(RNS) — In 1970s New England, then-25-year-old Sharon Kunin, a pastor’s daughter, was full of out-of-the-box questions her Presbyterian upbringing didn’t quite answer — a typical countercultural shift seen in her generation.
“I had my own little truth detector,” Kunin told RNS. “I looked at so many different paths, and then I’d come to, like, a cul-de-sac where it would end, or there was something that wasn’t quite fitting.”
But everything changed when Kunin found a book by Paul Twitchell, the founder of the 1965-born American new religious movement Eckankar, also known as the Path of Spiritual Freedom. Inspired by Eastern mysticism, Eckankar, which means “coworker with God,” is a Western spiritual path that teaches that each unique soul can connect directly with God through personal experience — a belief, Kunin said, that can coexist with any religion.
“I actually started trembling because I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God, these are my thoughts,’” she said. “This is what I think, they’re addressing the very questions that I have. And I thought, ‘I have found it.’”
Sharon Kunin speaks on the theme of “Connect with the God Current” at a spiritual event at the Temple of ECK, home of Eckankar, in July 2025. Photo courtesy Eckankar
A few years later, Kunin moved to be near the Temple of ECK in rural Minnesota, the headquarters for thousands of what are known as ECKists worldwide. She is now a senior cleric and spiritual educator. In her role, Kunin facilitates workshops to help ECKists connect with God through chanting the sacred mantra HU (pronounced “hyoo”), analyzing dreams and “soul travel,” or one’s consciousness moving beyond the physical plane into higher spiritual realms.
“All kinds of people come here, and they want to talk about a spiritual experience that they had — an awakening, a dream, some miraculous coincidence, something that changed them,” she said. “They are so grateful that they can share their journey with people in Eckankar who just nod and smile and say, ‘yeah.’ What we offer is understanding, openness, acceptance and validation.”
This Saturday (Oct. 25), some of the world’s ECKists, who reside in more than 120 countries, predominately in Europe and Africa, will converge at the temple for their annual Worldwide So …