Cultish: Leaving the Moonies, Pt. 1

all right welcome back ladies and gentlemen to coltish entering the kingdom of the colts my name is jeremiah roberts i am one of the co-hosts here i am here uh with andrew the fir the super sleuth of the show uh this episode is dropping in 2021 but as at this point in time we are still uh in 2020 so hopefully uh we will make it out of 2020 when this episode releases but anyways how are you doing man i'm doing better than i deserve dude and i'm doing so good because i'm sitting also across from the absolute drew we've got drew in the studio with us today how you doing drew i am doing well i'm just honestly really excited really honored to be here with you guys i was really excited to be on with both of you it's just really cool for me yeah man i figured i figured you've always kind of been here behind the scenes and you're kind of here with us on our end of the year podcast kind of hanging out with you and matthew hunter the uh husband of joy uh the girl uh tenby or not timmy that's her that's that was her maiden name hunter yes but uh we are here with i feel silly because in the intro i i totally i feel like i was like second guessing your name because for the longest time i thought it was hannah but it's actually hannah hannah hannah hannah hannah castaneda okay i love it i love it um so welcome thanks you flew in from california so uh glad uh you got to escape from all the craziness i mean things are probably you're from the bay area which is even that place from what i understand it just everything's a complete lockdown i was telling you that even the san francisco 49ers they're actually playing some of their home games here in arizona because everything is that draconian shut down so yeah times are strange but all that aside uh we are here today because we got we connected and we got in touch up probably it was probably a couple months ago and you had talked about how you had grown up in the unification church uh aka the moonies and they are uh one of those cults it's featured in walter martin's kingdom of the cults it's something that he addressed during his time uh it's a cult in the 19 when did it kind of come to fruition because this clip that we played uh introducing this podcast this is an interview from 1974 and you can tell it's like very old school it's not you wouldn't see an interview like this today the interview guy has a cigarette in his hand and it's just very old camera old school interview but um but yeah so you grew up in the unification church and um you're here to talk to us about that and so i think would be good is um maybe just tell them a little bit about yourself and maybe start explaining too because i want to i think people need to understand the context of who sung yung moon was kind of what the theology is and in relation to they're kind of known for their mass marriages that's kind of like that that's one thing that really defines them what it's like to have children the aspect of having children those different aspects what they believe about god what they believe about jesus what they believe about salvation because that sort of sets the foundation for really how you operated as someone who kind of grew up yeah in the moonies so let's start with this uh revan sung young moon let's how did it start what's the initial origin story of the unification church yeah so reverend sun myung moon he was born i believe it was in the 1920 in north korea and um he's a self-proclaimed second like he proclaims himself as the second coming the second messiah um and yeah the moonies they're known for their mass marriages um one of the biggest things that they really focus on is um the like the blood lineage so their whole idea of like what the fall is is totally anti-christian um and we can maybe go into that you know into depth more but um the marriages focus around creating a pure blood lineage so moon proclaimed himself as being sinless and thereby having all these mass marriages um from from those marriages would produce like sinless children so my parents were the first generation that kind of joined and i would say it really blew up in america like around like the 70s 80s i'm not too good with dates but um and i was born 92 so i was i was considered second generation they would call everyone who was born from these these mass marriages were second generation um they would call us blessed children we were born without the original sin right um from the fall so that basically you know is that we were we're told that we were no longer part of satan's lineage we were pure right um that's kind of uh i don't know if that clarifies some things of like how i was raised so it was this weird dichotomy of like feeling very special but then never really being good enough um yeah very very works based how did your parents get into it um so my my dad's actually from austria and my mother is american um and they were in an arranged marriage in new york um so i don't know if you ever if you researched on this stuff but one of their biggest mass marriages was i think in 82 in madison square garden in new york um and they're very big about cross-cultural cross-cultural marriages um and also like uniting all world religions which we can definitely get into too because the bible goes into that yeah um yeah um so one of the things too is though when you talk about the uh going back to like how things originated so uh sung young moon he initially like wall tomorrow was kind of making a comparison in kingdom of the colts of him to joseph smith right so apparently he had a point where he claims to have had sort of a private revelation or an encounter with jesus and this is sort of where he got at age 16. at age 16 and this was where he realized that he was the second he was sort of the messiah of the messiah well he so uh what he claims is that when he was 16 so just kind of backtrack he grew up um his parents were actually i think daois um and they were like kind of poor farmers he grew up that and then they converted i think 1930 to the presbyterian church um but he received some revelation at age 16 on a mountaintop on easter sunday jesus came down to him and basically was asking him to fulfill his mission so that's what their whole doctrine is based off of is that jesus did not fulfill his mission he only um was able to bring salvation spiritually and that um rover moon had to complete complete his mission right now when you knew you say i'll jump in here too in a second too andrew but um so we want to make sure we define terms because a lot of times what cults will do is that they'll use language kind of the same way how mormons will say how we need to return to our heavenly father right and while in many ways you could sort of use that terminology to to explain orthodox christianity they mean fundamentally different things so there's always a language barrier when it comes to the cults so when they talk about jesus's mission uh from a christian perspective from a biblical perspective you're thinking about jesus christ coming to live a perfect life to live the live the perfect life that we can never live and to be the perfect sacrifice so we could have our sin exchanged for his righteousness by faith in him like fundamental orthodox christianity but what he taught and you can explain this to us is that it wasn't jesus purpose wasn't just a die for the sins of the world it was to get married yes yeah and that's where they take things out of context especially when they say like um when the bible refers to the bride of jesus which is the church but they take that literally as in jesus was supposed to have a literal biological wife um just you know and so gosh um they believed