Unification Church: An Apology --
2000 Years of Persecution From Jesus to Sun Myung Moon

Rev. Moon is a good religious man

Rev. Moon has created many organizations.  His motivation in creating them is altruistic.  He is a good man and his followers are generally good people.  We believe Rev. and Mrs. Moon have taken on the most difficult job ever given a couple -- the role of restoring Adam and Eve. They have worked to earn the position of being the first True Parents of mankind. They are not God and they do not teach that anyone is to become a god. When we say that the Moon's are perfect, we must define perfect as being mature. It does not mean that they or anyone else who grows to perfection does not make mistakes. Rev. and Mrs. Moon have succeeded in their role of being mankind's first True Parents. Jesus was murdered before he could marry and teach the revelations God gave him.

Many Christians are wrong in thinking that the goal of human history is for most of mankind to spend eternity in a burning chamber of horrors while the small minority of mankind, the fundamental and orthodox Christians, will live in heaven. God is greater than that. Christians have a weak God. They say that God will "allow" the vast majority of mankind to be tortured by Satan forever. God will not allow this to happen. Eventually the world will be restored, not doomed to eternal suffering. All things are possible with God. Christians accuse Moon of teaching that God is weak. The very opposite is the truth. In traditional Christian theology, God is weak because he cannot abolish evil. The Principle is the truth that will elevate Christian thought out of its childish belief that God will send the Messiah to save just them like some superman who will carry them off to a safe home. The DP teaches that we must grow up and take personal responsibility. Because mankind is tortured every day the Messiah feels God's urgency. Would you have a sense of urgency if your children were being tortured and you knew where they were? You would work round the clock until every one of them was restored to their home safe and sound. Rev. Moon feels God's urgency and teaches that we must not waste any moment. He is on the greatest crusade the world has ever seen. The Moons have given mankind the greatest dream and goal in history -- the vision of the ideal world. They have brought the blueprints of how to build it. They have brought the truth that explains the Bible, the greatest book in history. It doesn't matter that their course has been messy. Some of their own children reject them. Jesus was rejected by every one of his disciples when he went to the cross for being a dangerous enemy to the state. In time he has been shown to be a good man and his movement to be a good movement even though many of his followers have and are today brutal and evil.

Rev. Moon moved to America in the early 1970s and has worked hard every day to lead his movement to restore America to its founding beliefs such as traditional family values, free enterprise, limited government, freedom of religion, and sexual purity.  In other words, he is championing Biblical values that most Americans have abandoned.

He has also brought something new -- the true view of Jesus and the Bible which says we are to build an ideal world on earth.  No one believes that.  But in time everyone will.  Rev. Moon is famous with his followers of not getting very much sleep.  He gets only two hours of sleep a night and even as he approaches 80 he outworks any member, no matter how young and fanatic that member may be.  Why does he work so hard?  Because God and Jesus have chosen him to be the Messiah who is a teacher of God's truth and vision. He teaches that we must be workaholics.

 APOLOGY

This book is an apologetic book. Apology can be defined in two ways -- as a defense and as saying one is sorry. We are doing both. We are defending the UC against its naive and vicious enemies, and we also apologize for the mistakes the UC and we ourselves have made. Rev. Moon has always taught and demanded for honesty. Sadly, many members have fundraised and not said Rev. Moon's name as he commanded them to do. They have often invited people to workshops and not said Rev. Moon's name, especially in the early days of the American church in the 1970s. I (John), was witnessed to this way by Onni's New Age front organizations called International Re-Education Foundation. I lived briefly with Dr. Durst who later became the president of the UC. I saw a list of UC centers on a wall once and asked him who that group was. He told me they were "friends" and "associates" of their group. I was uncomfortable there and left. I traveled from California to my home state of Nebraska. I got the number of the Unification Church from the phone directory, called and asked if I could come over. I went over and discovered that Dr. Durst had deceived me. This is wrong and the church has paid dearly for this. I apologize for not saying Rev. Moon's name and church along with thousands of other stupid UC members when we made millions of dollars deceiving people at millions of doors. Durst writes in his book, To Bigotry, No Sanction, that he and Onni didn't know how to build a church. Obviously, they should have it a church instead of a giving it a secular name and never mentioning Rev. Moon until after a person had joined. When I met them in 1973, Joy Irvine sat next to me during a DP lecture. To me it was obvious that this was a religious organization. During a break, I told her I was excited to find what is obviously a church. I asked why they didn't call it a church. She said something about how there were already churches and they were building something brand new. The problem with this is that every other member in America were calling themselves the Unification Church. NBC exposed Onni. She should take responsibility for

Is Dr. Durst a satanic liar and deceiver like Satan is called in the Bible? Is it the true nature of Rev. Moon and his followers to see lying and deceiving as God's way? Dr. Durst meant no harm when he didn't tell me the whole truth. Technically, I never lied the four years in the 1970s when I knocked on tens of thousands of doors and said I was fundraising for "Christian Youth Counseling." I felt we were Christian, that we dealt with mainly young people who came over to our center and by hearing the DP lectures they were counseled and guided to become good, religious people. Many who visited were taking drugs and leading immoral lives. When they joined they changed. But it was wrong for us in the early days to say such things.

One brother has recently made a board game about fundraising. I wrote and told him how it was wrong that we didn't explain clearly to people who we were and we never said Father's name. He emailed me back and said that when he fundraised he said he was with CARP. This is the name of the Church's college organization. He said the money went almost entirely to supporting their center and it was a legitimate organization. Well, yes and no. I saw a news show on TV by a consumer watchdog reporter on one of those news shows like Dateline or 20/20 in which the reporter warned people about a man who was obviously a scam artist but not doing anything illegal. He would advertise and ask donations for organizations that sounded like nationally respected health organizations such as The American Heart Association. I don't remember the exact wording, but he would change it slightly to something like The National Heart Association and people would donate money, sometimes large amounts of money to this guy and not realize they were donating to some creep working out of his house and doing nothing to help others with the money he was given.

Technically, he was not breaking any law. He registered the name of his many organizations that all sounded very close like all the nationally recognized charitable and research organizations. Unlike this jerk, the brother who has made a board game out of fundraising is a good person who has the lifesaving message of truth in the DP. And this brother deeply feels he has not deceived anyone. Those few people who have stayed since the 70s have this idiotic nostalgia for the days of the MFT and see it as a wonderful episode in their life of faith. As the members grow older and the Church matures, fundraising will decline. But there is still enough of it to still upset people when they learn that the check they made out to is one of Moon's many organizations. Because Father has such a rotten reputation we should go the extreme to not give any appearance of deceit.

There are several former members who have websites and denounce the church for the grueling hours they put in for years. They don't look back and see spiritual growth. They see abuse. Craig Maxim (xmoonies.com), Ingo Michehl (http://trancenet.org/moonism/) and Steve Hassan (freedomofmind.com) say their life on the MFT was a nightmare. Out of all the tens of thousands of words of Father they find a few that sounds like he is for slavery and lying. There are times when it is right to lie. The victims of Steve Hassan's cruel deprogrammings had the right to lie after they had been lied to. Hassan is a former deprogrammer who believed that the ends justify the means and used force on members to convert them to his view of life. He now says this was a mistake. No "zombie Moonie" has ever done such a heinous act as incarcerate people and abused them as Hassan has done. The "maniac" and "dangerous Hitler-like Moon" has never done such a vicious thing as Hassan has done. Yet Hassan accuses the church of using "coercion." They have never used coercion. Hassan and Hitler have, but not Moon.

Hassan now says he doesn't believe in deprogramming. Yet, his constant harassment of the church and relentless attempts to create an hysterical paranoia toward the church has caused many to resort to violent kidnapping and abuse in locked rooms that sometimes goes on for weeks and months. Steve has never apologized for his evil deeds. Steve feels he can make mistakes and move on, but others cannot. Dr. Durst has apologized for his stupidity and for the mistakes of those in the church. He eloquently states his case in his book To Bigotry, No Sanction. Hassan can't even be humble enough to apologize and what he did is light years more wrong than anything that Durst and the church have done.

Life is messy. We are all learning by trial and error in this fallen world. We all make mistakes. Dr. Durst's book correctly puts the mistakes of the church into proper perspective. Hassan, Maxim and Michehl make mountains out of molehills. They take a few quotes of Rev. Moon out of context and conveniently leave out the quotes that show the real truth. They don't mention that Christians have killed each other for 2000 years over passages of Jesus in the Bible. It is easy to see contradictions in all religions and political movements. People read Jesus and Thomas Jefferson and come up with totally different conclusions. For example, those who read Jesus and say he is a socialist, feminist and pacifist are wrong. From God's viewpoint Jesus is for capitalism, traditional family and defending oneself from aggressors. Everyone was in a frenzy to kill Jesus because they saw a dangerous virus that had to be eliminated for the safety of society. Many people also misjudge Rev. Moon with the same ignorant passion of bigotry. Hassan, Maxim, Michehl and Ross see themselves as some kind of Paul Revere riding through the night screaming "The Moonies are coming!" Most America hated George Washington. History has shown them wrong. And history will show that anti-Moonists were like all those pathetic people in history who jailed religious pioneers.

