Tainted
'Brainwashed' by Moonies;
families say lives altered
By loan Herman
Of the Emenkl
This is the second in a four-part series
examining the Unification Church.
Annie's picture holds a prominent posi
tion atop her family's mantelpiece. With
long, blond hair and an attractive,
wholesome face, she looks like the all
American girl. And she is, say her parents.
But Annie's involvement with the con
troversial Unification Church breaks away
from this stereotype. The "girl next door
almost became a "Moonie."
Annie's mother, Helen, requested that
she and her family remain anonymous
because she feared possible retributions
by the church. Their names have been
changed.
Annie's short, yet intense, involvement
in Rev. Sun Myung Moon's church
often dubbed a cult by skeptics — follows
a pattern typical of most "Moonie"
followers.
home voluntarily.
Four years later, Annie's two-week ex
perience with the Unification Church con
tinues to have far-reaching effects on her
life, Helen says. "There's still some un
finished business. I don't think she ever
thought it through — about leaving, about
the deception of this group. She is aware
on a surface level of what they really are,
yet she won't read any (negative) material
about them," Helen says.
Robert Grudin, a University English pro
fessor, had a similiar experience.
Grudin and his wife, Misha, were living
in Southern California during the summer
of 1978 when they learned Misha's Ger
man cousin also was there. After some
"good sleuthing," Misha traced her
cousin's whereabouts to a Unification
camp.
The person they met was not the bright,
energetic young man the Grudins
remembered.
'He was euphoric. He believed he
was in the kingdom of God. Yet he
was also arrogant/
- Robert Grudin
"We met someone who
was completely spaced out,
and he couldn't focus on
us," Grudin says.
From their observations,
Misha's German cousin was
living without free will or
thought. "But he was
euphoric. He believed he
was in the kingdom of God.
Coming from a small town and a close
knit family, Annie felt isolated and lonely
in San Fransisco, where she spent her
freshmen year in college. Because her
parents lived several hundred miles away,
the transition from home life to college
life was even more difficult.
The once bright, active student became
depressed and despondent. She had dif
ficulty adjusting to a rigorous class load,
and her grades dropped dramatically.
So when she was invited to dinner by a
friendly, clean-cut man who said he was
from a group called the Collegiate
Association for the Research of Principles,
the idealistic, trusting young woman
jumped at the offer.
CARP is one of many front organizations
of the Unification Church, says Helen and
many others knowledgeable about the
church, yet Annie's "friends” never told
her this.
The initial invitation to dinner was
followed by others. Finally, Annie was in
vited to spend a weekend retreat in the
country with her new friends. At that
point, Annie's parents caught wind of
what was happening to their daughter and
made a quick trip to the college.
What they found, Helen says, was an
"altered personality, a depressed per
sonality and one that wasn't speaking to
us like our own daughter. It was very
frightening," she says.
The parents' first impulse was to drag
their daughter away from campus and
back to the safe family nest. Yet they soon
realized an authoritative statement would
only widen the rift. Finally, after endless
discussions with her parents, Annie came
Yet he was also arrogant and believed ms
way was the right way," Grudin says.
"At that point, I realized we'd better do
our damnedest to get him out." Like An
nie's family, Grudin formed a family coali
tion in Pasadena, which meant an
overseas trip for the parents. For his ef
forts, Grudin says he was "invoked as the
devil incarnate" at a Unification Church
service.
A "deprogrammer" then was flown
down from Oakland and spent the day
talking with the young man. The
deprogramming process involves a "mir
ror image" experience of the initial brain
washing, Grudin says.
As with Unification weekend retreats,
the "Moonie" is never left alone during
deprogramming sessions. The counselor
and parents continually reassure their
children, yet also attack all their assump
tions about the Unification religion. The
counselor repeatedly asks the same ques
tions about their new religion. The critical
moment, Grudin says, is when the
followers begin to question their new
religion.
"Deprogramming is not a violent sort of
thing except that (the followers) are held,"
says counselor Adrian Greek, who has
worked extensively with families of
children in the Unification Church.
"Something will trigger a deeply held
value or feeling, and at that point they will
begin to break through."
Greek and his wife, Ann, run Portland's
Positive Action Center, an affiliate of the
national cult awareness network, Citizens'
Freedom Foundation.
