Another Dose of Sacred Books & Sky Hooks

In 2007, Jared W. Blackley, a writer for the antiestablishment Salt Lake City Weekly, did a piece on Corky titled “Ra’s Deal: If You Like Sex, Wine, Pyramids, And Egyptian Philosophy, Corky Ra Has Your Religion.” Blackley gave a physical description of his subject: medium build, late fifties, stereotype of the aging hippie, bald in front, gray hair gathered in a ponytail descending halfway down his back, calm confidence, soft voice. (The Summum website features a headshot of Ra with a full head of black hair but without the ponytail.) Blackley also interviewed Ken Sanders, one of Corky’s former colleagues at a printing press and design shop, who recalled that Corky Nowell was “a salesman who got the firm lots of job contracts but never quite got the hang of some crucial pragmatics”—that is, he made contracts for jobs that were impossible to fulfill. Corky, he added, would also come to work “carrying what he called an unbreakable ‘bonum rock’ of pink quartzite purportedly from another planet.”

Then there are the miracles Corky is said to have performed. According to sworn affidavits, he has turned a blue sky into a rainstorm, lit a candle by staring at it, and impregnated “several fully-clothed women just by using the energy from the penis of a fully-clothed man standing on the opposite side of the room.” All the women, with a sole exception, escaped their unwelcome state by directing their energy toward releasing their embryos, though what this releasing was all about is never explained.

There is no account of the woman who retained her embryo.