The youngest person to be convicted of planning a terrorist attack in the UK identified potential targets in his hometown, began drafting a "guerrilla warfare" manual and tried to obtain a chemical used in terrorist bombings. But the case also focused on the radicalisation process itself, hearing the 16-year-old's preparations for an attack involved a deliberate effort to dehumanise himself and become like the "living dead".
The teenager chronicled his regression in a journal, writing "at one point or another I can look back and see if I was any different." Aged 14, he noted: "I wasn't always a fascist, my red pilling process was slower than most", adding that less than two years earlier he advocated "punk rock ideals and Marxism".
The trial heard much about his ideology: an amalgam of neo-Nazism, Satanism and misanthropy, allied to the belief that a collapse of civilisation should be "accelerated" through acts of violence and criminality.
He was first interviewed by police in autumn 2017, when his school reported a Twitter account he used to express support for the outlawed British neo-Nazi group National Action and pose for a photo with ex-English Defence League leader, Tommy Robinson.
The boy, who cannot be identified because of his age, promised to close the profile and spent time with the government de-radicalisation scheme, Prevent. But, rather than moderating his behaviour, he set out to immerse himself in extreme right-wing literature and online networks.
"A fascist has an obligation to absorb a lot of words," he recorded.note included potential targets in Durham
His immersion came at a time of exceptional depravity. National Action had been banned in 2016, but generated several small British spin-offs, some of which sought to imitate the militant American group, Atomwaffen Division.
The origins of this network were in an online neo-Nazi forum, but by the time it closed in 2017 fascists from around the world were already migrating to new platforms. These digital spaces promote an increasingly berserk world view that proclaims hatred of all, worships a pantheon of "saints" comprising various terrorists and murderers, and demands a commitment to the destruction of society through so-called "accelerationism".
Online channels can gain thousands of followers, all using a shared vocabulary and set of references, although there are disputes over people's ideological commitment or supernatural beliefs, in which Adolf Hitler is often regarded as a divinity.
Central influences include the American neo-Nazi James Mason, who has been convicted of indecent images offences involving a child, and several individuals associated with the occult organisation Order of Nine Angles - described by the prosecution as the "most prominent and recognisable link between Satanism and the extreme right".
The result is a culture in which deviancy and criminality are encouraged - sexual violence and paedophilia are constant themes - with anything justified as long as it is thought to destabilise society and defy what is characterised as slavish morality.
The Durham teenager absorbed these ideas, reading any recommended books and discussing them in his journal, gradually following the logic of his ideology towards a planned attack. In October 2018, he wrote that earlier phases of his political activities, such as debating with others, had "accomplished nothing" and merely got him into trouble at school.
"And now here I am an accelerationist," he added.
The boy actively sought to alter himself in line with the texts he read, including the instruction "shed empathy" on a list of things to do. He adopted an online pseudonym, speaking constantly with other neo-Nazis, telling a forum that his Satanic belief system involved programming oneself to lose any feelings of guilt, becoming the living dead in the process.
"I believe there is primal enjoyment to be had in sadism," he wrote in his journal, stating: "How wonderful it is to be an amoral individual".
He searched for synagogues around the UK, wrote a list of local places in Durham "worth attacking", collected explosives manuals, and tried to secure a dangerous chemical from a fellow extremist in the USA.
When the boy was arrested outside his home in March, detectives found a coded note in his pocket, saying: "Killing is probably easier than your paranoid mind thinks. You're just not used to it. Most were caught because they got sloppy."
warfare" manual
At trial, the boy denied being a neo-Nazi, saying his writings were an extremist "alter ego" generated by feelings of social isolation and created in order to shock others and find a sense of belonging online. He told jurors his political beliefs were "centre right" and that he had a poster on his bedroom wall signed by Nigel Farage.
Prosecutors said the boy was lying to the jury about the fake "persona" and that his actions were not confined to diaries or the internet. They originally alleged that he sexually touched a child as part of his preparations for an attack, saying it was a deliberate "desensitisation technique", although claims about his sexual conduct were ruled inadmissible during pre-trial hearings and will now be heard in a youth court.
linked to the same ideological influences
According to police, eight terrorist plots inspired by right-wing ideologies have been stopped since March 2017. They say there is a "spectrum" of such ideologies that have the potential to generate violence, with the variant adopted by the Durham defendant regarded as perhaps the most extreme of all.
He is now the fourth teenager convicted of terrorism offences in the UK over the past year in which the same set of influences - accelerationism and Satanism - have been central.
One of the many troubling aspects of this case is that a child traversed the full spectrum of right-wing extremism before he had even left school.
GREELEY, Pa. — Pastor Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon took the stage in rural Pennsylvania wearing his trademark green camo blazer, a crown made of empty bullet casings, and a gold AR-15 slung over his shoulder.
“Good morning, patriots and freedom-loving people made in the image of God,” Moon told his enthralled crowd.
