#unification church in latin america

[whatisonthemoon]

The Rev. Moon, the Unification Church, and the KCIA

The following is excerpted from "The Death Squads: Bringing in the Kingdom of God Through Terror, Torture and Death" (1996) by S.R. Shearer

In addition to the Americans, the Argentineans, the conservative Catholic Church, and various right-wing politicos, business leaders, and the military - with their attendant intelligence apparatus - there was a final component to the deadly mix which constituted the environment in which the Death Squads worked: specifically, the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. WACL became involved in these operations as a result of its Korean connections - connections which also led back to Phoenix..

WACL is a Moonie front organization with strong ties to the KCIA (a creation of the American CIA); its ultimate allegiance is to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church.

Moon, of course, is no friend of democracy. He is a theocratic authoritarian who considers himself to be the Son of God and the new Messiah.[22] Moon believes that Jesus failed in His earthly mission to save man through His death on the cross; in addition, Moon claims that Jesus had sex with the women who followed Him.

As early as 1978 newspapers like the Washington Post began to pick up on the connections between Moon (WACL) and the Latin American Death Squads. For instance, one such article which appeared in the Post describing these connections carried the headline: "The Fascist Specter behind the World Anti-Red League."[23] In 1984 these connections were further explored in a series of columns by Jack Anderson.[24] Other publications carried additional articles detailing these connections and the Nazi components which comprised these elements.[25]

ORIGINS OF THE UNIFICATION CHURCH

In the light of all this, it might be fair to ask, what was it in the history of Moon and the Unification Church which would have led to such links between what ostensibly is supposed to be a religious organization and Nazi-oriented, right-wing Death Squads? The tides which produced these strange relationships originated in the very early 1950s in the murky right-wing political, religious and military currents which swept through Korea as a result of the Korean War; specifically in the wrath of Korean President Syngman Rhee and other right-wing elements in the Korean military who were furious at Truman and Eisenhower for not prosecuting the Korean War through to a successful conclusion - by which they meant the re-unification of the Korean Peninsula under President Rhee.

Right-wing elements in the United States were also enraged; many saw in the U.S. "surrender" the outlines of a sinister conspiracy. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin went so far as to blame the U.S. "surrender in Korea" on the machinations of a White House clique besotted by "bourbon and benzedrine;" in a rage, he actually called the President a "son-of-a-bitch" from the floor of the Senate. Senator William Jenner of Indiana, echoed McCarthy's rage; he too saw the silhouette of an ominous conspiracy; he went on to declare that "... this country today is in the hands of a secret inner coterie which is directed by agents of the Soviet Union." Both groups - right-wing Americans on the one hand, and right-wing Koreans on the other - felt they had been stymied in Korea by a vast, underground intrigue which had seized control of the United States and which was aiming at the destruction of the Free World; they perceived themselves as engaged in an immense struggle against an implacable foe which not only controlled Communist China and the Soviet Union, but powerful, secret elements in the West as well (i.e., the "Illuminist Conspiracy"). This view of things was only strengthened when Rhee was toppled in April of 1960 with Eisenhower's help.

It was this witches' brew of virulent right-wing politics which gave birth to the aberrant theology and politics of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church; Moon became as much a believer in the existence of the "world-wide communist (Illuminist) conspiracy" as had been Korean strongman Syngman Rhee and Senators Joseph McCarthy and William Jenner. Moon believed that the conspiracy could only be stopped by uniting the Western World under the banner of "Christianity" (by which he meant his own weird blend of New Age philosophy and aberrant religious teachings). Thus, Moon's movement was (is) as much a political movement as it is a religious movement; it is the result of a strange convergence of extreme right-wing politics (which stem not only out of sources in Korea, but also elements in the United States) and a bizarre mixture of fanatical, authoritarian religious beliefs.

There are, of course, many such movements throughout the world; but what has given Moon's organization such power is the relationship it enjoys with the government of South Korea - a relationship which endows Moon's religious empire with unlimited funds, business fronts, and access to sensitive intelligence matters - things which no other religious association in the world enjoys - outside of the Vatican; and it is precisely these things which have bought Moon entrance - if only through the back door - into America's Religious Right; the Religious Right in this country has seemingly found itself unable to resist the allure of Moon's money, the high-paying jobs he is able to offer through his various business fronts, and the excitement generated out of his intelligence (KCIA) contacts.

THE DEATH SQUADS AND THE REV. MOON

All this brings us back to Moon's involvement with Latin America's Death Squads; Moon's involvement originated as a result of his contacts with the KCIA, and the KCIA's involvement flowed out of Korea's connections with the Vietnam War. Korea was one of the very few U.S. allies which actively participated militarily in Vietnam alongside American forces. ROK (Republic of Korea) forces thus came into direct contact with Phoenix.

The KCIA was thrilled with Phoenix - and this favorable impression was passed on to WACL where the KCIA, as already indicated, exercised a great deal of influence; as a result, WACL soon became a purveyor of Phoenix-like operations throughout the world as an effective means of combating the spread of communism - so much so that in Latin America many of the Death Squad networks which were later established became synonymous with Moon and the Unification Church. Indeed, investigative reporter Russ Bellant writes that "... the ... Death Squad network{26} (in many of the various Latin American countries) is (in instance after instance) also the Latin American branch of Moon's World Anti-Communist League (WACL)."[27] For example, in Argentina, the Death Squads and WACL were so closely identified that in Buenos Aires the various Death Squad cadres constituted in fact the main Argentine branch of WACL.[28] These kinds of connections between the Death Squads and the Unification Church were repeated throughout Central and South America. So closely and effectively did Moon and the Death Squads cooperate in Latin America that they were actually responsible - along with Nazi fugitive Klaus Barbie - in helping to establish a Nazi-style state in Bolivia in 1982.[29] And what about the individuals who constitute the membership of these organizations? - they have been variously described as a mix of Hitler collaborators, anti-Semites, right-wing politicos, rich businessmen, etc. - all of whom hold to an unshakable belief in a world-wide conspiracy directed against capitalism and Christianity[30] - the same kind of ideological mix which - to a large degree - can be found in the CNP (the principle coordinating agency bringing together members of the Religious Right with members of the political right and the business right) today.

Full article: https://www.antipasministries.com/html/file0000105.htm

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

CIA, Moonies Cooperate in Sandinista War (1984)

Washington Post CIA, Moonies Cooperate in Sandinista War - Jack Anderson August 16, 1984 In the Central American hinterlands, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish CIA operatives from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s disciples. They appear to be working in harness against the communist-tainted Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. 

This troubles at least one Pentagon analyst, now stationed in Korea, who has warned the White House that the CIA-Moonie connection could cause possible political damage to President Reagan’s reelection campaign.

The analyst’s unofficial memo, “Potential Problems,” has been slipped to my associate Donald Goldberg.

“Current Moonie involvement with government officials, contractors and grantees could create a major scandal,” the memo warns. “If their activities and role become public knowledge, it will unite both the left and the right in attacking the administration.”

The memo continues, “If efforts are not taken to stop their growing influence and weed out current Moonie involvement in government, the president stands a good chance of being portrayed in the media as a poor, naive incompetent who is strong on ideology and weak on commonsense...

“The likelihood of a reporter or a Democratic staff member piecing the total picture together is too great to be neglected. Any thought that this festering problem will go away if ignored is foolish.”

The “total picture" of Moon’s activities in Latin America is not clear. But there is no doubt that the Korean messiah, now in prison for income tax evasion, has established a solid presence in the region, with ties to right-wing groups and U.S.-supported guerrillas.

My associate Jon Lee Anderson reports from Central America that Causa International, Moon’s political front, has representatives working in programs that help the CIA in its “contra” war against the Sandinista government. 

Causa maintains a publicity office in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, but its principal activities are in the field. Causa provides cash and other aid to Honduran-based Nicaraguan contras and Honduran right-wing political groups. Many anti-Sandinista guerrillas wear red Causa T-shirts, with a map of the world on them.

But Causa and its affiliate, the Refugee Relief Freedom Foundation, provide more than T-shirts to rebel groups. They also funnel supplies to refugee families in and near contra camps and pay for trips by rebel leaders to the United States.

One contra leader, Fernando (El Negro) Chamorro, told my associate that as early as 1981, Causa representatives sent him on an all-expenses-paid trip to the United States to try to unify the Nicaraguan exile groups.

The airlift of supplies to the rebels by Moon’s Unification Church has escalated since Congress cut off CIA funding for the contras. The administration has been attempting to “privatize” its war against the Sandinistas and is apparently willing to work with Moon's people.

Footnote: A Unification Church official denied that the church is engaged in anything but religious activities in Central America.

_____________________________________

Sun Myung Moon organization activities in Central & South America

[eternal-echoes]

“We can ask ourselves a further question: what does faith in this God give us? The first response is: it gives us a family, the universal family of God in the Catholic Church. Faith releases us from the isolation of the “I”, because it leads us to communion: the encounter with God is, in itself and as such, an encounter with our brothers and sisters, an act of convocation, of unification, of responsibility towards the other and towards others. In this sense, the preferential option for the poor is implicit in the Christological faith in the God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty (cf. 2 Cor 8:9).”

-Pope Benedict XVI, INAUGURAL SESSION OF THE FIFTH GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE BISHOPS OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, 13 May 2007

[frank-olivier]

Analysis of Linguistic Differences in East Asia and Their Interpretation in a Global Context

The interplay between language, politics, and culture is a fundamental aspect of societal development and identity formation. In East Asia, linguistic differences are deeply embedded in the region's historical and political landscapes, reflecting centuries of cultural evolution and power dynamics. This text explores how the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages and writing systems have been shaped by their respective political and cultural contexts. Examining these linguistic developments uncovers broader insights into the ways language functions as both a tool of unification and a means of cultural expression. Additionally, placing these East Asian examples in a global context provides a deeper understanding of the universal principles governing the relationship between language, power, and culture across different societies.

The complexity of the Chinese writing system and pronunciation with its tonal system reflects China's long centralist tradition and the diversity of its regions. The logographic script served as a unifying force for the various dialects and supported the power of the scholarly bureaucracy. From a political standpoint, one could argue that this system of knowledge control served to secure the rule of Chinese authorities.

In contrast, the phonetic alphabets of Japanese and Korean facilitated the spread of education among broader segments of the population. The introduction of the Hangul alphabet in Korea in the 15th century by King Sejong is often seen as a democratic measure to strengthen Korean culture against the overpowering Chinese influence. Similarly, one could interpret the adaptation of the Chinese script to the Japanese sound structure as an expression of a cultural emancipation movement.

The importance of honorifics and hierarchies, especially in Korean, can be seen as a reflection of a highly stratified social order with pronounced respect for authorities. From a critical perspective, however, one could also recognize remnants of a feudal social structure.

Overall, it becomes apparent that linguistic and written developments are often intertwined with power-political motives and structures of the respective societies. A purely linguistic perspective may fall short. The integration of political and historical viewpoints can provide a more complete picture of the cultural differences in East Asia.

The analysis of linguistic differences in East Asia can also be applied to other regions of the world, where language and script are deeply intertwined with political and cultural developments. Just as in East Asia, scripts and languages have been used as tools for the consolidation or democratization of power, similar patterns are found worldwide.

For example, one can consider the role of Latin in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Latin served as the lingua franca for scholars and the Church, which strengthened the intellectual and spiritual control of the Catholic Church. With the rise of national languages and their promotion by the Reformation and the spread of the printing press, Europe experienced a cultural emancipation and democratization of knowledge, comparable to the introduction of Hangul in Korea.

In Africa, postcolonial language policies are of interest. Many African countries adopt European colonial languages such as English, French, or Portuguese as official languages, ensuring political and administrative continuity, but often at the expense of indigenous languages and cultures. These language decisions also reflect power structures and cultural dynamics, similar to the role of the Chinese script in East Asia.

The diversity of indigenous languages in Latin America and the movement to revive and recognize these languages also show how language policy is used to strengthen cultural identity and address historical injustices.

Overall, the global context shows that linguistic and written systems are not merely means of communication but also important instruments for shaping societies, enforcing or challenging power structures, and promoting or suppressing cultural identities. Therefore, the political and historical examination of language can provide a deeper understanding of the complex social and cultural processes worldwide.

Thursday, May 16, 2024

[ghostonthenet2501]

What exactly Neon Genesis Evangelion was doing with Christianity is debatable. Personally, I think there is a deliberate paralleling with Gnosticism, the apocalyptic War Scroll of the Qumranite Essene Jewish community, and the syncretic Christian/Pagan chivalric mythologies surrounding the Holy Grail with the Britons and the Spear of Longinus in Austria that has so fascinated New Age conspiracy theorists to convey the big theme of the Human Instrumentality Project and the secretive interests surrounding it. After all, if the Human Genome Project throughout the 1990s was popularly referred to as the “quest for the Holy Grail”, a project to instrumentalize and control people is anticipated to follow exemplified by the toxic abusive relationship between Gendo and Rei, his genetically enhanced daughter cloned from his wife who died or otherwise escaped from him.

