In My Own Words: Memoirs of a Twentieth-Century Mystic

by Elizabeth Clare Prophet

From modest beginnings, Elizabeth Clare Prophet rose to become one of the world's most compelling, charismatic and controversial spiritual leaders. Her life and accomoplishments have been chronicled by others. But never, until now, has there been a firsthand account. In this book, Elizabeth Clare Prophet tells the story of the search for her life's mission during her first twenty-two years. It provides an unflinching view of the struggles and triumphs that helped define her life. This memoir is a glimpse into the life and character of an extraordinary figure in new Age spirituality. It offers an intimate look into what it means to be a mystic in today's world.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939-2009) was an author, teacher, messenger of the ascended masters and leader of The Summit Lighthouse—an internationally recognized spiritual center for the advancement of inner awakening and soul liberation. For decades Elizabeth's books have been front runners in the movement for individual union with God. Millions of copies have been sold worldwide and published in more than 30 languages.
Throughout her lifetime, Elizabeth Clare Prophet walked the path of spiritual adeptship, advancing through the universal initiations common to mystics of both East and West. She taught about this path and described her own experiences for the benefit of all who desire to make spiritual progress. She lectured across North and South America, United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, the Philippines, Ghana, Liberia and India. With Her husband, Mark L. Prophet, she led pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Egypt and India.
Thousands of people from across the globe attended her four yearly conferences and hundreds of students learned spiritual teachings from her Summit University retreats. Her great desire was to share a spiritual path that would take true seekers, in the tradition of the mystical paths of the world's religions, as far as they could go and needed to go to meet their true teachers, the ascended masters, the archangels and their own Higher Self, face-to-face.
Her unpublished writings, lectures and dictations from the ascended masters continue to be released by Summit University Press.

Reviews

[Sverre · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is most definitely required reading for "true believers" in the Prophet mystique. But for others it will also help to explain why ECP took the course she did including her attraction to Mark Prophet's personality and his mysticism. She was a gifted, intelligent and independent individual with a very difficult childhood environment who early on sought her own answers to life's riddles. She was like someone driven to achieve greatness no matter what. After reading this book it seems obvious that her bonding with Mark Prophet was attributable to his projection of indisputable authority, wisdom and charisma--qualities which were much lacking in the tragic relationship with her irresponsible alcoholic father and vacillating mother.

This book only covers the first twenty-two years of Prophet's life. One must give her credit for revealing her childhood and youth's experiences with subjective candour. No doubt she was a born seeker with sensitivity to the unseen world. Her story is one of overcoming difficult individuals and circumstances and pursuing what she felt was her spiritual destiny: to follow Saint Germain (as eventually presented to her through Mark Prophet). She felt a loyalty to achieving that destiny and turned her back on--"surrendered" as she called it--whatever conflicted with its attainment, including her first husband, Dag Ytreberg, after only a few months of marriage because her "God Presence" had told her that relationship "is but for a little while". From then on Mark Prophet was her supreme controlling influence. After his passing she became elevated to be the supreme controlling influence, Guru Ma, over her flock of worshipful followers until Alzeimer's Disease forced her retirement in the late 1990s. She passed on in 2009.

This book provides some background, for readers who are unfamiliar with the Summit Lighthouse theology and mysticism, of how the Church Universal and Triumphant's beliefs were selectively adopted by its founders from multiple sources and forged into a cult with multifarious and syncretistic teachings and rituals. The veneration of scores of Ascended Masters and their "dictations", voicing hundreds of complex repetitive decrees out loud and studying thousands of pages of Pearls of Wisdom lessons and pronouncements are requirements expected of CUT members involved in the organization's vast curriculum. This makes for a bewildering, and one could say mind-numbing, prerequisite essential to keeping a candidate on course to achieve his or her "ascendancy." Pursuing one particular segment of the teachings, such as are available in ECP's Pocket Guides to Practical Spirituality series, may seem seductively straight forward, but one of these guides will only provide a miniscule sampling of the complexity of the Prophets' legacy. As for myself I am an advocate of the premise that, to be comprehended by the masses, spiritual truth should be essentially simple but yet profound. Instead it would seem that Summit Lighthouse/CUT provides the most extreme agglomeration of teachings available to the mystically inclined. Seekers contemplating a journey along this path, one which has multiple byways and crossroads, along with potential pitfalls, stumbling stones and entrapments--any one of which may lead to anxious despair and feelings of inadequacy--would be wise to research the organization and prayerfully invoke spiritual guidance before committing themselves to its demanding desideratum.

If this book is of interest, the book by her daughter is essential reading: Prophet's Daughter: My Life with Elizabeth Clare Prophet Inside the Church Universal and Triumphant