whatisonthemoon

[whatisonthemoon]

Ten Years After Jonestown, the Battle Intensifies Over the Influence of ‘Alternative’ Religions (1988)

by Bob Sipchen - November 17, 1988 - Los Angeles Times

Eldridge Broussard Jr.’s face screwed into a grimace of such anger and pain that the unflappable Oprah Winfrey seemed unnerved. It hurts to be branded “the new Jimmy Jones” by a society eager to condemn what it doesn’t understand, the founder of the Ecclesia Athletic Assn. lamented on TV just a few days after his 8-year-old daughter had been beaten to death, apparently by Ecclesia members.

At issue were complex questions of whether the group he had formed to instill discipline in ghetto youth, and led from Watts to Oregon, had evolved into a dangerous cult. But Broussard couldn’t have found a less sympathetic audience than the group gathered around the TV in the bar of the Portland Holiday Inn.

There last month for the annual conference of the Chicago-based Cult Awareness Network were people whose kin had crumpled onto the body heaps at Jonestown, Guyana, 10 years ago, and people who believed they or family members had lost not their lives, but good chunks of them, to gurus and avatars less infamous but no less evil than Jim Jones.

One group’s cult is another’s “new religious movement,” though, and in the 10 years since Jonestown, a heated holy war of sorts has been mounting over the issues of how to define and contend with so-called cults.

The battle lines aren’t always well defined. Ongoing guerrilla actions between those who see themselves as crusaders against potential Jonestowns and those who see themselves as the persecuted members of outcast religious groups comprise the shifting legal and political fronts. On the outskirts of the ideological battleground is another loosely knit force that sees itself as the defender of a First Amendment besieged by vigilantes all too eager to kiss off the Constitution as they quash beliefs that don’t fit their narrow-minded criteria of what’s good and real. As one often-quoted definition has it: “A cult is a religion someone I don’t like belongs to.”

“It’s spiritual McCarthyism,” Lowell D. Streiker, a Northern California counselor, said of the cult awareness cause. To him, “the anti-cult network” is itself as a “cult of persecution,” cut from the same cloth as Colonial witch hunters and the Ku Klux Klan.

The key anti-cult groups, by most accounts, are CAN, a secular nondenominational group of 30 local affiliates; the Massachusetts-based American Family Foundation; the Interfaith Coalition of Concern About Cults and the Jewish Federation Council’s Commission on Cults and Missionaries.

Although they contend that their ranks continue to fill with the victims of cults or angry family members, they concede that the most significant rallying point came in the fall of 1978 when the leader of one alleged cult put a rattlesnake in an enemy’s mailbox and another led 912 people to their deaths.

Even though nothing so dramatic has happened since, cults have quietly been making inroads into the fabric of mainstream American life, and the effects are potentially as serious as the deaths at Jonestown, cult critics say.

With increased wealth and public relations acumen--with members clothed by Brooks Brothers rather than in saffron sheets--the 1,000 or more new cults that some estimate have sprung up in America since the ‘60s have become “a growth industry which is diversifying,” said Dr. Louis Jolyon West, director of UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. “They have made steady progress on all fronts.”

Uglier Connotations

In the broadest sense, Webster defines a cult as simply “a system of religious worship or ritual.” Even before Jonestown, though, the word had taken on broader and uglier connotations.

To make a distinction, critics use the term destructive cult, or totalist cult. The issue, they say, pivots on the methods groups use to recruit and hold together followers.

CAN describes a destructive cult as one that “uses systematic, manipulative techniques of thought reform or mind control to obtain followers and constrict their thoughts and actions. These techniques are imposed without the person’s knowledge and produce observable changes in the individual’s autonomy, thoughts and actions. . . .”

A 1985 conference on cults co-sponsored by the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and the American Family Federation came up with this definition:

“A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control . . . designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.”

The “manipulative techniques” in question are what cult critics call mind control or brainwashing.

To critics of the critics, on the other hand, brainwashing amounts to hooey.

And both sides say the weight of evidence is on their side.

New Beliefs, Personalities

Cult critics often point to classic surveys on brainwashing, which catalogue methods which they say are routinely used by cults of every color, religious and secular, to manipulate unsuspecting people into adopting new beliefs, and often, in effect, new personalities.

Among the techniques are constant repetition of doctrine; application of intense peer pressure; manipulation of diet so that critical faculties are adversely affected; deprivation of sleep; lack of privacy and time for reflection; cutting ties with the recruits’ past life; reduction of outside stimulation and influences; skillful use of ritual to heighten mystical experience; and invention of a new vocabulary which narrows the range of experience and constructs a new reality for cult members.

Margaret Singer, a former professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, describes psychological problems that have been attributed to cultic experiences, ranging from the despair that comes from having suddenly abandoned ones previous values, norms and ideals to types of “induced psychopathy.” Other psychologists and lay observers list similar mental and emotional problems linked to the indoctrination and rituals of cults.

Sociologist Dick Anthony, author of the book “Spiritual Choices,” and former director of the UC Berkeley-affiliated Center for the Study of New Religions, argues the exact opposite position.

“There’s a large research literature published in mainstream journals on the mental health effects of new religions,” he said. “For the most part the effects seem to be positive in any way that’s measurable.”

He and other defenders of new religions discount so-called mind control techniques, or believe the term has been misappropriated by anti-cult activists.

“Coercive Persuasion is a bombastic redescription of familiar forms of influence which occur everyday and everywhere,” said Streiker. “Someone being converted to a demanding religious movement is no more or less brainwashed than children being exposed to commercials during kiddy programs which encourage them to eat empty calories or buy expensive toys.”

“An attempt to persuade someone of something is a process protected by our country’s First Amendment right of free speech and communication,” said attorney Jeremiah Gutman head of the New York City branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and an outspoken critic of the anti-cult groups. “What one person believes to be an irrefutable and obvious truth is someone else’s errant nonsense.”

‘Fraud and Manipulation’

But anti-cult spokespeople say they have no interest in a group’s beliefs. Their concern is when destructive cults use “fraud and manipulation,” to get people to arrive at those beliefs, whatever they may be. Because people are unaware of the issues, though, cults have insinuated themselves into areas of American life where they are influencing people who may not even know where the influence is coming from, they contend.

The political arena is the obvious example, anti-cult activists say.

Followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had a major impact on the small town government of Antelope, Ore., and Jim Jones had managed to thrust himself and his church into the most respectable Democratic party circles in San Francisco before the exodus to Guyana, for instance.

But recently the process has expanded, with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church the leading example of a cult that is quietly gaining political clout, they say.

“What Jim Jones did to Democrats in San Francisco, Sun Myung Moon is doing to Republicans all across country now,” Kisser said.

Moon’s most obvious stab at mainstream legitimacy, critics say, was his purchase in 1982 of the Washington Times, a D.C. daily newspaper, and his financial nurturing of the paper’s magazine Insight--both of which have an official policy of complete editorial independence from the church.

In September, 1987, the conservative American Spectator magazine published an article titled “Can Buy Me Love: The Mooning of Conservative America,” in which managing editor Andrew Ferguson questioned the way the political right is lapping up Moon money, citing, among many examples, the $500,000 or more the late Terry Dolan’s National Conservative Alliance accepted in 1984. When the church got wind of the article, the Spectator received a call from the executive director of the Unification Church’s World Media Assn. warning that if it ran, the Times “would strike back and strike back severely,” Ferguson wrote in an addendum to the piece.

‘Everyone Speaks Korean’

Therapist Steven Hassan, a former “Moonie” and the author of the just-released book “Combatting Cult Mind Control,” estimates that the church now sponsors 200 businesses and “front organizations.”

Moon “has said he wants an automatic theocracy to rule the world,” explained Hassan, who, on Moon’s orders, engaged in a public fast for Nixon during Watergate and another fast at the U.N. to protest the withdrawal of troops from Korea. “He visualizes a world where everyone speaks Korean only, where all religion but his is abolished, where his organization chooses who will mate, and he and family and descendants rule in a heroic monarchy.”

Moon “is very much in support of the democratic system,” counters John Biermans , director of public affairs for the church. “His desire is for people to become God-centered people. Then democracy can fulfill its potential”

Besides, he said, “this is a pluralistic society, people of all faiths inject their beliefs into the system on every level . . . Using terms like ‘front groups’ and ‘insinuating,’ is just a way to attack something. It’s not even honest.”

Some observers dismiss concern about alleged Unificationist infiltration as self-serving hysteria whipped up by the anti-cultists.

“How much actual influence (the Unification Church) has seems questionable,” said David Bromley, a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and the author of the 1981 book “Strange Gods, the Great American Cult Scare.”

Bromley estimates, for instance, that the church brings $200 million a year into the U.S. from abroad. But he sees no evidence that the money, much of it spent on all-expense-paid fact-finding tours and conferences for journalists, politicians and clergypeople, is money well-invested as far as political impact goes.

The church, he estimates, is losing about $50 million a year on its Washington Times newspaper and the ranks of Unificationists, and most other new religions, in America are thinning as well.

Veterans of the anti-cult front, however, say that the appearance that cults are fading is an illusion. “Like viruses, many of them mutate into new forms,” when under attack, West of UCLA said. And new types of cults are arising to fill the void, they say.

Cult critics point, for instance, to the rise of such groups as the est offshoot called Forum, and to Lifespring and Insight--all of which CAN characterizes as “human potential cults” and all of which are utilized in mainstream American business to promote productivity and motivation.

Observers such as Gordon Melton of the Institute for the Study of Religious Institutions in Santa Barbara explain that many of these New Age-type trainings have their roots in the old fashioned motivational pep talks and sales technique seminars that have been the staples of American business for decades.

But critics see the so-called “psychotechnologies” utilized by some of these groups as insidious. For one thing, they say, the meditation, confessional sharing, and guided imagery methods some of them use are more likely to make employees muzzy-headed than competitive.

Other critics say the trainings violate employee’s rights. Richard Watring, a personnel director for Budget Rent-a-Car, who has been charting the incorporation of “New Age” philosophies into business trainings, is concerned that employees are often compelled to take the courses and then required to adapt a new belief system which may be incompatible with their own religious convictions. As a Christian he finds such mental meddling inappropriate for corporations.

He and other cult critics are heartened by recent cases, still pending, in which employees, or former employees, have sued their employer for compelling them to take trainings they felt conflicted with their own religious beliefs.

Most observers scoring the action on the broader legal battlefield, however, call it a toss-up, and perceived victories for either side have often proved Pyrrhic.

Threats of Litigation

Richard Ofshe, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, fought three separate legal battles with the drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization Synanon over research he published on the group. Although he ultimately won the suits, he said the battle wound up costing the university $600,000. And evidence obtained in other lawsuits showed that Synanon had skillfully wielded threats of litigation to keep several other critical stories from being published or broadcast, he said.

Similarly, a recently released book “Cults and Consequences,” went unpublished for several years because insurers were wary of the litigious nature of some of the groups mentioned, said Rachel Andres, director of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles’ Commission on Cults and Missionaries and the book’s co-editor.

But the most interesting litigation of late involves either a former member who is suing the organization to which he or she belonged, or a current member of a new religious group who is suing a deprogrammer who attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the person to leave the group.

The most significant case, everyone agrees, is last month’s Molko decision by the California Supreme Court, which anti-cult groups have cheered as a major victory.

In that reversal of lower court decisions, the justices agreed that David Molko and another former member of the Unification Church could bring before a jury the claim that they were defrauded by recruiters who denied they had a church affiliation and then subjected the two to church mind control techniques, eventually converting them.

