Mark Prophet, His Early Life
Mark Prophet was the only child of Thomas and Mabel Prophet, born Christmas Eve 1918 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
As a child, his mystical inclinations were apparent. He saw and freely communed with angels and nature spirits. When he was nine, his father died and it affected him deeply.
Attending the Pentecostal church, praying by the hour at the altar he built in the attic of his home, the young Mark showed an extraordinary religious devotion.
Before finishing high school, he had received all nine gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Mark Prophet Meets El Morya
When Mark was a young man, the ascended master El Morya appeared to him. Unable to reconcile the turbaned Eastern adept with his lifelong devotion to Jesus or his mother's studies with Unity School of Christianity, he dismissed him.
Years later, El Morya returned when Mark, having realized that the path of the ascended masters was also the path of Jesus, accepted Morya as his teacher and took on the rigors of Eastern discipleship.
Mark also studied the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda and was for a time associated with Self-Realization Fellowship as well as the Rosicrucian order.
Mark Begins His Spiritual Mission
After serving in the Air Force in World War II, Mark lectured on Christian and Eastern mysticism and the Masters of Wisdom. In 1952 he began publishing a series of letters and spiritual rituals to his students called Ashram Notes, dictated by El Morya from his Ashram at Darjeeling, India.
The Master directed him to found and establish the headquarters of The Summit Lighthouse in Washington, D.C. On August 8, 1958, El Morya dictated the first of the Pearls of Wisdom to Mark, launching a worldwide movement.