❖❖❖

Emperor of the Universe

255 Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of the Interior: Rachel White Scheuering, Shapers of the Great Debate on Conservation: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press, 2004. 117.

255 “from the stars to the sewers”: S. Fred Singer, “My Adventures in the Magnetosphere,” 175. S. Fred Singer, “My Adventures in the Magnetosphere,” 1997; in The Discovery of the Magnetosphere, History of Geophysics Vol. 7, C. Stewart Gillimor, John R. Spreiter, Eds., American Geophysical Union, 1997.

255 “This is our last chance”: Frank Macomber, “Life In Balance: Popullution Is Biggest Problem,” Copley News Service, April 22, 1970. Both barrels: “This is our last chance. If we should fail this time we never will be able to catch up again.” Not the worst guess S. Fred Singer ever made. (Popullution is a word Dr. Singer tried make happen—population plus pollution—but could not get started.)

255 “are constantly damaging the environment”: S. Fred Singer, “Key to Understanding” (letter), Time Magazine, March 7, 1969. He really goes for it:

But our greatest concern must be with our own planet. Here we face the danger that large-scale engineering projects which give us a short-term gain may carry with them long-term ecological consequences which are distinctly harmful. We must make sure, therefore, that our concern with the environment will keep pace with our technical capabilities. Human activities—whether by neglect or by accident or by intent—are constantly damaging the environment . . . In addition, subtle changes are taking place in our atmosphere and oceans—with far-reaching but little-understood effects; e.g., on the Earth’s climate. Solutions to these questions demand the best efforts of scientists from every discipline. In fact, one of the major benefits of planetary exploration will be a better understanding of the workings of the Earth.

S. FRED SINGER

Deputy Assistant Secretary

United States Department of the Interior

255 “up to industry to furnish its own funds”: Frank Macomber, “Life In Balance: Popullution Is Biggest Problem,” Copley News Service, April 22, 1970.

255 Global Effects of Environmental Pollution: With what we’d recognize as a Too Late ending. This is from the book’s last two paragraphs. Dr. Singer was really an environmentalist. It’s like the prose is wearing Birkenstocks.

Mankind has a record of reacting after a disaster strikes. Dams are built after floods, not before. So far in human history, disasters have not taken place on a global scale. Therefore we don’t really have a tested mechanism for dealing with global threats, such as a long-range, worldwide degradation of the environment. If we ignore the present warning signs and wait for an ecological disaster to strike, it will probably be too late.

. . . This must have been a terrible problem for Noah. Can’t we just hear his complacent compatriots: “Something has always happened to save us.” or “Don’t worry about the rising waters, Noah; our advanced technology will surely discover a substitute for breathing.” Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t tell us much about Noah’s psychological trials and tribulations. But if it was wisdom that enabled Noah to believe in the ‘never-yet-happened’, we could use some of that wisdom now.

255 deputy assistant administrator of policy: Rachel White Scheuering, Shapers of the Great Debate on Conservation: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press, 2004. 117 (It’s also in the Singer resume APCO sent over to Philip Morris.)

255 angled for promotion, got shot down: Singer tells the story himself in an issue of Regulation, journal of the (libertarian) Cato Institute.

S. Fred Singer, “Where Politics Trumps Science,” Regulation, Vol 23, No 1, The Cato Institute, 2000.

256 Dr. Singer hired out his expertise to the oil companies: S. Fred Singer, “My Salad Days” (Letter), The Washington Post, February 12, 2001.

It is ironic that the attempt by two environmental activists to misrepresent my credentials [Letters, Feb. 6] coincides with a sustained cold spell in the United States that set a 100-year record.

As for full disclosure: My résumé clearly states that I consulted for several oil companies on the subject of oil pricing, some 20 years ago, after publishing a monograph on the subject.

My connection to oil during the past decade is as a Wesson Fellow at the Hoover Institution; the Wesson money derives from salad oil.

S. FRED SINGER

Arlington

And he’s sort of not lying: It’s in Singer’s C.V., too, posted at his think tank website. “Consultant, On Oil Price (late 1970s)—Exxon, Shell, Unocal, Sun Oil, ARCO.”

http://web.archive.org/web/20090417032550/http://sepp.org/about%20sepp/bios/singer/cvsfs.html

Accessed 6-21-22.