The occasion was the first-ever “Rod of Iron” Freedom Festival, a two-day celebration of guns and God, hosted by Moon’s church.
But Moon, 40, isn’t any ordinary pastor. He’s the son of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a Korean self-proclaimed messiah, accused cult leader, and founder of an international religious movement whose followers became known as “Moonies.” Last year, Pastor Sean Moon started his own church in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. It has some of the same philosophies as his father’s, but with a pretty significant twist:
“In John, Chapter 2, we see that Jesus is an assault weapons manufacturer,” Moon, who studied theology at Harvard, told the audience.
Through the festival, an open-carry, pro-MAGA affair, Pastor Moon was able to draw in scores of local conservatives who 10 years ago probably wanted nothing to do with the Moonies.
“The radical leftists are treasonously indoctrinating our children into Communism!” Moon told the crowd at an opening address that recalled themes from President Trump’s Twitter feed. “They are trying to impeach a duly elected president for crimes they committed. And are trying to … place us under the rule of global governance, ruled by the elites of the world, the U.N., radical Islam, Communist China — you name it.”
Other speakers included gun-rights celebrities and right-wing provocateurs who railed against socialism, political correctness, and Hillary Clinton, prompting a faint, fleeting chant of “Lock her up!”
“In John, Chapter 2, we see that Jesus is an assault weapons manufacturer.”
Meanwhile, the hundreds who’d traveled from abroad to attend the festival over Columbus Day weekend outnumbered the locals. They listened to live translations of speeches via audio devices, and were easily recognizable through their matching blue camo hoodies sold by Moon’s church.
Rod of Iron Ministries was born out of a “Succession”-like family power struggle for control of the church after Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s death in 2012.
Pastor Sean Moon believes he was the rightful heir to his father’s Unification Church, but he lost the battle to his mother. So he founded the Rod of Iron Ministries — formally, the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church — which put a more extreme, pro-gun spin on his father’s teachings, and successfully siphoned off hundreds of his members.
Rod of Iron Ministries first made headlines in February 2018, when images from its inaugural marriage-blessing ceremony showing hundreds of couples in crowns and clutching AR-15s were received with a collective “WTF” across the country.
Moon says he was inspired to start Rod of Iron Ministries after he came across a passage in Revelations that talked about Jesus using a “Rod of Iron” to protect himself and others. He concluded that the “Rod of Iron” could well be the AR-15 — and that everyone should have one to defend God’s kingdom.
”This is the Jesus of the Founding Fathers, and this is the key to a safe and secure America from tyranny,” he said.
“We want everyone in the world to have a rod of iron.”
Moon’s older brother, Kook-jin “Justin” Moon, the owner of gun manufacturing company Kahr Arms, has taken his brother’s side. The freedom festival was held at the 620-acre Kahr Arms property in Greeley, and attendees were invited to shoot an AR-15 at the firing range, purchase gun-shaped chocolates, and participate in a “Concealed Carry Fashion Show.” Culture war pastor
The original Moon founded the Unification Church in Korea in the 1950s, years after he’d escaped from a labor camp in North Korea, where he’d been imprisoned for preaching a “messianic message.” He claimed he was the returning messiah, on a mission to fulfill Jesus Christ’s original mission of restoring Earth to the Garden of Eden.
Rev. Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han were known as the “True Parents,” and they believed that world peace could be achieved through marrying individuals from historically enemy countries, who had been matched through the church, and who would go on to have children who are free of sin. This was the idea behind the famous Moonie mass wedding ceremonies; 2,075 couples were married in one such ceremony in Madison Square Garden in 1982.
But the Rev. Moon’s church ballooned into a multimillion-dollar business empire over the years. While on the one hand, he and his wife were accused of being cult leaders and even barred from entering Germany, the U.K., and other Western European countries for a 10-year period, Rev. Moon also dabbled in conservative politics and rubbed shoulders with Nixon.
He even founded the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, with the hopes of influencing D.C. And in 2004, a group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers held a coronation ceremony for Rev. Moon at the U.S. Senate Offices, where he was “crowned” and declared the messiah.
Like his father, Pastor Sean Moon ardently embraces conservativism, but his brand is distinctly Trumpian. The festival had a “Safe Space” play area for kids with signs reading “Gun-Free Zone” and “Trigger Warning.” Parents laughed and snapped pictures as their kids strangled pink unicorns and pummeled rag dolls. The emcee of the event was Joey Gibson, the leader of the far-right Patriot Prayer, who is currently facing felony charges for his involvement in a violent street brawl with antifa in Portland, Oregon. There was even a seminar about the “Sissification of American Men.”
Moon himself believes that God is “working through” Trump to help establish God’s kingdom.
“We think that God is using him [Trump], doing a job that’s taking on the deep state, swamp, whatever you want to call it, the bureaucracy of the federal government,” Moon told VICE News. His church even hosted a “President Trump Thank You Dinner” in February 2018 featuring the executive director of Gun Owners of America, a popular Second Amendment advocacy group.