With anime and Christianity, I notice four basic tendencies, to which one can pick two or three in any given series.

1. Sexual fetishism. The cumulative potential of the Christian discourse on the themes of the flesh and martyrdom, and all clothing and practices pertaining thereto in the past, present, and future for a tension-filled sexually charged presence and BDSM imagery.

2. Christian allegory. Particularly prominent in film noir and its futuristic sci-fi descendants like cyberpunk. Encounters with worlds of corruption and characters alternatively seeking paths of redemption and justice or tragically striving for the powers of evil that will bring about their downfall according to their hamartia (tragic flaw or sin) lend themselves to this thematic imagery.

3. Gothic anticlericalism. In the gothic literature of a Protestant North that darkly romanticized a Latin South, one major tendency of works like The Monk by Matthew Lewis to characterize Catholic-majority lands as rife with superstition barbarism fueled by clergy who hide terrible wickedness behind a mask of piety. Not infrequently a mode of projection to cast out the evils within the society producing the gothic work into the scapegoated Other. Japanese anime commonly uses such Christian clergy in this way to cast upon domestic concerns about cults like Aum Shinrikyo, the Unification Church, and Soka Gakkai, and about negative experiences like excessive charges for Buddhist funerals.

4. The European/Christian mystique. Since the big boom in shoujo manga in the 1970s, one prominent tendency in Japanese pop culture is a kind of narrative escape from Japan into Europe or Europeanized places (i.e. boarding schools). Christian imagery and people can be a cultural extension of this, to the point Christian characters can operate as outsider magicians taking on functions Shinto or Buddhist characters couldn’t. This association typically locates Christianity outside Japan in multiple senses.

In America, we have the misfortune that the religious fanatics cast out of British society into the peripheral backwoods of the “New World” colonies were optimally positioned to define what this country would come to be in many ways. Such tendencies were amplified by the religious right becoming the loudest and most powerful voices in American Christianity in terms of refusing progressive reform in favor of a fascist scramble to seize power and impose itself by force. So many have come to experience it as the face of abusive domestic micro-fascism.

This lends a certain emotional appeal to the gothic anticlericalism side of anime, particularly as American media may be reticent to risk direct confrontation with the religious right. But this narrative possibility comes at the expense of amplifying the marginalization of a religious minority that has a history of being persecuted with extreme violence by the Neo-Confucian Tokugawa Shogunate. During the Fifteen Year War (1930-1945), the Empire of Japan sought to impose State Shintoism with the associated imperial cult over colonies like Korea, which resulted in more martyrdoms in the midst of a wider necropolitical context of mass murder and rape, forced labor, opioid trafficking, and unethical experimentation in Unit 731′s biological and chemical warfare program. 

Philip Jenkins’ book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity argues the locus of Christian faith in the 21st century has already shifted from Europe to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In this sense, the more anime and other Japanese media define Christianity in terms of the exo, the outside of the “exotic”, the more other Asian ethnicities like Koreans, Filipinos, and Chinese stand to be marginalized and discriminated against. In recent memory, the horror anime Housing Complex C illustrates this concern in terms of escalating conflicts between elderly Japanese holding Shinto/Buddhist/Confucian ideas of purity and pollution and young Muslim migrant laborers targeted for scapegoating by a hostile party.

There is, however, another set of possibilities for the appeal of Christian elements in anime. Attraction to Christian characters or characters associated with Christian imagery in terms of sexual fetishism is what it is. As I think about the English dub for Ghost Stories that turns its Christian mystique character into a more familiar American evangelical bigot of the Bush era, it occurs to me this underscores what is not being said through this act of interpolation. In other words, Japanese pop cultural fantasies about Christianity show that other Christianities are possible. 

For example, I think that much of the appeal of Maria Watches Over Us rests in terms of how the Catholic girl’s academy creates an alternative society from mainstream Japan. While Japan still does not recognize gay marriage and legally marginalizes queer identities from families, within the academy the sœur system of fictive kinship between self-declared “sisters” creates a system in which first loves between girls are publicly recognized and accepted. This love between the protagonists is to be symbolically begun before the very statue of the Virgin Mary.

Raise your hand if the exotification of Christianity in Japanese media has always held a weird appeal to you as a non-Christian.

Every time a video game or anime goes "lol this shit is weird I'm gonna flex on it and use it for evocative but shallow aesthetic reasons" it's like getting a little vacation into a world where all that shit is acknowledged as unsettling and weird. It's such a relief.

As much as we poke at shit like Evangelion for doing this, it's a bald-faced lie to pretend that seeing the dominant, domineering religion many of us are stuck in the shadow of treated like that isn't a delight.

[whatisonthemoonarchive]

CAUSA all around the World

CAUSA USA considers that its purpose is to "point out the lies and deceptions of communism, its theory and practice," and to "offer a positive philosophy for God-accepting people."(48) It therefore "seeks to develop an ideological offensive" throughout the United States which is designed to counter the "influence and expansion" of communism. (48) The group organizes conferences and seminars on communist ideology. These conferences promote "Godism" as an alternative to communism. (23,37,47) CAUSA USA also creates grassroots organizations in order to promote its anticommunist worldview. In addition, it runs a speakers bureau, supports voter registration and clean-up campaigns, conducts national and local leadership seminars, publishes the CAUSA USA Report, and coordinates the CAUSA Ministerial Alliance. (23,48) One of its programs is the CAUSA Veterans Association. (48)

CAUSA USA has organized expense-paid seminars and conferences for congressional staff members, Hispanic Americans, and conservative activists. (37,47) In 1985, about 10,000 people (mostly clergy) were recruited to attend all-expense paid CAUSA USA indoctrination conferences. (11) The group has financed trips by Latin American journalists and political leaders to Seoul, South Korea. (47) According to Silvio Arguello–a businessman from Miami who was attempting to establish a pro-contra

Nicaraguan exile group–CAUSA USA also held conferences for Nicaraguan exiles and other Hispanics in Washington DC and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (47)

CAUSA Intl began its work in Latin America in 1980. (23) From 1980 to 1982, the organization’s major activity was the organization of anticommunist seminars for political, military, and other influential groups throughout Latin America. (67)

The Freedom Leadership Foundation is another, though less active, political arm of the church. In 1984, it paid for a fact-finding tour to Central America for four Republican Senate staff members–including aides to Sens. Steve Symms (R-Idaho), Robert W. Kasten Jr. (R-WI), and William L. Armstrong (R-CO). They met with government leaders and officials of the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala and Honduras and joined the official U.S. delegation to observe the Salvadoran elections. (37)

The Intl Conference for the Unity of Science (ICUS) conducts annual conferences which promote interdisciplinary and international dialogues on issues concerning values and science. (56)

The Intl Security Council organizes retired military officers of the Western Alliance. It also sponsors anticommunist conferences. (67)

The Intl Seminars on the Unification Movement (ISUM) consist of seminars which describe the ideas and activities of the Unification movement. (56)

The Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy is a think tank sponsored by the UC organization. Based in Washington DC and founded by Moon in 1983, the institute conducts research, forums, and seminars, and produces publications. (37,43) It underwrites research and seminars at such institutions as the University of Chicago, the Institute for Energy Analysis (Oak Ridge, TN), and Stanford University. (37)

The World Media Association and News World Communications, both founded by Moon, co-sponsor the annual World Media Conference. (26) At the 1986 conference, the World Media Association presented its ethics award for journalism to two individuals. The FIEJ Golden Pen of Freedom went to Pedro J. Chamorro Barrios, former codirector and editor of Nicaragua’s opposition paper, La Prensa. (26) News World Communications Inc publishes The Washington Times, the New York City Tribune, Noticias del Mundo (New York), Insight magazine, and The World and I (monthly). It also operates the weekly Middle East Times and the Free Press Intl news service. (26)

The World Media Association is an intl consortium of organizations and individuals. It is nonprofit and is sponsored by News World Communications. Its projects include the World Media Conference, fact-finding tours, publications, and a special projects fund for research, scholarships, and publications. (26) It sponsors fact-finding tours in "crucial areas of the world" for members of the media and opinion leaders. It pays all expenses for participants and has sponsored tours to Cambodia, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the Soviet Union, Taiwan, and West Germany. (26)

Afghanistan: Lee Shapiro (see below) was killed in October 1987 while taking film footage in strategic areas along the Afghan-Soviet border. Shapiro was working with a $250,000 (another source says $300,000) grant from CAUSA and additional funds from the Bradley and Olin foundations. (27,58)

Angola: CAUSA Intl has provided assistance to Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA, which has been trying to overthrow the Marxist Angolan government. (23)

Argentina: CAUSA was established in this country in 1981. The group’s first seminar had the backing of Archbishop Antonio Plaza of La Plata. (23)

Bolivia: CAUSA has run training seminars for the Bolivian military at the La Paz Military Academy. (23)

Brazil: CAUSA has held banquets, conferences, and training seminars for military, media, educational, and political leaders. (23) The UC organization apparently provided logistical and/or financial support to 57 candidates in the 1986 congressional elections in Brazil. (58,67) The Independent (London, Oct 8, 1986) reported that these contributions were part of a UC effort to build a neofascist political party in Brazil similar to the French National Front. (58,67)

Cambodia: On a 1984 tour to Southeast Asia, the World Media Association took participants to a refugee camp where they met with Gen. Dien Del, vice president of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front. (26)

Guatemala: CAUSA first set up its office in Guatemala in 1982 under the regime of evangelical Gen. Efrain Rios Montt. (1) At a June 1983 CAUSA World Media Conference held in Guatemala City, conference participants called for "the constitution of a regional army of three million soldiers" to resolve the Central American crisis. There were some 250 participants, mostly owners or editors of newspapers. (36) Based in Guatemala, conference participants traveled throughout the Central American region, meeting with military and business leaders in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras. (1) World Student Service Corps Inc. , a CAUSA group, has sent $30,000 in medical supplies to Guatemala. (10) CARP, working in conjunction with the World Student Service Corps, has sent volunteer work brigades to San Pedro and Santiago Atitlan to build community centers. (57)

Honduras: The Intl Relief Friendship Foundation has provided clothing, food, and medicine to Nicaraguan Miskito Indian refugees in Honduras. (33,37,44) According to the IRFF director (as of 1985), CAUSA Intl had paid to fly one of the former organization’s shipments to Honduras. (33) In Honduras, IRFF has provided assistance to refugees directly along the border with Honduras, rather than in the internationallysponsored camps further inland. IRFF’s work has thus been criticized by relief workers and U.S. congressional staff members for effectively maintaining MISURA (an Indian contra faction) military base camps. (33) In 1984, the IRFF shipped 1000 pounds of clothing, almost seven tons of

food, and medical supplies to Miskito refugees along the border. (37) It has provided some of this material aid–including medicines, food, and clothing–to Friends of the Americas, a private humanitarian assistance organization which has supported the Nicaraguan contras and their families. (65)

Edgar Chamorro, a former leader of the largest contra group–the FDN–said that 200 CAUSA members visited two contra camps in Honduras during 1983 or 1984. He said they did not come with aid but with "propaganda."(35) CAUSA has also sent food, clothing, toys, blankets, canvas for tents, and medicines to Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras. (35,44,75) As of mid-1985, CAUSA had sent an estimated $1 million in aid to the area, according to director E. David Woellner. (75) A field kitchen was included among the donations. (75)

CERT (Christian Emergency Relief Team) International, an evangelical Christian assistance operation, took over CAUSA’s humanitarian aid programs around 1987. CERT has been supported by the American Freedom Coalition, a political group with multiple links to the Unification Church, CAUSA, and the American Constitution Committee. (15,49,62,72,73,74)

CAUSA began working with the Nicaraguan revolutionaries based in Honduras in 1981 and has been a large supplier of humanitarian assistance to the contras (see also Nicaragua below). (71) Fernando ("El Negro") Chamorro, a contra leader, said that CAUSA representatives sent him on an all-expense paid trip to the United States in 1981. He was to try to unify Nicaraguan exile groups on the journey. (44) CAUSA airlifted supplies to the contras immediately after Congress first cut off aid. (12) In the past, contra fighters have been seen wearing red CAUSA T-shirts, and CAUSA has provided cash and other aid to the rebels. (44) CAUSA paid $11,000 for the rent and phone bills of the Tegucigalpa headquarters of the Misura contra faction when the leaders of that Indian rebel group were not able to pay their bills. (1,53)

