from a tripod blog: "Soul Travel" All of the Radhasoami branches speak at length about "leaving the body at will" or "dying while living" or "going within." Kirpal Singh, in particular, laid special emphasis on experiencing "above body consciousness" and seeing inner light and hearing inner sound. Indeed, he buttressed his claims for mastership by stating univocally that only a competent master could offer inner glimpses at the very time of initiation. Paul Twitchell seems to have been fascinated with out-of-body experiences. Most of his early 1960s articles, just prior to the founding of Eckankar, talk about "bilocation" or the ability to be in two places at the same time. By the time he started Eckankar in 1965, Twitchell had coined a term called "soul travel" to describe in a nutshell what his path was all about. Although it is clear that Twitchell learned of "soul travel" from his association with Swami Premananda and Kirpal Singh, in developing Eckankar he modified the term to represent something a bit different than what his original teachers had in mind. In Radhasoami meditation practice, for example, emphasis is placed on achieving out-of-body experiences while one is conscious. Thus any experiences that are derived during unconscious processes, like dreams and such, are not given much credence. However, the chief method by which Twitchell "soul traveled" was by sleeping and having dreams. In his numerous letters to Kirpal Singh, Twitchell repeatedly mentions how he left his body after lying down and going to sleep. Dreams for Twitchell were the gateway to other worlds. Kirpal Singh was suspicious of this modus operandi because in his tradition dreams are extremely unreliable and may not necessarily indicate a higher state of consciousness but rather a lower one. It was precisely on this point that Kirpal Singh critiqued Twitchell's manuscript, The Tiger's Fang, and which eventually led to their irresolvable rift. To achieve out-of-body experiences during the waking state is a very difficult thing, according to Radhasoami practitioners. To achieve such during dreaming is much more easy, even if much more suspect and unreliable. That Twitchell emphasized the latter and not the former (in Radhasoami an initiate is enjoined to spend not less than two and a half hours in meditation daily; in Eckankar the "chela," as students are called, are enjoined to do about twenty minutes twice daily of spiritual exercises) proved to be one of the great attractions of Eckankar to new seekers. Since almost everybody dreams, the relative "success" rate of Eckists is bound to be much higher than those in Radhasoami, where only "waking" experiences are given value. Whether Twitchell consciously realized this as a marketing tool is unclear, but it is certain that it contrasted dramatically with Kirpal Singh's teachings. Today dreaming is perhaps the central way for Eckists to "experience" the truth of their path. The present leader Harold Klemp when describing most of his inner experiences bases them upon his dream excursions. Eckists have also followed suit.