When Pastor Sean Moon isn’t at church, practicing martial arts, or holding tea ceremonies with his wife, he’s preaching the gospel of the AR-15 to his nearly 3,000 subscribers via YouTube. His broadcast, “The King’s Report,” often ventures well beyond the Bible to touch on the cultural issues du jour. For example, a recent broadcast was titled “Harlot Mother Behind ‘Joker’ Story.” He also describes public schools as “synagogues of Satan” — places where they’re “indoctrinated into the homosexual political agenda.”
In his spare time, he catches up on the news. “We like Breitbart, Daily Caller — Drudge is a great news hub, Infowars,” Moon said. “Project Veritas does incredible undercover work,” he added, name-checking a right-wing activist group that’s best known for carrying out “stings” aimed at exposing media bias.
Moon’s Trump-era dogma and gun-centric focus seems to have helped him shake off the stigma associated with the “Moonies” and appeal to a wider American demographic.
One festival attendee, Bill Russell, 66, acknowledged that two decades ago he probably wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with the Moonies. “It was generally viewed as unsavory or off-putting,” said Russell, who was toting a Civil War–style rifle. But he was pleasantly surprised by the freedom festival.
“I found nothing like that in my brief time visiting here,” he added. “I do like the message about empowering the individual. Any organization that makes that its message and means it, I think is worth listening to.”
Moon has also won the affections of local renegade pastor George Cook. “A year and a half ago, I didn’t know him,” Cook told the audience before introducing Pastor Moon. “Now, apparently, I’m a Moonie.”
Cook’s speech was fiery and vaguely threatening. “I just want to say one thing to Joe Biden, to Beto O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren — Pocahontas — and all the rest of them who have come out proudly to say that I’m gonna have to give up my AR-15, and my AK-47, and my other AR-15,” he bellowed. “The bad news is, when you come to get that rifle, the barrel is going to be damned hot!” ‘Succession’ meets ‘Righteous Gemstones’
When Rev. Moon died in 2012, he left behind his widow, Hak Ja Han, and 10 children. Sean Moon, the youngest son, claims his father crowned him three times as his heir and successor. But Hak Ja Han was under the impression that she was expected to take the reins.
So the younger Moon and his mother met at the family-owned Cheong Jeong Peace Palace about an hour from Seoul, South Korea, to iron out their dispute. What happened next isn’t entirely clear, but it definitely didn’t go well.
Moon claims that his mother “declared herself as God” and essentially banished him from the church. Years later he’d accuse her of rewriting his father’s theology with satanic overtones.
“She was taking the position of what’s described in the Bible as the ‘Harlot of Babylon’ position,” Moon said of his mother, before adding, “That doesn’t mean I see her as a prostitute.”
(A representative of the Unification Church says that Hak Ja Han continues “the legacy work” of “bringing people of different cultures, religions, and nations together through interfaith and intercultural dialogue.)
Sean and his family moved from New York to Pennsylvania, where, with the support of his brother Justin of Kahr Arms, he eventually formed the Rod of Iron Ministries.
Moonies were left with two choices: Stay with the church that many of them had belonged to for decades and that some were even born into, or defect. Hundreds, if not thousands, agreed that the younger Moon was his father’s rightful heir and took a big leap of faith. Following Pastor Moon also meant welcoming guns into their spiritual life.
One man in the midst of that transition was Johann Hobl, 69, who traveled from Vienna to attend the festival. Last year, heeding Moon’s call to take up arms, Hobl underwent Austria’s lengthy process to obtain a semi-automatic rifle.
Dressed in traditional Austrian garb of suede britches and a jaunty green Alpine hat, Hobl said, “It was new for me to think about guns. Now I see it’s something that has much to do — actually, much, much to do with the Bible.”
And Chad Johnson, a 30-year-old from New Jersey, shot his very first gun during the Freedom Festival: an AR-15. His parents were married by the Unification Church, and he was one of the couples married at the Rod of Iron Ministries’ first mass wedding last year.
“It was interesting with all those guns there,” Johnson recalled of his wedding day. “But really it’s the love, a loving atmosphere…. I think the thing with the guns is more about freedom and rights.” Rewriting history
Pastor Sean Moon and his brother Justin claim that their father was an avid hunter and a passionate supporter of Second Amendment rights. Sean Moon told VICE News that the children received lessons in gun safety when they were as young as 5 or 6. They also point to the fact that their father owned a company that manufactured weapons for the Korean military to argue that guns have always been a part of the church — even if people didn’t know it at the time.
But representatives from the Unification Church say that the brothers are rewriting history.
“It is blatantly untrue to say that firearms were an important part of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's life,” said Nancy Jubb, who runs communications for the church. She also said she was unable to confirm that the children received formal firearms training, but added that their early exposure to guns may have stemmed from the fact that Rev. Moon’s security detail were armed.
