Editing Church Universal and Triumphant (section)

==Definition and classification==

The Church Universal and Triumphant is classified as a [[new religious movement]],{{sfnm|1a1=Whitsel|1y=2003|1p=xi|2a1=Palmer|2a2=Abravanel|2y=2009|2p=171}} while the geographers Paul Starrs and John Wright termed it a [[sect]].{{sfn|Starrs|Wright|2005|p=106}} It has also been described as a [[New Age]] organization.{{sfn|Whitsel|2003|p=xi}} Melton characterised it as part of the "Western metaphysical tradition".{{sfn|Melton|1994|p=1}}

The [[Catholic Church]] originated the phrase "[[Church militant and church triumphant|Church Militant and Church Triumphant]]" to refer to Christians in Heaven. In 1895, [[Mary Baker Eddy]] used the terms "universal" and "triumphant" in her first ''Church Manual'' as referring to the church she founded. In the 1903 edition of this work, she capitalized these terms, referring to her church as the "Church Universal and Triumphant".<ref>{{cite web|last=Wright|first=Helen M.|title=Mary Baker Eddy's Church Manual and Church Universal and Triumphant|url=http://www.mbeinstitute.org/chmantri/chmanintro.html|publisher=Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute|access-date=15 April 2013}}</ref> In 1919 [[Alice A. Bailey]], in what some students of [[Western esotericism|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''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bailey|first=Alice A.|title=The Externalisation of the Hierarchy|year=1957|publisher=Lucis Publishing Co.|location=New York|page=510}}</ref>  However Bailey's phrase was "Church Universal", rather than "Church Universal and Triumphant", and on page 152 of Bailey's "A Treatise on White Magic", she indicated that her "Church Universal" was not a church or conventional organization at all but a subjectivity or mystical entity:  "It is that inner group of lovers of God, the intellectual mystics, the knowers of reality who belong to no one religion or organization, but who regard themselves as members of the Church universal and as 'members one of another.'" The name "Church Universal and Triumphant" was announced by Elizabeth Clare Prophet on July 2, 1973, in a message from the [[ascended master]] Portia.<ref>Prophet, Elizabeth Clare, ''Pearls of Wisdom'', vol. 16 no. 51, December 23, 1973.</ref>