TABLOIDS

Anti-Moonists don't tell their readers what the average member is really like. They are like the sensationalist tabloids at the grocery store who tell lies or half-truths. They can't see the forest for the trees. These poor souls really believe Moon is a Hitler and his followers are SS Troopers. They see a dangerous organization that is out to destroy democracy, freedom and family. The truth is that our oldest son (as we write this part of the book now) is in the US Navy. He is an Eagle Scout. In fact, his scoutmaster said he was the finest scout he has ever seen. He said publicly that our son could be the poster boy for scouts. When he was interviewed to become an Eagle scout he told the men in at board of review that he admired America's Founding Fathers. He was not lying or deceiving anyone. It would never occur to him to do that. He is constantly harassed on his submarine for being a virgin. Our children are exemplary people. I am the president of my neighborhood organization. I know hundreds of people in my community and no one would agree with with the ravings of Hassan and other former members that I have lost the ability to think clearly. It is they who lie and deceive. Most Unificationists are exemplary people. Anti-Moonists accuse members of being zombies who have no brains. This is unbelievable nonsense, but like Hitler who kept pounding away that the Jews were dangerous, people believe persecutors.

Clara was the first member to go through the terrifying ordeal of deprogramming. She did not lie to her family. But her family and relatives all lied to her in their scheme to break her faith. She was even illegally put into a mental hospital. Later, Rev. Moon personally told her to love her parents and forgive them. Hassan says Moon teaches members to kill their parents. They can find some quotes taken out of context that they feel back up their malicious attacks. They are so consumed with irrational fear and resentment they can't think straight. Everything they say is just projection of their little minds.

Not only are they ridiculous in their hyped up accusations, they can't see that every mainline church has a history that makes whatever wrong doing of Moon and his followers pale by comparison. Countless Christians and Jews have a long history of making terrible mistakes. Even today, Catholics and Protestants kill each other's children in Ireland. The history of the UC is not as terrible as the history of every Christian denomiation.

Anti-Moonists make the mistake of seeing the church as half-full. Anti-Americans do the same thing. America has made many mistakes, but overall it is on the side of good and Hitler's Germany was on the side of evil. Anyone with simple common sense will not see my family as evil. Eventually the lies and nonsense of bigots like Hassan, Maxim and Michehl will be understood. Eventually reporters for NBC News will stop seeing Hassan as some kind of expert and reject him as a snake oil salesman. What Hassan and his friends are doing to the UC is just business as usual in the history of religion. Persecutors have used the Bible and interpreted it to rationalize everything from enslaving black people to killing each other in Ireland today. The latest tactic is to use the idiotic argument of mind control. This is just another rationalization for persecuting a minority. In time America and the world will see the truth.

Let me give you an example of how shallow the thinking is of angry, hate-filled former members like Maxim. He says in his website that it is "disgusting" that almost 2000 ministers honored Rev. Moon at a banquet when he got out of jail. Some of those pastors were the most distinguised and famous religious leaders in America such as Jerry Falwell and Joseph Lowery. These two men are at the opposite extremes politically but they came in support of Rev. Moon. They do not agree with his theology, but they see him as a good man of God who was persecuted by the government. Maxim and his persecuting buddies cannot understand how such famous people, even Presidents of nations, including Presidents Bush, Ford and Reagan have praised Rev. Moon. They can't because they are so possessed by Satan's hate they can't think clearly. Maxim denounces those ministers who come from every denomination, even one of the highest leaders in the Mormon church was there. Maxim dismisses them as being there only because of money. He says these men were not there because of freedom of religion and to honor Rev. Moon. He says they were there because they love money. I rest my case.

He says, "In one of the most repulsive episodes in Christian leadership, Moon assembled an enormous group of so-called Christian Ministers (1700 according to church sources) that celebrated Moon's release from prison. Jerry Falwell and Joseph Lowery were two notable ministers that gave speeches. Jerry Falwell reportedly even called for a presidential pardon for Moon. Moon served them an expensive dinner, and they talked about religious freedom and separation of church and state. Money had united them ... not truth, not God, and not Sun Myung Moon ... but money, the god they all serve together."

This is one of the stupidest statements I have ever heard in my life. It shows that it is the bigots who hate Moon who have their minds controlled. They are possessed by Satan. They are dupes of Satan. They are incapable of thinking clearly. Jerry Falwell and Joseph Lowery would denounce them as bigots if they saw their websites and read their books. Maxim is like all those in history who have persecuted religious pioneers out a profound and pathetic ignorance of what religion and freedom mean. Take your pick -- 2000 thousand of the most prominent ministers in America or Maxim who sees them as dancing around a golden calf while he holds the truth God has revealed to him. Obviously the ministers are of God and Maxim is of the devil. Maxim is just one of those dumb people who were in the crowd shouting down Jesus as a danger to society. Maxim is to be pitied. Let's pray he and his handful of loser friends will someday rise to the level of those 2000 ministers who came to hug Rev. Moon.

The UC is a good organization. Mose Durst is correct in his apologetic book, To Bigotry, No Sanction, that their mistakes are not great enough for them to be hated and to be accused of being "dangerous" and "abusive" and therefore to be crushed. Every organization has its dark side. How many priests have sexually abused children in its long history? There is physical and mental rape going on in every organization. No organization is totally squeaky clean. It is easy to see the bad. The trick is to discern correctly whether something is to be tolerated or punished. People have usually not judged correctly in human history. The greatest mistake ever made was when the Jews killed Jesus. If today's anti cult people were in the crowd around Jesus they would have led the crowd to shout "Crucify him!" The errors of the UC members are not great enough to put them in jail. Overall, the Church is half-full, not half-empty. This is not the case with those who attack Rev. Moon and his church.

The rest of this book will be a critique of those poor souls who seek to abolish peaceful new religious movements. Anti-cult "bigots" people are what Jefferson despised with every fiber of his being. A prominent bigot has even taken Jefferson's quote and made it the name of his book, Eternal Hostility. The key is to see from God's eyes. And from God's eyes, he loves his many messengers of truth that this world has despised. The list is long. For the last 2000 years there have been many champions of God who were persecuted by the anti-cult crowd of its day. Sadly, some of these champions and their descendants became persecutors themselves.

One book against Moon is Hostage to Heaven by Betty Underwood who explains that she is a Quaker. Mankind continually repeats history of evil because people don't learn from the past. Later in this book we will tell the story of George Fox, William Penn and the early Quakers. If you think "Moonies" are nuts, take a look at those who started the Quakers. To fight new religious movements has got to be the stupidest thing a person can do. God has always sent his messengers as non-conformists with a message of sacrifice. His champions are masters at giving warnings to a spiritually sleepy people. When it comes to "phobias" the founders of religions are masters at scaring the hell out of people. And the ignorant masses kill the messengers.

Vision for world peace

God's vision is for world peace.  God loves everyone and wants the wars to stop.  Rev. Moon's followers have caught the excitement of that vision.  Many are idealistic workaholics with the dream of building the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth that Jesus proclaimed we are supposed to be building.  And they have a realistic plan that they desperately want everyone to hear.

They witness and teach because they have the truth that can set this world free of Satan's ideology that sadly, most people believe in.  Jesus said Satan is the god of this world. If you don't believe Satan exixts then how do you explain all the betrayal and crime in history. God "allows" for it to exist?  Just look around.  Does it look like God is in control?   Satan doesn't want people to hear about God's goal of a perfect, ideal world. He doesn't even want you to believe he even exists.  And he has been very successful so far in making that happen.  He has convinced everyone that only dangerous, wild eyed fanatics would believe such an obviously naive, impractical, impossible dream given by Rev. Moon.

And besides, only the communist and weird hippies in free love communes have had a dream of world peace.  And look what a mess these deranged souls have made.  The problem is that out of all the many religions and philosophies in the world, Rev. Moon's is the baby in the bath water.  He is the second coming of Christ and this world treats him just like the world treated the first messiah -- torture and jail.

But God will eventually win.  Truth always rises eventually in spite of Satan's powerful obstacles.  Some people are even beginning to see that Rev. Moon is a good man.  Some of the most influential people in the world have become Rev. Moon's friend and are saying what his humble, loyal followers have been saying all along  -- he is a man of peace with a beautiful vision and a down to earth plan to make this world a utopia. Critics then say that these world leaders also have weak minds and have been put in a trance of mind control from Moon.  Yeah, right.  Or they cynically accuse these movers and shakers of the world who are all wealthy, that they only suck up to Moon for the big bucks he stuffs into their pockets.  People like Jerry Falwell, George Bush, Alexander Haig, Louis Farakaan, Maureen Reagan and Martin Luther King's successor, Rev. Ralph Abernathy are not really friends, but there for the money or a too stupid to see how evil Moon is. Yeah, right.

Rev. Moon jailed

Critics of Rev. Moon love to point out that he is a convict.  He has been imprisoned six times.  One of them was a year in a prison in Danbury, Connecticut.  What the critics don't mention is that many mainline churches strongly objected in writing to the Supreme Court about this injustice.

Inquisition

Some of the most prominent Christian leaders in America gave a press conference and spoke in defense of Rev. Moon.  A Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Carlton Sherwood, had written a a book about religious corruption.  He decided to write about Rev. Moon's highly public trial.  He assumed Moon was guilty as charged.  He was going to write an expose of Rev. Moon and his corrupt movement.  Guess what this award winning researcher found?  Juicy corruption that he could write about Moon?  No.  He was surprised to find out that Rev. Moon and his followers are honest, not liars, and well-meaning people who were the target of persecution.  He even says it in the title of his book, Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

There are a number of books that are anti-Moon.  These authors genuinely believe they are fighting a "dangerous" organization that is run by a megalomaniac that plans to rule the world with his sick ideology.  Moon, they feel, is another Hitler.  They incorrectly believe that he is an evil Ayatollah who wants to abolish democracy and freedom and replace it with a theocracy and slavery. There may have been some leaders in the church who gave the wrong impression to such former members as Hassan that Moon wants people to kill others. In their zeal, some may have crossed a line and felt Moon will initiate force on others. This concept is abhorrent to him and to any truly God-centered person. The Unification Church is not a militia. It is religious people who honor the Constitution of the United States. They are patriotic and not to be feared like America feared the Japanese Americans during WW2 and incarcerated them. Hassan and his stupid friends are just repeating history by not doing their homework and overcoming their prejudice and little minds. Americans persecuted the Japanese Americans out of a profound ignorance. The truth was that many Japanese Americans fought with valor against Japan even though their relatives were stripped of their homes and businesses and forced to live in camps. This is a shameful chapter in American history. While Hassan works full time to persecute anything that deviates from the status quo, Rev. Moon loved America while he and his followers were jailed and feared.

