The Church Universal and Triumphant
(CUT) is a New Age religious organization 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 channeling
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.
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 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 the 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
labeling it a "cult".
Definition and classification
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 characterized it as part of the
"Western metaphysical tradition".
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.'" The name "Church Universal and
Triumphant" was announced by Elizabeth Clare Prophet on July
2, 1973, in a message from the ascended master Portia.
Beliefs and practices
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 lives on Earth as the
prophet Samuel, Joseph, Merlin, Roger Bacon, Christopher Columbus,
and Francis Bacon. It 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.
Millenarianism
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 characterized 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".
Mark Prophet envisioned a forthcoming
collapse of US society. 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 so as 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
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 by Ballard's I AM group.
Morality, ethics, and social views
Outlining a conservative morality, the
Church expected members to take an active stance on various social
issues. This for instance included a defense of the family unit and a
condemnation of abortion. Observers often termed it right-wing; it
generally viewed left-wing politics as being associated with
anti-Americanism, decadence, and moral failure. Elizabeth preached
against socialism in all forms, seeing it as part of the global elite
conspiracy's plot to control all facets of society. She instead
emphasised a philosophy of individualism. Palmer and Abravanel
characterized the Church's viewpoint as a "conservative
Republican stance".
The Church's communicants pledge not to
consume alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. The organization recommended a
macrobiotic diet with little red meat. Rock music is frowned upon,
with some practitioners deeming it unhealthy.
History
Origins
The Church Universal and Triumphant was
strongly influenced by two earlier religious movements, Theosophy and
I AM. Theosophy had been established largely by Helena Blavatsky, a
woman born in the Russian Empire but who moved to the United States.
There, during the 1880s, she presented the claim that she had been
contacted by spiritual adepts known as the Masters and that she was
relaying their messages through her publications. Barrett described
the Theosophical Society as the "spiritual great-grandparent"
of the CUT.
I AM adopted the idea of Ascended
Masters from Theosophy. In 1929, an American named Guy Ballard
claimed to have encountered an Ascended Master named Saint Germaine
while on Mount Shasta in California. He subsequently began delivering
messages to his followers that he maintained were from these Ascended
Masters. It was Ballard, the scholar of religion J. Gordon Melton
claimed, who was responsible for "developing much of the
Church [of Universal and Triumphant]'s thought and practice".
I AM taught that the Ascended Masters had designated the United
States as the place where the new golden age of humanity would begin.
Its political stance was right-wing, characterized by firm American
patriotism and strident anti-communism, features that would influence
the CUT. Ballard died in 1939. While I AM became embroiled in legal
issues, new groups formed from people claiming to be Messengers from
the Ascended Masters during the 1940s and 1950s.
Mark Prophet
Mark Prophet, the founder of the
organization that became the CUT, had been involved in one of the
factions that splintered from I AM in the 1950s. This was Francis
Ekey's Lighthouse of Freedom, which had established formal classes in
1954. In its newsletter, I AM the Lighthouse of Freedom, the group
anonymously published messengers allegedly channeled from the
Ascended Masters; Prophet was the one responsible for providing these
messages. Raised into a working-class Pentecostal family, Prophet was
an Army Air Corps veteran from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. He alleged
that the Ascended Master El Morya had first appeared before him when
he was driving spikes on the railway line near Chippewa Falls, asking
him to serve their cause. Whitsel described Prophet as one of "the
most prominent competing Messengers" from the Ascended
Masters amid the vacuum caused by Ballard's death.
Prophet severed his links with the
Lighthouse of Freedom in 1958. From Washington DC, where he had lived
with his wife and children since the mid-1950s, he then established
his own group, the Summit Lighthouse. For several years there was
friction between the Summit Lighthouse and the Lighthouse of Freedom.
Prophet printed the messages he claimed to have received from the
Ascended Masters in a publication, Ashram Notes, that was then mailed
to members, who at that time largely resided in suburban parts of
Washington DC.
