ari moshe
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« Reply #8 on: Mar 28, 2010, 09:21 PM » |
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Hey, that's where I grew up! (Taken from Wiki)
Early years
Prophet was born Elizabeth Clare Wulf in Red Bank, New Jersey to Hans and Fridy Wulf. She spent her junior year studying French in Switzerland, and graduated from Red Bank Regional High School second in her class. She attended Antioch College in Ohio from September 1957 to March 1959 [2] transferring to Boston University in September, 1959. She received a bachelor of arts degree in political science in approximately August 1961.[3] From the age of nine, Prophet suffered from absence seizures, a form of epilepsy, which worsened to include tonic-clonic seizures in 1988.[citation needed]
After visits to the Catholic Church, the Jewish synagogue and every Protestant church in Red Bank, she attended Methodist Sunday School before finally settling on Christian Science at age 9, attracted in part by its emphasis on healing and her desire to overcome her epilepsy.[citation needed] She eventually expressed ambition to become a Practitioner.
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, 1984
In 1960, while volunteering as a Sunday school teacher in the Christian Science Church in Boston, she met and married Dag Ytreberg; the marriage lasted about ten months.[4]
[edit]Mark Prophet
On April 22, 1961, her group invited Mark Prophet, who claimed to be a messenger for the Ascended masters, to speak in Boston. She attended this meeting at which Mark claimed to give a message, from the Archangel Michael; afterwards, she asked Mark to train her to be a "messenger". Mark and Elizabeth were married in 1963, had four children, and together administered The Summit Lighthouse, which Mark had founded in 1958.
On July 5, 1964, Prophet delivered her first public dictation, purportedly as a messenger for the ascended masters.
In 1965, the Prophet family relocated to Fairfax, Virginia, and in 1966 to Colorado Springs, Colorado.
In 1970, the Prophet family founded Montessori International, a school based on the principles of the acclaimed educator Dr. Maria Montessori. "Montessori International" was used by the Prophets for their church/community school, which at various times offered classes for students ranging from preschool age to high school. Although their preschool teachers were trained at official Montessori organizations such as the Association Montessori Internationale and the Pan-American Montessori Society,[citation needed] they were not officially associated with the Montessori umbrella organizations. In the elementary and high school levels, teachers were not Montessori certified.[citation needed]
In 1970, the Prophets went to India with several dozen church members. They toured the country, meeting with Indira Gandhi as well as the Dalai Lama.[citation needed]
In 1972, the first volume of Climb the Highest Mountain was published, a projected five-volume work[citation needed], which the Prophets intended to become their central scripture.
On February 26, 1973, Mark Prophet died of a stroke. Elizabeth assumed leadership of their organization, which then began its first foray into survivalism, based on instructions she said Mark gave her the night before his stroke. She organized survival training on a 240-acre (0.97 km2) property outside of Colorado Springs, which they had purchased with the intention of using for a headquarters. In May 1973, the organization entered into a partnership with a member who owned a property near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and attempted to establish a community there.[citation needed]
[edit]Ministry and expansion
Prophet married Randall King, a staff member, on October 17, 1973. This marriage lasted seven years. King later sued Prophet for $16 million, alleging involuntary servitude, among other causes of action. The suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.[citation needed]
In 1974, the headquarters of the Church was moved to Santa Barbara, California, where Elizabeth Prophet founded Summit University, a 12 week program of instruction in her teachings. In 1975, she founded Summit University Press.
On May 1, 1975, Prophet established Church Universal and Triumphant as the religious arm of the organization.[1] She believed her church to be the rightful successor to the Catholic Church and using the title Vicar of Christ for the highest spiritual office in the church. (She was the first holder of that office; the church articles and bylaws define processes for future appointments to the office).
The church eventually became the umbrella organization for Prophet's work, with The Summit Lighthouse becoming the publishing arm of the church.
Elizabeth Clare Prophet in front of the chapel at the summit of Croagh Patrick, Ireland, 1980
In the summer of 1976, church headquarters were again relocated to the campus of Pasadena College, in Pasadena. Summit University, Montessori International, and quarterly church conferences were held there. About 300 staff members were then in residence.[citation needed]
In September 1976 and again in January 1978, Prophet returned to Africa.[citation needed] She conducted a conference at the Kwame Nkrumah conference center in Accra which was attended by thousands.[citation needed][vague] She also met with the heads of state of Ghana (Ignatius Kutu Acheampong) and Liberia (William Richard Tolbert, Jr.).[citation needed]
In 1977, the church purchased a former Claretian seminary in Calabasas, a 218-acre (0.88 km2) campus near Los Angeles, and moved its operations there in 1978. Due to opposition from various governmental agencies, including the California Coastal Commission, the church was never able to build its planned headquarters there. The church sold the property in 1986 to Soka University.
In October 1981, Prophet married Edward Francis, who was at that time a vice-president of the church. Their marriage lasted 16 years, and they had a son in 1994.
Also in 1981, the church purchased the 12,000-acre (49 km2) Forbes Ranch, just outside of Yellowstone Park, near Gardiner, Montana.
[edit]Final years in the ministry
In 1986, Prophet relocated her headquarters to the Forbes Ranch, which she had renamed the Royal Teton Ranch. It was here that she made her more dire prophecies including the possibility of a nuclear war between the superpowers.[citation needed]
Beginning in 1986, as she was leaving Los Angeles, Prophet began predicting a possible first-strike nuclear attack by the Soviet Union and urged followers to prepare for this possibility by building fallout shelters and storing food and other necessities for survival.[citation needed]
She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in November 1998. The leadership of her church subsequently passed to a board of directors.[citation needed]
[edit]Retirement and death
In 1999, deteriorating health led Prophet to retire from the church. In 2000, she entered full-time nursing care for Alzheimer's disease in Bozeman, Montana. She died October 15, 2009 at the age of 70.
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