My Encounter with the Moon Organization
On an evening in February 1970, as I was on my way to Vienna University, I met a group of young people in front of the university building. Some of them quickly approached me and asked me whether I was interested in attending a lecture of the »Association for Unification of World Christianity«. I said yes. Briefly afterwards I was introduced to a young girl named Sylvia. She would inform me about the activities of the group and answer my questions.
I can no longer remember in detail what exactly was discussed in the lecture. After the lecture Sylvia asked me whether I wanted to accompany her and her friends to the headquarters of the Association for Unification of World Christianity for a chance to get together and have some discussion. I accepted the invitation, joined them and was surprised by the warmth and open-heartedness of these young people. Only the head of the group, Peter Koch, who was a bit older, seemed somewhat different from the others.
We sat around a big table; tea and I think also coffee was served and I was told about a Korean named Moon who at the age of sixteen had had a vision. Jesus had appeared to him on Easter morning and had instructed him to complete his mission that had failed 2000 years ago. For seven years Moon struggled with himself before becoming fully aware of his mission and the contents of his faith. Lonely, he wandered through the mountains, prayed, cried and experienced the reality of spiritual powers and beings, especially of Satan. Finally Moon was arrested by the Communists, sent to prison and tortured. As he was given hardly any food, he nearly starved, but he withstood his tormentors and received spiritual assistance. After he had finally recognized himself fully as the Second Messiah and the Third Adam, he married the eighteen-year-old Han and founded the True Marriage with her, the kind of marriage that God had wanted and established with Adam and Eve after Creation. Moon and his Han considered themselves as the »True Parents«, and in the community of who believed in Moon the »True Family« would slowly grow. Through Moon’s knowledge and the True Parents children would from that time on be born without original sin.
They all sat there and listened carefully, most obviously deeply moved. Some of them even had tears in their eyes. What terrible struggles this brave man had had to endure! I have to admit that I was impressed too.
I was given a book entitled »Divine Principles«, which I was asked to read. I took it and assured them that I would certainly study it.
I repeated my visits to the group and was particularly pleased to see Sylvia again. She was a simple, warm-hearted and very nice girl, totally unspoilt, frank and honest. I soon found out that she too was pleased to meet me again.
However, I could not identify at all with the »Divine Principles«. They contained strange stories about God and Creation, none of them more intelligent than those I knew from the Bible. God had not created the world out of his own free creative will, but out of necessity. God needed a counterpart so that his energy could pulsate and his love could be reflected. Adam and Eve’s task should have been to form a perfect, sin-free counterpart to the Divine. But unfortunately there was Lucifer, the archangel who had assisted God in Creation. He felt neglected and no longer loved by God who had come to like Adam and Eve. So he intruded into the Garden of Eden and initiated the process »of give and take« with the young, only fifteen-year-old Eve by seducing her into »fornication«. So Man, who henceforth bore evil children, became sinful, and Lucifer became Satan.
After these dramatic events God had no other choice but to devise a plan of how to re-establish the original condition. Moon – who else? – was assigned a key role, all streams of development were to meet in his person. Moon tried to make God’s plans clear by dividing history into various periods with the most important one lasting for 400 years, starting in 1520 (the Reformation) and ending in 1920 (the year in which Moon was born).
Jesus, as a second Adam, would have had the task of forming the basis for a new mankind together with a second Eve. But he had completely misunderstood his assignment, did not enter into any relationships with women, did not marry an Eve and did not procreate any sin-free children either.
We discussed all these things for a long time. Sometimes I found it hard to suppress my smiles at their pious tales; sometimes I got upset and could not understand why my arguments were not taken seriously. And there was one hopelessly stupid story that I will never forget although I cannot remember every single detail. It said that Moses would have been able to redeem mankind if he had not forgotten to hit a certain spot with his stick at a certain time!
How could these young people, most of them students like myself, digest such nonsense, I kept asking myself. But whenever I emphasized that a God could not be like that, they kept quiet, but probably not because they felt caught out, but because they doubted my maturity.
One day Sylvia said to me when I was alone with her, "Johann, be careful, in our group not everything is as it seems to be!" Sylvia had come to the group together with her two sisters; her parents did not care very much for her. She told me about her home and her troubles. Whenever I was with her I felt happy.
Some weeks passed. Sometimes my brother Richard, who studied economics and to whom I felt very much attached, joined me and went with me to the group. On Sundays the group celebrated services with songs and recitals. Once the group took me with them to a »branch« of the organization, and everywhere I went I met joy and warm-heartedness.
One day Peter, the head of the group, called me into his small office and said to me "Johann, you have already been with us for quite some time and you know what we want. You have to make a decision now. Either stay and work with us or leave the group forever!"
I was very much surprised, turned pale and struggled for words. "You can't demand that from me! I am searching for the truth. But so far I have not been able to find the truth in your group. I cannot accept your Divine Principles as divine, and what you claim does not correspond to what I learned when studying church history!"
