A new birth of freedom?

 

I should have posted this on the 4th of July, but here we go. Elizabeth Clare Prophet´s crazy take on the founding of the United States. Or not so crazy, because surely this is just a mutant version of American civic religion?  

The Michael Flynn something-burger

 

For a moment, I assumed I had discovered something huge, something so sinister that it could potentially overshadow...I don´t know...the J6 Committee investigation or whatever.

Alas, it seems it´s a nothing-burger.

In the clip above, prominent Trump supporter Michael Flynn is leading the masses in Christian prayer...or is he? The prayer he recites seems to come from Elizabeth Clare Prophet, often accused of being a cult leader! Is General Flynn secretely a supporter of the Church Universal and Triumphant a.k.a. The Montana Doomsday Cult? 

It seems the answer is no. Damn!

The explanation seems to be that Prophet´s organization handed out printed versions of some of her channeled messages rather promiscuously, and Flynn presumably picked it up by mistake.

Somebody who calls himself Back to Facts writes in the commentary section: 

>>>The funny part about all of this is that he was reading from a card that Elizabeth’s organization put out that was a transcript of that channeling event. It was laminated and people used to hand them out like the Hare Krishnas handed out literature at airports. In fact, some people still hand out those cards to strangers.

>>>It’s amazing how quickly people will jump to conclusions and any like he had some sinister motive. He probably has never even seen that video you’re playing. Because he was reading off the back of a freaking picture of St Michael the Archangel that resonated with him when he received it spontaneously from a stranger.

>>>I’m sorry, is it a crime to feel moved by literature that someone gave you? I mean the Communists still do it! 

ADDENDUM. I´ve been doing some thinking. Maybe Flynn´s mistake wasn´t entirely innocent. After all, Prophet´s right-wing political positions were strikingly similar to those of Flynn (as far as I understand them). Also, Flynn may be a Catholic, and Prophet´s group sounded quasi-Catholic. Maybe the old general met these people somewhere? 

The Masters revealed

 

Is an Ascended Master "some dude who is really good at spiritual stuff" or a virtual demigod who answers prayers and saves people á la Jesus? 

The anonymous esotericist in this clip argues that the classical Masters of Theosophy were real flesh-and-blood people who had reached a higher level of spiritual development. The actual master is the divine spark within the physical body, not the person as such. And while "real" Ascended Masters might perhaps exist, an obsession with them is unhealthy since every human must save himself/herself by his/her own efforts. 

Quite interesting, if you are just a bit critical of the proliferation of "masters" and other channeled entities typical of the New Age milieu, especially the Summit Lighthouse-inspired subsets. Many of these masters (one of them named Commander Ashtar) are surely entirely fictitious...

 

Hail Saint Germain

 

The Count who never dies

 

"In Search Of..." is an old NBC series about the paranormal. The episode linked to above (which is really only 20 minutes long) was aired in 1977, and is titled "The Man Who Would Not Die". It´s narrated by Leonard Nimoy (Spock in Star Trek) and deals with the mysterious Count de Saint Germain, a 18th century alchemist and adventurer who dazzled the French aristocracy with his ability to make precious gemstones. Or maybe not, since it seems everything about this man is shrouded in mystery and urban (or is it urbane) legend. He died under the protection of the Danish-German prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel (himself an extremely long-lived man!), the royal governor of Schleswig-Holstein, then a Danish possession. Or did he? Saint Germain was supposedly seen at various places around Europe after his "death", and his legend is still alive and well.

Sensationally, "The Man Who Would Not Die" features an interview with Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the leader of The Summit Lighthouse (alias the Church Universal and Triumphant), who claims to channel messages from Saint Germain, now an "Ascended Master". Prophet is allowed to expound at some length on the weird message of her cult, claiming that Saint Germain was Columbus in a previous life, and that he somehow inspired the American Declaration of Independence! The documentary also shows a "church service" of Prophet´s group, featuring people doing the Bellamy salute while shouting "Hail Saint Germain". Everyone else had stopped using the Bellamy salute by 1977, I think, since it might easily be confused with the Nazi salute! Since Prophet´s group was inspired by the fascistic Guy Ballard, their "hailing" (or is it heiling) of the old alchemist´s portrait looks very, very bizarre... 