“Firearms have never been a part of our religious practices or beliefs. Sean suddenly involving them in his ministry, which he started on his own, doesn’t reflect the Unification Church at all,” said Jubb. “It also begs the question — the fact that his organization is financed by his brother, who has a gun company just up the road, conveniently.”
She added, “I think the most concerning thing is that it’s such an angry ministry. That, combined with the firearms, is alarming.”
The Moon family feud triggered a rift within the wider Moonie community, one that continues to play out on social media. The Facebook page for Pastor Moon’s church is full of his followers squabbling with his mother’s loyalists. One person from the original church at the freedom festival likened Pastor Moon’s teachings to those espoused by the Branch Davidians, the religious sect at the center of the Waco Siege in 1993 that left dozens dead. “It will all end up very badly with blood on the floor, like a Tarantino-type movie ending.”
Much like his father’s business empire, the financial inner workings of Pastor Moon’s church are opaque. Entry to the Freedom Festival was free, and Moon said the event was bankrolled by donations from Moon’s “supporters.”
Both the church and Kahr Arms are associated with the Young Jin Moon Charitable Foundation, named for their oldest brother, who died from a heart attack in 2008. The most recently available tax records, from 2016, show that the foundation had nearly $10 million in the bank.
But Pastor Moon shrugged off the notion that his church’s embrace of guns was a ruse to financially benefit his brother’s firearms manufacturing company.
“My brother was already top 10 in the industry long before I was preaching about the rod of iron,” said Moon, “so me talking about it doesn’t really increase his sales.” ‘They call us Moonies’
On Sunday morning, the second day of the festival, festival-goers held a brief rally where they learned to sing “God Bless the USA,” waving Trump flags, Japanese flags, and Korean flags. They then left the main festival arena, headed across a field and up a hill into the forest, where Pastor Moon had organized an intimate gathering with his supporters — away from the outsiders of the church.
With a Japanese translator by his side and with a Kahr Arms baseball cap perched on his bald head, Pastor Moon talked and joked in Korean for an hour. The meeting was part sermon, part reassurance that church members needn’t be concerned about the local gun lovers who were at the festival.
“So... you see the American citizens holding guns,” said Moon, pretending to point a gun around. “But it's not like they’ll shoot at you saying, ‘You Asian guys!’"
“In America, they call us Moonies. They think Moonies are crazy,” Moon continued. “But they came here to see we hate Communism, we want to protect our families, we want to protect our marriage, and we want to protect babies from abortion. And we want everyone in the world to have a rod of iron.”
Seeing and hearing Pastor Moon speak in Korean seemed to soothe many in the audience who may have been feeling uneasy about the unfamiliar environment. “When he speaks Korean, it’s uncanny: his mannerisms, his voice, how much he’s like his father,” one onlooker remarked. “Much more so than when he speaks English, it’s as if his father was here.”
By Monday morning it was business as usual for the church, which had organized a mass wedding-blessing ceremony to commemorate the date that Rev. Moon escaped a labor camp in North Korea.
Six white buses rumbled through the small town of Newfoundland, and pulled around the white clapboard side of the Sanctuary church. Hundreds of visitors got out, the men in dark suits, the women in shades of white. At the entrance of the church, volunteers were zip-tying worshippers’ AR-15s to secure them. A marquee was set up outside, with televisions, to accommodate the additional guests who’d flown in.
Seven young couples to be married that day were sitting inside the church as family members fussed over them. Most of the audience members — those who’d been blessed by Rev. Moon or Pastor Moon’s church — wore crowns. They ranged from cheap plastic to intricately designed tiaras with pearl inlay, some of which were sold at the Freedom Festival.
After a prayer in English and Korean, “Agnus Dei” blared from speakers. Twenty men and women wearing pink silk tunics over white robes, and holding AR-15’s, formed an aisle. The color guard walked through, followed by Pastor Moon and his wife, both in robes, capes and ornate crowns. Behind them walked his brother Justin, wearing white gloves, a black suit, and his Kahr Arms baseball cap. His wife, in a cream-colored suit and gloves, carried the gold AR-15, and set it down by the altar.
Pastor Moon invited attendees to remove their “rods of iron” from their cases. The whole ceremony lasted an hour, and after a brief mix-up with the wedding rings, the seven couples were sprinkled with holy water and declared married.
Outside the church after the ceremony, kids in their Sunday best played on the lawn, elderly women gossiped in Korean, and newly-weds walked around holding hands while volunteers got lunch ready. For a moment, it was easy to forget about the pageantry of the event, the sea of crowns — and all those AR-15s.
Cover: Pastor Sean Moon in his office. (Photo by Roberto Daza)
Video and additional reporting by Robert Daza and Jika Gonzalez. Edited by Michael Shade.
One of two men charged in the 2004 killing of the self-proclaimed “chief apostle” of the infamous religious cult known as “The Work” that was led by the late “Brother Julius” pleaded no contest Thursday to conspiracy to commit murder and is expected to cooperate in the prosecution of his co-defendant.