Mainstream religious organizations including the National Council on Churches, the American Baptist Churches in the USA and the California Ecumenical Council had filed briefs in support of the Unification Church, claiming that allowing lawsuits over proselytizing techniques could paralyze all religions.

“What they’re attacking is prayer, fasting and lectures,” said Biermans of the Unification Church. “The whole idea of brainwashing is unbelievably absurd. . . . If someone had really figured out a method of brainwashing, they could control the world.” The church plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. Paul Morantz, the attorney who was struck by the rattlesnake placed in his mailbox by the “Imperial Marines” of Synanon, gave pro-bono assistance to the plaintiffs in the Molko case.

“For me, it was a great decision for freedom of religion and to protect against the . . . use of coercive persuasion,” he said.

Morantz currently is defending Bent Corydon, author of the book “L. Ron Hubbard, Madman or Messiah” against a lawsuit by the Church of Scientology. He said he’s confident of how that case will turn out.

But he shares the belief of others on several sides of the multifaceted cult battle, in concluding that education rather than litigation should be the first defense of religious and intellectual liberty.

He’s not, however, optimistic.

“If anyone thinks they’re ever going to win this war, they’re wrong,” he said. “As long as we have human behavior, there will be sociopaths who will stand up and say ‘follow me.’ And there will always be searchers who will follow.”

Source: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-17-vw-257-story.html

[whatisonthemoon]

Two Very Different Religious Freedoms: International Forum for Religious Freedom and International Coalition for Religious Freedom

▲ Pictured: A picture of Dan Fefferman in the 70s as a young Moonie

Isn’t it interesting how there were members of the International Forum for Religious Freedom supporting a resolution proposed to the Ohio state legislature, and other state legislatures, to have Moon and the Unification Church investigated in 1977/1978, prior to the Jonestown massacre later in 1978?

Especially when considering that just a few years later, in 1984, an organization named International Coalition for Religious Freedom popped up, headed by Dan Fefferman, funded by the UC. This organization lobbied and organized for the legitimization of the Moonies, Scientologists, and other so-called “new religious movements” (a term popularized by cult apologists). 

Fefferman felt recognized at a 2000 anti-cult conference when his organization was recognized for legitimizing cults to academics and governments:

Not to brag, but several speakers made reference to ICRF. They mentioned our four conferences and the cities in which they were held—Washington, Tokyo, Berlin, and Sao Paulo. They grudgingly praised our web site (www.religiousfreedom.com), and the "impressive array" of speakers whose papers we have posted there. A featured luncheon speaker, Prof. Stephen Kent of the University of Calgary, used the ICRF as a primary example of the way in which American new religious movements (NRM’s) are able to influence the American government and academic community. He admitted that ICRF has become an influential participant in the international human rights debate. Another speaker bemoaned the fact that ICRF had been able to get current and former congressmen, government officials, leading academics, and prestigious human rights leaders to join with us.

Related 

Dan Fefferman attends an anti-cult conference (2000) Introvigne’s silence on the most important “religious freedom” case in Italy The Real Issue in the Case of Rev. Moon (1984)

One Step Ahead for WACL (1974) 

[whatisonthemoon]

Dan Fefferman attends an anti-cult conference

Stranger in an Even Stranger Land: Report on an Anti-Cult Conference

Dan Fefferman April, 2000 Washington, DC

In my capacity as director of the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, I decided to attend the annual conference of the Leo J. Ryan Foundation in Stamford Connecticut. Headquartered in Bridgeport, the LJRF makes no bones about its ties to the now-defunct Cult Awareness Network, which was put out of business by a lawsuit that tied it to an illegal deprogramming conspiracy. LJRF even bills itself as the renewed "Cult Awareness Community." Its current president is Priscilla Cole, who formerly ran the Cult Awareness Network, and several other CAN stalwarts can be found on its rolls.

Of course, it’s no coincidence that the group—named for the Congressman who was gunned down in the Jonestown massacre in 1978—has its headquarters in the town where the Unification Church is well known for its role in bailing out the financially troubled University of Bridgeport. LJRF’s executive director is Julia Bronder, an embittered former UB employee and UC critic.

Human Rights, but for Whom?

The title of the LJRF conference was "Human Rights and the New Millennium." This too may be no coincidence. Our own International Coalition for Religious Freedom (ICRF) sponsored a series of international conferences in 1988 entitled, "Religious Freedom and the New Millennium." Indeed a common thread running through the LJRF presentations was that "freedom of thought" is an even more fundamental human right than freedom of speech or religion. And since cultists can’t—by definition—have freedom of thought… Well, more on that later.

I have to admit that the conference was well run and well conceived to support its organizers’ purposes. I did feel a little out of place at times, especially with people who assumed I was an anti-cultist like themselves. One former UC member was so happy to see me, until I informed her that I was "still in." Another guy angrily accused me of being a private investigator hired by Scientology to harass participants and spy on them. Talk about bad vibes! But the majority of the organizers and participants I met were courteous, if cool, once they learned who I was. Below are some highlights. While many other groups other than the UC were dealt with, I’ve concentrated on what relates specifically to our work.

Accolades from the Adversary

Not to brag, but several speakers made reference to ICRF. They mentioned our four conferences and the cities in which they were held—Washington, Tokyo, Berlin, and Sao Paulo. They grudgingly praised our web site (www.religiousfreedom.com), and the "impressive array" of speakers whose papers we have posted there. A featured luncheon speaker, Prof. Stephen Kent of the University of Calgary, used the ICRF as a primary example of the way in which American new religious movements (NRM’s) are able to influence the American government and academic community. He admitted that ICRF has become an influential participant in the international human rights debate. Another speaker bemoaned the fact that ICRF had been able to get current and former congressmen, government officials, leading academics, and prestigious human rights leaders to join with us.

A special breakout session was devoted to the Maryland Task Force on Cult Activities which we’ve reported on previously in Unification News. The panelists—anti-cultists Ron Loomis, Denny Gulick, and Franz Wilson—declared the Task Force’s Final Report as a victory for their side. These men and other anti-cult activists on the Task Force were later given a special award for their efforts to create and influence the Task Force. The speakers acknowledged ICRF’s opposition to the Task Force, but naturally downplayed our effectiveness in blocking the anti-cultists’ aims. For example, they did not mention the fact that the state’s official task force on "Cult Activities" decided not even to use the word "cult" in its final report. Nor did they mention that one of its members, panelist Franz Wilson, interrupted UC member Alex Colvin’s testimony during a formal task force meeting and threatened him with violence.

Panelist Ron Loomis of the American Family Foundation avowed that the panel’s "agenda" was that "you should go back and attempt a similar effort in your state." But he warned about getting too much press in the beginning. "The best way to do it is locally," said Loomis, because national campaigns attract too much attention from NRMs and civil liberties groups. "Politicians are chicken," he complained. (In Maryland the legislation creating the Task Force was pushed through with almost no opposition voices raised, because our side did not find out about it until it had already passed the lower house and was on a fast track to pass the Maryland Senate. Four previous efforts by anti-cultists to pass similar legislation had failed when both sides were heard.)

Washington Times Targeted

The Washington Times and the WT Foundation were also major targets of LJRF speakers. One session was devoted exclusively to "Following the Money Trail in the Moon Movement." Led by Rev. Fred Miller, the session complained about the continued success of the Washington Times and its influence in conservative political circles. Miller seemed particularly upset by the success of the WTF’s American Century Awards. He named several high level political leaders who honored True Father Moon on that occasion. Miller was visibly disappointed by Jerry Falwell’s presence.

Another focus was George W. Bush. Several speakers mentioned him, believing that Rev. Moon must be a major financial supporter of Gov. Bush, if not directly then through his father. They are hoping to find evidence that UC money is ending up in Bush’s campaign treasury. They also bemoaned the fact that New Yorker seems to be a highly successful financial enterprise and that it has become a Ramada franchisee. Miller even reported on a meeting between himself and Ramada officials in which he sought unsuccessfully to influence them to end the relationship.

The anti-cult movement had been seriously discredited in the 1980s because of its association with deprogramming. It lost several major court cases, and also lost credibility among its mainstream funding sources. Now, however, it appears to have found a new "Sugar Daddy." Bob Minton is a reputed multimillionaire whose primary hobby in life is fighting against "cults." His main passion is attacking Scientology. However, he is also rumored to be a major funding source for the LJRF. Minton was a keynote speaker at this year’s conference, although he seems to have few credentials other than the green kind. He publicly announced that he had purchased 2,000 copies of former deprogrammer (now exit counselor) Steve Hassan’s new book, "Breaking the Bonds," which retails for 24.95. If you do the math, that’s a nice little contribution, and it doesn’t count any other donations to Steve’s new "Freedom of Mind Foundation" non-profit group.

No Hassle with Hassan

Speaking of Steve Hassan, I had several conversations with Steve during the conference. I’ve also been corresponding with him through e-mail. Notice the distinction I made in the above paragraph between "deprogramming" and "exit counseling?" Steve is adamant about making this distinction because deprogramming involves force and exit counseling does not. I think he has a point. I asked if he would be willing to put his opposition to forced deprogramming in writing to the Japanese Christian churches who—sometimes using his earlier books on "mind control" as their justification—are reportedly involved in forced kidnapping of hundreds our UC members. He agreed to do so. The letter says, in part:

"[An anti-cultist minister in Japan] told me this morning that sometimes, albeit infrequently, a family might hold their adult child against his/her will, and then a minister might be invited to speak with them. In my opinion, no minister should get involved in something like this as a matter of policy--even if the cult member requests a meeting in writing…

"I want this letter to stand as a public record that I think that any approach to help cult members should be one of love, compassion, and positive communication, not force. Otherwise, kidnapping or involuntary detention will invariably be traumatic… In fact, there was always another way that would have been less traumatic."

In return for his writing the above-mentioned letter, Steve asked me to clarify to the world community of Unificationists that he is not involved in holding people against their will. I think Steve is sincere in this, although he is certainly wrong in many of the things he says about the UC, Rev. Moon, "mind control," and NRM’s in general. Steve is a former deprogrammer, not a current one. What he does now is called "exit counseling," or in his current parlance "strategic interaction" to "break the bonds of mind control."

Now some of you will ask, "But isn’t what Steve does still really faith-breaking based on religious intolerance?" And I’d have to say yes. He gets paid by people who disapprove of other people’s religion (usually family members) to talk them out of it. And he also writes books and speaks out wherever he can trying to convince people of the need for the service he provides. But technically speaking it shouldn’t be called deprogramming unless force is involved. I’m hoping that since Steve wants UC members to avoid speaking in the present tense about things he did in the past (namely deprogramming), he’ll do the same and stop speaking about things we did in the past as if they were going on today. Watch this space.

Perhaps the most disturbing presentation of the LJRF conference was made by Jim Seigelman and Flo Conway, authors of the book "Snapping," which was instrumental in forming the anti-cult movement’s ideological basis in the late 1970s. Their presentation was entitled "Church vs. State," and it called for a new interpretation of the First Amendment that recognizes "freedom of thought" as the most basic human right, even more basic than freedom of speech or freedom of religion. (Another featured speaker, Stephen Kent of the University of Calgary eerily entitled his presentation "Human Rights vs. Religious Freedom.") Keep in mind that Conway and Seigleman and their cohorts, including exit counselor Steve Hassan, clearly argue that members of the minority religions they call "cults" do NOT have freedom of thought, because the cults have robbed them of it.

Seigelman actually called religion "the Achilles heel of American democracy." And Conway stated that "freedom of thought must be added to the first amendment." The both supported what they call a "judicial initiative" that will establish a "right to freedom of thought" in the same way that a "right to privacy" or a "right to have an abortion" has been established.

