The Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) is a New Age religious organization combining elements of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Theosophy,[1] founded in the United States in 1975 by Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

The CUT taught that the Ascended Masters' plans to perfect human society were being thwarted by "Dark Forces", among whom they included communists and other left-wing activists, the federal government, mainstream religions, and extraterrestrials.

[7] In 1919 Alice A. Bailey, in what some students of esotericism view as a reference to the future organization, prophesied that the religion of the New Age would appear by the end of the 20th century and it would be called the Church Universal.

[23] She saw the spread of the AIDS virus during the 1980s as further evidence of an apocalyptic scenario, suspecting that it had been deliberately manufactured and was used to try and harm the genetics of "Lightbearers" so as to prevent the evolution of "a golden age race".

[28] Followers of the group were encouraged to recite statements called decrees; doing so was claimed to have multiple functions, including to mitigate karma and to attune the Earth to the power of light.

[34] Elizabeth regularly included condemnations of communism in her sermons,[35] and opposed socialism in all forms, seeing it as part of the global elite conspiracy's plot to control all facets of society.

[44] In its newsletter, I AM the Lighthouse of Freedom, the group anonymously published messengers allegedly channeled from the Ascended Masters; Prophet was the one responsible for providing these messages.

[45] Prophet printed the messages he claimed to have received from the Ascended Masters in a publication, Ashram Notes, that was then mailed to members, who at that time largely resided in suburban parts of Washington DC.

[51] Mark Prophet's 1965 book The Soulless Ones reflected his growing concerns about extraterrestrials whom he thought were combating the Ascended Masters' efforts to perfect human society.

[21] In Colorado Springs, they replaced Ashram Notes with Pearls of Wisdom, a weekly newspaper distributed for free to anyone interested, allowing them to attract a larger pool of people around their work.

[53] In Colorado, the Summit Lighthouse launched its nationwide conferences, called Ascended Master Conclaves, initially held on a 200-acre ranch outside the city which they leased.

[67] 1973 also saw the CUT form the Lanello Reserves Inc, a private, property-making corporation that focused on trading in gold and silver coins; Prophet headed its board of directors.

[71] Fearing the collapse of American society, some high-ranking members spent $100,000 on large numbers of firearms; these were officially obtained through a joint-stock company, the Rocky Mountain Sportsmen Club, to provide Prophet and the Church with plausible deniability.

[73] Negative attitudes towards the Church were exacerbated by the growth of the anti-cult movement during the 1970s;[74] sentiments that peaked following the Jonestown mass suicide of Peoples Temple members in November 1978.

[76] The media also accused Prophet of accumulating much wealth, which was used to finance a lifestyle of servants and luxury vacations, while her followers lived in an austere fashion.

[82] Some locals as well as environmentalists were also concerned about the CUT’s construction projects at the Royal Teton Ranch; they had hoped that the land would have been incorporated into the nearby Gallatin National Forest.

[84] In early 1981, the US Representative Wayne Owens tried to introduce measures that would have allowed the government to compulsorily purchase the Royal Teton Ranch, but these proved unsuccessful.

[84] In 1986, the Church officially moved its headquarters to the Royal Teton Ranch in Montana, selling Camelot to Japanese investors representing the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist group.

[85] Prophet related that the Montana ranch offered her followers "protection from economic collapse, bank failure, civil disorder, war, and cataclysm".

[88] Life in Montana provided greater levels of autonomy and social isolation for the group;[89] according to Whitsel, moving there "facilitated the further entrenchment of a countercultural outlook" among the Church.

[93] In a 1986 Thanksgiving message that she claimed came through her from Saint Germain, Prophet stated that the Church must start preparing underground shelters to survive a nuclear war.

[93] Emily Harnett describes the compound: Made of steel and concrete, the structure consisted of multiple underground passages arranged in the shape of an H and divided with submarine-style doors.

[98] The CUT's acting vice president, Edward Francis – who was also Prophet's fourth husband – also admitted involvement in Hamilton's scheme and received a short prison sentence.

[92] In her memoir, Prophet's daughter Erin writes that at first the mood of the followers underground was "jubilant",[104] but on the morning of March 16, many members left the shelters to find that the nuclear attack had not occurred.

"[104] In the prophecy's aftermath, Prophet maintained that the nuclear attack had failed to materialise not because her original predictions were incorrect, but because the Church's prayers had led to divine intervention to avert the disaster.

[106] After the Justice Department discovered that the CUT had been hoarding weapons for several years, it urged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to strip the Church of its tax-exempt religious status.

[59] Amid growing financial difficulty, in 1999, the CUT either sold or put into conservation easements approximately half of its 12,000 acres at Royal Teton Ranch; this raised $13 million for the group.

[115] Cleirbaut's emphasis on globalizing the Church also clashed with the belief in the United States as having a special place in the Ascended Masters' plans, generating further tension.

[37] Having visited the Royal Teton Ranch in 1992, the scholar of religion James R. Lewis thought the CUT members he encountered were "balanced, well-integrated individuals", with their children being "exceptionally bright and open".

"[149] Kent and Krebs made this criticism as part of what they saw as a "questionable relationship" between certain social scientists and specific new religions, including the CUT but also the Church of Scientology and The Family.