This week we return one more time to the disturbing world of Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, also known as the 'Moonies', this time with a historical decoding episode.We are joined again this week by Elgen Strait, from Falling Out podcast, who helps us with a historical decoding of Reverend Moon's speeches and Moonie promotional material.Due to the subject matter we cannot promise a barrel of laughs but we hope this episode offers some useful insights into the approach of a genuine cult leader. It's also a useful comparison episode to see where there are parallels with the modern secular gurus we usually examine and where they diverge.So join us as we return to an imagined glory era of America in the 1950s (or was it 70s) when Absolute Sex & a God centred ideology was all anyone needed for a perfect society... at least according to Moon. LinksFalling Out PodcastSun Myung Moon: God Bless America Festival (1976) Rare Complete Bicentennial Documentary & We will Stand. Rev. Sun Myung Moon QAnon Anonymous 160: The Moonies Conquer DC feat Elgen StraitArticle on Trump's appearance at Unification Church linked eventJordan Peterson speaking with Andy Ngo about Antifa
Hello and welcome to Decoding the Gurus, the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer and we try to understand what they're talking about.
I'm Professor Matt Brown, a professor of psychology, since Chris wants to be specific, and with me is Associate Professor Chris Kavanagh of anthropology or something like that.
He's the man who puts the white into whiteness, my beloved co-host.
Welcome, Chris.
I don't know which comment to take issue with, but I just realized it's redundant for you to mention which discipline we're involved with because it's in the very first sentence of the introduction.
So you don't need to do that, Matt.
Whoever told you to do that, just ignore them.
They're an idiot.
Exactly.
I knew that.
Who would do that?
But you don't have any issue with me.
You know you're very, very white.
I mean, and I don't mean like culturally or sociologically, I just mean physically.
It's not your fault.
You just are like the whitest person I know.
Yeah.
Well, it's good that you made that distinction because we all know that the Irish people are the only non-white people.
This is true.
We are oppressed, Matt.
People have referred to us as the benighted population of Western Europe.
We're the occupied six counties.
Yeah.
You're not a settler colonist.
Yeah, although we are.
We've like a long history of being involved in that.
So, unfortunately.
No, no, but those are the expatriates.
Once they leave that Emerald Isle.
That's right.
Once you go out of Ireland, whatever you do, that doesn't matter.
Yeah, so that is a terrible tick that I've seen various Irish people issue in the past.
But yes, I am physically very white and I'm aware of that, Matt.
I don't try to adjust that with artificial exposure to the sun or colorings and additives to my skin.
I am what I am, as noted philosopher Popeye once said.
That's good.
You're secure in it.
You're comfortable with it.
That's good.
And I do not add any additives to my skin.
I didn't say you.
I just, you know, just read the general comment.
Don't be so sensitive.
You look like someone.
You sometimes have a spring in your step at this time of the morning, but today you look particularly gum, almost like you didn't have your morning swim and your hormone levels are out of sync.
Are you alright?
This is true, people.
I got in the car, I drove 25 minutes to the pool to do my morning laps because I'm a good person and I'm following my regime.
And there's a goddamn festival or some nonsense going on there.
And I had to...
Turn around and go home.
Well, I didn't go straight home.
I thought I would go and get some nice black gravel for my aquarium that I'm setting up.
And I went to the hardware store and I found some black gravel.
The only stuff they had, I was like, great, at least I've accomplished this.
It wasn't a total write-off.
And I looked at the back and in big red letters it said, dangerous for aquarium life.
I had to put it back.
So I went back, dejected to my car and toddled home to meet you.
A productive morning.
A productive morning.
And on the subject of health-related matters, the listeners will not be able to see it, but I'll let them hear it.
Hear that noise?
That's a water bottle, Matt, because I have successfully replaced my morning coffees with water.
And I've done this for a couple of weeks, so I feel like I can now announce it to the world.
Goodbye, sweet coffee.
Hello, healthy bottled water.
Chris, I've told you this before, but nobody cares.
It's like Alan Partridge's Toblerone addiction.
It's the weakest possible addiction you could possibly have.
You are wrong.
If you want to see how much people care, just mention anything about not drinking coffee or whatever on Twitter.
You will get thousands of recommendations for artisanal coffee and specific beans roasted in the...
Furnace of hell that will enable you to consume it with your heart's content.
I just have very modest goals.
I just want to stop consuming a particular brand of coffee that I take too much off in Japan.
It's working.
That's it.
There's no greater schema.
That's all.
And it's working.
No, I agree.
That's the most modest goal I can possibly imagine.
So congratulations.
But you're right about Twitter.
If you mention anything about trying to give up something or, as I did, foolishly mentioning that I was going on a diet.
Oh, no, don't do that.
Which just means just eating slightly less, right?
It doesn't mean I'm eating only meat or only eating hydrolyzed, deoxygenated food or some weird shit.
I'm just eating slightly fewer calories.
That's all I meant by it.
And yeah, I got a lot of suggestions.
Diet culture, Chris.
Diet culture.
Don't do that.
Don't talk about it, Matt.
Don't talk about it.
But we're going to, this week, be uncharacteristically succinct and get into the interview proper.
But before that, I thought that I might play you a little clip from a guru of old who had a take that was pretty impressive.
I don't think you're going to have heard it, Matt.
Okay.
I'll paint you a picture.
This is Jordan B. Peterson discussing with Andy Ngo, Antifa.
And Andy Ngo is a noted culture war critic.
Some might describe him as an extremely unreliable, partisan, conspiracy theorist type person covering the far left and Antifa and so on.
And he's conversing with Jordan Peterson and he wants to ask him, What is psychological insight into what Antifa do?
And whatever your position on Antifa, I think you should be able to enjoy Jordan Peterson's take.
So here we go.
What is the psychology of this mob violence?
When I see it, I don't even recognize some of these.
They seem animalistic is what I mean.
No, they're worse than animals.
They're worse than animals, because animals, they just kill to eat, you know?
Human beings, they have a twist in them that makes them far worse than animals when they really get going.
Well, I think it's, I think, you really want to know what I think?
I think it's revenge against God for the crime of being.
That's really what I think.
It's Cain, and Cain and Abel.
It's like, oh, Abel's your guy, eh, God?
How about if I take him out in the field and beat him to death?
How do you feel about that?
All my sacrifices went unrewarded.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's what it is at the bottom of the hell of things.
Is he cracking up?
Yeah, uncharacteristically, he broke into tears a little bit at the end of it.
Well, that escalated quickly.
Definitely.
That's a take.
That's a hell of a take.
You know, you've gone to the extremes.
When you have a demonizing quote about Antifa, and Andy Ngo is rendered speechless.
That's like, you know, well, you want to know what I think?
And he was probably thinking, yeah, you know, give me some psychological insight.
And it's a crime against God for the sin of being.
He's trying to find a way to get on board with that.
Dear, oh dear.
He's not well.
Poor JBP.
I actually feel sad listening to that because it means that I don't think we can really dunk on JBP anymore because he's passed a threshold to, you know, he's unwell.
He shouldn't be in a lecture hall telling people.
About how to live their life or his theories about the issues of the day when this is the quality of his thought.
And like the mental instability, the emotional breakdown, that's not a good sign.
Like that was him talking about Cain and Abel and beating up Abel or Cain or whichever one it was.
He did that.
And yeah, it was enough to move him the tears.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
These things, these political things that happen, they're all expressions of biblical proportions, of deep underlying conflict between man and God.
You're missing out, though, if you can't see the video of that, because Andy knows Fierce actually is registered speechless.
I just think he was not expecting that.
It must be an interesting thing for all of these ideological, cultural partisans who get in bed with People of a similar ilk.
And then, you know, JVP is not the only one because many of them just go off the rails.
And I do wonder what they're thinking.
Do they ever think… Internal monologue?
Yeah.
Does it ever make them reconsider and think maybe… Maybe different life choices?
Maybe I'm not on the side of the angels here or something.
I don't know.
Yeah, I think a similar thing happens when James Lindsay gives his take to Glenn Beck about communism and fascism and the fascism and the communism.
You can see the reaction is one of like, the facial expression is a mask of inner turmoil of what?
What do I do with this?
Can I use this?
Should I agree with this?
Should I say this is too much?
I think Andy Ngo was similarly like, Antifa are against the crime of being?
Are they?
Okay, I guess so.
Of course, they want to be on board with it.
They want to find a way to bring it back from the depths of crazy, but they're a bit stumped.
Yeah.
So that from very contemporary discourse, we're now going to jump back with a special episode looking at a historical guru, a real guru, Reverend Moon from the Unification Church, sometimes called the Moonies.
And we're looking at some video content of some lectures and promotional material that he made.
But this is a slight departure from our usual content because it is somebody Who's broadly recognized as a religious cult leader.
And so we're not looking at a figure who falls into the secular contemporary guru space.
But this should serve as an interesting point of comparison.
And I think you'll notice that there are some clear differences, things that we don't normally deal with, especially around religious topics.
There are also some parallels in regards to obfuscation and levels of confidence and that kind of thing.
So, yeah, it should be an interesting departure, complemented with our previous guest, Elgin Street, from the Falling Out podcast.
Let's do it.
Okay, so we are back with Elgin Street from the Falling Out podcast to talk about a topic that he's not known to discuss often.
