Customer Reviews

Confessions of a God Seeker: A Journey to Higher Consciousness

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Mr. Ford Johnson was one of the best speakers at Eckankar seminars for many years. I heard him many times and wondered at how he spoke from the heart, rarely even looking at notes. But he was hurt, deeply, when who he thought was a Master was not recognized by Eckankar. I sympathize. I read with an open mind. There are some really good points in the text, and great mental gymnastics from a great lawyer used to argument to get a point across--but he is promoting another Master and starting his own 'movement'. Keep that in mind. He was sincere in his beliefs, as most are in theirs. But to write as if all his personal beliefs are TRUTH is argument for the sake of trying to prove his innocence of whatever he feels has upset him so within. The anger sparks and flames the truths here that could help seekers as they wade through their own mental qualms about ANY Spiritual path. But I prefer the undercoating of words to be TRUTH. I feel a book as much as read the words. The underlying anger gave me a stomachache! Ford, please, get over the anger and pain and just move on. We ALL have. No Eckists I know feel anything but empathy for Ford, and understanding. With such a GIFT for speaking and writing, you could have written a gem--instead it is a sugarcoated rake of anger. With a few gems strewn in among the rants. I was disappointed.

One thing that seemed to lend credence to Ford's book was Gail Twitchell's alleged story (see pg 226). Doug Marman has recently released a book entitled "The Whole Truth." It appears (at present) it's not available here, but simply google: Doug Marman The Whole Truth. Gail left a comment on the spiritualdialogues(dotcom) website about Doug's book. I asked Doug if he was certain that it was indeed Gail Twitchell who had posted the message (she now has a different last name), and he told me more of the story. It was indeed the real Gail Twitchell. It also turns out that the so-called "Tuzahu" in Ford's book (and internet fame) had fabricated his story. I'm not saying that Paul was a "saint," by any stretch, but I am saying that there is _far_ more to the story than Ford and others allow for. I personally believe that things like this P.T. controversy are part and parcel of the test of Soul. There are subtleties in the school of Life that are beyond the scope of Ford's and David's observations. Those who have read Ford's and David's books owe it to themselves to also read Doug's book. (At least visit the website and give it a look.) And, BTW, this is a totally unsolicited comment...

I gave this book 2 stars only because I recognize most of the spiritual wisdom it contains was gleaned from the Eckankar teachings. Eckankar: The Key to Secret Worlds & Truth Has No Secrets Thus, those not familiar with the spiritual basis of Eckankar may find Ford's more intellectually minded approach as a helpful step in their personal spiritual growth.


The genesis of the context of this book as I saw it occur, was Johnson's mistaken belief that Graham Forsyth should be accepted as the new spiritual leader and be given the "responsibilities of taking over" Eckankar.

Activities concerning that resulted in his being told to stand aside from Eckankar duties for six months. That discipline(not his first) seems to have resulted in his loss of neutrality, a quest to "overturn every rock" regarding Eckankar, and thus leave Eckankar. Mistakenly, under the 'rock' he mostly embraced was an expose' created by college student David Lane's The Making of a Spiritual Movement: The Untold Story of Paul Twitchell and Eckankar which has subsequently been thoroughly debunked in a new book - The Whole Truth by Doug Marman.(Google it)


What I disliked about this book was that being a high powered attorney, Johnson has done a masterly job of constructing "Confessions" based on biased research, logical fallacies, misleading and false information. With the less informed he wins the case. Given a jury of his peers, the case of the attacks presented in this book would be thrown out of court.


Tellingly, Graham who was the start it all, "was not prepared to make any concessions" that Ford required for his newly incorporated organization, and they parted ways.

Never the less, Ford continued on, initially building his "spiritual education organization" on attacking the spiritual messengers and organizations, censoring critics on his web sites presenting contrary facts, and selling yearly subscriptions to his publications.

In the book Johnson's stratagems to revamp your spiritual paradigms may very well propel you out of your current belief system. That could be exactly what you need.


Eckankar differs in that it is less focused on mental conceptions and more on an experiential path using The Spiritual Exercises of Eck and direct personal experience with Past Lives, Dreams, and Soul Travel

In a nutshell, the book launched yet another business for Johnson. The last sentence in the book reads, "The greatest support each of us can now give is to place this book in the hands of others or tell them about it, so they can begin the journey to higher consciousness(Higher Consciousness Society being the name of his business organization) - the journey to the heart of truth."

