How bad is this “mildly dangerous” cult? And what’s their connection to near-death experience scienc

[PTEHA]

Regarding Anne Archer Butcher and her so-called "NDEs" as reported. I have viewed a few interviews with her, one with IANDS radio online, as she was on her 'book promotion' tour etc. I have heard of and had myself similar "experiences" as she recounts. However, I have not noticed anyone mention that her reported NDEs were not actually an NDE per se ... as in almost physically died or clinically dead and recovered. Do I have the definition wrong? I am not a member of IANDS or any other similar group, so I am not up to speed with their semantics or definitions. I'd appreciate some clarification if anyone can help. thx

 

[PTEHA]

Who is equipped to make that judgment and decide who and who does not have an axe to grind.

I would have thought that was the reason for iands etc wishing to place the subject under proper scientific scrutiny? Proper scientific process and peer review by it's very nature is equipped to help "out" and resolve such difficulties. Isn't it?

 

[PTEHA]

And how did you find this thread :)

Pure genius of course! And a telling first up question. :)
More seriously, if it's important for you to know, David Lane posted a link to the skptico interview on his yahoo group. I clicked on the url and voila. Another internet miracle

 

[PTEHA]

Tell us about it. :) (And welcome.)

Thanks Ian. I'd rather respond to more specific questions. I don't think the issues raised here are about myself or my pov. From what I have read on this forum, there's a potential issue about "ethics" at IANDS in regard Eckankar and AAB specifically going on the board. There's also several comments from people without direct personal knowledge, both pro and con Eckankar, that don't ring true to me. I wanted to respond to some of those over the weekend but there was a delay in registering here. I may go back to those later, but thought I would just say "hello" and offer my assistance before the thread ends up just being another flame war going no where worthwhile bar competing "opinions" typically not based on real credible facts or the history of the movement .... of which there are multiple and quite extreme variations. I also have my own views/opinions but I can still provide some basic info that might fill in some gaps in understanding and am willing to try. Thanks

 

[Typoz]

Regarding Anne Archer Butcher and her so-called "NDEs" as reported. I have viewed a few interviews with her, one with IANDS radio online, as she was on her 'book promotion' tour etc. I have heard of and had myself similar "experiences" as she recounts. However, I have not noticed anyone mention that her reported NDEs were not actually an NDE per se ... as in almost physically died or clinically dead and recovered. Do I have the definition wrong? I am not a member of IANDS or any other similar group, so I am not up to speed with their semantics or definitions. I'd appreciate some clarification if anyone can help. thx

I don't know what definition IANDS uses. Broadly speaking, NDE is a rather loose term, some people focus on the ND (near-death) and others on the E (experience). Not everyone who is near death has (or remembers) such an experience, and not everyone who has such an experience is necessarily near death.

 

[Ian Gordon]

I don't know what definition IANDS uses. Broadly speaking, NDE is a rather loose term, some people focus on the ND (near-death) and others on the E (experience). Not everyone who is near death has (or remembers) such an experience, and not everyone who has such an experience is necessarily near death.

IANDS says this:

A near-death experience, or NDE, is a profound psychological event that may occur to a person close to death or who is not near death but in a situation of physical or emotional crisis. Being in a life-threatening situation does not, by itself, constitute a near-death experience. It is the pattern of perceptions, creating a recognizable overall event, that has been called “near-death experience.”
http://iands.org/ndes/about-ndes/what-is-an-nde.html

Although IANDS, and others, also use the term NDLE for "near-death-like experience". But right now I'm having difficulty remembering the difference between an NDLE and an NDE that isn't actually "near-death". Perhaps the NDLE is an experience like an NDE, but where there isn't a life-threatening situation, nor a situation of crisis of any kind - I forget now.

 

[Ian Gordon]

Thanks Ian. I'd rather respond to more specific questions.

OK. Maybe then, What made you leave Eckankar? And what was the organization's reaction to your leaving? (Although feel free to respond to these later when you address the points you wanted to.)