256 “Fred Singer is an economist”: S. Fred Singer, “OPEC’s Price Reduction,” The New Republic, January 6, 1979.

256 “political scientist”: The Wilson Quarterly, “The Economic Realities of Oil,” Summer 1978.

256 exceptionally maverick: Jerry Ackerman, “On Oil Prices, the News Is Good,” The Boston Globe, December 20, 1981.

256 “The oil crisis is largely”: S. Fred Singer, “OPEC’s Price Reduction,” The New Republic, January 6, 1979.

256 “if we don’t interfere too much”: S. Fred Singer, “OPEC’s Price Reduction,” The New Republic, January 6, 1979.

256 20 million barrels a day: S. Fred Singer, “A Crisis—For Opec,” The New York Times, March 31, 1981.

He made the same prediction three weeks later for the getter-and-spender readership of the Wall Street Journal. “Oil use [will be] cut by a factor or two or more—to some 20 million barrels per day.”

For whatever reason, steering government regulation away from pumps and gasoline tanks (“the oil industry is making these major adjustments in response to market forces, without specific government help or advice”) was much on Dr. Singer’s mind.

S. Fred Singer, “The World’s Falling Need For Crude Oil,” The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1981.

256 70 million daily barrels: “Worldwide Gas Demand Expected to Grow Dramatically, Says EIA,” American Gas, July 1996. “Outlook 1996: Industry Experts Dust Off Crystal Balls and Gaze Ahead,” Oilweek, Vol 47, Issue 1, January 1996. Brian Toal, “Out On A Limb,” Oil and Gas Investor, April 1995. Back in 1994 (Karen Matusic, “Analysts Expects Rising Worldwide Demand To Lift Oil Prices,” Houston Chronicle, July 10, 1994) the trend was clear. “‘Underlying oil demand growth is expected to accelerate as more and more countries emerge from recession,’ oil analysts at Kleinwort Benson said in a recent report.”

Demand didn’t slip below 60 million daily barrels throughout the nineties. This is where credentialed training in economics can prove handy for an economist.

As Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway observe in Merchants of Doubt, “Too bad he wasn’t right,” 85.

256 Dr. Singer was on tap: Oreskes and Conway, Merchants of Doubt, Chapter 3, “Sowing the Seeds of Doubt: Acid Rain,” 85. The book is especially pointed and funny about Singer. The pieces sent to Washington were intended to demonstrate how Dr. Singer “had moved away from his earlier environmentalism.” Towards this end, Oreskes and Conway explain in a note, Dr. Singer listed various GOP affiliations, from “Life Member of Republican National Committee” to “Faculty Advisor to the University of Virginia Young Republicans.” Merchants, 300, Note 71.

256 “among the most troublesome”: S. Fred Singer, “Human Energy Production as a Process in the Biosphere: In releasing the energy stored in fossil and nuclear fuels man accelerates slow cycles of nature. The waste products of power generation then interact with the fast cycles of the biosphere,” Scientific American, September 1970.

256 “to remove the uncertainties”: S. Fred Singer, “NAS Acid Rain Study” (Letters), Science, May 2, 1986. Dr. Singer’s diagnosis? “An urgent need for further research.”

257 “I, of course.”: Deposition of S. Fred Singer, S. Fred Singer v. Justin Lancaster, Civil Action No. 93-2219 September 24, 1993. 230-2.

257 “The Denial Machine”: CBC, The Fifth Estate, “The Denial Machine,” January 7, 2007.

257 As it happened: Ross Gelbspan, “Global Warmers,” The Nation, March 20, 2001. See also Gelbspan’s denial-tracker website, TheHeatIsOnline, “Singer Lied About Oil Funding.”

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=4473&Method=Full

Accessed 6-25-22.

257 same $10,000 transom surprise twice: Exxonsecrets.org, “FACTSHEET: SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY PROJECT, SEPP”

(The Science and Environmental Policy Project is Dr. Singer’s organization and the think tank being discussed on the broadcast.)

https://exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=65

Accessed 6-25-22.