CAUSA USA has made contributions to rightwing businessmen and military officers in Honduras. (47)

CAUSA maintains an office in Tegucigalpa from which it sponsors educational forums in Honduras and El Salvador. Many of Honduras’ leading intellectuals have participated in these forums which focus on education about the Marxist-Leninist threat in the Americas. After a large CAUSA conference in San Pedro Sula several years ago, the organization has concentrated more on small seminars with important sectors of the population, including businesses, community groups, and the military. These seminars purport to teach people how to recognize and fight communism while maintaining democratic freedoms. (71)

The World Student Service Corps, a CAUSA affiliate, was planning (as of 1988) to establish orphanages on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa within the next year or two. (71)

The World Media Association sponsored a 1983 tour to Central America for journalists from 55 countries. One of the areas they visited was a strip along the Honduran border with Nicaragua where they met with a leader of the Nicaraguan contras and visited a camp for Nicaraguan refugees. (26)

Nicaragua: CAUSA has been a supporter of the Nicaraguan rebel forces known as the contras (see also Honduras above). CAUSA contributed money to Phil Mabry to set up a taxfree organization for humanitarian aid for the contras. (7) The Washington Times sponsored the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund (NFF see separate GroupWatch profile) which planned to raise $14 million in aid to the contras. Bo Hi Pak donated $100,000 to launch the project. (23) The NFF was in existence only for four months, from May 8, 1985 to September 9, 1985. (39) It is now inactive but maintains its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status by filing copies of its 1985 tax return each year with the Internal Revenue Service. (39,65)

CAUSA provided funding for an anti-Sandinista documentary on the Miskito Indians produced by film-maker Lee Shapiro, a graduate of Moon’s Unification Theological Seminary. The documentary–called "Nicaragua Was Our Home"–was shown on public television in the United States. (27) Shapiro presented a rushed version of the film to the 1984 U. N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva in 1984. (53) Investigative reporter Karen Branan has criticized Shapiro’s film for a number of reasons, including the film-maker’s claim that he observed a battle which Branan contends never actually occurred. (77)

Paraguay: CAUSA has held seminars for the Paraguayan military and government officials. (23)

Philippines: In the Philippines, CAUSA is helping to set up civilian vigilante groups, elect local rightwing officials, and influence public opinion regarding the U.S. bases negotiations. (52) The Special Operations Teams (SOTs) of the Philippine Army use a manual prepared by CAUSA Intl for their anticommunist lectures. The SOTs are counterinsurgency squads which use political and psychological methods–including anticommunist propaganda–to win the "hearts and minds" of Filipino peasants. (55) A CAUSA affiliate, the Asian Ecumenical Inter-Faith Council itinerated Father Bismarck Carballo for a speaking tour in the Philippines in August 1986. Carballo was an opposition clergyman in Nicaragua who at one time was evicted by the Sandinista government. (8) In October, 1986, CAUSA held a National Security Conference in the country that was attended by Ray Cline and John Singlaub, both experts on counterinsurgency strategy and low intensity conflict. (8)

Uruguay: CAUSA held its first seminar in Uruguay in 1980. (23) Julian Safi, a rightwing journalist with business and media links to the military government, was named head of CAUSA in the country. Under Safi, CAUSA started a newspaper, Noticias del Mundo, purchased Banco de Credito–Uruguay’s third or fourth largest bank–bought the country’s largest printing press, and took over the Victory Plaza, the country’s largest luxury hotel. Safi also took over ownership of Kami Ltd. , a holding company in the Grand Cayman Islands, allowing him and CAUSA access to international financial markets without undergoing government scrutiny. (23,34) As of 1984, the church had invested more than $460 million in the country. (34)

[cool2020calendar-blog]

July 2020 Calendar For Holiday & Work Schedule

July is the second month of summer and is known for its warm air. The best movement in July is to chill by a plunge in the sea or pool, swing in a lounger and look at get-togethers on a pre-summer night.

July is the most sultry month of the Northern Hemisphere and, regardless of what may be standard, it is seen as the coldest month in the Southern Hemisphere. July is the thing that maybe stood apart from January of the Northern side of the equator in the Southern side of the equator.

The second half of the year starts with July. In various workplaces, the assessments made around the beginning of the year are sketched out and the course is broke down. July is in like the way the comprehensive length of inquiring about decisions taken for the new year. You may even need to do a little cure. Since you may be gone in a general sense speedier, or more conceded than you orchestrated.

July is close to the immense piece of various festivals and there are various inspirations to experience this month flooding with fun. Because of each and every outside activity, coastline parties, weddings, national events and a wide degree of good occasions in July, you can be to some degree hard to contribute noteworthiness with each event.

HISTORY OF JULY

July was from the beginning of the great importance of Quintilis in the Roman timetable. It was the "fifth" month of the year until January and February were joined into the timetable in 450 BC. It got its entrancing name from the Latin word for fifth. Later the name was changed to Julius to pay tribute to Julius Caesar who was considered on July 12.

July is the standard time length known as "fence month," the shut season for deer in England. The satisfaction of England's High Court of Justice Trinity Term occurs on 31 July. July is in like the way the time wherein the races happen for the Japanese House of Councilors, held at standard among times and displacing half of its seats. In Ancient Rome, the festival of Poplifugia was adulated on 5 July, and Ludi Apollinaris was held tight 13 July and for a couple of days a brief range later. Everything considered, these dates don't identify with the progressed Gregorian timetable.

The name of the seventh month of the year – July – was given by the Roman Senate in 46 B.C. out of thankfulness for ruler Julius Caesar.

July is the most blasting month in the Northern Hemisphere all around. It takes after January in the Southern Hemisphere.

A touch of the time the sweltering, wide stretches of July are known as the "dog extended lengths of summer".

There are various countries which have their Independence Day during the hour of July. These set the United States, Belarus, Venezuela, Argentina, Belgium, the Bahamas, and the Maldives. The national days for France and Canada occur in July too.

It is a section of the time called the Hay month considering the manner in which that the grass dries out by excellence of a nonappearance of a tempest and can be made into a feed.

July's birthstone, the ruby, is reliably associated with fulfillment, love, centrality, and steadfast quality.

The regular develop of the great importance of July is the water lily, symbolizing joy, capriciousness, and sweetness.

No month completes on a general day of the week as July close to on the off chance that it is a ricochet year when January achieves everything considered.

More US presidents (seven) have passed on in July than in some other month.

The outdated British called July "Heymonth" or "Maedmonth" recommending haymaking and dales blooming.

JULY HOLIDAYS IN THE UNITED STATES

Opportunity Day (July fourth)

Opportunity Day 2020, generally called Fourth of July, is an association event observed yearly on July fourth. It is the acknowledgment of the dispersing of the solicitation of the self-rule of the United States of America from Great Britain in 1776.

On April 19, 1775, during the Battles of Lexington and Concord (Mass.), the fundamental shots were released among pioneers and British troopers, starting the American Revolution. After these first military conflicts, the strain among Britain and her American pioneers continued mounting. By then, on July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress controlled for self-rule from Britain.

Following two days, on July 4, the Congress authenticated the last draft of the Declaration of Independence, which had been made by Thomas Jefferson and changed by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. On July 8, the basic open researching of the Declaration happened at the Pennsylvania State House (genuinely Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later that for all intents and purposes indistinguishable day, various readings occurred in Trenton, New Jersey, and Easton, Pennsylvania.

In the United States, Independence Day is an association event everything thought about celebrated with walks, shows, sparklers and picnics, and fire burns. Various people show the American standard outside their homes or structures. If Independence Day falls on seven days' end, by then the last Friday or following Monday will be an event. As this is a Federal event, not only will schools and libraries be closed. Most government and state working circumstances will correspondingly be closed and there will be no mail send on Independence Day.

In general Day of Friendship

The International Day of Friendship is a United Nations (UN) day that supports the activity that coordinated effort plays in actuating congeniality in various social solicitations. Before the 30th of July was recently nitty-gritty as the International Day of Friendship by the General Assembly of United Nations in 2011, the central thought for a day of the association began from Hallmark cards during the 1930s, various years back. It was from the beginning celebrated on second August, the day was, as they say, seen incredulously by general society as a business work out, offers of family relationship day cards didn't take off in Europe and by the mid-1940's the day had ended up being unsafe in the USA. The probability of a day to regard family connections was, in any case, understood by different countries in Asia where it remained a standard custom to hold a day for complimenting affiliations and the exchanging of headways between buddies.

The basic World Friendship Day was proposed for 30 July 1958 by the World Friendship Crusade, a general crucial affiliation that fights to connect with a culture of the comprehension through affiliation.

Because of the creation pervasiveness of electronic life all through the world, there has been a huge development in watching World Friendship Day and International Day of Friendship online similarly as in system practices in close to structures arranged for get-together ones of different establishments.

If you are an "all around sorted out" person who reliably says interest is fundamental, attempt to experience this day with your mates (by structure new memories)! You ought to just check this day on your July 2020 calendar printable!

National Parents' Day

Gatekeepers' Day lauds the monstrosity of the development of trustworthy youth raising in family life dependably on the fourth Sunday in July. Families are the most minor unit of the general people and a significant human establishment. The need of a family is to be as one through boundless love and responsibility.

Watchmen's Day was set up in 1994. In a time span where society ended up being genuinely self-devoured, President Bill Clinton meant congressional focuses to watch Parents' Day needing to move family duties and parental responsibilities. Kept up by the Unification Church, Senator Trent Lott passed on the bill into the senate and the National Parents' Day Coalition was made to help Parents' Day by dependably picking 'Watchmen' of the Year' at neighborhood, national and state levels. The Coalition similarly ensures informational activities for protects and might want to drive the dependable idea of family by enabling consistency among wedded couples, and of marriage between youngsters.

National Parents' Day isn't a day of gift-giving. Gifts are starting at now permitted on Mother's Day in May and Father's Day in June. The best way to deal with a watch this day is achieving something fun by contributing noteworthiness with your kinfolk. It's in like manner of key giant that you cause them to appreciate the entire they are revered and saw.

This year in 2020 National Parents' Day will be commended on July 26th 2020, Sunday.

In case you have to experience this novel day with your family or bring a journey through a huge field of cordial recollections, you may put a sign on your printable timetable.

Certainly UNDERSTOOD BIRTHDAYS IN JULY

July 6, 1946 – George Walker Bush who is the past (43rd) President of the United States was considered in New Haven, Connecticut.

July 10, 1856–Nikola Tesla who was a Serbian-American pioneer, best known for his advancement of substituting stream electrical systems was imagined in Smiljan, Austrian Empire (clearly in Croatia).

July 18, 1918–A Nobel laureate, Nelson Mandela who was the man submitted for toppling politically-grasped racial detachment and joining the country of South Africa was imagined in Mvezo, South Africa.

July 21, 1899–Ernest Hemingway who was a Nobel Prize-winning American essayist was considered in Cicero (legitimately in Oak Park), Illinois.

July 26, 1943–Mick Jagger who is a recognized entertainer, lyricist, craftsman, on-screen character and the setting up individual from 'The Rolling Stones' was considered in Dartford, England. July 6, 1907–Frida Kahlo who was a prominent Mexico.

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Arts and humanities research papers Humanities - Research Topic Ideas - LibGuides at University of Michigan

American civil religion Buddhism in contemporary India Christians in contemporary Middle East Conscientious objection in wartime Evangelicals and Catholics Together project Great Awakenings in American history Hasidic movements Hinduism in the West House churches in China. Research Topic Ideas. Bayeaux Tapestry Chinese Communist Revolution Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 The Committee on Public Information Dust Bowl Genealogy Great Migration Glorious Revolution Historic home preservation Jacobite Rebellion Japanese imperialism Lost colony of Roanoke. Nation of Islam Nationalism Oral history Ottoman Empire Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) Sit-down strike of 1936-1937 Speakeasy Unification of Germany Urbanization Vietnam War Wide Awakes Women's Suffrage movement Works Progress Administration Yalta Conference. Assisted suicide Birthright citizenship Civil forfeiture Conscience rights in the workplace Data encryption and surveillance Discipline of employees for conduct outside work Due process on campus Fourth Amendment and privacy Indigent criminal defendants International Criminal Court Maritime piracy in the 21st century Mass incarceration. Non-governmental organizations (NGO) in international law Regulatory process and public input Religious Freedom Restoration Act Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act Roberts Court Sales tax on internet purchases Second Amendment Social media and freedom of speech Sovereign citizen movement Supreme Court, power of Tort reform Union organizing. Linguistic Topics. Language revitalization Oral history Regional languages Slang Southern dialect Whistled languages. Literature Topics. Afrofuturism Arthurian legend Beat poets Broadside Press Concrete poetry Economic context of a novel Ecocriticism Ecopoetry Elegies Fairy tales Folklore Freudian interpretation Gothic Graphic novels Harlem Renaissance Hero archetype. Neo-romanticism Nocturnes Postcolonial literature Raku poetry Science fiction Symbolism Theater of the absurd Transcendentalism World building. Philosophy Topics. Animal rights Assisted suicide Blank slate Emergent property and consciousness Environmental ethics Free will Human cloning Just war theory Moral psychology. Philosophical anarchism Political obligation Qualia Theories of punishment Third wave feminism Time travel. Nation of Islam New Atheism New religious movements Pentecostalism in Latin America Religious Freedom Restoration Act Santa Muerte Santeria Shia minorities in the Middle East Shinto before and after World War II Sufism today Waldenses. Chat with a Librarian. Suggested Databases. African American studies, anthropology, botany, business, ecology, economics, education, general science, geography, history, language & literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, sociology, statistics.... View more ...

