DAVID WROTE: Bill Popham contacted me in El Cerrito (just north of Berkeley) several months BEFORE the SCP Journal was published. Eventually a meeting with him and other Eckankar officials was arranged at Menlo Park, California. DOUG RESPONDS: David, this appears to be in contradiction with comments you made via the Internet last year. There you said that your meeting with Bill Popham was in regard to your book AND the SCP Journal. It was only due to your comment that I ammended my book to make that addition. According to your statement last year the meeting with Bill Popham in Menlo Park concerned both your book and the SCP Journal, and therefore it was after they were both published. There seems to be a contradiction here. Do you mean that the meeting in Menlo Park did take place after they had received a copy of the SCP Journal?
Also, I'm not clear if you are suggesting that when Bill Popham first contacted you before that meeting, if he did so on his own, or was he then being paid by ECKANKAR to contact you? Your words here suggest that he was officially representing ECKANKAR when he first contacted you, but do you really know that was true? Did he tell you that he was being paid by ECKANKAR at that time, or is it possible that he called you out of his own interest? Perhaps it was Bill Popham who was concerned and talked Darwin into hiring him to make a more thorough study?
DAVID LANE REPLIES:
Bill contacted me on the telephone when I was still living in El Cerrito.
This was before the SCP Journal was published. I say this because I moved
from El Cerrito in the early summer of 1979,
eventually moving to Hayward, California, because I had
gotten hired for my first High School teaching job at Moreau High School.
Bill represented himself as a consultant for Eckankar who was hired to review my
manuscript.
By the time we met in Menlo Park, California, the SCP Journal had been published.
Bill didn't say he was a member of Eckankar when he first contacted me.
I only found that out later.
So to summarize:
Bill calls me on the telephone saying that he was hired by Eckankar to review my
Bill doesn't say he is a member of Eckankar.
Eventually we meet face to face in Menlo Park, California. This meeting was AFTER the
SCP journal had been published, as best as I recollect. I say this because I remember
specifically being asked my advice on how to best handle the SCP controversy.
I told Bill and Steve that Eckankar should come clean and that would be the best
way to handle it.
DAVID WROTE: Well, let's analyze this ad closely. First, did a Baptist College distribute material against Eckankar? Not precisely. What did happen was that ONE Professor at an L.A. Baptist College made a photocopy of a term paper from a student at CSUN - a paper the Professor claims to have never read. DOUG RESPONDS: This is inaccurate, based on what we have all heard took place. Peebles' term paper passed through the hands of at least two Professors. It was handed out to at least one family of parishoners who had a daughter who was looking into ECKANKAR. It was this daughter who alerted ECKANKAR that a paper was being handed out against ECKANKAR. After that a photocopy of the paper was handed to Mike Noe, when Mike asked if he could get a copy. We don't know if other copies had been handed out by the earlier Professors. We do know that Ed Gruss was handing it out, and did so at least twice.
David Lane Replies:
Re-read what I wrote.
I specifically stated that Gruss made a photocopy of the term paper.
Prior to that he had given HIS copy (not a photocopy) to Debbie "Quin" out of his
file on Eckankar.
Gruss got his copy from his friend (who was not a professor at the time), named Ken
Guindon, who left a slew of boxes with Gruss before he left on missionary work in
France.
So here is the illustrated chain of transmission:
1. Peebles gives a copy of his paper to Ken Guindon who puts the paper in a box of
material.
2. Ken Guindon hands over a series of boxes to Ed Gruss. One of the boxes contains
Peebles' term paper.
3. Gruss then files Peebles' term paper with his Eckankar stuff, including a copy of
The Tiger's Fang and other Eck material.
4. Gruss claims in his deposition NEVER to have read the paper until AFTER he was
threatened with a lawsuit.
5. Gruss gives his ONLY copy of the paper to Debbie Quin.
6. Mike Noe, claiming to be a member of SCP (according to Gruss' deposition), asks for
copy of Peebles' paper.
7. Gruss eventually makes ONE photocopy of the paper and sends it to Mike Noe.
8. Eckankar never asks for a meeting with Gruss, Peebles, or L.A. Baptist College, but
instead sues all three of them for 2.5 million dollars.
DOUG RESPONDS: The ad makes no implication that ECKANKAR asked for a meeting with Ed Gruss or the LA Baptist College. It does not even mention Ed Gruss. It mentions a Baptist college once in the second paragraph of the ad, but it doesn't even identify which Baptist college. It was in the 22nd and last paragraph that it says ECKANKAR requested "these" groups to delete ECKANKAR from their material,
and that meetings had been ignored. But which groups is this referring to? In the 13th, 14th and 15th paragraphs the article addresses three different groups and the false information they were spreading about ECKANKAR. It explains their misinformation in detail, and that is the only place where the false information was explained in detail. None of these were related to Ed Gruss or the LA Baptist College. To say that the ad implied that ECKANKAR asked for a meeting with Gruss or the Baptist church is obviously not true. Perhaps David feels that he can interpret the article that way, but that is altogether another matter. David almost seems to be implying that ECKANKAR was lying about asking groups to retract their false information, and trying to meet with them, based on the fact that ECKANKAR did not do so with Ed Gruss. This would be a false implication.