257 “We are happy to get it”: Science and Environmental Policy Project, “Ross Gelbspan and The Heat is On,” July 27, 1997.

https://web.archive.org/web/19980710212249/http://sepp.org/controv/controv.html

Accessed 6-22-22.

257 an indoor waterfall: Mariah Blake, “The Fall of the House of Moon,” The New Republic, November 12, 2013.

258 on visiting terms with God: Kenneth Woodward, with Henry McGee, William J. Cook, Sylvester Monroe, “Life With Father Moon,” Newsweek, June 14, 1976.

“According to Unification doctrine, Moon was born clairvoyant. At the age of 16, he saw Jesus in a vision on Easter Sunday and was ordered by him to carry on Christ’s unfinished business. Subsequent visionary dialogues with Moses, Buddha, and other saints have confirmed that Moon is ‘the one channel of God’s continuing revelations.’”

For example, Moon explained that God had personally urged Moon to forgive President Nixon any Watergate sins. God apparently also had strong legislative and judicial convictions. “There is no evidence at the present time,” he assured Moon, “that would justify impeachment.”

Laurence Stern and William R. MacKaye, “Rev. Moon Called Messiah By Some, Quack By Others,” Washington Post, February 15, 1974.

Berkeley Rice, “The Pull of Sun Moon,” The New York Times, May 30, 1976. (Moon says he has had “visionary chats with Jesus, Moses, Buddha and assorted Biblical luminaries.”)

As told by Moon, and embellished in successive accounts by his disciples, the story of his life presents impressive qualifications for the position of Messiah. “From childhood I was clairvoyant,” he once told a group of followers. “I could see through people, see their spirits.” When he was 12, he began praying for “extraordinary things,” and must have caught God’s attention. At 16, while he was praying on a mountainside on Easter morning, Jesus appeared to him in a vision and called upon him to carry out His unfinished task.

258 his tackle box said true father’s: Peter Maass, “Moon at Twilight,” The New Yorker, September 14, 1998.

258 wedding his spirit: Nansook Hong, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life In the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family, Little Brown, 1998. 140.

Hong calls this her former father-in-law’s “ultimate act of arrogance. . . Because the Unification Church teaches that only married couples can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus himself needed the intervention of the Reverend Moon to move through those gates.”

258 “appear no more odd”: Science and Environmental Policy Project, “Ross Gelbspan and The Heat is On,” July 27, 1997.

https://web.archive.org/web/19980710220020/http://sepp.org/controv/gelbspan.html

Accessed 6-22-22.

258 the Indemnity Stick: George D. Chryssides, “The Unification Church.” In Jacob Neusner, Ed., World Religions in America: An Introduction, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. 362. The ceremony “involves beating each other with a large stick, symbolically signifying the driving out of Satan and obtaining God’s forgiveness for past sins.”

Former church leader Allen Tate Wood’s description, in a 2001 BBC documentary, is more colorfully detailed: “The first thing that they do in their relationship is, they’re given a Kendo stick. And the woman has to bend over, and the man hits her three times as hard as he can with the Kendo stick,” Wood explains. “And the audience then judges that. If they didn’t hit hard enough, the man has to hit her again—until the audience accepts the strength of the beating. Then the woman turns around and she beats the man, and it’s the same thing. So this is how these marriages begin.”

BBC, “The Rev. Sun Myung Moon: Emperor of the Universe,” August 6, 2001.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEnxHDaGF5w

Accessed 6-20-22.

The show aired in America on the Discovery Channel.

258 “should never be laundered”: John Gorenfeld, “Bad Moon on the Rise,” Salon, September 24, 2003.

https://www.salon.com/2003/09/24/moon_6/

Accessed 6-21-22.

About Unification Church Tradition, “Instructions for the 3-Day Ceremony,” Prepared by the American Blessed Family Department, Revised December 1990, TParents.org.

http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Topics/Traditn/3-DayCeremonya.htm

Accessed 6-21-22.

258 “and use this as your foundation”: Reverend Sun Myung Moon, “In Search of the Origin of the Universe,” Farewell Banquet, Family Federation for World Peace, August 1, 1996.

https://history.familyfed.org/tf-sermons/in-search-of-the-origin-of-the-universe-4

Accessed 6-21-22.