He's rarely mentioned it.
The Reverend Moon, also known as the Mooney.
So we did something a little bit different than usual.
We went and looked at content from an actual religious guru.
Our cult leader.
And we took two pieces of content.
One is from the God Bless America Festival in 1976.
And you'll hear when we play the clips, there's a kind of 70s vibe to it.
And the other one was from a 2001, I think?
Yeah, 2001.
They're both these events seemingly promoting ecumenical ecumenism, right?
Like on the surface level, it looks like they're talking about Holloway.
Christians should be united as one and America.
Yeah, that was one of the themes that they were trying to latch on to throughout the whole history of the Moonies.
At one point, they actually had the technical name was the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianities.
So, specifically sort of talking about trying to bring all these Christian denominations together and, you know, worship God, but also, oh, by the way, worship Moon as part of that.
And that was kind of like the bait and switch that they would do.
They're like, hey, we're going to do this big thing.
We're all going to get together and worship God together.
And then at the end of it, Moon would come on and talk about how he was the new Messiah and would ask people to then pledge allegiance to him.
Yeah, we'll talk about it because it seems like it comes in pretty late to the pitch and it's not really emphasized as a, like an important thing.
It's more just, won't you stand with me and raise your hands to say, thanks, Mr. Messiah.
There's some parts where it's not even clear that they mean moon.
I mean, it is clear to them, but I think that all the Christians, it sounds like they're talking about Jesus.
Yes.
And I think that's part of the dynamic that we talked about in the last episode where they stage these events and outsiders see it one way and insiders perceive it another way.
To the insiders, they look at that and they hear the language in their own terms.
And they think it's all these people that are now agreeing to Moon being the second coming.
Whereas these other people are just kind of like, well, I thought we were talking about something else, but the purpose is served because the Moonies feel like they're being, they're getting that external validation.
Yeah.
I'm jumping ahead of ourselves a little bit, Elgin, but just for people listening, I want to mention that Matt is here.
He's just a ghost-like figure in the background because we are recording early in the morning and his old bones are warming up.
So your spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
That's right.
Very weak.
Weak and spongy.
Eldren, we recorded that first interview with you about a week ago.
So what are your thoughts on that?
Did you have any questions on sitting with it for a little bit?
Yeah, I did.
So thanks for, that was a really, really fun thing to do and delighted to have the opportunity to do that with you guys.
Just a few things came to mind.
So first and foremost, I need to correct myself.
So I mentioned that someone had recently spoken at a Mooney event.
I called him Juan Manuel Barroso.
In the recording, his name is actually Jose Manuel Barroso.
He's a guy who, he's actually former prime minister of Portugal, former chairman of the European Council, current chairman at Goldman Sachs, who Has recently been speaking at Moody events.
So correction there, that's his real name, Jose Manuel Barroso.
I think also in terms of just kind of thinking about that recording, I feel completely unable to adequately describe the multitude of grifts that the Unification Church employs.
So we talked about a handful of them.
But there are so many more, and I just feel like I could do a whole podcast that would never end just on that topic.
So, yeah, I just want to make it clear that we barely scratched the surface of that topic.
And then the other thing I was just thinking about, trying to get into the mentality of cult members and what drives them.
And I was thinking about this, the current historical moment that we live in now.
And we actually recorded that first interview on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine.
I reflect back upon my time in the cult, and I remember there was this feeling in the cult that everything would be okay.
We would never actually hit World War III because Moon was on the ground, because he was doing his providential mission, and if we members only had enough faith and did everything he asked, then we could prevent these sorts of conflicts happening in the future,
and eventually we'd achieve this world of peace, effectively.
And there's something very comforting.
In that, not thinking that the worst case scenario could happen and thinking that the world is going to get better and having this sense of absolute certainty that things are going to get better.
And I think that's something that the Moonies leaned into heavily.
And I think that's common across many cults is this feeling of absolute certainty.
Things are going to be better and okay if we just believe hard enough.
Yeah, well, I guess the, I don't know if it's the peak, but certainly a time when this video we're going to look at was taken in 1976.
So late 70s, early 80s, that was the peak of the Cold War.
And of course, there's a lot of angst about potential of nuclear war.
And in Korea itself, obviously, that's not that long after the Korean War, which was pretty traumatic for that peninsula.
And I think, Eldon, in some sense, that it's inevitable that you won't be able to do justice to...
The experiences that thousands of people or hundreds of thousands of people have within a movement or capture all the details in it.
But it's probably one of those things where it feels like it's very important to get the details correct and to be clear about what you're representing.
But in reality, I think for most people who are outside that situation, any information is just giving them a window and it's unlikely that other people would find any errors or any Things that you did that were slightly incorrect about dates or that kind of thing.
It won't matter.
It might matter if somebody wanted to take you to task for, you know, oh, look, this shows that he didn't know exactly that.
But I think that for most ordinary people, they would understand that it's like a partial your experience thing.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think the reason I want to make sure I'm stating things as accurately as possible is because I know that if I get something wrong...
The Moonies will point at that and be like, oh, look, they got that wrong.
Like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
And that's what they do for any article that's written in the press about them.
If they get one tiny thing wrong, the Moonies will say, oh, look, this is just some person who's just writing this thing.
They don't know what they're talking about.
And any tiny inaccuracy is used by them to discount the entire thing.
So it's more kind of me trying to cover myself from that perspective.
But yeah, I take your point.
Normal, ordinary listeners will bother you about it.
That's true.
Other people I cannot speak for, but I do think that what you're describing is pretty common.
If somebody writes an article about Jordan Peterson, and they misrepresent, for example, the nature of his conflict with the students, but they have every other criticism of him, you know, is pretty spot on, or a good...
It won't matter.
Like, all that will matter is they got the detail wrong about the thing, and then people say, well, if they don't know that...
So, yeah, it is a common thing.
But turning to the content, Ma, I don't know if you feel similar about this.
I'll just flash it up at the start.
So, you know, when we're covering the gurus and the secular gurus, in particular, we steered away from overtly religious or alternative medicine people, in part because it felt like what they're doing is already covered pretty well by Cult researchers or by people doing research into religious belief and that kind of thing.
But listening to this content, it reinforced that feeling.
I do not want to listen to people who are Messiahs, but it's more that I think it's harder, and it will be harder, to have a sense of humor about some of it because a lot of it is pretty on the nose and it's also like...
It's dark.
It's not like Jordan Peterson, you know, kind of metaphorically referencing the role of women in society.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a feeling I get.
Yeah, it's just, it's much more in your face.
So we're interested in these secular gurus and these people that flirt with some strange ideas and sort of smuggle them in under the surface.
Whereas this is just, you know, front and center, in your face.
Yeah, the thing is, I feel like a lot of the ideas are probably the same.
They're just like...
Moon isn't camouflaging them in the way that the secular folks are just going straight for the jugular pretty much.
Yeah.
And I think in that sense, it's useful because we can see the parallels, but you can also see where there's a difference, right?
And as you've mentioned in correspondence, there's like MAGA parallels.
So let's turn to the material so that people can hear what we're talking about.
I think it probably makes sense to talk about two in sequence because the tone of them is a little bit different.
The 70s documentary one is like it was made in the 70s, but I'll just play a little clip so people can hear the
Throughout the land, people are celebrating our nation's 200th birthday.
Most of these activities commemorate events in America's past.
Actually, America has very deep spiritual roots.
The pilgrims sought religious freedom and the chance to do God's will.
The Declaration of Independence acknowledged the protection of divine providence.
Religious leader from Korea is bringing America a bicentennial event of the greatest significance.
So, to me, although that's made in the 70s, it sounds like 1950s Disney.
Like, is that just me, or was that what things were like in the 70s?
I'm genuinely unclear.
Matt, you were there.
You were a young man at that time.
Is that what things were like?
I was a young boy at that time.
Thank you very much.
I don't think so.
I mean, I don't remember.
I was mainly watching cartoons.
It does sound like that.
You were a bit old to be watching cartoons, but you know, that's all right.
I don't judge you.
But I think that's an interesting observation because it's in the 70s, but it's almost intentionally hearkening back to a simpler time before Vietnam, before the Cold War.
It's going back to a different time and place and trying to recapture the glory of what life was like back then.
I hadn't quite made that connection until having this conversation right now, but it's an intentional callback, I think.
There's another part that like...
Like, the boys got spunk at the church.
So, listen to this.
From their headquarters near Fifth Avenue, members of the Unification Church International eagerly participate in a special campaign to clean up a very dirty New York City.
The End
So, people cannot see the visuals, but this is a bunch of people clad in, like, white clothes running around New York City in the 70s, sweeping up the mess.
It's like, instead of RoboCop, you got a bunch of eager young people with brushes to clean up the streets.
To clean up the streets, yeah.
Yeah, before we had the 80s, this was the suggested solution.
I don't know if my parents were some of those people in those white jumpsuits, but they would have been involved in this.
Like maybe they were working in the office, kind of planning this event, that sort of thing.
I know it was a big deal for the Moonies.
It was like the moment where they felt like Moon was kind of arriving in the US.
So everyone was working for it.
Yeah.
And there's a motif, which is very common to me from looking at new religious movements, referencing the interest of, you know, figures of note and in the two pieces of content we look at, there's lots of guests or bands or so on.
