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Researches prove human mind and body are shaped and manipulated using

brainwashing, thought-reform techniques. Thought reform originated from China by a

speech delivered by Zhou Enlai in September 1951. The thought-reform techniques

included indoctrination, propaganda, reframing, suppression of awareness, criticism and

self-criticism, etc.

The major victims of thought reforming have been the prisoners of war, but it has

been applied to from a naive citizen to the intellectual one. The main target of it could be

college and university students aged from 18-25 who are easy to brainwash. Moreover,

recently divorced male and female, diffident, overcurious, people with too little religious

study fall victim to the thought reformation process and become part of cult.

The Unification Church is one the alleged cult or religious group to employ the

brainwashing for recruitment. They approach the potential recruits in insidious and

subliminal way exploiting gender factor. It starts with love-bombing introducing

themselves as a member of any unheard welfare community which works as front group

of Unification Church. Later on, potential recruits are invited to visit the group to know

more about it. Gradually, they are brainwashed while the real identity is kept secret and

eventually they become active members. (Singer M.H. Coercive Persuasion, May 21,

1978)

It happened exactly the same way with Steven Alan Hassan, a renowned licensed

mental health counselor, who joined UC at the age of 19 in 1970.

Unification Church imposes certain teachings on new recruits. Firstly they are

forced to detach from the outsiders to strengthen spirituality and they are kept busy in
activities like fund-raising, recruiting new members, etc. so that they may not ponder

over things around. A simple living is promoted.

David Molko, Tracy Leal and Barbara Dole are ex-Moonies who filed a case

against UC’s manipulative and deceptive recruiting techniques and coercive persuasion.

They stated that the recruiters made advancement toward them telling that they belonged

to a social group called “Creative Community Project” and asked to attend a gathering.

According to Molko, upon his asking about group’s nexus with any religious

organization, they simply denied and kept it clandestine for months which, later on,

turned out to be the Unification Church. Though they were not forced to join, they fell

victims of sophisticated mind-control technique and lost the power to think.

When they joined the UC, Molko was 27, Pennsylvanian lawyer newly settled in San

Francisco; Leal was 19, from Santa Clara County on temporary stay in San Francisco to

reach Humboldt State University; and Dole was 19 from University of California,

Berkeley, campus.

They presented statements by Margaret Singer and Samuel Benson who strongly

considered UC a “cult” implementing indoctrination techniques exercised on prisoners of

war. However, the verdict was not in favor of plaintiffs. The case was dismissed

declaring that no evidences were found which could prove that the UC’s act of hifding

identity forced the plaintiffs to join the church.

In another case of ex-Moonie, we find a different view. Sylvia Buford expressed her last-

day feelings at UC in her diary. In her own words;

I don't like the word 'brainwash.' What happened to me was something

more frightening - more insidious than I can ever explain. I suppose the
word is Utopia. The Unification Church was the closest I ever came to

Utopia. In spite of what angry parents say, the Unification Church doesn't

need to kidnap. Its attraction is all-encompassing- They say, 'Come with

us- We can have an ideal world.

(http://www.ex-premie.org/gallery/news/1977/30247580.html)

She further says that UC’s confines are suffocatingly limited and she would not

like to revert to ‘life of non-choice’. Sylvia shows mixed feelings of love and hate.

Thought reform in social psychology puts affirmative ideology in one’s mind

rather than gaining control over it. It promotes collectivism on the whole, not on

particular sect or region. On contrary, UC practices controlling people by confining them.

It does brainwash as we can observe that educated people did incline toward it, but

reverted soon.
References

Stoner C. & Parks J. A. (n.d.). The Cults: Salvation or Slavery?. Retrieved April 27,
2010, from http://www.ex-premie.org/gallery/news/1977/30247580.html
Barker, Eileen. (1984). The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing?, United
Kingdom: Blackwell Publishers

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