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(AP Photo/courtesy of the book Prophet's Daughter, Lyons Press, Chad Slattery,File)
FILE-This undated file photo provided by Mouth Public Relations shows Church Universal and Triumphan leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet addressing a crowd of her followers. As many as 1,000 followers of a New Age spiritual leader and doomsday prophet are expected for her memorial service this weekend at the sprawling Montana ranch she used as a headquarters. Prophet, 70, died last month in Bozeman after a decade-long decline caused by Alzheimer's disease.
BOZEMAN, Mont.— Members of a Montana-based sect whose influence expanded as it prepared for a nuclear holocaust that never came, now search for new directions after the death of Elizabeth Clare Prophet _ "Mother" to her thousands of followers.
The Church Universal and Triumphant still keeps its 750-person underground shelters stocked with food _ "insurance," its leaders say, against possible dark days ahead.
Yet with Prophet gone, it's uncertain the spiritual movement she embodied will prove as lasting as all the concrete and steel hidden beneath a Montana mountainside north of Yellowstone National Park.
"You had a clear figurehead that became the focus of the organization, the object of adoration. When that's suddenly removed it throws people into a tailspin," said Robert Balch, a University of Montana sociologist specializing in cults and unconventional religions.
In the waning days of Prophet's reign as the church's divinely chosen messenger, its focus shifted from civilization's end to the development of a New Age publishing juggernaut, producing hundreds of books and recordings drawn from Prophet's mystical declarations.
After a decade-long decline caused by Alzheimer's disease, Prophet died last month at age 70 _ setting off what Balch called a "crisis of succession" over who will take her place.
As her followers convene at the church's sprawling Corwin Springs compound this weekend for a three-day memorial gathering, the struggle to lay claim to Prophet's legacy already has begun.
Within days of her death, former church member David Lewis announced he had channeled Prophet's spirit.
Like Prophet, Lewis claims the ability to channel Jesus, Buddha and more obscure spiritual figures such as St. Germain and El Morya.
Church leaders have denounced him.