But if you unpack the Owellian newspeak, this type of "freedom of thought" simply stands the First Amendment on its head. Instead of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the free exercise thereof," Conway and Seigleman appear to say that "The Courts shall interpret the law so that anyone who joins an unpopular religion shall be declared incapable of exercising freedom of thought." The legal and political implications of such a doctrine are staggering.

At its closing banquet, the LJRF gave Conway and Seigelman its highest honor, the Leo J. Ryan Award. The first person they thanked and credited as a pioneer in "this work" was not other than the father of deprogramming himself, Ted Patrick.

[whatisonthemoon]

Excerpt that touches on Rod of Iron Ministries

And in Pike County, Pennsylvania, the local Moms for Liberty chapter has close ties to another extremist group: The Rod of Iron Ministries, the MAGA-loving religious sect that worships with AR-15s, whose leader was tear gassed during the Capitol riot, and which has close ties to multiple other far-right and Christian nationalist groups.  

Rod of Iron Ministries, also known as The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, is run by Pastor Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon. The gun-centric religious sect is a spinoff of the much larger Unification Church, run by Moon’s father, whose followers were known as the “Moonies.”

At the beginning of  the COVID-19 pandemic, Moon and his supporters began attending school board meetings to oppose mask mandates and school closures. 

"I have been fighting Sean Moon's gun cult for 10 years, and now he was in the halls where my kids learn,” Amanda Pauley, a local parent and activist, told VICE News about seeing Moon at a school board meeting, adding: “It was obvious that they were really prepared at this meeting, more so than any other meetings. Every single person had a speech to read. They all walked in at the same time. The whole room clapped and cheered.”

The crowd responded to Moon’s speech, during which he called America “the least racist country on the planet,” with loud cheers and applause. One man sitting close by leaned over and shook Moon’s hand as he sat back down.

Sean Moon and the Rod of Iron Ministries did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.  

At the time Moon spoke at the board meeting, there was no Moms for Liberty group active in Pike County, but a chapter formed in November 2022 just weeks after the majority conservative board voted against an effort to ban “pornographic” books in the district. One of the leading members is Kerry Williams, who has close ties to the Rod of Iron Ministries.

Williams attends school board meetings on behalf of Moms for Liberty, and is one of the administrators for the Facebook page for the Pike County Moms for Liberty chapter. She has also spoken at the Rod of Iron Ministries events in the past and has even hosted a podcast for the gun-worshiping church that relayed parts of the church’s Sunday service. During some Sunday services, she can be seen on the altar where she is referred to as “Queen Kerry.” Williams did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment. 

And just like Moms for Liberty has backed candidates for local elections, the Rod of Iron Ministries is following suit, running handpicked candidates not only for school board elections, but for county commissioner and town supervisor positions.

Related

Rod of Iron Receives Paramilitary Training - Alisa Mahjoub

Insurrection Connections

Inside the Bizarre and Dangerous Rod of Iron Ministries - RollingStone

Doug Mastriano, Christian Nationalism, and the Cult of the AR-15

Excerpts from a 2015 Hyung Jin sermon, where he encourages Sanctuary members to have spiritual sex with his father, Sun Myung Moon

The Leader of the Gun Church That Worships With AR-15s Is Now a MAGA Rapper

[whatisonthemoon]

Related

Sasakawa Foundation Linked to Peruvian Sterilizations On Albert Fujimori, Peru, and Puerto Rico: On Sterilization as a Tool of [Anti-Communist] Fascism and Neo-Colonialism

[whatisonthemoon]

Neil Salonen! WIll you take my call about the John Marks & Washington Post articles?!

A February 3, 2017 post from Don Diligent, from the WIOTM archive:

http://www.tparents.org/UTS/DoH1/DoH1-13.pdf

(EXCERPTS OF A LETTER FROM NEIL SALONEN TO CHRISTIAN MINISTERS IN 1974)

I am writing to you on behalf of the Unification Church, which has an active group in your area…I am writing because you may be one of those who received some spurious information that has widely circulated by a few people recently.

One such document originated in Louisville, Kentucky, and purports to be from a group of interdenominational ministers and laymen known as the “Concerned Christians.”…    Mr. Riner is the author of the cover letter accompanying the statement.

A few articles by reporter Chuck Offenburger of the Des Moines Register appeared, in which the opinions of two ex-members of the Church were greatly dramatized…the most painful experience was not so much the article itself, but the trusting, somewhat gullible response from so many readers.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to write to the above address or call (202) 296-7145 in Washington, D.C. Even as I travel with the tour, I will receive the message and will be happy to respond.

In Christian love and fellowship,

THE HOLY SPIRIT ASSOCIATION FOR THE UNIFICATION OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY

Neil Salonen

http://www.tparents.org/UTS/DoH1/DoH1-11.pdf

John Marks

February 1974

From Korea With Love

Pages 4-5

Washington Post

February 15, 1974

Rev. Moon - Nixon Backer

Pages 7-9

[whatisonthemoon]

Excerpts from Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller (on L. Ron Hubbard and the CIA)

full (pdf) book here

The same month as the Freedom Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency opened a file, No. 156409, on L. Ron Hubbard and his organization. CIA agents trawled through police, revenue, credit, and property records to try and unravel Hubbard's tangled corporate affairs. It was a task of herculean difficulty, for the Church of Scientology was a cryptic maze of ad hoc corporations.

The printed notepaper of the Academy of Scientology gave only a hint of its labyrinthine structure - on the left-hand side of the page was a list of no less than seventeen associated organizations, ranging from the American Society for Disaster Relief to the Society of Consulting Ministers.

Agents traced a considerable amount of property owned either by Hubbard, his wife, son, or one of the daunting number of 'churches' with which they were associated, but the report quickly became bogged down in a tangle of names and addresses.

'The Academy of Religious Arts and Sciences is currently engaged as a school for ministers of religion which at the present time possesses approximately thirty to forty students. The entire course consists of $1500 to $1800 worth of actual classroom studies . . . The public office is located at 1810-12 19th Street N.W. The corporations rent the entire building . . .

'The Hubbard Guidance Center, located at 2315 15th Street, N.W., occupies the entire building which consists of three floors and which was purchased by the SUBJECT Organization. The center also rents farm property located somewhere along Colesville Road in Silver Spring, Maryland, on a short-term lease. The center formerly operated a branch office at 8609 Flower Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland. In addition to the Silver Spring operation, the center has a working agreement with the Founding Church of Scientology of New York, which holds classes at Studio 847, Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street, New York City. Churches of this denomination number in excess of one hundred in the United States . . .'

One agent was assigned the thankless task of reading through all Hubbard's published work at the Library of Congress in order to gain an 'insight' into Scientology. 'Hubbard's works', he noted glumly, 'contain many words, the meaning of which are not made clear for lay comprehension and perhaps purposely so.'

The District of Columbia Income Tax Division reported that the 'church' had applied for a license to operate as a religion in Washington, DC, probably in an attempt to claim tax-free status, and the Personal Property Division reported that it was having difficulty persuading the church to produce its records so that a personal property tax could be levied. Repeated telephone calls had produced nothing but excuses as to why the records could not be produced.

In the end, the CIA file could do no more than chronicle a multitude of vague suspicions; it certainly uncovered no hard evidence of wrongdoing and it revealed curiously little about the remarkable career of the founder of the Founding Church of Scientology. 'Dr. Hubbard,' it noted simply, 'received a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1954 and throughout his adult career has been a minister.'

The increasingly obvious success of Scientology from 1957 onwards unquestionably prompted federal agencies to keep a closer eye on Hubbard. The Washington Field Office of the FBI, for example, maintained an extensive file which included film and sound recordings as well as photographs and doggedly noted every example of Hubbard's exuberant irreverence to authority. When the Academy of Scientology delivered twelve thousand feet of film to a Washington laboratory for processing, outraged technicians forwarded it to the FBI for investigation, alleging that the speaker on the film was anti-American. The film covered six one-hour lectures by Hubbard, during which he made a crack about the government developing the hydrogen bomb in order to 'kill more people faster'.

He also talked about his experience when 'he was a policeman', in dealing with the criminal mind. 'The FBI thinks there's such a thing as the criminal mind - always a big joke,' he said. 'There's a criminal mind and a non-criminal mind. The FBI has never shown me a non-criminal mind. Of course, these are terrible things to say - simply comments on J. Edgar who is an awfully good guy, stupid, but awfully good.' The Washington Field Office, which perhaps lacked Hubbard's sense of humor, solemnly took note of this analysis of their director and diligently forwarded to him the advice that L. Ron Hubbard thought he was 'stupid'.[8]

Largely unaware of the extent of federal interest in his activities, Hubbard had remained in Washington after the Freedom Congress to lecture on a more permanent basis at the Academy of Scientology. Mary Sue and the children joined him from London, and they all moved into the brownstone house on 19th Street. Although she was soon pregnant once more, Mary Sue was appointed 'Academy Supervisor' and remained a powerful figure in the organization. On 6 June 1958, she gave birth to her fourth child - a son, Arthur Ronald Conway Hubbard. Like his other brothers and sisters, Arthur emerged into the world with a wispy topping of bright red hair.

Through most of 1958, Hubbard lectured in Washington at the Academy."

. . . . . .

Hubbard was not on holiday, he was on his way to Rhodesia, where Prime Minister Ian Smith had recently signed a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in defiance of the British Government. Now that he had no reason to hope that Australia would be the first 'clear' continent, Hubbard had scaled down his ambitions and was looking for a country which would provide a 'safe environment' for Scientology. He chose Rhodesia firstly because he thought he could create a favourable climate by helping to solve the UDI crisis and secondly because he believed he had been Cecil Rhodes in a previous life. He told Reg Sharpe that he hoped to be able to recover gold and diamonds he was convinced Rhodes had buried somewhere in Rhodesia.

On 7 April 1966, the CIA headquarters in the United States received a cable from an agent in Rhodesia: 'Request traces of L. Ron Hubbard, US citizen recently arrived.' The reply confirmed that Headquarters files contained no derogatory information about the subject, but a memo was attached giving excerpts from press reports. It concluded: 'Individuals who have been connected with the organizations headed by Hubbard or who have had contact with him and the organizations, have indicated that Hubbard is a "crackpot" and of "doubtful mental background".'

The 'crackpot' meanwhile had bought a large four-bedroomed house with a swimming-pool in the exclusive Alexander Park suburb of Salisbury and opened negotiations to acquire the Bumi Hills Hotel on Lake Kariba. His plan was to use the hotel as a luxury base from which to spread the influence of Scientology. He believed the Lake Kariba site would attract well-heeled followers who wanted to be instructed in the highest levels of Scientology and were willing to pay around $10,000 for the privilege.

Nothing of this was revealed to the people of Rhodesia, to whom he represented himself as a 'millionaire-financier' interested in pumping money into the crippled economy of the country and stimulating the tourist industry. In an interview in the Rhodesia Sunday Mail he said he had left his stately home in Britain on doctor's orders after a third attack of pneumonia. 'I am really supposed to be on vacation,' he explained, 'but I have had so many invitations to invest in businesses here and this country is so starved of finance that I have become intrigued.'

Hubbard was careful to distance himself from what the newspaper called 'the controversial Scientology movement'. It had never really been pushed in Rhodesia, he said, and added: 'I am still an officer of the corporation that administers the movement but it is very largely autonomous now.'