And they reference it explicitly in the introduction.
During these final weeks, special banquets are held for businessmen, professional people, and community leaders.
They can see and hear firsthand an introduction to the inspiring message that Reverend Moon will soon be bringing to all of New York.
I was just letting you hear a little bit of the music because it's, you know, just that it's respect and it probably speaks to what you were talking about, organizing events with innocuous names.
Like if business leaders get invited to some dinner for the spiritual renewal of America or something, it probably doesn't seem a bad idea if they're going to pay you and give you food.
Yeah, exactly.
And what you're missing by not seeing the video is they actually showed a video of one of those events.
It looked just kind of like a standard sort of awards banquet, something you wouldn't guess it had any religious connotation, certainly not a Mooney connotation by looking at it, but that's what it was.
And again, it's just to give it that air of legitimacy.
Ma, you may remember this exciting moment from the video where they've spent time organizing the event.
The start of the video is talking about how many calls and whatnot they're getting.
And then the event is ready to go.
But then...
Television cameras are set up to record the festival for a later broadcast.
Beautiful decorations and large white letters spelling our nation's motto, God Bless America, are assembled on the outfield grass.
But from early morning on, cloudy overcast skies create an uneasy feeling.
Ah, uneasy feeling.
What's going to happen?
Uneasy feeling.
What's going to happen?
I actually didn't know if you were going to keep that part in.
I thought it was funny, but I didn't know if it was going to make it.
Part of it does.
So there's a hurricane or a tornado, one of the extreme weather events.
And actually, just for context, this is happening in Yankee Stadium in the U.S., just so people are aware.
And so when it moves into the footage, it's like Moon is standing on the baseball diamond in Yankee Stadium.
And yeah, that's kind of like the visual here.
The part that struck me about this was then there's a storm, you know, the weather's bad, so it's a bad day to hold an event.
But...
Instead of running for shelter, members, their parents and guests refuse to be defeated by the storm.
This impromptu singing creates an unprecedented high spirit of unity and brotherhood all throughout the stadium.
It is a united prayer, a deep-hearted petition to God for sunshine, and the prayer is answered.
Yeah, and they're not singing, at least as I could hear, they're not singing sort of weird hippy-dippy 1960s, 1970s stuff.
They're singing good old, yeah, all-American type songs.
They're singing God Bless America.
That's what they're singing.
Yeah.
That device there of, we need all these people to pray for something, and then if it happens, then great, the prayers worked.
But if it doesn't happen, we didn't pray hard enough.
That was...
I heard that pretty much every day throughout my upbringing.
We got to pray for this.
We got to pray for that.
Flip a coin.
If you get it right, it's the prayer.
If not, you didn't pray hard enough.
There's never a fantastic logic to this kind of reasoning because the storm came because God did it.
So God tried to fuck up the event and then he was defeated because they prayed.
No, here's the thing.
Here's the thing, Chris.
It was Satan who sent the storm.
That's what you're missing.
It was Satan who sent the storm, but then God heard the prayers and he sent the sunshine.
Or God sent it as a test of fear.
Yeah, that's another reading.
That's another reading.
You could do it that way.
This is common in religious reasoning.
I've done some research with other new religious movements and they take Any event, especially events which introduce challenges which are overcome, as indicating that they were being supported, but they always take the positive outcome at the end,
but they don't take the attempt to sideline an event from a freak weller event as being a bad sign.
In fact, certainly with the Moonies, I can't speak for others, but they would take it as the opposite.
The fact that Satan tried to send a storm there shows that He's not happy with what they're doing and they're on the right track.
The fact that these challenges are presented are taken as evidence of the sacrificial course that must be taken to achieve God's providence is being fulfilled.
If things work well, they win.
If things aren't going well and they suffer, that's almost like part of the...
It's an expected part of the experience, basically.
It's not a framework that lends itself to falsification.
It does not.
It does not.
Absolutely not.
I feel that's by design.
But fortunate for the church, they overcome Satan's plan.
In spite of the violent rainstorm, the people come.
More than 45,000 people attend the Bicentennial God Bless America Festival.
An outstanding turnout.
I keep expecting this guy to start talking about the wonders of the atom.
That's what he sounds like, right?
I wish he would.
That would be better.
I just looked up the stadium, the capacity of Yankee Stadium, by the way.
To touch under 55,000 people.
So they claimed 45,000.
So I guess it's decent.
That's alright.
I have trouble believing.
In the accuracy of that 45,000.
Why?
That's so cynical.
So cynical that people wouldn't flee attendance numbers.
That has never happened.
Not at the inaugurations, not at religious events.
It doesn't happen.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
I hadn't even thought of it.
I hadn't made that connection between the inauguration.
Yeah.
It's just kind of this.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Same thing.
You gotta have a big audience.
And so all of this is building up to this moment.
May I present the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
Applause Applause
I just want to say something there.
So the guy who did the introduction, his name is Neil Salonen.
And I just want to loop that back to something that we spoke.
About in our last episode, we talked about how in many cases when people are introduced to a cult or they're first approached by a cult, it's usually by a member of the opposite sex.
So that guy, Neil Salonan, who's speaking on stage, he's the guy who first greeted my mother when she went to her first Mooney event in the late 60s, early 70s.
And apparently he was kind of dishy back then.
And I think that sort of fed into the appeal.
Yeah, I've watched a few videos on the Moody since talking to you and I've seen several times people saying exactly what you did about how the recruitment method works.
And it sounds exactly, in all respects, members of the opposite sex approaching you often on a university campus or something like that, focusing on young people.
They'll often mention something about, you know, they might have split up with their girlfriend or boyfriend recently and they were like, oh.
It's nice.
And the love bombing and the eye contact and just the good vibes.
Yeah.
And then before they know it, they've done a couple of weeks of staying there and not sleeping and suddenly...
Absolute sex.
No, no.
None of that.
Not in the beginning.
I've just got a one-track mind.
I can't help.
Yeah.
So that dynamic...
This is something that really struck me in this content, Elgin, and I guess you were familiar with it before this, but the way that Moon speaks is, one, he's speaking in Korean, and two, I don't find that charismatic.
Like, it's charismatic in a Hitlerian way.
It's more in the second content where you get to hear a bit more of this, but it's actually Moon's translator who...
Is the charismatic voice guy in English, right?
Moon sounds like a kind of angry duck.
And then his translator converts it into, it's not fantastic pronunciation in terms of the English, but at least it sounds authoritative.
So that's a weird thing.
It's like Moon doesn't seem to me that someone has a guru voice.
He has a kind of like voice.
Yeah.
It's this kind of angry, complaining, belligerent, just, it doesn't sound.
Nice.
And it feels like he's kind of just, and I've actually, I've seen this happen where he'll go and give a speech.
And in most cases, in many cases, it's like written down.
This Yankee Stadium event was like pre-written.
So he's reading off a piece of paper on a lectern, basically.
And he gets into this cadence where he starts reading intensely in Korean and then just builds up to sort of...
Yelling the punchline, yelling the end of the sentence.
Yeah.
And then it's the same sort of cadence over and over, basically, leading up to this, rah, at the end.
Yeah, I think this is one of the confusing things about this notion of charisma.
Yeah, because you have these charismatic leaders.
Like Hitler is a good example.
And people often talk about Donald Trump's charisma, right?
Yeah.
Depending on who you are and your sensibilities and the situation, it's like the opposite of charisma.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't really understand it.
To be honest.
I don't understand it at all.
I kind of feel part of it, having the kind of balls to stand up and say the things that charismatic or cult leaders say.
It's almost like just saying it and people standing there and listening means that it has some authority just because they're doing it.
It is a weird dynamic.
Let's let people hear what it sounds like.
Yeah, let's not spoil it for them.
In most of the clips moving forward, I have like a little bit of moon and then mainly the translator, but this is how it goes.
The American citizens of the United States, and the world's leaders of the world,
want to say that the people of the United States are the only one who has the hope of God's will.
Get tinguished citizens.
Thank you.
Okay, so I cut off the translator, so I'll play the second clip that does that.
But yeah, that was actually moon delivering in a more dramatic way than it usually does, but this clip also gets into the American exceptionalism, but it gives you a better sense of the translator.
The world has come to the world.
There is no question of people, no religion, and no culture.
There is no problem in this world.
There is a country that can be a house.
This is the United States.
The people of America have come from every corner of the world.
To be an American does not depend upon what race you are, what belief you have, or what cultural background you are from.
It is only in this nation.
That no matter where you come from, you can proudly say, this is my country.
That is America!
This is America!
Yes, so it's challenging for somebody to be charismatic and convincing in a different language.
I think, Chris, you're right in that a lot of it does come down to confidence.
Projecting total absolute confidence is perhaps the most important thing.
But the question I've got for you, Elgin, is to what extent would a speech like this be convincing to people or are they literally preaching to the converted?
They're mostly preaching to the converted as well as some people who have been convinced to attend by the converted.
So most of the people at these events will be the guest of a convert, effectively.
And if you're a Mooney and they're having one of these events, then it's your job to go out and bring X number of people to this event.
And then the hope is that it will somehow convert people.
In theory, that's what the Mooneys will say, like, oh, if enough people see this, then they'll be convinced and then they'll come join us.
But honestly, that is not...
A recruitment avenue that works for them at all.
