Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 23
Writing Down the Pain: A Case Study of the Benefits of
Writing for Cult Survivors
K. Gordon Neufeld
Calgary, Canada
Abstract
Cult survivors are often urged to write down what they remember about their
cult experiences as a way of resolving the ongoing harmful effects of those
experiences, yet little has been written about why this is helpful. In this
paper, I will demonstrate the benefits of writing by providing examples of how
doing so assisted me in my own life.
I was a member of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon‘s Unification Church, popularly known as
the ―Moonies,‖ for ten years. The Unification Church is the organization more properly
known as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which was
founded in Korea in 1954 by Moon, a charismatic evangelist who claims to be the Messiah.
In reflecting on my life during and since my time in the Unification Church, I can definitely
see that writing benefited me greatly, not only after I left the cult, but also for a period of
approximately six years before my decision to leave.
In 1976—the same year I joined the Unification Church—I graduated from the University of
British Columbia with an undergraduate degree in English. I chose that university
specifically because it has a Creative Writing program. Yet, as soon as I got caught up in the
Unification Church, which I encountered by chance while passing through San Francisco in
August, 1976, I put aside all my ambitions to become a writer. Church leaders told me that
when the Ideal World came, and everyone believed in Unificationism, then there would be
time for me to develop my writing talents but in the meantime I should dedicate myself
100 percent to carrying out the will of ―True Father‖ (that is, the Reverend Moon). So I
abruptly stopped writing, and for the next four years I wrote only letters to my family and a
few fairly prosaic essays for my classes at the Unification Theological Seminary in upstate
New York. The first part of this article deals with this period when I had few opportunities
for writing or creative expression.
But, as I will relate in more detail later, during my fourth year as a Unificationist, which was
also my second year at the Seminary, a seemingly insignificant event suddenly reopened
my urge to express myself in ways that put me sharply at odds with church authorities. For
the next six years, then, until I finally quit the Unification Church, I wrote often—beginning
with sermons for the Seminary, and then journal and diary entries, and finally articles for
two grass-roots Unificationist publications that briefly flourished in the mid-1980s. I will be
quoting from some of these sources to show how writing helped me clarify the single
biggest issue within myself: that is, the question of whether I should permit myself to feel
my real feelings, or whether I should obey the demands of church leaders by completely
repressing them. The second part of this article deals with this period of vacillation, when I
was still a Unificationist but had started to pull away.
Even after I finally concluded I could not hold back my real feelings, and that therefore I
must leave the Unification Church—which I finally did in 1986—the struggle was not over,
because I still had not settled the question of whether my choice was the right one—the one
that God wanted me to make. It took me another six years, and a near-return to the
Unification Church, before I could settle that question.
Writing Down the Pain: A Case Study of the Benefits of
Writing for Cult Survivors
K. Gordon Neufeld
Calgary, Canada
Abstract
Cult survivors are often urged to write down what they remember about their
cult experiences as a way of resolving the ongoing harmful effects of those
experiences, yet little has been written about why this is helpful. In this
paper, I will demonstrate the benefits of writing by providing examples of how
doing so assisted me in my own life.
I was a member of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon‘s Unification Church, popularly known as
the ―Moonies,‖ for ten years. The Unification Church is the organization more properly
known as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which was
founded in Korea in 1954 by Moon, a charismatic evangelist who claims to be the Messiah.
In reflecting on my life during and since my time in the Unification Church, I can definitely
see that writing benefited me greatly, not only after I left the cult, but also for a period of
approximately six years before my decision to leave.
In 1976—the same year I joined the Unification Church—I graduated from the University of
British Columbia with an undergraduate degree in English. I chose that university
specifically because it has a Creative Writing program. Yet, as soon as I got caught up in the
Unification Church, which I encountered by chance while passing through San Francisco in
August, 1976, I put aside all my ambitions to become a writer. Church leaders told me that
when the Ideal World came, and everyone believed in Unificationism, then there would be
time for me to develop my writing talents but in the meantime I should dedicate myself
100 percent to carrying out the will of ―True Father‖ (that is, the Reverend Moon). So I
abruptly stopped writing, and for the next four years I wrote only letters to my family and a
few fairly prosaic essays for my classes at the Unification Theological Seminary in upstate
New York. The first part of this article deals with this period when I had few opportunities
for writing or creative expression.
But, as I will relate in more detail later, during my fourth year as a Unificationist, which was
also my second year at the Seminary, a seemingly insignificant event suddenly reopened
my urge to express myself in ways that put me sharply at odds with church authorities. For
the next six years, then, until I finally quit the Unification Church, I wrote often—beginning
with sermons for the Seminary, and then journal and diary entries, and finally articles for
two grass-roots Unificationist publications that briefly flourished in the mid-1980s. I will be
quoting from some of these sources to show how writing helped me clarify the single
biggest issue within myself: that is, the question of whether I should permit myself to feel
my real feelings, or whether I should obey the demands of church leaders by completely
repressing them. The second part of this article deals with this period of vacillation, when I
was still a Unificationist but had started to pull away.
Even after I finally concluded I could not hold back my real feelings, and that therefore I
must leave the Unification Church—which I finally did in 1986—the struggle was not over,
because I still had not settled the question of whether my choice was the right one—the one
that God wanted me to make. It took me another six years, and a near-return to the
Unification Church, before I could settle that question.