The NBC program features an interview with a Theosophist and a token skeptic, who (sensibly enough) regard the mystery count as a rather typical 18th century adventurer in the mold of Cagliostro and Cassanova. There are also "interviews" with Louis XV, Madame Le Pompadour and Voltaire, obviously starred by actors speaking English with a funny French accent. "The Man Who Would Not Die" ends inconclusively, Nimoy simply saying that we really don´t know what happened to Saint Germain after his (real or percieved) death in 1784, and that all further statements about him are matters of faith. 

Since Saint Germain isn´t a household name (I think), I was somewhat surprised to discover this immortal gemstone from the YouTube archives, but there you go...

An updated version might perhaps look at the idea that Saint Germain is working with the Ashtar Galactic Command, or that he is somehow connected to a certain Donald J Trump... 

Light and shadow

This is Dannion Brinkley's controversial “Saved by the Light”, first published in 1994. Brinkley is a Vietnam War veteran who had a dramatic near death experience (NDE) after being struck by lightning near his home in South Carolina in 1975. At the time, Brinkley worked for the CIA in various black ops operations in Central America. The lightning strike forced him to quit, and made him handicapped for years. Somewhat later, Brinkley began working for none other than Raymond Moody, the pioneer researcher into the NDE phenomenon. “Saved by the Light” contains a detailed description of Brinkley's NDE, during which he met a number of angelic beings and visited a crystalline city on the heavenly planes, where he was told to start spiritual retreat centers on Earth, while also being given prophecies about events decades in the future. Both Brinkley and Moody claim that many of these prophecies have been proven correct. Brinkley further claims to have developed telepathic powers – he can literally read other people's minds.

When I first read the book about 20 years ago, I found it very extreme, to the point of bizarre. In fact, this was one of the books which delayed my “conversion” to a spiritual worldview with several years. Moody's own books sounded interesting, even reasonable, but this?! “Saved by the Light” came across as cultic material, and I was surprised that Moody took Brinkley seriously, even employing him as his secretary. Part of me still does. Brinkley's stories have been heavily questioned by skeptics, including the Vietnam veteran and black ops parts. Apparently, he had contacts with an actual cult, Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant. I wonder why, since his book sounds “liberal”, while CUT are hardened anti-Communists of a decidedly non-liberal variety.

Today, I don't find this material as off-putting as I once did. But is it true? I happen to think that the NDE described by the author might be a true experience. I'm more skeptical towards the “prophecies”. The book was published in 1994. Many prophecies dealing with events before the book was published did indeed come true: the US would get a celebrity president with the initials RR, the Soviet bloc would collapse in 1989, there would be a huge desert war in 1990, Brinkley and Moody would visit Moscow in 1994, etc. However, no predictions about events *later* than the book's publication date have come true. The Anti-Christ didn't take over the world circa 2000, for one. The omissions are just as glaring: nothing about 9/11, the second Iraqi war, the first Black president or, ahem, a celebrity president with the initials DJT. Even Brinkley's buddy Elizabeth Clare Prophet managed to “predict” (sort of) 9/11. Moody vouches for the earlier prophecies, and people who met Brinkley in person believes that he has some kind of telepathic-empathic abilities. Maybe, but the failed prophecies do count against him (or against the 13 beings of light he met in the crystalline city).

