Marshall Vian Summers (born January 28, 1949) is an American religious leader and spiritual teacher who offers retreats, online broadcasts and events in the United States and abroad. He is the author of numerous books and podcasts, and is the founder of The Society for the New Message, a religious nonprofit organization established in 1992 which supports and makes available his books and teachings. He is the central figure within a
new religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or Spirituality, spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part ...
with an emphasis on the implications of
exotheology for human evolution. Summers and his followers designate themselves the Worldwide Community of the New Message from God.
His books are the basis for their beliefs and guiding principles, which break down categorically into warnings of extreme change
and outside threat;
and gifts of spiritual blessing
and preparation
for living in a world in decline.
Biography
Marshall Summers grew up in an Episcopal family without much emphasis on religion. After studying music and English at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, he became a teacher of the blind and claimed he began to develop sensitivity to "inner guidance," or gut feeling of knowing, that would lead him to go into the wilderness of the American Southwest to experience an encounter with what he related to as an Angelic Presence that instructed him to record messages that have come to be referred to as divine
revelation
Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of Religious views on truth, truth or Knowledge#Religion, knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and t ...
.
Beliefs
A prolific writer, Summers publishes on several platforms, in print and online, a collection of writings organized in a series titled "The One Book." He asserts that these publications are transcriptions from thousands of hours of direct contact with "Unseen Ones," whom he portrays as an
angel
An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...
ic presence assigned to watch over the Earth. The content of the material is regarded as a (or ''the'') "New Message from
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
," which posits a time of impending dire crisis for humanity—on the threshold of emergence into a highly competitive Greater Community of
intelligent life, yet socially dissolute and environmentally compromised.
Summers compares the situation of humanity as it anticipates contact with, and exploration of, its limits in the universe to that of native peoples wherever they are taken by surprise by explorers seeking resources in their land.
Messenger from God
The New Message from God is at once both a set of teachings with claims of divine authority and the
new religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or Spirituality, spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part ...
that promotes these teachings. It is entirely based on the work of Summers, who is granted elevated status as "the Messenger" on the basis of these teachings. Summers and his adherents represent that he is a
prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...
on the order of the
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),*
*
*
was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...
,
Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
, and
Muhammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
, in receipt of an unworldly communication having salvific power for individuals and for the planet among others in a populated universe. Summers has recorded these communications on tape, the transcription approaching ten thousand pages. Key components of this communication include warnings of an incursion upon Earth called the Intervention, and pronouncements about the future involving global upheaval and interaction between the human race and extraterrestrials which, Summers claims, are from "the Greater Community."
In 1992, to support the promulgation of his message in print and via broadcast, Summers founded The Society for the Greater Community Way of Knowledge, trading as The Society for the New Message from God, a 501(c)(3) religious
non-profit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
which is both publisher of Summers' books and recordings (under the imprin
New Knowledge Library and a
religious order
A religious order is a subgroup within a larger confessional community with a distinctive high-religiosity lifestyle and clear membership. Religious orders often trace their lineage from revered teachers, venerate their Organizational founder, ...
. Mr. Summers' son Reed assists him, especially in communications, finding an audience among those with these shared interests: "Full Disclosure of the ET phenomena, Divinely Connected Channelers,
ecret Space Programexperiencers, Energy Healers, SSP Con Men, Authors of Off-Planet Subjects, State Secret Whistleblowers, precious Starseeds and all of us who have difficulty finding like minded people who see huge changes on the Horizon
ho areawakening to the spiritual nature of Reality."
The New Message Sanctuary in
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most ...
, USA, a gathering place for The Society
broadcastsservices via the Internet and since 2012 has presented its materials on line, as part of
free schoolclaiming 2902 students and 112 countries represented, a ready answer to criticism in regards to capitalizing off the Word of God. The use of a Kickstarter campaign for the launch of a book on cosmic themes (capitalizing on the 2017 eclipse over the U.S.) is notable as an example of the interplay among technology, popular science and belief in the twenty-first century.
