One evening in February 1970, as I was driving to the University of Vienna, I met a group of young people in front of the university. Some of them immediately approached me and asked if I would be willing to attend the lecture of the 'Society for the Unification of World Christianity'. I agreed. I was then introduced to a young girl called Sylvia. She would tell me about the activities of the 'Society for the Unification of World Christianity' and answer my questions, I was told.
I do not remember what the lecture was about. After the talk, Sylvia asked me if I would accompany her and her friends to the headquarters of the Society for the Unification of World Christianity so that they could spend some more time together and discuss things. I gladly agreed, went with them and was surprised by the warmth and openness of these young people. Only their leader, Peter, was a little older and seemed somehow different to me.
We sat around a large table, tea and probably coffee was served, and I was told about a Korean man called Moon who, at the age of sixteen, had a vision on Easter morning. Jesus appeared to him and told him to complete his mission, which had failed 2,000 years earlier. For seven years, Moon struggled with his calling and the content of his faith, wandering alone through the mountains, praying, crying and experiencing the reality of spiritual forces and beings, especially Satan. Eventually, Moon was arrested, thrown into prison and tortured by the communists. As he was given hardly any food, he nearly starved, but he withstood his tormentors and received spiritual assistance. After fully accepting himself as the second Messiah and third Adam, he married the eighteen-year-old Han and entered into a perfect marriage with her, the marriage that God willed and consummated with Adam and Eve after their creation. From then on, Moon and his Han regarded themselves as the 'True Parents', and the 'True Family' gradually grew within the community of Moon's followers. From now on, children without original sin will be born through Moon's Insight and the True Parents.
Everyone sat moved, some with tears in their eyes. What a battle this brave man had fought for humanity! I was also impressed.
I was given a book called 'Divine Principles' to read. I accepted it and said that I would definitely study it.
I repeated my visits and was especially happy to see Sylvia again. She was a simple, warm and sweet girl, so genuine, open and honest. I soon realised that she was happy to see me too.
However, I was not at all enthusiastic about the Divine Principles. They contained strange stories about God and creation, no more intelligent than those in the Bible. God created the world not so much out of free creative will as out of necessity. God needed a counterpart so that his energy could pulsate and his love could be reflected. The task of Adam and Eve was to form a perfect and sinless counterpart to the divine. But unfortunately there was Lucifer, the archangel and collaborator in creation, who now felt neglected and no longer loved by God, and who had taken a liking to Adam and Eve. He entered the Garden of Eden and began a 'give and take' with Eve, who was 15 years old at the time, seducing her into 'fornication'. Thus man became a sinner and Lucifer became Satan.
After these dramatic events, God had no choice but to devise a plan to restore the original state. Moon - who else? - was destined to play a decisive role, and all lines of development were to converge on him. Moon clarified these thoughts of God by dividing history into periods, the most important of which was to last 400 years, beginning with 1520 (the Reformation) and ending with 1920 (the year of Moon's birth).
Jesus, as the second Adam with a new Eve, had the task of laying the foundation for a new humanity, but he didn't understand his task at all, didn't start anything with women, didn't marry an Eve and didn't father any sinless children.
We talked at length. Sometimes I had to smile at the pious stories, sometimes I was annoyed and couldn't understand why my objections weren't taken seriously. There was one silly story that I'll never forget, even if I can't remember the details. Moses could have saved mankind if he hadn't forgotten to bang his stick on something at a certain moment!
How could these young people, mostly students like me, swallow such nonsense, I kept asking myself. When I pressed the issue and said that there couldn't be a God like that, they fell silent, not because they felt caught, but because they doubted my maturity.
Once, when we were alone, Sylvia said: 'Johann, be careful, not everything is as it seems with us! Sylvia had come to the group with her two sisters, her parents paying little attention to them. She told me about her home and her difficulties. I felt comfortable with her.
A few weeks passed. Sometimes my brother Richard, who was studying economics and to whom I felt very close, came with me. On Sundays the group held a prayer service with singing and talks. Once the group took me on an 'outing'. Wherever I went, I was met with joy and warmth.
One day Peter, the leader of the group, called me into his small office and said something like, "Johann, you have been with us for a long time and you know what we want. You have to decide now! Stay and work with us or leave the group forever!
I was very surprised, turned pale and searched for words. You can't ask me that! I am searching for the truth. But I have not found it with you yet. I do not find your divine principles divine, and some of your claims do not agree with what I have learned as a student of Church history!
Peter just looked at me and made no move to change his mind. Had he seen how much I liked Sylvia? Had he worked out that I would never give up on Sylvia?