that jesus was supposed to come and that his disciples were supposed to find him a bride he was supposed to get married and have children and create a pure blood lineage but because of the lack of faith of his disciples or whatever happened that he had to go the way of the cross that that was not god's intention um and basically he wasn't able to fulfill his his mission thereby you know moon's saying i need to fulfill the mission have a family um yeah so i want to hinge back real quick to the the vision account too so they do claim like hana was saying uh on easter morning but actually so they say it was april 17th 1936 it was easter morning but if you actually just have a calculator you can go back into calendars uh easter 17 1936 was a friday not a sunday let alone easter sunday right yeah let alone easter sunday exactly like so it's just not even it's like just just going into it is really interesting but also the parallels between joseph smith and moon is the fact that the first vision they don't really actually even know the real date it happened so there's arguments between them right between him being the age 16 or the age 17 they've just given us a date now just like how we can see there's multiple first vision accounts with uh joseph smith they just kind of agree upon one but they don't actually have solid historical fact there are all these blurry facts that kind of shift over time depending on you know what's necessary right so really so and so how does this affect you because we always talk about how theology affects people bad theology hurts people um so what how from your vantage point then is that your your parents would have been first generation uh they actually participated in one of these marriage ceremonies uh with sun young moon and in fact if you just look up mooney's mass marriage on youtube you'll see tons of accounts for that i think vice has some documentaries and it's been featured a whole bunch of different times but so their idea was that you would create the second generation they'd be known as the you talk about the seaweed known as the blessed children right so it means that your parents would have view you in a very unique way um and you probably have a unique view of yourself i mean kind of told that you know you probably i'm assuming you probably grew up with friends that were not in your church and so it's like how would you have the mindset as a child being that you're a blessed you're want this blessed child specifically chosen because your parents were in this marriage by the second messiah versus just your friend across the street yeah i mean um i you know from a young age i always knew intuitively that something was pretty off about um the church i was always questioning everything so when i was told that i was like born without this original sin and that i was sort of just you know they they really exalted like oh the blessed children we would even like our parents would have to bow to us there was a lot of bowing and a lot of um yeah uh i guess asian tradition um because moons from korea and even their you know their holy land um is is in korea um so being being kind of exalted and having this pressure put on you and saying like you are god's hope for the world but then you look around you look at your family you look at other they call them blessed families right um and you seeing how messed up and dysfunctional it is it just didn't make sense and that's what sinless looks like this is your idea of sinless right there's all this dysfunction it's like you have to change the definition of what sin even is yeah how to function how did that work like growing up in in church how is there like counseling or anything like that like saying that there's you know issues going on in your life or even having to address sin issues like how do you think about your own thoughts in that sense when you're growing up it's like well i'm supposed to be sinless but i'm having these thoughts that i i know are sinful right you know like how how does counseling work in the unification church with the blessed children um i wouldn't even really say that there's any proper counseling um you know i think that's why unfortunately so many people come out of colts and unification church with just so much mental health um and that was me too you know before i i came to christ or he came to me you know but um you know you're the the really sad thing about it is that um they would preach repentance and they would preach sin but they never offered grace and forgiveness and so you're in this constant cycle of like okay so i'm told that i'm um you know i don't have this original sin that i'm god's hope for the world yet um i'm thinking things i shouldn't think and why am i so messed up right and then i'm just basically trying to chase my tail and they're they they talk about indemnity so you have to and paying indulgences or you might have issues from you know some ancestor committed this sin so um you have to go restore and liberate your ancestors and that's a whole other other thing um so all this extra unnecessary guilt just out into kind of nowhere yeah so you're just kind of like in this muck admirer of guilt and shame um and just basically you know um trying to compensate and make up for um just where you fall short um so they do these things called um i would say like indulgences or um uh just paying paying indemnity for uh the sins that you paid rather than looking for christ that was you know everything was paid for on the cross um you're you're trying to um you know just pay for those things yourself so what takes place during those ceremonies so people your ancestors guilt upon you what was that you have your ancestors guilt kind of upon you that you have to help yeah as well yeah they call it hereditary sin so um yeah so in korea they um they have a place called chiang pyong and it's sort of like this this marble city all dedicated to unification church members and a lot of them like flock throughout the year um you know and uh it's all built upon really sort of ancestral veneration or ancestral uh worship so people go to these they have these massive halls where you sit in rows very organized rows and you have these korean leaders just kind of walking around and you have a stage of people um singing and dancing to a very like um systematic beat and you're you're hitting actually parts of your body to liberate yourself of maybe evil spirits or yeah and um and then yeah seriously yeah and just um yeah so they they they worship ancestors they you know talk to the dead um all those good things yeah yeah and then yeah so that also what i was curious i mean your outline you talked about so being someone who's second generation you are essentially because a lot of this has to do with lineage um you know it's about and also it's very generational focused there's a big family aspect a generational aspect to it but you'd written down that second generation that your view you're viewed as pure and in god's lineage and you are and so your parents the first generation they were in satan's lineage prior to sun young moon prior to like the marriage ceremony yes and then but even though you're you're viewed as a you would be one of the people in second generation who's viewed as a blessed child but they would say you still have five percent responsibility yes but god said ninety-five percent you have to do the five percent right so what does that five percent look like that would include like getting matched and going to the this you know the holy marriage ceremony um you know uh having having children you know if i had children say if i was born or i was uh married to another second generation and then had children