Elizabeth Clare Prophet: Gender, Sexuality, and the Divine Feminine

Abstract

The life and legacy of the controversial and influential new age leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939–2009) are reviewed by her daughter Erin Prophet from the perspective of gender . A brief biographical sketch introduces Prophet’s major accomplishments and the controversy that surrounded her, beginning with her early spiritual life and the influence of her husband and teacher, Mark Prophet , her past-life beliefs, and including the ‘shelter episode’ of 1989–1990, when followers built underground shelters in response to her predictions of nuclear war. Major topics include her exercise of power as a woman, assuming control of The Summit Lighthouse (later Church Universal and Triumphant) after Mark’s death, her theological innovations, particularly those related to the divine feminine, the liberation from original sin, gender in the relationship between soul and body , and the destiny of both men and women to symbolically give birth to the Christ . Her teachings on sexuality, including her use of Hindu terminology and metaphors of spiritual “energy ” to restrict and guide sexual behavior and also to justify her anti-feminist stance, and the roots of her opposition to abortion and homosexuality are also explored. Allegations of sexual hypocrisy are also reviewed, along with four alternative approaches to evaluating sexual impropriety on the part of a religious leader.