Sorek Minery, 43, of Burlington, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison at his sentencing, which will not occur until after the trial of Rudy Hannon, 74, who prosecutors say conspired with Minery to kill Paul Sweetman, who was second in command of the cult and called himself its chief apostle. Cult leader Julius Schacknow, who called himself Brother Julius, died in 1996 at age 71.
New Britain State’s Attorney Brian W. Preleski told New Britain Superior Court Judge Maureen M. Keegan that following Schacknow’s death, “there was a struggle within the cult for power between Joanne Sweetman and the victim.” Joanne Sweetman and Paul Sweetman lived as husband and wife, but there is no evidence they ever married. She conspired to have Paul Sweetman killed so that she could control the cult’s businesses, Preleski said.
“Mrs. Sweetman enlisted co-defendant Rudy Hannon, who is the biological son of Brother Julius, to eliminate Paul Sweetman,” Preleski told the judge. "That was in large part motivated by profit.” Joanne Sweetman died in 2011.
Minery and Hannon, who were both cult members, agreed in July 2004 to kill Paul Sweetman, Preleski said.
Minery, in a confession to New Britain detectives, said that Hannon worked for months to convince him that Paul Sweetman “needed to be killed because he was hurting his wife, Joanne Sweetman and that God would have wanted them to kill [Paul] Sweetman.” according to the warrant for Minery’s arrest.
During those conversations, Minery told police, he and Hannon decided the “murder should not involve a gun or knife because it was too messy,” according to the warrant.
Minery said he respected Joanne Sweetman and “looked up to her as a high religious figure” and that “because of this, he began believing Rudy Hannon and believed Paul Sweetman needed to die.”
On or about July 21, 2004, Paul Sweetman, who was 70, was beaten to death inside Blue Ridge Construction, Minery’s Plainville-based business. Police say both men worked together in killing Sweetman, but each has pointed the finger at the other in statements to New Britain detectives.
The case was dormant until 2016, when New Britain police were able to link a human leg found 12 years earlier at Shuttle Meadow Country Course to the Sweetman missing persons case in Southington. Detectives identified suspects and obtained warrants for Hannon and Minery. Both were arrested July 31, 2018.
Minery told police he arrived at the business to find Hannon standing over Sweetman’s body. Minery said Hannon, who had a key to the shop, asked for his help in disposing of the body.
They stripped Sweetman down to his underwear then loaded him into a freezer. Three to four days later, Minery told police, he returned to the shop to dismember the body with an electric saw.
He then put the body parts in garbage bags and placed them back in the freezer, he told police. He said he buried the head and legs in a shallow grave on land near the New Britain reservoir, and buried the torso and arms beneath the shed of his New Britain home, then poured concrete over them.
Hannon tells a different tale. Initially, he told police he delivered Sweetman to Minery’s shop and that Minery killed him. He claimed he thought Minery was only going to beat Sweetman, but admitted he helped put the body in the freezer.
Hannon, in an interview with New Britain police at the Nevada prison where he was serving a violation of probation sentence, eventually admitted that he watched Minery severely beat Sweetman until Sweetman vomited a large amount of blood, then fell back flat on the floor and folded his arms across his chest.
He said he then helped Minery load the body into the freezer. He said he believed Sweetman was still alive. Minery then placed a heavy bag or box of tools on top of the freezer to prevent Sweetman from climbing out, Hannon told police.
Joanne Sweetman reported her husband missing on July 24, 2004 and told police she’d last seen him on July 21. She explained her husband’s disappearance, according to a former cult member, by saying he had received a vision from Brother Julius to travel the world and to proselytize.
Sweetman’s killing might never have been discovered, but for a coyote that dug up one of his legs and dragged it onto Shuttle Meadow Country Club, where it was found Aug. 27, 2004.
New Britain police worked to determine whose leg it was, but got a break in April 2016 when they learned Southington police had an open missing persons case for Paul Sweetman. A detective obtained DNA from Sweetman’s son and the state lab determined the leg was from Paul Sweetman.
New Britain police searched the ground beneath the shed at Minery’s former home in New Britain and found a headless torso and arms. The medical examiner noted the extremities had been removed with clean cuts. The state lab determined the torso and arms were Sweetman’s remains.
Schacknow called himself the “sinful messiah," saying he had to sin to know what it was like. He was accused of having a voracious sexual appetite and of grooming girls and young women in the cult for sex.
Schacknow’s description of himself progressed from prophet to the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and finally to God almighty.
He operated in central Connecticut for more than a quarter-century, ever since he moved from New Jersey and proclaimed at an outdoor revival in Trumbull in 1970 that he was Jesus Christ reincarnated.
Several hundred idealistic young people, hungry for spiritual direction, flocked to the guidance of the long-haired, bearded preacher who wore a white robe and had mesmerizing green eyes.
He set up a base in Meriden and commanded national attention as a cult leader until, in 1976, he stopped making public appearances and turned to commercial enterprise.
