Jan 13 2009
“Prophet’s Daughter: My Life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet” by Erin Prophet
Prophet’s Daughter: My Life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet Inside the Church Universal and Triumphant by Erin Prophet was the story of a cult that I had never heard of previous to picking this book up at the library. I guess the Church Universal and Triumphant reached their heyday in 1990; I was just a child at that point, so I missed the whole thing entirely.
So here’s a brief synopsis for those who are likewise oblivious:
Elizabeth Clare Prophet (yes, her last name really was “Prophet” - she married a guy by the name of Mark Prophet) was the head of a New Age religion that incidentally, Mark Prophet started. After his death, Elizabeth took over, and over time, the power quite simply went to her head. She stopped talking as much about “decrees” and “energy” and moved on to prophesying that various catastrophes would hit the United States, everything from earthquakes to nuclear warheads.
Many religions have spent their time and energy in prophesying the end of the world - Elizabeth’s undoing came when she stated exactly when these catastrophes would happen, down to the very day they were to occur.
Her followers, sure that her words were divinely inspired, followed the call and moved with her to Montana, where they started building underground bunkers and storing up food to survive what had been prophesied to be a deployment of nuclear warheads, followed by a 7 year period of no ability to farm or grow food in any way. Add in the destruction of all civilization (with only the righteous being spared, of course) and this was a true Armageddon scenario.
In an attempt to be one of the righteous (and prepared) ones to survive, the members of the church handed over their life savings and property to the church, quit their jobs, and moved to Montana to help build these bunkers. Over a two-year period, the church spent roughly $20 million dollars in their quest to be ready for the end of the world, and caused environmental damage that took years to repair.
Well, the night came and went, and no nuclear bombs exploded. Life continued on as it always did. The cult survived, damaged, but still limping forward.
It sounds like an incredibly interesting book, right? Except something about it just fell flat for me. The book was labeled a “921″ in the Dewey Decimal system at the library, meaning that it was supposed to be either an autobiography or a biography, but it read more like a history of the Church Universal and Triumphant, with only a part of it being about Erin Prophet, the daughter.
Also, I think Erin was striving hard to be balanced and factual in her telling of the story, which I heartily applaud, but for some reason with this book, it only served to make the story removed from me, like I felt like I was reading everything through a thick glass wall. I never felt like a part of the story, and I never really cheered on the protagonist or worried about what she was going to do next.
This distance is surprising - Erin certainly had a lot to be upset about. Elizabeth ran her life with an iron fist. She told Erin who to marry (worse yet, she told the husband-to-be when to propose and where to propose), she told Erin she couldn’t use birth control, and even went so far as to control when the newly married couple could have sex. It was very disturbing. The control that Elizabeth Prophet had over her daughter would be almost incomprehensible to the average American. It seems like there would have been more anger on Erin’s part than she showed in the book.
So in the end, I have mixed feelings about the book. I am glad to have learned more about cult culture, especially its history here in the US, but on the other hand, I think this is a book that I’ll easily forget about. There are some books that stay with you long after you turn the last page (like Seabiscuit or Three Cups of Tea) but for me, this just won’t be one of them.
If you are intensely interested in cults in general, or the Church Universal and Triumphant in particular, than you’ll definitely want to check Prophet’s Daughter out. I think you’ll find it fascinating. But for the rest of us, I only give it a 3.75 out of 5 stars.
Hava
PS Just to see what others thought of the book, I went and checked out the reviews on Amazon and was surprised by what I found on there. Either people loved it or they hated it, and almost all of the reviews seemed to be done by people who are either current or ex-members of this cult. The ex-members all seemed to love the book - the current members (not surprisingly) all seemed to hate it. So I’d take anything you read on there with a grain of salt.
Interesting review of the book. That’s one book I won’t be reading anytime soon.
Great review! This is one published by my company but I hadn’t had any exposure to this book and didn’t really know what it was about. Glad to be so well informed. I do like how well you backed up your response, even if it was mostly a feeling of … well, not feeling it. Thanks!
Jess
http://bookpublishing.today.com
I absolutely abhor religious extremism. I doubt this is a book that would appeal.
Choopixie >> Yeah, if I had known what it would be like before reading it, I don’t think I would have picked it up. It was good to learn more about the thinking done inside of a cult (namely: none) and how they get started and spread their message to new converts, but overall, it was just a bland book. I love books where I feel like I’m right there with the protagonist - can hardly put it down because I just “have to know” what happens next. That definitely didn’t happen with this book.
Jess >> What a small world!!!! Hey, tell the Powers That Be at your company that if they want me to review their nonfiction books for them, feel free to send me a copy, but I don’t promise that my review will be complimentary.
I love learning new stuff, and if this book had been more compelling, I would have definitely rated it higher.
Stephanie >> Oh, you’d hate this book then. One thing I didn’t get into in my review (because I try not to make my reviews any longer than they already are, so I can’t mention EVERYTHING I think about a book) is all of the New Agey stuff that this book covers. This cult believed some INSANE stuff, about how you send blue lightning bolts at others, how you can use a ceremonial sword to “cut” bad ties with other people (they just waved the sword through the air around the person they were trying to cut the ties for) and other equally nutso ideas.
At one point, the cult changed its previous stance and made it so that if you wanted to join, you had to turn over everything you had or were ever going to receive (yes, that means inheritances too) before they would let you in. One gal signed over her $1 million dollar inheritance to the church. If you ever left the church (or were kicked out) you got nothing more than a bus ticket home. It was very sad to read about.
The most interesting part was when Erin got into the subject (very briefly) of how she “received” revelations for the group. Her mother had made her a messenger, which basically meant that she could receive information from the “masters,” who were supposedly godlike beings who could see into the future and the past easily. From these “masters” Erin received many revelations about the smallest of details of every day life.
Erin said that she has since figured out that all that happened was her sitting there, letting thoughts come into her mind (random thoughts we all have) and then she spoke those thoughts outloud. They were taken as gospel truth. It was quite an eye-opening look into how this cult was supposedly being led by the deities themselves, but was in fact nothing more than a family spouting off whatever thoughts ran through their minds.
Overall, a pretty depressing book.
Hava