I guess we read differently.
Here is the paragraph (the same one) and it reads:
"ECKANKAR has requested these groups to delete ECKANKAR from their material and
had asked for a letter of apology and retraction. AS A RESULT, in order to protect
the rights of ECKANKAR and its members and to uphold the important rights of all
religious minorities, ECKANKAR has filed one lawsuit in Los Angeles [NOTE: this suit
was against Gruss, Peebles, and L.A. Baptist College] and another in Minneapolis."
----
That's the paragraph, Doug.
I read the AS A RESULT as a link from sentence 1 to sentence 2. Very simple syntax
connection. By the way, Woodrow Nichols (who was the author of the LOOKOUT article)
also denies that Eckankar ever asked to meet with him.
We know that Gruss, Peebles, and L.A. Baptist College were never requested to meet
with Eckankar UNITL AFTER THEY WERE SUED.
David also states that he never stated or implied that Darwin was trying to cover-up the defamatory information in Peebles' term paper, but that David had been arguing that this term paper showed that Darwin was trying to cover-up Paul's association with Kirpal Singh and other biographical details. Here is what David actually did claim and is still claiming in his book: <<Prompted by a letter to their office, Eckankar sent one of their own officials, Mike Noe, down to southern California to secure a copy of the twelve page report, which claimed, among other things, that Eckankar was skirting tax laws and that Darwin Gross had fathered an illegitimate child...Though the lawsuit never did come to trial, Eckankar used it as the basis for several half-page advertisements in which they claimed that their group and its teachings were being attacked by conservative Christians.>> This quote clearly identifies the defamatory remarks in Peebles' paper, and it also clearly accuses ECKANKAR of basing their ads on the incident. David later called the lawsuit a ploy by ECKANKAR. We can see, from the actual ad, however, that a Baptist church is only one of many references, and in fact is hardly the basis for the ad.
Eckankar mentions TWO LAWSUITS: one in L.A. and one in Minneapolis.
The phrase "AS A RESULT" is a key line in the ad and is an attempt by Eckankar
to explain WHY they felt forced to sue. Woodrow Nichols was the author of the LOOKOUT
piece and he was also contributing to the upcoming SCP Journal.
What Eckankar doesn't tell us, of course, is that the first lawsuit is against a 20
year old kid who wrote a "term" paper.
There is no mention of Paul's association with Kirpal Singh or Paul's biographic details in David's book when he writes about the Peebles' incident, because after all there has been no mention of these things being in Peebles' term paper. Therefore this was not David's argument in the past. He might be trying to make that his argument today, but it hardly makes sense, since there has been no mention that Peebles even talks about Kirpal Singh, and David has already told us that the two defamatory remarks he refers to were the main hot buttons in the lawsuit. David Lane Replies:
Here is my speculation (and please underline it as such).
I remember when this advertisement came out. I was living near Berkeley at the time
and Walsh and I both felt that it was a PLOY by Eckankar to do some damage control
about the findings of the SCP journal. I never understood why Eckankar didn't simply
talk with Peebles, Gruss, and L.A. Baptist College FIRST. The fact that Mike Noe lied
about his association indicated to me that there was another agenda going on. I think
Darwin and Eckankar were terribly worried about the SCP Journal and that this was their
way of doing spin control on it.
The argument that Eckankar was worried about SCP quoting Peebles' allegations doesn't
make sense, since if the allegations were truly false and defamatory then Eckankar
could have sued SCP.
But Eckankar NEVER sued SCP.
Additionally, Eckankar has NEVER sued me as well and I repeated the SAME allegations
in my own work on Eckankar.
My speculation? The advertisement was a ploy by Eckankar to make them sound like they
were being unfairly attacked. But who was the real threat? SCP.
Did Eckankar EVER sue them? NOPE.
They sued instead an obscure journal and the writer/distributor of a term paper.
Hmmm.