No, you can't buy me, you can't make me your slave,' I thought to myself. I was looking for the truth, not a place of relative contentment. I refuse to be trapped here and now!
So I got up and walked away.
The phrase I had heard somewhere was hammering away at me: "If you don't want to be my brother, I'll smash your skull!" I was beside myself, kind of devastated. I just couldn't believe that people could do that to each other. Why did I have to leave them, why give up the friendships I had started? Why were the stories of God and Moon so important to them that they had to reject people who couldn't follow them?
I thought of Sylvia and my pain increased. How could I see her again, talk to her? She had already said 'yes' to Moon, the 'Day of Knowledge' was already over for her.
What was I to do? Was I wrong and was it perhaps my immaturity that prevented me from understanding Moon and his teachings?
I thought about what I had heard in the history of the church. How could there have been such embarrassing falsifications, how could my parents have known nothing about it and the priest never said anything about it? So much was wrong! The Gospels were not really written by the apostles, the Acts of the Apostles were written after 100 AD, and countless 'documents' were created and backdated. The concept of the trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was only laid down in a synod in 325 A.D., a synod in which there was more quarrelling and fighting than discussion. The whole history of the Church is full of blood, conflict, persecution of dissenters, torture, burning of witches, curses and damnations!
And now this experience with the Society for the Unification of World Christianity! Even the name was a deception, nobody was unifying Christianity, they were just trying to achieve their own new goals!
I ran to the National Library and looked for all kinds of books. Members of the group had assured me that it was possible to make spiritual contact with the dead and have various experiences. They fasted for several or many days. I also tried it 'naturally', took everything very seriously and did not eat or drink for three days. After that I felt forces within me that I had no idea about before. They moved through the body, way above the head and back under the feet. It seemed to me that there was more than this one movement. The movement itself depended on my inner balance and could be influenced by thoughts.
So I began to neglect my law studies and turned more and more to the study of spiritual matters.
Twenty-five years after my contact with the Society for the Unification of World Christianity, around the time I started writing this article, I found a book that describes religious communities in a remarkably objective way. The 'Handbook of Religious Communities', published by Gütersloher Verlagshaus, includes the Moonist movement among the youth religions that have emerged since the late 1960s in Europe and other highly industrialised regions of the world. The most striking common feature of these groups is their recruitment of adolescents and young adults, offering 'holy masters' with absolute divine authority and 'saved families'. A drastic and rapid change in personality is observed time and again,' says page 819. “When all criticism is eliminated, total devotion follows. The change in personality and the ethical and moral reorientation often lead – sometimes quite unusual - to social and family problems, and even to conflicts with the law.”
It is interesting to note how the members of the group, at least at the time of my visits, saw their great and beloved Master in a glorified light and how reality looked. The methods and procedures, as far as I have been able to observe, may also be similar to those of other cults.
The group saw Moon and his wife as the 'True Parents', parents as they were supposedly Adam and Eve before Eve's sexual intercourse with Lucifer. The fact is, however, that Moon married for the first time at the age of 26, was arrested for sexual misconduct in 1948 and charged with bigamy when he married his follower Kim Yong-On and the affected husband filed a complaint. In 1955, Moon was again tried for sexual offences, and it was not until 1960, after divorcing his third wife, that he became a true parent by marrying 17-year-old Han Hak-Ja.
As well as fishing for souls, Moon founded companies all over the world. In 1959, he founded 'Yeohwa Shotgun', which initially produced air rifles and later, as Tong II Company Ltd, became the core of an industrial conglomerate. In July 1982, he was sentenced in the US to a $25,000 fine and 18 months in prison for falsifying tax returns. He began serving his sentence in the summer of 1984 and served two-thirds of the time. He was released early for good behaviour.
To some extent, the spiritual level at which Mr Moon operated can be seen from his life. He had no problem making money from the manufacture of guns, and he also found it perfectly acceptable to tell people who thought differently, especially communists, to go to hell.
Moon is revered by his followers as the 'Lord of the Second Coming', who will establish the 'Heavenly Kingdom' first in Korea and then worldwide. Korea is considered the 'Holy Land' by Moon's followers. The final battle between Satan and God, also referred to as the Third World War, could well be fought with weapons.
The possibility of a massive physical, i.e. military, confrontation was repeatedly formulated: “Once we have this strength in the United States, then the last enemy is Soviet Russia, then the march to Moscow becomes our motto. The new order begins today. We are fighting with our lives for the final victory.” ('Master Speaks, The Meaning of 1 July 1973').
