Church Universal and Triumphant, Inc. (Montana Doomsday Cult)

The Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) is a New Age religious organization combining elements of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Theosophy, founded in the United States in 1975 by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. The church is headquartered near Gardiner, Montana, and the church has local congregations in more than 20 countries. Influenced by Theosophy and I AM, the Church originated as The Summit Lighthouse, established by Mark L. Prophet in 1958. He claimed to be a Messenger who was dictating messages to humanity from the Ascended Masters. In 1961, he married Elizabeth Clare Prophet, whom he announced was also a Messenger. In 1965, they moved to Colorado Springs. In 1975, Mark died and Elizabeth reformulated the organization as the Church Universal and Triumphant. The Prophet's predictions became increasingly apocalyptic, claiming nuclear war was imminent. The Church established a community at Royal Teton Ranch in Montana, where they built a series of underground fallout shelters. In March 1990, Church members hid within these shelters in response to the Prophet's announcement that a nuclear attack on the U.S. was about to occur. As Prophet began suffering from Alzheimer's disease in the 1990s, there was reorganization in the Church, which saw a significant decline in membership and various groups splintering off. The goal of human life, the CUT claimed, was for each individual to spiritually evolve to the point where they would ascend themselves. The CUT taught that the Ascended Masters' plans to perfect human society were being thwarted by "Dark Forces", among whom they included communists and other left-wing activists, the federal government, mainstream religions, and extraterrestrials. A millenarian group, it held that the global build-up of negative karma would result in an apocalyptic catastrophe – something it ultimately predicted would occur in 1990. Estimates for the number of CUT followers during its heyday range from 10,000 to 50,000. The Church attracted controversy, with critics in the anti-cult movement labelling it a "cult", and it has also been referred to by scholars as a doomsday cult in reference to its apocalyptic teachings and fallout shelter preparations during the late 1980s. The Church Universal and Triumphant is classified as a new religious movement, while the geographers Paul Starrs and John Wright termed it a sect. It has also been described as a New Age organization. Melton characterised it as part of the "Western metaphysical tradition". In scholarly discussion, the movement has also been characterized as a doomsday cult, particularly in analyses focusing on its late-1980s apocalyptic expectations and organized preparation for an anticipated nuclear catastrophe, while noting ongoing debate within the academic study of new religious movements regarding the use of the term "cult". The Catholic Church originated the phrase "Church Militant and Church Triumphant" to refer to Christians in Heaven. In 1895, Mary Baker Eddy used the terms "universal" and "triumphant" in her first Church Manual as referring to the church she founded. In the 1903 edition of this work, she capitalized these terms, referring to her church as the "Church Universal and Triumphant". In 1919 Alice A. Bailey, in what some students of esotericism view as a reference to the future organization, prophesied that the religion of the New Age would appear by the end of the 20th century and it would be called the Church Universal. However Bailey's phrase was "Church Universal", rather than "Church Universal and Triumphant", and on page 152 of Bailey's "A Treatise on White Magic", she indicated that her "Church Universal" was not a church or conventional organization at all but a subjectivity or mystical entity: "It is that inner group of lovers of God, the intellectual mystics, the knowers of reality who belong to no one religion or organization, but who regard themselves as members of the Church universal and as 'members one of another.'" Elizabeth Clare Prophet announced the name "Church Universal and Triumphant" on July 2, 1973, in a message from the ascended master Portia. The sociologist of religion David V. Barrett described the Church Universal and Triumphant as having "its own distinct theology". The CUT teaches that people are born with an innate spark of divinity and can realize oneness with God. It maintains that those who have reached their full potential have become Ascended Masters and can assist humanity. The Ascended Master Saint-Germain is believed to have sponsored attempts to promote the freedom of the soul. The Church taught that Saint-Germain was originally a high priest on Atlantis, before living on Earth as the prophet Samuel, Saint Joseph, Saint Alban, Merlin, Roger Bacon, Christopher Columbus, and finally Francis Bacon, as well as appearing to European royal courts as the Count of St. Germain. The Church also espoused the belief that Saint-Germain inspired the United States Constitution. The CUT identified as being part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It presented Jesus of Nazareth as an Ascended Master who was in full touch with his inner God consciousness and who ascended to God immediately after leaving his human body. The Church also claimed that Jesus studied in India and Tibet between the ages of 12 and 30, ideas it put forth in publications including The Lost Years of Jesus and the four-volume The Lost Teachings of Jesus. It also involved Mary Magdalene in its teachings, referring to her as the Ascended Master Magda. The Church teaches the existence of reincarnation, a system which is escaped via ascension. The Church was millenarian, having displayed millenarian tendencies from its formation in 1958. Like other millenarian groups, the CUT blended religious and political concerns. It was also characterised as being utopian. From the early 1960s, the group was claiming that the Ascended Masters' plan for humanity was being countered by those the Prophets called "Dark Forces" or "Fallen Ones." Mark Prophet believed that the agents of darkness were most apparent in world communism, left-wing groups, and elite power brokers. Believing that elite power brokers and communists worked in collaboration, Elizabeth referred to "an International Capitalist/Communist Conspiracy of the power elite." The political scientist Bradley C. Whitsel described this particular stance as having "a far-right political tone". This trouble would be cause, the group claimed, by a global growth in negative karma. The group linked this belief in end times to the close of the Piscean Age and its replacement with the subsequent Aquarian Age. Elizabeth Prophet regarded American society as existing in a state of decay, comparing it to the last days of the Roman Empire. Elizabeth Prophet used the myth of Atlantis to highlight the fate of a society that deviates from God's plan. She claimed that the Atlanteans had become wicked and so God destroyed them to prevent this wickedness from spreading. She saw the spread of the AIDS virus during the 1980s as further evidence of an apocalyptic scenario, suspecting that it had been deliberately manufactured and was used to try and harm the genetics of "Lightbearers" so as to prevent the evolution of "a golden age race". The Church did not welcome this nuclear catastrophe and hoped that it could be averted. They did this through prayers and decrees, although also adopted a survivalist strategy as an attempt to survive such a cataclysm. The Church hoped that they would be able to emerge from the apocalypse to build a new age. Affirmations and decrees were an important part of CUT practice. Followers of the group were encouraged to recite statements called decrees; doing so was claimed to have multiple functions, including to mitigate karma and to attune the Earth to the power of light. Decreeing was a practice previously established by Emma Curtis Hopkins, a key figure in the New Thought movement, and was then adopted