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http://ift.tt/2qXYnnY

It’s pretty much a given fact that we need food and water to survive. If you’re lost somewhere in a harsh environment, finding food and a source of water are pretty much a necessity. The human body can go three weeks without food, but water is a different story. Generally speaking, the human body can’t go more than three days without water, but there have been cases of people surviving for 8-10 days without water. We all need food and liquids to survive, but some people will put themselves on starvation diets in an attempt to lose weight. And then, others will abstain from eating food and drinking liquids for fasting purposes. Ascetics separate themselves from the world and fast for long periods of time. Ascetics may survive from eating small amounts of food, but they never stop eating it entirely. However, there are some people who have claimed that they don’t need nourishment from food and liquids but from other sources instead. These people are known as breatharians. Breatharians practice a lifestyle in which they get nourishment from air and sunlight. Some abstain from just food while others abstain from food and liquids. Scientists and medical professionals think of breatharianism as a dangerous pseudoscience with lethal consequences. And after doing research on breatharianism, I don’t think they’re wrong. If you want to know more about this somewhat eccentric lifestyle, then check out this list of 15 things to know about breatharianism, the belief you can live without food or water.

#1 Breatharianism Is Not Fasting It’s important to note that breatharianism is not considered fasting. Breatharianism and fasting are two different things. Weirdly enough, though, breatharianism is also referred to as “inedia,” which is the Latin word for fasting. Fasting has an end point. People fast for days, weeks, months, maybe even longer. But breatharianism doesn’t have an end point. It’s not fasting and it’s not dieting, though it has been used by some for weight loss. It’s a complete lifestyle change that forces you to put away for food and liquids for…well… forever. At least that statement is partially true. Some breatharians will drink water. One breatharian in particular admitted to eating mouthfuls of food every once in a while. She said just to keep her energy levels up.

#2 Breatharians Survive Off Prana Breatharianism seems to have some roots in Hindu philosophy. Breatharians supposedly don’t live off food or water. They live off prana instead. Prana is a Sanskrit word that means “life force” or “life energy.” It’s a comic energy that’s present everywhere and is believed to be responsible for all bodily functions. Because prana is thought to aid with bodily functions, breatharians believe this is all they need to survive. They claim to get their intake of prana by taking in plenty of air and sunshine.

#3 Breatharians Think Breatharianism Is The Cure For Hunger 11% of the world’s population faces chronic undernourishment. About 805 million people go hungry every day. There have been numerous campaigns to end world hunger, such as Cure4Hunger, an organization that seeks to build Food and Water Domes all over the globe. Everyone can probably agree that finding the solution is a complex issue, but breatharians believe that the cure is a lot simpler than the rest of us would think. Since breatharians believe that we all need to survive is air and sunlight, they recommend that people in famine-stricken countries take up a breatharian diet. There would be no death, let alone diseases, due to lack of food so millions of lives could be saved as a result.

#4 The Digestive System Is Believed To Be A Mistake The digestive system is made up of the digestive tract, the liver, the pancreas, and the gallbladder. Furthermore, the digestive tract is made up of the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, the large intestine, and the anus. After food passes through the mouth, it then moves through all the organs of the digestive tract until it ends up in the anus. Without digestion, our bodies wouldn’t be able to break down the nutrients it gets from food, nutrients that the body requires for energy, cell repair, and more. However, breatharians believe the digestive system is completely wrong. Since all we supposedly need to live is air and sunlight, the organs that make up our digestive system are totally useless.

#5 The Most Famous Breatharian Is Jasmuheen Before you ask, Jasmuheen isn’t her real name. She was born Ellen Greve in New South Wales, Australia in 1957. She is a major proponent of the breatharianism lifestyle, claiming to not have eaten since the year 1993. However, she later admitted that she does occasionally eat a mouthful of food, whatever she fancies at the moment. Moreover, visitors to her home who came over for interviews with her took note of the food in her kitchen. She denied allegations that she ate food on a regular basis, saying the food was for her husband. Jasmuheen travels all over the world, speaking at lectures on breatharianism and encouraging more people to take up the lifestyle. In addition to that, she oversees the Cosmic Internet Academy. She is widely regarded by the scientific community as a sham diet guru who makes outrageous psychic claims.

#6 There Is A Six-Step Plan To Breatharianism If one wishes to take up breatharianism, they’re not supposed to abruptly cut off all consumption of food and liquids. The way is to slowly wean themselves off food and drink until they achieve a completely breatharianistic way of living. Jasmuheen laid out a six-step plan for new breatharians to follow. Step one is to cut out meat from the diet and become a vegetarian. Step two is to cut out dairy and eggs and become a vegan. Step three is to cut out processed and cooked food and only eat raw food. Step four is to only eat fruits. Step five is to only intake liquids. And finally, step six is to only take in prana. Once a new breatharian has reached step six, he or she has completed the process and has become an official breatharian.

#7 Nikola Tesla Supported Breatharianism Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, engineer, and physicist who is best known for his contributions to the fields of engineering and physics, namely towards the conceptions of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. A lesser-known fact is that he was a supporter for breatharianism. In 1901, he wrote an article for Collier’s Weekly titled “Talking With the Planets,” in which he said, “Why should a living being not be able to obtain all the energy it needs for the performance of its life functions from the environment, instead of through consumption of food, and transforming, by a complicated process, the energy of chemical combinations into life-sustaining energy?” To Tesla, it was still a question of whether or not chemical processes, such as metabolism, were necessary for the survival of living beings.

#8 Michelle Pfeiffer Used To Follow The Breatharianism Lifestyle There are quite a few cults out there. Breatharianism is no different. And actress Michelle Pfeiffer used to be a part of it. During her younger years, the Academy Award-winning actress was involved with a particular Breatharianism cult, though not willingly. She talked about her experiences in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine. Pfeiffer got caught up with a couple who were breatharians themselves and they forced her to stick to a strict and demanding diet. She didn’t live with the couple but she did visit their house a lot. However, they told her that she needed to come more and they constantly expected payments. The actress was “rescued” by her now ex-husband, Peter Moon, who was working on a film about Moonies or followers of the Unification Church started by Sun Myung Moon. She soon realized she got caught up in another cult as well.

#9 There Are Breatharian Gurus Just like in any kind of lifestyle, you can find gurus to learn from. One of them is a man by the name of Hira Ratan Manek, a 79-year-old Indian who’s also a former mechanical engineer and businessman. He runs the Solar Healing Center in Winter Park, Florida. Manek claims to have been living off nothing but energy from the sun and boiled water since 1995. Not only will one be free from hunger, but he and his followers believe that living off sun energy can cure mental and physical illnesses and improve one’s memory. Another Breatharianism guru is Tapaswi Palden Dorje (pictured above), born circa April 9, 1990, in Nepal. Dorje declares to have stopped eating and drinking after he was bitten by a poisonous snake. His followers believe that the snake gave Dorje enlightenment, claiming to see a light emanating from his head.

#10 Some American Teenage Girls Practice Breatharianism In Some Sort Of Way You may be surprised to know that some people adhere to breatharianism without even knowing they’re doing it. These people are teenage girls living in America. 10% of the female American population engage in breatharianism in some form. It happens during puberty when the body is experiencing major developments that affect the emotions and hormones. These changes can affect their eating habits, causing them to eat less to avoid obesity. The early teenage years can be difficult for many girls because their bodies are undergoing various changes they might not understand at first, and during this time, they become worried about what their peers might think of them based on how much they eat. So they’ll abstain from eating a lot of food in an attempt to keep their weight down.

#11 60 Minutes Stopped A Fasting Demonstration Due To Health Concerns In order to prove the naysayers wrong on what many believe to be a bogus “diet,” Jasmuheen decided to stage a fasting demonstration on the Australian version of 60 Minutes to show everyone what the breatharianism lifestyle was all about. 48 hours into the demonstration, Jasmuheen’s blood pressure rose and she started showing signs of dehydration. She blamed polluted air for the decline in her health so she moved to a different location further from the city. But she didn’t get better. Instead, she got worse. Her pupils started dilating and she started losing weight. Doctors supervising the trial ordered for it to be stopped, worried that Jasmuheen would suffer kidney damage if the demonstration continued any longer. However, Jasmuheen has a different belief on why doctors stopped the test prematurely. She believes they stopped her because they feared the demonstration would be proven successful.

#12 A Woman Broadcasted Her Breatharianism Experience Through Social Media Lots of people do crazy stuff on social media, so this case is no different. In 2013, 65-year-old Naveena Shine from Seattle, Washington decided to try out breatharianism. But unlike other new breatharians, Shrine elected to broadcast her experiences on social media. For four to six months, Shrine would ingest nothing but tea and water. She left several cameras running around the house to show her activities 24/7 and provided updates on Facebook and Twitter. She intended to get nourishment from air, water, and light. More specifically, the “source already embedded within our body/mind/Spiritual systems.” During the experiment, she lost 20 pounds and suffered from nausea and exhaustion. She terminated the venture after 47 days, due to strong negative response and financial issues.

#13 Several People Have Died From Breatharianism It probably goes without saying that people have died from taking up breatharianism. After all, any lifestyle that doesn’t allow you to eat or drink can’t have good long-term effects. At least four of Jasmuheen’s devotees have died from practicing breatharianism. One of them was a 31-year-old kindergarten teacher named Timo Degen from Munich, Germany who read about breatharianism on the Internet and decided to try it out. After three weeks of fasting, he fell into a coma and had to be hospitalized. He later died. Another case was that of a 49-year-old woman named Verity Lynn from Loch Cam, Sutherland, Scotland. Like Degen, Lynn read up on breatharianism on the Internet and was eager to try it out. She went fasting on a camping trip. Her body was found two weeks later. Jasmuheen deflected the blame for her followers’ deaths off herself, saying they didn’t find the light that would have nourished them.

#14 The Best Proof For Breatharianism Supposedly Lies In Prahlad Jani Prahlad Jani, also known as “Mataji,” is an 87-year-old Indian sadhu. A sadhu is a religious ascetic in Hinduism who has rejected worldly life. Jani has claimed he has not eaten anything since 1940, nearly 80 years ago. He claimed that when he was but a child, the goddess, Amba, told him that he didn’t need to eat food. He says that Amba sustains him and gives him nourishment. Doctors studied this man for two weeks but found themselves astounded when they didn’t see him eat or drink anything in the two-week period. And unlike Jasmuheen, Jani didn’t undergo any physiological changes during this demonstration. The doctors didn’t publish their findings in any medical journals, but even so, the veracity of these trials was disputed. Many believe the doctors were quacks, much like they believe Jani to be a fraud.

#15 The Founder Of The Breatharian Institute Of America Goes To McDonald’s You would think that the creator of breatharianism would follow the lifestyle to a tee, but not in the case of Wiley Brooks, the founder of the Breatharian Institute of America. Brooks claims to be the reincarnation of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ and claims to be continuing a process that was started during his supposed past life as Jesus Christ. Like other Breatharians, Brooks lives off air and sunlight…and McDonald’s. He eats double quarter-pounder with cheese meals and diet Coke as he believes these are the only foods that aren’t radioactive. Brooks says every other food and every other liquid on this planet contains radioactive energy. That is, except for his “Elixir Of The Gods,” a “special” water that will cost you $10,000 a bottle. If you think that’s steep, immortality workshops cost a whopping $1,000,000.

Source: TheRichest

[nebris]

Secret Knowledge—or a Hoax?

