{"id":1230,"date":"2009-10-20T23:07:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T23:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2009-10-20T23:07:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T23:07:00","slug":"elizabeth-clare-prophet-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1230","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday M. pointed out to me a small AP story in Sunday’s Denver Post<\/i> that I had overlooked: the death of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, head of the Church Universal and Triumphant<\/a>, one of the chief motivators of the “cults scare” of the 1970s-1980s.<\/p>\n

(“Suffered from dementia for years” — there may be some cynical chuckles at that line from ex-CUT members and their families, even though it was Alzheimer’s dementia.)<\/p>\n

Her hometown newspaper in New Jersey offers photos of her at various ages<\/a> and more links.<\/p>\n

But I owe her thanks for sending me to graduate school, for in the 1970s, when I came back to Colorado after my undergraduate years at Reed<\/a>, CUT <\/a>(then called “Summit Lighthouse<\/a>“) was headquartered at One Broadmoor Avenue, Colorado Springs, a prestigious address, in a red-brick 1930s mansion built by some Oklahoman oilman.<\/p>\n

I had never heard of Summit Lighthouse and as a Pagan was not too interested in quasi-gnostic metaphysical magical chanting–they called it “decreeing”–but a visiting friend wanted to see it, and so we went.<\/p>\n

We picked up some pamphlets and got a tour of the public rooms from some of the followers, who despite the content of the teachings, had a definite Young Republican vibe too them. We did not meet Elizabeth Clare Prophet herself.<\/p>\n

(If there was magic worked on behalf of President Reagan, CUT was working it.)<\/p>\n

Later, as a reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun<\/i>, I was approached by Mrs. Prophet’s disaffected ex-secretary, who offered herself as a source for a feature story on the group. Mrs. Prophet herself did not do interviews–as high as an outsider could go was the group’s spokesman, Murray Steinman.<\/p>\n

And I was introduced to the whole network of “anti-cult<\/a>” groups, parents’ groups, and so on, not to mention one stream of American metaphysical religion<\/a>, going back to the “I Am” movement<\/a> and even farther. <\/p>\n

Writing that story (and a couple of others on other groups) gave me more satisfaction than my regular work on the business beat. I credit them with nudging me towards an eventual decision to go to graduate school in religious studies, because I realized that as a newspaperman I could not really examine new religious movements in any depth.<\/p>\n

Later, too, my chief interest in CUT was whether they would sell some of the land they bought for their “end of the world” retreat north of Yellowstone National Park in a deal arranged by the <\/a>Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation<\/a> to keep an elk-migration corridor open. <\/p>\n

Metaphysical movements come and go, but the elk should endure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday M. pointed out to me a small AP story in Sunday’s Denver Post that I had overlooked: the death of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, head of the Church Universal and Triumphant, one of the chief motivators of the “cults scare” of the 1970s-1980s. (“Suffered from dementia for years” — there may be some cynical chuckles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[10,77,81],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion","tag-gnosticism","tag-wildlife"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-jQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7789,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7789","url_meta":{"origin":1230,"position":0},"title":"Gentrifying the Mansion of Decrees","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the 1980s, heyday of The Menance of Cults, the Church Universal and Triumphant (formerly Summit Lighthouse, grandchild of the \"I Am\" movement, great-great grandchild of Theosophy\u2014one of many), was in the second tier, behind the Moonies, Scientology, and the Hare Krishnas (ISKCON). Its leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939\u20132009)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"First & Broadmoor","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/First-Broadmoor.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":345,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=345","url_meta":{"origin":1230,"position":1},"title":"Moab is not yet destroyed\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Moab is not yet destroyed One of the guys whose rants are collected under the name of the prophet Isaiah once ranted,\" \u201cOn the night when Ar is sacked, Moab meets her doom\/ on the night when Kir is sacked, Moab meets her doom\" (Isaiah 15:1). I can say that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12446,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12446","url_meta":{"origin":1230,"position":2},"title":"Z Budapest Is Still Creating","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Z Budapest, one the first public witches of the 1970s in the United States, is \"largely retired from ritual work\" but still creating, according to a profile pubished in the Los Angeles Times. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with all her views, but in the history of the craft, she is an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1135,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1135","url_meta":{"origin":1230,"position":3},"title":"Cattle Mutilations: D\u00e9j\u00e0 Vu All Over Again","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I almost hate to write this post. It's d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu all over again.Such was my reaction to a recent headline in the Pueblo Chieftain: \"Two More Cows Found Mutilated.\"Eastern Colorado was central to the \"cattle mutilation\" meme of the 1970s. I was younger and wishing that one day I would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":367,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=367","url_meta":{"origin":1230,"position":4},"title":"In defense of \"spell books\"\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"In defense of \"spell books\" Jason Pitzl-Waters blogs BeliefNet's article on the proliferation of Wiccan spell books. My response to this proliferation? A big \"So what?\" In fact, I would say that writer Carl McColman's statement here lacks historical perspective: Indeed, if one quality of recent Wiccan literature is worth\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4347,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4347","url_meta":{"origin":1230,"position":5},"title":"Eating Tomatoes Makes You a Christian","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Salafist Muslims proclaim that eating tomatoes might lead you down the false path to Christianity. The group posted a photo on its page of a tomato - which appears to reveal the shape of a cross after being cut in half \u2013 along with the message: \u201cEating tomatoes is forbidden\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}