The Church Of The Prophet

The Church Of The Prophet was a pseudo-fundamentalist illegitimate offspring sect of the Mormon Church in northwestern Arizona. Founded by Elder Shelly Nelvin Schlosser in 1890, the sect existed for at least a decade despite constant condemnation from the LDS church. After the church's downfall, many controversial practices were uncovered, including not only polygamy but human sacrifice, suicide conditioning, and the murder of any who tried to leave. Though actively condemned by the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints, The Church Of The Prophet largely flew under the radar of the United States Government thanks to Congress's negative opinions of the whole of Mormonism at the time.

## History

Shelly Nelvin Schlosser was born in 1864 in rural Nevada, though he spent much of his time growing up in Utah on his father's farm. Schlosser grew up Mormon, the son of one of his father's three wives. When he was 21, Schlosser took his first and only legal wife, Magdelena, and moved with her to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he became involved with the leadership in the Mormon Church. Schlosser became an elder at the age of 24 in 1888.

In 1890, Wilford Woodruff, then the President of the Mormon Church, issued his "1890 Manifesto", which was meant to appease Congress' anti-polygamy sentiment towards Mormonism as a whole. The manifesto officially condemned polygamy in the Mormon Church, and advised unification of various subsects under one banner of the Church of Jesus Christ's Latter Day Saints. Shelly Schlosser was courting another women at the time, Bethany Caulfield, and intended to marry her. The condemnation of polygamy from his own church came as a slap in the face. Schlosser started meetings for "fundamentalist Mormons" in Salt Lake City in secret, meeting in basements and barns. It wasn't long before the Mormon-run SLC Police Department discovered the minor treason, and Schlosser and his followers were run out of town.

When the Church of the Prophet was run into the desert, it consisted of Schlosser and his two wives, Elder Solomon Sulzbach (and his wife, two children, and mistress), S. Aaron Wilmes, and an unnamed Paiute man. The small group fled the state of Utah, eventually settling in Short Creek, Arizona, a location that, thanks to the Grand Canyon, was kept surprisingly remote. At the time, the only existing building at Short Creek was an abandoned Pony Express station, which the Church called their home.

Over the next few years, the Church of the Prophet attracted many fundamentalist Mormons, as well as new converts. Many of the local Shoshone and Apache were drawn to join the church as well. By the year 1895, the church consisted of some 81 members, their wives and children, and a good deal of livestock, and inhabited a compound "town" which stretched for nearly 260 square miles of Arizona desert (though most of this was ranchlands). A 1896 investigation of the property by Arizona Territory Police found that no wrongdoing was being committed.

## Atrocities

In May of 1896, a group of doubters grew in the church. Led by S. Aaron Wilmes, the group consisted of some 25 men in all who were beginning to doubt the validity of the Church's dogma. Among their complaints were the fact that Schlosser was teaching himself to be a prophet of the same level as Joseph Smith, and was simply adding to the Book of Mormon whatever doctrines he saw fit. Wilmes' insurrection came to a head when his firstborn son, two year old Benjamin Abram Wilmes, was struck with consumption. Schlosser's "Holy Man", a Paiute medicine man known to the group only as "John Smith", took the boy from the Wilmes cabin during the night and held him in the basement of the Grand Temple for seven days and seven nights for what he called a "purification ceremony". The boy was not fed during the purification and died. After the boy's death, he was embalmed in desiccant and displayed in the village square, with the Church claiming that he was in a "trance-like" state. After being displayed for seven days, the boy was supposed to be cured, but he remained dead. The Church swept the whole thing under the rug and destroyed the boy's remains.

Wilmes left the Church and was officially excommunicated, but a group of his followers convinced him to return. Upon his return, he snuck back into the compound and led his men in an attempted assassination of Shelly Schlosser, resulting in the priest being shot six times with sawed-off shotguns and a repeater rifle. Schlosser was nearly killed, and ordered the members of the Church to capture Wilmes. Wilmes was buried up to his neck in sand and allowed to starve. His body remained in the sand while his head was eaten by local wildlife. His followers were ordered to reassimilate into the Church, and anyone who tried to leave was shot.

After the May Revolt, the Church took on a far more sinister tone. Nobody was allowed to come or go, and anyone who attempted to cross the Church's boundaries in either direction was shot. Watchtowers were constructed along the boundaries, and armed guards were posted day and night. Schlosser began taking female infants from the crib and throwing them out to the desert to die in the elements in a form of human sacrifice. The church, who's white male population now numbered 78 in all plus women, children, and minorities (for a grand total of around 300 people), was under complete lockdown. Members began to be conditioned for an inevitable battle against the evil "outside world", and a ritualistic mass-suicide if necessary. Members of the church bought nearly a ton of poison from outside sources, and kept it handy should a mass-suicide be required. The church became a nest of paranoia and treachery, and remained that way for several years. Anyone who wandered too close to the borders was killed.