Meeting Elizabeth Prophet
Prophet embarked on a speaking tour of
colleges in the north-eastern states. On April 1961 he spoke at
Boston University, where he met a 21-year old undergraduate student
of political science, Elizabeth Clare Ytreberg (nee Wulf). Born to a
German father and Swiss mother, the latter of whom was a Christian
Scientist, Elizabeth had an interest in esotericism. Like Prophet,
Elizabeth was married, but they swiftly established a relationship,
annulled their existing marriages, and married each other. Between
1961 and 1966, Prophet trained his new wife to become a co-Messenger
of the Ascended Masters, claiming that he was going so with the
assistance of two Ascended Masters in particular, Morya and Saint
Germain.
Mark and Elizabeth Prophet
In 1962 the Prophets moved the Summit
Lighthouse headquarters to Fairfax, Virginia, establishing a teaching
center in their home. They then established an inner circle of
dedicated members within the Lighthouse, known as the Keepers of the
Flame Fraternity. There, they purchased a mechanized printing press,
allowing them to greatly expand the production of Ashram Notes. Mark
Prophet's 1965 book The Soulless Ones reflected his growing concerns
about extraterrestrials whom he thought were combating the Ascended
Masters' efforts to perfect human society.
The Prophets briefly relocated to
Vienna, Virginia and then in 1965 to Colorado Springs. There they
bought a 19th-century mansion in the centre of the city, which became
their home and the Summit Lighthouse's headquarters; they named it La
Tourelle. The group's most committed members moved into this property
with the Prophets and their children. Whitsel believed that the
relocation to Colorado and away from the vicinity of Washington DC
reflected the group's growing suspicion of the federal government; by
this point, the group was espousing a belief in a conspiracy of the
government, mainstream religion, and extraterrestrials to combat its
attempts to build earthly perfection.
In Colorado Springs, they replaced
Ashram Notes with Pearls of Wisdom, a weekly newspaper distributed
for free to anyone interested, allowing them to attract a larger pool
of people around their work. In Colorado, the Summit Lighthouse
launched its nationwide conferences, called Ascended Master
Conclaves, initially held on a 200-acre ranch outside the city which
they leased.
In 1969 they established a regional
teaching center in Santa Barbara, calling it "the
Motherhouse". By 1971 this was being used as the site for
the administration of a two-week training course, called the Ascended
Master University. In 1970 they also launched the Montessori
International School for the children of their followers, which was
based on the educational theories of Maria Montessori. Between 1969
and 1972, the Prophets began traveling abroad – to Latin America,
Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and India – to promote their
teachings. Over the course of the 1970s, the group would see a
substantial growth in its membership. In 1972, the Prophets issued
Climb the Highest Mountain, a book explaining their teachings.
Elizabeth Prophet's leadership
On February 26, 1973, Mark Prophet died
of a sudden seizure, leaving his wife, then aged 33, as the group's
sole leader, as well as their sole Messenger of the Ascended Masters.
She announced that Mark had become an Ascended Master known as
Lanello; this was similar to a claim made by Edna Ballard after Guy
Ballard's death. Elizabeth then stated that she felt called by Jesus
to reconstitute the Summit Lighthouse in new form as the Church
Universal and Triumphant. As part of this, the old institutional
structure was broken up, new by-laws introduced, and a new board of
elders introduced. The Summit Lighthouse became the publishing arm of
the new CUT. Elizabeth stated that the name "Church Universal
and Triumphant" had been suggested to her by Pope John
XXIII, an Ascended Master.
Elizabeth began calling herself the
"Vicar of Christ." Elizabeth emphasised the
importance of the feminine Mother as a counterpart to the male
Father. She presented an image of herself as the "Divine
Mother," manifesting the Virgin Mary, the "Maker of
the Flame." Church members called Elizabeth "Mother,
or "Guru Ma."
In 1973, Elizabeth moved to Santa
Barbara as her permanent home. That year she extended the training
programme operating there from two to twelve weeks and renamed it as
the Summit University. Under Elizabeth's leadership, new teaching
centres were established in US cities like Minneapolis, Washington
DC, and New York City, while she continued making extended lecture
tours across the country. 1973 also saw the CUT form the Lanello
Reserves Inc, a private, property-making corporation that focused on
trading in gold and silver coins; Prophet headed its board of
directors. The CUT's members were encouraged to transfer their
savings into gold and bullion, reflecting the Church's mistrust of
the Federal Reserve and banking system. The Church also formed a
survival food processing business in Colorado Springs, with Prophet's
rhetoric becoming increasingly survivalist during the 1970s and the
Church selling survival equipment to its members.
