By Mark Owen - © 2010
Chapter 22 - The modern teen traps
His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.
- Alfred Edward Housman: A Shropshire Lad
The period following the end of World War 2 saw the rise of a plethora of cults, most but not all, of them loosely connected to traditional Christianity. Prophets have come and gone again, among them the colourful Bagwan [Bhagwan = God, in Hindi] Shree Rajneesh, an Indian guru who preached a light-hearted faith and gathered a large following. His disciples grew in numbers in many countries, including Australia and the USA. Eventually he settled in the USA and formed a large commune but was ultimately expelled. From there he travelled to several countries but kept getting moved on by opponents, usually other religions. He died a few years back and with his death so largely died the movement he founded.
Then there was the very aggressive neo-Christian cult known variously as the Children of God or the Family of Love, a radical group formed in the USA, with a strong belief in the Second Coming of Christ. It was founded and led by David ('Moses') Brandt Berg, a man of Scandinavian descent, in 1968, then aged 49, who built his group with the aid of lurid, well-illustrated Mo Letters issued first to the faithful, then sold on the streets. Berg was an outcast from another 'hot gospeller' group.
One must grudgingly admire Berg's Mo Letters. They were artfully written and attractively illustrated with line drawings. They dealt with topical issues and they seemed to hit right at the target - the uncommitted but searching teenager. But so lurid were these documents that they stirred the Attorney-General of New York to investigate some of the letters for 'pornographic' content. A typical piece of Berg's writing compared sexual delights with the spiritual wonders of 'total intimacy with a very sexy, naked God Himself in a wild orgy of the Spirit.' There were many allegations levelled against the sect for involving teenage members in sexual encounters. And there seems little doubt that the sect did indeed involve its young members in such activities in the name of the faith. One of Berg's letters said it all. It was entitled, 'Hookers For Jesus.' In it a nubile mermaid was depicted hanging from a hook and line and making advances, obviously of a sexual nature, to a nude male youth.
The sect's literature was heavily larded with drawings of attractive young females, with shapely bare breasts. Headings such as Nuns of Love and God's Whores were designed to entice the reader. These two titles referred to the young females prostituting their bodies to ensnare men, preferably financially well-off men, in what is euphemistically called the 'ministry of love', to 'save their souls' and, incidentally, to encourage them to donate money to the sect. Young girls were taught in one of the sect's comic-strips that the best way to get into men's hearts is to get into their beds. Ex-members have asserted that the sect in later times even came to operate its own escort agencies.
It was also alleged that Berg and his followers advocated as an article of the faith sex between adults and children, including incestuous relationships, critics quoting sect literature describing such relationships as being 'natural' and 'acceptable'. In time legal action was taken against the cult in the USA, Canada, Spain and other countries, usually related to the question of children and sex. Berg's own grown daughter has appeared publicly and condemned her father for his activities. 'My dad is just an evil personality,' she said. 'I had to keep looking upon him as my father but as the leader of a worldwide movement he was destroying people's lives.' Early in 1991 Australian television featured recent activities of the sect in Asia, especially in Thailand, a country that serves as one of the chief magnets to the pedophiles of the world. It was claimed that young children, especially girls as young as 10 years of age, were reportedly being put to work as juvenile prostitutes there.
An activity described in the group's literature as 'Little Flirty Fishing' for Jesus was graphically highlighted when a young girl (who looked about 11 or 12) rescued from the group explained unabashedly that one of the best ways of getting people into God's kingdom was to 'get into bed' with them. This is what they had been taught. And this from the lips of a young child! A film showed the girls 'working the streets' in Asia by singing from a platform. A young man who tried to prevent the girls being taken back by their parents defended the sect's activities vigorously and stated on camera that he thought there was nothing wrong with the girls prostituting their bodies in the service of Jesus.
But some of the sect's own literature also showed photos of even younger children, male and female, mostly naked and obviously engaged in sexual activities. Some were as young as 2 or 3 years of age. It is also noteworthy that Berg's Mo Letters appeared in three different versions. A simple and inoffensive version would go to new converts, the 'babes,' as they are known to the inner circle, and be sold on the streets. A stronger version would go to regular disciples. An uncensored heavy version, containing erotic material, visions and suchlike, would go to the elders, shepherds and 'leaders of tribes.' The text was often accompanied by sexually suggestive artwork, featuring the ever-present alluring bare-breasted young females and phrases such as 'Eye the bait.' Ex-members have truly described the sect as 'the sex cult'. Mo Letters recorded statements such as: 'We have a very sexy God and a very sexy religion and a very sexy leader with an extremely sexy young following.' and 'I frequently examine the bodies of women.'
What was Berg's background? Berg's parents were both evangelists and his mother had some fame as a so-called prophetess. Berg in his younger years had been pastor for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Arizona and had engaged in youth work. The Christian and Missionary Alliance itself is a far-out fundamentalist organization and has been the subject of some concern for its activities over the years. Berg, like so many in the fundamentalist-revivalist hothouse, moved about from group to group. Some say he was tipped out of the Alliance.
David Berg once bragged of sexual virility before the age of 10 and also said he had 'heard voices' when he sat alone in a tree. Obviously following in the footsteps of his prophetess mother! No wonder in later years he took upon himself the mantle of Prophet of God and gave himself out, as so many hundreds of others have done, as the authentic voice of God. Another sidelight on Berg is provided for us through the information that his Mexican maid was said to 'lull him to sleep' with the aid of oral sex. Berg first organized his movement along the line of tribes, the leaders adopting Biblical titles, such as Caleb or Joshua, instead of their given names. The (mostly) young converts were speedily absorbed within the enfolding arms of the group and 'shielded from negative influences' or 'the attacks of the Devil', which may even take the form of parents trying to get children to leave again.
In fact parents were generally painted in the darkest colours, converts being warned that parents are often the means by which 'the Devil works to lure the convert from his or her chosen path.' Such sects carefully program the new believer in what might happen; i.e. parents trying to persuade them to return. The young person becomes so convinced of the rightness of what he or she hears, that when parents do turn up on the doorstep their immediate reaction is, well I was warned it would be like this. Self-fulfilling prophecy is a wonder to behold!
In the 1970s Berg taught that the comet Kahoutek would collide with the earth, beginning (yes, the old favourite!) the Battle of Armageddon. As the comet neared earth members poured forth into the highways and byways of the world, trying to convince citizens to repent and be saved. When the comet missed the earth they changed the date of Armageddon to 1993. Obviously this date was incorrect also.
It is always interesting to know something of the finances of such groups. There is, of course, a great web of secrecy woven about such matters and all such organizations are greatly assisted in countries like the USA and Australia by the tax-free status they enjoy. Members are not allowed to seek employment outside the organization, the group providing for all their material needs. It should be noted here that much of this 'provision' actually comes from resources of the members themselves who have given all their possession into the hands of the group! This flow of goods and income from new recruits is supplemented by the sect obtaining by fair means or foul handouts of food from anyone who can be cajoled into helping, along with cash donations from starry-eyed business people who think they are thereby helping another worthy cause.
A great deal of money was made in the early days from selling the colourful literature churned out by Berg. By the mid-1970s some 350 different Mo Letters had been produced. And these were hawked about the streets on a daily basis by the converts. Each was assigned a quota of sales, one figure being given as 2000 pieces per member per week. Those who failed to achieve their quota were treated as failures and urged to do better. Shining examples were held up to them. One girl was quoted in the sect literature as selling 6,832 pieces of literature during a 36-hour period. She was lauded as a paragon of virtue and an inspiration to all. New Times quoted in 1974, one colony in Staten Island pushing out 40,000 pieces per week. At 10¢ a piece (the figure then) that was a turnover of $4,000 per week. Commented the paper: 'That adds up to $200,000 per year, that's a lot of untaxable spare change. And only God, and maybe Moses David, knows where it all goes.' Certainly sect members do not.
But we seek in vain if we look for moral behaviour in this cult. Take child stealing. A typical case of a young child literally trapped into the sect was that of Sarah Lane who, at the age of 6 years, was taken by her father from Australia to Thailand in September 1986. On the morning of 11 September Sarah's mother Attaya, saw her husband Michael leave home with little Sarah. She believed he was on his way to enrol the small child in a school in Greensborough, Victoria. Instead, the pair had flown straight to Thailand. Michael was a member of the Children of God and Thai-born Attaya had met her future husband in Thailand. For a time the couple had stayed in the sect's various communes but often fought over sect ideals. Michael was aided in the deception by sect members and at first Mrs Lane had no idea where her daughter was. It took two years, and the help of a private investigator, before Mrs Lane discovered her little daughter was in Bangkok. Later the sect moved Sarah and her father to Singapore. As has been seen in Australia, frequent moves from place to place are a common feature of the sect. Mrs Lane, whose story was told on Australian television, was deeply concerned as to what would be happening with her daughter in Thailand. She knew the sect believed in free love and had very liberal views on child sex.
Reunion finally and fortuitously came about through the need for Mr Lane to renew Sarah's Irish passport, which would have to be done when she turned 10. Irish embassies around the world were alerted and finally, when Mr Lane went to renew the passport at Dublin, Sarah was taken into protective custody by authorities while the matter was settled. In November 1990 mother and daughter were reunited halfway around the world in Ireland. Even then Mrs Lane had more heartache as her little girl had become attached to her father and wanted the family to be together. Eventually Sarah did return to Australia with her mother, where she rejoined her other brother and sisters and settled down happily again. Since Sarah returned Mrs Lane has carefully avoided trying to get her daughter to talk about her experiences. She does know the child was made to work all the time at such tasks as looking after babies and cleaning toilets.
Children were trained up in the sect under firm discipline. Numerous stories have surfaced about physical child abuse and heavy-handed discipline, although no doubt only a fraction has been told, as the sect has always been careful to maintain the secrecy it do dearly loves. Some children taken from Australian sect group homes were reportedly warned 'not to talk.' But typical of disciplinary methods used was the punishment of a small baby girl. An escaper told how the little girl was forced to feed on her own vomit as a form of punishment. A female member carried out this bizarre discipline. A teenage boy, whose parents had since left the group in Australia, reported that on one occasion he was held down and given a sound thrashing with a leather strap for mentioning the Devil. He was told it was to drive out the 'bad spirit' in him.
Children did not attend public schools and they were required, it was claimed, to 'smile all the time'. If they cried they were beaten with bamboo canes and wooden paddles and other forms of harsh discipline were used. Moses Berg taught that parents should start beating children from the age of eighteen months or two years. These same very young children had to have Bible verses drummed into them, learned by heart, according to Berg. Other punishments included long periods of enforced silence. And another method of disciplining children involved sending them away from their own family to live in households interstate or even overseas for a period, as long as two years in some cases.
(It is curious to observe that in the Children of God cult and in others, e.g. The People's Temple and the Branch Davidians, physical discipline of children, often to a degree of outright cruelty, is commonplace. There is clearly a link between suppressed sexuality and sadism which was also evident in the abuses heaped on children by Catholic nuns and brothers over the years.)
Following much bad publicity the Children of God eventually resurfaced under a new name, The Family of Love. It has had others, too, such as Love in Action. The sect ceased being known as the Children of God in 1978 when 300 leaders were reportedly sacked after they were found to be living high off the profits of the church. These name-changes remind one of the Moonies, a group that has an endless stream of deceptive 'fronts' through which it operates.
According to some observers the Family of Love has toned down some of the more extreme views. However, David Berg still seemed to be playing a part in their affairs. This is the man who said publicly: 'I practise what I preach and I preach sex, boys and girls. Hallelujah!' And further: 'God created boys and girls able to have children.' There are believed to be between 9,000 and 15,000 members worldwide, spread through about 40 countries.
At an unspecified earlier period, described as 'a long time ago', videos had been shown to the group showing naked couples dancing. Children had been present at these showings. One of the sect mothers denied that her own children had seen these and continued: 'It happened such a long time ago, anyway. We're not wild hippies any more. We are now grown up with children and have assumed middle-class values. We had to go through a lot of changes, such as cleaning up the way people abused the liberal attitude towards sex and the 'flirty fishing' outreach programs. We just got tripped off on the sexual aspect and realized we had to look hard at our practices and get back on track.'
In later years Berg became increasingly isolated from the rank-and-file, working through trusted lieutenants. He was at one stage in Europe but was last reported to be holed up in Japan, where he still had a hand in the sect's activities. He reportedly fled there in 1974 to avoid a US Government investigation into the sect's finances and alleged tax evasion. He was also being sought by two or three other countries in relation to the sect's activities. Japan has effectively become the centre for the sect's recent activities. Literature and videos are being produced there and sent around the world. In November 1994 it was reported that David Berg had died at the age of 75 although some members doubted this. As he was still wanted by authorities in several countries on charges related to child sex abuse, were reports of his death a smokescreen.?
Yet another neo-Christian cult is the group known as the Moonies, led by a Korean, Dr Sun Myung Moon, whose name I have mentioned briefly before, founder of the Unification Church. It is a commonplace of various cults that a mythology is developed encompassing the early life of the founder. The official version of Moon's early days includes an amazing episode when he was said to have been arrested by the North Koreans, and tortured by them, because he dared to preach the Gospel. At the end of his ordeal he was near death, his life blood having almost drained away. Then, after three days [sic!], he rose again and began preaching! The commandant was unable to silence him, so sentenced him to death. He was saved at the last minute by the arrival of American troops under MacArthur, who stormed the gates of Hungnam Prison just hours before his execution. Well, that is the official version. Another version has it that he was in trouble with authorities over his marital and/or extramarital affairs.
In 1954 Moon formed in Korea his very own religious body, known as the Tong-il Kyo, otherwise The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, later simply the Unification Church. From then on Moon was uncompromising in his message. He asserted boldly, without equivocation, his right as the chosen one of God, destined to change the course of history, uniting all churches into one in the process. According to many accounts Moon told people he was the Lord of the Second Advent, and he and his (second, or is it third?) wife were the Perfect Couple. And as such they produce Perfect Children, not merely the biological offspring of their union but the spiritual offspring - those benighted young followers who traipse after him. On the other hand, some say that Moon has never claimed these things for himself; the claims have come from his ardent followers. He hasn't, however, denied them! It is in this context that one must place that peculiar institution of Moonism - the Mass Wedding (a very dramatic and inexpensive way to obtain worldwide press coverage). The offspring of these arranged marriages (for the disciples have little choice) will be blessed by Father Moon, and provide more cannon-fodder for his ever-expanding empire of greed.
Moon's early years are somewhat wrapped in obscurity, but then, the early history of all prophets is usually obscure, with good reason. These are the facts, such as can be ascertained. He was born on 6 January 1920. The official biographies say that he was one of a poor fishing family of eight children and that at the age of 12 he 'asked for wisdom greater than Solomon's.' His original name was Yong Myung Moon but he changed his name to Sun Myung Moon ('Shining Sun and Moon'). According to the hagiographers, on the morning of Easter Day, 1936, Jesus actually appeared to the young man on a mountain top and talked with him, appointing Moon to complete the work he began 2,000 years before, establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Thereafter Moon went about preaching and writing his book, or so we are told, with more visions reaching him from time to time. The culmination was one vision in which Jesus actually bowed down and hailed him as master! This claim must astonish mainstream Christians, to say the least.
All such movements, if they are to succeed, must have a written word, a revealed truth, a Holy Book. The Mormons had theirs, the Russelites theirs, as did Mrs Baker Eddy with Science and Health. It might be fair to say that any religious movement lacking such a written guidebook is doomed to fail in the end. It is not surprising then that such a successful movement as the Unification Church produced its special literature, Dr Moon's book, The Divine Principle. Mind you, there are suggestions that it was borrowed, a fraud like the Book of Mormon. Some think that it was written by a dropout medical student, Hye Won Yoo (or Yee Hye Wen?), and purloined by Moon for his own purposes. Be that as it may, in 1957 The Divine Principle was published. Soon after this Moon said he had been told by God that he must take his mission to the USA, which he proceeded to do. His chief activities have been located in that country ever since, although the Church's tentacles now spread into many lands.
Most religions employ brainwashing techniques in varying degree but few match the clever methods employed by the Moonies. A study I made of this cult some years back neatly sums up the types of techniques employed by most cults. In the case of the Moonies it is significant that a Korean should employ such techniques. The North Koreans horrified the world with the way they brainwashed captured American soldiers. Perhaps there was some common source somewhere in the Korean psyche from which both drew? Moon certainly rivals his countrymen in the work of conversion. Unlike many churches and sects, with their preachers and priests, the Unification Church works through an army of unpaid lay people, especially young lay people. The already-brainwashed are used to brainwash others, in a ceaseless round of membership-building. And the primary source of the finance for all this activity comes from these same brainwashed minions. They pay for their own seduction.
Scattered in many of the world's major cities are Moonie outposts, buildings designed, however innocent they look on the outside, to act as traps for the unwary flies that walk into the spider's den. These are not church buildings or missions that might scare folk off. These are just ordinary apartment blocks, or houses, or converted hotels, anything that is handy and well-placed to tap into the moving flow of itinerant youngsters. Fastening onto the lonely young person, the traveller, the runaway, the visitor looking for a few hours' companionship in a strange city, Moonie workers hand out invitations to visit with them in one of these centres. There the newcomers enjoy some food, some happy talk, a few songs perhaps. Interestingly, unlike many other religious groups, right at this point the financial fleecing of the lambs begins. The Moonies are not backward in asking for a donation from their visitors. In the world of the Moonies there are no free lunches. It is pay-as-you-go and then some.
The young unsuspecting prospect has already begun the descent into hell. The happy faces all around are programmed faces; the happiness is only skin-deep. Although Moon launched his Church and probably devised some of its earliest methods of recruitment he received more than able assistance in later years from Dr Mose Durst, a onetime Professor of English, behind whose ebullient exterior hid an astute mind. Durst, of Russian Jewish extraction, has, along with his English studies also had a Ph.D. in psychology and soon his considerable talent in the area of mind control was being put to good use in the Moonie programs.
The prospect probably stays a few hours in the house, perhaps a couple of days, and during that time will no doubt hear a lecture or two, perhaps disguised as 'philosophy' or 'current affairs'. And there will be an invitation. The group is having a great weekend up in the country, next weekend, as 'chance' would have it. Why not come along? An opportunity to get away from the rat-race, have fun and fellowship. And it only costs $30 (or $50, or whatever the going rate is). It is pay-as-you-go-to-perdition. Until now there has been little obvious religion, little by way of suggesting that the weekend away might be something more than a pleasant break from routine. Perhaps, though, there is one disturbing note, a curious one, about the only visible sign that religion holds sway in this house. The visitor is asked to take his or her shoes off while there. Are they Muslims or Hindus or something? There will be no explanation, any query being dismissed with some passing suggestion that it is to protect the floor or the carpets or suchlike. But the reason is a religious one, for the superstitious Moonies, like most fundamentalist Christians, believe in evil spirits. And evil spirits are carried from pavements into houses, or so they say! Very dangerous, and must be avoided at all costs. Hence footwear must be removed at the door.
This obsession with evil spirits manifests itself in many ways. One of the oldest means of warding off evil spirits is salt, hence our superstitions concerning spilling salt. Moonies often sprinkle 'holy salt' on bedding and food to ward off these evil creatures. Another means of getting rid of evil spirits suggested to the young converts is to take cold showers, which many dutifully do, even in midwinter. There's an incidental benefit for the organization - cold showers are cheaper! And further - submission to this ordeal, a submission that has within it an element of masochism, a mild form of mortification, is yet another step on the road to total submission of the self to the cult.
Soon the prospects, now just that much nearer to becoming disciples, are on their way by bus to their country holiday. They always travel by night, often leaving as late as midnight for their destination! Why? It is part of the programming routine. The travellers, singing, sleeping, bumping along in the dark of the night, soon lose any sense of direction, any real idea of where they are going. They eventually tumble out of their bus to find themselves being ushered through a gate in a high wire fence. The pleasant little country place is very secure, in some instances actually guarded.
Here indoctrination begins in earnest. Those who have come thus far are now ready, it is believed by their 'hosts' - ever smiling that smile - to be taken the next step, taken a little deeper towards ultimate commitment. The whole weekend is a brilliant exercise in brainwashing. Each prospect has, unknown to him, a Moonie specially assigned to the job of watching over him every minute of the day and night. And special care is taken to separate friends from one another for the duration of the weekend. Not one minute is left for thinking. From early morning until late at night, when the newcomer falls quickly into an exhausted sleep, there is constant activity. Exercise periods, singsongs, lectures, meals, discussions, shouting periods, gardening, 'testifying'. A newspaper reporter, Malcolm Boyes, who deliberately joined to discover what went on later commented: 'I feared that if remained one day longer I might succumb to this crazy mental pressure cooker.'
No effort is spared in taking the prospect to the next stage - agreeing to go on an even longer, more serious camp. A surprising number will go to this; those who don't are 'let go'. Unresisting acceptance is what is required; not potential troublemakers. And this camp costs money, too. Perhaps $200 or $300. A large amount for some but a surprisingly small amount of money with which to barter one's freedom away. For it is at this next camp that most conversions take place, the final breaking down that results in the prospect becoming a disciple, a slave in the service of Moon. Many of those who attend the long camp will be forever lost to the world, will end their days working long hours for little reward in the service of the Lord of the Second Advent, fondly believing that in doing so they will receive a commensurate reward in the world to come. Others, eventually sadly disillusioned, will escape. Those who remain will probably go on to more, and even longer camps, some lasting as long as 3 or 4 months. Anyone passing through these camps is virtually destined to remain a prisoner of Moon for life, and not a chain in sight! Still others will be taken by force from their bondage by those who truly love them and care for them. One such was Susan Swatland, grabbed under dramatic circumstances off the streets of San Francisco on 1 March 1981. Her rescue, engineered by her parents, made headline news around the world.
During the days of intense work and play and lectures and more work, all with little sleep, the young convert, once so independent, so free, finds herself suddenly submissive, strangely willing to be dominated, to be ordered about, to be told what to do. Those who later reject the Church and escape back to the real world often refer with wonder to this time, to this strange episode in their lives when all the values by which they once lived were suddenly swept away. The jobs they worked at no longer seemed important, the university courses they laboured at mattered not, their family and friends faded into the distance as strangers, dim figures in their past. This is, of course, conversion. It makes many forms and has many outcomes. In the case of Moonie conversion it leads straight into slavery.
As soon as the new convert decides to remain within the group, and follow Father Moon, whatever there was left of fun and pleasure fades away. Now they are workers, menials in fact, expected to produce results, in one way or another seeking new recruits. One of the chief ways of achieving this is by going out into the streets as a flower seller. The young disciple is equipped with a tray of small flowers and sent forth, both to sell the flowers and to talk to potential converts. Demeaning work for one-time university students, people holding down good jobs, people from fine homes, but they do it willingly in the service of the Millionaire Messiah. Sometimes for eight or ten hours a day, perhaps even longer. Ex-Moonies report on occasions being expected to hawk flowers or work in Moon factories for as long as 14 to 16 hours a day. The 'privileged' ones, usually attractive young women, get to serve Moon, his family and his henchmen in their headquarters.
By now the convert will have passed over all his or her possessions to the Church. All cash, even credit cards, must be handed in as are cars and other items owned by new recruits. One American convert sold up stock holdings worth $300,000 and passed over the lot. This not only impoverishes the disciples, but makes it even more difficult for them to escape their self-made prison should they later wish to do so. Meanwhile the Church leadership lives it up in style in vast and expensive mansions, with numerous luxury cars, yachts and aircraft. The Moonies in a short period of time have amassed enormous wealth - businesses, real estate holdings and corporations of all kinds, including even a national newspaper. If the Catholic Church, with all its wealth, had grown over its two thousand year history in riches as rapidly as has the Unification Church, it would now own the whole world, lock, stock and barrel! The Moonies easily outpace Rome.
By 1975 many were asking questions, especially about the brainwashed young people. Across America and in many other countries there were thousands of parents, separated from their own children by an artificial chasm created by an evil system. A major event came in February 1976 when a Day of Affirmation and Protest was held in a U.S. senate caucus room. Three hundred ex-cultists, government officials and press representatives expressed their concern over the Moonies and other brainwashing cults. But breaking the hold Moon has on his young slaves is not an easy task. How, then, is the hold maintained on the converts, especially those who are newly indoctrinated? The chief weapon in the Moonies' armoury is to use every means possible to separate the convert from familial ties. One of the doctrines constantly espoused in this as in some other cults is that the world 'outside' is thoroughly evil, under the control of the mythical Satan, the love-to-hate object of so many fundamentalist Christians. Those who are not members of the Unification Church are beyond the pale, part of the evil world-system. The convert's parents are a part of this system too, under Satan's control. If and when they try to get the convert to 'see reason' they are acting as Satan's agents. And Satan is everywhere, forever active, ready to trip up the believer and rob her of eternal life. To reinforce the hold they now already have on the mind of the convert, lurid stories are told of the fate of those 'rescued'. The Moonies are not averse to lying in the service of their faith. It is known as 'holy deception'. The Jesuits practised it centuries ago and the Jews in an even earlier era.
The Moon doctrines are yet another variant on whatever passes for 'orthodox' Christianity. There are three 'Adams' according to Moon. The first Adam failed to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. The second Adam was Jesus Christ and he, too, failed, when he foolishly got himself crucified. The third Adam, i.e. Moon himself according to many followers, the Lord of the Second Advent, will succeed. The Moonies are obsessed with Satan, as we have already seen, and he is given a disproportionate amount of attention in their system. Lucifer (another incarnation of Satan) and Eve seem to get a good going-over. Moonies are convinced that evil spirits, minions of Satan, are active everywhere. The floors are swept often, to remove them, and shelving dusted, for they hide there, too, in the dust. In the Moonie account of the Fall Eve is seduced by Lucifer and bears Cain. She bears Abel to Adam. Thereafter the two warring strains in humanity continue throughout history until the third Adam is born - wouldn't you know, in Korea!
As we have already seen, we do not penetrate far into religious systems before we encounter sex. Of all the sects the Moonies seem to have, on the surface, the least emphasis on sex. It might be true to say that they go out of their way to de-emphasize sex. Females wear demure long dresses and men and women at all times maintain decorum. They are not even allowed to walk hand-in-hand or sit beside one another in meetings. And certainly they must not engage in sexual intercourse before marriage. In fact, if Moonies go swimming it is common for them to do so not in bathers but in their clothes! This is the outward public face of the Moonie cult, but the powerful forces of sex are hard to deny and there is another side.
While the official sanitized biographies give a different account of Moon's early life, it has been suggested by some investigators that his younger days were spent as leader of a weird sect (one of very many) in Korea known as the Israel Soodo Won ('Israel Monastery'). This was a sex-and-religion cult which had a special rite called 'blood cleansing'. Female members first had sexual intercourse with the leader, then with the other male members, now having been 'cleansed' through sexual union with the head (i.e., Moon). Observers believe the group practised what is known as the Pan Sexual Desire Doctrine. It is linked to an ancient Korean religious practice whereby new brides gave their virginity to the priest or lord. Confirmation of this possibility comes from the fact that the South Koreans arrested Moon on 'suspicion of irresponsible sexuality' after authorities discovered 'scandalous rites' involving lecturers and girl students going on at a women's college. The Government specifically referred to the 'Unification Church' in the indictment. Eventually the official case against Moon failed as the women refused to testify and he was released from custody on 4 October 1955.
And there is a hint of something else in some extracts from a speech given to 'insiders' and leaked to the New York Daily News. The paper reported the speaker as stating: 'Master [Moon] needs many good-looking girls. We will assign three girls to one Senator. That means we need 300. Let them have a good relationship with them. If our girls are superior to the Senators in many ways, then the Senators will be taken in by our numbers.' Moon was at this time endeavouring to exercise political clout in Washington. In the mid-1970s a columnist, Jack Anderson, reported that a young attractive hazel-eyed girl, Susan Bergman, a known Moonie, was seen frequently in the company of House Speaker Carl Albert. A gold-trimmed copy of The Divine Principle was among books at hand in the Speaker's office. It was also reported that several young girls, believed to be Moonies, were seen with Albert during trips he made across the country. The C.I.A. has followed Moon's activities for many years, particularly watching his political moves. Their files contain many allegations of sexual improprieties involving the sect.
Moon espoused as one of the chief planks of his doctrinal position that mankind will be redeemed with the appearance on earth of a perfect husband-and-wife team. Adam and Eve failed and as for Jesus Christ himself, although a perfect man, he died before he could find a partner and have children. And now at this point in world history Sun Myung Moon and his wife have appeared on the scene to fill the role of the perfect couple. The trouble with this doctrine is that Moon has a secret past. Not only has he had two and possibly even three, marriages, but according to Tahk Myeong Whan, an American Presbyterian Professor of Theology, who has studied Moon closely, he had two de facto relationships as well, having a child by each. So much for the Perfect Couple. Moon studied at Vasoda University in Japan, where he met his first wife, Sun Kil Choi. The marriage lasted just six months, Moon deserting the woman. His next marriage or relationship was with Myung Hi Kim, who bore him a son, Hi Sung Moon. In 1960 he married his present wife, Hak Ja-Han. He was 40, she 17, at the time.
Moon has always claimed he was imprisoned and tortured as a martyr by the North Koreans because of his opposition to Communism and for his religious beliefs but another story has it that the real reason was for bigamy and adultery! On 22 February 1949 the North Koreans arrested Moon for marrying his second wife while still married to his first! He was jailed for three years. When Susan Swatland asked one of the church members why, if Dr Moon was the Messiah, didn't he marry the right woman in the first place? there was an answer ready to hand. 'God had prepared several women to fill the role of the new Eve,' she was told, but they failed. Religious debaters always have a convenient answer! There is perhaps a sense in which the believer, especially the female believer, feels a deep love for the Master, such that Catholic nuns and priests do for Christ and Mary in their religious experience. Susan later commented: 'I already loved this cold mysterious Messiah more than I had ever loved another man, or ever could again. I would have died for him gladly.'
Do not think that Protestantism and its near relations alone spawn splitters. The Church of Rome does a masterful job of maintaining an appearance of solidarity but the facts belie this brave front. Everywhere voices are raised within its ranks, voices that dare question the verities of this mouldy old institution. Vatican 2 did much to foster the spirit of dissension; the conservative Polish Pope struggled valiantly to stem the tide of heresy. Largely he failed. Not only theologians but lay persons continually question the verities of their faith. In 1995, for example, an Austrian lay group, calling itself 'We are the Church', objected to a conservative Vatican appointment. Stirred by the intransigence of Church authorities the group put forward a manifesto that demanded women's ordination, the end to compulsory celibacy for the clergy, fairer treatment of divorcees and homosexuals within the Church, and a more democratic decision-making process within its structures. The group garnered support from no less than half Austria's practising Catholics and soon its influence spread to Germany where a petition incorporating these demands was signed by one million Catholics.
This movement later spread to the USA, Canada and other European nations and several million signatures were collected. 'We are the Church' reflects widespread disaffection among the laity. Take, for example, a survey conducted in 1970 by Charles F Westoff, of Princeton University, and Larry Bumpass, of the University of Washington, published in Science magazine. It found that 68 percent of married Catholic women used contraceptives. When surveying active Catholics and excluding nominal ones, the survey still showed 53 percent used prohibited control methods.
Then let us look briefly at France, a country once considered the flower of Catholicism, where protesting Catholics in 1996 demanded that their names should be removed from baptismal registers or have notes attached stating 'renounced baptism'. The reason? They were protesting against a visit by Pope John Paul 2nd - because of his opposition to abortion and artificial birth control. These policies, they claimed, rightly, one must add, helped promote the unbridled population explosion in poor third-world countries.
Readers may question my inclusion of cults such as the Children of God and the Moonies in my discussion of the Christian Church. But they are all of a piece. The ultimate origin of the Children of God, the Moonies, the Christian Scientists, the Unitarians, the Spiritualists, the Shakers and the Quakers, and every other neo-Christian and quasi-Christian cult, is to be found in that stream of religious myth emanating from the hothouse hatchery of the Middle East, borne across the world through the mighty empire of Rome - the Rome of the Caesars and the Rome of the Popes (with a little help from Constantinople). The differences between traditional Catholics in Spain and fire-eating Baptists in the southern United States, the differences between staid German Lutherans and exuberant Latin American Pentecostalists, the differences between stolid Scottish Presbyterians and Japanese Moonies, are no greater than the differences between the warring and rival sects of the early Christian centuries.
And even the Islamics - although they would hotly deny the fact - draw their inspiration from that same stream of myth. It can easily be shown that the Prophet developed his doctrines under the strong influence of yet another variant form of Christianity. Scholarly research has shown conclusively that the Syriac Christian Church is the prime source for much of the Prophet's inspiration. Even specifically Christian vocabulary occurs in the Koranic verses. But there is more. One of the names given to Yahweh by the Jews is Eloah, the Mighty One. Indeed, throughout the Middle East there are various deities with 'El' names. and Allah is but another variant form. Clearly the Muslim deity Allah is related to the Hebrew Yahweh and the Islamic religion is derived from that same stream of religious fable as is Christianity. (To make a point I have, it should be noted, greatly simplified what is a very complex and technical issue, much debated by scholars.)
But we can go on debating these issues forever - and many do! There is little value in doing so when the fundamentals are enveloped in the mists of uncertainty, when at the heart of religion lies a void - an empty space claimed to be filled with a presence, a deity, for the existence of which there is not a shred of credible evidence.