For the remainder of this chapter we are going to print some words of members we have taken from Gary Fleisher's site www.tparents.org. Anti-Moonists keep pounding away how unethical and devious Moon and his followers are. They interpret some words of Moon and the actions of his naive followers to show that they believe that it is God's will for them to lie and deceive. Because it was God's will that Jacob lied to Esau to restore a lie in the Garden of Eden, anti-Moonists jump to some silly conclusion that Moon teaches that it is correct to lie. In the 70s I had people make checks out to One World Crusade which is one of the organizations Rev. Moon made. This was not illegal. But that does make it right. Twenty-five years later most members do not fundraise, but there are some doing it. Occasionally I meet one who come up to me saying they are with an international sounding name of an organization that is doing such things as bringing foreign students to study in America. Everything they say is not illegal and anti-Moonists cannot nail the church for being criminal law breakers. These young naive fundraisers are nice people who do not realize that they are sabotaging our goals of unity. It's not right to think that just because they are technically lawful and their motivation is good that they can say such things. When people find out what they gave to, some feel angry. Let the buyer beware is not God's way.

We should be the epitome of honesty and go out of our way to say who we are. Most members are law abiding citizens with jobs and businesses who have wonderful families, but I pray that the church will end fundraising. At the least every fundraiser should give a brochure that clearly shows Father's picture when they ask for a donation. With that said, we still defend our church against the rabid attacks of Anti-Moonists who are blind to how evil spirit world plays with their minds. They cannot discern clearly. The truth is that they are the tools of Satan, not Moon and his followers. The truth is that Rev. Moon and such leaders as the president of the American Unification Church, Dr. Durst, have the highest ethical standards. It is a young church filled with many immature people, but they will not stay that way as they grow older. The fruits of Rev. Moon are clearly (to any rational person) good. Jerry Falwell is the most famous fundamentalist preacher in America. He and many other religious leaders see that Moon and UC members are decent, law-abiding, patriotic, god-centered people who are a force for good. Anti-Moonists do not have the heart and brains to join with Rev. Falwell and so many other distinguished leaders who literally embrace Rev. Moon. The Mormon, Senator Orrin Hatch, says publicly that Rev. Moon is "a great man." That is the truth, not the lies of Anti-Moonists.

I typed in "heavenly deception" into the search engine at tparents.org and got some interesting articles that show that the values of the church are good and honorable. The following will be some of what I found. I will not put quotes around the following quotes. Please keep in mind that what you will read in the rest of this part will be by several members who speak strongly against deception. I will put the name of the author at the beginning of each article. The first will be some excerpts from Dr. Durst's book. The church is not hiding anything. They are putting everything Rev. Moon and the members have written on the web for all to read. Read the following and judge for yourself. Rev. Falwell and President Bush have decided that they do not accept the theology, but they have intelligence and heart to see that a few hysterical Anti-Moonists are deeply wrong.

We also checked the search engine at Damian Anderson's website, www.Unification.net. When we typed in such words as "lie" or "deception" we got many references. None of the quotes from speeches or books of Rev. Moon ever said that it was correct to lie and use deception. There are some quotes where he says it is wrong to lie and be dishonest. Anti-Moonists have a few quotes they say Moon said that it is all right to lie. I don't know in what context he said that, but in the context of his entire 50 years of giving thousands of extemporaneous speeches that are not translated carefully, it is obvious that lying and deceit are not a tenet of belief of the church.

Former members like Craig Maxim have issues to deal with. They say their life in the UC was a nightmare of abuse. So what? Everyone has had relationships that did not work out. If there is something that the UC did that was criminal, then Maxim, Hassan and Michehl have every right to take the church to court and get compensated for being hurt. But they don't. Instead they are obsessed like some deranged stalker who has a neurotic fixation. They can't forgive or grow up and move on. Maxim's mother is in the church and he clearly has a lot of issues to work out. No one put a gun to Hassan's head. No one used force to make Michehl to fundraise for 6 years day and night. They cannot take personal responsibility for their actions and have to resort to pleas of temporay insanity caused by others. Any thinking person would not let a former priest or nun sue the Catholic church because he or she said that the church took away 6 years of their life and damaged their psyches because they had to take vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Michehl spent 6 years in chastity, poverty and obedience. If he would have stayed, he would have moved on to marriage, a career and independent living like I and all the rest of the members have. By Michehl's definition, nuns and priests are more abused than UC members because priests and nuns never get to have sex, a bank account and live independently.

Hassan says at his website that the Catholic church does not use mind control. Hassan is a fanatical bigot on a persecuting crusade like all those in history. All persecuters think they have good reasons to persecute. They are helping society by ridding it of the germ of non-conformists. They are eradicating dangerous fanatics who are mentally unbalanced. The signs of dangerous behavior are obvious to bigots. New religious movements aggresively witness and demand hard work.

The following are quotes from Gary Fleisher's www.Tparents.org and Damian Anderson's site: www.unification.net. They have put many of Rev. Moon's words on the web for all the world to read. Any rational person with simple common sense will see that the church teaches the highest moral and ethical standards. Compare what you read here with the juvenille, pathetic irrational words of Hassan, Maxim, Michehl, Ross, Conway, Singer, Clarkson, etc.

To Bigotry, No Sanction, Reverend: Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church by Dr. Mose Durst

9. Mistakes in Building the Kingdom

If the anti-religious movement and the criminal activities directed against the Unification Church have served some good, it has allowed us to think more honestly and clearly about the mistakes I and others have made in our zeal to build the Kingdom of God on earth. There have been many mistakes, but none of them malicious, devious, illegal, or intended to defraud, as our detractors charge. Rather, our mistakes are those made in youthful zeal and out of ignorance. Perhaps our mistakes are even understandable and forgivable, since no one has ever offered a course or written a book on how to found and establish a religion. Quite frankly, we had to learn about church-building through on-the-job training, by trial and error. I suspect that other religious pioneers have had the same experience.

The biggest charge, I feel, is that we practice deception. "Heavenly deception" is a phrase applied to us over and over. Opponents charge that we deceive, by not telling potential recruits -- or those from whom we solicit funds -- who we are. Many deprogrammed ex-members report that they were members for weeks before they were told about Reverend Moon. The hostile movies about our church all stress this supposed deception. Let me say that insofar as some of our zealous evangelists may have downplayed Reverend Moon in our earliest contacts in the past, such is now clearly and expressly against our policy and our instructions to members of the church. In fact, after our introductory supper and lecture at evening programs across the country, the members who invite people to come up "to the land" for a seminar say "We will study the teachings of Reverend Moon." Actually, anyone who joins the church signs a membership form that clearly states "Unification Church." There was and is no desire on our part to deceive. We only want to give others the love of God and the principles needed to understand human life.

The same holds true for charges that our fundraisers deceive by saying they are raising money for drug rehabilitation, Christian youth groups, or other such projects, without identifying the church. It is always wrong for anyone to misrepresent the church, and we try to prevent such occurrences. In the rare instances when they do happen, we correct such practices when they come to our attention. Though misrepresentations may have taken place, these are human and individual shortcomings and not policies of the church, which diligently acts to prevent them. Generally, charges of deception are old ones, going back at least five years. No doubt unfortunate things have happened, but our church is striving to correct them.

To Bigotry, No Sanction, Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church

by Dr. Mose Durst

7. The Church Under Siege: The Anti-Religious Movement

The activities of the Unification movement have made their impact on almost every area of culture: science, philosophy, religion, media, medicine, social service, etc. As a result of this and of the rapid growth of the movement, there has been an incredible reaction by the larger culture. Where people have not understood what Unificationists were doing, they often assumed the worst. Where Unification activities challenged the status quo, or exacerbated an existing situation, public reaction was often violent. As with the growth of other religious movements in the United States, the new was seen to be strange and threatening.

In 1919 Helen Jackson of Toledo, Ohio, produced a book entitled Convent Cruelties or My Life in a Convent, a classic of anti-cult literature. The subtitle of the book, which went through seven editions by 1924, is "a providential delivery from Rome's convent slave years-a sensational experience." 1 The cult under attack is the Roman Catholic Church. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, long before anyone ever heard of a Moonie or Krishna, there was a concerted "anti-cult" movement by Protestants and secularists against Catholics. Honestly, if you substitute the word "Moonie" for "Catholic" in this book and others like it, it could be pushed today as part of the anti-cult crusade.

Actually, whenever a religious movement appears to be vital, there usually follows an anti-religious reaction that seeks to denigrate and dehumanize it. Roman writers, for example, made comments like the following about the early Christians:

"There is a group, hated for their abominations, called Christians. . . ." (Tacitus)

"The Christians are a class of men given to a new and wicked superstition." (Suetonius)

"They are like frogs holding a symposium around a swamp. . . ." (Celsius)

Bamber Gascoigne, in his history entitled The Christians, writes of how:

... the early Christians met in secret for their communal meal, and soon it gave rise to all sorts of rumors. They called it an agape, or love feast, from a Greek word meaning brotherly love. Love feast! There was talk in no time of sexual orgies in dark and secret places. And word also got around of the Christians eating the flesh and blood of some leader of theirs. Cannibalism now! 2

History repeats itself. In Boston in 1834, an angry mob of some thousand men burned an Ursuline Catholic nunnery. It was the result of anti-Catholic feeling running high in America at that time. In 1844 the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, lost his life at the hands of a mob in Carthage, Illinois. In 1981 a Unification Church building in upstate New York was burned to the ground after a burning cross was placed on the front lawn.

