Elizabeth Clare Prophet From The Heart Interview
The following is excerpted from the 1983 interview, From The Heart, with Elizabeth Clare Prophet where she expressed her candid and incisive views on life before birth, genetic engineering, reincarnation and karma and why she is pro life.
Elizabeth Clare Prophet, tell us something about your work.
Well, my work is religious in nature, but I believe that religion has to deal with the issues of our time and that it is the spirit of the prophets with us and also the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ that is the resolution of the large problems that challenge our generation.
I'm very concerned about issues and what causes people to arrive at the conclusions they arrive at. For instance, in the case of life and death, we received the mandate from the prophet Moses to choose life and not death. And ever since that moment, the burden has been upon our shoulders to defend human life.
In the debate between the pro-abortion and pro-life forces, I am much more concerned about the reasons why people arrive at the conclusions they reach than their actual conclusions, because I'm interested in the soul's integration with the Principle of Life and all that it means in the sacredness of our own individual evolution.
Can you tell us what you mean by the word "soul"?
I mean the essence of self as the evolving self contrasted with the permanent atom of being which we call the Spirit, with a capital "S," or the I AM THAT I AM which was revealed to Moses.
Is a soul something that is finite and dies with the individual?
I see the soul as the potential to choose to be one with that which is real and permanent universally. So I see a very scientific process of the soul coming in and out of this time and space continuum where we find ourselves, for the purpose of gaining that experience to make the right choices in order to affirm its own inherent reality.
Is this commonly called reincarnation? Yes.
Your teachings bring forth more than Christianity. They also include many of the Eastern philosophies. Is that correct?
Yes, they do, because I believe that God has been revealing himself to us for many thousands of years. And so I see that in various epochs of human history, this Christ who was in Christ Jesus has appeared to us to deliver a very important message.
What is that message?
The message is always current to the time of the individual's appearing as well as being an eternal message. To me, what Jesus taught us is the law of the incarnate Word. He came to evidence to us the Spirit of Christ within him. And then he taught that we should follow him as the way, the truth, and the life of that incarnate Christ.
What does that word "incarnate" mean?
To embody, to put in flesh. And so, as John wrote, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." That is the mystery of the Incarnation.
I feel that current evangelism leaves off with the doctrine that everyone is a sinner and there is only one Son of God, everyone else is excluded -and that this sin was established originally in the Garden of Eden through Adam and Eve.
I believe that the "original sin" is rebellion against God and resistance to the fusion of the soul with the living Spirit. We are all sons of God, as John the apostle of Christ said, insofar as we put on and become the fullness of that Light.
The question is being raised with genetic engineering, with people playing God, so to speak, with euthanasia. We have so extended our ability to prolong life artificially that new ethical and theological questions are with us.
The perfecting of the human race is not the only goal of life. When you try to create a perfect human being, you're really trying to create a god - a human being who doesn't need God. The greatest human being who ever lived gave us a demonstration of his utter helplessness in the hour of his victory—the crucifixion on the cross.
How do you feel about the removal of medical and genetic defects?
We come into embodiment with certain infirmities, and having to wrestle with these, we are strengthened morally and spiritually. Our life is not the body. The life is our consciousness which enters the body, uses it for a while as a vehicle, and moves on. And if Paul had not had a 'thorn in his flesh', I'm not certain we would have the apostle as the towering figure of faith. And if he had been 'excellent in speech', we would not have him feeling his helplessness in God.
It can be a motivating force.
That's one point of it. The other is the law of karma, which is irrevocable—spoken of in the New Testament: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." We've sown in previous lives and we reap in this life.
With that in mind, and knowing today's focus on personal health and youthful appearance, do your teachings include something on nutrition, something on body care?
Oh yes. The body is "the temple of the living God," as Paul said. And therefore it deserves the best of care, the best food—fresh fruits and vegetables, and the pure juices derived therefrom, whole grains and sprouts, a minimum amount of flesh foods (if any at all), vitamins from the sea, fresh water algae, if you can get it, fresh air and sunshine, yoga, deep breathing, meditation, or any good exercise that's enjoyable while it tones and disciplines mind and body.
I think that it is important to improve life, even to extend our lifetime by a positive attitude and right living and to do so for the right reason, the right motive, and the right cause, which is to glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits (which are His), and to serve Him by serving our fellowmen: to help them to realize and make practical the point within themselves that is the universal Light—the I AM Presence.
You say that it is important to improve life and to give the body the best of care. I wonder, if you or I were to have more children than we could adequately support—would we then feel that there may be more than one view on the question of abortion?
Well, according to this standard of a certain economic level, Jesus Christ should have been aborted and Abraham Lincoln should have been aborted. I think that my children are God's children. And if he gives them to me, he will provide for them.