In the end, I will nevertheless give “Saved by the Light” five stars. The book *is* interesting. Extreme NDEs definitely exist and has to be accounted for. Also, Dannion Brinkley's book played a certain role in my own philosophical meanderings, so for ol' times sake…

A fascinating collection of forgeries and tall tales

A review of "The Lost Years of Jesus" 

This book is published by Church Universal and Triumphant, also known as Summit Lighthouse. The extensive foreword is written by their leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet. The rest of the book contains documents purportedly proving that Jesus spent his "lost years" (from age 13 to age 30) in India, Tibet and Persia, studying Hinduism and Buddhism. The foremost of these documents is Nicolas Notovitch's well-known "Life of St. Issa", first published in 1894. The book also contains three other texts supposedly confirming Notovitch's discoveries, by Abhenanda, Nicolas Roerich and Elizabeth Caspari. The Russian journalist Notovitch claimed to have discovered startling new stories about Jesus when visiting a Buddhist monastery at Himis, in the Ladakh area of Kashmir in India, close to the Tibetan border.

Virtually all scholars reject these documents, and believe that Jesus never set his foot outside Palestine and its environs. In my opinion, they have good reasons for doing so. For starters, nobody have seen the original manuscripts of these remarkable documents, only the translations made by Notovitch and his backers. There are also various discrepancies between the various accounts. In a foreword to "Life of St. Issa", Notovitch says that he did *not* translate a single manuscript. Rather, the monks at Himis showed him scattered passages about Jesus in several different ancient manuscripts, which Notovitch then re-arranged into a suitable, Gospel-like narrative. Tacitly at least, Notovitch is admitting that he was to some extent using his own creative imagination. This makes "Life of St. Issa" a paraphrase at best, a forgery at worst, even if we accept that the monks did show him some documents. However, both Abhenanda and Caspari claim to have seen a *single* manuscript with the Issa story in it, and Abhenanda even claims to have translated it. (What Roerich is claiming is frankly a bit unclear.)

A curious aspect of the documents, if one takes the trouble to read them, is that Jesus is said to have criticized both Hindus, Jains and Zoroastrians, and he doesn't sound very Buddhist either. Indeed, Jesus sounds like a 19th century liberal Protestant, which makes you wonder what exactly he is supposed to have picked up in India and Tibet in the first place? Notovitch's document can be read as a liberal Western criticism of barbaric India and Persia, rather than "proof" for Hindu-Buddhist influences on Jesus.

Another thing that strikes an out-sider as somewhat suspicious is that all people who confirmed Notovitch's story had *religious* reasons for doing so. Abhenanda was a disciple of the great Vivekananda, the founder of the Ramakrishna Mission. Nicolas Roerich was a Theosophist, and eventually founded a Theosophical off-shot of his own, Agni Yoga. And Caspari was a member of Mazdaznan, a nominally Zoroastrian but actually Theosophical group. In and of itself, the religious convictions of a person doesn't disqualify him or her as a serious witness, but when only people with a vested interest claims to have seen otherwise unaccesible documents (or was it just one document?), one is bound to suspect something. A cover-up? Wishful thinking? A little bit of both?

Be that as it may, I nevertheless recommend this book for students of comparative religion and others interested in these issues. It's the only collection of all pertinent writings on the subject (from the "pro" side) I'm aware of. Therefore I give it five stars, despite the questionable contents of the documents it reprints.

Lost in the teachings of the Prophets

"The lost teachings of Jesus: Keys to Self-Transcendence" is the third volume in a series of four books attributed to Elizabeth Clare Prophet but probably written by Mark L. Prophet, her husband. Mark founded a religious group known as Summit Lighthouse, and after his death, Elizabeth assumed the leadership until her own death a few years ago. The group has also operated under the designation Church Universal and Triumphant. American media know them as "the Montana doomsday cult", after a rather curious incident involving the stashing of firearms and the building of deep air raid shelters at the group's property in Montana.

The message of Summit Lighthouse is a bewildering blend of...well, almost everything. I never came across a religious group this wildly eclectic! The "lost teachings of Jesus" (really the teachings of Mr. and Mrs. Prophet) turn out to be a combination of Christianity, Gnosticism, the New Age, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christian Science, American patriotism, Theosophy, belief in space aliens and...(surprise) one Guy Ballard. Will the real I AM please stand up?