There is an increasing network of people involved in a campaign to restrict religious liberty, and they have special designs to stamp out new religious faiths that surface in America. This anti-religious movement is composed basically of five major groups: parents of members of new faiths; Christian heresy hunters; Jewish anti-conversionists; mental health experts who abridge religious freedom; and sensationalist media.

Parents of Members

Throughout history, parents have been shocked when their son or daughter chose a way of life different from their own. Published in 1837 was a book entitled The Experience of Several Eminent Methodist Preachers; With an Account of Their Call to and Success in the Ministry. 3 The following is an account of the consternation of one preacher's family after their son became involved with the Methodists.

In the latter end of June I went to Otley to hear a Methodist preach, when I was more surprised than ever. The serious, devout behavior of the people struck me with a kind of religious awe. The singing greatly delighted me, and the sermon was much blessed to my soul. They suffered me to stay in the society meeting, for which I had great cause to bless God. I returned home full of good resolutions; but little thought I of what trials were coming upon me. I thought certainly none who love me can be offended at my seeking salvation of my soul; but I soon found my mistake. For those who had formerly been my greatest friends now became my open enemies. All my relations were exceedingly offended, and threatened me much if I would not leave this way. My uncle, in particular, who before promised to be kind to me, now resolved to leave me nothing, which resolution he made good. My father and mother were exceedingly troubled, supposing me to be totally ruined; and my brothers and sisters were of the same mind. My father threatened many times to turn me out of doors, and entirely disown me; but the love he had for me (I being his eldest son) moved him to use every means he could think of to prevail on me to forsake this despised people, whom he hated above all others. He mourned to see me 'run willfully to my own ruin.' My mother also frequently wept much on my account. 4

How remarkably similar is the response of some families today when religion affects one of its members.

Today, if a parent is unhappy about his grown child's involvement in a religious movement, he can vent his anger by using a most potent weapon: the media. From The New York Times to the National Enquirer, the media has been only too happy to be the willing listeners to emotionally distressed parents. Fear and emotion are then reported as fact stranger than fiction: "How Family Smashed a Cult's Shackles and Saved a Child."

A few parents have conjured up bizarre images of religious "cults" and then declared war on them. Although the word "cult" is originally a neutral word signifying a small group, it has taken on irrational and monstrous connotations. Thus anyone belonging to such a group is automatically defined as a hideous monster who, once labeled, need no longer be dealt with as a human being.

In every experience I have had with families hostile to our church, I could perceive that serious problems plagued that family long before anyone ever became involved in our church. Families in America have been crumbling during the last fifty years. Hundreds of books have been written offering numerous explanations for this. When Reverend Moon entered the American scene in 1972 and spoke of the God-centered, nuclear family as the hope of a peaceful, ethical world, he attracted numerous followers. Ironically, he was then accused of breaking up families.

The fact is that only a small number of families have been hostile to us, but they have employed the mass media in a spectacular way. (The media, of course, is unexcited by the overwhelming number of families who are positive about or supportive of our church.) Two years ago, for example, a young lady in her late twenties joined the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles in California. She had been traveling in Europe for several years prior to joining CARP and had not been back to see her family in New Zealand all during that time.

Shortly after she joined CARP, her parents in New Zealand were informed by a "friend" that she had been "captured" by the Moonies. Her mother and sister quickly flew to California and contacted the local Unification Church center and demanded that they turn over their daughter. When she visited with her family, she was told that she had lost her mind and should immediately go with them to see a special counselor working with deprogrammers. She expressed concern for her family's distress and offered to go with them to see the priest at the Berkeley Newman Center. They would have none of it,

She then left for a CARP activity in New York. Her mother and sister, meanwhile, held press conferences and went to every newspaper, television, and radio station in the San Francisco Bay area. Their relative, they said, was being held in San Francisco against her will by the Unification Church, a story dutifully reported by the media just as it was told to them. Since the sister was a reporter herself, her family gained extra sympathy from the news media.

In response to the media blitz in San Francisco, the young woman held a press conference in New York and explained what nonsense was going on. Since San Francisco does not quite recognize or acknowledge New York culture, the horror stories in the Bay area continued. The family escalated their activities. They went to court and persuaded a judge that he should begin contempt proceedings against me, the president of the Unification Church, for holding the woman against her will. (I knew nothing of the situation, as I happened to be in Korea at the time.) The beginning of contempt proceedings means virtually nothing unless one can prove there is a crime, which of course there was not in this case.

Enter the international media. "President of Unification Church of America held in contempt over kidnapping girl." When I returned to the United States my friends asked when I was going to jail. Several professor friends of mine had read the story in the International Herald Tribune in Cairo, Egypt. When we met upon their return to the United States, they wanted to know when I had gotten out of jail! Of course nothing happened except in the media.

A handful of hostile parents have caused literally thousands of negative articles to be written, all of which have almost no substance if read objectively. One wealthy woman in Marin County, California, prides herself on being the source of more bad press against the church than anyone else. Like the true religious zealot, she has staked out a war-room in her home, as she explained to the San Francisco Chronicle, in which she devotes a great deal of her time, influence, and money to discrediting the Unification Church. She is only too happy to give interviews to people who are hostile to us. She never mentions the drugs, alcohol abuse, or sexual promiscuity that filled her son's life before he became a member of the church. Rather, she talks about how frightened she became when he started praying in the morning, when he got a job, and when he started acting like a responsible citizen.

The fact is that the majority of relatives of current members of our church are at the very least accepting, and often supportive, of the Unification Church. This has become more and more the case as members have married and now begun parenting their own families.

Christian Heresy Hunters

Christian heresy hunting must be viewed within the larger context of the American religious community. It is not uncommon, and in fact considered perfectly natural, for the clergy of one faith to feel threatened by a member of their congregation becoming an adherent of another faith. It is frequent for there to be fierce competition, and sometimes even back-biting, among well established Christian denominations. Newer religions are merely easier targets for attack, since they have not yet gained the legitimacy of the more established groups.

Some ministers and their church members have "rescued" their children from the Unification Church and other new religions, either by force or by trying to discredit the new religions. Other ministers have formed groups to "Inform the public and battle the menace of the cults." Needless to say, the information is less than unbiased. Several ministers appear to be on individual crusades against the new religions. Anti-cult educational programs are offered at Christian churches nationwide with a traveling band of "experts" who are always ready to whip up a little hysteria.

A few Catholic priests have also been involved in campaigns against the new religions. One prominent priest in New York City has said, "The only clean break [with the cult] ... is deprogramming." My only personal experience with this priest was when I was invited to appear with him on a New York City television show. When I arrived at the studio, I learned that he would appear on the same show, but not at the same time. I was to wait in the green room and could watch him on TV, then go on the set for my own appearance. The good father insisted that I remain in a different room until he left the building. His remarks, needless to say, were filled with misunderstanding, ignorance and hostility toward the Unification Church. At least I could appear on the show; I don't usually get such opportunities to respond.

The central argument against us is that we attract people in their twenties who are at a vulnerable point in their lives, and that they can therefore be unfairly influenced by us. The reality is that most people are born into their religious faith, are educated or indoctrinated from the earliest age, and never consciously choose one religion over another. My rabbi, when I was thirteen years old, did not offer me a clear choice between Baptist theology, Islamic theology, or Jewish theology. It was assumed that I would be faithful to Jewish theology or I would go to hell. Only in relationship to choosing a different religion must one make a painful, thoughtful, and difficult choice. Young people are usually more courageous and flexible about religious conversion than older people. Habit makes cowards of us all.

Jewish Anti-Conversionists

It is truly unfortunate that some of the bitterest enemies of the Unification Church are members of the Jewish faith. In a statement about the Unification movement published in January 1976, Reverend Moon said: "We consider ourselves to be the younger brother to our Jewish and Christian brethren, all of whom are children of our Heavenly Father. We regard it as our duty to respect and serve Judaism and Christianity by promoting love and unity among all the children of God." Such words of friendship followed three years of Jewish opposition, which still continues.

These opponents form basically three groups: already established Jewish groups, which attack new religions as part of their defense of Judaism; new groups founded by 'anti-cult' rabbis; and lone Jewish crusaders.

B'nai B'rith, "the oldest and largest Jewish service organization in the world," is strongly opposed to the new religions. One of its documents seeks to institute "a national program designed to educate adults and youth as to the menace the cults present, and to speak out wherever and whenever necessary until the threat of these cults is eliminated." B'nai B'rith has supported a bill in Maryland to investigate "cult phenomenon" and wrote letters to former Gov. Hugh Carey of New York in 1980 endorsing the signing of the Lasher Conservatorship Bill, which would have empowered the government to certify members of new religions as "mentally incompetent," and allow parents to take custody of them. Imagine the outcry if such a bill were sponsored against the Jews.

The National Council of Young Israel has also come out strongly against new religions, particularly the Unification Church. They have issued a proclamation: "This is a warning to parents and children. The cults-Moonies, Hare Krishna, Children of God, and the missionary organizations are making inroads in all circles to lure our children to conversion .... This is our last stand in a war declared on our very existence as Jews." Jewish opposition to the cults is part of a larger scheme of Jewish opposition to all Christian (or other evangelical) outreach. Unfortunately, this is a problem that will take many years of Jewish-Christian dialogue to resolve, for "bearing witness to the word" is an essential component to the Christian faith. Again, in this context, the new religions are merely the easiest targets or weakest links, in a much larger chain being attacked by the Jewish community.