However, I do think that at a certain point parents should not have any more children than they can take care of. But their standards of that care ought to be based on love and harmony and the realization that that is what children need most—the personal attention of mother at home, taking care of children in their younger years, and the adequate provision for basic needs rather than the artificial needs of an affluent society.
I believe that we should do everything in our power in America to encourage the individual to conquer life economically, that we should use the nation's wealth to help people help themselves and see to it that our laws do not stifle private enterprise or the small businessman while artificially supporting monopolies or the price manipulating of basic commodities.
But we should never allow the needy to go unhelped, because it is the Christlike thing to do—to help the poor, the orphan, the widow. We cannot simply leave people in that state of poverty. It is our job to see to it that there is a certain provision for our children, without crossing the line and going into a welfare or Communist state.
You know, the working people who are on socialist programs in the nations of Europe today are in some cases a lot better off than our working people. This is not to say that I am an advocate of socialism, per se. I feel there is a terrible interference with the economy of the nation—that the wealth of the nation is not in the hands of the people—that that wealth is skimmed off at the top and has been for at least a hundred years. I feel the indignation of the Almighty that burns in my heart as a fire of contempt for the manipulators of his people.
Where do you think that wealth is skimmed to? The power elite.
And how would you describe them?
I think they're a force of the self-styled leaders who betray the people. They are being exposed, yet they are still in positions of power where they can make very ruthless decisions regarding what I call the "little people." And so I believe that I'm here to help the little people find out that if Christ lives in them—and he does—they are not dependent upon this ruthless power elite.
Do you think this "ruthless power elite," as you put it, are leading us toward war for their profit?
It has happened before and it can happen again. I believe there is an international conspiracy of power elite at the head of the economies and the governments of many nations, not just the United States. And I think that the cooperation of the leaders of the Allies and the Axis powers—for instance, in World War II—cost many American lives.
I know that the skulduggery in Vietnam cost the lives not only of Americans, but also of North and South Vietnamese. And you look at the same kind of scheming as Russian soldiers are fed as fodder to the Communist war machine in Afghanistan, Angola, and anywhere else.
There is a war of the power elite going on to grab power, grab land, and to control the little people. And I think that's where you get the Zero Population Growth theory and the myth of the Club of Rome. You know, their statistics on world resources, food production, and population have been proven incorrect and they have admitted it. But the impact of Limits to Growth lingers. The idea that there's not enough room for God's people on the good green earth, despite all evidence to the contrary, is, amazingly, still believed by many.
And the people aren't educated. They accept what the power elite tell them. So all of a sudden they don't have any more babies—and abortion becomes a way of life. They champion their right to kill babies in the name of social justice, not knowing that it's population control that's behind it all.
Somebody just doesn't want these precious children around to expose their conspiracy. Too many well educated, well informed "little people" just might overturn the tables of the power elite someday. Limits to Growth tells it all. It ought to be subtitled "A Strategy of the Power Elite to Limit the Growth of the Children of the One."
Isn't a woman's freedom of choice more important?
Fifty million abortions worldwide each year means that fifty million souls that ought to be embodying and contributing to the planetary evolution are being denied entrance into life. And we are the losers. Only God knows the formula necessary to perpetuate civilization as we know it, and the key ingredient of the formula is the individual.
One life canceled out can mean the extinguishing of a nation or a race for a two thousand year period. Jesus Christ demonstrated to us the worth of the individual. We are all sons of God. Each one of us is unique and very necessary to the whole body of God evolving on earth. Abortion is just one of the many tactics of the power elite to cut off the course of the real freedom of the people rising up once and for all to overthrow their oppressors.
Our saviors, leaders, deliverers, prophets, and teachers are being destroyed before they are born. Herod is having his way. Who can say that none of the fifty million children aborted annually is a messiah?
What God fearing person will take into his hands the knife that shall murder the individual who is sent by God with the cure for cancer or for the ills of the economy or for the deliverance of the people of Asia or Africa or the other Third World nations? I myself would not want the responsibility for such a decision to be on the record of my soul when I report to my Creator at the end of this lifetime.
Abortion is a crime against God and man. We are allowing ourselves to be manipulated to our own ultimate destruction, both physically and spiritually. The penalties are very high for the mass slaughter of our children—so high that I fear we will not be able to pay the price.
A Christed one who might come again to buy us with the price of his own life—as Jesus bought us with a price—is simply not being allowed to embody by the archdeceivers of mankind who now have the full cooperation of the good people of earth. People are going to have to do a lot better (as Mother Mary said at Fátima) in order to obtain salvation. The place to start is the defense of the sacredness of Life.
You have no objection to birth control?
I think it's a private matter, and I don't feel that I should be here to dictate moral principles but rather to educate my students according to the law of Life that says: Whatever you do will be done unto you. And you will return in a future life to experience whatever you have done to another part of life.
