A Couple of Summers

Last January I decided I would spend my summer vacation on the Pacific coast pursuing the California Dream. My plans were far from concrete--maybe I would take a course at Berkeley, or write poetry, or just hang out in the East Bay with may buddy Buster, listening to Tower of Power and walking the streets. On June 3, my papers finished, my exams over, I packed up my Long Island-Middle Class-California Dream and hit the road west.

I made my way to San Francisco, checked into the Youth Hostel and went looking for work. I had read my Kerouac. I know what one did in California, and I was determined to get a piece of the West Coast action. I was on my own, meeting people on Telegraph Avenue and going to wild Berkeley bashes and digging the time away, but despite my dreams and my intentions, I soon realized that I was all partied out. This was not Cambridge, this wasn't my home turf, and my doubts were reinforced nightly when I made collect phone calls back to Sue in Boston and she told me I miss you, come back home. Money was getting low, jobs were scarce, and I was lonely. I promised Sue I'd take the next bus back east. I didn't.

Instead I went to the Berkeley Student Union to ponder my predicament. I sat there, confused, a little depressed, considering my options. A smiling, humming, attractive Jewish-looking woman walked in. Eye contact. The ethnicity clicked. She came over, friendly, talkative, from Long Island originally. Small talk, poetry, politics, time passes. Then I received an invitation to dinner--"I live with this big family and we always have lots of people over to dinner...how about it?"

Her "house" was the old Hearst Mansion--huge, beautiful and filled with smiling young people. What kind of family is this? I said to myself. Everyone was friendly, talkative, young and beautiful. We ate a great meal, sang some folk songs, and then someone announced that there would be a "lecture" to explain the principles that bind the family together. Again my mind was speeding--could this be a political group? Religious? Drug commune? No, no, I told myself, stop being so doubtful, keep an open mind.

The lecture was given by "Doctor D.", a professor of English Literature at a nearby college. He explained that the family was unified by a common goal; to help and care for all people. His lecture was not as straight-forward: he filled it with psychology and sociology and threw in some Wordsworth and Eliot quotes that I remembered from English 10. He seemed to be a nice guy and since I had read a little psych, it seemed sound to me. Yeah, these were the people I'd been looking for--intelligent, personal, and liberal.

I could not have been more mistaken.

Next there was a slide show of their scenic farm up north in Mendocino. It looked exciting, full of young people communing with nature: my middle-class paradise. We were all invited up for the weekend and, keeping an open mind, I jumped at the opportunity.

Two busloads of young people headed up to Mendocino that night, including seventy new "brothers and sister." I stayed on the farm for almost two weeks and I came up against the greatest challenge to my life and my values that I have ever faced. I was confronted with a lifestyle and a system of beliefs that robbed me of my rationale and free will. I had walked head on into Reverend Sun Myung Moon's indoctrination center.

I don't believe myself to be unusually susceptible to political or spiritual causes but the propaganda system set up at this center was infallible. Each day was organized with two things in mind: everyone has a good, fun time, and no one has a free minute to think. The entire day is programmed, everyone wakes up at the same time in the morning, washes, goes to exercises, eats breakfast, cleans up, and off to morning lecture. At these lectures new members are slowly instructed on the beliefs of the family. Gradually, carefully, one is indoctrinated into the religion. Through Moon's interpretation of the Bible, we were made to understand that there is a God, an afterlife, and a spirit world. The religion is primarily Christian, stressing the power of Christ and the imminent second coming of the messiah. Moon's followers believe, through their understanding of Revelation and the cycles of human history, that the new messiah has arrived and, though he is never mentioned in lectures, that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is that new messiah.

The cause for the fall of man, according to Moon's interpretation of the Bible, was Eve's fornication with Satan (the snake and the fruit are seen as symbols). We are, therefore, the children of Satan, rather than the children of God, and we require purification and repentance to bring us back to our intended state. Moon people use no drugs or alcohol, and sex is not permitted until forty days after marriage. After that time the woman becomes a baby machine; there is no concern for overpopulation in the heavenly kingdom.

In retrospect, I wonder why so many people would give up their wild times for these beliefs. Moon requires his followers to sacrifice everything for the cause. All possessions and monies are given to the church and one's family, friends and future plans are all for-saken. In exchange for these sacrifices Moon provides a strong, supportive community, a powerful father figure, the basic necessities of life and eternal salvation. With these assets, the movement is growing at a tremendous rate.

The lectures, though presented by intelligent, clean-cut demagogues, were laced with analogies, passages removed from context, and impassioned cheers, all things that three years at Harvard had taught me to question. Somehow, however, I didn't question them at all; no one did. We were all having such a great time, enjoying the activities and the farm, that we wanted to believe that Moon was the answer to all our questions.

My experience on the farm cannot be sufficiently captured in writing. After a week there I thought I was ready to join the family. I was believing all the lectures, singing my heart out and having a great, happy time. I was ready to give up the complexities of Harvard, my thesis and my Gen. Ed. requirements and live this life of righteousness, direction and meaning. Of the seventy people who went up to the farm with me, two weeks later I was the only one to leave. Many are still there and will become part of Reverend Moon's family, walking through Berkeley or Boston or Paris, bringing in new blood or selling flowers on the street. I left while others couldn't and only through an understanding of my own motivation to leave have I begun to understand the full power of this movement.

The people in the family are not the hallelujah holy-rollers I would imagine them to be. They are all young, middle-class, well-educated people. Many are Ivy leaguers, many M.A.'s and PhD's were amongst the family. Despite their education, however, these people were drawn together by factors quite common in young people--dissatisfaction with their lives and a search for truth and direction. The movement fulfills these needs; it tells you what you want to hear and "proves" that there is a God, there is meaning in this crazy life, there is heaven, there is love. All that's required of you is the belief, simple faith.

When I announced that I was determined to leave and they shouldn't try to stop me, my "spiritual brother," the guy assigned to look after me and support me in my learning, told me that if he thought it would win me over to the family he would break both my legs. That clinched it for me--I was going to get out of there if I had to fight my way out. I had to talk to all the lecturers, all the leaders, explain way I was leaving and where I was going (which I did not know). I was told that the devil was in me and I was forsaking Jesus and damning myself and my ancestors. It all sounds crazy to me now, but while they were telling me this, I believed it and felt ashamed. Still, my gut said to go, and after a great display of determination I was driven down to Berkeley.

When I got back to the city I called my friend Buster, who thought I'd vanished for two weeks. I told him to pick me up (I was at the Hearst house again) and not ask any questions. In twenty minutes he drove up in his V.W. and a meek, frightened sinner crawled into the front seat. I tried to explain my story to him but I was undergoing culture shock and was virtually incomprehensible. When we went out with his friends later I winced at four letter words and sexual allusions, couldn't converse sensibly, and was basically a zombie. In two weeks I had been programmed into not thinking, just believing.

When we went into the city the next day I ran into Moon people all over. They were all so friendly, so warm, and I was being tempted back to the farm. They made Buster and me promise to come to dinner at the Hearst House that evening. I was weak and confused; Buster was wise. He put me on the next bus heading east