The Voynich Manuscript edited by Raymond Clemens, with an introduction by Deborah Harkness Beinecke Library/ Yale University Press, 304 pp., $50.00

In 1969 America’s most significant dealer in medieval manuscripts, the Viennese-born bibliophile Hans Peter Kraus, donated a celebrated volume to Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Measuring ten inches by seven and bound in limp white vellum (the Renaissance bookbinder’s equivalent of paperback, and definitely not the original cover), Kraus’s gift was cataloged as Beinecke MS 408.

The manuscript’s celebrity is at first sight puzzling, since it is an unglamorous, even somewhat shabby object: 234 pages gathered in eighteen “quires,” or foldings, each consisting of between one and six double pages, or “bifolia.” Very unusually for a medieval manuscript, Beinecke MS 408 also includes eleven larger “foldout” pages, containing what appear to be astronomical or astrological diagrams. At some date after the book’s compilation, each folio was numbered in ink on the right-hand opening (technically known as the recto).

The first 130 pages of the volume are taken up with what appears to be an herbal, each page containing a large if somewhat sloppily executed drawing of a plant, depicting root, stem, flowers, and leaves, around which extensive text, in no recognizable language but written in a fluent cursive hand, has been carefully arranged so as to avoid encroaching on any part of the picture. This “herbal” section is followed by a cluster of large foldout pages decorated with circular zodiacal or astrological diagrams, and this in turn gives way to a section of ten folios containing yet more unrecognizable text, interspersed with decidedly unerotic drawings of groups of plump naked women, bathing in pools and conduits of blue or green water, which some students of the manuscript have suggested might be symbolic representations of bodily functions such as reproduction.

After a further group of large foldout pages with more astronomical images, there follows another cluster of “herbal” images. These consist of multiple small drawings embedded in the text of each page, alongside objects in the margin that resemble pharmacological jars, perhaps suggesting that this part of the manuscript refers back to the opening herbal, and was intended as a collection of medical recipes. The book’s closing section consists of twenty-three pages of closely written text without illustration, made up of short paragraphs of just a few lines apiece, each paragraph prefaced by a star or asterisk.

Kraus had bought this baffling manuscript as a commercial speculation in 1961, for $24,500 plus a half share in any future profit. The vendor was Anne Nill, secretary, professional collaborator, and ultimate heir of the manuscript’s first discoverer, a remarkable Polish-Lithuanian bookdealer and adventurer, Wilfrid Michael Voynich. Born in 1864 and a graduate in law and chemistry from the University of Moscow, Voynich had been arrested in 1885 as a revolutionary Polish nationalist and had spent five years in exile in Siberia. Escaping via Mongolia on a forged passport, Voynich had ultimately arrived penniless in England, having bartered even his spectacles and waistcoat to pay for his passage. Initially drawn again into revolutionary circles in London around the Ukrainian political agitator Sergei “Stepniak” Kravchinsky, Voynich was befriended by Richard Garnett, keeper of the British Museum Reading Room, the regular haunt of late-nineteenth-century Russian and other Eastern European exiles.

It was at Garnett’s suggestion that Voynich put his omnivorously eclectic learning, his cosmopolitan personal connections, and his gifts as a linguist to use as a buyer and seller of rare books, a field in which he rapidly established himself as a piratical and successful entrepreneur. A flamboyant personality regarded with hostility or condescension by less successful dealers and more orthodox bibliophiles, Voynich packed his catalogs with arcane bibliographical detail, which established his reputation for near omniscience: he was soon making money. Specializing at first in incunabula—books printed before 1501—he sold to prestigious collectors and libraries, including the British Museum, which bought the entire contents of his eighth catalog. The books from that purchase, now shelved together in the British Library, provide a snapshot of the rich contents of Voynich’s shop in Soho Square, later moved to the grander purlieus of Piccadilly.

The precise circumstances surrounding Voynich’s acquisition of Beinecke MS 408 are obscure, but it had certainly been one of a group of manuscripts and books from the library of Athanasius Kircher, the seventeenth-century Jesuit polymath and scientist. Kircher’s books were rescued from confiscation by the new state of Italy during its stand-off with the church in the years after unification in 1871, along with other rarities from the library of the Jesuit university in Rome, the Collegio Romano, where Kircher had been a professor for forty years. More than three hundred of these hidden Jesuit treasures ultimately ended up in the Vatican Library, but in 1912 Voynich, who regularly toured Italy in search of incunabula and manuscripts, managed to buy a few. One of these, described by Voynich as the “ugly duckling” of the former Collegio Romano collection, was the future Beinecke MS 408.

If Voynich labeled his acquisition an ugly duckling, he was nevertheless convinced that he had acquired an exceptional swan in the making, for he believed its baffling text concealed a scientific treatise of major importance by one of the greatest minds of the high Middle Ages. In this belief, he was following a letter from the Prague physician Johannes Marcus Marci to Kircher, dated August 19, 1665, which had been tucked inside the manuscript. Marci’s letter claimed that the manuscript was the work of the thirteenth-century English Franciscan scientist and alchemist Roger Bacon, and that more recently it had been acquired for the library of the emperor Rudolf II for the very large sum of six hundred golden ducats.

The alleged connection to Bacon would prove to be illusory, but Rudolf’s avid interest in alchemy, astrology, magic, and all manner of occult studies, together with the presence on the first leaf of the manuscript of the signature (now invisible to the naked eye) of Jacobus Hořčický de Tepenec (circa 1575–1622), court pharmacist to the emperor, ennobled by Rudolf in 1608, lends plausibility to the alleged imperial provenance. Marci’s motive for presenting Kircher with the manuscript was to induce him to decipher the text.

This was not the first such appeal. Marci had acquired the book from the library of another Bohemian alchemist, Georgius Barschius. In 1637 Barschius himself had copied extracts from the manuscript and sent them to Kircher, who, among much else, was an expert on Oriental languages and whose Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta (1643) would be regarded as a foundational text for the study of Egyptian hieroglyphics. So Barschius hoped that this all-knowing “Oedipus of Egypt” was just the man to decipher his enigmatic manuscript, “a certain riddle of the Sphinx,” which he believed must have been written in a code or cipher, as alchemical and magical treatises often were. Kircher told another Prague-based Jesuit mathematician, Theodor Moretus, that he had indeed tried unsuccessfully to decipher the text: marginal traces of an early effort to supply equivalents from the Latin alphabet for the mysterious letters in the manuscript itself may be relics of these attempts at decryption.

Voynich was immensely excited by all this. His knowledge of the court of Rudolf II was not very deep, and largely derived from a popular history of scientific and alchemical studies at the Prague court published in 1904 by Henry Carrington Bolton, an American chemist, bibliographer, and historian of science. Bolton’s book, The Follies of Science at the Court of Rudolf II, 1576–1612, gave a prominent place to the English magician and alchemist John Dee, who with his assistant and “scryer,” Edward Kelley, spent years attempting to communicate with angels, in order to learn the universal language spoken by Adam in Paradise before the Fall.

Dee’s journals contained passages in an arcane alphabet purporting to be written in this language. To Voynich, here was the obvious background for his mysterious new acquisition, and Dee’s presence in Rudolfian Prague seemed to provide a plausible conduit for the transmission of a mysteriously encrypted text by Roger Bacon to the court of the alchemist emperor.

Voynich eagerly set about publicizing his manuscript, which he valued at the huge sum of $100,000, and which he invariably referred to as “the Roger Bacon Cipher Manuscript.” Especially after the outbreak of war in 1914, his business was increasingly in the United States, and on his many trips to America he did everything he could to talk up the importance of his find. He told The New York Times that “when the time comes, I will prove to the world that the black magic of the Middle Ages consisted in discoveries far in advance of twentieth-century science.”

To supplement his own attempts to decrypt the manuscript, he made photographs of individual pages available to inquirers. In a time of war, Voynich’s endless harping on decryption prompted suspicions that he might be a spy attempting to penetrate American security, but the decipherment of the so-called Roger Bacon manuscript aroused considerable scholarly interest. It was enthusiastically embraced by distinguished medievalists, including the Chicago-based textual scholar John Matthews Manly, who publicized Voynich’s find in an article in Harper’s Magazine in 1921 as “The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World.”

Even more sensationally, William Romaine Newbold, a distinguished medievalist and historian of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, toured academic and popular lecture halls with the announcement that he had cracked the code in which this mysterious manuscript was written, and that it did indeed contain amazing revelations. These included the claim that Bacon, in the thirteenth century, had understood and made use of both the compound microscope and the telescope, and with their aid had anticipated the discoveries of twentieth-century scientists about germ cells, spermatozoa, and other mechanisms of organic life.

Newbold’s supposed decryption of the Voynich manuscript was taken at face value by world-class scholars like the French medievalist Étienne Gilson, but it was in fact based on an elaborate set of misunderstandings and unfounded hypotheses. Newbold’s entire scheme was mercilessly demolished in 1931 in a devastating article in the medieval journal Speculum by none other than J.M. Manly, now disillusioned about all claims to have cracked the Voynich manuscript code. Voynich himself had died of cancer the previous year, but despite the disproof of Newbold’s theories and the inaccessibility of the manuscript itself (now locked away in a bank vault by Voynich’s widow, Ethel), interest in its mysteries grew. Although he rejected Newbold’s claims, Manly remained intrigued by Voynich’s manuscript. During World War I he himself had worked as a US Army cryptographer. In 1916 he had been befriended by William F. Friedman, America’s most talented maker and breaker of codes, and reputedly the world’s greatest cryptologist.

At that time Friedman was based in the department of ciphers at the private research institute funded by the textile magnate George Fabyan at Riverbank, near Chicago. Fabyan was an ardent believer in the theory that Shakespeare’s works had in fact been written by Francis Bacon (no relation to Roger Bacon), and the chief code-breaker at Riverbank, Elizabeth Wells Gallup, was the principal advocate of the theory that Bacon had not only written all of Shakespeare, but also the plays of Christopher Marlowe as well as Richard Burton’s immense Anatomy of Melancholy. Convinced that all these pseudonymous works were dense with encrypted secret messages, she devoted manic ingenuity to decoding them. Friedman and his wife Elizebeth, initially employed as Gallup’s assistants, came to reject her bizarre theories, but the world of American cryptology in the aftermath of the war was saturated with conspiracy theories and fascination with the idea of hidden mysteries in ancient texts.

Friedman, who ultimately became head of cryptology at the National Security Agency, was one of those who applied to Voynich for photographs of his manuscript. He remained intrigued to the end of his life by the attempt to decipher it, and built up what is probably the largest private archive of material relating to it. During World War II, Friedman’s team was at the center of successful cracking of the Japanese secret code, “Purple,” by US intelligence; but from 1944 onward he found time to establish a special study group devoted to decrypting the Voynich manuscript, which met regularly at Arlington Hall, America’s equivalent of Britain’s code-breaking center at Bletchley Park.

After the end of World War II, Friedman convened prestigious scholarly seminars devoted to the manuscript. He involved, among many others, Brigadier John Tiltman, the noted British cryptographer and assistant director of the British Intelligence Headquarters (GCHQ), in attempts to decode the manuscript. At Tiltman’s suggestion a young NSA cryptologist, Mary D’Imperio, was appointed to continue the ailing Friedman’s work on it, and in 1978 she would eventually publish, under the auspices of the National Security Agency, what is still considered the best introduction to its mysteries, The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma.

But all to no avail. Voynich’s find retained its secrets, and by the time of Friedman’s death in 1969, the year Kraus donated the manuscript to Yale, Friedman himself had concluded that rather than being an encrypted text written in cipher, the Voynich manuscript was an early-sixteenth-century attempt to create an artificial universal language.

This steady expansion of interest in the Voynich manuscript was the background to Kraus’s speculative purchase in 1961. Like Voynich, Kraus believed this “ugly duckling” might one day lay a golden egg. To preserve its commercial value, he rejected all requests for scholarly access to it and refused to lend it to exhibitions. He put it on the market for $160,000, but despite the escalating scholarly and cryptological fascination, there were no buyers. So in 1969 he decided to cut his losses gracefully and donated Voynich’s ugly duckling to Yale.

The deposit of the Voynich manuscript in a great university library at last made sustained scholarly analysis possible, and over the four and a half decades of Yale’s custodianship some certainties have been established, and some myths laid to rest. Exhaustive scientific and conservational analysis of the parchment on which the manuscript is written, the stitching of the binding in which it is contained, and the inks and paints with which it was written and illuminated have disposed of the notion that the manuscript dates from the thirteenth century or that it is the work of Roger Bacon. Radio carbon dating of slivers from a range of pages has firmly dated the book’s materials to the years around 1430. The vellum pages are made of good-quality (and therefore expensive) calfskin, commonly used in book production all over medieval Europe. (Goatskin vellum, by contrast, would have strengthened the case for a southern German or Italian origin, a provenance favored by many students of the manuscript.)

