Roger Delano Hinkins
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| John-Roger | |
| Birth name | Roger Delano Hinkins |
| Born | 24 September 1934 Rains, Utah, USA |
| Other name(s) | J-R |
| Official site | John-Roger.Com |
| Notable roles | Founder of Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness |
Roger Delano Hinkins was born on September 24, 1934 to a Mormon family in Rains, Utah. He is best known as the founder of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness where he is often referred to as John-Roger or simply J-R.
[edit] Biography
Born to a Mormon family in Rains, Utah on on September 24, 1934, Hinkins was raised in Utah and received a degree in psychology from the University of Utah in 1958 before moving to San Francisco to work as an insurance claims adjustor before getting a job teaching English at Rosemead High School in a suburb of Los Angeles. In late 1963 Hinkins underwent a gall-bladder operation and a possible sedative overdose, which led to a nine-day coma and near-death experience in which he claimed to have been blessed by a "being" who called himself "John" and "The Beloved."
After this Hinkins took a correspondence course with the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, explored channeling and adopted the name John-Roger. Eckankar asserts that Hinkins joined in 1967 and was given a second-degree initiation by its founder Paul Twitchell in 1968 but this is disputed.[1] Hinkins was reportedly fired from his job at Rosemead High School for teaching self-hypnosis to his students, rather than the assigned subject.
In 1971 Hinkins founded the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, a new religious movement based in California, United States.[2] where he is often referred to simply as J-R.
His official web site[3] lists his education as including a 1958 Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Utah and a 1960 Secondary teaching credential as well other credentials such as a California "secondary life teaching credential" and post-graduate work at University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California and California State University, Los Angeles. He is also lised as the co-author with Peter McWilliams of the books Do It!, Life 101 and You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought. After the two had a falling out, Hinkins sued over Willams' book Life 102: What to Do When Your Guru Sues You, which was said to be critical of Hinkins.[4]. Life 102 contains various biographical details of Hinkins.
[edit] Criticisms
Hinkins has been criticized by a variety of people over the years, but David C. Lane and Peter McWilliams provide the most substantive body of criticism. The gist of Lane's criticism of Hinkins is that he uses spiritual teachings taken from Paul Twitchell's Eckankar, who took them from Radha Soami Satsang Beas, in retaliation for which Lane asserts Hinkins burglarized his home on October 5, 1984. [5] In his book Life 102: What to Do When Your Guru Sues You Williams asserts that Hinkins suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, possibly due to his 1963 coma. In Life 102 Williams chronicles his extended relationship with Hinkins, accusing him of various misrepresentations and hypocrisy, including a pattern of duplicitous and adulterous homosexual relationships, addiction to prescription drugs and various sorts of harassment against a long series of people, including children.