they would be like third generation that's just kind of like advancing the kingdom in their eyes um and be reading all of um moon's speeches um and they have different rituals and things they do like they have something called uh hundo ke they use a lot of korean language um so we would be reciting pledges uh in korean at like five a.m a lot of bowing um different things like that but i would say the biggest thing was a round uh revolved around the the holy marriage ceremony that's interesting and then going to korea is a big thing as well so yeah tell them about the the korea aspect because in many ways this is uh i mean i don't know how much people in unification church can do that right now because of covet because literally everything is locked down but typically they would uh see this almost as sort of like a holy pilgrimage in many ways in islam they would see that doing doing their pilgrimage to mecca is something that's very unique uh for them but just tell them just a little bit about that as well too yeah so um uh going to korea and to their you know their holy land that's i wouldn't it's not like a requirement but it's definitely very it's encouraged um especially if people are dealing with um certain sins um that are unexplainable they'll say well it's probably because of some ancestor you know did this this sin um or some medium will tell them um you know you should go to go to korea and um you know do all these rituals and stuff like that um that's that's sort of their their way of um just i guess uh what did i say just yeah i'm kind of blanking right now i have a question i'm just really really curious if as a second generation unification member like a the perfect child you're sinless why do you have five percent of your salvation left to earn if you're already sinless so they bel they believe that second generation are born without the original sin so they they oh so you can still commit actual sins in them yeah you can still have other sins and the original sin is based on the foundation that so what did you were you able to research anything about the fall like what their belief is or what the fall of adam and eve was i did and that was insane i never even heard anything like that yeah do me a favor tell me what did you when you looked into that tell me about what did you find out about that yeah so there is well correct me because you have been in this way longer than i have which has been for just a number of hours but um there unlike in scripture romans chapter 5 speaks abundantly clearly to the fact that adam sinned and we all fell in adam and that there are two different representative heads of all of humanity and either you are in adam and you're condemned or you're in christ and you have the free gift of justification and life eternal life um when adam sinned according to scripture in genesis 3 all everyone fell into sin with him um and all of his descendants are now sinners like so many theologians have said we do not we're not sinners because we commit acts of sin but we commit acts of sin we sin because we're sinners by nature the understanding and i want you to correct me if i'm wrong of the fall according to sun young moon is that eve had sex with satan yes and then she was she had this kind of original sin from satan himself and then she passed that sin on from herself to adam right by subsequently having sex with adam and then all original al all the stain of original sin came down the line through sex because of that original unholy union of satan with eve and then every subsequent sexual union that took place and every other person born after them uh has this mark of satan as a result of that is that correct that's absolutely correct yeah okay that's that's what and that's why they they focus so much around the the marriage ceremony and yeah having like a pure blood lineage um and if you actually go back in in uh dr walter martin's book he talks about like in the early church when reverend moon started the church he would do these things called blood cleansing um and i read about that that was that made my blood boil i'll be honest yeah tell it's for anyone just can you explain to one i just think just so the audience can get context too what what what was that what was blood cleansing like during the early days of the unification church yeah so um because moon was seen as someone that was sinless um a lot of the the women in the early church and he later got a lot of accusation from it from like the authorities and stuff in korea but um he would have uh sex with a lot of the um uh younger members women um i don't i think some of them were were married or just you know just women in the church and in that way he was able to purify their blood lineage and then of course that woman would be with her husband and that way that their whole and then their family would subsequently be cleansed yeah that is disgusting that is evil um quick question moon according to his own teaching he did not have original sin correct yeah so one question i had was if moon did not have original sin how did moon's own parents avoid passing original sin unto him when they had sex to conceive him wouldn't according his own theology he received the original sin from his own parents who had the mark of satan still passing on to him how did he avoid that yeah i don't know if moon actually goes into that um i think uh some people what i remember hearing is that once he received i guess the um the vision from when jesus came to him that kind of wiped everything in the past yeah that's what i remember hearing growing up but that's convenient to be honest there's like a lot of blurred lines right um and a lot of stuff that's you'll hear contradictory things from different members so yeah forgive me if i'm not super clear no don't worry i mean i actually would be surprised if um if the church had an answer to that question yeah in fact drew one of the things too it means i love the fact that you're on here because like you're you're no no it's no no no no no it's awesome like you you brought that up and you know but it's most of the time you know we would view a lot of people would just view why would someone logically get into something like this who's making such a claim but most of the time when people get into a cult you know usually they're kind of they kind of bring these things up progressively and usually when you're totally convinced that this person is the messiah and they have this great and transcendent experience like thinking through what you just brought up drew logically it's it's it's usually not something that's going to be like people are going to think that way because once you kind of get to the point yeah once you're in that far to you that you have to do all these other works um messiah so like your condition like you must like that logical reasoning must at some way be faulty because he's just the messiah and you just have to you know believe it right right exactly so i think once you get in your priority too is that once you get to a point where you're kind of brought through that step by step uh gradually you get to the point where you're not thinking through that type of reasoning well what about sun young moon's parents uh anything like that um but maybe also too explain some of the processes of the what happens in in the uh marriage ritual because also this will this will correlate too with what they believe about god because he uh songham was born to parents who are confusion who believed in confucius and so they he kind of blended in a lot of eastern ideas uh spiritism and kind of blended that in with christianity and in very ways in many ways we talked about yesterday hannah it's