I can't say this is a good book. It sounds like an interminable, rambling sermon. Still, if you manage to get through it (I barely did), you might learn some interesting details about the worldview of this particular group. Mark L. Prophet claims to be a re-incarnation of John Mark, the purported author of the Gospel of Mark. He was Origen and Bonaventure in somewhat later incarnations. Mark also claims that Elizabeth Clare Prophet is a re-incarnation of Martha. The Prophets are on a first name basis with a number of Ascended Masters, including Koot Hoomi (who was St. Francis in a previous life) and St. Hilarion, better known as the apostle Paul (also in a previous life). Another Master, known as Paul the Venetian, turns out to be the Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese! Other historical figures claimed by the Prophets include the Mogul emperor Akbar the Great, Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III and the Neo-Platonist philosopher Proclus.

But the Ascended Master above everyone else is, of course, St. Germain. He used to be a ruler of a mighty kingdom in the Sahara, a kingdom incidentally unknown to modern historians. He also re-incarnated as Merlin - the Prophets take the legend of king Arthur quite literally. St. Germain is the true founder of the United States, since he was Columbus, Francis Bacon and a close advisor to George Washington. Indeed, he "anointed" Washington the first president. Come again? As Francis Bacon, St. Germain founded modern science, wrote the plays of Shakespeare and created Freemasonry. What I found particularly fascinating about all this, is that the Prophets give a positive spin to events and persons regarded as negative by most conspiracy theorists! Apart from their positive view of Bacon and the Freemasons (they admit that many early American leaders were Masons), they also believe that St. Germain wanted to create a united Europe. Shades of world government?

Once again, this is not a good book. The other volumes in this series seem to be even worse. However, if you want to get lost in the teachings of Mark and Elizabeth Prophet, this is a good place to start as any...

They sure lost it

"The lost teachings of Jesus" is a series of four books attributed to Elizabeth Clare Prophet. However, it seems that most of the material consists of sermons or speeches by her husband, Mark L. Prophet. The Prophets were the leaders of Summit Lighthouse, a controversial new religious movement. Both are now deceased. Their group has also called itself Church Universal and Triumphant. The message of Summit Lighthouse is highly eclectic, and sounds like a free-wheeling combination of traditional Christianity and New Age teachings. Theosophy and Alice Bailey are other sources of inspiration. The most direct ancestor of Summit Lighthouse, however, is the I AM Activity of Guy and Edna Ballard. The group is also notorious for its anti-Communism and generally right-wing political stances. Some detractors refer to them as "the Montana doomsday cult".

Elizabeth Clare Prophet's most interesting book, "The lost years of Jesus" is reviewed by me elsewhere. The four volumes of "The lost teachings of Jesus" are marketed as sequels to that book. Unfortunately, they are nothing of the sort. The series is mostly a collection of incoherent and rambling sermons. Even the message of Summit Lighthouse gets lost somehow. This fourth volume is particularly bad. It does contain the bizarre conspiracy theories of this particular group, however.

Apparently, the Prophets believed that many humans are really counterfeit creations, a kind of humanoid robots controlled from within by the fallen angels mentioned in the apocryphal Book of Enoch. These fallen angels in human disguise have wormed themselves into positions of power, and are behind the economic crises, wars, population control and even price manipulations of wheat! (Is this where David Icke got his ideas from?) The book contains some mantras or "decrees" which can be used to protect you and yours from the influence of these "mechanized men" by invoking the "Electronic Presence of Jesus Christ".

Talk about loosing it. I'm afraid I have to give this book two stars...

Beloved, at least it was action

"Lords of the Seven Rays" is one of innumerable books published by The Summit Lighthouse, also known as Summit University, Keepers of the Flame or Church Universal and Triumphant. (American media used to call them The Montana Doomsday Cult, for short!) This particular book is better edited and more readable than the 4-volume series "The lost teachings of Jesus". It's attributed to both Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the long time leaders of this particular religious group. (Both are now deceased).