In early May, Hubbard produced, uninvited, a 'tentative constitution' for Rhodesia which he felt would satisfy the demands of the blacks while at the same time maintaining white supremacy. It embodied the principle of one man one vote for a lower house, while real power was vested in an upper house elected by qualified citizens with a good standard of English, knowledge of the constitution and financial standing verified by a bank. Hubbard was apparently convinced that Rhodesia's black population would welcome his ideas, even though it was patently obvious that the qualifications required to cast a vote for the upper house would exclude most blacks.

With his inimitable talent for adopting the appropriate vernacular, Hubbard's proposals were written in suitably constitutional prose, beginning: 'Before God and Man we pledge ourselves, the Government of Rhodesia and each of our officers and men of authority in the Government to this the Constitution of our country . . .'

Copies were despatched to Ian Smith and to Saint Hill Manor in England with instructions to forward the document to the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, when Hubbard gave the word. Ian Smith's principal private secretary replied politely to Hubbard on 5 May saying that his suggestions had been passed to a Cabinet sub-committee examining proposals for amending the constitution.

Still as paranoid as ever, Hubbard then wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs asking if the investigation of his activities and background had been completed and if he could have confirmation that everything was in order. He added a jaunty postscript: 'Why not come over and have a drink and dinner with me one night?'

This provoked a frosty response from the Minister's private secretary: 'My Minister has asked me to thank you for your letter of 5th May 1966 and to say that he has no knowledge of his Ministry carrying out an investigation into your activities. He regrets he is unable to accept your invitation to dinner. Yours faithfully . . .'

Hubbard continued to try and ingratiate himself with the leading political figures in Rhodesia, but with little success. In June, he arranged for John McMaster to visit him from Johannesburg, where he was teaching a clearing course. 'He cabled me and asked me to bring all the clearing course students to Salisbury to take part in a film he wanted to make,' said McMaster. 'I was also to be sure to bring with me two bottles of pink champagne, which was not available in Rhodesia. 'I had no idea why he wanted it but I knew it was important because I was met by one of Hubbard's assistants at Salisbury airport and the first thing she said to me was, "Have you brought the champagne?" It turned out he wanted to give it to Mrs Smith as a present in order to try and get in with the Prime Minister. Next morning his chauffeur drove him round to Government House and he swaggered up to the front door with a bottle under each arm thinking he was going to take Mrs Smith by storm. But they wouldn't let him past the front door and he came back very upset, really disgruntled.'

Hubbard's high profile as the 'millionaire-financier' who boasted that he could solve the UDI crisis won him few friends among Rhodesia's deeply conservative white society. He often spoke of his willingness to help the government, pointing out that he had been trained in economics and government at Princeton, and seemed surprised that his services were not welcomed. On television, in newspaper interviews and in all his public pronouncements, Hubbard professed support for Ian Smith's government, although in private he thought Smith was a 'nasty bit of work' who was incapable of leadership. Similarly, he publicly espoused sympathy for the plight of the black majorities in both Rhodesia and South Africa, while privately admitting contempt for them. Blacks were so stupid, he told John McMaster, that they did not give a reading on an E-meter.

At the beginning of July, Hubbard was invited to address the Rotary Club in Bulawayo. He delivered a rambling, hectoring speech telling the assembled businessmen how they should run their country, their businesses and their lives and when it was reported in the local newspaper it appeared to be faintly anti-Rhodesian. A couple of days later, Hubbard received a letter from the Department of Immigration informing him that his application for an extension to his Alien's Temporary Residence Permit had been unsuccessful: 'this means that you will be required to leave Rhodesia on or before the 18th July, 1966.'

Hubbard was stunned. Up until that moment he had believed himself to be not just a prominent personality in Rhodesia, but a popular one. He asked his friends in the Rhodesian Front party to make representations on his behalf to the Prime Minister, but to no avail. 'Smith ranted and raved at them,' he reported later, 'told them I had been deported from Australia, was wanted in every country in the world, that my business associates had been complaining about me and that I must go.'

The Rhodesian Government refused to make any comment on the expulsion order, but Hubbard had few doubts about who was behind it - it was obviously a Communist plot to get him out of the country because he was the man most likely to resolve the UDI crisis.

On 15 July, Hubbard lined up his household staff on the lawn in front of his house on John Plagis Avenue and bade them an emotional farewell for the benefit of Rhodesian television, whose cameras were recording the departure of the American millionaire-financier. At the airport there were more reporters waiting to interview him before he left and one of them warned him to expect a posse from Fleet Street to greet him in London. He was quite cheered by the prospect and began to think that his expulsion might actually increase his status as an international personality.

. . . . . .

'USIS OFFICER STATES HUBBARD RUNS FLOATING UNIVERSITY OF QUESTIONABLE MORAL CHARACTER, NOT ACCREDITED ANY US UNIVERSITIES AND POOR REPRESENTATIVE FOR US ABROAD . . . FLOATING COLLEGE PROBABLY PART OF CHARLATAN CULT.' (CIA cable traffic, June/July 1968) 

. . . . . .

At around this time, another young woman began causing problems for the Commodore. Susan Meister, a twenty-three-year-old from Colorado, had joined the crew of the Apollo in February 1971, having been introduced to Scientology by friends while she was working in San Francisco. When she arrived on the ship she was a typically eager and optimistic convert and wrote home frequently, urging her family to 'get into' Scientology.

'I just had an auditing session,' she wrote on 5 May. 'I feel great, great, great and my life is expanding, expanding and it's all Scientology. Hurry up! Hurry, hurry. Be a friend to yourselves - get into this stuff now. It's more precious than gold, it's the best thing that's ever ever ever ever come along. Love, Susan.'

By the time of her next letter, on 15 June, the Commodore's conspiracy theories had clearly made an impression. 'I can't tell you exactly where we are. We have enemies who . . . do not wish to see us succeed in restoring freedom and self-determination to this planet's people. If these people were to find out where we were located they would attempt to destroy us . . .'

Ten days later, when the Apollo was docked in the Moroccan port of Safi, Susan Meister locked herself in a cabin, put a .22 target revolver to her forehead and pulled the trigger. She was found at 7.35 pm lying across a bunk, wearing the dress her mother had sent her for her birthday, with her arms crossed and the revolver on her chest. A suicide note was on the floor.

Local police were called, but the death of an American citizen inevitably alerted US consular officials and exposed the Apollo to the kind of attention that Hubbard had been trying to avoid for years. Following the Commodore's oft-repeated doctrine, the Sea Org went on to the attack. Susan Meister, who had seemed a rather quiet and reserved young woman to her friends, was portrayed as an unstable former drug addict who had made previous attempts at suicide; Peter Warren, the Apollo's port Captain, hinted that compromising photographs of her had been found.

These smear tactics were soon extended to embrace William Galbraith, the US vice-consul in Casablanca, who had driven to Safi to make inquiries into the incident. On 13 July, he had lunch with Warren and Joni Chiriasi, another member of the crew, at the Sidi Bouzid restaurant in Safi before being taken to look round the ship. Afterwards, Warren and Chiriasi both signed affidavits accusing Galbraith of threatening the ship - 'He said that if the ship became an embarrassment to the United States, Nixon would order the CIA to sink or sabotage it.' Galbraith also allegedly referred to the Church of Scientology as a 'bunch of kooks' and speculated that the ship was being used as a brothel or a casino or for drug-trafficking.

Next day, Norman Starkey, captain of the Apollo, forwarded copies of the affidavits to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, with a covering letter complaining that Galbraith had threatened 'to murder the vessel's company of 380 men, women and children, many of whom are Americans'. Letters were also sent to John Mitchell, the Attorney General, and to the Secret Service, all with copies to President Nixon, who was yet to be engulfed by Watergate.

A few days later, Susan Meister's father arrived in Casablanca to investigate his daughter's death but found it impossible to make headway with the disinterested Moroccan authorities, who were somewhat more concerned with a recent attempted coup d'état than a lone American making inquiries about his daughter. Meister, who refused to believe that Susan had committed suicide, could not even discover where her body was being kept and in desperation he turned to L. Ron Hubbard for help.

He later wrote a dispiriting account of his visit to the ship, escorted by Peter Warren: 'Passing the guarded gates into the port compound, we had our first look at Hubbard's ship Apollo. It appeared to be old and as we boarded it, the girls manning the deck gave us a hand salute. All were dressed in work-type clothing of civilian origin. Most appeared to be young. Upon boarding, we were shown the stern of the ship, which was used as a reading-room, with several people sitting in chairs reading books. The mention of Susan seemed to meet with disapproval from those on board...we were shown where Susan's quarters were in the stern of the ship below decks where it appeared fifty or so people were sleeping on shelf-type bunks. Susan's letter had mentioned she shared a cabin all the way forward with one other person. Next we were shown the cabin next to the pilot house on the bridge where the alleged suicide had taken place...We were not allowed to see any more of the ship. I requested an interview with Hubbard as he was then on board. Warren said he would ask. He returned in about half an hour and said Hubbard had declined to see me.'

After his return to America, Meister discovered to his anger and astonishment that his daughter had been buried even before he arrived in Morocco. He arranged to have the body exhumed and returned to the United States, but before the remains of Susan Meister were put to rest, a final dirty trick was played: Meister's local health authority in Colorado received an anonymous letter warning of a cholera epidemic in Morocco that had so far caused two or three hundred deaths. 'It's been brought to my attention,' wrote the poison pen, 'that the daughter of one George Meister died in Morocco, either by accident or cholera, probably the latter.'[12]

At the beginning of 1972, Hubbard fell ill, suddenly and inexplicably, with a sickness that defied diagnosis and presented a bewildering range of symptoms. Towards the end of January, the Commodore sent a pathetic note to Jim Dincalci, the ship's medical officer: 'Jim, I don't think I'm going to make it.'

Dincalci, who had been appointed medical officer on the strength of six months' experience as a nurse before joining Scientology, was unsure what to do. He had been deeply shocked when he first arrived on the ship in 1970 to realize that Hubbard became ill just like ordinary mortals, since he clearly remembered reading in the first Dianetics book that it was possible to cure most ailments with the power of the mind. In his first week as medical officer, Hubbard began complaining of feeling unwell and Dincalci was very surprised when a doctor was called. He prescribed a course of pain-killers and antibiotics, but Dincalci naturally did not bother to collect the pills because he was convinced that Ron would not need them.

'I thought', he said, 'that as an operating thetan he would have total control of his body and of any pain. When he discovered I hadn't got him the pain-killers, he flew off the handle and started screaming at me.'[13]

Fearful of making another mistake, Dincalci sought advice about the Commodore's illness from Otto Roos, who was one of the senior 'technical' Scientologists on board. Roos ventured the view that the problem stemmed from some incident in his past which had not been properly audited. The only way to find it would be to comb through all the folders in which Ron's auditing sessions were recorded.

Hubbard gave his approval to this course of action, adding a note to Otto Roos: 'I'm delighted that somebody is finally going to take responsibility for my auditing.' Roos began calling in the folders from Saint Hill and from all the Scientology branches in the United States where Hubbard had been audited. There were hundreds of them, dating back to 1948; Roos calculated they would make a stack eight feet high. He began working through the folders, discovering, to his disquiet, numerous 'discreditable reads' - moments when the E-meter revealed that Hubbard had something to hide.

Towards the end of March, while Roos was still poring over the folders, a messenger arrived at his cabin saying that the Commodore wanted to see all the folders. Roos was dumbfounded: it was an inviolable rule of Scientology that no one, no matter who he was, was allowed to see his own folder. He told the messenger it was out of the question. A few minutes later, the door burst open and two hefty members of the crew barged in, picked up the filing cabinets and staggered out with them.