it's similar to our series on the enneagram because that's another example you're kind of seeing a hybrid of like with richard rohr a lot of eastern ideas uh trying to blend them into christianity but maybe just explain too for people can understand what earth what takes place in the ritual like religiously uh during the marriage ceremony um and how does that connect to spiritism and just tell them about what takes place during those ceremonies so people can understand yeah so um i i personally have never attended one right all my siblings have um but as far as i know they're extremely long drawn out ceremonies um sorry what are these ceremonies the merit like the masters the mass marriage okay um so the marriage ceremonies i mean um some some people they'll go and there's like matchings held beforehand before the actual marriage ceremony where people will be um matched by and you'll have like some people that are mediums um i think in the early days when uh moon reverend you know sunny moon he was actually doing the matchings he was um he was uh being guided by different spirits um you know finding you know which man would fit perfectly with with which with whatever woman but later on he stopped doing i think some of the the marriage ceremonies and it kind of evolved in this this state where the actual parents of the children would start choosing um spouses for their children and nowadays um kids that are that are born into into the church will kind of just court each other just kind of on their their own terms and you know they'll have some counseling here and there but in terms of the marriage ceremony i'm not really sure what actually goes on specifically um they're just taking vows basically to um be married under um you know that they call them the true parents of mankind reverend moon and his wife um and uh yeah a lot of them are are international marriages so some people will will show up and they'll have these you know these matchings where you know one day they just get matched to a complete stranger from from africa or from japan and then the next day they're married and they go off and you know start a family so yeah so a lot of different different cases um yeah but you're saying something about spirit how he is sort of orchestrates spiritism uh within the marriage ceremony yeah um i'm not sure really how that works um there there's a lot of uh different like leaders that would i think come in and probably help and assist with the matchings and stuff because there was just you know thousands he'd have some marriage ceremonies that were up to 300 000 people um all at one time all at one time yeah um but yeah they used a lot of like different mediums and spiritists i'm not sure how he actually you know was working with them but uh their their view of i mean just for for an example his his son died in an automobile accident in 1984 and he found relief by contact with the spiritist who he then hired to work in his staff so he had spirit spiritists all around him constantly so also if you think in terms of how he acted of course if he has this messiah complex just thinking and being there he can be in quote-unquote contact with other spirits and just say this is what they told me right but the but the issue is is are you really hearing things from jesus or the holy spirit are you getting information from muhammad yeah that sounds safe like because he didn't just claim to contact let's say jesus in these visions he also said that he saw buddha that he had conversations with him with muhammad with all kinds of different spirits right so when we think about how spiritism works in forms of of moon it doesn't necessarily mean like a seance has to be happening during these uh wedding ceremonies he can just say what he wants and just attribute it to spirits but also one thing i found interesting while doing some research it says that every couple after they get married they spend the following 40 days in celibacy and then they consummate the marriage for three days only to practice three additional years of celibacy that is such control i that that's the that's the thing right if you think about the the original context of the fall uh making it focus around sex it's all a part of control and end up depriving you of it for so long yeah and that's like you know first corinthians 7 we see it happening all the time jim jones did very similar things with people that were married he was trying to control the relationship control the family which you then can mentally be there all the time in their lives even when you're not around right yeah and in fact you know this is one of those things too is that you know uh one of the one of my favorite authors he's not a christian but uh steve hassan uh has a book combating cult mind control uh and it's just a fantastic book and his whole story too is that he got recruited and got indoctrinated into the moonies and he ended up being deprogrammed which i uh drew you watched me last night too yeah it was called ticket to heaven which i'm fully convinced it's it's loosely based on steve hassan's story um eve why doesn't mention the moonies i just it's a it's ridiculously similar uh they probably had to put that legal disclaimer out but it's i think it actually came out the year i was born in 1981 but it's it's just very interesting seeing the control that happens and while i appreciate what steve hassan has done in his work both freedom of mind and combating colt mind control i believe that his bite model outside of a biblical worldview you can't give an ultimate accounting for the behavior control the information control the thought control the emotional control all that stems from the theology uh which is really a distortion based off of a distortion misinterpretation of of the bible and of god's word um but also what i want to do as a foundation as we kind of really kind of get into your story and what it was go uh what it was like we were kind of explaining people that the kind of just an over a basic overview of some of the fundamental beliefs uh and so in the same way how he was born to confucian parents uh i mean he had his parents were confusion or believing confucius and so he blended in a lot of eastern ideas um explain some of the theology as far as wha what what did seong young moon believe and teach about god uh ng and and who jesus was and also the holy spirit because in all those aspects you're gonna see uh things blended into them because we were talking about that yesterday right so the biggest thing about god is that um and i was uh researching up on this is that um moon uh the way that he interpreted the bible a lot of i don't know if it was it was the entire bible he interpreted this way but he used the i ching which comes from taoism um and so the way that he describes god and even in you know their their doctrine the divine principle is that god is of dualistic characteristics so that he's yin and yang male and female um dark and light and um also that uh god has a second nature that creation is like the the visible manifestation of god um also known as basically pan atheism right yeah um that's their view of god and also they they they paint this picture what i realized um early on in my walk uh with christ is that um the way that uh their their view of god is that god he's painting this picture that he's he's sort of like this needy god he's dependent on man to um complete his mission um and that he's yeah he's reliant on man um that's that's the the biggest biggest thing about what their beliefs are and who god is um in terms of the holy spirit they all they remember growing up and what they would say is that the holy spirit is the feminine aspect of god um i i