My name is Todd Harvey. For six years, from 1974 to 1980, ages twenty to twenty six, I was a member of Moon’s Unification Church. I appreciate the chance to relate my experience. I hope this will be instructive. As you can see, it happened some time ago. The UC likes to claim it has changed since then – based on what I’ve seen, I remain a little skeptical. I will leave it to you to decide how relevant my story is to the issue of the UC today. I have tried to be as honest and objective as possible.
I want to first give you a brief personal background, and then a short chronology of my experience in the group. After that I will highlight some of the main points I concluded from that experience.
My upbringing and childhood was more or less unremarkable. I am the eldest of three. We grew up in rural/suburban Minnesota, west of Minneapolis. I guess I was always something of a loner. I might have been a little more introspective than many of my peers, concerned about social issues, especially the environment, at an early age. Socially, however, I was what you call a late bloomer, “young for my age”. Kind of like a “nerd”, without the brains. Also, being the shortest kid in the class, I was always conscious of being a little different. My biggest childhood crises came when I was 15 years old, when my Dad announced to us kids that he would no longer be staying with us, but starting a new life with someone other than our Mom. Being from a “broken” home is not the most traumatic thing kids experience, but I was ill equipped to deal with such a sudden change in my little world. I remember taking it hard.
I had a relaxed religious upbringing. We went to a Presbyterian Sunday school when I was young, and sometime around junior high we started going to a Unitarian Church. I wasn’t pushed one way or the other in beliefs about God or Jesus. I went through a period of agnosticism/atheism in high school. Sometimes, though, I think the real reason for this was so that I could argue evolution versus creation with my best friend, who was a “born again” Jesus freak. He was always bringing me to those meetings where you are asked to step forward and “accept the Lord as your personal savior”. I always felt manipulated, and always resisted.
At some point in college, I began to develop some faith or belief in a higher power or spiritual realm. I was feeling real good about life, and the wonder and mystery of it all, and actively searching different beliefs. I took long walks in the beautiful countryside around Duluth and the north shore of Lake Superior. I listened to all of Cat Stevens songs, and I read books like Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Autobiography of a Yogi. I went to lectures on campus about “Transcendental Meditation”. I went to a meeting sponsored by the local “Campus Crusade for Christ”, where I finally did have one of those born again experiences. ( I cried a lot, anyway! I was still somewhat put off by the “Jesus people” and their claim to “One Way”.)
In the Spring of 1974, I ran into the UC. A sincere young lady introduced me to some of the main points of the doctrine. It seemed interesting – you couldn’t argue with most of it – basic stuff about “God’s ideal” and the “purpose of creation”. I was given the distinct impression, though, that this group had something – some secret, some “special truth” – that underscored everything they were about. During Summer break, I was invited to a “weekend workshop” and a chance to meet more of the members. I said why not, took a bus to the south Minneapolis center, where we all loaded up in a van and headed to Spirit Lake, Iowa.
The “workshop” was really more of a very intense, highly structured seminar, where we were completely immersed in the teachings and culture of the group. Times for meals, breaks, lectures, discussions and sleeping were all strictly orchestrated. Potential recruits were always accompanied by a member and had little time to reflect by themselves or talk to other guests alone. Highly charged lectures on Gods ideal, the purpose of creation, the fall of man, the crucifixion of Jesus, and the second coming of Christ contributed to the emotional pressure. During discussions, group leaders would ask leading questions about our lives, these times, and what if the messiah really did walk on the Earth. I didn’t think too much about how the workshop was run – if anything, only that the members were a little “quirky”. They seemed so sincere, enthusiastic and motivated that it was all a little contagious, I guess. And there was a simple “logic” to so much that was presented. The universe started to “make sense”. Complex mysteries and paradoxes of the Christian religion were “explained”. God’s hand was “shown clearly” on Earth to shape human history. Profound religious sentiments and emotions were evident in the prayers and songs of the members. Having a simple faith that God does work to guide one in life, I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not this was it, this is what I’d been looking for.