DAVID WROTE: As for your claim that <<the information in the term paper was clearly false and defamatory,>> this is not so "clear" as you make it. First, Peebles' claim about Eckankar's tax status is not his "opinion" but comes from a letter from the Treasury Department which states that Eckankar doesn't have tax exempt status. Given that official letter it does indeed seem like Eckankar is skirting tax laws to Peebles. As for defamation, it is clear from reading the term paper that Peebles' didn't consciously make false statements at all, since the tax issue was based on a letter from the Treasury Department and the allegation about an illegitimate child was attributed (as an allegation) to one of his Eckankar mentors. DOUG RESPONDS: The word defamation means to accuse, to disgrace, to damage the reputation. By claiming these two things here - that Darwin had fathered an illegitimate child and that ECKANKAR did not have the tax exempt status that it claimed it had - both of these two things clearly go toward defaming ECKANKAR and Darwin. Peebles had a losing case, unless he could prove they were true. In the matter of the tax exempt status, the information Peebles had received, no matter how well intentioned or how official he thought it was, was false. The IRS, not the Treasury Department, is the proper source for that information. This does help show that Peebles thought he had something to back up his claim, but unfortunately for Peebles the information was still false. Thus the statement that information in Peebles' term paper was clearly false and defamatory is correct, and nothing David has said here changes this. It is wrong to imply otherwise. It would have been a better argument for David to simply point out that Peebles thought his information was accurate, and was not intentionally spreading false information.
"Clearly" false? Doug, are you sure that Darwin Gross didn't
have any illegitimate children?
And, again, it wasn't clearly false to Peebles nor to the Treasury Department.
However, Peebles is responsible for the truth when making such potentially damaging statements. And David knows very well that saying an illegitimate birth was alleged does not prevent the defamation. Peebles needs to have evidence to support such a statement. Calling it hearsay doesn't stop the damage to reputation that such a suggestion creates. No newspaper would make such a statement unless they could back it up. David Lane Replies:
Eckankar could have easily and simply talked with Gruss and Peebles and settled
the matter.
They sued instead.
I think you keep forgetting that it was a "term" paper by a 19/20 year old kid, not
the New York Times.
DAVID WROTE: Darwin Gross doesn't mention the subliminal images in his worldwide memo. DOUG RESPONDS: The August 1979 Mystic World article called, A Letter To The Membership, does indeed mention that subliminal images were used. A quote from this article was even reproduced by me only a few pages later in my book. Although written by Burnadine Burlin, it is obviously a message from Darwin as well, just as other previous letters written by BB have been attributed to Darwin (such as the forgery claims). The article says, "with subliminal techniques that are dangerous to the spiritual insights of readers and participants." David Lane Replies:
Well, the copyright date of the SCP Journal is September 1979. You say it was in the
August 1979 Mystic World that Darwin via B.B. mentioned the subliminal image. I wasn't
aware that SCP sent early samples of their art work to Darwin.
DAVID WROTE: Instead of explaining the situation upfront and clearly to a naive 20 year old, Eckankar claimed (rather outrageously) that Kirpal Singh and others forged Paul Twitchell's name on many papers to claim him for their own purposes. A charge that has proven to be empty. DOUG REPONDS: The charge has never been proven to be empty. In fact, we still to this date do not know what was behind those claims by Darwin (actually written by BB). I agree that the claim has never been supported, and therefore such a claim should not be made unless it can be supported or at least explained, which is the same thing I've been saying about David's many claims. But to say that the charge was proven empty is simply wrong.
I guess we are playing semantics here because if a charge has no substance I call it
empty.... void of content, support, evidence.
If I am not mistaken, Harold has also mentioned the forgery issue and didn't seem to
retract it.
I am glad that we agree that the forgery claim should never have been made.
I wrote to Eckankar specifically to BACK UP the forgery issue back in 1977.
I even mentioned that my paper was at a crossroads: either Eckankar was right about
Kirpal (and the forgery) or that Paul was covering something up.
Eckankar never supported this charge against Kirpal Singh.
Maybe Eckankar should apologize for allowing such a charge (without proof) to be so
widely circulated.
Maybe you can ask Harold for a retraction.
In fact, it sounds as if Darwin is referring to something specific, but no one has uncovered what it was he was referring to. It is possible, however, that this claim of forgery was simply an imagined explanation, just as many of David's claims have been, which is why we should disregard them until they have something more to back them up.
David Lane replies:
I never made the charge of forgery against Kirpal Singh.
Darwin Gross did and apparently Harold Klemp repeated it.
Since you are an Eckist and apparently know Klemp, maybe you can ask him to retract it.
Also, I believe David is not properly representing the letter that he received from ECKANKAR. It reads very clearly as a polite, upfront and clear explanation. The issue is simply that David found the explanation outrageous. However there is nothing to suggest that ECKANKAR thought the information was inaccurate or outrageous in any way, which is what David seems to be implying. David Lane Replies:
I wrote a second letter to Eckankar after I received their letter about the forgery
claim and I asked them to further elaborate on it.
They never did.
I do think it is a bit odd that when Eckankar is asked about whether its founder was
initiated by Kirpal Singh, they respond by denying it and then claiming that Kirpal
Singh and others "forged" Paul's name on many papers.
When I then do a follow-up letter and explain what the Kirpal Singh people claim, they
never support the forgery charge.
Yes, Doug, for my money that is a cover-up.