Two days passed before a messenger told Roos he was wanted by the Commodore. From the moment the Dutchman entered Hubbard's office, it was apparent the Commodore had made a dramatic recovery. Hubbard leapt up from his desk with a roar and struck out at Roos with his fist, following up with a furious kick. He was shouting so wildly that Roos was unable to make out what he was saying apart from that it was something to do with the 'discreditable reads'. Mary Sue was sitting in the office with a long face watching what was going on. When Hubbard had calmed down a little he turned to her and asked her, as his auditor, if he had ever had 'discreditable reads'. Mary Sue's expression did not alter. 'No sir,' she said, 'you never had such reads.'

Roos could see folders scattered across Hubbard's desk, open at the pages where he had noted the 'reads' that Mary Sue denied existed. He said nothing. Hubbard paced the room, fretting that Roos had 'undoubtedly told this all over the ship' and that everyone was talking and laughing about it. In fact, Roos had informed no one, although it did not prevent him from being put under 'cabin arrest'.

After he had been dismissed, Mary Sue kept running down to his cabin with different folders, trying to explain away the 'discreditable reads'. He had been using outdated technology, she said, and 'should have known about it'. Later Diana Hubbard also stopped by, pushed open Roos's door, screamed, 'I hate you! I hate you!' and stalked off.[14]

The Apollo was docked in Tangier throughout this drama, and Mary Sue was busy supervising the decoration and furnishing of a split-level modern house, the Villa Laura, on a hillside in the suburbs of Tangier. The Hubbards planned to move ashore while the ship was put into dry dock for a re-fit, and Mary Sue was looking forward to it.

Hubbard was still dreaming of finding a friendly little country where Scientology would be allowed to prosper (not to say take over control), and he had begun casting covetous eyes on Morocco, at whose Atlantic ports he had been calling regularly ever since leaving the Mediterranean. The Moroccan monarchy was going through a period of crisis, and Hubbard felt that King Hassan would welcome the help that Scientology could offer in identifying potential traitors within his midst and be suitably grateful thereafter.

Some months previously, the Sea Org had set up a land base in a small huddle of office buildings on the airport road outside Tangier. The erection of a sign on the road announcing, in English, French, and Arabic, the arrival of 'Operation and Transport Corporation Limited, International Business Management' immediately attracted the attention of Howard D. Jones, the local American consul general. He became even more interested a few days later when, at a party in Tangier, he met a nervous American girl who admitted working for OTC but would say nothing about it. 'I am here with a Panamanian corporation,' she said, 'but that is all I can tell you.'

Nothing could have been more calculated to prompt the consul to make further inquiries. He soon made the connections between OTC, the 'mystery ship' Apollo, and L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, but he discovered very little more, to judge by a frustrated cable he dispatched to Washington on 26 April 1972: 'Little is known of the operations of Operation and Transport Company here, and its officers are elusive about what it does. However, we presume that the Scientologists aboard the Apollo and in Tangier do whatever it is that Scientologists do elsewhere. 'There have been rumors in town that Apollo is involved in drug or white slave traffic. However, we doubt these reports... The stories about white slave traffic undoubtedly stem from the fact that included among the crew of the Apollo are a large number of strikingly beautiful young ladies. However, we are skeptical that a vessel that stands out like a sore thumb, in which considerable interest is bound to be generated, and with a crew numbering in hundreds, would be a reasonable vehicle for smuggling or white slaving.'[15]

The US consul, although he had no way of knowing it, was looking in the wrong direction. Very little was happening on the ship that would have been of interest to Washington, but a great deal was happening ashore. The Operation and Transport Corporation was relentlessly trying to make inroads into Moroccan bureaucracy, undeterred by numerous setbacks. It acquired an inauspicious foothold with a government contract to train post office administrators on the assurance that Scientology techniques would accelerate their training, but the pilot project soon foundered. 'We took half the students,' said Amos Jessup, 'while the other half were trained in the traditional way. We spent a month trying to teach them certain study techniques, but they got so anxious that the others were forging ahead learning post office techniques that they walked out.'

Jessup, who spoke French, led OTC's next assault - on the Moroccan army. He and Peter Warren made friends with a colonel in Rabat and demonstrated the E-meter to him. 'He was properly amazed by it,' said Jessup, 'and arranged for us to give a presentation to a general who was said to be a friend of the Minister of Defense and the right-hand man of the King. We were taken to this gigantic, luxurious house, where we did a few drills. The general said he was very interested and would get back to us. We waited in a little apartment in Rabat the Sea Org had rented to us but didn't hear anything, so we went back to the ship. Shortly afterward, the general led an unsuccessful coup and committed suicide. We realized then that he wouldn't have passed word about the E-meter to the King.'

Another OTC mission was having more success with the Moroccan secret police and started a training course for senior policemen and intelligence agents, showing them how to use the E-meter to detect political subversives. The Apollo, meanwhile, sailed for Lisbon for her re-fit, and Mary Sue and Ron moved into the Villa Laura in Tangier. Hubbard seemed strangely depressed; Doreen Smith reported that he often talked about 'dropping his body,' which was Scientology-speak for dying.

Loyal wife that she was, Mary Sue took it upon herself to deal with one of the sources of her husband's troubles - his estranged son, Nibs. After 'blowing the org' in 1959, fortune had not smiled on Nibs. He had drifted from job to job, finding it ever more difficult to support his wife and six children, and as the realization dawned that he would never be allowed back into Scientology, he became an even more prominent critic of his father and his father's 'church.' When the church was locked in litigation with the Internal Revenue Service, Nibs testified on behalf of the IRS.

In September 1972, Mary Sue orchestrated a campaign to 'handle' Nibs, instituting a search through all the Sea Org files and instructing the Guardian's office to do the same. She told an aide that Nibs' 'big button' was money and that it was time to start hunting through the old files to dig up former complaints about him.[16]

The church never revealed what it found out about the Founder's son, but on 7 November, Nibs recorded a video-taped interview with a church official retracting his IRS testimony and all allegations he had previously made against his father. They were made 'vengefully,' he explained, at a time when he was undergoing a great deal of personal and emotional stress: 'What I have been doing is a whole lot of lying, a whole lot of damage to a lot of people that I value highly. 'I happen to love my father, blood is thicker than water, and basically it may sound silly to some people but it means a great deal to me that blood is thicker than water, and another thing, as a matter of interest too, would be I made some pretty awful statements about the Sea Org, and none of these are true. I've no personal knowledge of any wrongdoing or illegal acts or brutality or anything else against people by the Sea Org or any member of the Scientology organization.'

At the Villa Laura in Tangier, Hubbard had little time to reflect on this filial declaration of love. Indeed, it was more likely he was reflecting on the curious inevitability with which his plans were ending in tears. The OTC training course for Moroccan secret policemen was breaking up in disarray under the stress of internecine intrigue between pro-monarchy and anti-monarchy factions and the fear of what the E-meter would reveal. 'It was a crazy setup,' said Jessup, 'you couldn't tell who was on which side.'

It was possible that the Sea Org might have stayed to try and unravel this complication, had not word arrived from Paris that the Church of Scientology in France was about to be indicted for fraud. There was a suggestion that French lawyers would be seeking Hubbard's extradition from Morocco to face charges in Paris.

The Commodore decided it was time to go. There was a ferry leaving Tangier for Lisbon in forty-eight hours: Hubbard ordered everyone to be on it, with all the OTC's movable property and every scrap of paper that could not be shredded. For the next two days, convoys of cars, trucks, and motorcycles could be observed, day and night, scurrying back and forth from OTC 'land bases' in Morocco to the port in Tangier.

When the Lisbon-bound ferry sailed from Tangier on 3 December 1972, nothing remained of the Church of Scientology in Morocco. Hubbard left behind only a pile of shredded paper, a flurry of wild rumors, and a scattering of befuddled US consular officials.

. . . . . .

The Apollo had not been in the Caribbean for long before she again began to arouse suspicions at her various ports of call. She cruised from the Bahamas to the West Indies to the Leeward and Windward Islands, the Netherlands Antilles and back again and rumours of illicit or clandestine activity followed her as tenaciously as the seagulls. In Trinidad, a weekly tabloid newspaper speculated that the ship was connected to the CIA and suggested that the crew was somehow linked with the horrific Sharon Tate murders in Los Angeles. As the American Embassy drily cabled to Washington: 'The controversial yacht Apollo seems to have worn out its welcome in Trinidad'.[12] 

To those on board ship, it was obvious that a conspiracy was at work. The Captain, Bill Robertson, explained that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was 'one of the top SMERSH guys', had been bringing pressure to bear and threatening to cut foreign aid to any island that welcomed the Apollo.[13] It made perfect sense to a Scientologist.

. . . . . .

'REVIEW OF AVAILABLE INFO REGARDING OVERSEAS ACTIVITIES CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY REVEALS ONLY THAT ITS FOUNDER L. RON HUBBARD IS ECCENTRIC MILLIONAIRE WHO HAS BEEN EXPELLED FROM RESIDENCE IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES BECAUSE OF HIS ODD ACTIVITIES AND BEHAVIOUR. HE IS OWNER OF SEVERAL SHIPS WHOSE APPEARANCE IN PORTS IN VARIOUS PARTS OF WORLD HAVE STIMULATED QUERIES . . . FROM OTHER GOVERNMENTS ASKING INFO RE VESSELS MISSION AND CREW. RESPONSES INDICATE WE KNOW VERY LITTLE . . .' (Outgoing signal from CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia, 16 October 1975) 

Related

CIA efforts to seize Scientology? Former Russian Prime Minister, Close Putin Advisor Sergey Kiriyenko is a Scientologist, and a brief history of the CIA’s relationship to Scientology Machine Guns Near the Church of Scientology’s Int Base or Gold Base Scientology and the UC made a ‘Religious Liberty’ organization that harassed parents and activists concerned about cults

[whatisonthemoon]

CIA efforts to seize Scientology?

According to L. Ron Hubbard, who may or may not be saying this in order to obscure his own cooperation with the CIA:

The reason for this declaration is the consistent disaster visited upon her "allies" by the United States government and the efforts of that government since 1955, stepped up since 1963, to seize Scientology in the United States rather than forbid or stop it and the role played by the United States in inspiring the Victorian State attacks in Australia. Scientology technology is no longer offered to the United States government in any effort to assist her in political ends. Our participation extends only to our willingness to process U.S. officials as individuals unconnected with their political aims, if as individuals they are not debarred by other existing policies relating to treating the insane or our Ethics system. 