I never met a single Mooney who joined after attending one of these events.
So it was really about the theatrics for internal purposes to create that illusion of acceptance for the existing members.
But it was not an actual recruitment method at all.
The recruitment methods were always sort of what I described before, starting with the love bombing, going into some three, seven, Sometimes 21-day workshop and sort of slow-dripping the theology until you get to the point that, oh, by the way, Moon is the Messiah.
They're two kind of completely different tracks.
And so I think he's preaching to mostly the converted.
And the aim that he's going for is for the converted to see the non-converted at least not...
Totally rejecting Moon and maybe even kind of clapping along when there's some pauses for applause.
Ultimately, that's what he's going for, is giving himself that little bit extra legitimacy with his constituents so that they think they're being successful and they'll keep following him, keep giving him the money, etc.
It doesn't seem like, because the tried and tested way for rock singers and anyone is like, hello, Wisconsin, right?
Yay!
So in this, it does feel like it's pretty easy.
Especially, you know, it's helpful if you're speaking to an audience of members of your church.
But even if not, like just saying, God bless America in America, I feel like that's going to get a response.
Here's another clip with the American rah-rah-ness in it.
No, God will is to save the world.
And to do this, America must lead the way.
This is why I came to America!
Yeah, that's what it's all about.
That through line of American exceptionalism is rampant in the Unification Church.
It's a big deal for them.
On the other side of it, there is a very Korean flavor to things, and there's a hierarchy with all Koreans at the top.
Yeah, it's really weird.
It's weird.
Yeah, Koreans definitely occupy the top of the hierarchy internally, but they have this concept that America is the chosen nation.
Korea is important, like maybe more important than America, but America is sort of the most important nation in the world.
The second Israel.
Yeah, the second Israel.
Thank you.
It's the focus of God's providence effectively is America.
That's how Moon pitched it.
My personal belief is Moon.
Saw the business opportunity in America, and he also saw the fertile grounds for extremism in America.
And that's one of the reasons that led to his pivot from Korea into America was he just sensed the market opportunity for what he was selling.
And then he built his whole theology up to be like, America is the second Israel.
It's this, that, and the other.
All of our attention has to be focused here.
Well, it makes sense to compensate for the inherent disadvantage of being Foreigners, basically.
That's going to make your job more difficult.
So counterbalancing that with, as you say, the American exceptionalism and speaking to those messages that Americans love, which is that the future is America.
Only in America can people from all different places come together and make something absolutely special happen.
That's why I'm here.
It's a nice explanation and it fits.
Yeah, and I think it also dovetails with his Sort of long-term courting of the right wing and the Republican Party in the U.S. sort of aligning with those values was strategically important to him for a lot of reasons.
And coming out here and doing this speech, I think that's another benefit to him was being able to then go to the various people he was trying to court on the right wing and saying, hey, look, I'm doing this God bless America tour.
And they know it aligns with this through line of American exceptionalism.
Yeah, so speaking about appealing to Republican or conservative sentiments about the depravity of modern society, although this was in the 70s, but there's a clip which was very reminiscent of Trump.
In America, and New York has become a jungle of immorality and depravity.
God has been forgotten in this country, and if forgotten...
God can only live America.
Now is the very moment that this is taking place.
So, jungle of depravity.
Similar to Trump's inauguration speech, right?
The decay of the urban...
I can't remember what he described.
You know, American cities as like a depraved war zone that need to be restored.
So, this kind of imagery...
It's not just Trump that uses it or Moon.
It's basically anybody that wants to present themselves as a reforming force for society.
But it's that weird dual message of this is the promised land and this is the greatest place in the world.
And also, it's a hellhole of depravity.
Yeah, they hold both of those at the same time in their heads.
I bet there's no attempt to reconcile those two.
Different views of America.
There's only one reconciliation and it's for following the correct teaching, Matt.
But you also get the anti-communist stuff hit pretty clearly.
Yep.
They brought about a new nation here in America, which is now at the threshold of her third century in a similar way today.
People are fleeing from the communist world of slavery to the free world.
United, the free world must liberate the enslaved communist world.
This time, our task is to build one world under God.
Thank you.
Yeah, look, in terms of style and more of, like, the Hitler speeches to his...
It really does.
It absolutely brings back Hitler vibes.
There's a speech towards the end, Matt, that I think is a good example of that.
Like, if you just imagine, instead of Kingdom of God, like, just Third Reich or the...
Yeah, that was a new Reich.
Like, there's not that big a difference.
Yeah, exactly.
Just insert.
Ladies and gentlemen!
In the name of God, let us unite and together build the kingdom of God right here on Earth.
So when I think about speeches like this, it makes me think about social psychology and the way in which certain chemicals in our brains are designed for this kind of group cohesion.
Group loyalty, seeing a very clear distinction between your group and others, and the kind of buzz that it gives people to feel part of that group.
And there's good evolutionary reasons for us to be primed like that.
Otherwise, we'd be like freaking cats, you know what I mean?
Like just doing our own thing and not cooperating, not organizing, and not being effective.
And when you hear this kind of thing, it almost feels like the person Running.
Got their finger on the little neurotransmitter levers there.
Yeah.
Giving people that feeling.
Yeah.
And what are those chemicals that you're referring to?
Oh, it's actually, it's interesting.
It's the love drug.
So what's, um, it's very early in the morning.
What's it called?
Oxytocin.
That's it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So interesting parallel there with the love bombing you talked about.
Yeah.
Right.
So you're saying it's the same chemical that you would receive in a love bombing situation is the one that's activated when you listen to shit like this?
Yeah, that's right.
Holy shit.
And so the sort of feel-good type neurotransmitters, which will sort of get sparked by something like MDMA, right, which they also have a dark side to them.
And this has been shown experimentally.
They actually increase people's perceptions of in-group, out-group membership.
Oh, okay.
So you feel that kind of deep connection with someone who's in the circle, you know, a family member, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, whatever.
But when they do experiments, they can actually show that it actually enhances that differential perception of people who are not in the circle.
Interesting.
It's thought to be important for essentially enhancing in-group.
Harmony and cooperation and single purpose.
Wow.
So after Matt's demonstrating of why he's a good psychologist and a good drug user.
I'd like to know what I'm eating.
The last clip from this first video is really a precursor to what we'll go into because I think it's just a nice illustration that, as you heard in those clips, A lot of that's been emphasized as, like, American jingoism or references to,
like, a kingdom of God and so on.
But there isn't so much saying Reverend Moon is the Messiah.
Instead, you get descriptions like this.
America must return to the true founding spirit of the nation.
America must return to Godism, an absolutely God-centered ideology.
Godism.
So this is one of those moments where no outsider knows what that means, but the insiders have been told to mean that Godism is another name for Reverend Moon's theology, that he's the Messiah.
And therefore, other people clapping when they hear, oh, we're going to have a world full of godism.
That's them agreeing, hey, look, this guy's the Messiah.
So everyone in that stadium, that's the moment where the fast one was pulled on them.
Yeah.
Oh, no, no, we're not talking about being really, really Christian in general.
It does feel like a very clear bit and switch because when I heard it, it's like, so why don't we all pray for it?
God!
There's no issue there for Christians to say, "Yay, God!"
But Godism sounds weird.
But it's not quite weird enough to prompt you to not clap at that moment.
Yeah, they could put it down to just second language type or translation differences.
Actually, it reminds me of, who's that comic who does the Baron, Sacha Baron Cohen?
He'll often do similar tricks, right?
You know, acting as the foreigner or some naive silly person, he'll say something completely outrageous and he'll get a whole crowd or a big group of people to clap and agree with him.
He's doing that similar trick, actually, which is they're putting it down to, oh, he must mean this.
Yeah, it's absolutely the same thing.
That's the trick that's being played here.
Wow.
So the next thing we skip forward to 2001, but again, in this like weird I don't know.
ELO 2001 is a lot longer back than I remember.
Or the production values on this video are just like...
Oh, they're bad.
They're really bad.
They're hilarious.
It feels like it's a 1990s or like 80s video.
So they're always like 20 years backwards.
Just before you play this clip, I don't know.
It's possible I was in the room when this was recorded.
And the reason I don't know is because I went to so many of these things when I was young and...
In 2001, I still would have been living in the DC area near my folks who were still going to some of these events.
And every now and then they would invite me to go and I'd be like, all right, fine, fuck it, I'll go.
I saw the clip and I was like, maybe I was there or maybe I was at one of a hundred other events that were pretty much identical.
So you mentioned at the start, Elgin, that they list a lot of organizations that helped to organize it with fairly innocuous names, but these are all Mooney Front organizations.
And after you have that, You have this part where there's an introduction, as there was in the other material, with people who are, I think, invited guests, not the actual members of the church.
And they give a kind of ecumenical message about the unification of Christians.
And this is an example of that.
And I'm so pleased to stand with you of every race and every creed and every color on this planet.
Of every high religion on this planet.
To say that we stand together.
To rebuild the family.
To restore our communities.
And to save the nation and the world.
We thank God for each of you.
We thank God for the Reverend Sun Young Moon.
And we thank God for the opportunity that we had.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's very innocent, right?
You have no idea what's coming next when you listen to that.
And just for context here, the guy who just heard speaking is a guy named Reverend Walter Fontroy, who was a civil rights activist.