Some more highlights—this was the Reverend’s 1996 on-tour sermon.

“Is there anyone here who dislikes the sexual organs? If you like them, how much do you like them? Until now you may not have thought it virtuous to value the sexual organs, but from now you must value them. . .

“Wherever you may go, please try to spread Reverend Moon’s message through television or other media. You will never perish. What force can turn around this world of Hell? It is impossible to achieve this unless our sexual organ is used in accordance with an absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal standard centering on God’s true love which is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal love. God is the original owner of the sexual organ.”

http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/SunMyungMoon96/SM960000.htm

Accessed 6-20-22.

258 the reverend experienced: For example, this recent government official. From a 2021 Atlantic. “The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: ‘You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.’”

If you’d prefer to enjoy the full transition from first to third:

Trump brought up [Attorney General] Barr’s AP interview.

“Did you say that?”

“Yes,” Barr responded.

“How the fuck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?”

“Because it’s true.”

The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.”

Jonathan D. Karl, “Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump,” The Atlantic, June 27, 2021.

258 “And his enemies”: Andrew Ferguson, “Can Buy Me Love: The Mooning of Conservative Washington,” The American Spectator, September 1987.

John Judis, “Rev. Moon’s Rising Political Influence: His Empire is Spending Big Money Trying to Win Favor with Conservatives,” U.S. News & World Report, March 27, 1989.

On New Year’s Day, 1987, South Korean mystic Sun Myung Moon, who considers himself to be the son of God, told his Unification Church followers that he wanted to expand the church’s political influence in the United States. His aim, Moon said, was “the natural subjugation of the American government and population” . . . South Korean former military attaché Col. Bo Hi Pak, boasted last year to conservative activist David Finzer: “We are going to make it so that no one can run for office in the United States without our permission.”

259 Emperor and Empress of the Universe: Eugene V. Gallagher and W. Michael Ashcroft, Introduction to New and Alternative Religions, Volume I: Histories and Controversies, Greenwood Press 2006. 95.

Nansook Hong, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life In the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family, Little Brown, 1998. 148.

259 It was brought by a congressman: Charles Babington and Alan Cooperman, “The Rev. Moon Honored at Hill Reception; Lawmakers Say They Were Misled,” Washington Post, June 23, 2004.

Weirdly, for a book where most of the villain roles are played by Republicans, this was a Democrat. “At the March 23 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) wore white gloves and carried a pillow holding an ornate crown that was placed on Moon’s head.”

259 “none other than humanity’s Savior”: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “A Crowning at the Capital Creates a Stir,” The New York Times, Jun 24, 2004.

259 “God’s painful heart was eased”: Unification Church, “True Parents: Crown of Peace Ceremony,” Video. Available at YouTube as “Sun Myung Moon crowned King of Peace at Senate Building.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f08clPMODw8

Accessed 6-20-22.

The posted description says it all: “A classic low point in American politics.”

Descriptions of the video here are very funny: Astor Column, “The GOP/McCain/Moonie Story: Sex, money, tax fraud and coronations! Where’s the media?”, Daily Kos, May 8, 2008.

“Hilarious video of the Reverend Moon being crowned as ‘the New Messiah’ in the Senate Office Building in a ceremony sponsored and organized by one of John McCain’s chief advisors. We’re talking a coronation with scarlet fur robes and big gold CROWNS — big ol’ Burger King hats made of precious metal and ornamented with valuable gems.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2008/5/28/524094/-

Accessed 6-20-22.

259 In 1984, Reverend Moon’s teenaged son: “Moon’s Son, 17, Dies After a Car Accident,” Associated Press, January 3, 1984.

259 “far greater importance”: Bo Hi Pak, “Chapter 43-Blessing Banquet,” Truth is My Sword Volume II, February 20, 1984, TParents.org. This is a little under six weeks after Heung Jin’s death.

http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/Books/Tims2/Tims2-43.htm

Accessed 6-22-22.

259 “unique church ceremony”: Marc Fisher and Jeff Leen, “A Church in Flux Is Flush With Cash; Moon Linked to Bewildering Array of Entities,” Washington Post, November 23, 1997.