The Summit Lighthouse is a very eclectic new religious group, mixing traits from at least a dozen religious traditions in a somewhat bewildering way. The main source of inspiration seems to be Guy Ballard's controversial "I AM Activity". I haven't read the Ballard material, so it's not clear to me whether the eclectic hodgepodge was his invention, or whether it's a later innovation by The Summit Lighthouse themselves. Theosophy is another strong influence, perhaps through said Ballard? The group is also heavily pro-American and anti-Communist, and sounds more conservative than the New Age milieu from which it presumably recruits. For instance, The Summit Lighthouse opposes abortion and population control.

The group believes that the destiny of man is guided by Ascended Masters, heavenly beings who used to live on Earth as humans, but who rose to a more lofty status through a succession of re-incarnations. There is a bewildering number of these Masters, but the most important ones seem to be Saint Germain and Jesus Christ. In this book, we also meet Paul the Venetian, El Morya, Lord Lanto, Serapis Bay, Hilarion, Nada and the Maha Chohan. The first part of "Lords of the Seven Rays" contains the (fictitious) biographies of these Ascended Masters. The Prophets use these biographies to claim a long list of important historical characters. Thus, El Morya is said to have incarnated as Mogul emperor Akbar the Great, Thomas Beckett and Thomas More. Paul the Venetian is actually Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese. Saint Germain was Roger Bacon, Christopher Columbus and Francis Bacon. He also inspired the American Revolution and anointed (sic) George Washington president of the United States. In this way, The Summit Lighthouse (a small sectarian group founded in 1958) can claim a venerable tradition going back thousands of years. The whole thing is put forward with a completely straight face, and almost give an impression of naïve, childlike faith.

Occasionally, the claims of the Prophets are almost comic, as when they suggest that the Statue of Liberty in New York City is ensouled by an actual spiritual being, known as Mother or The Goddess of Liberty. The goddess has an invisible temple suspended in mid air right above Manhattan, which can be reached by spiritual means. Pilgrimages to the Statue of Liberty are recommended. Another invisible temple, El Morya's retreat in Sikkim, can be reached by concentrating on the tune of "Land of hope and glory"! A piece of information that might rub evangelical heresy-hunters the wrong way is that Jesus Christ himself re-incarnated. He was the Patriarch Joseph, Joshua and Elisha (that's why he recognized John the Baptist as the re-incarnated Elijah).

Unfortunately, this seemingly harmless little group has often been accused of being weird, nasty and cultic. Their habit of stashing fire arms and building air raid shelters in Montana, militia style, didn't exactly improve their reputation.

The second part of the book is made up of channelled messages from the Ascended Masters. My personal favourite is Paul the Venetian, actually Paolo Veronese, who attacks modern art! The idea of a Renaissance painter attacking contemporary art through a spiritualist medium is, admittedly, appealing. I mean, it almost makes sense, doesn't it? Occasionally, the book also contains some unexpected humour, as when Thomas Beckett (a.k.a. El Morya) says in a channelled message concerning his murder in 1170: "Beloved, at least it was action. After all, I had wasted away in France for a number of years". Call me prejudiced, but every time I see humour in a religious text, I suspect fraud...

I don't know about you, but I think Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet made it all up!

:P

Read "Lords of the Seven Rays" and find out the truth for yourself...

The last episode of "Lost" was more interesting

"The lost teachings of Jesus" is a four-volume work by Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet. The Prophets were the leaders of a new religious movement known as The Summit Lighthouse. It has also used other designations, including Church Universal and Triumphant and Summit University.

This is the first volume of the series. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it, not even as an introduction to the teachings of this particular religious sect.

The section on "Missing Texts" is readable, but quite short. The rest of the book contains rambling, incoherent and frankly uninteresting sermons by Mark L. Prophet. I've looked through volumes 3 and 4 as well, and they are not much better. I get the impression that the material was impossible to sell...except if marketed as lost teachings of Jesus. "Mark L. Prophet loosing the red thread" would be a better title. The Prophets claimed to channel messages from Jesus Christ, but very little actual material of that sort is included. These books are a real let down! The lost messages are still lost, it seems.