With that consideration, there's a tenderness, a compassion, and a sacredness with which we then deal with one another. On that basis, we make a decision. Some persons are going to say, "I can't have any more than four children," out of compassion to themselves and those souls. Others will say, "There's room for everybody in my house."
But it is your belief that at the point of conception the decision has already been made?
That is correct. I believe that birth control begins before conception. (If you're going to use contraceptives, use one that is safe to the mother, not the I.U.D. or the Pill, which are much too dangerous. The Ovulation Method offers the best possibility for a self disciplined self awareness in family planning.)
I believe that at the moment of conception, that tiny cell is biological life—it is living. And it already has the potential, if it is the will of God, to meet the needs of a specific individual with a specific genetic code designed to fulfill the spiritual as well as physical needs of a very special soul—if it is so ordained.
Now, the soul may not be in that vehicle. It may enter at three months, at six months, or at term. Souls even are known to come in and out of the fetus while it is gestating. But the finer bodies—the etheric envelope, the mental and desire bodies—and the chakras are being woven into the physical fabric. The body is someone's very unique and very sacred temple.
Woman's reason for being is to nourish and elevate the race through her divine consciousness and her divine womb. By the power of their love in God, father and mother can maximize the genetic potential of their children. God is the author of the new race who will embody on earth in the coming golden age—not the godless scientists who want to control us and our progeny.
What evidence do we have for the existence of a soul with specific physical needs?
There is a book called Life Before Life by Helen Wambach, a psychologist who has regressed hundreds of people to the point of the experience of birth and prior to birth. Hundreds of cases have reported that they were given instruction by spiritual guides or teachers or masters or angels concerning their choice to embody in a certain family at a certain time in history and as a certain sex. These needs are based on our karma.
Today we've seen the effect of the "me" generation and marriages that don't last and yet we see the great hunger of people to find relationships that work.
They seek to have a sense of participation, and yet American individuality has been held out as an ideal in the great entrepreneurial sense. There's a dichotomy here, I think, between individuality and the well-being of the individual.
I think the only valid individuality is the individuality that is based on the indwelling presence of God. Lucifer was great on individualism and he went out and he did his own thing. His rebellion was against God and His right to run the universe. He said: "I can go out and run this universe and I can do it better."
Americans need to understand that Christ taught us how to establish our individuality as a single person and as a nation. If everybody goes off and does their own thing for a selfish purpose, you have the breaking down of society, of the marriage, of the home. But if everyone understands that the inner strength of the individual, one with God, is the foundation of community life, then we will build a strong America.
Education today tears down individuality on the basis of a secular humanism which wants to make everyone the same, based on the principle of Marx that it is social interaction that derives the human essence or potential. This, to me, creates alienation from the inner heart flame and the Principle of Life.
I think we need to love the differences in one another. But today the different child on the playground is ostracized. There's no room for someone to be different.
But isn't that the thorn, so to speak, in that child's side that is going to motivate him?
It can destroy him. It can destroy the tender vine. There is a time for strength and there is a time for freedom to grow and express oneself—without ridicule, else the spark of self confidence in individual creativity may be effectively snuffed out for that lifetime.
Individuality is individual integrity based on the knowledge that one is the manifestation of the higher being. ("He that seeth me seeth him that sent me.") As such, one must live in a cooperative spirit to love and serve the creative potential of all other individuals, with dedication to the community as the necessary protection of joyous interaction and mutual growth.
Do you believe that you can deny a woman's right to abortion and at the same time say, "If you believe in abortion, I respect your right to your belief, too"?
Individuality exists in consideration of the rights of others and the rights of the community. Individuality does not confer the right to kill.
Abortion is first degree murder of God. Human government founded since Noah has been founded to protect human life. The nation or the government that creates legislation allowing murder is doomed to go down. It will go down by cataclysm. It will go down by economic collapse. But it will go down because it is not consistent with the laws of universal life.
That is a fiat of Almighty God. I didn't originate it, but it has the power of the Holy Spirit. It will come to pass. And if America does not refute legislated, legalized, tax-supported murder, the judgment will come as it came upon Judah and every other nation who has practiced it.1 (See Jer. 7:31; 19; 52.)
Nature has always exacted a recompense for man's inhumanity to man ...we may see such devastation on earth as to wipe out one third of the total world population.
World karma for worldwide slaughter of the innocents in 'peace' and in war?
It is a question of freedom of religion when your religion believes one way and my religion believes another. I think the ideal is that abortion never be necessary, but I can see that in certain very special cases abortion might be understandable for somebody of a different religious persuasion.
You see, to me abortion is not a matter of religion, it's a matter of life. Before there was any religion whatsoever in any organized manner—Life Is on this planet. And those who are a part of that Life need to protect the Principle of Life for their own self preservation.