Rabbi Maurice Davis seems to be the originator of the anti-religious movement in Judaism. In early 1974 he began writing articles against the Unification Church and started deprogramming its members. At that time he wrote: "I know them [Unification Church members] for what they are, and I am their enemy.... I doubt that the group will be in existence in 1980." In 1975 he helped to establish "Citizens Engaged in Reuniting Families" (CERF). Up to the present he has remained an integral part of the anti-Unification Church movement. Rather than look at why young people are not attracted to his own synagogue, Rabbi Davis has found an enemy to attack.

He shows nothing but disgust for the new religions, and describes members of such religions as prisoners. In my office I have a pile of hate literature published in the Jewish press against the new religions. The articles number in the hundreds. How tragic for the victim of so much religious bigotry to now seek to execute another religious group.

Mental Health Experts Who Abridge Religious Freedom

During the past five or ten years, some mental health experts have begun to decide which religions are proper for people to follow. Chief in this movement are Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, whose "findings" have been broadcast through the sensationalist media. Conway and Siegelman became interested in cults in 1974 when they researched certain groups for Harper's magazine, where they were managing editor and writer/editor respectively. After six years of research they came to the conclusion that the only successful way to break away from a cult is through the controversial technique known as deprogramming. Their book Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change presents analyses of religious experience from the viewpoint of atheistic materialism. Their final conclusion is: "Contrary to popular opinion, our exploration has confirmed for us that there is really nothing human inside human beings. It's all biology, chemistry and machinery." 5

Their second book, which again attempts to discredit religion, is Holy Terror (1981), an attack on the fundamentalist evangelical Christian movement. Conway and Siegelman claim that this is the next lunatic fringe group in line after the new religions. Many who were perhaps impressed with their first book now have a keener insight into this team's real motives.

Dr. John Clark is the executive director of the Center on Destructive Cultism, an organization located in Boston and sponsored by the American Family Foundation (AFF). He has reportedly stated that Catholicism was a cult until it grew larger, and that certain monks might still be under mind control. If psychiatry has the power to determine mental illness based on religious beliefs, its treatment could conceivably include such infamous psychiatric techniques as electro-shock therapy, lobotomy, sleep deprivation, and forced drugging, with or without the person's informed consent. In a recent paper published by the Center on Destructive Cultism ("Destructive Cult Conversions: Theory, Research and Treatment") deprogramming is described as a "sometimes forced reawakening of the convert's old personality," and is described as one of the possible treatments for members of new religions.

"What Dr. Clark... [says]," writes Dr. Lee Coleman, a California psychiatrist who specializes in abuses within the mental health profession, is "that the act of joining an unpopular religion was in itself a sign of mental illness." In many cases judges accepted such ideas and granted conservatorships of members of new religions, who were then turned over to parents, Psychiatrists, and deprogrammers. "Often the person for whom a conservatorship was requested was not even told such a hearing was taking place. The fact that in many cases the psychiatrists or psychologist had never seen the person, and was basing his professional opinion strictly on information received from the parents, seemed to make no difference to the judges." 6

Dr. Margaret Singer is a clinical psychologist, a member in good standing of what might be called the American psychology establishment. She has been called as an expert to give evidence before courts. In the past her work has centered on brainwashing techniques used by communists against American POWs in Korea. She is also interested in the new churches and has provided psychological guidance for former members of new religions. She considers herself, and is considered by many, an authority on the new religions and their real or alleged malpractices. Her work, unfortunately, suffers from a variety of disabilities. These include a lack of historical perspective, inadequate knowledge of the comparative theology necessary for a researcher in the field of religion, an apparent failure to grasp the varieties of religious motivation, a seeming unwillingness to consider adherence to an unorthodox religion as a legitimate form of behavior guaranteed under the Constitution, and a remarkable propensity for drawing sweeping conclusions from inadequate evidence.

Her grotesque caricatures of life in a religious movement border on the absurd, yet they have been accepted and repeated over and over again by the general public:

From the time prospects are invited to the cult's domicile, they are caught up in a round of long, repetitive lectures couched in hypnotic metaphors and exalted ideas. . . . Several groups send their members to bed wearing headsets that pipe sermons into their ears as they sleep. That's after hours of listening to tapes of the leader's exhortations while awake. 7

To Dr. Singer, everyone in this religious world is a mindless robot who must be saved by the new priest with the new religious theology. Dr. Singer becomes the high priestess of the new psychology. She has her own esoteric knowledge, she is very clear about the evil satans to be destroyed, and she is on a crusade to spread her gospel. Her fees for a court appearance, I am told, are $1,000 a day.

Dr. Singer cannot emancipate herself from her own secular assumptions. As she sees it, religion must not challenge the compartmentalization of life into the separate religious and social spheres. Total religious commitment of the kind once demanded by Jesus and Mohammed would certainly appear to her a deviant form of activity. Such commitment is explicable to her only in terms of artful manipulation by mind-benders. The use of coercion for the purpose of restoring the believer to his or her original state of mind makes Dr. Singer all too tolerant of deprogrammers.

The use or abuse of psychiatry to establish norms of behavior is not unfamiliar to the rulers of the Soviet Union. Political dissidents are labeled as mentally incompetent and confined to hospitals for treatment. For, obviously, one must be somewhat abnormal not to appreciate the blessings of Soviet Russia. In logic of the same manner, if one does not embrace the value-free norm of contemporary American culture, there is cause for alarm.

The Sensationalist Media

The media have been referred to as the fourth branch of government. When given the choice between a story about a boy scout who helps ladies as opposed to one who mugs them, the choice will be the more sensational one every time, making the bad press given the Unification Church understandable.

Publications have made a fetish of words like cult, brainwash, slavery, victim. "Cultism Is Emotional Slavery" reads one headline in the San Francisco Chronicle. 8 "Moonie 'Brainwash' Charged" reads a second Chronicle article. 9 Since San Francisco was the home of Jim Jones's People's Temple, any unorthodox religion (in the eyes of the Chronicle) becomes fair game for sensational coverage. The Chronicle, like most other newspapers, overlooks the fact that Jones's congregation was part of a mainline denomination, not even of a small sect.

"Moon Accused of Plotting to Rule World" reads a headline in the Modesto Bee, a California newspaper that picked up a UPI story. 10 The article describes, in tones suggesting clandestine evil, the growth of the international Unification movement. "Reverend Moon Wants You" was once the lead story of the Reader, San Diego's weekly magazine. 11 Finally, the media have had a field day making word games with Reverend Moon's name. "The Dark Side of Moon" 12 is a title that has been repeated many times in the last ten years.

Remembering Convent Cruelties of 1919, we get a better perspective on the media's need for a scapegoat. In June 1880, the newspaper The Protestant Vindicator published the preamble of an anti-Catholic society:

... whereas, the influence of Romanism is rapidly extending throughout this Republic, endangering the peace and freedom of our country -- therefore, being anxious to preserve the ascendancy of 'pure religion' and to maintain and perpetuate the genuine truths of Protestantism unadulterated, with devout confidence and the sanction of the great head of the Church to aid our efforts in withstanding the 'power in great authority of the beast and the strong delusion of the False Prophet,' we do hereby agree to be governed by the following constitution.

Simply change a few of the phrases in the previous statement and you have many people's description of the Unification Church, or any of the other new religions. In the introduction to his book New Religions and Mental Health, Dr. Herbert Richardson draws succinct parallels between the anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic propaganda of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the anti-cult propaganda of the later twentieth century. (See chart page 142.)

The stories about the Unification Church are part of the genre of anti-religious literature that Professor Harvey Cox describes in his article "Myths Sanctioning Religious Persecution." 13 Essentially, these false myths purport to describe the religious group in the following manner: The group will deceive you ("heavenly deception"); it is dominated by a foreign influence (the Pope or the KCIA); the leader is a charlatan; and the group uses the technique of "the evil eye" to capture the mind and soul of its converts. The stereo types continue ad nauseum.

Jesus was perhaps the most controversial figure of human history. While he was alive he received accusations from Romans and Jews, rich and poor, pious and proud. There was, and continues to be, a great deal of accusation against his life and work. So, too, is there against anyone who seeks to do God's work in any large way.

Finally, one might ask: What about the ex-member of a faith who makes the same accusations as those who know nothing of the group? The only ex-members I know who have made public accusations against the Unification Church were those who were violently kidnapped, locked up, and coerced into recanting their beliefs. This criminal activity of deprogramming or "faith-breaking" has as its central purpose the destruction of a church member's belief in the church itself, its leaders, and practices. As love turns quickly to hate, a trusting believer can become a cynical bigot. How? Let us analyze the process.

From Herbert Richardson, ed., New Religions and Mental Health (New York and Toronto: the Edwin Mellen Press, 1980) p. xxvii, reprinted by permission.

1. Helen Jackson, Convent Cruelties (Toledo, Ohio: self-published, 1919).

2. Bamber Gasciogne, The Christians (London: Johnathan Cape Ltd., 1977), p. 26.

3. (New York: T. Mason & G. Love).

4. Ibid., p. 8.

5. Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, Snapping.- America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change (New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1978), p. 225.

6. Lee Coleman, Psychiatry and the Faithbreaker (Sacramento, California: Printing Dynamics, 1982), p. 8.

7. Margaret Singer, "Coming out of the Cults" reprinted from Psychology Today Magazine, Copyright © January 1979 (American Psychological Association).

8. 14 December 1978.

9. 11 March 1977.

10. 2 November 1978.

11. 8 May 1980.

12. Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 18 November 1979.

13. Harvey X. Cox, "Myths Sanctioning Religious Persecution"; A Time for Consideration, eds. M. Darrol Bryant and Herbert Richardson (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1978), pp. 3-19.