Recordings
Except for ''The Allies of Humanity'',
which Summers contends were transmitted from extraterrestrial beings present in the physical (and not extra-dimensional, yet in concordance with Mr. Summers' "divine" source), Summers asserts his writings come through his will, mind and tongue in collaboration with a divine source. The resulting voice is recorded by him, then transcribed and published.
The majority of the content of Summers' publications was purportedly composed in these collaborations, whether allegedly sourced from extraterrestrial entities in physical reality or angelic beings on a plane beyond the physical. These recordings are claimed to differ from Mr. Summers' normal manner of speaking, which supposedly validates their origin outside himself.
Publications
* ''Wisdom from The Greater Community, Vol. 1: How to Live With Certainty, Strength & Wisdom in an Emerging World'' (1990).
* ''Wisdom from The Greater Community, Vol. 2: How to Find Purpose, Meaning & Direction in an Emerging World'' (1993).
* ''Greater Community Spirituality: A New Revelation'' (1998).
*
Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing' (1999).
* ''The Allies of Humanity, Book 1: An Urgent Message About the Extraterrestrial Presence in the World Today'' (2001).
* ''The Allies of Humanity, Book 2: Human Unity, Freedom & the Hidden Reality of Contact'' (2005).
*
The Great Waves of Change: Navigating the Difficult Times Ahead' (2009). ; 2009 Finalist for ''ForeWord Magazines Book of the Year: Body, Mind & Spirit
* ''The Allies of Humanity, Book 3: A Message to Earth'' (2012).
* ''Life in the Universe'' (2012).
*
Secrets of Heaven' (2013). ; 2013 Finalist for ''ForeWord Magazines Book of the Year: Body, Mind & Spirit
* ''God Has Spoken Again'' (2015).
olume 1, Book 1 of ''The New Message from God''* ''The One God'' (2016).
olume 1, Book 2 of ''The New Message from God''* ''The New Messenger'' (2016).
olume 1, Book 3 of ''The New Message from God''* ''The Greater Community'' (2017).
olume 1, Book 4 of ''The New Message from God''* ''The Power of Knowledge'' (2019).
olume 1, Book 5 of ''The New Message from God''* ''The Journey to a New Life'' (2019).
olume 1, Book 6 of ''The New Message from God''* ''The New World'' (2019).
olume 1, Book 7 of ''The New Message from God''* ''The Allies of Humanity, Book 4: Freedom in the Universe'' (2019).
* ''The Pure Religion'' (2019).
* ''Preparing for the Greater Community'' (2020).
* ''Relationships and Higher Purpose''
* ''Living the Way of Knowledge: Building the Foundation for Becoming a Man or Woman of Knowledge in an Emerging World''
* ''Steps to Knowledge Continuation Training'' (1998) (available after attestation to having completed two cycles of the first level of training)
Translations
Portions of the New Message have been translated from
English into 34 other languages including Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Bangla, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Kiswahili, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.
*
Steps to Knowledge' has been translated into Spanish, French, Greek, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Danish, Italian, German, Bulgarian and
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
.
*
The Allies of Humanity' into French, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, German, Portuguese, Korean, Italian, Chinese, Polish, Dutch, Hungarian, Romanian, and Greek.
See also
*
UFO religion
A UFO religion, also called a UFO cult or flying saucer cult, is any religion in which the existence of extraterrestrial (ET) entities and communication with them is a core belief. Typically, adherents of such religions believe the ETs to be i ...
*
List of new religious movements
*
New religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or Spirituality, spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part ...
References
External links
Organization and structure
The New Message from GodNew Knowledge Library
Social media presence
: (and a
selfThe New Message from Godon
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
(and a
selfon twitter
Books by emphasis
''Steps to Knowledge''''The Great Waves of Change''''The Allies of Humanity''
Critiques
Strange beliefs, amusing deceptions, and dangerous delusions.
Marshall Vian Summers at Apologetics Indexunder the topic 'UFOs and Aliens' 2008
Fansites
Mystery of AscensionReal AliensThe Declaration of Human Sovereignty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Summers, Marshall Vian
1949 births
American non-fiction writers
American religious leaders
American spiritual teachers
American self-help writers
American spiritual writers
Angelic visionaries
Living people
20th-century mystics
Place of birth missing (living people)
Prophets
Founders of new religious movements