Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 81
Summit Lighthouse. The ―I AM‖ assimilated fascist ideology from William D. Pelley‘s Legion
of Silver Shirts. Both of these groups (as well as CUT) adapted many elements from Helena
P. Blavatsky‘s Theosophical Society, especially the exclusive metaphysical contact
(channeling) with Ascended Masters. According to Whitsel CUT ―exhibited tendencies
commonly associated with millenarian movements‖ since its inception in1958, and the ―I AM
philosophy…created the Summit Lighthouse‘s political orientation—a perspective defined by
patriotism and staunch anti-communism.‖ Whitsel gives an overview of CUT‘s New Age
milieu within which it operates and from which most of its recruits appear.
Later in the book in Chapter Six however we learn from a 1994 interview the author
conducted with CUT‘s leader, Elizabeth Prophet, that she had harsh criticism for New Agers
as ―self-indulgent‖ and prone to ―adoption of shallow phenomena.‖ Whitsel refrains from
cynical commentary, and properly so in keeping with his academic approach, but the irony
was not lost on me. Nor will it be lost on anyone else familiar with CUT‘s history of bizarre
self-purification rituals and claims to magical power in its decrees or high speed chanting
rituals. In Chapter Five Whitsel reports CUT‘s rationalization of why the doom prophecy
failed to materialize: The ―diligence‖ of group members who conducted spiritual warfare
(decreed) and their hard work to build survival shelters mitigated the evil energy that would
have produced the disaster.
Doomsday groups have responded in erratic ways to their failed prophecies, but as one
seminal study by Leon Festinger and others demonstrated, true believers will tend to reduce
dissonance by some sort of rationalization rather than take the more painful, identity
convulsing alternative of rejecting the beliefs. The study found that believers also reduce
―cognitive dissonance‖ by increased proselytizing. In Chapter Five our author refers to this
study, When Prophecy Fails published in 1961, but finds that CUT showed no significant
effort to immediately proselytize in 1990, thus not fully following the Festinger model. I
would argue that Whitsel neglected to appreciate that CUT was much larger and far longer
lived than the relatively tiny group in the Festinger study. By the time of the March 15 ―non-
event‖ (the author‘s characterization) CUT was among the major new religious movements
with ―25,000‖ devotees worldwide. The Festinger study group called ―The Seekers,‖ headed
by the charismatic "Marian Keech," amounted to a household size cult in ―Lakeland‖ that
grew and dispersed within a year or so.*
CUT, contrary to Whitsel‘s assertion (p.122), never ceased its proselytizing, so the Festinger
model may still apply even though there was no immediate increase after March 1990. CUT
has had extensive distribution of its books since at least the late 1970s, continued cable TV
video presentations in many urban areas, and often had representatives at New Age or
metaphysical fairs. The fledgling Keech group had none of this. Whitsel does report that CUT
did reenergize its proselytizing years after its doomsday event by repressing its survivalist,
patriotic image (communism was no longer viable as the ultimate evil enemy for CUT) and
by reaching out to the New Age milieu with a more positive message about its teachings.
Whitsel describes Elizabeth Prophet‘s appearance on radio in 1997 on The Art Bell Show to
promote her worldview. Bell had a national audience interested in government conspiracies,
UFO phenomena, and paranormal events. But the author neglects to mention two significant
Prophet appearances on television shows: One was the MTV special with a relatively benign
segment about CUT in ―New Religions: The Cult Question,‖ that aired many times since its
release in 1995. The other was A&E Network’s ―Prophets &Doom‖ feature (from its series
The Unexplained) that aired initially in 1997 and repeatedly through 2000. Both TV
programs gave significant, balanced overviews of CUT.
A third significant news event CUT hoped to use to improve its image not reported by the
author regards a criminal trial of three ex-CUT members in Idaho in April 1993.
Concurrently on trial in Boise was Randy Weaver, an alleged racist/survivalist who held anti-
government views, in the infamous ―Ruby Ridge‖ case. And it was in April that the Waco-

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 82
Branch Davidian debacle came to a tragic head in a holocaust. All of these cases had
political implications that deeply affected CUT at the time. Whitsel mentions only the Branch
Davidian event. After a failed attempt arranged by her family to deprogram a CUT member
in late 1991, the three accused deprogrammers were arrested and later brought to trial in
State of Idaho vs Szimhart, et al (yes, this writer was involved). A jury acquitted two us of
all charges, while charges were later dismissed against the third defendant. In its long-
standing battle against ―anticultists‖ CUT sent many operatives, including the current
guardian of the disabled Elizabeth Prophet to closely advise the prosecutors with whom he
sat throughout trial. The acquittals were another blow to the group‘s struggle to improve its
post doomsday image. Whitsel does document other significant image improvement efforts
and setbacks in detail, especially in Chapter Six. For example, Whitsel reports that Elizabeth
Prophet‘s last major stump to recruit new members was a thirty three-day tour of South
America in 1996. Prophet emphasized CUT teachings about reincarnation, not survival
shelters.
Unfortunately, as Whitsel surmises in Chapter Six, CUT may never reincarnate as the vital,
thriving group it once was. He offers a host of factors, including the leader‘s decline in
mental health—she was diagnosed with dementia by 1998 and stepped down officially as
the group‘s spiritual leader in 1999. Whitsel reports that Prophet suffered from epileptic
seizures from a young age, a fact not known to the general membership. During the 1990s
after the failed prophecy, CUT began selling off assets and radically downsizing staff to
curtail the shortfall in donations from the declining membership.
Earlier in the book on page 157 Whitsel frames CUT as a ―totalist‖ sect whose ―[d]octrinal
impenetrability allows the group to turn increasingly inward and further lock itself into its
own belief structure.‖ He is absolutely correct as CUT‘s teachings are rarely understood well
or completely even by long-term members who have had a difficult time keeping up with
the stream of subtle changes in ―progressive revelations‖ from the leaders. A major reason I
rejected it in 1980 was the long list of CUT‘s internal contradictions I encountered after
getting past the ―impenetrable‖ language of the doctrine. Whitsel acknowledges that any
group like CUT that defines the outside world as inherently evil tends to live in a paranoid
state. Such groups necessarily attract suspicion and criticism, thereby bolstering their
beliefs about outsiders.
Whitsel loses me, however, when he appears to lay much of the blame for the group‘s
negative image on something he and previous writers call the ―anticult movement‖ (pp. 48,
123, 133) as if the group‘s behavior was not responsible for its public image. Whitsel follows
the opinion of a small group of scholars who have dominated sociological circles with a
characterization of cult critics as monolithically naïve. For example, on page 48 the author
states: ―Observing no distinctions among new religious groups, the anticultists pursued a
policy of discrediting all organizations that deviated from the religious mainstream. For this
reason, the Church Universal and Triumphant became a tempting target for their attacks.
Anticultists subscribed to anachronistic theories of mind control and psychological coercion.‖
Whitsel never defines what or who constitutes the anticult milieu, but I suspect he is
referring to elements of the old Cult Awareness Network and to paranoid evangelicals who
regard everything other than fundamentalist Christianity as a ―cult.‖ Ironically, his overall
analysis of CUT would satisfy those same ―anachronistic theories‖ that more sophisticated
cult critics might use to characterize CUT as totalist and to explain how the group managed
to keep such a tight bond around so many devotees for any time at all. For example, on
pp.52-53 Whitsel discusses ―boundary control‖ citing a ―widely used‘ concept in social
studies about groups: ―Just as the self-contained group raises its defenses against the
perceived encroachments of the outside, the surrounding society forms a reciprocal set of
attitudes that is hostile to the insulated social system.‖