Unification Sermons and Talks

An MFT Story by Peter Nordquist November 24, 1998

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is my pleasure to present to you this morning another true MFT story abbreviated to cut to the chase:

It was autumn 1983 on the IOWC somewhere in the West. Upon volunteering for the IOWC, I had prayed the following prayer: "Heavenly Father, I thought I worked really hard in the last 10 years, but obviously not hard enough. What could I have done better?" and received the following answer: "When you saw that Mr. Kamiyama was emphasizing cash result at the expense of members spiritual growth, you could've said something and he might have listened to you in particular, but you didn't say anything." to which I replied, "Yes that's right. Heavenly Father I want to pray for the opportunity to indemnify that." About a month later I got that opportunity and jumped at it. There arose the plan to help the IOWCs make more money by sending 1 member from each team to the National MFT. I volunteered and was sent to Mr. Tate's region in California, and by Mr. Tate was sent to his crusher team under Joe Crusher, (name changed to protect the guilty) the team leader.

The first day before going out fundraising we received a short drill about what to say from Joe. I was deeply disturbed by his instructions as they were against regulations that I had learned in 5 years fundraising on the East Coast. Being the last to be dropped off, I shared my concern with Joe Crusher. He agreed with me but said that he trusted Mr. Tate who was trusted by Mr. Kamiyama who was trusted by Father, and thus was obeying Mr. Tate's instructions anyway.

Considering the seriousness of that time and situation, I was deeply disturbed. The IOWC had the mission to raise up Father's name and good works in America so that Father wouldn't be sent to prison. In Father's talk, given to all members in attendance after the Day of All Things in early June (perhaps the 11th, if my memory serves me correctly), Father said, " The situation in the world today is worse than at the time of Jesus. If Communism takes over the world today, it will root out religion from the face of the Earth. In the time of Jesus, if Christianity had been destroyed, God still had the other religions that he could've worked through. But nevertheless, Father is going to show you how to get victory!"

But Joe Crusher under pressure from Mr. Tate was ordering his MFT members to "not say Rev. Moon or Unification Church because we want to be able to fundraise here again." I tried his method for a week just to be able to say that I was being objective. This method very quickly led to someone asking me, "If this is with Rev. Moon, I will not give you the $5, but if it is not with Rev. Moon, I will give you the $5." To my eternal shame, I said that it was not with Rev. Moon and took the $5, and justified it by saying that I was being united with my team captain, who was united with Mr. Tate, who was united with Mr. Kamiyama, who was united with Father.

With that experience as evidence, I wrote a 7 page letter to Mr. Tate explaining that I had been on the MFT for 5 years (2 under Pres. Salonen, 3 under Mr. Kamiyama) on the East Coast and had heard Father speak many times and that I knew Father's tradition of honesty in fundraising and was the very member that had received $20 twice from True Parents while fundraising at a stoplight at 56th and 11th Ave. in Manhattan and whom Father had consequently praised in a speech" as wearing a big I.D. That guy had guts. Where do you think you can hide in the spirit world...etc." and which quote was consequently put in the little blue book set of Way of Tradition.

Mr. Tate visited the team, yelled at me, said he wasn't telling anyone to lie or not say Unification Church or Father's name, and sent me to another team. Now was my chance to do the right thing and to practice real heavenly deception under my new team captain Joe Jr. Crusher, who followed the same routine that Mr. Tate had just insisted to me that he wasn't telling his team captains to follow. Secretly, after leaving the van to fundraise, I took my real church I.D. out of my pocket (that actually said Unification Church on it) and put it on and fundraised properly -- speaking openly, proudly and boldly about Father and the Unification Church and Divine Principle. Amen. This went on for about 3 months (as well as various other adventures) culminating with a Sunday that I had the highest result (while secretly wearing my church I.D. and saying Unification Church etc.) Meanwhile I had again confronted Mr. Tate. I knew damn well that he could set up the IOWC fundraisers under his care with better area and product and asked him why he wasn't doing that. He said, "We have many other financial concerns than the IOWC and can not be bothered with worrying about the IOWC." A couple days later I was sent back to the IOWC and wrote a 1 page report and gave it to my IOWC commander, Nico Wheeler, (from Luxembourg or Belgium). He asked me if he could give it to the higher up Korean in charge of the IOWC in America. I said " Go ahead".

Three months later Mr. Tate was promoted to the fish mission and was replaced as MFT commander by Joe Coin. Mr. Tate then disappeared for a month. Not even his wife knew where he was. When he came back, he had apparently repented for his mismanagement of members spiritual lives, and so Niel Angelino told me anyway, drove around the country with another Japanese MFT commander trying to find and bring back American members who had left the church under their leadership.

My point? The following: America is in the archangel position. Who knows or teaches the mission of the archangel properly besides Father? Korean and Japanese leaders and members tend to emphasize the Adam and Eve nation missions. However, Father said that the most important historical mission has been the mission of the archangel. Jesus was killed trying to restore the failure of John the Baptist and has been doing the archangel mission for 2000 years from the spirit world. Father himself had to first accomplish the mission of the archangel before God could promote him to the True Parent position.

So what? So I delivered the message to the higher central figure from the position of having risked my life to deliver it to Mr. Tate. How did I risk my life? Through disunity. By directly disobeying orders from my team captain and commander, I opened myself to be attacked by Cain/Abel or Adam/Eve -- that's attack by the spirit world and physical attack while fundraising and Chapter 2 (sexual) attack while fundraising -- but I knew that already, and I knew how to deal it from having gone the formula course already! Thank you God!

Damian Anderson answers critics in a section of his website at www.unification.net. Here are a few examples: http://www.unification.net/faq/uniffaq21.html

Keith Bennett (kbennett@cpcug.org) wrote:

: >>That's pretty clear. It is clear-cut deception, and Hassan thought so much of it that he put it in his book as an example of how he conducts his business.

: Andy -

It was clearly stated in church writings, speeches, etc., that deception is acceptable as long as it is for the "higher" purpose. This "heavenly" deception is exactly the kind of thing these parents were doing. So if you believe deception for a "higher" purpose is acceptable on one side, I think it would be fair to understand its use on the other.

Could you please back up your statement that the Unification Church justifies deception? If you have evidence, please state the name of the publication and where the statement appears. This is a charge frequently made by our critics, but you will not find it taught within the Unification Church.

http://www.unification.net/faq/uniffaq30.html

jarrod@breeze.seas.ucla.edu (Jarrod J. Williamson) wrote:

The pursuit of this mystical imperative supersedes all considerations of decency of immediate human welfare. The end justifies the means. You can lie, deceive or whatever to those outside the organization. Association with the "outside" is only to benefit their own cause in some way. Some cults like Moonies and Hare Krishna's call their deception "heavenly deception" or "transcendental trickery".

Members believe in the ideology to such a degree that they rationalize these deceptions. Members are kept in a frenzy of cult related activities. There is little time or energy to think about their lifestyle.

This is a myth and a slander that the Unification Church promotes deception. The critics call this deception "heavenly deception" yet it is a fiction of their own making. It is not a part of the teachings or the practices of the Unification Church.

This is a distortion on a par with the Nazi stereotypes of Jews. The trouble is that ignorant people hear these slanderous things, believe them, and then attempt to punish the members of the targeted group for the alleged and fictional wrongdoing which has been invented by the blackshirts who oppose them. The blame belongs with the rabble rousers who foment trouble against these innocent people.

Damian Anderson +1-301-921-0082 Home damian@unification.net DamianAndr@aol.com

Unification Home Page http://www.unification.net

Web pages on Unificationist ideas and activities in 13 languages and growing.

http://www.unification.net/faq/uniffaq44.html

Subject: Craig Maxim waxes mendaciously

From: Damian Anderson

Date: 1997/10/01

Message-Id: <875725151.27364@dejanews.com>

Newsgroups: alt.religion.unification,alt.religion.christian,talk.religion.misc

In article <19970930233201.TAA19607@ladder01.news.aol.com>,

rosamaxim@aol.com (Rosa maxim) wrote:

Craig Maxim wrote:

" So telling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person , but IF YOU TELL A LIE to do a good thing for him that is NOT A SIN ." ( Master Speaks 3/16/72 )

That's okay for me.

So was God's commandment " Thou shalt not lie "or was it " Thou shalt not lie ..unless? "

This is one of the old themes that the enemies of the Unification Church have used for a long time. As the story goes, members of the church lie. It is borne of a prejudice which is in the mind of the accuser, just as the bigotry of the anti-Semite or the Catholic hater. What basis is there for this in fact? Rev. Moon does not encourage his disciples to lie, and to say otherwise is to indicate the mendacity of the accuser.

And, the Bible does not say "thou shalt not lie". It says "thou shalt not bear false witness" which was intended to prevent people from being accused and convicted of crimes of which they were innocent. It sounds like Craig is breaking the very commandment he is erroneously quoting.

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON OUR PRESENT POSITION

October 7, 1979 Belvedere Translator - Bo Hi Pak Without question the worst problem faced by the world today is communism. How can we win against it-with fists? No, only with the word of God, and the heart of love. The communists believe that the end justifies the means, and that if a lie is repeated enough it will become the truth. We must teach them that truth is always truth and a lie is a lie. We have become the most formidable organization working against communism. Our International Federation for Victory Over Communism is working in Asia, Europe, and America and will weaken international communism. http://www.unification.net/1979/790930.html

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON 

LET US KNOW OURSELVES

September 30, 1979 Belvedere Translator - Sang Kil Han The essence of Christianity is to seek repentance for the sin of greediness and selfishness. Sin can be defined as violation of the universal law of service to others. Even stealing a dress from a big department store chain is wrong. That dress has value which comes from the person who prepared it, and the person who steals it nullifies that public value. That is the sin. Another person might realize that he tells lies all the time, but his conscience doesn't hurt him. The motivation for lying always involves hiding something to take advantage of others: otherwise, there would be no reason to lie.