Driven by what they saw as a holy mission to advance what he called The Work, Schacknow’s followers, numbering perhaps 300 at the cult’s peak, oversaw the building of an expanding, multimillion-dollar real estate and construction business.
The businesses all collapsed with the real estate downturn at the end of the 1980s, leaving behind a financial shamble and desertion by scores of followers.
Schacknow reportedly died at the home of one of the seven women in central Connecticut who he said were his unofficial wives
Absent from Scientology publications since his 2017 divorce, Bob Duggan had a lot to say. He tells the Times he’s still a dedicated member and donor.
Tracey McManus Tampa Bay Times November 22, 2019
For the last several years, the man who has given more money to Church of Scientology causes than anyone else has been conspicuously missing from Scientology circles.
Every year, unfailingly, Bob and Trish Duggan could be seen accepting awards at donor events and smiling in church magazines documenting the affairs.
That changed in 2017, when court records show the Duggans divorced. At that year’s annual banquet honoring top Scientology donors, only Trish Duggan appeared to accept her trophy from Scientology leader David Miscavige.
Scientology watchers suspected Bob Duggan, a venture capitalist, might have left the organization after four decades of dedication and millions of dollars given.
Turns out, Duggan says he is just avoiding the spotlight.
In a phone interview with the Tampa Bay Times this week, he said he remains a devoted Scientologist despite avoiding church events since his divorce.
He declined to give an updated estimate of how much he has donated to Scientology to date, but said the number far exceeds the $360 million figure he cited to Forbes magazine in 2016.
“I’m not looking for bragging rights,” Bob Duggan said, speaking while on a trip in Costa Rica. “I read something from (Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard) every day and I apply it all throughout my life. I’m not running around with a badge saying, ‘Step aside, I’m a Scientologist.’”
He added: "I’m probably one of the wealthier people that have created more wealth on the planet than few others, and people don’t know my name. I’m not here for people to know my name.”
Duggan became a billionaire in 2013 when he was chief executive officer of Pharmacyclics Inc., and he led the team to develop a successful experimental cancer drug.
He sold the biotech firm to AbbVie in 2015, earning $3.5 billion in pretax cash and stock, Forbes reported. The magazine now puts Duggan’s net worth at $2 billion.
Previously in his career, he made hundreds of millions of dollars by investing in up-and-coming businesses and selling them when they took off — from a bakery chain to computer companies, according to a 2013 Bloomberg profile.
He met his future wife in the 1960s while they were both studying at UC Santa Barbara. The pair later got involved in Scientology in the 1970s.
Duggan told the Times he credits Scientology courses and Hubbard’s teachings for his vast success.
“Companies I started have generated value of over $100 billion,” he said. “I don’t remember doing that before (Scientology) … It’s there to help the able become more able. For me it worked.”
The Duggans’ contributions have helped fund various Scientology “humanitarian missions” and construction of buildings. They also helped finance the Freewinds, a cruise ship that is the only place that disseminates Scientology’s highest level of spiritual attainment.
He said he has contributed “deca millions” to L. Ron Hubbard Hall, a 3,600-seat auditorium proposed to be built on Court Street just south of Scientology’s seven-story Flag building in Clearwater. He declined to give an exact amount he has donated to the construction, which has not yet begun.
Duggan said he was not aware of his ex-wife’s recent offer to the City of Clearwater to fund the construction and operation of an art museum on the old City Hall property. He said he helped finance the creation of the Imagine Museum, an art glass collection Trish Duggan opened in downtown St. Petersburg in 2018.
Bob Duggan still owns an office building on Druid Road in Clearwater, where he runs his Genius Inc., a business that trains employers on “the 24 characteristics of geniuses.”
He said he lives “everywhere,” from Clearwater to Costa Rica to Europe.
When asked about the state of Scientology today, as the church continues to face allegations of exploitation and human rights abuses, Duggan praised Miscavige’s leadership for expanding Scientology.
“Look at the facilities, you look at buildings, you look at all the good will projects,” Duggan said. “I just look at the balance of the good things they’ve done.”
“He stands up for himself," Duggan said of Miscavige. “Is he feisty? Ok you look at that. But we have to weigh everything. I’m sure if we dug deep enough, we’d find things in each other’s lives, like yeah, this is a mistake."
In a dark club in Downtown Brooklyn, surrounded by more than 100 people, Agathina Ginoue Nozy took a sip of Haitian rum. She stood near an altar stacked with skulls, lit candles, cigars, rum, coffee and bowls filled with charred salt fish, boiled plantains, cassava and piman (spicy peppers).
“You typically drink white liquor during Fet Gede, but if there is none you drink rum with no ice to feel the heat,” Ms. Nozy said. “Gede is a hot thing.”
Her face was painted to look hollow, like a skull, and she wore a dark skeleton bodysuit and a black veil. With her fingers wrapped around a smoking pipe and an austere look on her face, Ms. Nozy had become the embodiment of Maman Brigitte, a Haitian lwa (or goddess) of death.