Moon not only hates communists, he uses the fight against communism as a tactical tool. In a speech on 28 December 1980, 'Thinking Back Historically', Moon says: “Many of you are wondering why I am fighting communism. The purpose is to bring all free nations and all religions into unity. By fighting communism we can achieve this.”
No matter which cult I was involved with, they all used tactics, justified violence and claimed power to achieve their goals. The Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, particularly fervent followers of the desert god Yahweh, are full of such destructive ideas, which they interpret constructively. Newcomers are first robbed of their healthy sense of right and wrong by beautiful images of the future. How quickly this state is reached depends on the desire for security and the satisfaction of one's own needs, and on the habit of accepting printed material relatively uncritically. One's own dreams for the future become mixed up with the rosy images of the sect, and it is not long before the newcomer begins to defend the sect's teachings. Every piece of nonsense and every evil act is presented as oh so necessary and inevitable and defended to the bitter end.
Now it would be easy to label Moon and his ilk as fraudsters, even though they are obviously fraudsters and know exactly where honesty ends and deception begins. In reality, they are victims like all their followers, only on a different level.
Moon was born in a Christianised area. His parents did not convert to Christianity until 1930. Nevertheless, Moon attended a traditional Confucian school until 1934. According to the highly legendary biographies of the movement (reliable historical material is lacking), the adolescent was a religious seeker for whom his parents' conversion to Presbyterian Christianity did not provide a final answer to his own religious questions. In his search, and because of his psychic gifts (he used to use himself as a mediator), Jesus appeared to him. Moon then intensified his religious longing and became a religious fanatic. Yahweh, the great omniscient and omnipotent God, increasingly becomes his role model, and he begins to interpret and understand the contradictions of the Bible to his own advantage. “Isn't it man who doesn't understand God?' he may ask himself again and again. “Haven't people failed again and again and thus destroyed God's good intentions? Did not Adam and Eve, Moses and Jesus disobey God's commandments? Why else is this beautiful world still so imperfect?”
A thought that turns out to be correct leads to a flood of new considerations, deception follows deception, experiences confirm his supposed insights. He is imprisoned, feels innocent and unjustly treated. Soon he hates everything that comes from the Communists, considers them pigs, and is determined to show them the true power of his own great spirit. He laughs when they bring him inedible food, which he refuses; he grows after they torture and humiliate him. He, Moon, was already living on spiritual food given to him by his spiritual helpers.
So he decides, because he is basically a good and helpful person, to help this deeply fallen world with its sinful people. He thinks long and hard about ways and means and counts on God's help. He 'sees' the true intentions of God and the history of mankind in periods of time marked by the numbers three, four and seven and their multiples: From Adam to Noah, 1600 years; from Noah to Abraham, 400 years; the exile of the papacy, 210 years; and from 1520 to 1920, the year of his birth, 400 years.
Enraptured, he murmurs the words: "Madness, incredible, fantastic! Yes, it is true! The time of fulfilment is near, and I am the one who has seen God's plan and will fulfil it.
But there is a long and rocky road between fantasy and fulfilment. Again and again he encounters new difficulties, which he takes as a test from God. He found confirmation for his actions in the Bible. In an internal speech to the leaders of his movement, he explained: “In 1960, 14 years after the beginning of my public ministry, I celebrated the holy marriage, the marriage of the Lamb, as prophesied in the Bible (Revelation 19). So in 1960 the first heavenly family on earth was established. This corresponds exactly to the moment of Jesus' crucifixion... I have won the first and most important victory: I have fulfilled the heavenly plan. The Son of Heaven came to earth and received the first Bride of Heaven. From that day on, there was the first real base on earth from which God could continue His work... In our movement I am now able to restore both the spiritual and physical foundations of Paradise.” (Master Speaks, 1 July 1973).
Like many before him, Moon falls prey to biblical ideas. He draws on similar ideas and feels chosen and called to destroy the communists, these alleged agents of Satan. Just as Moses slaughtered entire nations in the name of his God, so Moon sees himself in his visions at the head of an endless army of followers who will defeat the communists under the sign and blessing of God. After this slaughter, there will be eternal peace, which he, Moon, has created for his own eternal glorification.
Those who so grossly misjudge and distort reality will soon see that all means are justified. Tax evasion loses the character of a punishable offence when the evaded funds are used to save souls; going to prison is not seen as a punishment but as a sacrifice for one's fellow human beings who are still sinful. Every reasonable consideration, every objection, no matter how convincing, is twisted and perceived as necessary.