that Doug Kunin, who had been a vice president in Eckankar’s corporate structure, was the 974th Living ECK Master and new Mahanta. Kunin and his wife Sharon Kunin had been ECKists for decades and Kunin was long believed to be in line to succeed Klemp. But while the choice was not a surprise, the suddenness of the decision was. The process of succession was kept secret until the public announcement, and there had been no indication that Klemp was ready to retire. Since many ECKists contemplated Klemp’s face while meditating and chanting HU, the news was jarring to some.
Key Sources:
Klemp, H. (2017). Autobiography of a Modern Prophet. Eckankar..
Lane, D. (1990). The Making of a Spiritual Movement: The Untold Story of Paul Twitchell and Eckankar. Del Mar Press.
Lane, D. (2023). Gakko came from Venus: Exploring the Lost History of Eckankar.
Marman, D. (2007). The Whole Truth: The Spiritual Legacy of Paul Twitchell. Spiritual Dialogues Project.
Twitchell, P. (1970). The Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, Books One & Two. Eckankar.