Voodoo believers, Haitians and curious partygoers gathered last Saturday night to celebrate Fet Gede, or the Festival of the Dead.
Similar to Mexico’s Day of the Dead, Gede invites revelers to dress up, eat, drink and dance to honor the lwas and the ancestors who came before them. It is one of the most anticipated celebrations in the Haitian voodoo religious calendar.
Ms. Nozy, a 29-year-old Haitian immigrant who was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, moved to New York City just before she turned 17. As someone who believes in voodoo, she looks forward to the celebration each year, but acknowledges that many people, including Haitians, lack an understanding of what it is.
They believe that the religion “has something to do with black magic,” Ms. Nozy said. “Voodoo is part of us. It’s who we are. It’s the culture. Voodoo is the food that we eat. It’s the language that we speak.”
This means that the event of Fet Gede can be somewhat misunderstood, too.
“I know a lot of Haitians that dress up their kids for Halloween. But when it comes to Gede they say I am not interested in that thing,” Ms. Nozy said.
“Our generation is more open-minded when it comes to the voodoo religion,” said Ms. Nozy, who was part of a large crew at the party that night.
At the club, guests were dressed in the official Gede colors — black, purple, and white — and danced to rhythmic drumming. The room was thick with smoke from incense and cigars.
The night kicked off with a rum tasting at the altar, which helped guests get in the Gede mood. As Ms. Nozy and her crew danced, one man splattered Florida Water — a perfume used in voodoo for spiritual cleansing and protection — over their heads, leaving a sweet citrus and floral scent that covered the room. At times, Ms. Nozy and others would scream, throw their hands in the air or slam a wooden cane into the ground.
Fet Gede is observed typically in early November, although it can be celebrated all month.
Haitian voodoo is a religion that emerged out of institutional slavery.
Starting in the mid-1600s, many Africans who had been brought against their will to the Island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) arrived with their own spiritual traditions, eventually integrating them with those of the indigenous people of the island. As a result, voodoo, which means “spirit,” was born.
Voodoo, often spelled Vodou, is still regarded by many Haitians as the spiritual source of the country’s strength, healing and resilience.
Mr. Alexis said that voodoo isn’t something he practices or follows with a strict set of rules; it is more of a connection. He emphasized the importance of working to help Haitians reconnect with voodoo through events like this one.
“Whenever somebody asks us questions we always answer them,” he said. “We want to bring the Haitian way back to Haitians.”
Folks could be seen taking shots of liquor and eating different Haitian dishes, including griot (fried pork) or banan peze with pikliz (plantains with spicy pickled cabbage).
There was a tarot card reader and a face painter. At one point there was even a trivia contest, testing partygoers on their knowledge of Gede trivia and traditions.
“This is something that our ancestors left for us and we need to cherish it,” Ms. Nozy said. “Even though you’re not in Haiti, if you’re living in a foreign country, the culture is still alive. And it’s in you.”
Robert W. Wood Contributor Forbes November 14, 2019
Taxes
I focus on taxes and litigation.
With his new album, Jesus Is King, Kanye West has turned more and more religious. He may have been toying with bankruptcy a few years ago, but today, his fashion and music empires seem to be raking in the cash. True, Kanye isn't on the Forbes billionaires list just yet, but perhaps a name change to Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West might change that. But could he actually form his own church? It isn’t a silly question. Since the beginning of 2019, his Sunday pop-up Sunday Service seems sort of church-like. True, applying for a trademark might sound rather commercial, but still. His Sunday Service is music-focused, but includes occasional informal prayers.
In that sense, a Kanye founds a church headline might not be hyperbole, and the Church of Kanye might not be a crazy idea. Just think of all those tax advantages! For generations, churches have been exempt from federal and state income taxes. What’s more, all 50 states and the District of Columbia also give them a pass on property taxes. Ever since our founding fathers, it’s hands-off for federal income taxes, property taxes and more. We get tax deductions when we donate to churches, and that encourages them to grow bigger and wealthier. The Catholic Church in particular is a treasure trove. In the U.S., churches reap a vast array of tax advantages, including special rules limiting IRS authority to audit a church.
But when you come right down to it, what constitutes a legitimate church? With church status being so desirable, how does the IRS police it? The term “church” isn’t even defined in the tax code, although the IRS does have a tax guide for churches and religious organizations. The IRS looks for:
Distinct legal existence;
Recognized creed and form of worship;
Definite and distinct ecclesiastical government;
Formal code of doctrine and discipline;
Distinct religious history;
Membership not associated with any other church or denomination;
Organization of ordained ministers;
Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed study;
Literature of its own;
Established places of worship;
Regular congregations;
Regular religious services;
Sunday schools for religious instruction of the young; and
Schools for preparing its members.