The newlywed Julia was radiant. From Controversial Religions, 147: “I will never forget in my whole life and for eternity this greatest honor of being Heung Jin Nim’s bride, which I do not deserve.”

259 “only be described as bizarre”: Nansook Hong, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life In the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family, Little Brown, 1998. 138.

Hong explains, a couple of pages on, “A few years after their Holy Wedding, Jula Moon and the long-dead Heung Jin Moon would become parents. She did not actually give birth, of course. Heung Jin’s younger brother Hyun Jin and his wife simply gave Julia her newborn son, Shin Chul, to raise as their own.”

If you’d like to see a wedding photo, it’s surprisingly cheerful.

http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/books/40years/40-5-26.htm

Accessed 6-20-22.

259 Heung Jin’s voice: Michael Mickler, “Jumong: A Window Into Korean and Unification Culture,” Journal of Unification Studies, Vol. 10, 2009.

259 a word, encouragement, a condemnation: Reverend Moon considered gay people “dung-eating dogs.”

Marc Fisher and Jeff Leen, “A Church in Flux Is Flush With Cash; Moon Linked to Bewildering Array of Entities,” Washington Post, November 23, 1997.

Chryssides, The Advent of Sun Myung Moon, 125.

Testimony of Mata Daramy, Today’s World, May 1987. 41. The cover advertises “Revelations From Heung Jin Nim.” (Today’s World is a Moon publication.) Here’s a parishioner story: “I began receiving revelations . . . In November 1986 I communicated with Heung Jin Nim frequently and he said he wanted me to go to Korea. So I just left my apartment and all my belongings and went.”

259 “bowed down”: Nansook Hong, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life In the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family, Little Brown, 1998. 137.

Nansook Hong explains, in a BBC documentary, “Moon’s child went to heaven, and became the ruler of heaven. Even Jesus came and bowed down to this child.” (“Rev. Sun Myung Moon: Emperor of the Universe,” BBC, 2001.) The narrator: “Moon’s followers said they had seen visons of his son taking the place of Jesus.” And Hong rounds off, “A higher position than Jesus, and he was going to hold that position until his dad comes.”

259 crowned youth-king of heaven: George D. Chryssides, The Advent of Sun Myung Moon: The Origins, Beliefs and Practices of the Unification Church, Palgrave Macmillan, 1991. 127. Not just that. Chyrssides quotes a Church leader: “Jesus is working with him and always accompanies him. Jesus himself says that Heung Jin Nim is the new Christ. He is the center of the spirit world now. This means he is in a higher position than Jesus.”

259 “Hi! This is the team”: Chryssides, The Advent of Sun Myung Moon, 125.

259 “during an airing”: Dan Fefferman, “Black Heung Jin—The Victory of (All You Need Is) Love,” Unification Sermons and Talks | Reverends Fefferman, TParents.org.

The elder then switches artists. “This is the key. It is so simple. Love one another. The Beatles have a song they sing, ‘All You Need Is Love.’ You can sing this song. It can become our anthem.”

http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/feffermn/Fefferman-Black-HeungJin.htm

Accessed 6-21-22.

260 then he received the full download: Controversial New Religions, 48. Advent of Sun Myung Moon, 128.

260 now a former hotel waiter: Gorenfeld, Bad Moon Rising, 213

Michael Isikoff, “Theological Uproar in Unification Church; Reverend Moon Recognizes Zimbabwean as His Reincarnated Son,” Washington Post, March 30, 1988. “The Zimbabwean, described as a baby-faced black man of medium build in his early twenties . . . He appears to know not a word of Korean.”

260 A church theologian got on a plane: Chryssides, Advent, 128.

260 “Now we can speak”: Reverend Chung Hwan Kwak, “Meeting (Black) Heung Jin Nim,” The Words Of The Kwak Family, November 1987.

https://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Kwak/Kwak-871100.htm

Accessed 6-21-22.

260 he headed out on a worldwide tour: Nansook Hong believes the whole thing was tactical. “The Reverend Moon was thrilled with the news from Africa. The Unification Church had been concentrating its recruitment efforts in Latin America and Africa. Clearly a Black Heung Jin could not hurt the cause. Without even meeting the man who claimed to be possessed by the spirit of his dead child, Sun Myung Moon authorized the Black Heung Jin to travel the world, preaching and hearing the confessions of Unification Church members.” In the Shadow of the Moons, 151.

