Newsgroups: alt.support.ex-cult Subject: Re: cult remarks from the outside From: farmerpentium@cwcom.net (Peter Forde) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 19:09:51 GMT -------- On Thu, 12 Aug 1999 03:13:45 GMT, "Damian J. Anderson" wrote: > >Mind control is a figment of the imagination of a group of anti-religious >zealots. 100 years ago, people who opposed the Mormons said that they mesmerized >people, just as people accuse the Unification Church of brainwashing today. There >is no scientific or factual basis for it at all. People are free to choose their >religion, just as they are free to choose which car they want to drive. You can >listen to the salesman if you want, but there is no obligation to buy. :-) > >Regards, > >Damian Anderson It wasn't just Scientology caught me - The Moonies very nearly did too, in both of two encounters! The French encounter happened in Toulouse in 1974-5, and they basically set about making me upset with religious controversy (Divine Principle teachings), which focusses attention wonderfully, and jams reason. Then in that troubled state they love-bombed me and made a strong emotional sell to leave my mind behind and simply join them as the real family. They also spent a lot of money on me with train fares to Paris and Andorra and Lyon, visiting centres in those places. I escaped the trap by a combination of having a good job which I wouldn't leave, paying my own train fares and returning on hospitality so as not to feel indebted, and simply having time to think. I realised that the upset had been carefully engineered, as had the love-bombing and owing guilt trips, and that the best counter was not to take anything seriously but simply to love-bomb these people right back! Thus it was that I infiltrated the Moonies, and they got very frustrated that their careful manipulation wasn't biting. They tolerated me on condition that I promise not to go to the press or anything, a promise I insincerely made, having in mind that "heavenly deception" that they'd pulled with me. What I saw was mind control in action, with the new member in constant motion so as to be both out of contact with relatives and dependent on their new "family". Their loyalty was to South Korea as some sort of New Israel, and if necessary they were prepared to defend it by force of arms. I tried fund raising and living as a Moonie for several days at a time to get a good, solid personal reality on that life. At one point I mentioned what was happening to my local Catholic priest, and he promptly invited me to repeat what I'd just said in its entirety at a lunch the next week. I did, about 20 other priests were attending, and thus the whole diocese got to know what the Moonies were up to. In 1978 I was again very nearly recruited by the Moonies in the Whalley Range, Manchester area. This time I didn't find the "Divine Principle" teachings controversial and might have joined on simple sell! What happened that put me off were two things. I got heavily love-bombed by a pretty young woman who flirted outrageously. Also I managed to escape coercion to verbally accept the teachings at end of the weekend. I was incensed by the overt manipulation and got very angry! Thus again it was a no-join result. There was an interesting thing happened with those Whalley Range Moonies - I've a friend called Maddalena who visits the old and poor, and does Montessori remedial teaching with disabled children. That was all performed as a free service whilst she made her living as a cleaner. Maddalena seemed to sweep those Moonies along with her, and they too went visiting the old and sick - people who were unrecruitable and had no money. I asked Maddalena about this and she said that the Moonies love God and will do things for God (implicitly even if it doesn't make money or recruits for their leader!) In Peace Peter