A worldwide student g
Reverend Sun Myung Mo
1980, has set up shop aga
By Mark
Assembly paid much attention when a group
calling itself the Collegiate Association for the
N0O ONE IN T HE MICHIG AN STUDENT
Research of Principles applied for recognition by
the student government in the fall of 1985. A
petition bearing the minimum five signatures en-
titled the organization to office space in the Michigan Union.
Apparently, no one realized that the same group had its
student organization status revoked by MSA five years earlier
because it was affiliated with a much larger organization,
widely regarded as one of the world's most sophisticated and
extensive cults.
Cult awareness groups have identified the Collegiate
Association for the Research of Principles, or CARP, as one
of more than 100 front organizations for the Rev. Sun Myung
Moon's controversial Unification Church. CARP officials
interviewed by the Daily acknowledged varying degrees of
association with the "Moonies," as members of the parent
group are commonly known.
"There's no question that CARP has a relationship with the
Unification movement," said Steve Kennett, a public relations
director at CARP's national headquarters in New York. "We
aren't trying to hide Reverend Moon in some closet
somewhere. That doesn't do us any good."
Kennett insisted that "CARP is not a recruiting branch for
the Church." But Nancy Hewitt, president of CARP at the
University of Illinois-Chicago, told a different story.
"CARP is constantly recruiting new members to replace
people who have gone on to work in other parts of the
(Unification) movement," Hewitt explained. "We just gave up
our top leaders to the church." She called CARP "the new life
of the movement."
"The movement" led by Rev. Moon came to the U.S. in
the 1970s from his native South Korea. He has thousands of
followers in at least 70 nations.
Moon is known for presiding over mass weddings of his
followers, including the world's largest ceremony, where 5,837
couples were married in Seoul in 1982. Also that year, Moon
was convicted for tax evasion in the U.S. and subsequently
went to jail.
Besides spiritual programs, the Unification Church and its
satellite organizations maintain far right-wing political and
social agendas. CARP's literature pledges to "provide and
promote a counter-proposal to Marxism-Leninism." Local
members of the group advocated war with the U.S.S.R. in
1980 after the invasion of Afghanistan; at Cornell University,
CARP members have displayed placards reading, "STOP SEX
NOW OR ELSE !"
Moon founded CARP in the 1960s. There are more than
100 chapters on American university campuses today, most of
them small and low-profile like the one recently re-established
at Michigan.
Dan Sladich, president of the Michigan chapter, was

1

roup founded by the
on, kicked off campus in
yin in the Michigan Union.

Rossen

reluctant to discuss the group. He quickly cut off an interview
with the Daily when questions turned to CARP's connections
with the Unification Church.
CARP does not have any full-time University of Michigan
students, even though MSA rules state that approved groups
should be two-thirds students. Sladich is a part-time student,
enrolled here as a "non-candidate for degree," according to the
Office of the Registrar. CARP did obtain five signatures from
full-time students which were needed for its MSA registration
form. According to an MSA officer, the signers requested that
their names be kept confidential, so they could not be reached
for comment. None of the students whose names appear on the
petition are active members of CARP, according to Sladich.
"They support us, but they are not actively involved in what
we're doing," he said.
What they are doing is unclear at this point. "We've had a
few programs, but nothing recently," Sladich said. "We aren't
sure if we'll remain on campus."
Sladich began promoting the group last year from its small
office on the fourth floor of the Union. He rented a large
display window on the Union's first floor during the fall term,
posting information on CARP and its recent international
convention; unidentified supporters also have solicited students
on the Diag. So far, their efforts have failed to attract new
members.
FORMER MEMBERS OF THE Unification Church told
the Daily that after they joined the Moonies through front
organizations like CARP, they were compelled to leave school
and limit contact with their families in order to promote and
raise funds for the various Moon organizations.
Steve Hassan was a Moonie for two and a half years, from
1974 to 1976. He was recruited while a student at Queen's
College in New York, through a front organization called the
One World Crusade. Once in the Unification Church, he
dropped out of college.
Hassan was assigned to work for various front
organizations, including One World Crusade, the Freedom
Leadership Foundation, and CARP, for which he founded a
chapter at Queen's College. Hassan's chapter was highly
successful. It offered free lectures, seminars, movies, poetry
readings, and other activities to get students to join. The goal
was to get people to a weekend workshop, he explained, and
then to more workshops. After a while, Hassan recalled, "They
were usually willing to turn over their bank accounts."
In order to prevent its members from "reality testing," the
Unification Church makes it difficult for them to think
rationally. It accomplishes this through techniques such as
sleep deprivation. "When you first heard the Divine Principle,