The Summit Lighthouse has published lots of material over the years, and it's probably inevitable that it will be of varied quality. Their best book is undoubtedly "The lost years of Jesus" by Elizabeth Clare Prophet (not to be confused with this series). Another good introduction to the frequently strange beliefs of this group is the book "Lords of the Seven Rays". I've ordered some more material by the same authors, so stay tuned!

However, if you can, avoid the series "The lost teachings of Jesus". You won't regret it. And now, I'm off to see Jacob...

Elizabeth Clare Prophet on all and everything

Elizabeth Clare Prophet was the leader of The Summit Lighthouse until her death a few years ago. I don't deny that she was very charismatic and strangely fascinating. Unfortunately, her group was probably a cult. As for her message, it seems to have been an eclectic potpourri of almost everything...except Islam! Her writings have the same eclectic quality. This book is no exception.

The main message of "Saint Germain's prophecy for the new millennium" is that prophecy isn't set in stone, and that even the gloomiest forecasts can be changed. The Biblical story of Jonah is used as evidence for this. Indeed, the book contains very few concrete prophecies. Published in 1999, it claims that the period until 2025 will contain both positive and negative aspects, and it's up to humanity to choose which path it will tread. One of Prophet's co-authors, the astrologer Murray Steinman, discusses various planetary transits and comes to the conclusion that we are entering a period of wars and clashes between civilizations...or democratic revolutions and spiritual transformations.

Otherwise, what struck me about this book was Prophet's attempt to cover as much ground as possible. She and her co-authors Steinman and Spadaro discusses Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, the Marian apparitions at Fatima and Medjugorje, the life of Saint Germain, the power of the violet flame, and (briefly) the movie "Ghostbusters II" (!). It should be noted that The Summit Lighthouse considers the Statue of Liberty to be literally divine, so they must have loved the closing scenes of that motion picture...

The book also contains channelled messages from Mary, Saint Germain and elemental spirits, including The Hierarchs of the Water Element, who call upon us to save the majestic whales. Well, Elizabeth, since your group has a techno-fix, I really don't see your point! More disturbing is a prophecy by a female spirit (Mary again?) supposedly given to George Washington, foretelling the foreign occupation of the United States. The book, published two years before 9/11, also contain a quatrain by Nostradamus about an attack on New York.

More as a sideshow, "Saint Germain's prophecy for the new millennium" reveals that Dannion Brinkley is a Summit Lighthouse fellow traveller. Aha! Gotcha, Dannyboy! Apparently, Brinkley (author of "Saved by the Light") saw the violet flame during one of his near-death experiences.

I'm not sure how to rate a work I don't really agree with, but since it might be of interest to spiritual seekers and I feel generous, I give it four.

How strong is your will to believe?

Years ago, when I was a hard-line sceptic and materialist, I read a couple of books about near-death experiences, including Raymond Moody's classic "Life after life". I didn't believe them, of course. Still, I was intrigued. The out-of-body experience reported by many patients close to death, in which the subject "sees" himself from the outside, struck me as difficult to explain. Could this be the smoking gun evidence against the materialist worldview...?

Then, I read Dannion Brinkley's "Saved by the Light" and was repelled. Indeed, it had the same effect as a thunderbolt! It would be an exaggeration to claim that Dannion Brinkley scared me from taking the spiritual worldview seriously, but it would not be far from the truth. It's all your fault, Dannion! :-O

I recently re-read the book. "Saved by the Light" is extreme, no doubt about it. The book really challenges the reader's credulity. However, it no longer repelled me as much as it did about 12 years ago, when I read it the first time. These days, my initial reaction to the book amuses me. But do I believe in it? Frankly, I have no idea what to believe. Raymond Moody, who actually hired Dannion Brinkley as his assistant, don't know what on earth to make of him either. He has my sympathy!