I found so much untruth in the book that I would not recommend it to anyone.

This is a very thought-provoking book. The author takes a bold and courageous step in providing a critical review of the main religions and spiritual paths. More importantly, he offers a new paradigm that basically brings every human being closer to the truth and the god himself. If people are already empowered in many areas of life, why not empower them to try and reach out to god directly by themselves. This sounds very simple, but it is a very powerful idea that breaks ground. It is starting to change my own perspective. I commend the author for his diligent research and rich bibliography to help anybody who is interested to further go into those spiritual issues.

In his book, author and former Eckist Ford Johnson builds on the work of Professor David Lane (author of The Making of a Spiritual Movement) and other critics of the Eckankar organization. Although one may question Johnson's motives (one of the reasons I give the book a 3.5), since he does seem to be setting up his own alternative path for those who leave Eckankar (see the final portion of his book and visit his website at One Publishing for further info), several of his documented points are impossible to refute. For this reason, some of the ad hominem attacks against Johnson by previous reviewers on this site and others miss the point, and are themselves dishonest to readers.

First, Johnson points out (as others have also demonstrated quite convincingly) that Paul Twitchell, the modern founder of Eckankar, plagiarized extensively, undercutting his own spiritual authority as a teacher, "Godman" and spiritual guide, someone fit to lead others to spiritual freedom. We should expect moral behavior at the least from a potential spiritual teacher, as Twitchell himself urges us to demand in his other writings (e.g., The Shariyat Ki Sugmad). Second, Twitchell's book, The Tiger's Fang, an account of personal experience and evidence of his spiritual attainment, also contains plagiarized material, calling his spiritual mastery into question. Why plagiarize what is presented as personal experience? Third, the second living Eck master, Darwin Gross, whose name and decade of leadership of Eckankar have been deleted from nearly all contemporary accounts of Eckankar history, attempted to wrest power and money from his successor Harold Klemp, the third and current living Eck master. Legal documents exist online which document the lengthy court battles. Is this the behavior we should expect of two spiritual leaders who the Eck teachings themselves state successively "held the highest spiritual consciousness on the planet"? Fourth, Harold continues to perpetuate Eckankar's cover-up of Paul's plagiarism by (among other things) claiming that Paul transcribed materials from the same "astral library" that the original authors visited, in the process denying the hard work and many hours of writing any serious writer knows. [Revealingly, however, when other groups like M.S.I.A. plagiarized Eck writings, Eckankar took them to court for copyright infringement!] These facts Johnson demonstrates clearly, whatever he may expect readers (presumably Eckists in particular) to do with his information.

I am a long-time member of Eckankar (20+ years), and can personally attest to the validity of many of the Eckankar teachings. It has helped me through rough times, healed me, given me great insight, love and understanding. It has also troubled me for many years for some of the reasons Johnson and others have articulated and supported with clear evidence. No one has been able to satisfy these questions. I have struggled unsuccessfully and with considerable anguish to reconcile these two aspects of Eckankar, which (though Eckankar claims to be "the highest and purest spiritual teaching") may well be unavoidably characteristic of all religious and spiritual organizations in this world. With so much spiritual good to share, why did Twitchell need to plagiarize, why did Gross steal, and why does Klemp perpetuate the lies? By ducking these hard questions, Eckankar and Eckists do themselves and others a profound spiritual disservice.

Do not abandon your good sense when dealing with spiritual things any more than you would in prosaic matters such as buying a new car. Johnson's book deserves to be read, and likewise demands discernment to sort the wheat from the chaff. Whether the book will have much if any effect on Eckankar that some claim for it remains to be seen. With so many people continuing to derive obvious benefit from these spiritual teachings, however, I suspect that this expose, like others, will barely touch the core of the organization. If it can induce the Eckankar leadership to address some of these issues more honestly, however, Johnson's book may well lead to greater moral integrity for the Eckankar and its practitioners.

