The Spiritual Notebook

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Summary: Twitchell Claims "he got it all wrong" In This Book
Review: In Difficulties Of The Living Eck Master Twitchell claims that "he got it all wrong" in one of his books that was released in early 1971. This is that book! Get this book before Eckankar buys them up or revises them! Twitchell uses the word "Eckankar" to cover everything spiritual. "Eck" is used as only a shortened version of Eckankar in this book, and is not a separate term for Holy Spirit (pgs.13-14). There are also many interesting statements which contradict present day teachings, dogma, and tenets of Eckankar (pgs.19,21-23). Examples of these are: "The true ECK Master is a Sat-Guru appointed by the Supreme Deity we know as Sat Nam, ruler of the Soul, or fifth plane, and all worlds above and below it... it is Sat Nam who appoints each Sat-Guru on the various planes throughout the spiritual hierarchy."[pg.19] "The Sat-Guru is the Son of God." [pg.20] "The Mahatmas can be divided into sereral classes... Third is the Sant, or the Adept... He is the inner and outer Master of whom I have spoken so much... Fourth is theECKshar, or the supreme Sant." [pg.21] "A Sant has reached Soul perfection for Self-Realization within the Order of the Vairagi Masters. The Mahanta is the highest one can go in these lower worlds. He is a god man, appointed by the divine SUGMAD for the purpose of giving the Nam, the Word, of the initiation... He also serves as a guide." [pg.22] "Many men have become gods and many gods have become men. But the Mahanta is the living Light, in the tradition of the ancient sun gods of Asia." [pg.23] So, as you can see, this was the accumulation of an earlier work in progress that Twitchell had printed before going back to do a re-edit. This book was begun in the early years when Twitchell first dreamed up the Eckankar scam. As I pointed out... grab up this 1971 copyright (10th printing 1983) before the revisions of another printing. Darwin Gross (Mahanta, Living Eck Master 1971-1981) was a purest and did not discontinue or revise (edit) Twitchell's work. I would not trust Klemp to do the same since he has already discontinued much of Twitchell's early writings already, and has heavily edited many of his tapes.

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Summary: Twitchell's Dogma is Thick, but Still a Good Read
Review: Once again, after reading "Confessions of a God Seeker" by Ford Johnson "The Spiritual Notebook" looks very different from years
ago when I first read it. Twitchell promotes his newly invented "religion", but also imparts some very useful information, even though it seems to be plagiarized from "The Path of the Masters" and Theosophy. It's too bad Twitchell didn't give credit to other authors whose writings he used. I'll take truth over spin any day.

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Summary: Great historical review of world religions.
Review: Pual Twitchell examines various world religions and their treatment of experiential religion.