Craig Maxim has the ridiculous criticism that Rev. Moon is a sex maniac. The following is an excerpt from a member's summary of what Rev. Moon said the day after Nan Sook Nim went on 60 minutes. Maxim charges Moon with adultery when he had a child with a woman while he was getting a divorce from his first wife. Maxim is the liar. He tells half-truths. In other words he does what he accuses the church of. He is deceptive. He leaves out that Moon's first wife initiated the divorce and now repents for how she treated him. Maxim is a prude if he thinks it is adultery because Moon can't wait for the slow process of divorce proceedings to happen. Maxim doesn't tell you that his second wife repents and is a member just as the first one is. Maxim doesn't tell you that the very core teaching of the church is for sexual purity and Moon has repeatedly stated how pure he is. No one can say as he has for 50 years and not be seen for who he is. Hassan would say that Hitler used mind control on Germany. And how long did it take for Germany and the world to see that Hitler was evil? Less than 10 years. Moon has been preaching and building a movement that now has hundreds of thousands of members. Moon's finances and lifestyle has been studied carefully for many decades. Presidents of the United States, nobel prize winners, and some of the most dinguished and famous ministers in the world have befriended him. Former members are so filled with resentment they cannot think straight. In the following you can get a little flavor of what Rev. Moon is like and how sacred the church views sex and purity. Moon and his followers are not sex maniacs, sex addicts or sex obsessed. They are obsessed with purity, family and having wholesome sex. Christianity is often accused of being uptight about sex. Moon teaches that it is normal (only within God's boundaries.) If Moon has ever done something that seems immoral, we have to view it as an exception to the rule and something he needed to do for restoration of the fall. If he does have a love child, we do not have testimony from the mother denouncing it. True Mother seemed to say to Nan Sook Nim as quoted in her negative book as believing it was a special condition to restore adultery and True Mother needed to know the heart of all the women in history who have had to experience this pain. I don't know what happened, but I do know that Rev. Moon has taught me and countless others the true nature of sex and God's will for our lives. There comes a point where we have to start having faith. God has sometimes had to have his central figures do what seems is immoral such as Jacob lying and Mary commiting adultery with Zacharias. But Moon does not say that is normal and the way the members should act.

http://www.tparents.org/library/moon/talks/moon98/um980920c.htm

The Words of Reverend Sun Myung

Moon from 1998

Father Addresses Members At East Garden

Claude Aubert

September 20, 1998

This report is compiled from several Internet reports, and explanations from people I was able to talk to personally. I relied most heavily on an Internet report from Rachel Carter. Damian Anderson, who attended the speech, announced that he will post more complete notes of Father's speech at a later time.

Yesterday afternoon, September 21, Father talked to a group of members at East Garden, after calling for this meeting just a few hours earlier. Many people in the audience were wondering if Father would talk about the 60 Minutes program that had aired on Sunday on CBS, and if he would comment on some of the statements made during that program made by Nansook Hong and Un Jin Moon.

First Father talked about topics such as God's heart, true love, sexual organs. Then he moved on to talk about the early church, the rumors that arose due to curfews and women wanting to hear Father's words, about the anger of husbands, fathers, brothers etc. How some had even beaten Father for taking their women away from them.

Father talked of how he had trained and disciplined himself in the area of his sexuality, how he could lie next to even a naked woman and control himself. He said that he had absolute control of his sexuality. He would explain to a woman that he was impotent and could not have sexual relations all the while controlling his sexual urges.

Father said he had never broken American or Korean laws and yet he was imprisoned and mistreated.

Father said that he never wanted to divorce and should never have had to divorce. If there had not been failures there would have been no need to divorce and start again. (He also mentioned that his first wife and her mother had been Blessed at the last Blessing).

Father said that Adam had been destroyed by a woman, Jesus was destroyed by women and now women were trying to destroy the Lord of the Second Advent, even his own true daughters!

Father mentioned that Nan Sook had come there when she was 17 (Korean age) and since then he had only really talked to her for an hour at most. He said he loved Cain children more than Abel children and Nansook saw this and grew bitter.

Father talked about how after the 360 million couples the world would begin to understand and people would come and repent and repay for all the suffering that True Family had to endure.

At the end of it all Father asked if he had succeeded in comforting the members' hearts. He asked if he could go to South America now and not worry about the members. He said "I gathered you together to support you at this time".

Deprogramming from the Unification Church by Brian Sabourin

I had been fundraising for about one week when my mother called the center in Boston, telling me my father was having heart problems and asked me if I couldn't come home that weekend to care for the farm so that they could get away for a while. I immediately said "Yes," and promised to take a late bus home on Friday. After I had hung up, Antony, my center director came to me and asked me if I thought my parents were being honest with me, and if they could possibly have other plans for me besides those mentioned. I answered him that my parents were not the kind of people to act like that; that they would not lie to me and join the deprogrammers without first having a heart-to-heart talk with me. Furthermore, I told him that I had already warned them about these people, and said not to get involved without talking to me first. I believed my mother was being honest. So, it was considered safe for me to go home.

When Friday, July 4th (1975) came around I was again out fundraising, feeling and doing better than I ever had. I made $125.00 in about three hours' time. I was feeling great. At 4:30 I came back to the center and packed up my things. Everybody said goodbye to me and I was brought to the bus terminal by Christina, the girl who first introduced me to the church. She told me that she was very worried about me, and that everyone else was also. I reassured her of my parents' "good heart" and left to catch my bus, but I missed it by 30 seconds. I waited around until the 7:00 bus left Boston for Middleburry. That bus I caught, and later arrived at my front door around 1:30 in the morning. I quickly ran up the driveway and entered the front door. I was shocked to see everybody still up, waiting for me. I gave my mother a big hug and kiss and told them that they shouldn't have waited up for me. About then I noticed how worried and uneasy they all were. My father told me to sit down and that he wanted to talk with me. "Couldn't that wait until morning?" I asked. "I'm terribly tired."

"No, as a matter of fact, it can't," he said. So I sat down and started to explain what I had been doing for the last three months. But they could not understand me, or wouldn't understand. They kept interrupting me, saying that I didn't love them anymore, and that I was brainwashed. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. I kept trying to explain myself to them, that I was not brainwashed and that I truly did love and care for them, indeed more than I ever had. But they would not believe me. This went on for about 75 minutes, until they were so upset and miserable that I felt as if I had to do something drastic in order to prove myself to them. I told them what had happened to Ann Devine and they said they knew about it. Hearing that, I became suspicious of them and began to get worried. I told them about the deprogramming sessions, and I told them I would be glad to talk with one of these people if that was what they wanted, and if they felt it would help answer their questions and make them feel better. They said they would appreciate that, if I didn't mind. I told them that I expected to be treated fairly and that the only purpose of it would be to resolve that questions which they had. I warned them about how deprogrammers had handled Unification Church members before. But, they said they would make sure I was treated fairly.

At that moment my mother called to some people to come from a nearby room, who up to this time, I had been unaware of. Suddenly my old wrestling and football coach, two of my uncles, and a close friend from school came in through the door and stood around me. Needless to say, I felt stupid. I had been tricked. They had planned to abduct me all along. I kept asking questions about what their plans were, and they said everything would be fair and that if I wanted to return after it was over, I could. So, odds being what they were, I . . .

It was about 3:00 in the morning. I got in my uncle's car, with my father and uncles sitting on either side of me, and was driven to an old hunting cabin in New Hampshire. I couldn't sleep during the car ride; I was too nervous and scared. Many times during the trip I felt sick to my stomach and nauseous, nearly passing out.

We got to the house at about 6:00 in the morning. I immediately recognized my future deprogrammers, Mr. George Swope and Carl Waranowski. I had seen them during a meeting at Durham, New Hampshire where CARP's membership as a qualified student organization was being re-considered.

They told me to get out of the car, and then escorted me into the little cabin. I walked around inside the cabin while the deprogrammers talked with my parents and relatives on the outside. After a while everybody came inside. Mrs. Swope and few other people had just arrived. My mother, father and uncles came over to me, saying that, "We're all behind you, Brian," and "We know you can do it . . ."

My mother then hugged me, and patted me on the head saying, "All these people have taken their holiday off just to help you, Brian. Now just listen to what they have to say. . ." She was treating me like a child. She treated me as a mother would treat her mentally sick son! I asked her if she was o.k. and told her that I already knew what these people were going to say, and if they would only let me, I could explain everything. She started crying then. I embraced her and tried to console her, saying that I had never thought out any decision as much as I had my decision to join the Unification Church. I told her that I loved being a member and that I had full use of my mind and free will. "Isn't that evident?" I asked. But she only cried more. Then I told her that I would be alright and that if everything went like they said it would, we would all learn something. My mother then turned and walked out the door to talk with the people outside.

My father then came up to me, shaking my hand and patting me on the back, saying, "You can see how worried and upset your mother and I are over you Brian, so just listen to these people, they're here to help you." I again said that I was fine and didn't need help from anyone. I told him that I had never been happier doing what I was doing, and that I could clear the whole problem up if they would only listen to me and give me the time to explain myself. My father shook his head and said, "Brian, I know you can pull yourself out of the problem you've gotten yourself into, and that is what these people are here for, to help you." I got the distinct feeling that he and everybody else there regarded me as one would a person with a drug addition. Shortly after this, he left too and my brother and friend Ray came into the room with me. I talked with them until the deprogrammers came into the room.

