Excerpt from Legitimating New Religions by James R. Lewis

Domination [is] the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons. . . . [C]ustom, personal advantage, purely affectual or ideal motives of solidarity, do not form a sufficiently reliable basis for a given domination. In addition there is normally a further element, the belief in legitimacy. -Max Weber, Economy and Society

Back when I was an undergraduate student, I remember a short discussion from a philosophy class in which we analyzed our fear of standing on the edge of a precipice. The gist of the discussion was that, although we can provide a good rationale for this dread-perhaps we will slip or perhaps a wind will come up that will cause us to trip and fall-the anxiety we feel in these situations nevertheless seems to go deeper than the fear suggested by these reasonable sounding explanations. When the instructor finally proposed that what we really fear is that some secret part of us will prompt us to jump to our deaths, I had the uncanny feeling he was right. Controversial new religions have been the focus of my research for the better part of two decades. With a few exceptions, I have not been a critic of such movements. Rather, my scholarship has tended to debunk popular stereotypes. I have, however, come to at least one conclusion with which anti-cultists would agree; namely, every one of us has a secret self that wants to submit to a higher authority, not unlike the secret self that wants to cast us into the abyss. It is this impulse that surfaces under the sway of charisma.

Whenever possible in the course of my field research with new religions, I have sought direct contact with the leadership. Even when surrounded by adoring devotees in highly charged environments, I have never been even remotely impressed by a leader's imputed charisma. If, as Max Weber and later analysts theorized, charisma is socially constructed rather than an inherent characteristic of charismatic leaders, then this is as it should be. Because they are outsiders to the group's social world, academic observers should be completely immune to the magnetic influence of such gurus.

There was, however, one exception to the otherwise uniform uneventfulness of my encounters. Unexpectedly, I stepped into the magical atmosphere of a religious leader's charisma and briefly experienced her as someone of more than ordinary specialness. This leader was Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the spiritual leader of Church Universal and Triumphant. What surprised me then-and what continues to unsettle me to this day-is that I never consciously regarded her as a spiritually elevated individual, much less (as she claimed) the mouthpiece for such figures as Jesus, Buddha, and others. In fact, even at the time, I felt that she was a not particularly sensitive individual with an exaggerated sense of self who over-identified with her guru persona.

Although I am reluctant to discuss it, this experience has come to constitute a kind of touchstone in my reflections on the role of charisma in new religious movements. I will thus lead into my analysis of the legitimation of new religions by describing Church Universal and Triumphant, relating the story of the events that led up to my epiphany and sharing my reflections on this experience.

CHURCH UNIVERSAL AND TRIUMPHANT

The Church Universal and Triumphant (C.U.T.) is a second-generation splinter of the "I AM" Religious Activity. The "I AM" Activity, founded by Guy Warren Ballard and his wife, Edna W. Ballard, is a popularized form of Theosophy. Mark L. Prophet had been active in two earlier "I AM" splinter groups, the Bridge to Freedom (now the New Age Church of Truth) and the Lighthouse of Freedom. He eventually founded his own group, the Summit Lighthouse, in Washington, D.C., in 1958. In the theosophical tradition, the spiritual evolution of the planet is conceived of as being in the hands of a group of divinely illumined beings-Jesus, Gautama Buddha, and other advanced souls. In the tradition of earlier theosophical leaders, Prophet viewed himself as serving as the mouthpiece for these ascended masters. Elizabeth Clare Wulf joined the group in 1961, eventually marrying Mark Prophet. Over the course of their marriage, Elizabeth Prophet also became a messenger. After her husband's death in 1973, Elizabeth took over his role as the primary mouthpiece for the masters and as leader of the organization. The headquarters of Summit Lighthouse moved to Colorado Springs in 1966. In 1974, Church Universal and Triumphant (C.U.T.) was incorporated, taking over ministerial and liturgical activities from Summit Lighthouse, which remained the publishing wing of the organization. During the 1970s, the work of C.U.T. expanded tremendously. After several moves within southern California, church headquarters was finally established on the Royal Teton Ranch, in Montana, just north of Yellowstone Park, in 1986. The church also established an intentional community of several thousand people in the surrounding area.

The core beliefs of Church Universal and Triumphant are held in common with other branches of the theosophical tradition. These include the notion of Ascended Masters guiding the spiritual evolution of the planet and certain basic ideas from the South Asian tradition, such as the belief in reincarnation and karma. The church views itself as part of the larger Judeo-Christian tradition, though traditional Christians would not thus classify it.

When "cults" became a public issue in the mid-1970s, Church Universal and Triumphant was not particularly prominent. The group remained a relatively minor player in the cult wars until the move to Montana. As should have been anticipated, the intrusion of a large number of exotic outsiders into a predominantly rural area evoked curiosity and antagonism.

Much of the church's subsequent negative media coverage derived from incidents clustered around its extensive fallout shelters and its preparations for the possibility of a nuclear attack against the United States. At one point in the construction, for instance, fuel was stored in several underground tanks that ruptured and spilled gas and diesel oil into the water table. Also, in 1990 members from around the world gathered in Montana because of the predicted possibility of an atomic holocaust. This story made the front page of the New York Times on December 15, 1990, resulting in a flood of reporters from around the world eager for sensationalist stories about a "doomsday cult."

Also, in 1989 two church members-one of whom was Elizabeth Prophet's third husband-attempted to acquire otherwise legal weapons in a nonpublic, illegal manner for storage in underground shelters, providing more fuel for the organization's negative public image as a survivalist group. The motivation for this ill-considered act was to avoid the negative media exposure that would have resulted if members had purchased guns in Montana. The plan, however, backfired and resulted in a public relations disaster. This and other incidents were the basis for later accusations that Church Universal and Triumphant was a potential Waco (Lewis 1998b).

CONTACT AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I became involved with Church Universal and Triumphant shortly before the media storm that broke in the wake of the Branch Davidian tragedy. This came about as the indirect result of a deprogramming case. LaVerne Macchio, a church member, was kidnapped in the middle of the night on November 20, 1991, while her four small children looked on in horror. She was released after seven days. Her deprogrammers and kidnappers were eventually indicted and charged with second-degree kidnapping.

In the fall of 1992, I was contacted by Church Universal and Triumphant and asked to testify as an expert witness in the Macchio case. A number of my scholarly articles presented data which undermined the notion that nontraditional religions exercised extraordinary forms of influence over their members. Because the kidnappers were almost certain to invoke the mind control- brainwashing accusation as part of their defense, the prosecution felt it important to have a scholar present who could effectively debunk the idea. Intrigued by the case, I tentatively agreed to participate on the condition that the church bring me and my wife to Montana for a week, put us up at their headquarters, show us everything we wished to see, and allow us to speak with anyone with whom we desired a conversation. Assured that those conditions would be met, we prepared to spend a week in the wilds of Montana.

Anti-cultists have generally regarded the many academics who criticize the cult stereotype-and who, as a consequence, have tended to defend nontraditional religions against unreasonable persecution-as naive and gullible. However, based on my own experience as well as many conversations with colleagues, I can testify that just the opposite attitude is more often case. Scholars of stigmatized religions have a secret fear that they will one day examine a controversial religious group, give it a clean bill of health, and later discover that they have defended the People's Temple, or worse. This anxiety causes them to be, if anything, more skeptical than the average observer and to strive even harder for methodological objectivity than they might ordinarily.