wouldn't be able to go too much into detail about you know what that what that really is um their views on that and then in terms of jesus they do not believe that jesus is god they believe he's the son of god but not god himself um and that they don't believe in the resurrection they believe that when he when he arose it was just sort of like it wasn't a bodily resurrection yeah it was like spiritual yeah like a gnostic kind of just appearing yeah exactly okay yeah and so so that's again just understand that this is the framework in which you grew up and this is what you're surrounded by so again you have a theology that's a distortion of who jesus is and and and also just of the holy trinity um because you have misinterpretations of god the father jesus the holy spirit um you have a distorted view of salvation um and also almost a distorted view of your parents who are just biblically they're just fallen fallible people that ultimately are going to hurt and to fail you but through stunning's view is that they were part of this first and pure and holy generation that were cut off from the seed of satan to being part of this holy lineage via sung young moon now you're the second generation so it's all just all things that were kind of distorted um versus so in other ways there's not because you're put on such a pedestal right there's no like how do you even process just things that just difficulties and dysfunctions in just growing up and every fact every family on some level is dysfunctional you know but how do you even process normal dysfunctions like there's no point of reference to do that right there isn't and that's what obviously like that led me into like going to the new age after you know because i was just i was so broken and so confused that i was genuinely seeking healing and seeking answers and seeking truth um and you know as you know from from just the background of a moon and his theology is very tied into new age yeah um so it kind of feels like a pillow for your head coming out yeah it was interesting because it was like i felt so suppressed as a kid so new age kind of offered that um giving the appearance that it was like spiritual you know and kind of um uh going towards truth but it gave me the freedom to do what i wanted to do and right um yeah yeah but you said so in other words so up until i mean growing being born up until age 14 you would say you pretty much had a would be a normal childhood yeah in the back of your head you just knew that something was kind of off um was there what were things that just that you observed i mean it's always interesting we've had episodes where we've talked with people who kind of grew up you know jehovah's wit in the watchtower bible and track society and jehovah's witness and you know they obviously just felt out of place because they couldn't celebrate birthdays and or we couldn't celebrate christmas or these other holidays with everyone else so they're just ways and sometimes you felt a bit out of place um what just ages 0 to 14 what can you explain maybe any unique given the whole culture that really is fundamentally that's really the is it's the theater flows from the theology of sun young moon and what was taught but what would be just some unique things that just you experienced from your vantage point you know up until 14 years old that was unique uh that you remember um yeah just that what were some things you remember seeing or experiencing yeah i think um and we talked about this yesterday like um i know i love my parents but i i i something that i i realized where i kind of observed as a young child was um seeing my parents who had dedicated their entire lives to this movement and yet they were i could see that they were like really broken and and lost and um pushing hard you know to advance sort of uh the unifications view of what the kingdom was and also just not understanding why my parents were together because they didn't know each other and all the like the first generation when they were matched and and blessed into this movement um you know they they uh there wasn't any um there was a lack of affection that i think any kid um that seeks that um just parents that love each other and um have a healthy family um that that wasn't explained like that wasn't um expressed in my family so something always felt off as a kid um it made me question um why they were why were they they were together and the only reason they were really together was um because of their dedication to moon and and his mission um so that was the biggest thing and then i also remember like when passion of christ came out as a kid um i was really young but i remember watching it i didn't understand everything but i remember seeing um jesus being crucified and i was actually just filled with so much emotion and tears and i was like so moon is claiming to be the second coming of of christ but something just it pricked my heart so different i was like this doesn't yeah this doesn't add up this doesn't make sense yeah to moon his death on the cross was a failure yeah because he didn't have children and create the true family yeah and you're seeing the pain represented in a movie of course of jesus the creator of heaven and earth all things visible and invisible portrayed on screen and you're like this doesn't seem like it was a failure this seems like total accomplishment for my failures and what i find really interesting too thinking about growing up how you would have grown up i know there's a form of ancestral veneration that goes on but it seems like it's almost flip-flopped right so like your parents have you you're the second generation so you're one without this original sin so you said there's times where they bowed down to you so i can see a manifestation of the spirit that they worshipped showing itself that their faith and their hope is not in the true and living god jesus christ it's actually in their children yeah you're bowing to each other too you know kids bow to their parents their parents out of them um yeah it's really it's really an an interesting thing to think about yeah it's really really really awesome it's very man centered right for sure but yeah when i watched um passion of christ i mean um i didn't obviously understand theologically anything about the bible or whatever but um it was i remember it being such a deep and profound moment as a kid and um it just was yeah it's pretty it's pretty significant it's a weird juxtaposition with the truth about history that it all revolves around christ that this is the central you know pinpoint changing part of history the revelation of christ him taking that god took on flesh and died on the cross since that's true yeah and we all experience and live life in his creation once you watch it regardless of how you're brought up there's something that happens right your heart's either softened or your heart's hardened yeah and it seems like the lord was softening your heart in that regard yeah yeah and then um and that's it also i mean you talked about in kind of growing up i mean as much as you are told how special you are and how unique you are and above everyone else there's almost even as a young child you kind of felt there's sort of like this you you put it down as a suffocating sense of responsibility and possible expectations to kind of live up to yeah so it's almost like in your heart of hearts even as a young child you kind of knew you're giving this yolk that was maybe like unattainable yeah or just like how do i really live up to it but how do i maybe like you it was it may be like you kind of knew deep down inside that there's no way i can live up to this but who do i even talk to you to say that right