Then, at 6:30, they started in on me. Immediately they started yelling at me. Calling me a liar, telling me that I hated my parents and would even kill them if Moon told me to. They said that I should be ashamed of myself for causing them this worry!! I started to say that it was they who had caused my parents' confusion and not . . .

It wasn't long before I realized that this wasn't going to be anything like the "open-minded" and "fair" meeting which I had been told it would be. But, I didn't want to give up. I sincerely believed that I could eventually break through to these people and show them the ridiculousness of their accusations. So, I decided to be patient and understanding and talk only when spoken to, and explain myself when I thought they would be genuinely interested in listening.

Needless to say, they never changed. I started to get intense headache, but there was nothing to take for it. I felt sick to my stomach, exhausted, and scared. I hadn't eaten since 3:00 p.m. on Friday. After about 4 hours of this stuff, I got up out of my chair to sit in a more comfortable chair behind me. As soon as I moved, they all jumped up out of their chairs and started towards me. When they saw that I was only changing chairs, they sat back down again, and resumed their "therapy".

This continued until around noon when lunch was brought in for us. They said they were going to feed me "just like the 'cult" fed me," and gave me a single hot dog and a tables spoonful of baked beans. I sad down to eat, my hands were shaking, and I still felt sick and my headache was getting increasingly worse. I closed my eyes to pray a prayer of blessing for the meal, when suddenly Carl pushed me backwards in my chair, saying, "You ain't going to pray to Moon anymore!" I said, "What? I was only going to say grace before I eat!" But he continued to rave on about it, calling me a zombie-liar and a brainwashed pimp. I felt really sick by this time but I forced myself to eat what food they gave me.

My parents came back and gave me those sort of "pseudo-comforting" statements and detached embraces. They were crying and looked miserable. At that point I vowed to God that I would make it through this mess and help them to understand where they were wrong and regain their trust. I told them I was all right and not to worry because everything was going to be all right.

They left shortly after they came and the deprogrammers continued their barrage with renewed vigor. But I wasn't going to sit back and take it anymore. I sat up straight by the table and threw it right back at them. It wasn't long before I realized that this was useless, and decided to continue in the way I had before.

Many things happened that day. I didn't think I would make it through it without vomiting or passing out. They continued this until 3:00 a.m. the next morning when, seeing that I wasn't going to break down right off, they said I could go to bed. I undressed and got in my bed, when I bent down to pray. Carl quickly pushed me over, shouting, "I told you before! You ain't going to pray to Moon no more!"

They woke me the next morning at about 6:30. I got up and ate some cereal for breakfast while they began my "deprogramming" again. Even though the sleep was short, I felt a little better. But my head still ached, I felt weak, and had an empty feeling in my stomach.

After breakfast, Mr. Swope and Carl started in again. Their pattern and presentation were the same as the previous day. I knew I could explain and clarify all of the accusations which they were making if they would only give me the chance. But they never intended to. By this time I realized that the entire purpose of these sessions was to break the victim down, and in my opinion, forcibly "brainwash" him into believing that the Unification Church and Rev. Moon are evil and corrupt, and everything which he had believed in was wrong, contrived for the purpose of trapping people like myself. They preached their version of the Bible at me constantly, inserting Rev. Moon's name into all of the most despicable passages. I simply couldn't believe that a Christian minister and professional psychologist like Mr. Swope could use his knowledge in such a fashion on people like myself.

The second day continued much like the first day had, with my parents making infrequent visits at the request of the deprogrammers. Yet it was fortunate for them that they only visited me this much, because whenever they came, it only proved to be miserable for them. For example, on the second day when my mother and father came, my mother started a conversation with me. She said, "Brian, can't you see how wrong you were to join such a movement at this? Can't you see how Moon is just brainwashing you kids?" When I said, "no," she started crying and crying.

I simply didn't know what to do! Comforting them by saying everything was going to be all right was an outright lie. Nothing was going to be all right as long as I was prevented from explaining myself to them, and as long as they believed that I was brainwashed it was hopeless. I thought a lot about trying to escape and explaining everything later when we all could be more calm and reasonable. But I knew the deprogrammers would never leave them alone, and would easily convince them to try more drastic measures for getting me out. Furthermore, I couldn't stand to see them suffering like they were. I knew that I would hurt them very deeply if I escaped. So. . . I decided to stick it out. I wouldn't try to escape, not even if they gave me an easy opportunity. I planned to outlast them. I would listen to them and listen to them until they ran out of energy and breath, then I would explain myself and show them the ridiculousness of their actions.

Well, it didn't work. . . They took time out, exchanging themselves with other loudmouths while I was always there, catching it.

As time went on, I became weaker and weaker. My headache was constantly with me, night and day. I would frequently feel so much like vomiting that I would visually measure the distance to the sink and estimate how quickly I could make it there, hoping that the deprogrammers wouldn't misinterpret my intentions and stop me mid-way.

The second day ended like the first, except an hour earlier. I got to bed at 2:00 a.m. and was woken about 7:00 a.m. the next morning. The third day was virtually similar to the second and first days. Yet I was quickly becoming weaker. By this time I started to pretend to agree with them on certain points to defray some of their attacks. Yet this proved to be my undoing later when they discovered this and came down on me even harder.

I hadn't changed my clothes or brushed my teeth or anything since they got me on Friday. I felt and looked wretched by this time. Yet this was all part of their game. By the end of the third day I know that I was hopeless to think of ever reasoning with these people, or with my parents as long as these people were around to influence them. But I still would not try to escape, because of the effects which I believed this would have on my parents, even though I had some good opportunities.

The fourth day was the same as the rest, except for the change in me. I was really sick. . . I couldn't think straight if I had to by this time. I was totally caught up in a mesh of conflicting loyalties -- between my parents and the church -- and didn't know where to turn. I still believed and wanted to belong to the church at this point, but I no longer could remember or explain my reasons why. As the deprogramming continued, my mind discontinued. I started to become really scared of what was happening to me. I even started to feel brainwashed, if you can imagine what that feels like. So when the fifth day rolled around, I knew my time was limited. They were allowing me to get more sleep by now, around five to six hours, but it was nowhere near enough. I had started to fall asleep during the sessions by the third day, and by the fifth day, it was more than a struggle to stay awake. Whenever I would start to drop off they would kick me to wake me up. Once, I pretended to be asleep to see how far they would go in order to try and revive me. When the kicking didn't bring a response, the slaps did -- I opened my eyes . . .

One particular event of the fifth day still stays with me. Mr. Swope was reading the Bible and telling me to read various sections, which he picked out. I was really becoming frustrated by his demeaning remarks and suddenly started to sarcastically read the passages in just the way he had been sarcastically reading from my Divine Principle book. I had no more that uttered two words when Rev. Swope catapulted out of his chair, grabbing me by the neck and hair and violently shook me shouting, "I'll teach you to take the Lord's name in vain, you little bastard!" while Carl reiterated and punched me both in the back and in the back of my head. This incident startle me, but I was not hurt. Actually, I welcomed the change from the boredom.

The fifth day ended and the sixth day came. As soon as I got up, I knew I wasn't going to make it through the day without having an emotional breakdown. While eating breakfast I remembered back to my first day, when I had said to my deprogrammers, "you aren't going to be satisfied until you have me grovelling on the floor, are you?" to which Carl said, "Well, that would be a good start."

That day, these insults seemed to strike right at my heart. The tension built up, my confusion and desperation finally climaxed, and I burst out into a fit of tears. I couldn't stand it anymore. Whenever they made an accusation I would shake my head and agree with them, while in my heart I knew they were wrong. They accused me of "faking" my breakdown and pressed me again and again with their accusations. Each time now I would agree with them, I was so confused. . . I felt as if, well, maybe I had been brainwashed, maybe I was wrong. So I even started to participate in their game. I came to help them, and did whatever they said, and tried my darnedest to see everything the way they did because I really began to believe that I had been brainwashed and these were the only people who could help me.

From that day on, I outwardly began to sing their tune while inwardly feeling myself to be a hypocrite, believing this dichotomy to be due to the Unification church's unscrupulous brainwashing of me.

They kept me in that cabin for 12 days before letting me out. Every day I would break down like I had on the 6th day and they would treat me the same way each time. They treated me better as I proved to sing their tune better. Each night for the next week, I would be brought back to the cabin to sleep, and re-hash all of the material the next day. I remember what it felt like going into the cabin each night. When we drove back to it after the evening dinner, now held at the Swope's house, all of the scenes of my deprogramming would flash back into my head. I would start to feel sick again, and my head would begin to ache. So great was my dread of that place that I would feel stuck rigid in my car seat. When we arrived, it took all I had to force myself out of the car. I would then run to the door, waiting to get in, fighting off my tears, fear, and the miserable, wretched dread which I had for that place.

I was at the Swopes' house for about two weeks and then I was driven all over the Northeast to visit other ex-members. During this time I started to feel better. I felt I was thinking more clearly now since I was "deprogrammed." Yet I still had some imperfections, which they all did their best to correct in me.

After about a month of this I was brought home. It felt good to be back and away from these people, but I in no way felt good. I was constantly depressed and miserable. Yet I tried my best not to let anyone know, partly because I was afraid of a barrage of questions and strong talk, which I had had plenty of, and also because I thought my psychological condition was due to the brainwashing I received from the Unification Church. I continued in this schitzophrenic way from about two months after I was home, until my own depression, desperation, mental confusion, and physical sickness forced me to start all over again. I decided to force myself into researching everything. Once I started this I began a daily recuperation to my previously healthy self. I started to feel much better.

Today I have written two papers as a result of the research, and feel pretty good again. I know clearly who to believe in now, and believe me, it's not the deprogrammers!