260 there were welcome-home banners: Dr. Michael Mickler, “Heung Jin Nim,” Unification News, May 2003, 22.

260 no former-life memories: Mickler, Forty Years in America, 397. “Executive Director of the movement’s World Mission Department. Rev. Kwak utilized his monthly ‘Letter from the Publisher’ column in Today’s World to describe the phenomenon and offer guidance to the worldwide membership. Rev. Kwak . . . cautioned members against trying to question Heung Jin Nim ‘about your former experience together’ as ‘many small details of our experience on earth are unneeded and forgotten when we go to the spirit world.’”

Nanook Hong met the new Heung Jin with his former siblings. “It was an amazing meeting. Hyun Jin, Kook Jin, and Hyo Jin kept asking the stranger questions about their childhood. He could not answer any of them. He did not remember anything about his life on earth, he told us.” In the Shadow of the Moons, 152.

260 no Korean: Michael Isikoff, “Theological Uproar in Unification Church; Reverend Moon Recognizes Zimbabwean as His Reincarnated Son,” Washington Post, March 30, 1988.

260 ticklish question of marriage in absentia: Michael Isikoff, “Theological Uproar in Unification Church; Reverend Moon Recognizes Zimbabwean as His Reincarnated Son,” Washington Post, March 30, 1988.

“Hoon Sook Pak, who has since taken the name of Julia Moon, is the daughter of Pak, the Times president. The arrival of the Zimbabwean last fall set off speculation within the church. Would Julia Moon live as the wife of the new Heung Jin Nim?”

260 the young ballerina looking apprehensive: The photo is about halfway down the page.

Takeru Kamiyama, “Conference with [Black] Heung Jin Nim,” The Words of the Kamiyama Family, TParents.org.

http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Kamiyama/Kamiyama-871206.htm

Accessed 6-26-22.

The New Heung Jin’s non-response drew attention. “Later on Hoon Sook Nim came in and sat slightly behind him to his left. [Black] Heung Jin Nim turned his head and just glanced at her for a second. I thought, “This is his eternal bride and he doesn’t even smile or wink or acknowledge her at all?” It also tells you the membership took the wedding as literal, as household, as compare-headlines-over-breakfast.

260 a case of spirit possession: Isikoff, “Uproar.” The New Heung Jin’s demur was graceful. “I’m not for her. I’m not destined for her.”

260 “Heung Jin Nim was very angry”: Graham Lester, “Clophas (Black Heung Jin Nim),” The Words of Reverends Lester, TParents.org.

http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Lester/Clophas.htm

Accessed 6-25-22.

260 beat parishioners with his fists: Michael Isikoff, “Moon’s ‘Lost Son’ Sparks An Uproar,” Los Angeles Times, April 1, 1988.

260 with a bat: Damian Anderson, “Black Heung Jin Nim In DC,” The Words of the Anderson Family, TParents.org.

http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/anderson/Anderson-BlackHJN.htm

Accessed 6-20-22.

“I was not willing to wait until I got to the spirit world to make a judgement on this issue [Black Heung Jin — Cleophas]. With my own eyes, I saw this man in the Washington DC church knock people’s heads together, hit them viciously with a baseball bat, smack them around the head, punch them, and handcuff them with golden handcuffs. I had seen enough. Todd Lindsay was the first to leave. His wife was due to have a baby any day. My wife was six months pregnant at the time, and we were next in line for ‘confession’ to the heavy-handed inquisitor.

“I took my wife out of the room, and he came after us. I demanded to know what had happened to Todd. They had locked him away in a room somewhere. I wanted to leave and said so. I was wrestled to the ground by several people, and forbidden to leave. I tried to break out of the church but was unable to do so. I could not take a pregnant wife over the back fence. The doors were locked and there were far too many people in there. It was overcrowded, and very dangerous to have the doors padlocked.”

260 with rope: Graham Lester, “Clophas (Black Heung Jin Nim),” The Words of Reverends Lester, TParents.org.

260 to radiator pipes: Dan Fefferman, “Black Heung Jin—The Victory of (All You Need Is) Love,” Unification Sermons and Talks | Reverends Fefferman, TParents.org.

