Reverend Sun Myung Moon, age 92, Passes From This World
Read the WaPo article here.
I dont know much about what some scornfully call Rev Moon, that is ‘self-proclaimed messiah,’ for the Christ also ‘self-proclaimed’ himself as Messiah. Nor do I know about ‘financial irregularities’ Rev Moon was said to have had, as there are rampant ‘irregularities’ in many many large church systems and they have come to criminal light with regularity over the decades.
What I wonder more about, now that we know that J Edgar tried to subvert so many who merely disagreed with the ruling parties, that the Berrigan brothers were hounded by our government for speaking out strongly against war (one said we are burning draft cards in place of sending our children to be burnt [by artillery fire], that literally tens of thousands of people who had ‘a different idea’ of governance were ‘secretly’ following by government spies and infiltrators; that according to recently released Wikileak documents the US conspired with UK to literally undermine the freely elected Aristide of Haiti [after the murderous Papa Doc Duvalier and Bebé Doc Duvalier dictatorship), literally spreading rumors about Aristide being a drunk, liking underage women and practicing voodoo– all in order to scare the essentially rural and non-literate people away from him (He was a former Catholic priest who was elected by a huge majority… but apparently the US and UK hated that Aristide took on the murderous death squads of Duvalier, and took on the ricos who enslaved the poor, keeping them poor by dominating government, providing no means for reliable education and literacy, nor medicines nor health systems, just letting the Haitian people rot)… I wonder what the real story is about Reverend Moon.
In the little I have read about him, I find many charges made against him. I see he was placed in prison for tax evasion. I see the government in the US tried to hound and silence him. I also find he was received by many who were at war with one another… North Korea’s late president, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, HW Bush.
My sense is there’s more to the story than the stories we’ve been told. We were treated to the media’s ridicule and lambasting of Moon for holding huge weddings across the world. Yet only today, in the Washington Post piece have I ever heard there was a reason to Moon’s reasoning. What has been troped about him is that he was power mad and made people marry each other.
yet, in a similar vein to Gandhi who said, each muslim family ought adopt a hindu orphan child and love and raise that child, and each hindu family ought adopt a muslim child and love and raise that child… and then, there would be more understanding, more peace, for each would understand love not based on religion or nation, but as love. Just love.
This is what I did not know about Rev. Moon: his marriages were cross-cultural, often cross-racial, cross-religions. His idea was that if the world were better blended in love between those who had histories of being affronts to one another, that they and their children would be part of a peaceful movement in this world.
Religion is spit upon by some, scorned by others, held up as ‘not the true religion’ by others… and let to live in peace by yet others, and enjoined by many with whole hearts. We’ve seen a lot from those who negate and ridicule and charge. I wonder most of all, how/why leaders of powerful nations found Rev Moon a worthy minister to meet with. I cant imagine the leaders named willingly meeting with actual scammers clothed in religious whatever.
But then, dont know. The picture of Rummy all chummy and close with Saddam, stays in the mind.
I’d say, those who love Rev. Moon, may they be comforted. I’d say those disenchanted as it is called, hopefully find happiness. Those truly harmed, may they be healed.
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When I was in college, a man who was ‘rescued’ by his parents (and a deprogrammer) from the Moonies gave a talk. He explained the MO of the cult (yes it is a cult) and how they specifically looked for people who were 1) young adults 2) in a strange place. They looked for luggage, etc. Then they would begin asking questions in a friendly manner and happen to have grown up really close to just where the target had grown up. “Hey, I belong to a group that is having a spaghetti dinner and discussing social issues. Want to come?”
If they can get you hooked, then they offer to take you to a weekend seminar. On the bus out there, they get everyone singing songs from early childhood. At the seminar, they will ask for opinions, but will pretty much discount anything any newcomer says, while praising those who have been around a bit longer. They sleep-deprive their guests and do everything possible to make it very difficult to leave.
Eventually, they teach their ‘followers?’ meditation techniques to keep them running sing-song mantras through their heads in a continual feed-back loop to stop them from thinking rationally. The man who helped to deprogram the speaker at my college was known to the Moonies and hated. They had their faithful praying for that man’s death. They included the speaker on the prayer death list after he began speaking about his experiences.
The speaker actually had some resentment against the man who deprogrammed him, since he felt that the deprogrammer’s methods were unnecessarily harsh. Never the less, the main means of deprogramming someone from the cult was simply to get the person to think.
boy, that is a big problem. It’s so odd Rcoutme, that sometimes mainstream religions do some of these things too. Though often way younger and with parents’ approval… and as you say, about ‘getting person to think’… often about age 12-16, the youngsters do start to think for themselves and then the clangs begin, and divisions begin with the hierarchy giving favor to those who are touted as ‘the true believers’ vs the apostates. I shake my head sometimes.
“sometimes mainstream religions do some of these things too”
I still recall summer church camp… being told that hell is a real fire and to equate not giving into their teachings as the straightest to the pain of being set aflame.
of coarse, later in life I came across true scholars…not roving preachers…and I was truly enlightened.
There is very little differences in the recruiting strategies of accepted religions and cults. The real difference is their behavior after you have bought in. Scientology is a perfect example of the manipulation and psychological warfare being wages against their members.