During the last lecture, the “conclusion” lecture, it was shown how this was the age of the new messiah. How he was going to come as a human, walking the Earth, from an Eastern country, specifically Korea. How he would bring a new truth and solve the problem of sin and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth in this time. How he wouldn’t be understood or recognized, and would be terribly persecuted. As I listened to the speaker, I looked up at a picture of Moon on the wall at the front of the lecture hall. Suddenly, everything fell into place. Everything was clear. Of course, of course – he’s the one! He’s what this has all been about! It’s so obvious – why didn’t I see it before? I was overcome with emotion – joy, wonder, gratitude, awe, and even grief. I cried and cried as I assimilated the amazing truth that the Messiah is on the Earth now – he’s been here my whole life! He’s already 54 years old and so few people know of him! And I’ve been chosen, I’ve been called to help with the work! We can end war, violence, hunger, poverty, pollution. We can build a world of love and peace. What could I do but drop everything and answer the call? I was “born again” into the age of new hope.
I quit my summer job, quit college, and moved into the local center. I was sent to several longer training sessions for new members before I was put on the “International One World Crusade” to promote Moon’s upcoming public appearance at Madison Square Garden. We invaded and occupied Manhattan, handing out leaflets to every person who went by as if there life depended on attending. Pounding the sidewalks morning to night, week after week, sleeping on the floor in rented motel rooms and eating bagged meals gave us the feeling of working on a Heavenly crusade, making cosmic history in this crucial time in the “providence of restoration”. The rejection and hard feelings of the besieged locals was proof of Satan’s grip on the fallen world, causing us to work even harder. The actual event was something of a fiasco, but it was deemed a ” victory in the spirit world”, and then it was on to the next crusade.
I was sent to the ” mobile fund raising team”, or MFT, where I spent two years living out of vans, motels and local UC centers in the upper Midwest . We’d hawk flowers, candy, candles and other goodies in parking lots, office buildings, industrial parks, business strips, and door to door. At night we would go “blitzing” (as in blitzkrieg) the bars and restaurants, moving in and out with lightning speed, so as not to get caught and kicked out! A good fund raiser could make $200 a day or more on $20 worth of product and $10 worth of fast food. It was a very strenuous mission, and we often worked 18 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week, for weeks at a time. We also had “competitions” that were a reason to work even harder. The winners, or people who made a certain dollar average, would get some special gift from the leaders like a signed picture of “True Parents” (Mr. and Mrs. Moon). We considered it the “front line” in the battle against Satan, and we were a proud elite. We were totally at the disposal of the leaders above us, and as a true, dedicated member, our only attitude was eager willingness to do whatever we were told. We had no expectations for our own except to serve. We didn’t know if we would be fund raising for 10 days or 10 years – whatever what God wanted. If we weren’t happy with that, we were having “spiritual problems”, in need of overcoming our “fallen nature”.
In 1976, I went from MFT to the performing arts department, because I could play a musical instrument. The “Go-World Brass Band” was a wind ensemble that was formed by Moon as a means to promote his speaking tours and other UC activities. Nothing like a bunch of musicians making a lot of noise on the street corner to get the attention of passersby! For the next 4 years I lived in UC centers in Manhattan, Boston, Brooklyn, and back to Manhattan, doing all the main duties of membership – fund raising, recruiting, participating in workshops, selling UC newspapers, etc., as well as performing in the band for church functions in public, and “in house”.
In 1979, things started to change for me, if just a little, in the group. Maybe I stopped running away from serious questions about doctrine. Maybe I was bothered by the disparity between the UC public relations lines about the group, and what I knew for a fact about the group. Maybe I was more and more bothered by the recruiting practices we were told to adopt from the Oakland center (Booneville) of Onie and Mose Durst, which were particularly deceptive and childish. (Mose Durst was soon to be made the president of the American church.) It might have been the budding feelings of emotional closeness I was slowly becoming aware of for a Japanese “sister” I had worked closely with for many months. Church doctrine taught us in no uncertain terms that these feeling were absolutely evil, and that they had to be suppressed. Yet I didn’t feel evil. Even so, just to be safe, I did “cold shower conditions” to “separate from Satan”, but they didn’t seem to do much to change my feelings. I was in a weird space – a committed believer, yet aware of some serious discontent. I hung in there and kept on going.