almost like there's an atmosphere inner episodes on people who in jehovah's witnesses where you kind of have to put this happy face all the time but there's everyone has their stuff that yeah in their junk that you have to kind of work and talk through yeah but in a sociological environment where you're all god's special and holy lineage like where's there to talk about that i mean what what was that like too i mean in between that each and that age frame of just what would explain that a little bit too like in terms of just um just emotionally psychologically as a kid yeah or um it was i mean just like i said i i just felt like constantly under pressure that i had to meet this expectation and i think a lot of cults work that way because you're you're constantly trying to you know just get to the next best level um and realizing you know you can you can't do that um we're really just trying to attain this this peace the state of peace um but it's it's all focused around um you know workspace righteousness right what can i do to um you know basically feel better about myself or what can i do to you know honor my parents more or yeah so there was never any any solution i was just basically like chasing my tail all the time it's hard to be jesus when you can't be jesus yeah exactly yeah and that was a big thing too and i think there's some similarities between mormonism and um you know unification church members is that you're you're kind of like putting this position of like you're like this little god you know um and so you're you know um that's what i was basically trying to do is just save myself um because i was never never given that that gives me a question what what did they believe about essentially the afterlife then right so like say you die what what happens then yeah that's the thing there's no like assurance on like where you're gonna go when you die they you touched up a little bit on it like they believe in um like nine levels of of the spirit world um and that's this so some of their beliefs and what i've heard is that when you die um you go somewhere in the spirit world and um just based on whatever whatever works you do here but kind of what i would say like grants you maybe access to a secure place in the heavenly kingdom is accepting you know moon is as the second coming as the messiah going to the holy marriage ceremony um but then you're five percent basically left to you that you have to do all these other works um and then yeah whatever you do on earth that kind of translates into the spirit world and whatever generations that you leave behind you your lineage um their works basically account to levels that you're able to reach in the spirit world we've got this weird blending of lds theology and roman catholicism with like merits you know yeah i mean it's interesting it seems like it's like schrodinger's cat and russian roulette and rolling the dice all at once in terms of where you're gonna end up after you're dead even if you're an extremely faithful member of this church right so the moonies were also known they they kind of had a reputation for their sociological um that i mean in the 70s it was interesting too because baltimore talks about how they are kind of known as the the cult that would brainwash people i mean they the big aspects again steve hassan had was the pro after he has an amazing story too which i think in the movie uh take it to heaven was based off of it yeah but he um yeah but he got to a point where he was deprogrammed and eventually that had to stop because a lot of times the program involved actual kidnapping which is against the law so it was just kind of complex but they were kind of known for that um and eventually you know sun and moon kind of really did a bunch of pr stuff to turn that around but they were really known for just very much using the sociological aspects and undue influence and group things to get people to think and move one way um so i'm curious too in on any way that you would experience that because in in the outline you you had put down that you had spent hours of your childhood going to these quote providential speeches uh sitting on floors for many hours with hundreds of members and many times the speeches were in korean yeah so you've had little like you'd have sometimes translators and stuff there yeah um but yeah that was a big part of it you know and i think that's something to touch up on is um and i think how a lot of cults operate and just how i remember from my own experience growing up was you're constantly busy so you're never given really time to really think for yourself and um we were talking yesterday uh jeremiah and i um that i remember when i was going to this boarding school uh that i would make excuses to go on like 21 day no no talking fast like from anybody but it was sort of like my way of uh being able to like get alone time and really think for myself and you know reevaluate like what this all was about but it was constantly you know go go go and you had you know this speech after another speech after you know it was all doing doing doing and not really um you know and then also being i remember so many times um being accused of like being selfish for taking time uh by myself um to just you know go for a walk or eat alone and you know kind of separate myself from the group so everything had it done had to be done in like the public eye why 21 day fast is there a specific reason behind that they're really big on numbers um so they have like they call them like providential numbers um i don't honestly know like the because because i was i was reading and uh supposedly to become a member you actually have to be part of a 21 day work group yeah right so that that's why i was like clicking in my head i wonder why 21 day fast but imagine like like you said sitting on the floor listening to like korean and all this stuff going on yeah for 21 days straight that's that's called programming not not being with anyone else for 21 days except this and you can't go to the bathroom yeah isolated group of people yeah that is just and you're being programmed like straight up yeah and so in and compatible mind control going back to that and and again if you guys want like it's definitely a great book to read and uh there's actually if you look up i mean this episode there's an episode where he is on the joe rogan experience and if you look up steve asanjo rogan obviously in that episode there's some there's some colorful language that's used so if you have sensitive ears you need to be aware of that but he kind of goes a lot more into the his whole story and in that he talked about when he he initially uh when he was in college he went to this retreat um and in it that happened too where he was not permitted to uh he was always alone uh he was never allowed to be alone he was always with someone and then you know whenever he had a question they'd always say oh we'll get to you we'll get back to you on that we'll answer that later on more more will be revealed at another time almost similar to the world mission society church of god remember when michael you know what's talking when the questions get too tough yeah but it's always always two pieces in a pod when it comes to that sort of thing it's always as fast rapid fire techniques which ultimately doesn't allow someone to think critically but he had that happen too where you know there would also be a lot of sleep deprivation he couldn't sleep a whole lot and so it was actually within a very short amount of time he completely uh believed that you know sun yamun was the messiah to really prior to that i mean he had a background just growing up jewish and he didn't really have any sort