Hubbard, L. Ron "Politics, Freedom From" LRH Secretarial Executive Directive 56 Int 14 June 1965 reissued as Hubbard Communication Office Policy Letter 10 January 1968

[whatisonthemoon]

More Develop at Cheongpyeong: HJ Marina

Related

Hak Ja Han’s unfinished palace

Demian Dunkley Admits Fraud - from the twitter of ex-Moonie podcast Falling Out Reports last week on the blessing and the palace Jeffrey Hall on the Unification Church Property Near Tama Center Hak Ja Han’s new palace (the third at Cheongpyeong) was opened on May 6, 2023 Hak Ja Han’s Greed Has No Limits Fundraising Email for New Palace Sent to Members Hak Ja Han Is a Criminal Who Extorts Members to Death Tensions between Japanese 1st and 2nd gen; US Members Must Pay $12,000 for Hak Ja Han’s New Palace Elgen Strait describes Hak Ja Han’s new palace Hak Ja Han’s Gambling Has Gone TOO Far

[whatisonthemoon]

"Be prepared to die” and more fun quotes from Hak Ja Han

On June 9, Hak Ja Han said: "For whom did the United Nations forces of 16 nations participate in the Korean War? For Korea? No... It was for Heaven to protect me, the only daughter You must know that!”

https://twitter.com/TsuboMessiah/status/1668251895037665280

She also recently told members to be prepared to die:

https://twitter.com/TsuboMessiah/status/1667436425288224769

Related

Hak Ja Han’s unfinished palace

Warning For Second Generation: Potential Incoming Outreach to “Inactive” “Blessed Children”

Unification Church is shaking

Demian Dunkley Admits Fraud - from the twitter of ex-Moonie podcast Falling Out

[whatisonthemoon]

Korean Evangelism (1974)

Korean Evangelism By Jonathan Marshall Pacific Research, 5 (September-October 1974), 1-5

Lenin may have exaggerated when he charged that “religion is the opiate of the people,” but his words have long had a ring of truth for Asia. From the days when Christian missionaries were sent to China and Korea to open up new markets for American manufacturers, to the more recent efforts of the American CIA to finance anti-communist religious minority groups in Southeast Asia, the West has consistently used religion as a spearhead of cultural and economic penetration in the Orient. Since World War II, America’s politico-religious programs have been chiefly aimed at stirring up anti-communist sentiment around the world to promote the containment or rollback of leftist regimes. Thus the CIA has at various times backed everything from Asian Buddhist monks to reactionary Russian orthodox churches catering to Eastern European émigrés, to Pope Paul’s Italian anti-communist youth movements.1 Most anti-communist religious fronts, however, are supported by wealthy right-wing individuals or foreign governments, but all have similar ends. Many of these “religious” groups are now affiliated with worldwide anti-communist organizations, especially the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League (formed by Chiang Kai-shek and Korean President Syngman Rhee, in 1954) and its umbrella organization, the World Anti-Communist League. These two groups, although confined largely to propaganda activities . (APACL’s role in the 1954, CIA-organized Vietnam refugee resettlement is one of several exceptions), help coordinate the activities of the world’s leading anti-communists and of regional organizations such as the irredentist Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, the European Freedom Council, and the Free Pacific Association. Also associated with APACL is the International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture headed by an ex-Foreign Minister under Spain’s Franco, and composed of former German Abwehr agents, Ukrainian Catholic activists, professional American anti-Semites, John Birch Society spokesmen, and a former advisor to Syngman Rhee, James Cromwell. Other religious groups represented in APACL/WACL conventions include the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade (American), the Asian Lay-Christian Association (South Korean), and the Asian Christian Anti-Communist Association. All are dedicated to winning the hearts and minds of the world’s many non-Christians and turning them away from the lure of communism.2 South Korea has long been a center of anti-communist Christian agitation in Asia because of its large Christian population (one out of eight South Koreans is Christian, and the number is rising rapidly) and because of the highly favorable political climate offered first by Syngman Rhee and now by General Park, who have subsidized right-wing Christian groups and promoted a “Christianizing” campaign in the military. Evangelists who consider the Third World to be of great “strategic significance” point out that South Korea now boasts over 8,500 seminary and Bible school students. And South Korea has another advantage for Christian activists -- a convenient enemy. During Billy Graham’s famous Crusade to South Korea in mid-1973, which drew over two million people (thanks to some official pressure), chants like “Fifty million for Christ” were instigated to agitate for a roll back of Communism and unification of the Korean Peninsula’s fifty million inhabitants. Thus it was fitting that Seoul, the capital of South Korea, was the home of the first All-Asia Mission Consultation, a meeting of Asian missionaries to plan the evangelization of Asia’s 98 percent non-Christians.3 One American evangelical organization has been quick to exploit the opportunities provided by South Korea: Campus Crusade for Christ International. Founded by ex-California businessman William R. Bright in 1951, Campus Crusade is headquartered in a multimillion dollar luxury hotel located on a 1,735 acre estate at Arrowhead Springs, near San Bernardino. With a full-time staff of over 3,009 people in fifty countries and an annual budget over $15 million, Bright’s organization is dedicated to sparking off a “spiritual explosion across America and around the world” which will Christianize the world in the next decade.4 Campus Crusade experienced a remarkable growth in the past five years through the use of sophisticated computerized marketing techniques and an almost embarrassingly oversimplified set of theological principles. It has, however, met with some opposition from established Christian organizations thanks to its conservative fundamentalist principles and resistance to social change. Campus Crusade speakers typically cite the “great red dragon” of Revelation 12 to warn of the threat of Chinese Communism, and the group’s film, “Berkeley -- A New Kind of Revolution” portrays Martin Luther King and the peace movement, tinted red, as examples of what is wrong with America. The evangelist organ Christianity Today reports that at EXPLO ’72, a student congress on evangelism sponsored by Campus Crusade in Dallas (featuring Billy Graham), “The Peoples’ Christian Coalition, an anti-war group.., kept Crusade officials hopping to head off leafleting and pint-sized demonstrations. Two dozen Coalition members and Mennonites one night in the Cotton Bowl held up a large banner reading ‘Cross or flag, God or country?’ and chanted ’Stop the war’ but were promptly shushed by the crowd.” Indeed, the atmosphere of Campus Crusade’s EXPLO ’72 seemed best described by the popular chant, “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar. All who’re for Jesus, stand up and holler!’’5 Even as EXPLO ’72 was ending, Bill Bright began planning Campus Crusade’s next and even more ambitious venture -- EXPLO ’74 in South Korea. Slated to cost $1.5 million, EXPLO ’74 was planned for an attendance conservatively estimated at 300,000, well over three times the draw of its 1972 predecessor. Campus Crusade got a big boost when Billy Graham plugged his friend’s project during his 1973 expedition to Seoul. Campus Crusade’s high-rise headquarters in central Seoul (on land donated by the government after a battle in 1968 to remove squatters) was mobilized to prepare for the event. And Campus Crusade’s chief representative in Seoul, Joon Gon Kim, drawing upon the organization’s experience in fighting communism in Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Thailand, as well as the strong encouragement of his government, directed the entire project.6 Bright suffered a temporary set-back last year when the Korean National Council of Churches officially expressed its “lack of concern” about the evangelical crusade, according to the Washington Post, for “fear it would be used as a tool in the government’s struggle with church groups over social policy, political freedoms and human rights.” Sophisticated Koreans viewed the Graham/Bright efforts as simply a further extension of the government’s program of “undermining strongly anti-government mobilizations among the country’s four million Christians,” writes an informed Japanese journalist.7 Since then, probably to Bright’s embarrassment, the Park regime has greatly stepped up this “struggle,” not only against Church groups, but also to crush students, lawyers, and dissident intellectuals. Since Park suspended the Constitution and promulgated his Emergency Decrees last January, his government has convicted by military tribunal almost two hundred suspected political dissenters and interrogated -- often by torture -- hundreds more. Korea’s only living ex-President was arrested and convicted under the Decrees. Sentences ranging from five years to death have been meted out by these tribunals to large numbers of Protestant clergymen, a famous Catholic bishop, the country’s best known poet, South Korea’s foremost expert on Abraham Lincoln (and Boston University Ph. D.), a dean of theology at a major Korean University, who graduated from Union Theological Seminary, a civil liberties lawyer from Yale University, and many others whose exposure to Western political, values brought them only trouble. Thousands of Korean Catholics (at great personal risk) have attended mass rallies and vigils to protest the jailing of Bishop Daniel Chi Hak Soun. Korea’s Protestant National Council of Churches recently denounced the repression under Park. Christian groups around the world, including the American Jesuit Missions Conference and the World Council of Churches have joined in the protest against the American-backed regime.8 None of this, of course, disturbs veteran anti-communist Bill Bright, whose EXPLO ’74, with government backing, attracted several hundred thousand South Koreans last August. “In no country in the world, including the U.S., is there more freedom to talk about Jesus Christ than in South Korea,” he explains by way of justification. “There is no religious repression here. It is only political, and I believe it is for a good cause.” Bright says that “those in prison” -- presumably including his fellow Christians -- “are involved in things they shouldn’t be involved in.” The slightest expression of dissent, he feels, may cause North Korea to instantly “pounce upon the republic.” He accuses the U.S. press as well as the jailed Korean critics of slandering the Park regime and claims, “Those who oppose the regime are militant in their attack on anything that speaks of God, and if they had their way every Christian in South Korea today would be slaughtered.” Joon Gon Kim, executive director of EXPLO ’74, is no less outspoken in his defense of Campus Crusade’s holy mission against world communism: “When the Korean church becomes aflame with the Holy Spirit God can rend the iron curtain of North Korea, China, Russia and Eastern Europe and the walls will collapse so that the Gospel can be preached.’’9 William Bright in the service of General Park’s dictatorship might seem an extreme case, but his allies, especially those in the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League, are no less fervent or dedicated. Just as Bright claims that General Park is working in the service of God by crushing his opponents, so did Bright’s ally and Korean counterpart, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, achieve notoriety when he announced last year in full page newspaper advertisements across the United States that President Nixon had been put into office by God and could be removed only by His will. Sun Myung Moon’s National Prayer and Fast Committee stuck by Nixon to the bitter end. (Thus did Moon inevitably meet Rabbi Korff, who then obligingly spoke before a Moon-affiliated organization on “The Fact of Communism and America’s Future.” 10 The Reverend Moon is a new phenomenon in America, but not in Asia where his following now totals nearly a million people, concentrated in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Moon found his calling back in 1936 when Jesus Christ approached him on a mountainside and asked him to devote himself to God’s service as an evangelist. Moon waited until 1954, however, before organizing a new world religion, the Genri Undo, or Unification Church, formerly called the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. (Detractors claim he got off to a slow start because of three arrests for sexual offenses.)11 Despite his wide following in Asia, and his whirlwind American tour last year, Moon has not attracted a wide following in the United States, where he can claim only about 25,000 supporters. Now that he can no longer lead the campaign to save President Nixon, Sun Myung Moon has fallen back on more traditional approaches. Recently he spent $350,000 on radio, TV, and other advertising to promote a major evangelical rally at Madison Square Garden to stimulate new support in the East. The event was held September 18 and attracted a large crowd of curious onlookers, hostile fundamentalists, leftist demonstrators, policemen, and atheists.12 Once described as a “Korean-style Elmer Gantry” but preferring the title, “God’s Hope for America,” the Reverend Moon preaches about the many dangers of communism along with his personal interpretations of the Bible. One Japanese source describes his movement as “less a religion than an anti-communist front group.” Rabbi Mark Tannenbaum of the American Jewish Committee observes that “Moon seems to be exploiting the emotional power of religion in order to indoctrinate his anti-communist ideology. The tragedy is that so many young people respond to this emotional appeal.” And he has predictably drawn fire from concerned clergymen, in the words of one, for his “seemingly cozy relationships with the dictatorial Park Chung Hee regime in South Korea.” In reply to these charges a Moon spokesman insists, “Many religions acknowledge the threat of Communism.”13 Sun Myung Moon can afford to lavishly finance his propaganda activities. Time estimated his personal fortune at $15 million, derived from investments in a tea company, titanium mines, retreat ranches, pharmaceutical firms, and shot gun manufacturers. Recently his Unification Church purchased several estates and an old seminary in New York for about $3 million. The question remains: is this vast international effort just a personal undertaking?14 Moon and his close associates are predictably silent, but disturbing evidence is emerging of his church’s close ties to anti-communist political organizations with less spiritual ends. For example, Moon’s closest associate and English interpreter, Colonel Bo Hi Pak (“God’s Colonel”), formerly a Korean military attaché, has strong links to both Korean intelligence and the American CIA. He heads the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation (KCFF) which operates “Radio Free Asia,” possibly an outgrowth of a project by the American organization, Committee for a Free Asia (now the Asia Foundation), funded by the CIA. KCFF also conducts propaganda operations in Vietnam. Its legal counsel is none other than Robert Amory, Jr., former deputy director of the CIA. In 1962 Amory almost became head of the Asia Foundation (he was turned down to avoid blowing the CIA cover); now he is a law partner in Corcoran, Roley, Youngman & Rowe, a firm which has long handled the legal work for CIA proprietaries.15 The possibility of CIA involvement with a right-wing movement now entering the United States is frightening enough. But just as troubling are the close financial ties of Moon’s church to the world of wealthy neo-fascist Japanese capitalists, who seek not only a rollback of Communism but a new “Greater Asia” under the Emperor, based on the integration of Korea and Formosa into the Japanese orbit. In Japan, the chief financial backer and organizer of the Genri Undo is Sasagawa Ryoichi, the 75 year old former Class A war criminal. Back in 1931, with the notorious Kodama Yoshio, he formed a chauvinist patriotic party and intelligence organization that siphoned off enormous wealth from China during the Japanese occupation and ultimately provided much of the postwar financial backing for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. In 1939 he set in motion the negotiations leading to the ’Tripartite Pact between Japan, Germany, and Italy; three years later he was elected to the Diet on an ultranationalist platform of southward expansion. His stint in the Sagumo Prison after World War II for suspected war crimes set back his career only a short while, for he and fellow inmates like Kodama Yoshio and former Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke used their influence and time to plan the resurrection of the postwar Japanese Right.16 Both Sasagawa and Kodama still exercise enormous influence in Japan, and are described as “kuromaku” -- powers behind the throne. The New York Times description of Kodama applies identically to Sasagawa: “Yoshio Kodama is among the most powerful men in Japan. He was instrumental in founding the nation’s governing party, he has had a hand in naming several Premiers, he has settled dozens of disputes among top businessmen. He also commands the allegiance of Japan’s ultra-right wing and has strong influence over the yakuza, or gangsters, of the underworld here.”17 Both are dedicated to restoring the power of the Emperor and crushing opposition to the Right. Sasagawa, as president of the Japan-Indonesia Association and Japan-Philippine Association, both reminiscent of the prewar imperialist South Seas Association, has helped to spearhead the southward Japanese commercial advance in Asia. He funded the anti-Sukarno forces which organized the Indonesian coup d’état of September 30, 1965; he likewise supported the Lon Nol faction which overthrew King Sihanouk in Cambodia in 1970, and arranged for Japanese economic aid to prop up the new government. Currently he is active in strengthening Japanese ties with the strategic Arabian peninsula, through his Japan-Oman Association. Most significantly, Sasagawa has long been a leading light in the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League, and was behind the recent organization of the World Anti-Communist League. With his vast fortune acquired from shipbuilding, gambling, and organized crime, Sasagawa not only influences the Japanese government but acts as a powerful force in all of “Greater Asia.” His support of Moon’s Unification Church is thus just one of many elements in the constellation of interlocking activities surrounding the Japanese, Asian, and world right-wing movements which still thrive in many forms. American “Bible Belt” fundamentalism has long been known as a source of the most extreme conservatism and almost fanatic anti-communism. Evangelical movements from this tradition,, refined and directed by sophisticated “religious entrepreneurs” with modern marketing techniques and lavish funding, are “going international” on a larger scale than ever before in the service of established right-wing governments and organizations. Linked to old and well established anti-communist fronts composed of Eastern European émigrés, embittered Cuban refugees, and Nationalist Chinese officials, these popular new evangelical movements are the forefront of a new wave of political propaganda, disguised as religion and designed to distract Third World peoples from their more pressing social needs and concerns. Whether this theology of anti-communism will have any appeal to the masses of Asia is doubtful, but it does represent a new level of struggle in the cold war that is still with us. SIDEBAR: CHRISTIAN ANTI-COMMUNIST CRUSADE The Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, although affiliated with APACL, specializes in rooting Communists out of Latin America. Headed by “the amazing Aussie Communist-hunter” Fred Schwartz, CACC is based in southern California at Long Beach, where it draws financial support from such right-wingers as Walter Knott (Knott’s Berry Farm) and Patrick J. Frawley (Schick, Eversharp). Its $350,000 annual income supports many activities, including a Latin American literature project. Back in 1961, Schwartz’s Crusade worked With the U.S. Information Agency (and the CIA) to defeat Marxist candidate Cheddi Jagan in British Guyana’s presidential election. Schwartz admitted spending $76,0.00 to influence the election in favor of the right-wing United Force party. The Crusade’s money allegedly helped finance anti-Jagan street gangs and rioters to discredit his government. Shortly thereafter the CIA began a major campaign to undermine Jagan by infiltrating Guyana’s powerful black labor unions with the help of the CIA-funded American Institute for Free Labor Development. Though no one has ever proven any connection between Schwartz and the US government, his activities closely parallel those of the CIA. US embassy officials have never questioned his work. If he is not a CIA man, he ought to be.

