Prophet's Daughter: My Life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet Inside the Church Universal and Triumphant

Erin Prophet

Sep 2008 · Rowman & Littlefield

About this ebook

In early 1990, in response to apocalyptic prophecies given by her mother, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Erin Prophet entered a network of underground bunkers in Montana along with members of her mother's Church Universal and Triumphant, a controversial New Age sect. Emerging to find the world still intact, Erin was forced into a radical reassessment of her life and her beliefs. She had spent her adolescence watching her mother vilified as a dangerous cult leader even while attempting to meet her expectations by becoming a "prophet" herself. Prophet's Daughter describes Erin's search for her mother's origins and motivations. With the craft of a storyteller, she describes the combination of health crises and external pressure that drove her mother's ever-more dire prophecies. She reveals how the allure of infallibility led her mother to a conspicuous downfall, and how her mother's rapidly progressing Alzheimer's disease truncated any hope of resolution. A remarkable memoir with implications for the dialog about power, group behavior and the future of religion.

Ratings and reviews

Elizabeth Clare Prophet had three daughters and a son, and this daughter, the author of the book, Erin, stuck with her mother, through the days in Montana in the early 1990's, when a new world war was predicted by "Mother." The Church Universal and Transcendental (CUT) members, of which there were about 120 at the end, still working and living in Montana, built shelters to protect themselves from the bombs and radiation, but nothing happened. But there was no nuclear war. Oh, well. Erin's sister, Moira, left the church and attempted to go it on her own for a while, though she came back when her marriage went bust. But even then, Moira seemed to be always somewhat rebellious toward her mother. Erin stuck by her mother as long as she could. And when her mother could not reach the channel, Erin stepped in and began doing readings herself. She married a fellow named Michael Reed, but she admits she was just more or less following her mother's orders. She was more committed to the church than she was to her husband. Especially after he cheated on her. From my perspective, it would have been real hard to be in Michael's shoes. Or in his bed. But then he made his bed, so he had to sleep in it (so to speak). In preparing for the coming Apocalypse, two of the church men, including Guru Ma's husband, Edward, went out and began buying guns. But Vernon Hamilton, the one-time security guard and Viet Nam veteran pilot, used a false name and was busted. He got off with a relatively light sentence, but the cat was out of the bag at that point: the whole Northwest, it seemed was now aware that the church was stockpiling artillery, in addition to building shelters. Talk of another Jonestown began to circulate in Montana and surrounding areas, where all this was happening. Erin does a good job of balancing objectivity with her own subjective feelings, toward her mother, toward the church, toward the outside world. As a college graduate, with a hobby of reading, she studied up on "Doomsday cults," and she could see the similarities, and the differences, between them and her mother's church.

About the author

Erin Prophet coauthored the New Age favorite Reincarnation: The Missing Link in Christianity. As the longtime spokesperson of her mother's church, she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Donahue. Today she leads a low-profile life in Cambridge, Massachusetts.