Equally, all this effectively rules out any possibility that the manuscript is a post-medieval forgery—it is inconceivable that the huge quantities of blank parchment needed for such a forgery could have survived from the early fifteenth century. The book’s pages, whose consistency suggests that they derived from a single source, would have required at least fourteen or fifteen entire calfskins. It is therefore overwhelmingly likely that the manuscript was written and illustrated soon after the parchment was prepared, in the first third of the fifteenth century. Its fluent cursive handwriting, without emendation of any kind, seems incompatible with the notion that it might nevertheless be a careful scribal copy of an earlier medieval text. The dating of its materials to the early fifteenth century rules out the suggestion, credited by art historians like Erwin Panofsky, but never very convincing, that the manuscript contains illustrations of plants such as capsicum or the sunflower, unknown before the discovery of the New World.

Scientific study has gone alongside steadily growing public interest. More than 10 percent of the visits to the Beinecke Library website relate to the Voynich manuscript, as do almost 50 percent of visits to the website’s zoom-viewer, which enables close-up examination of single pages. When Umberto Eco, the semiologist, medievalist, and author of the best-selling medieval puzzle-novel The Name of the Rose, lectured at Yale to celebrate the Beinecke Library’s fiftieth anniversary, the only one of its many treasures he asked to see was the Voynich manuscript. In an era when the fictions of Dan Brown can be imagined to have lifted the lid on ancient conspiracies, none of this is perhaps surprising. The publication by Yale University Press of an actual-size colored facsimile, with an informative set of specialist essays on the manuscript’s history, materials, cryptological puzzles, and public impact, will no doubt encourage wider engagement with its enigmas and set off a multitude of amateur as well as professional attempts to decipher it.

But if we can be fairly sure that the manuscript is not a modern forgery, it by no means follows that it is not in fact a medieval hoax. Four centuries of attempts to decode, decipher, or translate the text have all ended in bafflement. The finest cryptological minds of the twentieth century and sustained computer analysis alike have drawn a blank; the text refuses to yield meaning. Attempts to find parallels to the text in cabbalistical, hermetic, or alchemical code systems have all thrown up more disparities than resemblances. What if the book’s mysteries are in fact pure mystification, specious appearance that never had any real meaning?

This is a possibility strongly suggested by the manuscript’s single largest component, the herbal, with its crudely colored images of plants. No student of the herbal illustrations has ever succeeded in identifying convincingly a single image as any known plant. Medieval herbals were rarely based on exact observation from nature, but even by the conventions of medieval botanical representation, the Voynich images are, collectively and singly, biological impossibilities. Roots and branches bifurcate and then rejoin again to form a single stem (folios 5v, 22, 23, 40, 52), two separate stalks are joined by a single lateral branch or end in the same single leaf (23), slender stalks emerge from holes in the thick flat surfaces of roots that have been cut across like sawn tree trunks (14, 16, 16v, 19, 39v, 45v), and spiky leaves exactly mirror the forms of the same plant’s improbable roots (54).

In other words, the “plants” represented in the book’s herbal section never did and never could exist in nature: they are pure fantasy. And if the images are, then possibly the text is too. Even an uninformed observer examining any random pages of Beinecke MS 408 will be struck by the highly repetitious character of the text, with the same symbols and clusters of “letters” occurring in consecutive words and lines. This is a feature of the Voynich manuscript that has often been noted. It is one of the reasons for suspecting that the text is not in fact a real language at all, cunningly concealed, but an elegantly scripted but meaningless babble, deploying a limited number of forms over and over again.

Why might such a hoax have been perpetrated? The sheer scale, expense, and complexity of the Voynich manuscript would seem to preclude the notion that it was assembled as some kind of joke: it’s hard to imagine a punch line that required so elaborate a buildup. That leaves lunacy or lucre as possible motives. Madness can’t entirely be ruled out: mania takes many forms, and a well-to-do obsessive convinced he (or she) held the key to great secrets might drive the production of such a compilation.

But the likeliest motive surely must be money. The modern history of the Voynich manuscript, and the huge investment of time and effort by some of the most ingenious intelligences of the twentieth century in its decipherment, amply testify to human fascination with the possibility of uncovering secret knowledge. Back in the sixteenth century Rudolf II paid some persuasive soul six hundred gold ducats for Beinecke MS 408. It may well be that somewhere in early-fifteenth-century Europe another wealthy seeker after hidden truths was swindled by an equally enterprising purveyor of plausible nonsense. We shall probably never know. But maybe from the pages of Voynich’s “ugly duckling,” a long quack of derisive laughter peals down the centuries.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/voynich-manuscript-secret-knowledge-or-hoax/

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

CIA, Moonies Cooperate in Sandinista War

▲ Contras in Nicaragua

Washington Post page E-15 (and Indiana Gazette)

August 16, 1984 by Jack Anderson

In the Central American hinterlands, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish CIA operatives from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s disciples. They appear to be working in harness against the communist-tainted Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

This troubles at least one Pentagon analyst, now stationed in Korea, who has warned the White House that the CIA-Moonie connection could cause possible political damage to President Reagan’s re-election campaign.

The analyst’s unofficial memo, “Potential Problems,” has been slipped to my associate Donald Goldberg.

“Current Moonie involvement with government officials, contractors and grantees [in Central America] could create a major scandal,” the memo warns. “If their activities and role become public knowledge, it will unite both the left and the right in attacking the administration.”

The memo continues: “If efforts are not taken to stop their growing influence and weed out current Moonie involvement in government, the president stands a good chance of being portrayed in the media as a poor, naive incompetent who is strong on ideology and weak on common sense. …

“The likelihood of a reporter or a Democratic staff member piecing the total picture together is too great to be neglected. Any thought that this festering problem will go away if ignored is foolish.”

The “total picture” of Moon’s activities in Latin America is not clear. But there is no doubt that the Korean messiah – now in prison for income tax evasion [and document forgery and perjury] – has established a solid presence in the region, with ties to right-wing groups and U.S.-supported guerrillas.

My associate John Lee Anderson reports from Central America that CAUSA international, Moon’s political front, has representatives working in programs that help the CIA in its “contra” war against the Sandinista government.

CAUSA maintains a publicity office in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, but its principal activities are in the field. CAUSA provides cash and other aid to Honduran-based Nicaraguan contras and Honduran right-wing political groups. Many anti-Sandinista guerrillas wear red CAUSA T-shirts with a map of the world on them.

But CAUSA and its affiliate, the Refugee Relief Freedom Foundation, provide more than T-shirts to rebel groups. They also funnel supplies to refugee families in and near contra camps and pay for trips by rebel leaders to the United States.

One contra leader, Fernando “El Negro” Chamorro, told my associate that as early as 1981, CAUSA representatives sent him on an all-expenses paid trip to the United States to try to unify the Nicaraguan exile groups.

The airlift of supplies to the rebels by Moon’s Unification Church has escalated since congress cut off CIA funding for the contras. The administration has been attempting to “privatize” its war against the Sandinistas and is apparently willing to work with Moon’s people.

Footnote: A Unification Church official denied that the church is engaged in any but religious activities in Central America.

––––––––––––––––––––––––

“The UC is truly anti-Christian” and produces “a species of material and spiritual slavery.” Catholic Bishops in Honduras

Jorge Guldenzoph, deeply involved with CAUSA and Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, given 10 years in jail for torturing

The Unification Church and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC

Sun Myung Moon organization activities in Central & South America

Introduction

‘Illegal Aliens Joining Moonies’ – The Pittsburg Press

Moon’s ‘Cause’ Takes Aim At Communism in the Americas – Washington Post

Moon in Latin America: Building the Bases of a World Organisation – Guardian

Guatemala

Nicaragua

Honduras

Costa Rica

Bolivia

Uruguay

Paraguay

Brazil

[whatisonthemoon]

It is reasonable to believe that Moon was involved in the drug trade into the 2000s

▲ Pictured: Moon in Uruguay, 1998

Note: The Irish Times article below says that Banco de Credito was purchased by the UC in 1996, but as reported on by several newspaper throughout the 80s including the New York Times, the Moonies had already taken over the bank by the early 80s after depositing more than $50 million into the bank. 

________________________________

Excerpts from the The Irish Times’ article Moonies accused of involvement in drugs (October 14, 2004)

. . . national Senator Domingo Laino sees a different pattern in Moon's acquisitions. "There are two principal branches to Moon's interest in Paraguay," he said, "control of the largest fresh drinking water source in the world and control of the narcotics business", which is so prevalent in this area. "President Lula told me that Brazil took serious measures to curb Moon a few years back as it became evident that he was buying up the border between our two countries," said the senator.

Allegations from local law enforcement officials support this claim. The so-called Dr Montiel, Paraguay's drugs tsar from 1976-89, said: "The fact that they came and bought in Chaco and on both sides of the Brazilian border is very telling. It is an enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades and indeed the available intelligence clearly shows that the Moon sect is involved in both these enterprises."

Paraguay is the major drugs port through which virtually all the cocaine produced by Bolivia and Peru passes. In the world's second most corrupt country, "the ease of buying influence is second to none", said Montiel. "Corruption reaches dangerous levels and he who wants transparency in Paraguay is a dead man. Indeed the famous Iran contra affair was operated from Ciudad del Este" on the south-east Paraguayan border with Argentina and Brazil.

Not content with expanses of potentially invaluable land, Rev Moon has also taken over entire towns, including factories and homes. In Puerto Casado, tensions between Moon disciples and locals led to violent confrontation over the last year following the closure of the only source of work, a lumber factory, and the dismissal of 19 workers who tried to form a union in order to demand an eight-hour day and the national minimum wage of £80 sterling per month.

According to Senator Emilio Camacho: "The Moon sect is a mafia. They seek to subvert government control and are effectively building a state within a state. I believe they are hoping the local population will leave so they have unquestioned authority in the zone and are free to do whatever they want."

. . .

Having decided to buy land in the area, he first visited (according to local Zeta magazine) the city of Pedro Juan Caballero in the province of Amambay. Provincial governor Mr Roberto Acevedo said: "This is the Mecca of the narcotics trade where dealers live with complete immunity. They own judges, the police, even politicians."

Rev Moon travelled there with Fermin De Alarcon, a Spanish financier, in the latter's private jet. Mr De Alarcon tried unsuccessfully to sell the religious leader his Banco General and is currently a fugitive from the Paraguayan justice system after withdrawing all the funds in that and other banks before disappearing.

Rev Moon bought the Banco de Credito in 1996 , in nearby Uruguay, the banking hub of Latin America. On the day of opening under its new ownership, the Uruguayan bank employees' union blew the whistle on a suspected money-laundering scheme after a procession of 4,200 Japanese women, all Moon-followers, allegedly deposited up to $25,000 each in cash. By the end of business that day, $80 million had been deposited.

Between 1991 and 2001, Japan's economy experienced a downturn due to the housing and stock bubbles bursting. 

Excerpt from The Street article What Was Japan’s Lost Decade? How Did It Happen? (December 12, 2022)

Between 1991 and 2001, Japan’s economy entered a deep recession. GDP declined, and borrowers became insolvent. Big banks failed, including the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, and Nippon Credit Bank. The days of easy credit from banking networks were long gone, and to a large effect, the keiretsu unraveled.

Some businesses went under; in others, production simply slowed, but they lost their competitive edge as a result. The country, which once had guaranteed employment for life, now struggled with unemployment—which affected recent grads and young workers most significantly. Consumer confidence plummeted, demand declined, and deflation took hold—it was a dangerous mix.

The Japanese economy hasn't ever returned to the prosperity of the 80s. Some have identified Tetsuya Yamagami, the gunman behind Shinzo Abe’s assassination who was known for his anti-UC motivation, as a member of this generation and have identified the economic devastation of his generation with his crime.

Excerpt from the New York Times’ opinion piece The Lingering Tragedy of Japan’s Lost Generation by Roland Kelts (November 5, 2022)

No details have yet emerged to suggest that Mr. Yamagami’s being from the lost generation was a factor in the killing. But some Japanese media outlets and academics have pointed out that details of his life that have emerged — his trouble fitting into society and the work force — mark him as a member of that struggling group and that the deeper roots of his anger are being ignored by the conservative establishment’s focus on the hot-button political issue of Liberal Democratic ties to the Unification Church, the conservative religious group founded in South Korea by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1954.