Peter looked at me and did not show any sign of changing his decision. Had he perhaps seen how much I liked Sylvia? Did he assume that I would certainly not abandon her?
"No, you can't buy me, you can't enslave me.” My thoughts raced. "I have been searching for the truth and not for a relatively satisfactory place. I wouldn't dream of letting myself be captured here and now!"
So I stood up and went away.
This sentence, which I had once heard somewhere, was hammering in my brain "If you do not want to be my brother, you must be my enemy." I was beside myself and felt totally destroyed. I could not understand how people could do that to each other. Why did I have to leave them and abandon my new friends? Why were these tales about God and Moon so important to them that they threw people who could not follow them out of the group?
I thought of Sylvia and my pain became even worse. How should I meet her again, talk to her again? She had already said »yes« to Moon, for her the »Day of Knowledge« was already over.
What should I do? Was I wrong and maybe too immature to understand Moon and his teachings?
I thought about what I had learned in church history. How could these embarrassing falsifications have happened? How was it possible that my parents did not know anything about them and our priest had never talked about them? There was so much that did not correspond to the truth! The Gospels were not written by the apostles, the Acts were written only after 100 A.D., and numerous »documents« were created and predated. The idea of the trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was only laid down in a synod in 325 A.D., a synod in which there was more quarrelling and fighting than discussion. The entire history of the Church was full of blood, disputes, and persecution of different-minded people, of torture, burning of witches, curses and damnations.
And now this experience with the Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Even the name was a deception! Nobody unified the Christians. They only pursued their own, new objectives.
I hurried to the National Library and searched for all kinds of books. Members of the group had assured me that it was possible to establish spiritual contacts to the dead and to experience all kinds of things. For this purpose they fasted for several or many days. Of course I tried it too, took everything very seriously and did not eat or drink anything for three days. Afterwards I felt certain energies that I had never felt before. They moved through my body, most obviously left it through my head and re-entered it from beneath my feet. And it seemed to me that there was more than just one of these movements. The movements themselves depended on my internal balance and could be influenced through my thoughts.
So I began to neglect my law studies and to dedicate myself more and more to the study of spiritual questions.
Moon and his Unification Movement
Twenty-five years after my contacts with the Association for the Unification of World Christianity, when I started writing this work, I found a book that described religious communities in a remarkably objective way. The »Handbook of Religious Communities«, published by Gütersloher Verlagshaus, considers the Moon Movement one of the youth religions, which have emerged in Europe and other highly developed regions all over the world since the late 1960s. The most conspicuous aspect these groups have in common is their recruitment of teenagers and young adults by offering them a »Divine Master« of absolute and divine authority and »saved families«. On page 819 of the book a description is given of a dramatic and rapid personality change that is frequently observed among the members. After the elimination of all criticism they show total devotion. The personality change and the ethnic and moral – sometimes quite unusual – reorientation often leads to social problems, to problems in their families, or even to conflicts with the law.
It is interesting to observe the glorification of their great and beloved master Moon by the members of the group – at least at the time when I attended it –compared to actual reality. And as far as I can judge, the methods and processes seem to be very similar in other cults.
The group saw in Moon and his wife the »True Parents«, parents which Adam and Eve supposedly were too before Eve's intercourse with Lucifer. However, it is a matter of fact that Moon married for the first time at the age of 26. In 1948 he was arrested because of sexual misdemeanors and charged with bigamy when he married his follower Kim, Yong-On and her husband denounced him. Moon was sentenced to five years in a work camp. In 1955 Moon was brought to court for a second time because of sexual offences. Only in 1960 did he establish the concept of the »True Parents« when marrying the 17-year old Han, Hak-Ja after his divorce from his third wife.
But Moon does not only fish for souls, he also set up companies all over the world. In 1959 he founded the company »Yeohwa Shotgun«, which started off as a manufacturer of air rifles and later, as Tong Il Company Ltd., became the core of a huge industrial group. In the US he was sentenced to a 25 000-dollar fine and 18 months' imprisonment because of tax evasion. He started to serve his sentence in summer 1984, of which he served two thirds before being released due to good conduct.
When considering Mr. Moon's life, it becomes clear to a certain extent at which spiritual level Mr. Moon actually acts. He does not have any scruples about earning money by producing guns and considers it quite normal to damn different-mined people and above all Communists.
His followers worship Moon as »Lord of the Second Coming«, who will establish the »Kingdom of Heaven on Earth«, first in Korea and then worldwide. For Moon's followers Korea is considered the »Holy Land«. For the Final Battle between Satan and God, which is also referred to as Third World War, the use of weapons is not ruled out.
The possibility of a massive physical, i.e. military, conflict was repeatedly expressed "Once we have this strength here in America, then the ultimate enemy to overcome is the Soviet Union. The March to Moscow is going to be our motto. That new command begins today. We will fight with our lives to achieve the final victory." (»Master Speaks, The Significance of 1 July 1973«).
