Pope John XXIII Gave Authority to Her, Guru Ma Testifies at Trial

The head of the Calabasas-based Church Universal and Triumphant testified Tuesday that the authority of the Roman Catholic Church was transferred to her in a cosmic message from the late Pope John XXIII.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, 46, known to her followers as Guru Ma, said in Los Angeles Superior Court that her church members also refer to her as “the Vicar of Christ,” a title traditionally applied to the Pope. The title was bestowed on her by “beloved Jesus,” she said.

“I received a dictation from the ascended Pope John XXIII conveying the authority for the Church Universal and Triumphant and my leadership in it,” she said.

Prophet testified in a $253-million civil suit brought against Church Universal and Triumphant leaders by former member Gregory Mull, 64, of Westlake Village. Mull alleges that the church defrauded him and caused him emotional harm.

Mull brought his suit after the church sued him in 1981, claiming that he had failed to repay $30,000 he had borrowed from the organization.

Although the theology of Church Universal and Triumphant is not at issue in the case, the suit has focused attention, unwelcome to some church officials, on the beliefs and practices of the sect.

According to church literature and court documents, Prophet teaches that she is God’s chosen earthly “messenger” who receives counsel directly from 14 “ascended masters,” including Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Buddha.

She told the court Tuesday that she received the office of messenger from Ascended Master St. Germain through Mark Prophet.

The late Mark Prophet, Prophet’s second husband, founded Summit Lighthouse, predecessor of Church Universal and Triumphant, in 1958. The church teaches that Mark Prophet received a revelation from Ascended Master El Morya telling him to found the church, whose practices include a form of rapid-fire prayer called “decreeing,” celibacy for single members and a proscription against oral sex. The theology of the church incorporates elements of Western and Eastern religions.

Successor to Husband

Elizabeth Clare Prophet became spiritual head of the church after her husband died in 1973. The church will not reveal membership figures, which have been estimated at between 5,000 and 100,000 worldwide.

The church, which teaches reincarnation, says that Mark Prophet is now the Ascended Master Lanello, who was also the Launcelot du Lac of King Arthur’s Round Table. Guru Ma says that her past lives include having been Queen Guinevere.

In court Tuesday, attention was riveted on Guru Ma, a soft-spoken, charismatic woman who sometimes closed her eyes in apparent meditation. Prophet, who often wears rings on every finger when preaching to her congregation, wore tiny earrings and two small rings. The hot-pink blouse that matched her suit was sprinkled with dark blue stars.

When asked by what authority she was ordained, she said, “no authority apart from the Holy Spirit.”

“I believe I am inspired by God,” she said.

In his countersuit, Mull, once church architect but now unemployed and in poor health, has charged that Prophet violated the sanctity of the confessional by revealing the contents of a so-called “clearance letter” he wrote, as required by the church, confessing to homosexual experiences and other secrets.

Asked what she had told church members she would do with intimate revelations, Prophet testified Tuesday: “I would read them, I would offer prayers for them at the altar, and then they would be burned.”

Some Files Kept

She said that a few letters had been kept on file because she felt the writers needed personal counseling. She said she had never given clearance letters to members of the church’s board of directors, who included her current husband and co-defendant, Edward Francis.

“Isn’t it a fact that they sat around and read the letters and laughed at the juicy parts?” Mull’s attorney asked.

“That is not a fact,” she answered.

She testified that she sometimes discussed the private sessions church members had with Dr. Ralph Yaney, identified as a psychoanalyst affiliated with the church.

Prophet countered Mull’s testimony last week that she had pressured him to marry and later to divorce his wife, Kathleen, and told him not to give his wife money.

“He, in fact, did give her money from the time she left and complained bitterly about doing so,” Prophet said.

Prophet said she had not wanted to invite Mull to become the church’s resident architect but deferred to the wishes of former church leader Monroe Shearer, also named in the suit. “He was very eager to work for us,” she said of Mull.

Duties Outlined

Prophet said Mull’s duties as resident architect included renovation of buildings and involvement in the planned creation of an Arthurian-hued New Jerusalem on the Calabasas site. She said she was unaware that Mull’s specific hopes included building a 3,300-seat cathedral, with audio-visual capacity in the altar.

Prophet testified that, after Mull was asked to leave Camelot, the church’s 260-acre headquarters, she invited him to a meeting there in June, 1980, to discuss his debt and other matters.

Prophet said she also wanted to meet with the former church member because he was threatening to criticize the church publicly. She had also heard that Mull was praying, or decreeing, intensely against her, in person and on tape, she said.

The court heard a tape of the June, 1980, meeting in which Prophet said that she was not interested in Mull’s money but was appalled that he had broken his promise to the church.

“Nobody’s after your money,” she said in the taped meeting. “It’s an illusion of your mind.”

She also told Mull several times that she would not sue him.

When Mull asked if she was threatening him with not making his ascension in the next life if he didn’t make good on the notes, she said she was not.

“You have let God down and you will suffer,” she told Mull.