you felt a joy within," Reverend Moon reminds his followers
in a set of "Instructions From Father." "You didn't think about
time or sleep... you could manage to pass two or three days
without sleep." When Hassan was in the Moonies, he was
only permitted to sleep four hours a night.
Another technique used by the Moonies is privacy
deprivation. A Moonie accompanies new members wherever
they go, Hassan said - even to the bathroom. Leaving
members alone would give them time to think about what
they have been told, he said. If a member brings a friend to a
workshop, Hassan warned, the two would be separated, because
it would be easier to reject the teachings of the group with the
support of a friend.
The Moonies also use a form of hypnosis which makes
people more susceptible to indoctrination, Hassan said. He was
taught how to hypnotize a group of people by raising and
lowering the tone and pitch of his voice, while alternately
speeding up and slowing down the tempo of his speech.
"They never told me I was doing hypnosis," he said. "When
I saw an actual hypnosis demonstration years later, I said,
'That's just like what I did in the Moonies."'
The Moonies justify their use of deception by their belief
that they, as God's children, need to trick "Satan's children"
into doing God's will, Hassan said. Moon, in a list of
"Instructions from Father," tells his followers that they must
"become the person who assumes God's responsibility as his
representative."
Steve Kemperman, a former Moonie who came to the
University of Michigan after he left the group, agrees that the
use of deception in the Unification Church is widespread. But
he believes that the use of deception was even greater at the
University of California at Berkeley, where he joined the
movement while as a student in 1973. The front organization
was called the New Education Development. "This was a very
attractive group of people," he recalled.
Kemperman was idealistic and looking for a way further his
activism. He joined the New Education Development because
they told him they were building a farm community to
promote cooperative living and community spirit.
"They didn't tell you who they were until they thought you
were ready," he said. He didn't learn he was in the cult until
three weeks after he had joined, and he never made a conscious
decision to join the Unification Church.
"I was molded into a Moonie over a period of a year,"
Kemperman said. "They have a Machiavellian view of the
world," he explained, describing their "ends-justify-the-means
mentality."
When people have been deprived of sleep and have not been
encouraged to think rationally, Kemperman said, they will
"make decisions they normally wouldn't make." Hassan fasted
for three days for President Nixon during Watergate because
Moon recommended it. But he recalls, "I hated Nixon."
He believes that the ultimate goal of the Moonies, is to
take over the world and make everyone a member of the
Unification Church. In "Instructions From Father," Moon
says, "We must make the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
That's why I'm here; and you." Once the "Kingdom of
Heaven" is in place, Kemperman explained, the world would
be united into one family, centered around Reverend Moon and
his wife, or their successors, as the parents.
The Moonies believe that building a Kingdom of God
requires a rebuilding of the physical as well as the spiritual
world. That, Moonies claim, is why they buy up businesses
and real estate - their properties become holy territory for
their physical Kingdom of God. The Moonies own hundreds of
businesses around the world, many of them in the United
States, including the Washington Times - a large,
conservative daily newspaper in the nation's capital.
The Moonies will tell people that they are not trying to
convert them - just trying inform them of their views,
according to Hassan. But each Moonie has a quota of new
members to meet. When Hassan was a Moonie, the quota was
one new member each week.
"I got 14 people in (the Unification Church)," he recalled.
"A couple are still in."
Once a person joins the church, he is taken away from his
friends and family for long periods of time. When Kemperman
was in the Moonies, he was allowed to return home every
eight months, but only for a few days. The Moonies are
worried that if someone stays away too long, the controls will
lose effect, he said. "I once stayed away for a week and was
chewed out for it." Kemperman knew people in the group who