Moon does not only hate Communists, he also uses the fight against Communism as a tactical means. In his speech delivered on 28 December 1980 »Thinking back historically« Moon said "Many of you might really wonder why I fight communism. The purpose is to bring all free nations and all religions into unity. By fighting against communism we can achieve that."
Whichever cult I had dealings with, they all maneuvered, justified violence and claimed power in order to implement their objectives. For example, the Jehovah's Witnesses, who are particularly fervent followers of the desert God Yahweh, are literally steeped in destructive thoughts, which they, however, understand as constructive. New members are first provided with the most wonderful visions of their future to deprive them of their sound feeling for what is right and what is wrong. How fast this state of mind is reached depends on how strong the wish for security and satisfaction of their needs is, and on how much they are used and willing to accept the printed word without any criticism. Their own dreams of the future mingle with the wonderful pictures of the cult, and it does not take long until the new members start to defend the teachings. Then even the most obvious nonsense and wickedness is considered as oh so necessary and inevitable and is defended to the last drop of blood.
Is Moon a Fraud? Are Masters like Moon Charlatans?
Well, it would be quite simple to brand Moon and his like as frauds, especially as it is obvious that they do betray people and know exactly where honesty ends and cunning begins. In reality, however, they are as much victims as their followers are, but on a different level.
Moon was born in a Christianized region of Korea. His parents, however, only became Christians in 1930. Nevertheless, Moon continued to attend a traditional Confucian school until 1934. According to the highly embellished stories about his life propagated by the movement – there is little reliable historical material – the young Moon was a religious seeker for whom his parents' joining Presbyterian Christianity did not provide a satisfactory answer to his own religious questions. During his search and due to his medial gifts (he also used himself as a medium), Jesus appeared to him. As a consequence Moon enhanced his religious endeavors and became a fanatical believer. Yahweh, the great omnipotent and omniscient God, became his ideal, and Moon began to interpret and understand the inconsistencies of the Bible in his own way. "Isn't it man who does not understand God?" he may have asked himself all over again. "Hasn't man failed again and again and thus destroyed God's good intentions? Didn't Adam and Eve, Moses and Jesus disregard the laws of God? Why else should this beautiful world still be so imperfect?"
A thought considered correct therefore results in a flood of new ideas, one illusion is followed by the next, and experiences confirm his supposed findings. Moon is imprisoned though he considers himself not guilty and thus treated unjustly. He soon came to hate everything emanating from the Communists, considered them pigs to whom he has to show the true power of his own great spirit. He laughs when they serve him inedible food which he refuses to take, and he grows when being tortured and humiliated by them. He, Moon, lives on the spiritual nourishment that his spiritual helpers provide.
So he, who was a good and helpful man at heart, decided to help this deeply fallen world and the sinful people living in it. For a long time he pondered the necessary ways and means, and he counted on God's assistance. He »realized« God's true intentions and discovered that the history of mankind is divided into certain periods of time which are characterized by the numbers three, four and seven and their multiples: from Adam to Noah 1600 years passed, from Noah to Abraham 400 years, the exile of the Popes lasted 210 years, and there were 400 years from 1520 to 1920, the year in which he was born.
Enraptured he murmured "Amazing, incredible, fantastic! Yes, that's it! The day of perfection is near, and it is me who has realized God's plan and will fulfill it!"
But the road from vision to fulfillment is long and stony. On his way he has to overcome ever-new obstacles, which he considers God's way of testing him. In the Bible he finds the confirmation of his deeds. In a speech he gives to officials of his movement, he states "14 years after I began my public ministry, I performed the Holy Wedding - the marriage of the Lamb - that the Bible predicted (Revelation 19). In 1960, therefore, the first heavenly family was established upon the earth. That was equivalent in significance to the very moment of the crucifixion of Jesus… I won the first and most important victory. I consummated the heavenly plan. This was the day that the heavenly son came to earth, restored the base, and welcomed the first bride of heaven. Therefore, on this day God had His first true base on Earth from which He could continue to expand… However, in our movement, I am in a position to restore both the spiritual and the physical basis for paradise." (»Master Speaks, The Significance of 1 July 1973«).
Moon, like so many before him, became a victim of biblical visions. He adopted similar thoughts and felt chosen and entrusted to overcome the supposed helpers of Satan - the Communists. Similarly to Moses, who slaughtered entire peoples on behalf of God, Moon sees in his visions how he, leading the huge crowd of his followers under God's insignia and blessing, defeats the Communists. After this battle eternal peace, established for Moon's glory, will reign on Earth.
To people who twist and misinterpret reality so much, all ways and means soon seem to be just and justified. Tax evasion no longer has the character of a criminal act if the money thus obtained is used for the salvation of souls. Going to prison is no longer considered a punishment but a sacrifice made for the sake of one’s fellow men and women. Every reasonable thought, even the most convincing objections, is twisted and interpreted in such a way that it serves one's own purposes.