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any of these courses of action, I was allowed to decide for myself what I would do next,
provided the choice included leaving the Seminary as soon as possible. Therefore, I chose to
move to Los Angeles in 1980, so I could undertake Arthur Janov‘s primal therapy, the same
therapy that had interested me in 1976.
I could never afford to complete this therapy. And although the combination was unusual, I
remained an active member of the Unification Church throughout the time of my primal
therapy treatments (this flies in the face of Janov‘s general view that religious beliefs are
artifacts of emotional repression that will fall away after treatment). In fact, I even
interrupted my primal therapy treatments so I could participate in the mass wedding that
Moon staged at Madison Square Garden in 1982. One might conclude from this situation
that primal therapy was ineffective in breaking through my cultic mindset, though this
ineffectiveness might simply be due to the fact that I couldn‘t finish the therapy.
It took, therefore, more than six years from the day Fran reawakened my real feelings until
I was finally ready to leave the Unification Church. Throughout that interval, I continued to
explore my feelings in many journals and diaries as well, during the final months of my
ten-year membership in the Unification Church, I began to write articles and humorous
stories that appeared in The Round Table and in Our Network, two grass-roots Unificationist
publications that sprang up and briefly flourished in the mid-1980s. These two informal
publications—what are sometimes called ―zines‖—were put out by disaffected members of
the Unification Church without the consent or approval of their church superiors. They were
mailed free of charge to anyone who requested them.
The Round Table was sent out monthly or bimonthly from the New York area. The Round
Table was a serious-minded publication that saw itself as trying to spark a reform
movement in the Unification Church. Its logo included a drawing of Martin Luther nailing the
95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church.
The other newsletter, Our Network, was much more quirky and informal. True to
stereotype, this one came out of California. It included cartoons, poetry, and comedy lists
among its offerings. For Our Network, I wrote satirical pieces. In one of them, I imagined
myself going to ―Honest Dave‘s Used Theology Lot‖ to try to trade in Moon‘s Divine Principle
for an alternate belief system. In another, I pictured the world in 2084 after the Unification
Church had finally taken over, making joking parallels to George Orwell‘s Nineteen Eighty-
Four.
My final article for The Round Table bore the title ―The Benefits of Repression.‖ I did not
intend this title ironically. I was genuinely trying to argue for the benefits of repressing
feelings yet, at the same time, I wanted to put forward the idea—which was considered
subversive in the Unification Church—that repressing feelings is not invariably beneficial
sometimes it is merely a habit, what I called ―institutionalized repression.‖ ―The Benefits of
Repression‖ appeared in The Round Table in November of 1986, the same month I became
an ex-member of the Unification Church. Writing that piece had been a last-ditch attempt to
try to see things the church‘s way, but now I was out.
To many people, the fact that I even wrote these pieces for The Round Table and Our
Network is proof that I could not possibly have been under the influence of mind control. I
believe, however, that although these writings were written in defiance of the Unification
Church hierarchy, I was still very much under the influence of mind control, and these
writings were merely the final stages of a prolonged, six-year inner struggle. Right up to the
final month of my cult involvement, the thought of actually leaving the church remained a
terrifying and unthinkable prospect.
Writing helped me throughout the six years from 1980 to 1986 while I sought
unsuccessfully to reconcile the church‘s insistence on emotional repression with my own

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insistence on feeling my real feelings. My writings during that period reflected my split
personality, in that they often tried to endorse both viewpoints. Even though I was terrified
of the idea of leaving, it became more and more evident that I was being pushed to the
margins of the church because of my insistence on staying in touch with my feelings.
Finally, late in 1986, after an explosive argument with another church member, I felt there
was no point in continuing to stay in the organization. I knew I could no longer be happy as
a member, and if I stayed I would be merely hanging on grimly, while feeling miserable the
entire time. Therefore, I borrowed some money from an acquaintance and took the bus
home to my family.
Part Three: Triumph of Expression over Repression, 1986 -1992
Following my return to my parents‘ home and to the city where I grew up—Calgary,
Alberta—I had vague plans of applying to study journalism, but I was turned down by the
universities to which I applied. While trying to come up with an alternative plan, I took
temporary jobs as a clerk typist and later as a word-processing operator, because typing
was the only job skill I still possessed after ten years in the Unification Church. I got an
apartment in downtown Calgary and prepared to settle into a life that seemed shallow and
empty compared to the apocalyptic fervor of my former cult life.
But, eventually, unhappy with the routine of my fairly ordinary jobs, I sought out a
conventional counselor (which is to say he was not an exit counselor), and he encouraged
me to return to my original ambition to become a writer of novels and stories. In 1990, I
applied to the highly regarded Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing at the
University of British Columbia.
Around the time I made my application to U.B.C., I received a surprising letter from the
woman to whom I had once been engaged by Moon through his arranged-marriage process.
She was someone I had not known before we were engaged, but who I came to love as I
got to know her better. She was from England, and during the time I knew her she lived in
one or the other of England, Scotland, or France. We were never permitted to live together.
(I have called her Eleanor for the purposes of this essay and my book).
Eleanor quit the Unification Church in 1984—two years before I also left, so our ―marriage‖
had never really gotten off the ground. But now, some six years later, she had returned to
the Unification Church in London. Eleanor hoped to revive our relationship by drawing me
back into the church. I agreed to visit her.
During my time in London, Eleanor and the other Unification Church members persuaded
me to abandon my plans to return to school in favor of rejoining the church and emigrating
to England. If I had gone through with this plan, church authorities would have eventually
allowed the two of us to live together, but probably not for a few years. Why would I even
agree to such an arrangement? I suppose mainly because I had not arrived at a complete
resolution of my cult experience, so one part of myself still felt that I should have remained
loyal to Moon therefore, if an opportunity that was at least marginally bearable came for
me to ―go back to Father,‖ I was still vulnerable to being persuaded that I was morally
obligated to go back. As well, I still felt some fondness for Eleanor personally.
Fortunately, when I returned to Canada intending to wind up my affairs, I also returned—
with difficulty—to my senses. I was feeling very uneasy about giving up my plans to study
writing, because this was something I had become more and more excited about. At last, I
called Eleanor and emphatically broke it off between us.
When I finally did return to the university, in September of 1990, I had no intention of
writing about my cult experiences. I felt that that my Unification Church involvement was
behind me, and I should move on with my life. The first poems and stories that I produced