The Greeks bring a personal experience
CHURCH
with the Unification Church to their
counseling. Both their son and daughter
were involved in the organization, and
they resorted to a court order to remove
their son from the church. Their daughter
still is in the church, and they do not
know where she is. Creek says the church
has changed his daughter's name and
moves her about constantly to keep her
parents from finding her — as they do
with many followers, he says. Their last
phone conversation with her was in 1979.
When counseling former "Moonies,"
Creek says one must realize they are
“All of us are susceptible at certain
times in our lives, when we are lonely or
depressed. And intelligent people are as
much if not more susceptible than less in
telligent people," Creek says.
The Unification Church, says Grudin,
wants people who are "hungry in spirit,"
as many young adults are. They don t
want emotionally strong people who ask
questions, he says. Instead, they look for
people who've personally experienced the
breakdown of the American family and
disenchantment with organized religion.
"They size up who it is they're dealing
with, and whoever that person is, attack
their sensibilities," Creek says. "If that
person is a skeptic, they'll challenge their
skepticisms. If they're a follower, they'll
get them to follow. And within a few days,
they can have you hooked."
Contrary to the church's self-proclaimed
Christian status, Grudin says the "inner
sanctum" of high-level church officials
"jettison Christ" for Moon — the "armed
and militant messiah."
Yet to attract followers, the chuch must
"deceive young people and pull them by
their heartstrings, or else they wouldn't
come in.
"I'm as much an anti-communist as
lllUlii iirc a Miner timu.
not like you have to start ail
over with them, but it's very
hard for them to make
choices about what they
want. It takes a long time for
them to sort out what was
good and bad. It takes a few
months for them to talk
'All of us are susceptible in certain
times in our lives, when we are
lonely or depressed/
— Adrian Greek
about the Moomes
and say 'them' without saying 'we.'
Many people are baffled by how one
organization drastically can alter an in
telligent person's character, usually in a
matter of weeks.
Grudin compares the Unification
Church's brainwashing methods with
those used by the North Koreans on
prisoners of war during the Korean War in
the early 1950s. He calls it a "programmed
nervous breakdown” that begins full scale
at the weekend retreats.
The retreats center around religious lec
tures and the new member is "love
bombed" by the new "family." A highly
structured schedule leaves no time for
discussion or creative thinking, and
followers are told it is sinful to question
the spiritual lessons. They never are left
alone, not even to go to the bathroom.
They are fed high-sugar, low-protein diets
and often allowed little sleep, Helen says.
Finally, everything takes its toll. New
members' minds literally overload, and to
survive, they relinquish their free will,
Greek says.
Despite the common stereotype of
"Moonies" as being fringe members of
society, the new followers are usually
bright, attractive, intelligent, young peo
ple, often in college. They usually come
from middle- and upper-class families.
Their religious backgrounds are usually
Catholic, Protestant or Jewish, but not
fundamentalist Christian.
They tend to be idealistic people sear
ching for answers to a confusing world,
Greek says. Often, their recruitment coin
cides with a difficult time in their lives, as
with Helen's daughter, Annie.
Moon is, but I still think he’s a very wick
ed man," Grudin says.
Although the Unificationists say their
objective is to bring followers to Christ,
their main goal is to amass money and
power, according to both Greek and
Helen.
"They tell a story about changing the
world through the Unification movement,
yet they don't act on it at all," Helen says.
"They talk about having built for the
edification of poor people. They can't
point to one thing they have built. They
take in uncounted millions of dollars that
are never reported, counted or taxed,"
she says.
Four years later, Annie is back in col
lege, yet she is undirected, Helen says.
She still is searching for absolute answers,
which makes her mother angry.
"I still get angry that she wants easy
answers. I love her so and I want her to
be happy. But you can't make someone
happy. You have to let them be free. So I
let her do her thing."
As a parent, Helen often wonders if
there's anything she could have done to
prevent her daughter's involvement with
the Unification Church. The "battle taints
your life," she says, and the memory of
the experience "haunts you.
"It certainly is something that never will
be erased from her. It's a part of her life
experience, it's a part of ours. I guess I
don't spend much time regretting if only
we'd done this.' We did what we did. We
are here. We survived — and I'm more in
terested in the future than in the past."
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