260 with a chair: Nansook Hong, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life In the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family, Little Brown, 1998. 153.

260 remained immature about sex.: Dan Fefferman, “Black Heung Jin—The Victory of (All You Need Is) Love,” Unification Sermons and Talks | Reverends Fefferman, TParents.org.

“Mrs. Moon explained the apparent contradiction between Rev. Moon’s standard of True Love and Heung Jin Nim’s list of sins by reminding the missionaries that Heung Jin had died at the tender age of 17 without ever knowing the bliss of sexual union. Such a ‘Puritanical’ attitude, she explained, is appropriate for a teenager, but adults understand that God wants blessed couples to feel free to express their True Love for one another as their hearts direct them.”

260 “He would laugh raucously”: Nansook Hong, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life In the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family, Little Brown, 1998. 152.

More from Hong. “No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings. Leaders around the world tried to use their influence to be exempted from the Black Heung Jin’s confessional. My own father appealed in vain to the Reverend Kwak to avoid having to attend such a session.”

260 Heung Jin counseled the father: Bo Hi Pak, the recently wed Julia Moon’s father. At Georgetown Hospital, Pak loyally provided the battered-spouse excuse. He had, he told physicians, fallen down some stairs.

James R. Lewis, Jesper Aa. Petersen, Controversial New Religions, Oxford University Press, 2004. 49. “The biggest controversy surrounding Black Heung Jin arose from the beating of Bo Hi Pak, the father of Heung Jin’s bride. Black Heung Jin disciplined Pak in a private session at the church’s training center in Tarrytown, New York. Unificationists told me that Pak was beaten so badly that he was unrecognizable.”

Also Michael Isikoff, “Theological Uproar in Unification Church; Reverend Moon Recognizes Zimbabwean as His Reincarnated Son,” Washington Post, March 30, 1988.

In Bad Moon Rising, John Gorenfeld provides the sequel.

Pak forgave the inquisitor. He reemerged from his trials . . . barely able to walk without a guide. Today Moon’s most loyal aide is described as a “broken man” by ex-members. He has been stripped of many leadership duties. In 2005, he was jailed in South Korea for being unable to make good on a real estate deal—having committed to pay millions of dollars that he had lost to con artists. (Pak’s foundation listed, in 2001, $2,533,497 under “Loss from Nigerian Fraud Scam.”) Because the Reverend Moon would not bail Pak out, his children had to put up a Web page, www.SaveBoHiPak.org, appealing for donations.

Bad Moon Rising, 214.

“Jan. 2, 1988: Dr. Pak has open-brain surgery.” The Words of the Reverends Lester.

http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Lester/Clophas.htm

Accessed 6-26-22.

260 Reverend Moon announced the spirit had passed: Nansook Hong, In the Shadow of the Moons, 153. “Sun Myung Moon knew when to cut his losses. When you are the Messiah, it is easy to make a course correction. Once it became clear that he had to disassociate himself from the violence he had let loose on the membership, Sun Myung Moon simply announced that Heung Jin’s spirit had left the Zimbabwean’s body and ascended into Heaven.”

260 Heung Jin had picked up: Michael Mickler, Forty Years in America: An Intimate History of the Unification Movement, 1959-1999, HSA Publications, 2000. 399.

FYI, here is the slogan for HSA Publications: “We’re about innovative personal change, directed by the world peace vision of Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon.”

260 the Washington Post front page: Michael Isikoff, “Theological Uproar in Unification Church; Reverend Moon Recognizes Zimbabwean as His Reincarnated Son,” Washington Post, March 30, 1988.

260 Then papers all around the country: From USA Today (“Reincarnation case Called Church Issue,” March 31, 1988) to the Seattle Times (“Moon Claims His Son’s Soul Inhabits Zimbabwean’s Body”) and Florida’s El Nuevo Herald (“El Reverendo Sun Myung Moon Cree Que su Hijo Muerto ha Reencarnado”).

261 “what we’ve always believed”: Nancy Cooper with Mark Miller, “Moon’s Rising Son,” Newsweek, April 11, 1988.

The Parrot and the Igloo by David Lipsky