Economies throughout Asia faced financial crises through the 90s, with semi-colonial, semi-feudal countries like the Philippines getting hit the hardest, especially as neoliberal reforms were introduced in the late 90s to save Asian imperialist economies. Despite Tongil Group (chaebol) facing severe financial issues as well as some of the most militant labor organizing, Moon remained visibly unworried through the 90s/early 2000s. Many of Tongil’s companies had to be sold off around 2003/2004.

Excerpt from the International Herald Tribune article Reverend Moon Rises Above Ailing Business (February 5, 1999)

Mr. Huh said the debts of the group’s 16 companies exceed 2 trillion won ($1.7 billion).

Its four leading companies, which manufacture products ranging from ginseng tea to tank guns, were all bankrupt awaiting reorganization under court supervision, he said.

Mr. Moon appeared oblivious to his earthly problems Thursday night. Alexander Haig, a former secretary of state and White House chief of staff during Richard Nixon’s presidency, introduced him as “a leading force for inter-religious dialogue and understanding between peoples of all backgrounds.”

The closest Mr. Moon came to mentioning the companies that he founded in the 1960s as the basis for his worldwide ministry was when he told a rapt audience that “Earth is but a speck of dust.”

Though Moon’s businesses in Asia, including Tongil Heavy Industries, suffered, Moon continued building up his business empire throughout South America and organizing conferences and events that brought together world leaders in culture, government, and military, such as Alexander Haig. It was during the 90s that Moon and the Bush family deepened their personal and business ties. 

Many claimed Moon was unworried for he had already obtained other solid sources of income. It is already known Moon’s weapons had been illegally trafficked and traded by early Korean, Japanese, and U.S. members. Yakuza, fascists, and militant rightist anti-communists, and Moonies were known for owning Moon-manufactured weapons (more in the notes section below). 

Long-time members and top leaders have confirmed Moon’s money-laundering operations as well, which included using an instance of 4,200 Japanese UC sisters depositing as much as $25,000 each.

Quotes taken from two Samuel Blixen articles on Moon in Consortium News (1, 2)

“In 1996, for instance, the Uruguayan bank employees union blew the whistle on one scheme in which some 4,200 female Japanese followers of Moon allegedly walked into the Moon-controlled Banco de Credito in Montevideo and deposited as much as $25,000 each.

The money from the women went into the account of an anonymous association called Cami II, which was controlled by Moon’s Unification Church. In one day, Cami II received $19 million and, by the time the parade of women ended [after a week], the total had swelled to about $80 million. 

It was not clear, however, where the money originated and whether it came from illicit sources. Nor was it known how many other times Moon’s organization has used this tactic – sometimes known as “smurfing” – to transfer untraceable cash into Uruguay.

Historically, the UC has primarily depended on the Japanese UC to fund its global operations, but in the midst of the 90s financial crises in Japan and South Korea, Moon began leaning more on businesses and activities throughout South America, especially Brazil. A leader confirmed that “a lot of [money]” came from the South America through the 90s. 

Excerpt from Consortium News’ article Mysterious Republican Money by Robert Parry (September 7, 2004):

Another member who quit a senior position in the church confirmed that virtually none of Moon’s American operations makes money. Instead, this source, who declined to be identified by name, said hundreds of thousands of dollars are carried into the United States by visiting church members. The cash is then laundered through domestic businesses.

Another close church associate, who also requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, said cash arriving from Japan was used in one major construction project to pay “illegal” laborers from Asia and South America. “They [the church leaders] were always waiting for our money to come in from Japan,” this source said. “When the economy in Japan crashed, a lot of our money came from South America, mainly Brazil.”

There has long been speculation about Moon’s role in the drug trade. Kirsti Nevalainen put it plainly.

Kirsti Nevalainen on the Unification Church’s drug-trafficking:

It is not really a big secret where Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church got their vast funds from. Sun Myung Moon was involved in the global drug trade through his alliance with the China lobby of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League (APACL, later the World Anti-Communist League WACL). They all have derived their considerable budgets from drug trafficking. In South and Central America the local branch of WACL was called the Alianza Anticommunista Americana (AAA) which combined drug trafficking and right-wing terrorist activity.

In 2000, FFWPU members in Côte d'Ivoire had discovered that their leaders were coordinating drug trafficking, including would-be UPF leader Kathy Rigney.  

Excerpt from a WIOTM post Unification Church Leaders Were Trafficking Drugs, Gold and Ivory In Cote d’Ivoire:

N’Guessan Kouassi Zoblan tells that in 2000 Unification Church members found out that their church leaders were involved in drugs, gold and ivory trafficking ring in Ivory Coast or Côte d’Ivoire. The western coast of Africa is one of the most important ports for South American cocaine to reach Spain and Italy which distribute the cocaine throughout Europe.

Some think that Moon’s drug operations throughout South America, and potentially even Asia through his Kodama/Sasakawa-connections, is a thing of the past, but there’s good reason to believe these activities continue. I

Cynthia Elizabeth Tarrago Diaz was a UPF leader and president of the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP), an organization known for its counterinsurgency efforts in Nepal and Southeast Asia. She was arrested with two other Paraguayan nationals in New Jersey on charges of money laundering and drug smuggling in 2019.

Tarrago rose to the top of several UC organizations, having only been involved in the Unification Church for about three years. Her leadership was approved by FFWPU co-messiah Hak Ja Han.

Excerpt from HWDYKYM post FFWPU President of IAPP Prosecuted for Money Laundering and Drug Smuggling in US Court; may be connected to UC / FFWPU Leadership:

Tarrago had been an MP of the Colorado Party of Paraguay from 2013 to 2018, and after making a public announcement that she would run for mayor of Asuncion in November, 2019, she was arrested. The rumour that Tarrago was associated with narcotics organizations was well known in Paraguay. It became a local media sensation when Tarrago even visited Jarvis Chimenes Pavao, the “drug kingpin” of South America, who was jailed in a Paraguay prison, when she was active as an MP in 2015. It was about this time that Tarrago began full-fledged activities in the Unification Church after joining the Unification Church’s organizations, The Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP) and The Universal Peace Federation (UPF). Tarrago, however, got promoted very fast in the Church organizations, unlike ordinary worshippers. At first, she began as an invited guest as an MP and gradually expanded the scope of her activities. Later, she went up to the level of preparing and organizing international events, not only in Paraguay but also in the entire South America. Tarrago played a leading role in connecting top Paraguayan politicians with senior members of the Unification Church when they visited Paraguay in October 2016. At that time, the Unification Church established the IAPP as a subordinate organization in Paraguay.

Tarrago then was appointed as the President of IAPP in Paraguay on April 25, 2017. In the same year, she founded IAPP’s South American headquarters on December 5 at the Asuncion World Trade Center in Paraguay, for which she also served as a chair for the South American region. After all, Tarrago rose to a top position of the Unification Church for the continent, not a single country, at the age of her late 30s, ahead of many former presidents and congressmen, only three years after her full-fledged activities with the Unification Church. People say that it is also unusual to set up the Unification Church’s South American headquarters in Paraguay, not Brazil or Argentina.

Since then, there has been “a serious suspicion within the Unification Church that a huge amount of drug money in South America was linked to the leadership of the Church, with Tarrago as a surrogate”. The Unification Church officials say, “It is impossible for Tarrago, with an ordinary background in the Church, to take the position of the South America representative in just three years without the power of a huge amount of money.” Moreover, the issue of appointing a continental representative of the Unification Church is known as “impossible without the approval of the leadership of the Church in Korea, where the President Hak Ja Han resides.”

Boldly Tarrago carried out her drug-related business when she visited various international events of the Unification Church. Tarrago met with the undercover agents disguised as drug traffickers at a UPF event at the New Yorker Hotel, owned by the Unification Church, in November 2018 to plot money laundering and propose drug trafficking. The details was revealed in the FBI’s criminal complaint.Tarrago also visited South Korea in August 2019. She attended the International Leaders Conference hosted by the Unification Church at Lotte Hotel World in Jamsil from August 15 to 17. On the 19th, she also visited the Cheon Jeong Palace of the Unification Church in Cheongpyeong, Gyeonggi-do, where President Hak Ja Han resides, and she posted photos on her Instagram.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Party of Paraguay expelled Tarrago immediately upon her prosecution, giving the reason that she had stained the morality of the party. However, the Unification Church and their affiliated organizations have yet to comment on Tarrago’s prosecution.

It seems unlikely that Tarrago’s trafficking was somehow not coordinated by the UC. 

Related notes and articles below

$80 million was deposited in Uruguay over the course of a week. It still had the U.S. Federal Reserve band around it.

How Sun Myung Moon’s organization helped to establish Bolivia as South America’s first narco-state.

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US

Unification Church, WACL and CAUSA Were Involved In CIA Operations

Sun Myung Moon And Hak Ja Han Are Drug Traffickers And Money Launderers

The Situation of “Providence” in Côte d'Ivoire

Rev. Moon’s Bank Scam (November 6, 1998) 

Rev. Moon's Uruguayan Money-Laundry (August 19, 1998) Drugs and death squads: The CIA connection (1989)

Archive of Robert Parry’s Dark Side of Rev. Moon Series Unification Church Leaders Were Trafficking Drugs, Gold and Ivory In Cote d’Ivoire The Irish Times: Moonies accused of involvement in drugs (2004) Moon & the Tri-Border Area of South America (2021) - Ed Coffman (Don Diligent) Notes on Moonie Drug Trade

South Florida Sun Sentinel: Moon Empire Touts Peace, Makes Guns (1999) Washingtion Post: Church's Pistol Firm Exploits a Niche (1999) On Barbie Klaus, Nazi Comrade of Tom Ward Things Observed podcast - World Anti-Communist League feat. Recluse: International Drug Trafficking, Nazis, Ukraine, the China Lobby and the Fascist International

Things Observed podcast - The World Anti-Communist League: War Criminals, Nazis, Gangsters, Drug Traffickers and the Group that Brought Them All Together Moon/Bush “Ongoing Crime Enterprise” (2007)

Article excerpt: The below excerpt is from a Forbes article ‘Reaching for the Stars’ by Toni Fitzgerald that reveals that Paul Rogers, a professional Moonie, was able to make profit with Moon-associated businesses during the South Korean financial crisis. Rogers is known to have had strong business relationships with notable UC leaders, such as both Kwak and Pak.

In the late 1990s, the darkest days of South Korea’s financial crisis, operators such as Paul Rogers of Lehman Brothers were parachuting in to pick through the bargains. But amid all the moneylosing units being shed by the country’s conglomerates, what caught his eye was something that wasn’t for sale: a vacant 12-acre lot. It was in the heart of Yeouido, the island in the Han River that serves as Seoul’s financial and broadcasting district.

Owned by Reverend Moon Song-myung’s Unification Church Foundation, the giant lot had sat empty for three decades. Best known internationally for its cultish practices and its members, called Moonies, the church is also a business empire with interests ranging from media properties to North Korean industrial ventures. And like other Korean conglomerates, it needed money. “Investment banks were making a quick buck from acquiring and flipping distressed assets,” says Rogers, then Lehman’s head of structured finance for Asia. “I saw a much bigger opportunity: developing whole city blocks and making an impact on Asian cities which are sorely in need of iconic but commercially successful projects.”

Guns may have been another reason for the alliance of Sasakawa and Kodama of Japan with Sun Myung Moon - excerpted from "Inside the League" by Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson

Sasakawa and Kodama may have had another reason for their alliance with Moon. Since the end of World War II, Japan has had extremely strict gun-control laws, and weapons for the yakuza gangs have had to be smuggled in one by one. Under the Korean government’s patronage, the Unification Church owned and operated Tong-il Industries. Tong-il is a weapons manufacturer that makes rifles and components for M-16 assault rifles. It also operates the Yewha Air Gun Company in Kyonggi-Do, Korea.

In 1975, seven years after the Yamanashi conference, the Japanese importer of air rifles from Korea was a shadow company, Angus Arms Company, which was not registered or in any corporate directory. The rifles, according to political analyst Pharris Harvey in a memorandum to the House Subcommittee on International Relations in May 1978, “are sold, exclusively it seems to members of Shokyo Rengo and UC [Unification Church].”

Related books worth reading Yakuza - David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq  - Robert Parry

[whatisonthemoon]

Uruguay is Fertile Soil for Moon Church Money (1984)

The Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who like Uruguay's military rulers is strongly opposed to Communism, has become one of the largest foreign investors here.

In the last three years, the church has invested some $70 million in buying Uruguay's third largest bank, a hotel, a daily newspaper and other businesses, according to business leaders, Western diplomats and a top church official. The sources said it had been aided by tax breaks and benefits from the Uruguayan Government of Gen. Gregorio Alvarez.

