Anyone have experience with Eckankar (a religioin)?

[Wilson Deaton]

Anyone have dealings with adherents of Eckankar? Would I be correct if I classified it as a "new-age cult?"

Wilson

[Shea Zellweger]

Based on their website (www.eckankar.org), It looks like a cross between pantheism, Judeo-Christian mythos, and the Hindu ethic... so yeah, pretty much another New Age hybrid religion.

[Norayr Hajian]

Christian Research Institute has an article on it here:

http://www.equip.org/articles/eckankar

[David Graham]

Thanks for the information on them, and my prayer is that they won't emerge out here.
And yet I am amazed. They are obviously not Christian in any form, so why on earth do they want to build a "church" rather than a "temple" or a "shrine" or something else? It really seems like they're trying to gain some at least surface legitimacy in a nominally Christian society.

[Shea Zellweger]

Thanks for the information on them, and my prayer is that they won't emerge out here.
And yet I am amazed. They are obviously not Christian in any form, so why on earth do they want to build a "church" rather than a "temple" or a "shrine" or something else? It really seems like they're trying to gain some at least surface legitimacy in a nominally Christian society.

They also claim to be in communication with the Holy Spirit (the "Eck") so there are some pseudo-Christian elements there.

[Cindi Hammons]

Well, this was weird. I saw your post earlier and didn't have a clue. We sat down to watch Jeopardy and there was a question about Eckankar...I kid you not. They said it was a Hindu god. Kind of "twilight zone" eh?

[Dale Cozby]

From the article it appears its founder was a chief disciple of L Ron Hubbard and took the class on:" How to form your own religion out of thin air"

[Greg Farra]

Gotta make money somehow.

[John Kennedy]

I was really surprised to see them headquartered in Minnesota - it's true spiritual home is, obviously, California. I mean, where else could you expect to find Zen Baptists?

A few weeks ago my son and I went to see Garison Keillor (so?) at Pt. Loma. He was, as usual, fantastic. He had evidently done enough research to know that the PLNU campus was, originally, the headquarters for a faux Eastern/New Age cult led by a Madame Blavatska (or some such). This was years before the site's Methodist incarnation as Cal Western Univ and the present Naz occupation (God only knows what the future will bring).

Keillor managed to spin this background into a long and incredibly entertaining monologue that tied Pt. Loma to Lake Woebegone. Along the way he regaled the audience with impromptu, self-composed, topically related, songs. The Loma-Lake W connection was formed by the marriage of one of Keillor's relatives to one of Madame B's disciples who became a missionary to Minnesota. Who kows, maybe Eckanar's midwest HQ is a result of the Loma to Lake connection - bread on the waters and all that.

As a proud, 45 year+ resident of the Golden State I can confidently state that if it's whacked-out enough, it probably started in California.