of strong religious connotations probably 21 days jerry yeah probably it was a very short amount of time yeah they take your phones away too like when i went to school with um and that's you know just uh fyi not every unification church member who was born into the church like i was went to you know had i had more of like the intense side of it you know some kids just grew up an oral family you know church every sunday but i went to like an actual you know pretty much in this bubble of um kids that grew up with me and then you had all these chur you know teachers that were not accredited um uh and they you know they really did not um uh encourage like i mean they did encourage you academically but it was mainly just they wanted you to understand their doctrine um and but yeah taking like phones away they did they discouraged against from like having relations outside um i mean you would go fundraising fundraising fundraising was a big aspect um and uh then the movie ticket to heaven um they displayed that pretty well you know very well so yeah and even lying you know they wouldn't even discourage it if it if it uh you know if it benefited benefits the organization the organization wasn't it wasn't interesting and again if you if you're listening here definitely it's on free on youtube watch ticket to heaven i was i found it fascinating when you talk about lying and i don't know if you you experienced this or have you ever witnessed someone do this but there's a point in which they are selling flowers um and maybe this will carry over into the second episode we kind of talk about this the boarding school you went to um and that was uh it was center it was a unifi it was actually uh it was a unification church school that you went to right yeah so in the in the film there's a point where uh the main carrot protagonist who gets indoctrinated and becomes this sort of true believer in this mysterious cult which in many ways i would i was fully convinced i'm like yeah this is definitely it sounds a lot like steve hassan's story they're referring to the moonies but they're selling flowers and they go to a businessman they say they're part of this uh rehabilitation center um but there's no rehabilitation center so the guy so the main character asks the other his other uh co-laborer or person he's with he goes then you just lied to that person yeah right because well in the he i think he justified it by saying that well ultimately you know satan is the ruler of this world and and all of money all the money is satan's anyways but somehow by us him giving this money to us he's actually contributing to the kingdom yeah and he basically unjustified the means so it didn't really matter that they were telling him that this lie like they justified it and people would go out in wheelchairs and stuff and like they talked about yeah they'd go out pretend that they were like crippled i remember one time being out in the street with this guy and um we were fundraising for this is was apart from the boarding school it was another um uh it was like mft you know for the first generation they would have something called the mobile fundraising team but then for second generation they kind of evolved into this other program for second gen called stf special task yeah and you force go out and then you'd fundraise to you'd live in vans um you live in motels and um eat really really like uh nutrient deficient food and then you go out and you fundraise um for hours um and i remember going out with this one guy and he pretended he was blind and so people would feel feel bad and um they would just you know donate and so bad and i remember i mean we made we made tons of money one day just going like to parking lots and walmarts and um like gas stations in one day i made like over a thousand dollars just talking to people on the streets and um so you become you know really skilled with sales it's crazy it's crazy the industry i'll tell you a funny story quickly is that um carmen who is also here at the studio and he's one of our producers he he was um phil he had some sort of uh project it was to some sort of film school and so he wanted the small little clip where he wanted me to play a homeless person so i got this all beat up flannel shirt and i got this old beanie and i think that in the film he just wanted me to portray this like homeless guy and i was going to sit in front of the 7-eleven and you know someone's going to come up and give me money or something like that so in it i'm just i'm just sort of betraying them like all right how do i portray you know a homeless person but um i'm there just like just and also someone walks up to me that i'm expecting and it's like about to hand me a five dollar bill i said no no i'm not homeless i'm actually filming something for a special uh to bring awareness like to actually help the solve this problem of homelessness but i just noticed just in this short amount of time someone came up to me i wasn't even trying to do that but i just realized man there's probably so much money that probably goes back and forth with that a whole lot of time i mean there's obviously people that are in need that need real help brother wade was just here a little while had some blessing bags our church is doing a homeless salaries tonight but it doesn't change the fact that there are people who use right what is the real reality of people that need help to but use that and exploit that crisis unfortunately yeah and the members would get um that's i mean the real tragedy too is that a lot of so a lot of the first generation that joined the unification church and i see this just with my parents and i i have compassion for them because i understand they came from really broken families and a lot of the people very vulnerable and also a lot of the people that joined in america were immigrants um and so they're you know kind of looking for a place to belong but once you get on these these like fundraising teams and you're raising like i mean millions millions of dollars um mostly coming in from japan america and parts of korea um you know it's all going to basically the moon and their empire their estates they're living these crazy lavish lives when all the members are suffering i mean i had kids i had friends that just like grew up in just poverty and their their parents would make a lot of money but they just they donate everything to to the church wow it's it's this is how it says they often work for the mobilized fundraising teams this first generation 14 or more hours daily with little sleep and sparse food and reverend moon i hate saying reverend moon i hate saying reverend but admitted that 82 car accidents occurred in one month because these people were so sleep deprived like they didn't care it's all about the money right it's all about buying more businesses about making more money in increasing your wealth yes yeah and in fact that's how steve hassan got out of the moonies is that he was sleep deprived and he drove this is somewhat depicted in the movie uh in the movie take it to heaven and i was like yep this is like steven stevenson has to be consulting after this so and also one of these days we i really want to get steve hassan on the show at one of these points i think that'd be a wonderful and fantastic conversation but what in in his story in steve hassan's story is that he was driving late at night and he drove his van off the road because he's going on two to three hours to sleep at night which again is another aspect of uh it doesn't happen with every single cult but within the moon is another called sleep deprivation is a huge thing uh happened both in with the brand civilians that happened with jim jones