Ex-Husband Tells of Affair With Guru Ma Before Their Wedding

A former member of the Church Universal and Triumphant testified Thursday that he had an affair with the sect’s then-married leader, who he believed to be “God incarnate,” before they wed and he was promoted from cook to president of the church.

Randall Charles King, 38, of Canoga Park said in Los Angeles Superior Court that he and church head Elizabeth Clare Prophet were lovers before the death in 1973 of her husband, Mark L. Prophet, who founded the sect.

King was recruited into the church, now based in Calabasas, by Elizabeth Prophet in 1969 and was working in the kitchen of the church’s Colorado estate when they began an affair, he said.

Married in 1973

He married the widowed Prophet in a mountaintop ceremony in Colorado late in 1973, he testified. King was divorced from the 46-year-old church leader in 1980.

King told the court that Prophet, known to her thousands of followers as Guru Ma, officiated at a ceremony in the hospital after Mark Prophet died in which she described Prophet’s white-robed ascent into heaven to join Jesus, El Morya and other so-called “ascended masters” revered by the church.

“I thought I saw it,” King said of Mark Prophet’s ascension.

“I thought I was kind of a big shot because I was there and witnessed the whole thing.”

He testified in a $253-million suit brought against church leaders by Gregory Mull, 64, of Westlake Village, who claims the church defrauded him and caused him emotional harm while he was its architect.

The church’s mix of Eastern and Western religious beliefs is not on trial but the case has revealed many of the practices of the publicity-shy group.

Members perform a kind of rapid-fire prayer called “decreeing,” tithe to the church, practice celibacy if single and avoid oral sex. Church literature endorses certain colors, and members of the church have appeared in court wearing purple, yellow and other favored hues.

Cosmic Messages

Believed by her followers to be a celestially selected “messenger,” Guru Ma takes the “dictations” of the ascended masters and passes them on to her followers, King said. In one such cosmic dictation, Elizabeth Prophet told him he should change his name from Kosp to King, he testified.

“Elizabeth made all the decisions,” King said of the church during his years as the husband of the guru. When members of the church’s board of directors would disagree with one of her suggestions, he testified, she would sometimes refer the matter to one of the ascended masters, who spoke only through her.

“Once you brought the masters into it, what they said was unquestionable,” King said.

In an interview, King, who left the church in 1980, said Prophet sometimes referred the couple’s private disagreements to El Morya and other higher authorities.

“You had a hard time winning fights,” he said.

King said church leaders routinely used decreeing to control its members.

“We used it in disciplinary situations as a control factor,” King said. “If somebody was a little rebellious, you’d have him do a couple of hours of astreyas and, when he’d come back, he’d be a perfect little robot.” Astreyas are prayers.

The church had many kinds of decrees, including “blasts,” which were said to counter someone or something the church did not like, he said. The members would sometimes call for “blue-lightning bombs” to descend on their enemies, he said.

“Sometimes we’d call for them to be bound and taken to the Great Central Sun,” he testified.

Also Has Filed Suit

Former members of the church were among those who were “blasted,” according to King. He has also sued the group, alleging that he was defrauded and held in involuntary servitude. His case has not been heard.

After long hours of decreeing, King testified, “you kind of get in a hypnotic state where you’re super-suggestible.”

“I think that can be used in a wrong way to program people, as it were, to do things that are not in their best interest.”

When cross-examined by the church’s attorney, King agreed that he had been both “victim and perpetrator” of manipulation by the church. King testified that, although he was part of the organization, he lent church money to Prophet and himself, which he subsequently invested.

He said Prophet’s personal income as leader of the church was modest. However, King said, he and his wife once determined that their family, including her four children by Prophet, lived as if they earned more than $200,000 a year. Church funds met most of these expenses, he said.

Motivation for Lies

On some occasions, King said, he lied to church members or manipulated them in order to get funds for the church. “I felt it was the right thing to do because I was doing it for the greater glory of God,” he testified.

He, Prophet and other church leaders would target individuals who could enrich the church and then court them, he said. Prophet sometimes personally participated in this fund raising, he said.

“She may agree to have lunch with that person,” King said of how potential donors were treated. “It was a tremendous honor to have lunch with the messenger of God.”

The church’s attorney asked King if he recalled an argument with his ex-wife that flared over King’s desire to clean up a Big Sur beach after a picnic.

“Am I correct that you were willing to lie for her, cheat for her and deceive for her but drew the line at leaving garbage on the beach?” the church attorney asked.

King smiled and said, “Yes.”