Ford Johnson's writing is wonderful. He comes off as a true Eckist, in all of his thinking and attitude. What most folks tend to ignore is that ANY "religion" is man-made, and thereby flawed. To claim that Eckists are not on a path of self-responsibility (see comments below) is absurd. And to expect perfection from a physical-plane path (which this must be, as it is occurring on the physical plane as well)is also absurd. Find me one that ISN'T based on inconsistancies and MYTH!!! The thing is that the MYTH of it IS the TRUTH of it. The limitation is only in our ability to understand it with our little brains. Mr. Johnson should see his responsibility in creating his own experience (i.e. his "falling out" with Eckankar), but beyond that, he is obviously a thoughtful, passionate, intelligent man, who should be praised for an enlightening and brave book. We create this, folks, every little bit of it, and the sooner we own up to it, the faster we'll advance. If the teaching of Eckankar is adding to your journey, don't let anyone's account sway your dedication to the path. Read everything you can and follow your heart...don't be afraid of being "duped", because you are ultimately creating it for yourself, and as soul, you KNOW what you are doing! Baraka Bashad (and GOOD LUCK!).

I was very reluctant to read this book because as an Eckist I simply didn't want to do anything to disrespect the spiritual leader and place myself in jeopardy. But after reading an open letter to Harold Klemp, I felt I had to see for myself just what Ford was talking about. To say that I have mixed feelings is an understatement. The information and the research that Ford completed is simply overwhelming. I had to put the book down to simply digest the emormity of what he was revealing about Paul and how he systematically invented a religion. I would not have believed it unless I had seen the documentation for myself. But what was most disturbing was the extent to which Harold was involved in the cover up even adding stories to enhance what were clearly invented stories by Paul. There is one example where Harold explains that Pauls description in Drums of Eck of the life of Pedar Zask (the spiritual name for Paul) was really a description of his existence in his past life were he was born on a packet boat on the Mississippi. Then Ford quotes Paul as saying that he was born in the Caucasus mountains in Russia in his past life illustrating how Harolds attempt to cover for Paul misfired and showed how he too was involved in spinning the myths. It goes on and on like this with one illustration of coverup and fabrication after another. Most disturbing but also most liberating. As much as I love this teaching, I don't like being lied to and being treated like a fool. Fortunately, by the time I got into part IV of the book, the pain was behind me and I felt a growth in consciousness that was like a final step to discover the God force within myself rather than giving all the credit to the Mahanta the Living Eck Master. It is some book and beautiful besides. The cover should win an award it is so beautiful. I can only say thank you to Ford Johnson for writing this book.

(...)

I have read this book in its entirety. There is nothing new here and much that is poorly researched.

All ECKists know that the HU has ancient origins and has been used by the Sufis and ancient Egyptians. Harold Klemp has spoken and written about this. Nevertheless, Ford Johnson claims that this information is being hidden. (...)

There is a great book by Doug Marman called "Dialogues in the Age of Criticism" that covers all of this material. Johnson completely ignores this book. The material he chooses is carefully selected to present one side. If you want the whole story, see Marman's book.

People should and will follow their hearts. Read this book or don't read it. It will either ring true or it won't. I found it to be void of love and completely biased.

THIS BOOK IS VERY INFORMATIVE AND ENLIGHTENING IT REALLY OPENED MY EYES.ANYONE WHO READS THIS BOOK WITH A OPEN HEART AND A OPEN MIND WILL NOT ONLY GET INFORMATION THEY WILL ALSO GET A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE.

I found greatness in the Introduction, Chapter 1 and also in Part IV of the book.

I was immediately drawn into the early segments of the book. The author's comfort with being vulnerable and the use of his life experience to convey a spiritual message was riveting. The knowledge I gained from the beginning passages made this a book I wanted to send to every one of my friends.

However, once I placed myself into Chapter 2, I felt like I was reading another book. I understand the need to set up the journey. This chapter most certainly was key to that experience, but I felt a distortion and distinct need to pull away from what felt like walking into a personal argument between two people that I was not a part of. Having the high from a spiritual set up and then being plummeted into an angry setting was disquieting at best.

Having said that, I believe the relaying of this Chapter was necessary, but upon completion of the book, I had wished I was allowed to enjoy my journey into learning a little longer before I was thrown into this discord.

Once this chapter was over, the following chapters on the histories of other religions was very interesting and intellectual stimulating.

The follow up into Part V allowed me to reconnect with the good feelings I originally experienced in the introduction and first chapter of the book.

This book is most certainly worth the read. You may have to edit your thinking when you get to Chapter 2, but should you get through that, I believe you will reconnect with the author's main intent, which is to give you spiritual tools to navigate this difficult physical experience we all must journey. If I could connect the Introduction, Chapter I and Part IV together this book would be on the best seller's list.

I compare it to a good CD. You like most of the songs on the album, but there are a few that you fast forward through. It does not negate the fact that your favorite songs are there and that the CD is a good one.