In May of 1979, I came back to Minnesota to visit my family. It was only the third time since 1974 that I had done that. Trips home were highly discouraged, if not forbidden. As “children of the True Parents” , we understood that God needed us more on the front line in the battle against Satan, and anything which took us away from our mission, even if only for a few days, was self indulgent. We usually justified them by saying we could use the opportunity to “witness” to our family – that is, try to get them to join.
Well, there is nothing more unreasonable or unpleasant than an absolutely committed, completely sure believer, with all of life’s answers at his fingertips, anxious to get you to see the light. I’m sure sure I was as obnoxious as ever! I didn’t realize it, but my family had become increasingly concerned about my involvement, seeing the change that had taken place in my mentality, and the degree to which I seemed dependent on the group for direction in my life, and they sensed it wasn’t healthy. ( At first, they were tolerant and supportive, if not a little confused. (“Todd, how did you get so religious?”) I can remember my Dad asking me once, if I was really free to leave if I wanted to, saying that was his main concern. I assured him that of course I was, but I remember being struck by the question, and I knew deep down what the answer was.) On the second day of my two day visit, we were sitting around the living room in the home of one of my Dad’s friends. I hadn’t understood why we had come out to this place, and something just didn’t seem right. There was a peculiar tension in the air, and my Dad, his voice shaking with emotion, told me that I needed help, that I wouldn’t be going back to New York that evening, but staying here for a few days to talk to some people who knew a lot about cults. I was in store for a “deprogramming”.
Of course, we had heard all about deprogramming, Satan’s latest strategy to get us to betray True Parents, and had been instructed to do whatever it took to get away. Anything was better than the spiritual death and an eternity of accusation by the spirit world that would be the consequence of leaving the messiah. I had even heard that some leaders were advising suicide rather than succumbing, but I never heard that directly myself. I had always wondered what the big fuss was about, though. After all, we had the Truth. We had all of the good spirit world on our side. We had True Parents guiding us. How could hearing a bunch of negativity and lies be that big a threat? Was our faith really so fragile? I was not worried. I knew I could get through this. Still, I couldn’t help but feel very nervous and confused. I remember the first night, before the deprogrammers got there, lying in my bed and looking out the window at the peaceful country scenery and wondering what the heck is going on. I commented to my Mom that so much is at stake, and she agreed with me.
I was determined, however, not to lose faith. I was also very anxious to get back to New York, because I knew that a “matching ceremony” was imminent. This is a pivotal point in a members spiritual life, when Moon chooses your eternal spouse, and I was eligible to participate. But I knew I was outnumbered for now, and escape seemed unlikely to succeed. I just had to go along with their attempt to break my faith. After two days of confrontation, arguing, yelling, and putting my fist into a door (fortunately a hollow core door, otherwise I’m sure I would have broken my hand), I realized that I would never get out unless I convinced them that I had seen the light, that I realized the folly of my ways. I was able to manage this, and was soon moved into a “half way house”. The next morning, I got up early, went into the bathroom, locked the door, turned on the water in the sink for “camouflage noise”, opened the window, and jumped out. I ran to the nearest phone and called the Minneapolis center, and they came out and picked me up. I was soon back in Manhattan.