He marched with Martin Luther King in the 60s and later on became a reasonably respected pastor and then did a bunch of stuff with the Moonies in the 90s and the early 2000s.
If you Google him now, I think he's been involved in some kind of dodgy stuff.
I don't know exactly what's happened there.
Certainly at the time, he was a pretty well-respected figure in the religious community.
Well, they're opening with good messages there.
I mean, everyone probably would like in an abstract way to be more connected with their community, for their families to be stronger.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's all this abstract stuff.
They lure you in with these abstractions that are Impossible to criticize just because they are so abstract.
And then once you're in, then they start hitting you with the really crazy stuff.
Yeah.
And so it opens up with a kind of an exhaustion about the importance of having children and families, right?
And how this is a secret duty.
But after I breathe things and what's the meaning of life and what's the important thing for people to do.
And it's like have children, be a family.
It very quickly pivots to this.
Let me prove it a little bit further.
Particularly when we examine women's body organs.
Think about these beautiful twin pigs here and the well-developed cushion-like pigs.
Are they here for the sake of her or for the children?
For the children!
I don't know.
Just so people know what's happening there, because there's a lot happening there.
Okay, so when that clip opened, you're actually hearing the translator speaking.
And on the video, he's actually cupping his chest when he talks about lady lumps or whatever he says.
So he, like, touches his chest, he touches his butt, and then he basically says, these are here for the men.
And then what you're hearing at the end of the clip is Moon...
Just getting involved in English, like going off the speech and just going for it, going off the written speech and just going for it and trying to punctuate the point basically.
So yeah, that's Moon kind of jumping in with the yelling at the end.
And this English has not got that much better in the 20 years.
But there's a real focus on like the...
The bodily organs and the biological functions of womanhood.
And here's another illustration.
What about your unique experience?
A monthly experience?
Every month it comes without any failure.
With a little bit of pain.
That experience.
Also the experience of morning sickness.
Are they there for your own sake?
Uncomfortable experience?
Or for your children?
Periods and morning sickness.
It's a weird opener for a message about the unification of all religions.
The logic there is not strong.
There are secondary sexual and physical differences.
Therefore, you exist for the purposes of men.
Maybe to have children and so on.
Yeah, in this case, though, I think the framing is like, it's going to shift very soon to like, you exist for a husband and for a man.
But at this point, it's more emphasizing towards children, like childbearing.
That's what you're for.
Yeah.
And this is the thing.
These are the two aspects that he's basically drilling into right now is if you're a woman, your purpose is for having children or...
Your purpose is to serve your husband.
But those are the two pillars that this speech pretty much stands on.
And we just covered the first, and I think we're going to cover the second in a second.
Yeah.
And serving your husband, it can be taken quite literally as well.
Yeah.
What about Mary Logan, which takes you as a woman?
Why?
Is that Logan just strictly belonging to you, or is it there for your husband?
So just to be clear, in case people miss that, he talked about the organ that makes you a woman.
It's presumably he's talking about the vagina.
And then he's like, so is that for you?
Or is that for your husband?
I'm thinking if I was a woman in the audience, my reaction, you know, like if I was in an audience and a preacher was saying to me like, so your manly organ, your penis.
Does that exist for you?
Is that just for you?
Is that your organ?
It was so weird being in those rooms as a kid.
I've heard that speech or a carbon copy of that speech many times.
I was in the room, I don't know, seven, eight years old, hearing these things.
And if you look at this tape, you can see they cut to a shot of the audience when he's talking about this.
And you can see...
A family with a couple girls, and they look like they're maybe like between 9 and 12 years old.
And they just, they look so uncomfortable in that situation for obvious reasons.
And I want to make the point here that this sentiment of like your body doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to the spouse that God will ordain for you.
That's one of like the core pillars.
Of this theology.
And that has devastating consequences for people who grow up in it.
It leads to a lot of difficulties in relationships later on.
It's particularly worse for, as far as I know, I think it's worse for women than it is for men.
But having that drilled into you can really fuck with your sex life.
And it has also led to, you know, people on my show have told me that particularly women have.
Just not felt comfortable setting any boundaries with men and have been taken advantage of as a result because they've been brainwashed with this shit from such a young age.
So I look at that video and I see those girls and I feel so bad for them.
Yeah, I can well imagine.
So there's times when it's presented euphemistically.
It's not exactly a very subtle metaphor, but like, for example, here's talk about the special key.
That's right.
If that is the key, you are Logan!
Must be opened by a special key that you create.
Then what do you think?
Do you think we should have only one key, one and only, absolute, unique, unchanging key for your husband to use?
Or you should have a couple of spell keys and give them to some other people so they can sometimes beat it?
There's some things about the metaphor, like I have to point out that like, so I get the woman organ and the key.
I think I can work out what the implication is there.
But the part that doesn't work for is he's talking about the women making the key, right?
And then giving it to other people.
He's like, if we take the key to be a penis, it's that he's then suggesting that you will give penises to your other band, which doesn't make sense.
And then the other thing is saying like, do you want like a box with only one key that can open it or a door with only one key?
And it's like, no, because if you lose that key.
You cannot get it.
The logic of the metaphor was causing me troubles because I was like, I lose my keys all the time.
So I don't think that's the point, but I just want to say it's not, it doesn't work at so many levels.
No, but yeah, this like utter fixation with genitalia is just, it's rife.
Like the whole key in the lock, like that's just one of.
Hundreds of analogies that were used for these things in these speeches.
Yeah.
It often seems to be the case.
I mean, this is an extreme example, but it's often the case that extremely, like, sexually repressed, restrictive, controlling sexual mores or cults or just cultures, religions, whatever, it seems to result in just weird,
icky, strange, perverted, for want of a better word, behavior.
I mean, just look at English.
Tory members of parliament.
Yeah, just look at them.
First of all, look at them, then read the news stories.
So it's just pointing out that this is an extreme version of something that is pretty common, sadly.
Yes, you see it in other places for sure, but this is certainly extreme.
So there's two clips I want to play here that are linked.
So if those were euphemistic references to The key masters and the gatekeepers or whatever the case may be.
This is less euphemistic.
So there's two of them.
This is the first one.
If you receive the seed of life through your husband from God directly and raise these children to become the God's children, think about it.
How precious, how valuable service you offer to God.
That's the value of receiving the seed of God, right?
And just in case you aren't sure.
What's he referring to?
Think about the value of a newborn child of yours.
In order to have this seed of life get germinated out of probably 350 million sperm, just one, the strongest one makes it, and make a union with your own egg, then that becomes your descendant.
Think about it.
How valuable and precious.
Oh, God.
The most valuable treasure, the one in 350 million.
Sperm that enters the egg.
You got it, Matt?
That's the key.
I get it.
I'm picking up the message.
The bit about it that's common to Christian and other religious doctrine is that very important role of having children.
That's not an unusual thing.
It's unusual to go into such… Explicit detail and to focus so much on the biological details of it in this kind of sermon.
That bit is odd.
It does remind me in a much lesser version that I was at a friend's wedding and the priest gave a sermon that talked about the different varieties of love.
This was like a Catholic wedding and he started talking about eros and the different types but he focused on erotic.
Love as well.
And I could see everyone in the church being like, don't, don't dwell on this.
And that was just somebody mentioning the concept of erotic love.
And that was like beyond appeal.
So I can only imagine if he'd said, you know, think about the sperm.
Think about it.
I went to my, even though my family's like from a Catholic background, they sent me For a few years in high school too, an Anglican religious high school, just because the public school in the area, I would have got knifed.
We had to go along to the school sort of church services.
And so I got this exposure and it was just making me laugh thinking about it in one of those services that started talking about sperm and the special key.
People would have just evaporated in a puff of smoke.
Yeah, and then imagine me listening to this every week, pretty much, just in all kinds of contexts.
And not just me, but thousands of other kids as well.
This was our bread and butter, was listening to this shit.
It ties in, so there's that focus on the biological function for women to have children.
But they have this also, they talk about how it's the duty for the woman to raise the baby and the child.
But then there's this pivot where the man is supposed to take over.
The bed dirty and the blanket dirty, all those.
The mothers don't mind.
They go after cleaning and all this by doing so.
They receive blessing, so they have to realize the preciousness of this new life, who will become a servant of God, the children, child of God.
That kind of value should be realized.
But by the time the child grows up to like five, five, six, and go to the kindergarten school like that, then the responsibility of husband comes into play there.
So like baby duties, that's all women, but five or six is when the man takes over?
Is that common?
That's what he's getting at.
That wasn't something that I really remember being expressed to me.
Probably won't come as a shock to you that the doctrine changed quite a lot over time, but that was never expressed to me when I was growing up, but it doesn't surprise me at all.
You know, like a lot of it is misogynistic perspectives or at least patriarchal.
This sounds familiar.
For what?
For your own sake to look at your face all day long through the mirror?
No!
You want to present yourself in a more formidable, more beautiful way to your husband so that your husband can have a good day.
Yeah.
Matt, you know, your wife, she gets up, takes two hours in front of the mirror.
To make you just, you know, look nice for you so you can go out with a smile on your face.
It's so true.
This is just a description of married life, right?
I don't know.
Away goes laughing.
So I was married in the church to another Mooney, ex-Mooney.
She never did that, for the record.