Sources and footnotes below

(Sources: William Turner, Power Out the Right (Berkeley: Ramparts Press, 1971); Jane Kramer, “Letter From Guyana,” New Yorker (September 16, 1974), pp. 100-128; Cheddi Japan, The West on Trial (London, 1966), p. 307). FOOTNOTES 1. Stanley Karnow, “The CIA in Flux,” New Republic, December 8, 1973. Between 1961 and 1963 CIA foundations gave $142,500 to the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church outside of Russia. 2. Peter Dale Scott, “Watergate, Cuba, and the China-Vietnam Lobby” (unpublished manuscript); APACL, All Roads Lead to Freedom: First Report (Taipei, 1955); APACL, Proceedings of the First WACL Conference; APACL, Proceedings of the Third WACL Conference. 3. AMPO, Winter, 1974, p. 17; Christianity Today, August 16, 1974, pp. 28-9; June 22, 1973, pp. 33-4; September 28, 1973, pp. 52-3. 4. Christianity Today, January 1, 1971, p. 43; June 9, 1972, pp. 38-9; Christian Century, December 24, 1969, pp. 1650-1651. Despite its name, Campus Crusade is “not a student-led program” but is controlled by Bright’s central staff. (Christianity Today, April 12, 1968, p. 4O.} 5. Christian Century, May 10, 1972, pp. 549-51; July 19, 1972, pp. 778-80; Christianity Today, July 7, 1972, pp. 31-2. 6, AMPO, Winter, 1974, p. 16; Christianity Today, June 22, 1973, pp. 33-4; June 9, 1972, pp. 38-39. Campus Crusade actually has staff members at work in over fifty countries, where, as in the United States, its chief target group is students. 7. Washington Post, August 19, 1974; AMPO, Winter, 1974, p. 17. 8. The American press, especially the Washington Post and the New York Times, provided extensive coverage of the growing repression in Korea during the summer of 1974. 9. Washington Post, August 19, 1974; New York Times, August 19, 1974. 10. On Korff’s close relationship to Moon, see Washington Post, July 25, 1974; New York Post, September 16, 1974. Rabbi Korff’s latest project is to force Congress to impose severe curbs on the media, which he blames for President Nixon’s downfall (Washington Post, August 17, 1974). 11. Daily News (New York), September 13, 1974; Christianity Today, March 1, 1974, pp. 101-02; AMPO, Winter, 1974, p. 43; New York Times, September 16, 1974; Village Voice, September 12, 1974. Estimates vary as to the size of Moon’s worldwide following; Moon’s chief associate put the figure at over two million (New York Times, September 16, 1974). 12. New York Times, September 16, 1974 (including full-page advertisement on p. 40); Daily News, September 13, 1974; New York Times, September 19, 1974; UPI dispatch, September 19, 1974; Wall Street Journal, September 20, 1974. 13. AMPO, Winter, 1974, p. 43; New York Post, September 16, 1974. Moon’s organization has created a number of secular anti-communist front groups including the ]nfernationai Federation for Victory over Communism, the World Freedom Institute, and the Freedom Leadership Foundation. The South Korean Government sends its civil servants to an anti-communist indoctrination center in Seoul operated by the Church (Village Voice, September 12, 1974; New York Times, September 17, 1974). 14. Time, October 15, 1973, pp. 129-30; Daily News, September 13, 1974; Christianity Today, March 1, 1974, pp. 101-02. Moon’s church is worth “far more” than Moon’s personal $15 million (New York Times, September 16, 1974). 15. Village Voice, September 12, 1974; Steve Weissman and John Shoch, “CIAsia Foundation,” Pacific Research, September~October, 1972. One of Corcoran’s earliest projects for the CIA was representing Chennault’s Civil Air Transport, now Air America. CIA officials deny any ties to Moon’s Unification Church, but funding of the Church remains mysterious (Wall Street Journal, September 20, 1974). 16. AMPO, Winter, 1974, p. 43; New York Times, July 2, 1974; Don Kurzman, Kishi and Japan (Astor-Honor). 17. New York Times, July 2, 1974. Sasagawa has been implicated in recent Japanese election irregularities. See Far Eastern Economic Review, September 6, 1974, p. 28. 18. AMPO, Winter, 1974, pp. 43-5.

[whatisonthemoon]

EXCERPTED FROM NIKKEI ASIA

What are the law's main points?

The law is Japan's first to tackle discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It states that "unfair discrimination" on such bases will not be tolerated.

The purpose of the legislation is to raise awareness of gender diversity among Japan's public, which it states is currently "not entirely sufficient." It goes on to say that "all citizens, irrespective of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, are to be respected as individuals with inherent and inviolable fundamental human rights."

The law does not lay out any penalties for those engaging in "unfair discrimination" but states that "efforts" should be made by national and local governments, employers and educational institutions to promote diversity with regard to sexuality and gender identity. Schools and workplaces will be encouraged to provide resources and services to raise awareness of these issues.

The government will also be required to update the public annually on its policies to enhance understanding of gender diversity. It will also have to support research that contributes to the promotion of gender diversity.

Why are LGBTQ rights advocates criticizing it?

Japan's LGBTQ community and their allies have pointed to three main problems with the bill that has now been passed.

First, they say the definition of "discrimination" is too narrow -- outlawing "unfair" discrimination implies that "fair" discrimination is still allowed. The original draft of the bill was drawn up in 2021, and the word "unfair" was added by an LDP committee this May, without consulting opposition parties.

"The revised law has no meaning at all," Ken Suzuki, a professor of law at Meiji University in Tokyo, told Nikkei Asia. "It will not lead to any kind of lawsuits or legal change."

Second, the bill is full of caveats. Article 12, which was also added at the last minute by the LDP and states that the law's measures should only be implemented so far as citizens feel "at ease," has garnered particular backlash. "The term 'at ease' is subjective," said Suzuki. "Even if just one person says they feel 'uneasy' about this law, it will become impossible to implement."

LGBTQ rights activists argue that Article 12 also perpetuates the notion that sexual minorities pose some sort of threat to society.

Third, an article requiring national and local governments to support civic organizations promoting LGBTQ rights was removed from the final version of the bill. Leaders of such organizations fear this will make it harder to raise funds and attract members.

"If anything, this bill will undo the progress we have made so far and render it even more difficult going forward," Natsuo Hayashi, representative director of the Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation, told a news conference on June 9.