I

'They don't research any principles... they all bowi
altar with Moon's pictUre on it. It's a joke to think
a different organization.'
- former Mo

Influfredl hr the isi< I)? (
.Rev. Sun myungm0oon

Page from World Univ
CARP's biweekly newsf

were not permitted to leave at all.
Parents of Moonies often attempt to "deprogram" their
children, as Kemperman's parents tried to do during one of his
visits. He tricked his parents into believing that they had
succeeded and then went back to the Moonies, where he
remained for several more years.
Kemperman's parents eventually succeeded in getting him
out through a "rescue snatch" in 1977. He was selling candy to
raise money for the Unification Church when they came and
"popped me in the back of a van." They tried to deprogram
him again but failed.
Kemperman spent five months in a Rehabilitation Center
in New Hampshire for people coming out of cults. During that
time, he said, "I had to confront the fact that I wasn't
thinking." After a personal examination of their argument, he
realized that being a Moonie was a not a healthy religious
experience. "I was not spiritually growing in the group," he
said. "My experience in the Unification Church was
psychologically destructive."
After leaving the Moonies, Kemperman came to the
University of Michigan, where he studied for four years as an
LSA undergraduate. Then he returned to the University of
Michigan in 1983 to study economics at the Rackham, where
he graduated in 1986. He is currently employed by the Federal
Government as an economist in Washington.
An accident finally allowed Hassan to leave the Moonies.
His last job was as a fundraising captain. He had to raise $100
a day, he said, or he would not be permitted to sleep. "I didn't
sleep for three days," he recalled. He was so tired that he drove
a van into the back of a tractor-trailer truck. Hassan ended up
in the hospital for weeks. At that point, he recalled, "I was no
longer of any use to the group."
After the accident, Hassan was reunited with his family. His
parents had him talk to ex-Moonies, which gave him a chance
to think things out, something he could not do in as a member
of the church.
Hassan now works as a psychotherapist. He counsels
former cult members and families who have children in cults.
But, he clarified, "I am not a deprogrammer." Hassan was also
the national coordinator of FOCUS, an ex-member support.
group for various cults.
HHEN STUDENTS LEARNED OF CARP's
background in 1980, its status as a student organization at the
University was revoked by MSA. A memo on the matter
from Rob Mackenzie, an assembly member, read: "... after
being exposed to CARP's activities on the Diag which
advocate invasion of Afghanistan and war against the Soviet

Union (murder, killing, as s
do not wish to be affiliated
manner whatsoever."
CARP applied for re-r
MSA denied the request. It
that CARP was re-admitted
Then-MSA President P
responsible for approving th
the CARP-Moonie connect
earlier decision to revoke C
that if the assembly had b
might have done some rese
practice in reviewing s
investigation now, he says,
"It won't happen unless
students complain (about C
Current MSA President
not in the business of inves
"What MSA did in 1980 wc
Muenchow admitted tha
ties to the Unification Chu
half the student organizatioi
Students aren't the only
connections to the Moonie
bi-weekly newspaper printe
recent convention from a
including Massachusetts Sen
Kennedy's office sent
international students in a
Miller, the senator's Dep
author believed CARP was
students getting together for
having heard that New Yc
had sent greetings.
Miller said Kennedy's
receiving calls from peop
senator sent greetings to the
"We've told everyone w
that we would not have sent
arm of Reverend Moon,"
don't know (what CARP is
of talking about the fact tha
Moon."
Many cult awareness gr
concern that uninformed
knowing what it really is.
religious affairs at the
Congregations, contends t
that they are religious in I
Unification Church, Daum :
of that. How can they m
knowing who they are?"

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PAGE S WEEKEND/JANUARY 16, 1987W

WEEKEND/JANUARY, 16, 1987