Former Moonie remembers ‘first friend’
Five minutes after Chris Ed
wards arrived in Berkeley.
California in May 1975, he
found a friend He accepted a
dinner invitation that night from
his new friend and joined him
the next day for a "restful farm
vacation"
Seven months later. Edwards
was kidnapped by his father
By SALL Y HODGKINSON
Of the Emerald
and deprogrammed of the "ex
tensive brainwashing" that he
said began with his Berkeley
"friend " Now. three years later,
he is touring the country
speaking out against the
"Moonie" cult he was caught
up in and plugging his book
"Crazy for God: The Nightmare
of Cult Life "
A full room of people greeted
Edwards Thursday night in the
EMU as the University became
the most recent stop on his two
— month speaking tour
"I know that there are people
in the audience who are
thinking. This couldn't happen
to me ' That's what I thought,”
he said
During his two — hour talk,
Edwards used familiar phrases
like glassy eyed, brainwashing,
empty smiles and deprogram
ming that the audience some
times laughed at But as Ed
wards progressed through his
story, laughs were few
Edwards, who had just
graduated from Yale when he
Nuclear power
(Continued from Page 1)
cident will mean for the country,
but that he "never has had any
confidence in nuclear power,
and l don't have any confidence
in it now
‘ In 1970. I researched the
plans for the Troian plant, and I
wrote a series of articles on the
China Syndrome, and what a
meltdown was Then I saw the
movie, and Harrisburg followed
It's the classical theory about
what happens in a meltdown,
and people were convinced it
couldn't happen "
Peddicord suggested that if
all nuclear power plants in the
US were shut down, people
could evaluate the impact from
the loss of power and look for
replacement sources
We could impose conserva
tion and say, 'OK. no more
power' That would lead to dif
ficult times, and people
wouldn’t like it," he added
Pttler disagreed "We re not
getting what we re paying for
(with nuclear power) It's time to
get rid of the stuff and look
ahead Let's decentralize power
sources and develop sources
that are regionally
appropriate "
‘ It took us 10 years and
billions of dollars to get on the
moon because we decided we
were going to be first on the
moon,” he said "And now the
government says it will take 100
years to get solar power on our
houses I just don't believe it "
Frohnmayer
articles error
The Emerald has made
the same error twice in
reporting Rep Dave
Frohnmayer's voting
record on course evalua
tion legislation Frohn
mayer did criticize a course
evaluation bill in House
debate last session but
later voted for the bill; he
did not attend an earlier
committee vote against the
bill In fact, Frohnmayer did
not serve on the committee
reviewing the course
evaluations bill last ses
sion
He does have a vote in
the committee this year and
is voicing "strong reserva
tions" about HB 2831,
which would permit public
access to student course
evaluations We regret the
error
Peddicord complained that
people criticize the federal
government for what it spends
money on Why don't local utili
ties begin to initiate their own
power sources?' he asked
Bartels said EWEB is trying to
do just that "I have no doubt in
my mind that we can find other
sources of power to replace the
13 percent of our energy
nuclear plants provide We just
needed a shock like Three Mile
Island to get us to rethink the
energy situation "
arrived in California, said his
friend seemed a little too
friendly and odd when he first
met him, but Edwards con
sidered him harmless Later, at
the dinner party, his suspicions
of his new friends (who iden
tified themselves as a social
workers group) grew, but he
said he felt uncomfortable cri
ticizing their interest and con
cern for him
Three nights later, while he
was at their farm surrounded by
barbed wire he said he decided
that "these were not just just
friendly, loving people It was
clear to me that they were
fanatics and part of a systema
tic attempt to control my mind."
mind "
But repeated chants, lec
tures, singing and games had
him "acting and looking like a
13-year old I spoke childishly,
imitated the leaders and quickly
replaced my thoughts with
theirs''
Edwards said that the con
stant contact with members and
their ideas wear down resis
tance to the mind —control
process "Things were repeat
ed over and over again We
were isolated from the outside
and then from ourselves I
couldn't even go to the
bathroom without a member
going with me."
After four weeks at the farm,
Edwards was promoted to
selling flowers for the cult His
Chris Edwards
old personality, he said, was
taken over by a new "heavenly
child" who believed completely
in the group's doctrine
After he had worked his way
up from selling flowers to taking
care of Moonie leaders' kids.
Edwards was kidnapped by Ted
Patrick. a controversial
deprogrammer, at the request
of his father.
"Four and a half days later I
came out of the hotel room
without glassy eyes The
deprogramming saved my life,”
he said
Edwards’ involvement with
the Moonies didn't end then. He
said his family was harassed so
much during the four months
following his kidnapping that
they had to hire a bodyguard
Eight weeks ago. with the
publication of his book and his
speaking tours, the harassment
has started again, he said
Edwards said he isn’t very
concerned with the groups
current activities because of the
recent interest in cults "They
aren't smiling anymore But my
fear is the group's potential
violence.”
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