Full article: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Gender/Japan-passes-controversial-LGBT-law-5-things-to-know

[whatisonthemoon]

Aaron Levin-Smith (Growing Up In Scientology on YouTube) on Scientology being banned in Russia

Top Russian official and close Putin advisor Sergey Kiriyenko is said to never have become a member of the Church of Scientology but instead took courses in the 90s. The early to mid 90s in Russia was a time of religious resurgence, with many religious groups, from Hare Krishna devotees to Pentecostals, flooding the country.

Related

Former Russian Prime Minister, Close Putin Advisor Sergey Kiriyenko is a Scientologist, and a brief history of the CIA’s relationship to Scientology

Machine Guns Near the Church of Scientology’s Int Base or Gold Base

[whatisonthemoon]

Moonie Larry Moffitt honors Ray Cline and calls Douglas MacArthur II “my longtime friend and mentor”

The end of September saw the successful completion of the Ninth World Media Conference, which like every previous conference had a noticeably better quality of speakers and participants than the ones before.

For example, our slate of distinguished speakers included three U.S. congressmen; Mrs. Anwar Sadat, widow of the late President of Egypt; Mrs. Salvador Laurel, wife of the Vice President of the Philippines; John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy; Douglas Kiker, national affairs correspondent for "NBC Nightly News"; Yoshiki Hidaka, vice director of NHK Television Network in Japan; Ray Cline, former deputy director of the CIA; and Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, my longtime friend and mentor.

from a report by Larry Moffit on the 1987 Ninth World Media Conference

Related

The U.S. Global Strategy Council

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

On Arnaud de Borchgrave, Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Times and Friend of Gladio Terrorists

Clouds Over George Bush (1998) Moonies alienate our children and serve the CIA Contragate and Counterterrorism: An Overview On Yamashita’s Gold, Singlaub, and the Events Following Marcos’ Departure

[whatisonthemoon]

Former Russian Prime Minister, Close Putin Advisor Sergey Kiriyenko is a Scientologist, and a brief history of the CIA’s relationship to Scientology

▲Kiriyenko and Putin

Former Russian Official Accuses a Top Russian Official of Being a Scientologist

Today Aaron Smith-Levin from the YouTube Channel, "Growing Up In Scientology," discussed a senior Russian official being accused of being a Scientologist by Russian nationalist, Army veteran, and former intelligence officer Igor Girkin, accusing Sergey Kiriyenko of being a Scientologist. Girkin has played a major role in organizing separatists and the more fascistic elements of militants in Ukraine. He was also appointed to as Minister of Defense in the Donetsk People's Republic, a puppet state of Russia. Though today Girkin supports Russia's efforts in Ukraine, he believes the government is not showing enough force and is botching the annexation and war in Ukraine. In 2023, Girkin organized fellow Russian fascists and nationalists into the “Club of Angry Patriots,” advocating for the violent seizure of the Russian state apparatus by nationalists. 

Girkin has recently been discussing how for decades it has been known in Russia that Sergey Kiriyenko was or is a Scientologist, though it has been said Kiriyenko is currently inactive. Even while he was the Prime Minister, his affiliation was known among Russian politicians, with many finding it distasteful and a risk to the state. Even as popular sentiments in Russia were that Scientology was a cult, even within its government, Kiryeno remained favored by many Russian bureaucrats and long-time intelligence officers, including Putin.

Girkin mentions that prior to 1991, the Russian government believed Scientology to be a subsidiary of the CIA. He goes on to dismiss this claim, though he believed that Scientology did bring sabotage wherever it went, including to the Russian government, but that such sabotage was instead caused by foolish, unwise church leadership. 

Scientology and CIA?

Miles Copeland Jr., long-time CIA officer who often wrote about the agency following his departure. Many of his claims have been proven true, though often sprinkled with exaggeration and intentional disinformation.

One of Copeland’s claims, made in “The Game Player,” was that both the Moral Re-Armament and Scientology were being used by the CIA for “political action.” 

This is not difficult to believe, as the Sea Org in its heyday under the direct leadership of L. Ron Hubbard was known to travel the world, meeting with world leaders, and executing missions that many of its members did not understand.

Some seem to believe that it was after/during the trial of Operation Snow White, the church-led operation of 5,000 Scientologists infiltrating U.S. government agencies, when the Church of Scientology connected to the CIA, but in another video of Aaron’s, he interviews Janis Gillham Grady, who offered a tid bit that seems to suggest otherwise. Grady was an early member and one of the few people who worked with L. Ron Hubbard, who discussed Scientology’s role in Morroco’s 1972 coup. It is more likely that the Scientology’s government and FBI infiltration was led by the CIA, for information on other government agencies. The Scientologists were said to have gotten a number of FBI documents.

Copeland claims that the CIA had a plant in Scientology even prior to its official founding, at the Dianetics Research Foundation in 1950, and actively funded Hubbard's experiments. Both Charles Parker Morgan and John Starr Cooke are known to have strong OSS/CIA connections, and were known to have worked with Hubbard at this time. 

On John Starr Cooke:

Some years earlier Bowen had fallen under the singular and charismatic influence of a mysterious guru-type figure named John Starr Cooke. A man of wealth and influential family connections, Cooke was no stranger to high-level CIA personnel. His sister, Alice, to whom he was very close, was married to Roger Kent, a prominent figure in the California state Democratic party; Roger’s brother, Sherman Kent, was head of the CIA’s National Board of Estimates (an extremely powerful position) and served as CIA director Allen Dulles’ right-hand man during the Cold War. John Cooke hobnobbed with Sherman Kent at annual family reunions and is said to have made the acquaintance of a number of CIA operatives while traveling in Europe.

Driven by an avid interest in the occult, Cooke journeyed around the world befriending an assortment of mystics and spiritual teachers. In the early 1950s he became a close confidant to L. Ron Hubbard, the ex-navy officer who founded the Scientology organization. Cooke rose high in the ranks of the newly formed religious cult. (He was the first “clear” in America, meaning he had attained the level of an advanced Scientology initiate.) Before long, however, he grew disillusioned with Hubbard and they parted ways.

Charles Parker "Bumps" Morgan was a OSS special investigator who approached Hubbard to for the Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation together with John Campbell Jr. In his role, he contacted the FBI to report Communists which the organization had discovered, often through auditing. 

▲C. Morgan

L. Ron Hubbard's 1961 letter that discusses contacting the FBI due to communists his organization made contact with also makes mention of Morgan pushing the idea that there was "subversion" in the organization. 

In 1978, the same year that Scientologists were on trial for infiltrating the U.S. government, though not its mastermind L. Ron Hubbard, the Stargate Project was initiated as a secret U.S. army unit by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Stanford Research International (SRI), a scientific research non-profit. Many of its most well known and central personnel were active Scientologists, including Hal Puthoff, Pat Price, and Ingo Swann. 

Until at least 1979, Scientologists were heavily involved at the Stanford Research Institute in Palo Alto, including Scientology intelligence officer Mike McClaughry.

Allegedly “remote viewing,” something this unit deeply researched, was used for anti-communist, anti-Soviet operations, but these three men allegedly were deeply interested in this experience because of their own Scientologist beliefs. 

Puthoff, Price, and Swann all had reached at least OT III in Scientology, meaning they had reached the state of clear and had learned about the secret Scientology doctrines/space opera around Xenu.  All three seemed to have left the Scientology in the late 70s.

It has been said that Puthoff's psyshics identified spies,,Soviet weapons and submarines. Puthoff today co-founded the UFO research company To the Stars  with Tom DeLonge, Blink 182 guitarist and vocalist who has taken a huge interest in UFOs. It is believed that Puthoff is using DeLonge to spread disinformation around UFOs onto a new generation, especially TikTok-addicted teens.

Price was considered one of the most successful remote viewers. He was a police officer. He also fueled speculation in the government and outside of the government around aliens and UFOs, claiming to have located an alien base in a mountain in Alaska. He died 

Kiriyenko has never denied being a Scientologist, though claiming the German article in 1998 that revealed his affiliation to be a funny “April fools joke”.

Notes and related links below

Psychics and Scientists: "Mind-Resarch" and Remote Viewing by Ray Hyman 

1975 interview with Pat Price Sergey Kiriyenko, the ‘Viceroy of the Donbas’ who helped launch Putin’s career

Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA's Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists (1998)

Ukraine: The CIA’s 75-year-old Proxy

Evidence Emerges: United States is Planning to Interfere in 2023 Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine Russia's PM linked to Scientologists (1998) by Phil Reeves, The Independent

RUSSIA'S youthful, inexperienced and - until last week - almost unheard of prime minister-designate was yesterday grappling with potentially damaging allegations linking him with the Church of Scientology.

Just over a week after being yanked out of obscurity by Boris Yeltsin, Sergei Kiriyenko, 35, hit his first unexpected skid patch after a German newspaper, Berliner Zeitung, reported that he had attended a one-week Scientology course in Nizhny Novgorod when he was head of a bank three years ago.

The teachings of L Ron Hubbard are regarded with profound suspicion by Russian officialdom, particularly by the powerful Russian Orthodox church. The same views are likely to be shared by many of the parliamentarians due to vote on Friday over whether to confirm Mr Kiriyenko's nomination.

Yesterday, Mr Yeltsin sought to dampen the protests over his choice of prime minister by inviting the two speakers of parliament and Mr Kiriyenko himself to talks at his residence outside Moscow later today. The invitation appeared to work: soon afterwards, deputies from the State Duma, or lower house, dropped demands for Mr Kiriyenko's nomination to be suspended.

The minister yesterday tried to brush off the Berliner Zeitung report, which claimed he arranged for other bankers to attend similar seminars. He was reported to have declared that he appreciated the "simplicity and clarity" of Hubbard's teachings. Later, the paper said, he lost interest in Scientology.

Under quizzing from reporters, Mr Kiriyenko said yesterday it was the "best April Fool's joke yet". But there was no outright denial.

Although Scientology has a sizeable following among Russians, the ruling elite is unlikely to take kindly to the idea of being led by an official who has any links to it. Last year, hostilities erupted in a landmark court case over an Orthodox church leaflet which warned of the dangers of "totalitarian sects", naming, among others, the Scientologists, the Moonies and the White Brotherhood.

For all its distaste, Russia has not cracked down as hard as Germany which, in spite of outcries from human rights groups, US politicians and Hollywood heavyweights including Dustin Hoffman and Oliver Stone, passed tough laws controlling the Scientologists. But they were undoubtedly among the sects targeted by a law signed last year by Mr Yeltsin which restricted the rights of "non-Russian" religions.

1951 letter by Hubbard discussing contacting the FBI to report communists

1951 FBI document about Morgan contacting a special agent in order to report communists.

Why Scientology Had to be Destroyed: Russell Targ, Dave LaCroix talk Pat Price, Remote Viewing - an episode with a Scientologist and SRI/Stargate associated Russell Targ talk about their mutual friend Pat Price

Scientology timeline

Another Scientology timeline (special attention to remote-viewing)

Scientology and the CIA - by Aleksandr Leonidovich Dvorkin, president of the Irinaeus of Lyons Center for Religious Research Studies, on January 26th, 2016, at a conference run by the Orthodox St. Tikhon University for the Humanities

Scientology L Ron Hubbard talking about John Starr Cooke - October 19, 1956

[whatisonthemoon]

Moonie Acquitted of Murder By Reason of Insanity (1976)

Acquittal Given Due to Insanity, Hartford Courant, June 25, 1976, at 16, col. 1 ("disciple" of Unification Church acquitted of murder by reason of insanity, following testimony of psychiatrist that defendant's religious experiences in the organized had “made him think that he could feel evil vibrations from others.”)

Cited in The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy: Report of a Staff Investigative Group to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives