Customer Reviews

The Church Universal and Triumphant: Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Apocalyptic Movement

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Bradley Whitsel is an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University, and he is writing this book from the perspective of a political scientist, rather than from a religious/spiritual viewpoint. He is particularly interested in the "doomsday" predictions that were made by the leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT), Elizabeth Clare Prophet during the late 1980s, resulting in church members and followers taking shelter in early 1990 in underground shelters that CUT had constructed beneath their headquarters in Montana.

Whitsel chronicles the history of the group from its origins out of Guy and Edna Ballard's "I AM" movement, through the years of Mark Prophet's marriage to Elizabeth Clare, then her ascendancy to lead the organization after mark Prophet's death in 1973.

Whitsel notes that "CUT attracted an unusual degree of attenton from journalists for its unique blend of Ascended Master spirituality and scientific inquiry. Its meetings and events on topics such as the dangers of genetic engineering, problems with the Federal Reserve system, and the potential for nuclear war, reflected the organization's concerns with concrete worldly issues, a characteristic that separated CUT from the stereotypical 'airiness' of the New Age."

However, Whitsel notes that "Disillusioned CUT members fled Paradise Valley in droves after the nuclear disaster failed to happen. By some accounts, half of the three to four thousand CUT adherents who had come to Montana from 1986 until the time of the emergency call suddenly left the area once expectations for a massive Soviet strike dissapated." Nevertheless, although "CUT lost about one-third of its total membership in the immediate aftermath of the shelter period, but for the most devoted, the nonappearance of the expected disaster was not enough to cause them to break ties with CUT nor to shake their faith in the Messenger."

Whitsel suggests that the fall of communism sped up the Church's decline. "W)hen the Soviet for disintegrated politically in 1991, Prophet's church was left without the historic enemy against which the group's spiritual battle for world freedom was conducted. The conclusion of the Cold War effectively stripped from CUT a long-standing part of its theology and left the organization ideologically rudderless."

Whitsel's book is more of a political/sociological portrait of CUT than a religious/spiritual one, so readers looking for a sympathetic analysis/discussion of channeling, "ascended masters," etc., will have to look elsewhere. But for readers looking for a fascinating portrait of CUT from an "outsider"---who isn't a fundamentalist Christian looking to criticize a "cult"---Whitsel's book is highly recommended.

This author managed to neatly document the history of the messy world of a New Age or "millennialist" sect, a sect often called a "cult" in the media. Bradley Whitsel apparently began his primary research on Church Universal and Triumphant ten years ago, or several years after the group's charismatic leader, Elizabeth Prophet, predicted a strong possibility of a nuclear strike coming from the disappearing Soviet Russian theater. On command thousands of anxious CUT members descended into their hastily constructed survival shelters on March 15, 1990 only to emerge stunned into an essentially unchanged world the next morning. Whitsel concentrates on this interesting story as one that has been neglected by scholars and compares the sect with con-current if dissimilar apocalyptic movements like Aum Shinrikyo, Heaven's Gate and The People's Temple.

Although I believe that the documentation is "neat" and that the author accomplished his goal, I find it unfortunate that his approach is imbedded with a clique of sociology of religion scholars who minimize former member narratives that detail the harm done. Whitsel and his peers have tended to lump "cult" critics into something they call the "anticult network" as if opposition to such groups lacked nuance and diversity. Whitsel does document in many instances why CUT's behavior would attract criticism, but he avoids placing the blame on group behavior.

I noticed a few glaring omissions regarding CUT's formation---for example, Whitsel makes no mention of the Agni Yoga sect that the founders of CUT proclaimed as one of the two prior "dispensations" they came to fulfill, the other being the I AM Activity. Mark Prophet and Elizabeth Prophet's youngest daughter they claimed was the reincarnation of one of Agni Yoga's founders, Helena Roerich. This vital fact would have helped the author further explain CUT's fascination with and fear of Russia.

... In any case, I rate this book with 4 stars because it does better than any previous scholarly attempt to place the unwieldy history and decline of the CUT in context. I also thought the references and notes were well done and useful to any scholar or student of this group.

If you have long hair, and haven't combed it for several months, and after it has become quite matted, you can all imagine how difficult it is to draw a comb through all of those tangles. It is a very difficult proposition. And it can be painful too! That is what the reading experience is like for this book.

Of course, the book is intended to be a hit job on the organization in question (and that's why Joe P. Smizhart likes it so much - a shadowy figure in the world of coercive "deprogrammming"). But even so, if the book was well written, even a supporter of the organization would read through it for no other reason than to see what good information might be in it.

But this book, right from the onset, bogs the mind down at every turn with useless references to sociological "science" that no one in the world understands, not even those who purport to be the masters of it.

Don't waste your money on this one. I guarentee you, you will try to get through the first chapter, and that will be it. You will become so frustrated with the ponderous lexicon that you will put it on your book shelf, and not touch it, until the day comes when you need a positive alternative to being mugged on the corner of 5th street and Broadway. In other words, in that day, if given the choice between being mugged, and reading this book, only then would you actually consider the possibility of picking this book up off the shelf again. But even then, nine out of ten people would choose the mugging.

It is sort of a betrayal of our own self-respect, to have to give this book a 1 star rating. As this denotes some value, which is actually not true. You cannot proceed with your review until you give the book at least one star. If you try to leave the rating blank, it comes back at with you with these bright red letters, "Please rate this item." Amazon.com should change their rating system to allow their customers to retain some self-respect in situations like this, allowing them to give a ZERO star rating to books that warrant it. This one certainly warrants it.