 

[PTEHA]

and not everyone who has such an experience is necessarily near death.

Hi Typoz. Kind of makes the ND bit redundant? I have always assumed there was a difference between a NDE and a conscious OOBE (out of body experience) and such things as Lucid Dreaming that seem "real" and with "conscious awareness". imv they are all different despite some overlapping similarities. Knowing from where AAB comes from with her eckankar beliefs/world view claiming her experiences as NDEs is knowingly not correct.
and thx for the refer which says: Being in a life-threatening situation does not, by itself, constitute a near-death experience. It is the pattern of perceptions, creating a recognizable overall event, that has been called “near-death experience.”

 

[PTEHA]

What made you leave Eckankar? And what was the organization's reaction to your leaving?

Hi Ian, fair questions. The Org doesn't have "reactions", nor make direct comments about past members. In this respect they are very different to a Scientology type org. Silence is their way in all things. I was of no consequence nor any importance anyway. tens of thousands left before me and they keep leaving. Locally across the world they have independent "Satsangs" affiliated to eckankar, working similar to a Catholic Archdiocese. It is my understanding many in authority there were happy to see me go. I didn't fit their "public image" anymore and had become a bit of a "black sheep".
The penultimate reason for leaving was the leader's (Harold Klemp) seminar talk in Easter 2012 - it was a bridge too far for me. imv he had moved past reality in a way I could no longer accept. There had been "talk" of him stepping aside since the mid-2000s and a desire by many that he would sooner than later. He created a "story" that his "mission had been renewed" by the spiritual hierarchy and he wasn't going anywhere. Many personal things occurred, issues about ethics, cover ups, unnecessary secrecy, and the way many in authority treated people had led up to this point.
Like all "cults" and/or tight cultural groups and "institutions" (eg police, army, churches) there's a way of thinking about and seeing things which makes it difficult to move away easily. I was aware of that reality and of many prior complaints by people about the Org and leadership, some close friends left years before I did, but in the end it's a personal process one has to work through alone.
Dropping "cherished beliefs" is a difficult thing to shake. I see many psychological similarities between the broad issues of sex abuse in the Catholic Church and why people don't walk away from there easily either, with what people go through before leaving Eckankar and Scientology. The specifics of course, what's criminal and what's just plain nasty or not nice/ethical, are very different and should be looked at as such. But the psychological impacts and challenges are very much the same, ime and humble (non-qualified) personal opinion.
The majority of ECKists I have met were all genuine and very nice and sincere people; and yet some were also prone to be right asshats (some definitely saw me as an asshat too, such are the ways with subjective personal opinions). I hope that helps and isn't too long a reply.

 

[PTEHA]

Colleen Russell paper

Hi K9, in the past I had banged heads with Colleen online over some of the ways she first took up her criticisms of Eckankar and Eckists. However I read her paper you quoted years ago and liked what I read. It's worth reading and considering imo. She's right about this: "Leaving a high-demand group or cult, once one becomes indoctrinated, involves a conscious and unconscious process of disconfirming inaccurate, self-limiting, and self-sabotaging beliefs that have been internalized as a result of thought reform."
And that isn't easy! Indoctrinated is the key word there. It's usually happening unnoticed. Like getting wet when swimming. Everything just seems "normal" and OK.
eg "Eckankar thinking, and thinking about Eckankar" becomes a permanent non-stop reality for most Eckists 24/7 - almost everything in one's life gets filtered through that prism. Yet it still affects different people to varying degrees. For some it can also become deadly serious and cause severe psychological problems that were either present before joining or develop with time. Everyone is different, yet the "swimming pool" is a constant.

 

[PTEHA]

Alex's question at the end of the interview:
What do you think of IANDS neutrality vis a vis their involvement with the Eckankar cult?

IANDS neutrality? Compromised. A very unwise course of action in my view.