Opposition political leaders and newspapers have attacked the Unification surge, charging that the church is supporting the military at a time most of the populace is demanding democracy. The military, after a decade in power, has promised to step down next year. But General Alvarez is said to favor delaying the turnover and has been cracking down on dissent in recent months.

The Unification Church began moving into South America in the 1970's, attracted to countries with military rulers who were opposed to Communism. It started trying to win converts in Uruguay in 1978 but stopped, reportedly because it did not want to stir the same bristling Roman Catholic opposition that it encountered in other Latin countries. Uruguay Is their Base.

Business, diplomatic and church sources said it had been using Uruguay instead as a base to make money, strengthen anti-Communism and distribute its religious messages to the rest of the continent.

Of Uruguay's 2.9 million people, no more than 20 are Unification Church members today, according to one business executive who is running the church investments here.

''The Moonies are a suspicious presence,'' Julio Sanguinetti, president of one of the country's two largest political parties, the Colorados, said in an interview. ''They are religious fanatics with no religious activities.''

A popular political weekly, Correo de los Viernes, was recently moved to dub this capital ''Moontevideo.'' Another weekly, La Nacion, asked, ''Will Uruguay be picked by Moon to be the first Unificationist Republic in the world?''

Church officials declined in interviews to respond publicly to the criticisms. However, the church's newspaper, Ultimas Noticias, a daily that does not publicize its church connection, has in recent months toned down its once outspoken support for the Government.

The Unification Church says it has three million followers around the world and assets worth several billion dollars. Mr. Moon was convicted of tax evasion in 1982 in the United States; he is appealing the conviction. His church has been widely accused in North America, Europe and Asia of recruiting young people into an authoritarian cult. Mr. Moon, however, has rejected such charges and defended his church as a Christian organization. Riots two years ago largely chased the Unification Church out of Brazil, where it was estimated to have had some 6,000 members in 60 branches. Angry crowds stoned and sacked its churches in seven cities after a series of sensationalized television reports about the organization's activities.

The church has gained several hundred converts in Chile, where Gen. Augusto Pinochet is President, and in Argentina, which was ruled by juntas for nearly eight years until the inauguration of an elected Goverment last December. But it has aquired no particular influence in either country, apparently because of strong Roman Catholic opposition in their armed forces. In Paraguay, the church has had some success, closely associating itself with the Government of Gen. Alfredo Stroesser.

Church officials said Uruguay was especially attractive because of liberal laws that allow easy repatriation of profits abroad. Aiding church activities is the circumstance that General Alvarez's father-in-law, Segundo Flores, is vice president of the Uruguayan branch of the church's political wing, Causa, which this year will hold its third international congress here in as many years. The president of Causa and editor of Ultimas Noticias is Julian Safi, who for many years was the official spokesman for the regime. Country 'in Good Hands'

Church officials said the two men, who are Catholics, report abroad to Mr. Moon's assistant, Pak Bo Hi, a retired South Korean lieutenant colonel. A United States Congressional committee investigating South Korean-American affairs in 1978 accused Mr. Pak of lavish lobbying in Washington and of being used by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Pak, who has paid a number of visits here in recent years, said in a statement after the military appointed General Alvarez President in 1981, ''I know that the people and country of Uruguay are in good hands.''

The Unification investments began that year. The church deposited more than $50 million in the Banco de Credito and then took it over. It bought the newspaper, three printing plants and the Victoria Plaza Hotel, which sits on this capital's central square, facing the presidential palace.

In 1983, plans were announced for the building by the church of a 35-story office tower and convention complex across the street from the hotel. Ground is scheduled to be broken this year for the project, for which the Government granted generous tax concessions.

The Minister of Labor, Nestor Bolentini, a retired colonel close to General Alvarez, said in an interview that the concessions were normal inducements for needed foreign investment. As to church activities, he said, ''This is a free country.''

Opposition politicians have vowed to investigate the church once civilian rule returns, and some say this explains the recent de-emphasis by the church newspaper of its support for the military rulers. ''We're watching them very closely,'' Mr. Sanguinetti, the Colorado leader, said.

Related articles below

Speculating on Banco de Crédito

Banco de Credito out of Moonie hands

Rev. Moon’s followers turn Brazil swamp into paradise

New York Times: Suspicion Following Sun Myung Moon to Brazil (1999) $16,000.00 Life Offering and the Brazilian providence. Unification Church under siege in Brazil (2002) Brazil FFWPU has many corruption problems Ferabolli of FFWPU Brazil may be a child predator Sun Myung Moon’s Drug Paradise ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC / FFWPU

UC member Barbara Burrowes had connections to the CIA-sponsored fascist dictatorship of Guyana

[whatisonthemoon]

Banco de Credito out of Moonie hands

Moon Bank Taken Over  - The Irish Times

Uruguay's Central Bank said yesterday it was taking over Banco de Credito, which is controlled by Korean Evangelist, Mr Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, due to liquidity problems. The bank has 30 branches throughout Uruguay.

Mr Moon's Unification Church has built up a presence in Uruguay and owns a newspaper and land across the River Plate in Argentina.

Moon’s Banking Woes by Robert Parry - Consortium News

The central bank of Uruguay has put Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s financial base in South America -- Banco de Credito -- under government supervision because of management and “liquidity” problems.

On Sept. 18, the central bank took the long-awaited move against Moon’s bank which allegedly has been kept afloat in the past by mysterious cash deposits carried into the country by Moon’s religious followers.

Since much of the money arrives as cash, authorities have had trouble determining if the money sources are legitimate or not.

According to a bank employees union, 4,200 Moon followers walked into the bank in 1996 and deposited a total of $80 million into a Moon-controlled account.

Besides Banco de Credito’s red-ink problems, the central bank stated that it was intervening to “improve the management” of the bank.

The move, however, raises other questions about the viability of Moon’s business and political operations in the United States, especially the financing The Washington Times, which costs Moon an estimated $100 million a year.

The developments in Uruguay raise the question: How can Moon afford such losses when his chief bank in the Western Hemisphere is on the brink?

Related links below

On Moon’s Political Network and their Deep Connections to Global Terrorism

4,200 female Japanese followers allegedly deposited as much as $25,000 each in the Moon-controlled Banco de Credito.

Consortium News: Rev. Moon’s Bank Scam

Uruguay’s freewheeling banking system that operated as a laundromat for drug money. Moon bought a bank.

Moon’s activities in South America

FFWPU President of IAPP (The International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace) Prosecuted for Money Laundering and Drug Smuggling in US Court; suspicions of connections to UC / FFWPU Leadership

Chicago Tribune: Unification Church Invests Heavily Uruguay (December 1994)

On Banco de Crédito

Notes on Moonie Drug Trade

The Irish Times: Moonies accused of involvement in drugs (2004)

“When the economy in Japan crashed, a lot of our money came from South America, mainly Brazil.”

$80 million was deposited in Uruguay over the course of a week. It still had the U.S. Federal Reserve band around it.

Sun Myung Moon’s FFWPU accused of involvement in drugs trade in Paraguay in 2004

Suspicion Following Sun Myung Moon to Brazil

[whatisonthemoon]

Saving The World With Mass Marriages | TO THE MOON Part 1

This is the story of the Sun Myung Moon and the rise of the Unification Church. I first noticed them at the mass wedding in South Korea in early 2020. While doing research the story just became bigger and bigger and I knew I had to cover them. This is Part 1 of that story.

Chapters: 00:00 Prologue 06:10 The Early Life of Sun Myung Moon 09:08 Basic Practices and Theology of The Unification Church 13:37 Unification Church and KCIA 14:56 The 1970's, Nixon and Watergate 18:39 Koreagate 22:03 "Weak" Democrats 24:04 Bo Hi Pak Vs Donald Fraser 26:24 Koreagate Report 28:11 The Moon Organization 30:15 The Washington Times 33:02 Background Of The Washington Times 35:14 Inchon: The Worst Movie Of All Time 37:11 Reagan Loves Times 38:40 Pruden and Coombs Leadership 44:08 The Death of Heung Jin Moon 46:31 Black Heung Jim Nim 48:42 Moon's Pardon Denied and The Cold War 51:53 Moon and Nicaragua and The Contras 58:41 Moon and Bolivia and Klaus Barbie 01:06:54 End of The Cold War 01:08:09 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) And American Freedom Coalition (AFC) 01:09:46 Moon And HW Bush 01:11:44 Moon In The 1990's And Chinagate 01:13:26 Moon and Korean Reunification 01:16:22 Nansook Hong In The Shadow Of The Moon 01:19:15 The Tragedy Of The Six Marys 01:22:31 Moon's Last Actions 01:25:00 Why Moon?

[whatisonthemoon]

The CAUSA Kingdom

Excerpted from"God Is Phasing Out Democracy" by Fred Clarkson in CovertAction No 27, Spring 1987

▲ CAUSA conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, February 1984

CAUSA is the principal political arm of the Unification Church. It was founded in 1980, following an exploratory tour of Latin America countries, during which Bo Hi Pak met with key rightwing and military leaders. CAUSA’s main activities from 1980-1982 were arranging ideological indoctrination seminars for political, military, and other leadership groups all over the continent. In 1983, CAUSA North America was founded, and began organizing similar seminars in the U.S. Although originally known as the Confederation of the Associations for the Unification of the Societies of the Americas, by this time, the “Unification” had been changed to “Unity” in an apparent effort to distance CAUSA from the taint of the church.

Whatever its name, control of the organization by the Unification Church has been continuous. The directors of CAUSA International are all serious Church members. According to an internal CAUSA strategy memo dated January 1984, the CAUSA directors proposed to “cooperate so as to best support Our True Parents [Mr. and Mrs. Moon] and Colonel Pak in this campaign to find 70 million members…. We in CAUSA have been called by True Parents to participate in a most crucial campaign which will focus upon recruiting 70 million members within the coming two years.” The “directors” of CAUSA are the department heads within the organization. The “principal participants” in the meetings which led to drafting the document were: Antonio Betancourt, Thomas Ward, William Lay, Joe Tully, Takeshi Furuta, Frank Grow, Celia Roomet, Roger Johnstone, David Decker, and Tony Colombrito. Significantly, the CAUSA directors planned to learn from “the Japan IFVC’s (International Federation for Victory over Communism, or Shokyo Rengo) drive for 3.5 million members.” The IFVC model was to aim for leaders, mostly political leaders “and when the leader committed himself, he also committed his movement.”

Takeshi Furuta is apparently the key liaison between the Japanese and the American organizations. While a director of CAUSA, Furuta was a member of the Japanese delegation to the 1985 WACL conference in Dallas. At the 1986 WACL conference, Osami Kuboki, Furuta, and their wives were the Japanese delegates.

Meanwhile, the CAUSA regional advisors attending the 1985 U.S. CAUSA conference in San Francisco, were also all Unification Church ministers. On the agenda of events for 1984, along with numerous ideological conferences, was a media tour of Asia, ostensibly under the auspices of the World Media Conference (WMC). WMC is purportedly a project of News World Communications, the parent company of the Washington Times. However the CAUSA document suggests that it was planned, if not organized by CAUSA. The Asian tour was led by former U.S Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur, and delegates met with Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone, among other leaders in Asia. Similar tours have been organized to Central America, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union.

Once limited to the Western Hemisphere, since 1983 CAUSA has become a global project with significant activities on every continent. The general thrust of the CAUSA seminar is anti-communist education from a historical perspective. The CAUSA antidote to communism is “God-ism”, which is simply the Unification Church philosophy without Moonist mythology.

Bo Hi Pak offered a CAUSA perspective of the Godist or Moonist Kingdom, when speaking of Paraguayan dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner. “I believe he’s a special man, chosen by God to run his country.” This echoes an earlier revelation by Moon who said of the 1961 military coup of Korean dictator Park Chung Hee: “God set up a powerful new leader, the present president of this Korea, and the new order in our society.”

Related

Moon’s activities in Central & South America

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US

CounterSpy: Moonies Move on Honduras (1983)

Moonies Support Vigilante Violence in the Philippines Around 1986/1987

The Broad Counterinsurgency Strategies of the US in the 80s, and a Glimpse into the UC’s Role

The Unification Church and KCIA: Some Notes on Bud Han, Steve Kim, and Bo Hi Pak

On the 1962 Reorganization of the Unification Church as a Political Tool of Japan, South Korea, and USA

Yasue Erikawa: An Often Unrecognized Asset

The Rev. Moon, the Unification Church, and the KCIA

Former KCIA Head Says Park Tong Sun was Korean Agent (1977)

CIA, Moonies Cooperate in Sandinista War (1984)

Contragate and Counterterrorism: An Overview

Bo Hi Pak: The CAUSA Movement That Shook the Kremlin

Oliver North’s Counterinsurgency Ideas Shaping the World