Yeah, I was going to ask that because I was curious as to how much of this actually turned into reality for people who were in there.
Yeah, so you know what's interesting is I was thinking about this and especially in the context of Trump and some of the other crazies that are out there.
So Moon would say all this crazy.
Shit.
And I remember sometimes, like, asking my parents or church members being like, wasn't that really weird?
Like, I mentioned this on the QAA show, but, like, there was one time when he gave the direction that parents should have sex in front of their kids.
Now, thankfully, I never witnessed that.
So there was some, like, ability for people to use their own discretion when listening to his words, but...
It led to these conversations where I talked to my mom and dad and be like, wasn't that really crazy?
What the hell was that?
And then they're like, oh, you don't need to, it's not about the specifics of what he's saying.
It's about the heart that's behind it.
And I feel like that is quite common when, you know, people talk about Trump.
They're like, oh, he didn't really mean that thing about this group of people.
Or he didn't mean that thing about the wall or this, that, or the other.
They sort of, they do these mental gymnastics to make these really Awful things okay in their minds.
Yeah.
As a cognitive strategy, that flip-flopping between the concrete and the abstract in a kind of a Martin Bailey scenario is very helpful.
You know, and it parallels what you mentioned before, which is that goddism is kind of just being religious in an abstract way, but also in a very concrete way, specifically about following Sun Ga Moon.
That is just a nice dodge because you can have your cake in it too.
You can have the more literal, concrete, and usually more extreme interpretation if that works for you.
Same goes for conspiracy theories, you know?
If that doesn't quite work for you, if that's triggering some alarm bells, you can sort of fall back to a more vague, wishy-washy, abstract, heart type line.
Yeah, we saw that all the time.
Yeah, and I think it exists in a...
Um, maybe less extreme form and in general religion about people switching between what is advice and what is metaphor and what is the church is teaching.
Like I can remember members of my family saying, you know, well, the church has something about homosexuals, but you know, like.
The church hasn't always been right, which is not the theological position of the church.
But in terms of that, the social conservatism, because of the divine purpose of reproduction, you get this disparaging of anything outside of an ordained marriage, which you talked about on the last episode, Elgin.
Only those, only those homosexuals, lesbians, or even those who go after three-sex life.
These are the ones who will have it.
But God doesn't want those people.
If they practice that kind of unprincipled life, they are less than animals.
I can tell you.
Yeah, less than animals.
That last word got clipped a little bit.
Life and animals.
Yeah.
He also repeats this message quite clearly later.
So here it says, just in case people miss that.
When we understand this kind of value and providential significance, how can we even think about becoming an alcoholic, become a drug addict, become a pre-sex people, become a homosexual or lesbian whatsoever?
That's the truth.
Trash.
Yeah.
It's not subtle.
No, it's not.
It's not subtle at all.
And yeah, imagine you came in thinking this is like this kumbaya, peace and love, we will stand together.
And then this is a sort of vitriol that's being spewed forth.
Yeah, it's a pretty severe switch.
And you can see it, if you look in the video, you can see the look on people's faces.
Some people in the audience, people who aren't church members.
They just had this sort of like, what the fuck look on their, on their face.
So there, I mean, I think that comes as well because you have those direct statements and, you know, I think it's that uncommon in evangelical communities or whatever that you would hear about homosexuals or lesbians or free love lifestyles being presented as sinful,
but maybe they wouldn't have said trash.
You then have these, I mean, you talked about Adelgen that it might be a translation issue, but they really like using the word absolute because they talk about absolute fidelity.
Yeah, they love this concept of absolute.
But before you play that clip, I just want to go back to that comparison to other Christian denominations.
I think one important distinction, and I could be wrong here, but I feel like most Christian denominations that aren't supportive of homosexuality.
They have this kind of like, well, we don't love it, but ideally we'd like to one day maybe get those, get those guys back into the fold with us.
And that leads to like conversion therapy and all this, all this other shit, which is still evil, but.
I contrast that to the Mooney view, which is like, these people are trash.
These people are worse than animals.
Like we do not want them as part of society.
We're not looking to bring them back.
Like we want them gone basically.
So in my view, there is a pretty clear distinction.
This is a more, more hateful, hateful version of, of, of that.
I think you're right that there probably are various.
Denominations where the anti-gay or lesbian or trans message is much stronger.
But in mainstream traditions, it probably is more, you know, hate the sin and love the sinner kind of mission or message.
Yeah, yeah.
Whereas this is like, hate the sin, hate the sinner, basically.
It's more, you know, simple, easy to remember.
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, so the absolute fidelity thing sounds like this.
We are talking about absolute fidelity here.
If anybody, any husband, any wife devies from this God-given
So, you know, again, that's not a message that is that out of step with a lot of Christian doctrine, right, about the sanctity of marriage and that you shouldn't get divorced or you should pledge until you're...
Dying day to one person and also not have sex before marriage.
So I think this is a little bit the bait and switch thing because there are elements that just sound like, you know, maybe like a relatively hardcore interpretation of mainstream Christian doctrine.
But when these are tied in, for example, as you talked about, Elgin, about asking people to make a pledge.
So there's this part where that concept is related later in the talk.
You have been like the thieves and robbers in the past, but from this point on, will you?
Go against this kind of heavenly principle.
Can you make sure, promise that you will keep absolute fidelity?
This is asking everyone to signal.
So Elgin, what are your thoughts, Elgin?
In what ways does their notion of absolute fidelity differ from your typical Christian?
To be honest, I don't think it's that much different.
The concept is the same, you know, no sex before marriage.
You get married once and you only have sex with that person.
That's kind of the deal that they're going for.
They're probably a little more extreme in their complete certainty in their belief that you will go to hell if you deviate from that at all.
But the core belief set is probably pretty similar, I would say.
Yeah.
And you have the message that society will collapse if not built on the foundation of the divine married.
If there is any family, any society, any nation just following that kind of physical desire and pleasure and goal, you know, deviation, that kind of family, society, nation will eventually perish.
Yeah, this was a, this was a super common tactic that they used all the time.
They'd be like, look, look at this thing that we're talking about, about the family.
And then they'd be like, oh, but then we can just like extrapolate that to like the tribes, the nation, the world.
And then they kept like, the concentric circles kept getting bigger.
They applied it to like the universe and the cosmos basically.
So they claimed to reach some sort of truth about some small unit and then try to.
I have a clip that illustrates that connection quite nicely.
Yeah, there's a lot of jumps there.
And it sort of reminds me of this.
The idea of Mooney exceptionalism, which ties into American exceptionalism.
So they had this idea that like, you know, if you created a perfect Mooney family, then by doing so, you would then create this perfect Mooney community, which would then become a perfect nation, which would then become a perfect world.
But it was all built on the sort of the inherent exceptional nature of you as a Mooney.
And that would be sort of like the building block of bringing peace to the world, effectively.
Well, I know it's bad form to compare things to the Nazis, but I have to do it because they also put huge emphasis on the family and these traditional roles that you had to take within the family.
And they drew a direct line between those family units and, you know, one Volk, the whole broader social unity as well.
And you can look at...
The kind of Nazi propaganda from the time and it is full of, you know, you'll see pictures of, you know, women breastfeeding and stuff like that with the little traditional thing and whatever, like you cannot overstate how central those ideas were.
So, you know, it's worth mentioning.
It is worth mentioning.
But I think you can also see it, you know, to a certain extent in like the content of people like Jordan Peterson as well, right?
This kind of Focus on the family and traditional marriage and the importance of that for society.
It's a socially conservative message in general, right?
And there are varieties of it that are less toxic, but I think there's a good illustration like why that kind of message can be concerning for people and feel like it's exclusionary because it is.
It absolutely is.
Well, not just exclusionary, but controlling.
This is how you have to live.
This is the only way to live.
Divorce is not okay.
Having multiple partners.
Non-traditional gender roles, absolutely not okay.
Everyone needs to do their pre-specified role, not just for yourself and your family, but for the broader unified community.
And you're talking about exceptionalism and God as well.
And Elgin was talking about Exceptionalism before, about how many saw them as exceptional.
Well, you know, far right groups tend to see themselves as exceptionally special as well.
But anyway, there's similarities.
Before we pivot to the final point, which is, I think fittingly, the reveal that Reverend Moon is the Messiah.
Just before, there's one technique, Elgin, you highlighted in the content and I wanted to mention it, which was, there's a couple of times in these speeches where they ask the audience to participate, to do something to show their commitment to the ideal.
And as you said, this probably has two audiences in mind.
One is that the people just present are responding to a speaker, asking them slightly weird, but fairly anodyne, show your faith moments.
Whereas for the...
Church members, it might be seen as that they're agreeing to what, you know, the broader agenda of Reverend Moon is.
And here's an example of one of them.
Those who make a mind this evening, after you heard this message from me, you will, no matter what happens from this point on, you will absolutely make sure that there'll be no more spare key using whatsoever in your life and your family life.
Show your hands to God!
So to get people...
To raise their hands.
And then afterwards, there's a quick aside, which could be a joke, but also...
If anybody didn't show your hands, we should have taken pictures.
So that is very telling.
Very telling.
So if you're a Mooney and you don't have your hand raised, you don't want to be in that photo because that's going to be used to berate you, to abuse you, to question your faith.