She also announced the launch of
Operation Christ Command in 1973, to alert its members to the
likelihood of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Fearing the collapse
of American society, some high-ranking members spent $100,000 on
large numbers of firearms; these were officially obtained through a
joint-stock company, the Rocky Mountain Sportsmen Club, to provide
Prophet and the Church with plausible deniability. These weapons were
initially stored on Church property before being moved elsewhere.
Creating Camelot and Glastonbury
In 1977, the CUT spent $5.6 million
purchasing a 218-acre property near Malibu on Mulholland Highway,
naming it "Camelot" after the legendary Arthurian
city. The Church's growing presence in California generated problems
with local communities and the media, with areas of contention
arising over the CUT's observance of zoning laws and negative reports
provided by former Church members. Negative attitudes towards the
Church were exacerbated by the growth of the anti-cult movement
during the 1970s; sentiments that peaked following the Jonestown mass
suicide of Peoples Temple members in November 1978. The CUT's
detractors alleged that the CUT brainwashed members using
mind-control techniques so as to separate them from their families
and ensure their loyalty to the group. The media also accused Prophet
of accumulating much wealth, which was used to finance a lifestyle of
servants and luxury vacations, while her followers lived in an
austere fashion.
Shortly after Mark Prophet's death,
Elizabeth married another senior Church member, Randall King,
although they divorced in 1980. In 1983, King filed a legal action
against the Church, claiming involuntary servitude, fraud, and
emotional distress; he settled out of court. Further legal issues
arose with other ex-members in the 1980s; in 1986, the Church brought
a suit against Gregory Mill to recover a $37,000 loan. He
counter-sued for fraud, involuntary servitude, and extortion, and won
his case, being awarded $1.5 million in damages. From 1981, the CUT
began acquiring large tracts of land in southwest Montana, near the
Teton Mountains. These mountains had been important for I AM and
subsequent groups based upon its teachings, which regarded the Tetons
as the hollow dwelling place of Saint Germaine. The Church initially
acquired a 12,000 acre ranch formerly owned by Malcolm Forbes before
gaining neighboring land throughout the 1980s, to the extent that
their Royal Teton Ranch amounted to over 24,000 acres.
In Park County, Montana, there were
growing concerns among locals that the CUT would use its growing
presence for a political takeover; this was particularly a concern
given that these were the tactics employed by Rajneesh’s religious
community in Ashland, Oregon. Some locals as well as
environmentalists were also concerned about the CUT’s construction
projects at the Royal Teton Ranch; they had hoped that the land would
have been incorporated into the nearby Gallatin National Forest.
Officials at Yellowstone were particularly frustrated that the
Church’s building was interfering with wildlife migration. In early
1981, the US Representative Wayne Owens tried to introduce measures
that would have allowed the government to compulsorily purchase the
Royal Teton Ranch, but these proved unsuccessful.
In 1986, the Church officially moved
its headquarters to the Royal Teton Ranch in Montana, selling Camelot
to Japanese investors representing the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist
group. Prophet related that the Montana ranch offered her followers
"protection from economic collapse, bank failure, civil
disorder, war, and cataclysm". The ranch became home to
around 600 Church members, all of whom had to be members of the
Keepers of the Flame. Many established homes on an area around 15
miles north of the ranch, near the hamlet of Emigrant; they called it
Glastonbury after the town in England with Arthurian associations.
Life in Montana provided greater levels of autonomy and social
isolation for the group; according to Whitsel, moving there
"facilitated the further entrenchment of a counter-cultural
outlook" among the Church.
Following the move to Montana, the
belief in a forthcoming major disaster became increasingly prominent
within the group. In 1980, it published Prophecy for the 1980s,
making apocalyptic predictions.
Entering a survivalist strategy
In the late 1980s, the CUT entered a
survivalist strategy. Prophet stated that the world had entered a
"danger period of accelerated negative karma" and
that this would precipitate a Soviet nuclear strike against the
United States. She insisted that the liberalizing glasnost project of
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a propaganda front and that his
government was planning a nuclear attack. In a 1986 Thanksgiving
message that she claimed came through her from Saint Germain, Prophet
stated that the Church must start preparing underground shelters to
survive a nuclear war. It subsequently began construction of a
multi-acre underground nuclear shelter near Mol Herron Creek on the
Royal Teton Ranch; costing over $3 million to build, it would provide
shelter for around 750 people and was called "Mark's Ark"
after the Church's founder. The residents of Glastonbury also created
around 45 smaller fallout shelters for their own use.
The group began stockpiling food,
survival equipment and other material, believing that after a nuclear
war began they would be forced to hide underground for a period
lasting between several months and seven years. In July 1989, senior
Church member Vernon Hamilton was arrested after trying to buy
weapons in Spokane, Washington. Although the purchase of these
weapons was legal, he had tried to do so under a false name, which
was against the law. Federal agents seized over $100,000 of weaponry
and 120,000 rounds of ammunition from Hamilton. The CUT's acting vice
president, Edward Francis – who was also Prophet's fourth husband –
also admitted involvement in Hamilton's scheme and received a short
prison sentence. Prophet met locals in Montana to calm fears that her
community planned to attack others; she denied any knowledge of
Hamilton's plans, although many observers did not believe these
denials. Environmentalist concerns were also raised about their
activities and the impact they had on the adjacent Yellowstone
National Park. In April 1990, CUT storage tanks leaked, spilling
21,000 gallons of diesel and 11,500 gallons of gasoline.
The Mol Herron shelter was completed in
early March, 1990. Prophet began predicting that March 15, 1990 would
be the day of the Soviet nuclear strike, claiming that the "karmic
increase" would peak on that day.[98] Throughout the first half
of March, CUT members began flocking to the Church's Montana
properties in large numbers, attracting attention. Growing media
attention followed. On March 15, around 7000 CUP members entered the
shelters. On the morning of March 16, many members left the shelters
to find that the nuclear attack had not occurred. Many immediately
reassessed their beliefs. About a third of the Church's members
immediately broke from the group. Many Church members had left their
jobs to flee to the compound and had spend savings buying survival
supplies, leaving them financially broke. Prophet claimed that the
nuclear attack had failed to materialize not because her original
predictions were incorrect, but because the Church's prayers had
helped to avert the disaster.
Decline and reorganization
The collapse of the Soviet Union and
end of the Cold War also left the Church without ongoing relevance
for a major component of its ideology. After the Justice Department
discovered that the CUT had been hoarding weapons for several years,
it urged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to strip the Church of
its tax-exempt religious status. The IRS did so in 1992, and demanded
$2.5 million in back taxes and penalty fees. The CUT's attorneys
argued against this, claiming that the Church was the victim of
religious discrimination orchestrated largely by the anti-cult
movement. The Church won its legal arguments and had its tax-exempt
status restored in 1994.
In 1996, several Church members split
to form their own group, the Temple of the Presence, based in
Chelsea, Vermont. They claimed that they were the true Messengers of
the Ascended Masters.
In July 1996, Prophet announced that
she was transferring chief administrative role to the Belgian-born
Gilbert Cleirbaut, who was not a Church minister but had experience
in management. In November 1996, she then announced her divorce from
her fourth husband, Edward Francis, although he remained executive
vice president of the Church until 1998. In late 1997, the Church
revealed that Prophet had been affected by a neurological disorder,
later diagnosed as Alzheimer's disease. She subsequently limited her
activities with the group. In 1998 she appointed a friend to have
limited guardianship over her. By this point, none of her four
children were associated with the Church, quashing suggestions that
they might succeed her as Messenger.
The Church administration attempted to
modernize the group, transforming its image into that of a New Age
corporation, as part of which they loosened its authoritarian
leadership and focused on developing the approximately 200 small
teaching centers and study groups. Amid growing financial difficulty,
in 1999, the CUT either sold or put into conservation easements
approximately half of its 12,000 acres at Royal Teton Ranch; this
raised $13 million for the group. The Church also had to cut back on
its ranch workforce from around 600 people to 75.
The radical changes brought resistance
from many Church members, especially the several hundred people who
had previously been employed by it. Cleirbaut's emphasis on
globalizing the Church also clashed with the belief in the United
States as having a special place in the Ascended Masters' plans,
generating further tension. The Board of Directors began blocking
Cleirbaut's proposals and in 1999 he was removed from office.
