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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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082889
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08288900.063
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1990-09-17
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RELIGION, Page 61Paradise Under SiegeA new-age guru prepares for war in Montana
Back in Malibu it seemed like just another chanting, channeling
new-age religion. But under the big skies of Montana, where
Elizabeth Clare Prophet moved her Church Universal and Triumphant
in 1986, the newcomers struck the locals as ominous. Starting out
on a 12,000-acre ranch purchased five years earlier from publisher
Malcolm Forbes for $7.7 million, the church rapidly expanded its
holdings to 33,500 acres, attracted some 1,000 followers to the
region, and launched extensive construction projects. Neighbors
feared that the mushrooming community might damage the delicate
ecological balance of Yellowstone National Park, which the ranch
abuts.
Environmental concerns were overshadowed last month when Vernon
Hamilton, a leader of C.U.T.'s Cosmic Honor Guard security force,
was arrested in Spokane while driving a pickup truck carrying
illegally obtained weapons. The find that day included seven
large-caliber semiautomatic rifles, five assault rifles, $26,000
in cash and gold coins, and plans for the arming of 200 people.
Last week Prophet, 50, who is also known as Guru Ma, and her
husband Ed Francis, 39, appeared before a grand jury investigating
alleged church involvement in illegal arms gathering. Prophet
denies any wrongdoing, but if evidence implicates the two, they
will face possible jail sentences and the crumbling of their
empire. Says Park County commissioner Larry Lovely: "I think their
credibility is slipping, and it's time to get this out in the
open."
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the usual operations have been
neglected while Prophet and her followers gear up for surviving the
Armageddon she predicted in 1987, when she received a message from
what she calls her "ascended masters." This exalted band includes
Jesus, Buddha and Guru Ma's former husband the late Mark L.
Prophet, who three decades ago founded the religion on an amalgam
of Christianity and Eastern faiths.
Guru Ma claims to be the channel through which these spirits
speak to earthbound mortals. Despite their warning that the U.S.
will suffer a nuclear attack in October this year, "America the
Vulnerable," she grumbles, has not even "seen fit to have an ABM
system in place."
Prophet took matters into her own hands by inviting all her
faithful, who may number some 30,000 worldwide, to move to Montana
and escape the coming doom. Followers have begun to converge on the
region and lease homes in a church-owned subdivision. At the main
headquarters, dubbed the "inner retreat," the group is constructing
a system of tubular underground shelters for 756 people. The guns,
according to former members, are meant to defend the 600 staffers
against a Communist invasion. Former bodyguard Ken Paolini charges
that members are being told, "If we come under attack, we'll all
go into the etheric together."
But even as she seeks to gather the flock around her, Guru Ma
is having trouble keeping her own family intact. Daughter Moira
Lewis, 21, has joined a growing phalanx of outspoken defectors and
accuses her mother of pursuing an opulent life-style, dining on
lobster and prime rib, while keeping her followers in a constant
state of austerity as they prepare for World War III.