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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

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for creative writing classes didn‘t even touch upon my cult background. However, a
professor at U.B.C. urged me to write about my cult experiences. Eventually, I obliged him
by writing a short story titled ―Partings,‖ about two teenage girls who leave Calgary on a
bus trip to California, and, after they meet the Moonies, one of them gets caught up in the
cult, while the other returns home. At the time I wrote this story, I didn‘t believe that mind
control existed, so to explain the difference between the two girls‘ responses to the
indoctrination camp, I set up the story so that one girl was more psychologically vulnerable
than the other, and it was the emotionally needy one who got drawn in. The other girl
narrates the story. Here‘s the closing paragraph from ―Partings‖:
I got on the bus and sat by the window, and in the last light of the evening I
saw her walking up the hill again to join the group of people who were staying
for the week. They had formed a big circle around a campfire and were
singing a lot of loud, happy songs, with Jacob playing his guitar as usual, and
everybody clapping in time. As she got closer to them, she suddenly broke
into a little run, and jumped into the circle, clapping her hands in time with
the others. I think that‘s what she loved the best about them: just the simple
things, like holding hands and singing songs about the Ideal World and acting
out all the words like some big grown-up kids. For a moment the campfire
flared up and caught her little dark face in its glow, and she was really smiling
now, like I almost never saw her smile, and in that moment, I knew how
much I loved her, and that I might not ever see her again.
Later, I wrote another short story in which I sought to recreate, as accurately as possible, a
typical day in the life of a fundraiser on the M.F.T. That story was eventually published in
the Baltimore City Paper in 1993 under the title ―True Father Knows Best.‖ Even though it
was written before I understood mind control and therefore contains some logical problems,
it remains one of the best things I have ever written about my Unification Church
experiences. The story is shot through with the haunting refrain, ―There was no time to
waste,‖ and it records one very long day in the life of a young man fundraising for the
Unification Church in Baltimore. Near the end of his fundraising day, he is given a chance to
make an emotional connection to a young woman on his fundraising team who is having
problems, but he rebuffs the opportunity, because he is afraid of where this might lead.
Here are the final paragraphs of that story:
Reinhard turned onto the expressway and drove silently for some time. There
was a dull strain of tension in the air. Nobody joked, nobody told an inspiring
testimony. The pale wash of the streetlights swept repeatedly over the seven
faces in the van, first Reinhard and Harumi-san, then Hilda, then the
brothers. Everyone was thoughtful, or praying, or staring out at the lowering
landscape. When he finally spoke, Reinhard looked up at the rear view mirror.
Our eyes connected in the glass. His eyes were as gray and cold as I‘d ever
seen them, and his words were flat and toneless.
―Margaret wasn‘t at her pick-up point,‖ he said. ―I asked inside the restaurant
where she starts her run, and they said she asked for directions to the bus
depot. She said she was going back to her family in Chicago. She gave them
her flowers, and left. When I got to the depot the bus was already gone.‖
So that was it. Margaret had left. She‘d joined the ranks of the unbelievers—
the walking dead. To keep Reinhard from noticing the tears that came to my
eyes, I put up my hands and began to pray. Only now that she was gone,
could I finally let myself feel that I loved her. I prayed that she would realize
her mistake and come back to the True Family. I promised to God that I
would work even harder as a heavenly soldier for Father. And then I turned