in the people's temple scientologists yeah scientology especially especially when the people's temple went down to guyana things like that but he drove off the road and he ended up getting his leg like shattered in multiple places the van was wrecked so bad they had to use the jaws of life to like pull the van apart to get him there and so because he had to go to the hospital no if ands or butts that's when he finally was able to like his brain could slow down he could actually think for himself wow and then he called the one person his sister and the reason why he called his sister is because she is the only one who kind of played neutral and didn't actually actively speak out against sun young moon because usually will happen when you get indoctrinated you're usually into a cult you're given a unique identity that replaces your own identity and so many ways what steve assan will talk about how you have your true self but then you have your unique cult identity which almost suppresses that so many times you'll you'll interact with a cult member and it could be on the streets or it could be in real life and if and some of you may have experienced with a family member where all of a sudden it's almost like something happens with them and you've seen it where all of a sudden they just start repeating the same verbatim statements uh whether it be a testimony whether it just sort of be their pre-programmed talking points and and yeah so a lot of times you'll just you'll see the person interchange in between their real self and their cult identity so it's a fascinating thing to fluctuate between the two so steve ended up calling a sister and his sister says yeah i promise i won't tell anyone she was lying but she ended up getting some people who at that time who were the programmers uh he really couldn't resist them because he wasn't confined to a hospital bed and his leg was shattered in multiple places and it was very interesting and this is also depicted in the film where he got to a point where they the deprogrammers told steve hassan where all right well if you just stay with us three days and if you're not convinced you know song not only that's the world mr society church of god sun young moon is the messiah then you can go and like you're free to go and he's like okay but during that process he began to unravel and you know they're asking questions you they're asked what he was asked questions in ways to make actually make him think versus just just the the initial right you know robotic response and once he kind of like got in touch with his true self that he hadn't really been in touch with for years he said he was like sobbing uncontrollably um so yeah it's it's just goes to show it's a very fascinating story and then again i just uh it's it's interesting too especially in relation to the moonies because that's something that you grew up in so that's kind of my tangent but yeah um but yeah i think what we'll do here is that i want to kind of go more into your story because when we want to go into the aspect especially growing up in the school and yeah and kind of it's very interesting too because there's many aspects too with many times a cult is centered around a specific leader yeah but usually once that leader passes away some a lot of things come up in regards to lineage get so focused or weren't around that one particular person um so we'll jump into that given that what we cover in the first episode is there any uh are there any last things you want to cover uh before you wrap up here or you want to bring up um one thing i wanted to bring up um you know one thing that that comes to mind quite often is that um what people say about you know the like the divine principle which is their text for unification can you hold that up just turn the camera so anyone and when people can see it yeah it's right there yeah we'll post on social media we'll post it again but so yeah tell them about that book in relation that go ahead yeah so the divine principle is sort of like this this new revelation sort of like you know with jehovah's witness and mormon this is like this is the the bible is not uh you know the ultimate authority this is sort of this is above the the bible um but what you see throughout the text is that you know they just they cherry pick which most quotes do they just cherry-pick from the bible um and one of the things they they say is that so moon he claims that this is like the new revelation the new truth right and um they refer back to the parable when jesus is talking to his disciples or to the pharisees and he's saying you know i speak to you in parables but there's a day coming where i'll speak to you plainly and so they claim that the divine principle is um the the plain speech of really what what um you know the truth is all about it wasn't the bible is not um it consists of the truth but it's not the truth itself right yeah so that's a that's a big that's a big that's a big point that a lot of unificationists bring up um that oh gee you know jesus was always speaking of parables but this is just explains everything right yeah yeah and so many ways what they'll do is that and this is they'll either take they'll cheer it a lot of times cults will do is that they'll cherry pick uh certain bible passages they'll take things out of context and a lot of times what they'll do is they'll take uh aspects passages that are a little bit uh complex or confusing that kind of you know there's even scriptures that talk about how some of paul's words were difficult to decipher or to understand and they'll take those areas that are confusing and will kind of fill in the blank almost in the same way how new it how the new age will take complex aspects of quantum physics or neurology or areas of science right now that are still expanding that we're just beginning to discover and they'll take they'll fill in the blanks with that so they'll even use a lot of times apocalyptic literature um in like revelation or or matthew 24 or use ways to you know incite you know fear amongst their people saying that we're essentially the noah's ark no one else can get out so there's a lot of different variables in play um so what we'll do here is we'll go ahead and wrap up here for the first episode so uh thank you again for coming out to california yeah and i'm super excited to kind of jump into part two yeah and i think we got a good flow going here so uh we're gonna take a quick uh five minute break on rm uh for you all it means that you gotta wait a week unfortunately but we will be back here next week for part two so uh thank you all here for listening in and as always uh this is a brand new year with a lot of crazy a lot of time to expect the unexpected so we are asking that you would uh prayerfully consider partnering with us if you've enjoyed this podcast the last couple years and allow cultists to continue so if you feel like to do that go to thecultistshow.com go to the donate tab you can donate one time or monthly and we will talk to you guys uh next week and part two of the unification church the moonies and sun young moon with hannah hannah custom how did you how did you pronounce it yeah yeah i'm gonna have it down by the by time we're done so all right talk to you guys in part two talk to you guys soon

Channel: Apologia Studios

Views: 39,675

Rating: 4.8479686 out of 5

Keywords: jeff durbin, apologia studios, moonies, unification church, cultish, jeremiah roberts, andrew soncrant, unification church history, Sun Myung Moon, leaving the moonies, cult documentary, unification church cult, dr. walter martin moonies

Id: 1IWpgHtyisM

Length: 63min 1sec (3781 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021