{"id":7789,"date":"2016-02-17T15:05:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T22:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7789"},"modified":"2016-02-17T15:08:20","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T22:08:20","slug":"gentrifying-the-mansion-of-decrees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7789","title":{"rendered":"Gentrifying the Mansion of Decrees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"First<\/a>

Photo: Colorado Springs Gazette<\/p><\/div>\n

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).<\/p>\n

Its leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet<\/a> (1939\u20132009) took control after the death of her husband, Mark Prophet <\/a>(1918\u20131973). To the church, he did not die<\/em> but became an Ascended Master. It always amused me that they claimed a previous incarnation for him as Sir Launcelot, whom I had thought was a fictional character. For the full list, see link.<\/p>\n

Around the time of Mark’s . . . passing . . . Summit Lighthouse, as it was then known, acquired this 1930s mansion in a ritzy part of Colorado Springs near the Broadmoor Hotel<\/a>.((British readers are permitted a brief titter at that name, but in Colorado Springs it has been a luxury resort since the 1880s.))<\/p>\n

I remember stopping by in about 1975 with a New-Agey friend from college who had heard about Summit Lighthouse\u2014we chatted with some members, looked at some of the public rooms, picked up some brochures.<\/p>\n

Not long after our visit, the group changed its name and moved to property north of Yellowstone National Park,((They bought 12,000 acres and named it the Royal Teton Ranch.)) where they started stockpiling weapons and supplies and preparing for the apocalypse<\/a>. Yeah, that again.<\/p>\n

They spent hours chanting magical affirmations \u2014 “decrees” in CUT-speak \u2014 with a strong flavor of American nationalism.((If Dion Fortune could organized magical workings against Nazi Germany, why couldn’t CUT support the Reagan Administration? Who says occultists cannot be political?)) They probably took credit for President Reagan surviving John Hinckley’s attempt to kill him \u2014 or maybe they gave all credit to the Ascended Master St. Germain,<\/a> who was Their Guy.<\/p>\n

In about 1981, when I was a young newspaper reporter, I was contacted by a woman who had been Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s personal secretary until she quit and\/or was forced out. She unburdened herself, and I built a news feature around that. I found writing about “cults” to be quite absorbing \u2014 there were some others also \u2014 and eventually I made the decision to go to graduate school and study new religious movements.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the big house at First and Broadmoor apparently went downhill. It backs onto the hotel’s tennis courts, near its carriage-and-vintage car museum, and now the hotel wants to buy it and turn it into guest suites.<\/a><\/p>\n

Planning a big wedding? For only a projected $8,500 a night, you can put the whole family there.<\/p>\n

(The other weird thing was that in some photos, ECP looked a bit like my mother. If my mother had been an alternative-religion leader, she definitely would have been working positive magic for President Reagan. But in her cosmos, the 1928 Book of Common Prayer <\/a>already covered that, with its standard prayer for “The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and all others in authority.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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) took control after the death […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[23,95,273,179,275,276,274],"class_list":["post-7789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colorado","tag-journalism","tag-montana","tag-new-age","tag-new-religious-movements","tag-religious-studies","tag-theosophy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-21D","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7734,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7734","url_meta":{"origin":7789,"position":0},"title":"The Eagles of Candlemas, continued","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The first part is here. As I wrote earlier this week, M. and I celebrated Candlemas by going to Eagle Days down at the state park by Pueblo Reservoir.\u00a0 (Chamber of Commerce types want you to say \"Lake Pueblo.\") Scheduling a festival around raptors is a little iffy; you can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"Diana Miller, director of the Raptor Center in Pueblo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Diana-Miller-eagle.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1230,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1230","url_meta":{"origin":7789,"position":1},"title":"Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Me","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4634,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4634","url_meta":{"origin":7789,"position":2},"title":"It’s Called “Occult” Because It’s Hidden","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In my professional life, I am currently in the middle of Major Drama that I cannot talk about right now. I think that it will be all for the best, but the details will have to remain occult for a bit longer. Plus I seem to be getting some kind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":955,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=955","url_meta":{"origin":7789,"position":3},"title":"An Immigrant’s Story","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So here I am at the final joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature. The book show is always one of the best parts. It is of the size that is usually measured in \"football fields.\" Naturally books relating to Christianity dominate,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2991,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2991","url_meta":{"origin":7789,"position":4},"title":"Home Country: A Southern Colorado Catholic Splinter Group","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I visited Florence, Colorado, yesterday and noticed that the congregation of St. Jude the Apostle of the Ecumenical Catholic Church of Christ\u00a0 (not to be confused with the Ecumenical Catholic Church) had apparently evaporated. At least their sign was missing from the old brick church on Second Street by which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gateway Chapel, Florence, Colorado","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/st._jude__co.2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":535,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=535","url_meta":{"origin":7789,"position":5},"title":"God hates Sweden plus various\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"God hates Sweden plus various other countriesPastor Fred Phelps, that prophet of the Lord, is branching out with new Web sites devoted to countries that his god hates, e.g., America, Sweden, Canada, Madagascar, Nepal. (OK, some of those links won't work--yet.)Here in Colorado we are blessed with occasional apparitions of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7789","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=7789"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7800,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7789\/revisions\/7800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}