It could be even used to tell you that you need to give more money or time to the organization.
It could lead to your kids being sort of looked down upon and maybe shunned by others.
Being in a position of not showing absolute faith, and it could be as simple as not being the one who's raising your hand in that moment when they take that photo.
That's a very tenuous position to be in as a Mooney.
And I think that's interesting because from the outside, it just sounds like an offhand.
Joke, right?
You know, about like, oh, all wives look at if your husband didn't put his hand up, you know, maybe you should be worried, right?
Like a kind of joke.
So when you mentioned that in the email, it didn't read like that to me, which is probably by design.
Yeah, by design, it's a double meaning, right?
To you, it seems like a harmless joke.
A bad joke.
Yeah, thank you.
A bad joke.
But to others, it's an ominous threat.
And that's how I read it as soon as I saw it.
So the last point then is the reveal that Moon is the Messiah.
But again, I really almost missed this in the content.
So here's like the mention of that as far as I could tell.
So by sending his begotten son, another son, Messiah, he wants to restore this ghost love life lineage back.
That was it?
Yeah.
So to a Christian, that sounds like sending the Messiah Jesus, right?
Yes, yes, yes.
That's exactly how you probably would think of it if you were a Christian.
But if you're a Moony, you're like, oh, they're talking about moon.
And yeah, notice how they didn't mention second coming, they just mentioned the Savior.
So they're ambiguous about which Savior, the first or the second.
If you're a Christian, you're thinking it's the first.
If you're a Moony, you're thinking it's the second.
And then the Christians are, you know, clapping in agreement or certainly not protesting in any way at this sentiment.
And then all of a sudden the Moonies are like, oh my God, they're agreeing.
They're agreeing that he's the second coming.
So yeah, you identified the pivotal moment right there.
And there's a little bit, there's one more clip.
This is the last one where I think it's still emphasizing that point.
But again, it's kind of like hard to read as somebody from the outside.
There's nobody even in this room who has...
True connection with God's love, life, and life.
And your family is not the family of God, yet.
You say, you're the one who succeeded in saying that you are a lie.
Good. Good.
What that means is, Jesus fulfilled His mission in this world.
No, He was going to.
But because of the faithlessness of Israel and the Jewish people there, He had to leave fully.
So that's why He said He'll come back again.
Think about the lineage aspect.
Guys, you know, I'm like three generations removed from Catholicism, but the Catholic in me is like, you know, this is why we had the Council of Nicaea, right?
To stamp out this kind of heresy, right?
This is what you get.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's heretical.
Yeah, it's, um...
But when you have a lack of conformity in Christianity...
And people can interpret the scriptures in any way they like.
Then you have all kinds of different Protestant churches with their own little flavors and their own particular takes.
And then you have the Moonies, but you also have stuff like the Mormons, for instance, that just take the school of thought and take it in some weird and strange places, wherever they want to, essentially.
There's two things I want to mention there about that clip.
Jesus was killed by the Jews.
That is the underlying foundation for a lot of antisemitism in the Moonies, and it sort of culminates with them effectively believing that the Holocaust was a sacrifice that Jews had to make for atone for the sin of killing Jesus Christ.
That's a through road within the Moonies.
They don't talk a lot about it now.
I think they've tried to clean up that part of their image, but that was a big thing back in the day.
And then the other thing that I wanted to mention is that's also one of those moments when he's like, yeah, Jesus Christ didn't fulfill his mission, and then we need to have a new life in lineage.
I think that's a moment where a Christian is sort of like, okay, I guess.
I don't really know.
But the Moonies are like, well, look, they're clapping along.
They're still here.
So that means they agree.
And so they're pointing to that as buy-in as well.
Yeah.
And then there's a pivot to a reading of extracts and then it goes to songs and stuff towards the end, like a celebration.
So it is weird how relatively subtle that message is.
It reminded me of the events that you discussed as well on QAnon Anonymous.
At the end, somebody coming in and being presented with a crown and announced as the...
And the Republican politicians just looked a bit confused at what was happening.
But this is actually a pretty common thing amongst new religious movements to basically make donations or arrange an event where they can shake hands with the Dalai Lama or something like that, or get a letter from the Pope.
And then they'll use it as like, okay, so we were recognized by those people.
And it does feel like...
The camera goes off and the person moves and it's like, well, that's it.
They acknowledge me.
It's strange that it works, but it's a really common technique.
So it must work.
Another parallel with the gurus is that craving for legitimacy.
That stuff that you're talking about is really quite thought-out tactics in order to gain the perception of legitimacy.
So it's a weird contradiction because at once they liked the outsider status.
And that feeling of being the special minority, the special people who've got privileged access to the message that the normies don't know about.
But at the same time, they're really desperate to get the photos with the handshakes with important politicians or the Dalai Lama or whatever.
And we see exactly the same thing with our secular gurus too.
Yeah.
So, you know, rounding off the final...
And thanks, by the way, Elgin, just upfront to say it's been a pleasure and it is very valuable, I think, to have your insight and to compare.
I know this is an unusual episode from what we normally do, but I think it is good to have these contrasts.
And in terms of parallels, the main thing that struck me was the through line of social conservatism and the importance placed on biological roles and the family.
The contrast that struck me quite strongly with the secular gurus we cover was the relative lack of vocal ability, at least in English.
They are not like Jordan Peterson, not like Eric Weinstein.
No, there's nothing suave about him at all.
Yeah, he's like an angry middle-aged man ranting about putting your key in the organ.
It's a deeply...
Unsexy presentation.
Not that Jordan Peterson does it for me, but he certainly has a greater suaveness to him than this.
And that's my takeaway is that charisma comes in lots of different forms and a lot of it can come from the situations and the groups that are cultivated.
And again, we might be looking here at content that is once somebody already is the leader of a cult, Rather than somebody who's in the early stages of creating their persona.
So maybe he doesn't need to do a lot of the things that we might associate.
But the lack of obvious charisma was kind of the surprising thing for me in looking at his content.
Yeah.
And I think to me, it sort of feels like he almost like he knows it.
He knows he doesn't have it and he's just trying to make up for it by sheer brute force.
And it kind of worked for him.
He made an admission of, like, I'm never going to be the suave guy, but if I just yell loud enough, I can convert some people.
We'll leave the last word to you, Elgin, but Ma, what about you in comparing this content to the gurus or anything else?
Like, it's a totalizing ideology, like most religious cults, and has, I think, surprisingly Strong similarities to political cults like Nazism, actually.
So yeah, look, I didn't think the impression that I had of cults like the Moonies or Scientologists or Mormons could get lower.
But yeah, because I thought that was pretty...
Congratulations!
It started from an extremely low base and somehow managed to find a new floor.
Yeah.
Good job, Elgin.
I'm glad to have performed that service for you.
Delighted.
What's your final words though, Elgin?
So number one, the comparison to Nazism, whilst it's something that has occurred to me previously, hearing someone else articulate it, it was quite interesting, quite fascinating.
And particularly listening to those clips and identifying that similarity in both clips was quite interesting.
Just to hear someone else, I think it's always fascinating for me.
To hear the observations that other people have who didn't grow up in the cult, it's just really, really interesting to hear what this sounds like to an outsider, because I don't have that perspective.
One thing to add is that these were two of, I don't know, hundreds of videos of Moon that are available on YouTube.
Like most cults, the Moonies tried to document as many words of their guru as possible, so before video was widely available.
They would write it down, so there are websites you can go to, and they just have all of his speeches, which is just an insane amount of content.
Not that I'm suggesting anyone spend any time on it, but...
There's more!
If you guys are like this...
Kind of to the point earlier of, I can only highlight one drop in the bucket of the grift.
I can only highlight one or two drops in the bucket of all the plethora of...
Terrible shit that Moon spent his life spewing.
And I guess maybe that's my final word.
There's a lot of it out there, and I don't think I can ever do it justice.
I'm sure with the misogyny, too, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Oh, yeah.
There was so much stuff there.
And I think the other thing is, the message that I want people to have is, this is not just some harmless...
A kooky religious group.
This is a place that is abusive.
And I hope that people can understand that even just exposing kids to that type of language is a form of abuse, let alone all the other types of abuse that it opens you up to later on in your life and all the other forms of abuse that an organization like this does.
This is a dangerous, dangerous group that has caused untold damage to thousands of people.
That's what I think the takeaway should be.
Yeah, I think that's a good, you know, not a fun note, but an important note to end on and stress.
So thank you for coming on, Elgin, and talking to us.
And I will not tell you to gravel at the feet of your muscle master.
I will encourage people not to gravel at anyone's feet after listening to the content.
But thanks for coming on and guest hosting with us.
No worries.
It's been a pleasure.
Really fun.
Thank you.
Thanks, man.
All right, Matt.
Reverend Moon, absolute sex master.
Decoded.
Gone into the ether.
And good riddance, really.
Not my favorite man.
You, on the other hand, you loved him.
It was surprising.
You know, you were deep into him.
I can't wait for the garometer.
I got some hot takes.
I mean, people are going to be surprised.
He's actually, you know, misunderstood, Chris.
Misunderstood.
All of these cult leaders are.
I mean, it hasn't encouraged me to delve back into the annals of historical gurus, but I do think it's useful from time to time to look at actual gurus or people who fall into the spheres that we originally were tending to avoid,
like the spiritual gurus and the alternative health-type gurus.