Regional Church leaders had been emboldened by Cleirbaut's reforms
and were resistant to the new board of directors-driven leadership
and its attempt to re-assert centralized control.
Having moved to Canada in 2001,
Cleirbaut began claiming that he had received messages from Mother
Mary, Jesus, and St Germain, on the basis of which he launched LLL
(Launching Loving Legacies). Various groups began splintering from
the Church, some led by individuals who claimed that they were now
Messengers from the Ascended Masters. In 2006, one CUP official
stated that they were aware of 17 schismatic groups. The most
successful of these was the Temple of the Presence.
Prophet retired in 1999 due to health
reasons. She died in 2009.
A 2020 article in Insider stated that
the group had largely disintegrated and the majority of the group's
assets had been sold off. Several splinter groups exist, near
Billings, Montana, and Yellowstone, with several hundred members.
Organization
The CUT was centralized and
hierarchical. Before Cleirbaut replaced Prophet as the head of the
organization, the Church was run along a three-part structure: "the
Board of Directors, in charge of administrative affairs; the Council
of Elders, in charge of ritual and theology; and the Ministerial
Council, in charge of training ministers and teaching." The
Board of Directors had initially comprised Prophet's family members,
although they all left the Church in the 1990s.
The Church held annual summer
conferences, typically called conclaves, to which members of the
general public were welcome to attend. CUT continues to hold
quarterly retreats at the Royal Teton Ranch and to hold Summit
University sessions and retreats for teens and young adults around
the world.
Demographics
The CUT never revealed the number of
members it had. Whitsel thought it "likely" that the
Church had up to 25,000 followers in the late 1970s. Melton, writing
in 1993, suggested that 30,000 to 50,000 followers was a
"reasonable" estimate. One former member told the
scholar Robert Balch that at its peak, the CUT's membership was
"closer to 10,000." During the 1990s, following the
group's failed apocalyptic predictions, membership of the Church
declined heavily. Whitsel also noted that the Church gained a
"modest international following" outside the US.
One author has estimated that the
membership peaked at about 10,000 active participants, but declined
following a series of crises and controversies in the early to
mid-1990s.
In 2001, Barrett noted that the Church
had around 120 groups in the United States, an additional 120 groups
in around 40 countries, and individual members in a further 20
countries. Barrett further noted that there were probably thousands
of people who had read Prophet's books and accepted many of her
teachings without joining the Church.
Having visited the Royal Teton Ranch in
1992, the scholar of religion James R. Lewis thought the CUT members
he encountered were "balanced, well-integrated individuals",
with their children being "exceptionally bright and open".
He noted that many members had been financially "quite
well-off" and that this was reflected in the houses they
built on the Royal Teton Ranch.
Reception
Whitsel noted that the CUT was "one
of the most prominent" new religions to appear in the United
States during the 1960s and early 1970s. Lewis thought that they
represented "one of the most intrinsically interesting
religious communities to come into being" during the 20th
century. The Church faced opposition from the anti-cult movement,
especially the Cult Awareness Network. In one case, a deprogrammer
kidnapped a Church member in Belgium.
Along with many other new religious
movements, Church Universal and Triumphant has been described as a
cult, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Articles and
letters critical of the church were published in the local newspapers
the Livingston Enterprise and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Several of
the letters were written by former church members who raised lawsuits
against the church. In 1986, the church was accused of using sleep
deprivation to control its members.
During its history, the Church has
attracted both scholarly and media attention. In July 1993, a group
of academics including Lewis and Melton were permitted to visit the
Royal Teton Ranch and study the community, in a trip financed by the
Association of World Academics for Religious Education (AWARE). An
edited volume containing contributions from these scholars was
subsequently published in 1994. Writing in Skeptic magazine, Stephen
A. Kent and Theresa Krebs criticized this publication, claiming that
it was "as much an apology as a social scientific product."
Kent and Krebs made this criticism as part of what they saw as a
"questionable relationship" between certain social
scientists and specific new religions, including the CUT but also the
Church of Scientology and The Family. The political scientist Bradley
C. Whitsel subsequently devoted his doctoral research to the group,
undertaking interviews with members between 1993 and 2000.