I read the entire interview and believe from that that Robert Mays has a huge blind spot and maybe a bit of cognitive dissonance going on. He seemed unable to separate the 2 issues of accepting all NDEers personal reports no matter what their spiritual beliefs, and the institutional critical requirement for Objectivity. ie NO special interests, and No Bias (or perceived bias) of office holders or the ongoing activities of a specific "mission/reason for being" of iands in recording NDE data and sharing that with all interested parties and hopefully serious scientists as well - without fear or favour.

Eckankar's non-show to answer Alex's questions is SOP, and that is since it was started in 1965 ie avoiding any and all questions they have no ability to control or manage the "final product" and steering clear of any potential for public conflict - that also includes any criticisms or complaints from members themselves. Tough questions or criticisms, if continued after being shut down initially, always leads to some kind of ostracism. Or in serious cases removal of Initiation levels. Typically there is no "natural justice" Eckankar, in that some one can be judged as being a "problem" and they are never told or even asked for their side of the story.

 

[PTEHA]

Robert Mays' claim that "...the elements that [Anne Archer Butcher] experienced in [or] has experienced through a number of different experiences suggests that her path is valid" is absolute nonsense.

Hi Selina, I'm new here. I completely agree with this comment. In fact I agree/concur with all your comments on this topic to date. I appreciate the way you look at these matters as I see the issues very much the same way as you do. fwiw.

 

[Eif]

IANDs on the difference between NDE and NDLE:

“This month's account is a near-death-like experience (NDLE), an experience that is not the result of a medical crisis but rather happens spontaneously to an otherwise healthy person. Based on the number of accounts submitted to the IANDS archives over the years, near-death-like experiences may be more widely experienced than NDEs.”

https://iands.org/ndes/nde-stories/...e-month-february13.html?highlight=WyJuZGxlIl0=


To PTHEA: Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this and your experiences in such a perceptive way! Well done to find your way out of brainwash-zone!

 

[E.Flowers]

I am starting to feel like we are beating a dead horse here... This forum needs either Mays or someone in the board to engage the users and their arguments.

 

[Steve]

The penultimate reason for leaving was the leader's (Harold Klemp) seminar talk in Easter 2012 - it was a bridge too far for me. imv he had moved past reality in a way I could no longer accept.

Thanks PTEHA for a series of very interesting posts.

That is what gave me the 'bad vibes' about Eckankar, that the person they all revered was an ordinary human. No doubt they wouldn't see him as ordinary. I just instinctively have never seen any other humans as 'better' or 'worse' than I am, and certainly none that I would sort of 'worship', if that's what they do. I might be persuaded to follow someone, if I were convinced over a long period of personally seeing such an individual 'walk the walk' rather than 'talk the talk', but that's extremely unlikely.:)

From my point of view, if I were to walk in to an IANDS meeting I would want to talk and learn about NDEs, not Eckankar or Jesus or anyone else. I would run a mile from anyone who's top priority was to promote or encourage me to join such a group rather than learn about NDEs. Indeed I would be very wary of anyone who seemed convinced about what they really mean. I have my own ideas, but am I totally convinced? No way.

 

[David Bailey]

It seems at least possible materialism can be false but NDErs can also make up at least some of the details? Or that the experience of the NDE is not indicative of an actual afterlife?

I mean we have historical records of NDEs specifically promoting a particular religion or even just a branch of a religion. That suggests cultural influence can cause distortions...or at least to me it does?

I am a bit surprised you say that! In one sense all of science is tentative (probably a lot more so than most of its practitioners imagine), and has to bind the available evidence into some sort of hypothesis - there never is any absolute proof of anything.

So materialists assume death marks the final end of consciousness because they assume consciousness is produced purely by the brain, which stops working and then decays. Therefore anything that seems to show that consciousness continues in any form at all - even hallucinatory - threatens the theory that consciousness originates in the brain, and therefore in turn the theory that consciousness ends at death.