The fact is that Life must be held as sacred. And I believe that our experience in living must find us at the point of accepting the fact that Life in its very fundamental principle is sacrificial. We have to be prepared to make sacrifices for the continuation of other Life on earth. And the giving of ourselves to our families and our children and to people requires giving up something.
What about rape and incest—or even test tube babies?
I will concede that because there is not free will or consent involved in rape, that a woman can make the choice within 36 hours not to accept the condition of pregnancy. (A victim of rape or incest must call her doctor immediately.)
I've thought a lot about this question and I can only find the answer when I put myself or one of my three daughters in the situation and then go to God to discern his will.
I don't believe God ordained rape and I don't believe he ordained that life should be conceived by rape or by violence. I believe that conception is the divine prerogative of father and mother in communion with God and Holy Spirit—that the womb is a sanctuary for a soul brought forth in love, harmony, light, and by prior commitment before the Lord not only between the parents, but between the parents and the incoming soul.I believe that the endowment of the power to procreate is a gift of God to his sons and daughters. Life may beget life in the biological sense, but the circumstances and consciousness that accompany the act of creation determine whether consecrated life endowed by the Holy Spirit will coexist with it.
Who has the power to consecrate life?
God and his sons and daughters in the cooperative, loving, freewill, foreordained, Spirit/Matter creation of both body and soul. Who consecrates rape or incest? Does God? Does man? Does woman? I think not.
Can scientists breathe into their creation the sacred breath of life? Can they create a living soul or ignite the divine spark? What is so amazing to me is that they really don't seem to care that they are creating bodies without any guarantee whatsoever that their creation will have conscience or moral restraint. What, then, will prevent a race of laboratory created flesh and blood human automatons from spawning themselves into a planetary malignancy?
I believe that there are devils in the flesh on earth (and this is scriptural according to the teachings of our Lord, Matt. 13:25 50; John 8:31 59), and I don't believe that the sons and daughters of God should be forced to bear their seed or submit to their genetic engineering. Nor do I believe that God ordains the union of the seed of the devil and the seed of a child of the light—or that robots and God's creation should unite.
Unless life is consecrated by free will within the framework of God's commandments, there is no guarantee that the issue will be a living soul. It's one thing to create generic man, biological man, "out of the dust of the ground." And this is man's free will. It's another thing to breathe into his nostrils the sacred breath of life and to ignite the divine spark.
I believe that this takes place at birth by the Holy Spirit (or in the case of avatars, it is with them before conception and throughout gestation). I do not believe that there is an infusion of the sacred breath or the divine spark nor the assignment of a soul to a body conceived by rape, by incest, or in a test tube unless by an act of mercy and the freewill accord of God and man—through divine intercession—a soul may be sponsored by the Holy Spirit to evolve through a body temple so conceived. And this is God's free will—to ensoul or not to ensoul man's creation.
The issue is not bodies, the issue is souls in bodies.
My conclusion is that if the woman accepts a pregnancy that is the result of rape or incest, then by her acceptance she gives consent, and her free will opens the door to the possibility of a soul inhabiting the body. John the Baptist said, "God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." (Matt. 3:9) He can, but he doesn't have to unless he wants to.
Woman is the ultimate and final authority as to what happens in her womb. Right or wrong, she will bear the karma. And therefore, the choice is up to the woman. But today, the women of America do not exercise an enlightened choice—enlightened, that is, in the understanding of God's laws—and I believe that that is why there are many, many more abortions today than there ever would be if people knew the law of their own being.
Who can ignore the warning of Jesus? "It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."
Would you consider yourself a leader in the Pro Life movement?
I have never joined the Pro Life movement. I have founded my own movement: it's called the Coming Revolution in Higher Consciousness.
I am pro life as a result of being pro choice. I have chosen to be pro life: it has not been put upon me by the Pro Life movement or anyone else. It is an enlightened choice for God and for the divinely ordained incarnation of his offspring.
Whenever light bearers make absolute rules about the human condition, they discount the fact that the spoilers will use these rules against the very purposes to which they were established.
Here we have violence wreaked upon the mother and the womb (rape); the desecration of the innocence of the child (incest); and reembodied Atlantean scientists who sank a continent and a civilization now playing God again in the creation of test tube babies who may turn out to be godless monsters—and the Pro Life movement, locked into its own logic, winds up defending biological life instead of the spiritual right of a soul to embody under the right conditions to work out its karma and divine plan.
My position must be the defense of "the flame in the bowl." By this I mean biological life as the matrix for the incarnate Word.
The Word is the Higher Consciousness of each of us.
When this 'flame', this 'lifestream', this 'self' that preexists the matter bowl and is preordained to live again on earth, is wed to biological life by the joyous acclamation of God and his sons and daughters, then it must be defended at all costs because it is God. His laws made for his own are for the protection of the innocent, not the guilty.
1. George Devereux, A Study of Abortion in Primitive Societies, rev. ed. (New York: International Universities Press, 1976).