Cole-Whittaker Tours : Ex-Preacher Takes Off on ‘Spiritual’ Adventures

Terry Cole-Whittaker, the former preacher who coined the slogan “Pro$perity: Your Divine Right” before bidding an emotional goodby to her large congregation here last Easter, has returned to San Diego to organize “spiritual” adventure tours that will allow participants to meet with her one-to-one in exotic locations.

“She’s no longer a reverend and has nothing to do with religion,” explained Cari Loy, an event organizer-receptionist, at Cole-Whittaker’s new Adventures in Enlightenment--a Foundation, located in Sorrento Valley.

“What she’s talking about now is that you’re your own master, and there’s no need to follow a guru,” Loy said. “You are your own guru. . . . Do what’s in your heart.”

As minister, author and television evangelist, Cole-Whittaker preached a gospel that celebrated wealth and individualism and she attracted a large following mainly among so-called yuppies--young, urban and prosperous professionals.

Now on Tour in Himalayas

She was in the midst of her second adventure tour Thursday at a camp in the Himalayas. Thirty people had paid $4,000 to be with her for three weeks on the Himalayas trek to receive personal counseling and eat natural gourmet food, staples of all Cole-Whittaker adventure tours, according to Loy.

“She wants to take people on adventures and have a good time and celebrate,” Loy said.

After Cole-Whittaker bid farewell to her congregation in San Diego last Easter--an event attended by nearly 5,000 of her disciples--she went to Hawaii, where she held some small retreats. In October she returned quietly to San Diego and began her adventure-tours organization.

The first of her tours was in November, Loy said. She and 30 others, who paid $4,000 each for their air fare, accommodations and meals, traveled to Peru for two weeks to visit Machu Picchu, the Inca ruins. Future trips will include white-water rafting on the Green River in Idaho, a sojourn at Big Sur and a tour of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

‘Not Out to Save World’

Cole-Whittaker’s basic philosophy remains the same but “she’s not out to save the world anymore,” Loy said. “She’s here for those who want to hear her out.”

Since returning to San Diego, Cole-Whittaker has spoken to small groups in Long Beach and San Francisco, but not in San Diego, the heart of her former congregation. That will change May 6, said Loy, when Cole-Whittaker will speak on “The Courage to Love Yourself” at the Bahia Resort Hotel in Mission Beach.

A former Mrs. California, the 46-year-old Cole-Whittaker has been married four times and was ordained by the Los Angeles Church of Religious Science in 1975. She took over the tiny Church of Religious Science in La Jolla in 1977 but broke out on her own in 1982, soon building a congregation of several thousand.

Despite raising more than $6 million in 1984 alone, her ministry ran into debt. Loy said the Terry Cole-Whittaker Ministries still exist and are working to pay off the debt, which Loy said is “very small” but which she couldn’t elaborate on. A year ago, the organization’s debt was placed at $400,000 by a ministry spokesman.