There seems no point in trashing a theory (materialism) and then taking one of the consequences of that theory as a reasonable hypothesis - seemingly for no particular reason. It would be like introducing an arbitrary hypothesis that the afterlife is mainly about extending mathematics - you can't prove this is false, but it doesn't seem to fit with what we do know - so why run with it?

David

 

[David Bailey]

Religion is simply reclaiming from the reseachers a domain that is historically, and rightfully, theirs.

What I think you forget, is that religion is mainly a human process - it goes wrong so easily. Think of those 'witches' who were burned to death in the name of Christianity, I'll bet a fair few had shown some psychic abilities, and maybe some had reported their NDE's in the hope that people would be interested.

Virtually none of the things we discuss on this forum would be acceptable on a Christian or Islamic forum, because real facts about spirituality - even if tentative - threaten the dogma and authority of religious leaders.

David

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

I am a bit surprised you say that! In one sense all of science is tentative (probably a lot more so than most of its practitioners imagine), and has to bind the available evidence into some sort of hypothesis - there never is any absolute proof of anything.

So materialists assume death marks the final end of consciousness because they assume consciousness is produced purely by the brain, which stops working and then decays. Therefore anything that seems to show that consciousness continues in any form at all - even hallucinatory - threatens the theory that consciousness originates in the brain, and therefore in turn the theory that consciousness ends at death.

There seems no point in trashing a theory (materialism) and then taking one of the consequences of that theory as a reasonable hypothesis - seemingly for no particular reason. It would be like introducing an arbitrary hypothesis that the afterlife is mainly about extending mathematics - you can't prove this is false, but it doesn't seem to fit with what we do know - so why run with it?

David

Caveat to everything that follows is my intuition that there is an afterlife ->

But one can reject materialism and still not believe in post-mortem survival? The neuroscientist Raymond Tallis is an immaterialist, doesn't think memories are stored in the brain, but is an atheist who doesn't think there's an afterlife (though he remains open to the possibility).

I think there are a variety of panpsychists who also don't believe in an afterlife?

I also think we need to separate two things NDEs can tell us - whether mind is dependent on brain and whether they give us a definitive picture of what an afterlife is like.
.
All that said I agree once someone accepts materialism as false definitively asserting there is no afterlife seems foolhardy.

What I think you forget, is that religion is mainly a human process - it goes wrong so easily. Think of those 'witches' who were burned to death in the name of Christianity, I'll bet a fair few had shown some psychic abilities, and maybe some had reported their NDE's in the hope that people would be interested.

Virtually none of the things we discuss on this forum would be acceptable on a Christian or Islamic forum, because real facts about spirituality - even if tentative - threaten the dogma and authority of religious leaders.

David

Well there are some more open Christians or Muslims but I get what you mean.

It's actually an interesting question how many Psi possessing peoples have been exterminated not just by religion but simply by the "left-brain" life of a technological society. IIRC it was the anthropologist Meade who suggested "sensitives" are preserved more in non-urban areas where their gifts are accepted.

 

[tim]

Religion is simply reclaiming from the reseachers a domain that is historically, and rightfully, theirs.

Religion is reclaiming what is rightfully, theirs ? You mean if I have a near death experience, I've got to hand myself in to the local priest. rabbi, Imam to take advice from somebody wearing a silly hat who thinks you have to perform any number of illogical rituals to pacify "god? "

 

[tim]

Stories of the afterlife? Lives spiritually transformed? How can religion not lay claim?

I've yet to hear anything useful to have come out of "NDE reseach". After all this time, what can IANDS really tell us about NDE that isn't a total fudge?

I can tell you lots of useful things, there's no fudge, though, that's true.

1. Ordinary people can talk about their life changing experiences and know that many others have experienced the same thing, so they're not "crazy" after all

2. Many open minded people have been given hope (that the universe is not pointless) on the basis of examining good evidence that our consciousness is not snuffed out at death

3. Might be wrong but I think the life review backs up "the do as you would be done by" tenet and is possibly helping to persuade some people to use it.