Lane, David (Christopher) (1956-)

Philosophy professor and writer on new religious movements. He was born on April 29, 1956, in Burbank, California, and received his education at Los Angeles Valley College (Associate of Arts) and California State University, Northridge (B.A., 1978). He did his graduate work at the Graduate Theological Union (M.A., 1983) and the University of California at Berkeley from which he received both a M.A., 1988, and Ph.D., 1991, in sociology. While there he was a research assistant to Mark Juergensmeyer on a grant to study the trans-national Radhasoami faith. He traveled throughout North India and compiled an exhaustive genealogical tree of Radhasoami gurus and gaddis (seats of Sikh gurus). He helped to produce a documentary film on the history of Sant Mat (a transcendental Sikh movement), and was instrumental in arranging a rare interview with Baba Faqir Chand, then a 94-year-old sage in the foothills of the Himalayas. The research became the basis of his M.A. thesis (1981) and ultimately a book, The Radhasoami Tradition (1992). His research also helped satisfy his own spiritual quest and in 1978 he was initiated by Radhasoami master Maharaj Charan Singh. Prior to assuming his present position, Lane taught at the University of California, San Diego, where he received a Regents Fellowship in Sociology. Lane's research on the Radhasoami movement led to work on two modern western off-shoots of the movement, ECKANKAR and the Movement for Inner Spiritual Awareness (MSIA), both of which had denied their contact with the larger movement. The first result was the publication in 1983 of The Making of a Spiritual Movement (originally presented as a term paper at California State University, Northridge, 1978), a detailed study of the intellectual roots of ECKANKAR and of its founder, Paul Twitchell. The book charged that Twitchell had been trained by Radhasoami master Kirpal Singh and had plagiarized extensively from Radhasoami literature in books circulated as ECKANKAR texts. Lane went on to found a journal, Understanding Cults and Spiritual Movements, with his colleague Brian Walsh and continued his research on various Radhasoami and Indian-based groups, some of which he felt had perverted the Radhasoami tradition. John Roger Hinkins and Da Free John especially became objects of severe criticism.

Lane's own publishing venture was interrupted in the mid-1980s by a series of events including some death threats, a break-in at his home, and the theft of his mailing lists and other documents. However, he has continued to write in the field and has recently published two volumes, including an updated text of his early study of the Radhasoami tradition and an anthology of his critical works on Indian spiritual movements.

Sources:

Lane, David Christopher. Exposing Cults: When the Skeptical Mind Confronts the Mystical. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994.

——. The Making of a Spiritual Movement. Del Mar, Calif.: Del Mar Press, 1983.

——. The Radhasoami Tradition: A Critical History of Guru Successorship. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992.