Virtually within hours, I was in a room with hundreds of other members who were being matched up by Moon, most often with a complete stranger. I went into that room full of excitement and happiness, but by the time I came out , I was one very confused boy. I saw all sorts of strange, pragmatic, and very unspiritual considerations, like leadership position, special considerations for favorites of the higher ups, and even visa status being taken into account in Moon’s decisions. He was supposed to be able to look at you and see you aura and ancestry, (this is how he determined who would be a good match for you), yet he had to ask members what their nationalities were. I saw him strike a girl in the head with his fist when she dared suggest someone. We were told to take some time with our match to talk things over and come to an agreement about it, yet Moon angrily berated members in front of the whole assembly when they rejected his pick. He matched one talented, outgoing, intelligent and pretty girl in the rock group “Sunburst” with a poor guy who obviously had some mental impairment that kept him operating at a fourth grade level. I watched as my special friend was matched to someone else, and I wasn’t even in the considerations, as the Japanese sisters, being so few, were matched first to the MFT “commanders”. Moon didn’t match any one together if the girl was taller than the boy, so when he paired me and my match up, he had us stand together to make sure. As we were standing there, it occurred to me that if she is just 1/2 inch taller than me, we will go on our separate ways, but if not, we will spend the rest of our lives together. In the speech he gave to us after the matching, he made the emphatic statement that “From now on, the most important thing is ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE!”, chopping the air with his hands for emphasis. And through it all I saw a lot of other confused, dazed members giving it their best fake it smile as they pretended happiness. But again, I buried my doubts, and went along with it. I didn’t even consider rejecting my match, because I knew that good members didn’t do that.
By now, I’m in a really, really weird space. I don’t know what challenged my faith more, the deprogramming, or the matching. It’s hard to describe the emotional and psychological turmoil of those days. You see, the dilemma of someone considering leaving, someone having a deep “crisis of faith” in such a group is very complex. It’s even more difficult in the UC, due to the fact that you are not following just another guru, but the messiah himself. Someone on the outside says, “Look at what he does, look at how he operates – how can that be God’s love, how can that be the messiah?”. But if you really believe first that he is the messiah, then almost anything can be rationalized and accepted. It’s like a “catch-22”. And think about it – if Jesus were here now, would you second guess how he operated? Wouldn’t you do anything at all he told you to do?
So, a struggling member is completely and absolutely all alone. I couldn’t turn to anyone on the outside – family, friends, authorities, – because they just didn’t understand. And I couldn’t turn to anyone on the inside – after all, that was the whole question. They all had an agenda, and wanted something from me. I couldn’t even turn to my own prayers, for once again, that was the whole question. Had all those prayers during the previous 6 years of membership been a mistake? Had I not been open to what God’s will was? Was I doing God’s will by staying, or leaving? No matter how hard I prayed, the answer to this dilemma wasn’t clearly given to me. In the end, I just had to trust myself – my thoughts, my feelings, and my own gut instincts. That’s all I could do.
It took another year of struggle and unhappiness until June, 1980, when I walked away from the group on my own, with a little more help from family and “exit counselors” whom I voluntarily met with. The day that I left was one of the most stressful days of my life. (Being stuck in Manhattan rush hour traffic and late for the plane flight didn’t help!) Earlier in the day I had honored the request of my “match” to go talk to Mose Durst about my questions concerning the group. That did not go well. I found him to be manipulative and arrogant. He seemed unable to speak in anything but PR cliches, and we quickly came to blows, figuratively. His parting shot was that if I got on that plane, my “spiritual life was in danger”, his exact quote. In the New Yorker hotel, the performing arts director, Mr. Pak, did his best to pressure me not to leave. I told him my intent was simply to go home for a while and think about things. I wasn’t completely repudiating the group at that time, and in my mind I was still unsure what I was going to do, long term. But he still insisted I stay. When he realized that I wasn’t going to be persuaded, he put his nose up in the air, turned and walked away without another word. No goodbye and best wishes, no thank you for the six years of hard work, no please stay in touch and call me anytime, nothing. I had ceased to matter to him. (This proved to be the pattern for my contacts with almost all the people I knew in the group. My “spiritual mother”, my “spiritual children”, and many others never contacted me after I got out, even though I contacted members of the band for at least a year, and anybody could have obtained my address and phone. In the ensuing years, I have concluded that members, for the most part, are reluctant to talk with former members.)
Of course, you don’t just walk away from something as fundamental to your identity as that and just forget it happened. I spent a lot of time over the next years reading about the cult phenomena, writing reflections about my experience, and examining the doctrine from a new perspective, all in an effort to understand myself and find some peace inside. I felt like I was actually rewiring my brain. ( This was an expression I remember hearing Moon use, telling us members what we needed to do to become good members).