The problem with this book is not Brinkley's supposed lie about his time in Vietnam. The problem, of course, are his extravagant claims about having paranormal abilities. Brinkley claims that he can read other people's minds. He also claims to have met spirits or angels during his first near-death experience who gave him detailed prophecies about the future. All of the prophecies have proven to be false, except three: the fall of the Communist bloc, the war against Iraq and a visit by Moody and Brinkley to Moscow.

Cold readings? Co-incidences? Perhaps. Still, the book is a fascinating read. Equally fascinating is the fact that Moody seems to believe in some of Brinkley's claims.

After "Saved by the Light" was published, Brinkley seems to have become a fellow traveller to The Summit Lighthouse (TLS), a controversial new religious movement often accused of being a cult. TSL's leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet mentions Brinkley in her book "Saint Germain's prophecies for the new millennium". Brinkley apparently claimed to have seen the Violet Flame during his near-death experience, something not mentioned in "Saved by the Light". The Violet Flame is a supposed cosmic energy that plays a central role in the religious worldview of TLS.

"You are going to make the Ascension in this life, Dannion".

I'm not sure what to make of Dannion Brinkely and "Saved by the Light", but if you want to test how strong your will to believe really is, there is no better book than this one...

The Great White Sisterhood

A review of the book "The Great White Brotherhood: In the Culture, History and Religion of America".

The Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) is a new religious movement with a message that sounds like a potpourri of Theosophy, Catholicism and American nationalism. Its immediate predecessor was the "I AM" Activity of Guy and Edna Ballard. For decades, CUT was led by the strangely charismatic Elizabeth Clare Prophet, who died in 2009. The group is also known under the name The Summit Lighthouse.

CUT has published a plethora of books, many of which are confusing and uninformative. This one is no exception. You have to sift through long-winding and frankly boring "channelled messages" from various Ascended Masters to find something interesting. "The flame of freedom speaks" might be the most interesting article, since it clearly shows the right-wing political stances of the CUT. It's a classical hit piece of Reaganite anti-Communist propaganda and various conspiracy theories of the ultra-right, spiced with the spiritual message of Prophet. She explicitly expresses support for Somoza's National Guard, the Renamo and the UNITA, the Afghan mujahedeen and even the resistance coalition in Cambodia, which was dominated by the Khmer Rouge! Great White "Sisterhood", a.k.a. the CIA? Contradicting herself, Prophet then condemns the genocide of the Khmer Rouge and the repression in Argentina during the pro-American military junta. On the conspiracy front, it's Antony Sutton, the Federal Reserve, the Endangered Species Act... In some ways, Prophet seems to have been almost militia, since the CUT stashed weapons at their "ranch" in Montana, which made the American media dub them "the Montana doomsday cult". However, she eventually called off the whole thing, claiming it was just a drill!

In another article, we learn that the CUT are annihilationists. There is no literal Hell, but souls who have reincarnated without improving will eventually be sentenced by a 24-member court at Sirius to die the second death, and simply be annihilated. Their energy will then by recycled by the cosmos. Prophet even claims that Lucifer has already been executed by the Four and Twenty Elders of the Court of Sacred Fire on Sirius. His trial started on April 16, 1975 and ended on April 26, 1975. The annihilation of Lucifer took place immediately afterwards - clearly, there is no death row on Sirius!

The Great White Brotherhood of the book's title is the group of Ascended Masters overseeing the Earth's spiritual evolution. The United States was founded by these Masters, including St. Germain. Prophet claims that George Washington was later reborn as Guy Ballard, the founder of the I AM Activity! She also includes various "prophecies" about Washington, Lincoln and the future fate of America.

But, as already mentioned, most of "The Great White Brotherhood" consists of extremely tedious and uninformative exhortations attributed to various Ascended Masters, including Ra Mu and Pallas Athena...

The dark side of the lighthouse

"The Enemy Within" is a book containing writings and speeches of Mark Prophet, Elizabeth Clare Prophet and some of their purported ascended masters (including Jesus). The Prophets were founder-leaders of The Summit Lighthouse a.k.a. Church Universal and Triumphant, a somewhat controversial religious group. Some people regard it as an outright cult.