Yeah, it's good to be reminded.
Those people are not who we're focused on.
We explicitly compare the secular gurus to the kinds of behaviors that these people do once you strip out the religion, usually.
So it's good to remind ourselves of what they do.
Yeah, it is.
And even if we have to inflict what they do on our listening audience.
But that leads, Matt, to people, you know, after they consume our content, they sometimes leave feedback.
They tell us what they think, and then we...
In turn, look at what they've said and read it.
We say, is it good feedback?
Is it bad feedback?
Should they try harder, indeed, with our review of reviews?
I'm going to get it.
No, it's better.
It's perfect, just the way you say it.
Don't ever change, Chris.
Don't ever change.
Let's go.
Read us the first review.
What have we got?
We've got it.
I like to go negative and ramp it up to the praise and the hyperbolic adulation.
We don't want to be left with a sour toast in our mouths.
Yeah, that's right.
I still remember, like, what was his name?
I spit in your mouth 63-63 years.
From back in the day, that was a username in an early podcast of a reviewer.
So, yeah.
This first one, the title is Meh, Hit and Miss.
So that gives you...
A nice tone of the review, and it is by Ilzalm from Canada.
Incredulous, somewhat bitter hypocrites, less than repugnant, worth listening to.
Wait, Chris, say that one more time.
That is good.
Say that again.
It's pretty good, right?
It's a bit like a koan or a haiku.
It's like an abusive haiku.
Let's hear it again.
Incredulous, somewhat bitter, hypocrites.
Less than repugnant.
Worth listening to.
That's good.
That's right.
That's right.
Snow falls gently on the forest.
Less than repugnant.
Worth listening to.
It's a going.
Yeah.
And I have to read this one because I quite enjoyed this.
The title, though, is not promising, Matt.
It's decent podcast, but...
You know how I feel about the butts.
I know.
And the username is Milk and Toast.
So I feel this is someone after our own heart.
But they say the hosts are intentionally glossing over one of the most important topics of the modern era.
Whenever this crucial issue is brought up, Chris immediately shuts it down, obviously due to a hidden personal agenda.
It's not an overstatement to say that I'm speaking for the silent majority of the fan base here.
We want an extended five-hour episode deconstructing feminist glaciology.
What are you trying to hide, Chris?
Well, look.
Well, gee.
What's the username again?
Milk and Toast.
Milk and Toast, when you're right, you're right.
That's all I can say.
The people are asking for it, Chris.
We need to decode the feminist glaciology paper.
We need to.
No, no, no, no.
No, we don't.
Well, we are.
We are.
Somebody has suggested that we cover it on the Decoding Academia series because it's an academic paper.
So we may actually read it and do a review of it.
But if you want to hear that, you'd have to be a Patreon at the $5 a month level, Matt.
A paltry sum.
A paltry sum, yeah.
Pittance.
Yeah, look, I mean, one thing could be said for our review of that paper, which makes it better than 97% of all other takes on the paper, is that we've actually read it.
And we didn't read it again.
We'd read it again, gladly, with joy in our hearts.
We can go that far, but we'll read it again.
It's an entertaining paper.
It's a fun read.
Don't give people free previews.
That's right.
Keep them in.
Hot tapes.
You want those hot tapes to cost you $5?
Or you could just sign up and listen to it and then cancel before the payment comes out.
That's possible to do.
So there's options available.
We don't condone it.
We don't condone that, but you can.
No, we do not.
Don't do it.
That would be terrible, but it's an option.
So if you didn't want to be like that, though, and you wanted to be a kindhearted and good person, you could be like our patrons and we're going to thank them, Matt, a couple of them.
I wonder, are you intending to declare your undying love to each individual one or would you like not to do that this week?
Chris, I think it was a bridge too far, going for full-throated love.
Maybe I could ratchet it back to fondness.
I could talk about how fond I am of them.
And maybe I could do it as a group.
Okay, we'll do it as a collective group.
Because I feel the same way about all of them.
It's still individual and special for every one of them.
It's just it happens to be the same feelings.
Depending on their tier.
Depending on the tier, obviously.
Yes.
Okay.
So, in that case, for the Galaxy Brain Gurus, the shining stars in the Patreon sky, we have Adam Taylor, Mark K., Paul Taylor, and I embrace the void,
now philosophers in space, my brain is hurting.
Did we do him before?
No, I've never heard that before.
Okay.
I would remember.
I embraced the void.
Now, philosophers in space, my brain is hurting.
That is the last Galaxy Brain Guru for this month.
Okay.
Guys and girls, I'm so very, very fond of you.
What I wish we could do is we could just go for a long walk together, holding hands if we wanted to, you know, feeling the sun on our face and the wind at our back.
Just, you know, talking of everything and nothing.
That's what I wish we could do together.
Wow, sounds nice.
So that's what the galaxy brains get.
How about the revolutionary geniuses, who this week would include Lins, XXXAAA, don't think that's their name, but it could be an unknown son of Elon Musk,
Nick Boyle, Dez Eboah, and...
Janne Jelkvist.
Oh, and Per Adolfsson.
Per Adolfsson as well.
Per Adolfsson as well.
All of you.
I'm very, very, very fond of you as well.
What I wish we could do is we could go on a picnic.
We'd pack some sandwiches, maybe a bottle of wine, and lay the blanket out by a river, perhaps.
And there'd be bees, but I'd chew them away, and ants would come, but I'd pick them off the sandwiches.
We'd have a lovely day, I promise, so call me.
Call me.
That's good.
And I will say, Matt, I don't know, it is probably divulging personal information that I shouldn't, but Per Adelson has an image attached to his user account on Patreon, and he's a striking bearded man,
like a handsome bearded man with little baubles in his beard.
He has various like kind of Christmas tree style ornaments hanging from his large beard.
He's, you know, you would have a great time with him.
I'm very impressed with his user image.
Presuming it's him.
I imagine, you know, he could have just taken an image from the internet, but it's striking.
Sounds like great picnic material.
He's top of the list.
Yeah.
So, you know, I'll even join you if he's there and he's wearing that in his beard.
And that is an accurate representation.
So thanks, Pear.
There we go.
Okay, next tier.
Is this the top tier or the bottom tier?
It's not the bottom, Matt.
No, there is no bottom tier.
It is simply the tier that pays the least money.
That's all.
So this tier includes Daniel Farley, Premium Select, Emmett Nelson Porter, Evan Kress, Emmett Chant, Tom Howard, Andrea Kilios, and Susan Abernson.
Abramson!
Hey!
Thanks, everybody.
Infinitely better than the people who are not patrons whatsoever.
So that's worth keeping in mind.
Look, I'm very fond of them too, Chris.
What can we do together?
We've done gone for a walk.
We've done gone for a picnic.
You know what?
We should all go and see a movie, like an old-fashioned movie, like It's a Wonderful Life or North by Northwest or something.
Yeah, you know, and afterwards, we'd grab a coffee, we'd talk about the movie.
I just want to hear everything that you're thinking about.
It'd be great.
That's nice.
That's nice.
I was going to say you could go scuba diving, but that's probably too much.
Too confronting.
Many people like you are afraid of fish.
True.
It's not a kind of relaxed thing that you just do with people you're fond of.
It's a traumatic bonding experience.
You, Patreons, all of you, are not trauma-bonded to us, just parasocially and financially entangled.
Linked.
Entangled.
Yeah.
And responsible for all our output.
So we appreciate that and the shared responsibility that you provide us.
If all the people are interested in bonus content or that kind of thing, early access to interviews, they can go join the Patreon.
But you don't have to.
There's other ways that you could follow us.
You could...
You could join the subreddit.
You could offer your takes there.
You can abuse us on Twitter.
You'd need to find us first, which would mean, you'd need our usernames or they'd be useful for you.
Mine is C underscore Kavanaugh.
Very cunning.
Maths is R for C Den.
And the podcast specific account is Guru's Pod.
You can also find us Facebook, Instagram.
There's a Discord.
There are things around.
And there's the coding.
Thegurus@gmail.com if you want to send us emails.
That's right.
You can do all of those things, some of those things, or none of those things.
It is entirely up to you.
You have agency.
You may or may not have free will.
We're not sure.
But, you know, you can definitely either do or not do any of those things.
But, you know, it's your responsibility.
True.
The position of the podcast is that you do have an autobiographical self.
Sorry, that's a no-do.
You can't listen.
If you don't have that, you're...
You're not allowed to listen.
So just hang up your phone call and turn off your podcast if you don't have an autobiographical self, because we don't want you guys here.
You disassociated zombies.
That's right.
No p-zombies.
No.
No p-zombies.
No enlightened beings.
Get feedback to your Sam Harris Waking Up app and enjoy that.
That's a hard line.
I'm sorry.
It's harsh, but you know.
Everybody has their lines.
You know, it's like they say when you call up one of those big corporations.
I just said, sorry, that's our policy.
That's our policy, Chris.
It is.
It was the first thing we agreed on.
It's in the manifesto.
Check the terms and conditions.
So, okay, that's it for this week.
That was fun.
And we'll be doing all our gurus.
I can't remember who it is now, Matt, so I'm just going to tell you to go gravel at the feet of your muscle master.
Alright, I can't think of anything more to say, so I will just say yes.
