Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 27
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
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