I can't say that I liked this book. The material is rambling, unsystematic and highly eclectic. Elizabeth Clare Prophet blends Catholic Christianity, Gnosticism, Buddhism, Theosophy and conspiracy theories about UFOs in a bewildering way. The general tone of "The Enemy Within" is negative. Judgment Day is approaching soon, many of the faithful have fallen away and become black magicians, many reincarnated souls have become cynical and no longer believe in God, etc. There's an entire hierarchy of evil, and the fallen angels have visited Earth in their space craft. Many world leaders are really "Nephilim gods", i.e. fallen angels masquerading as humans. The Nephilim also have the ability to clone themselves and create Mechanization Man. Millions of these fake humans roam our planet. They are willing to obey their "gods" and spread murder, mayhem and fanaticism. The faithful are warned about apostates and traitors from their own ranks, and sternly told to obey the guru (presumably Elizabeth Clare Prophet herself). This is presumably the mentality which led Prophet and her followers to stash guns and build deep air raid shelters at the "Royal Teton Ranch" in Montana about 25 years ago...

I can't say that I liked this book. This is the dark side of The Summit Lighthouse.

A fallen prophet?

The leader of The Summit Lighthouse, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, have written two quasi-scholarly books. "The lost years of Jesus", about the supposed discoveries of Nicolas Notovitch in Tibet, could be of interest even to a general audience. I'm less sure about "Fallen angels and the origins of evil". The book is too narrow and conspiracist, and will mostly appeal to those sharing the author's paranoid worldview. This despite Prophet's attempts to sound like a Bible scholar.

"Fallen Angels" contains English translations of The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) and The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch or Slavonic Enoch). There are also excerpts from other apocryphal books. It's not always clear where the publisher got hold of this material. The Book of Enoch is translated by Richard Laurence, the other Enochian book by W.R. Morfill. The volume also contains a list of parallels between the Book of Enoch and the New Testament. Last but not least, we also get to read Prophet's own interpretations of the Enochian corpus.

Prophet correctly points out that the Book of Enoch must have enjoyed a kind of canonical status within early Christianity and certain strands of (so-called) Late Judaism. However, she gets off tangent when claiming that the startling revelations are...well, true. Apparently, Prophet has a conspiracy theory loosely based on 1 Enoch, according to which evil wasn't the result of Adam's fall. Rather, evil was introduced by fallen angels who incarnated as fake humans and mated with real human females. In this way, an alien bloodline was introduced in the human population. It remains to this day. The political and economic establishment which causes war, inflation and hedonistic mass culture consists of literal clones created by the original fallen angels. The Watchers (the name given the fallen angels in 1 Enoch) also killed Jesus. Prophet claims that many Biblical verses dealing with "the wicked", "the ungodly" or even "pagans" are really concealed references to the Watchers, and that Jesus often condemned them. For our edification, Prophet has included a list of proof-texts in which "Watchers" have been inserted instead of the original wording. The serpent seed is thereby revealed!

I think it's obvious that the fallen angels in Prophet's conception are really extraterrestrials, but in this book she doesn't mention the UFOs. A more sinister possibility also comes to mind: the Watchers and the Nephilim are really...the Jews. Prophet's conspiracy theory is similar to the Serpent Seed Theory of Christian Identity. The idea that Jews really are evil ETs seem to exist in a number of aberrant neo-Theosophical sects, including the Swedish Hylozoiks. And what about David Icke? Icke later recanted and turned "his" aliens into Aryan-reptilians (sic), but his early books did interest some pretty unsavoury characters. Note also that the Watchers in Prophet's scenario are identical with the Pharisees, including the Sanhedrin who sentenced Jesus to die. While the message of The Summit Lighthouse doesn't sound particularly anti-Semitic, the question of the origins of these ideas must at least be posed.

Who knows, perhaps Elizabeth Clare was a...fallen prophet.