The IRS generally considers all the facts and circumstances in assessing whether an organization qualifies. It is part of the tax basics for exempt organizations. But unlike other exempt organizations, a church does not even need to apply for tax exemption. The church can just operate that way without the IRS’s explicit blessing. Most churches do ask the IRS for exemption, but they are not actually required to. This is just part of the proof that for a tax-exempt organization, church status is truly the gold standard.
That is one reason the Church of Scientology fought against the IRS for so very long. After many years of sparring with the IRS over whether Scientology was a church, there were numerous lawsuits and eventually the IRS ruled that Scientology was a church. But not everyone was happy. The New York Times claimed that the IRS reversed 30 years of precedent to grant Scientology Section 501(c)(3) status. As for Kanye, if he wants to go down this road, I’m betting it wouldn’t be that hard for his tax people to put it together.
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) – Tuesday the U.S. Department of Justice announced federal charges against a Bryan County man and his wife.
According to officials, Michael Wilson, 37, faces charges including Coercion and Enticement of a Minor to Engage in Sexual Activity. Michael’s spouse, Lori Wilson, a/k/a “Loretta Lightningbolt,” 34, faces a separate federal indictment with Tampering with a Victim or Witness.
“They talk through instant messaging apps, Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, and some of the dating apps. People misrepresent their age on there, as well, but we do have a lot of people who intentionally seek out young children and adolescents. It’s just so very common.”
TRINITY INGRAM JONES, THE COTTAGE
According to court documents and testimony, Michael Wilson is accused of attempting to coerce multiple minor victims to engage in sexual activity from 2017 through early 2019. After the minors reported the information to police, the indictment says Lori Wilson persuaded one of the victims to “withhold information regarding… reports of sexual assault.”
Trinity Ingram Jones is a medical forensic examiner at The Cottage, a sexual abuse center in Richmond Hill. Ingram-Jones told News 3 in 2019 alone, she has seen 72 children for medical exams, not including other services. She said the trauma from a case like this requires long-term care.
“Sometimes if you tell a child something over and over again, children and adolescents, there’s suggestibility there. They can convince them that it never happened.”
TRINITY INGRAM JONES, THE COTTAGE
The indictment states Lori Wilson attempted to persuade the victim that the minor’s experiences were “psychic visions” or “dreams.”
The charges against Michael Wilson carry possible sentences of up to life in prison.
Lori Wilson could face a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, along with up to five years of supervised release.
Alarmed parents say Spac Nation, which the Conservative party has embraced, operates ‘like a cult’
Dan Sabbagh and Damien Gayle
The Guardian
November 12, 2019
Parents and former members have accused an evangelical church operating in south London linked to the Conservative party of forcing young members into handing over thousands of pounds and pressing them into debt.
Spac Nation says it focuses on disenfranchised black youth, taking them away from gang culture, but alarmed mothers say it is operating “like a cult” and that pastors encourage its members to take out multiple loans for the church.
The mother of one member told the Guardian that her 20-year-old daughter had given £13,000 to the church in three months, with the money raised from her student loan, personal loans and loans on businesses she had set up with the help of pastors.
“She must have made about 30 loan applications,” said the mother, who asked not to be named because she was concerned about her daughter’s safety. “For some of them, she was using my details as a guarantor. She was even using me as a guarantor for other people’s loans. That was the one time I was glad my credit was bad.”
The controversial church has adopted the local Conservatives, supporting the party in the marginal Croydon Central seat. Last week, one of its pastors, Jayde Edwards, unsuccessfully stood for the party in a council byelection.
The Conservatives have been keen to embrace the church. Edwards sat one place away from Boris Johnson during the Conservative party conference and its lead pastor Tobi Adegboyega was also present.
The Charity Commission said “a number of serious allegations have been raised with us about the charity Spac Nation” and a regulatory compliance case “examining governance matters at the charity” was ongoing.
“We are assessing the charity’s response to the action plan – and any new evidence of concern – in considering our next regulatory steps,” a spokesperson added. Claims against the church were first reported by HuffPost UK last week.
Steve Reed, who is hoping to be re-elected as Labour MP for Croydon North, met police on Monday to discuss the allegations, but the church says it is the victim of “a political smear campaign” and there is no evidence of wrongdoing. The Metropolitan police declined to comment.
The mothers of two young women who are now pastors in the church told the Guardian their daughters had joined the church around the time that they went to university and had been pressurised into handing over their student loans.
Members are encouraged to “sow seed” or donate to the organisation. One showed a bank statement, seen by the Guardian, revealing that her daughter had paid out her entire student loan instalment on the day that she had received it to an account that her mother said was connected to the church.
The second mother said that correspondence arriving at her house indicated that her daughter had taken out other borrowing. “After that, we started having mail coming to our home in my daughter’s name calling for payments on loans,” she said.
The Guardian has seen a sheaf of letters from credit card companies, banks and debt collection agencies, demanding repayment on loans totalling around £6,000. “That’s just the ones we know about,” the mother said.
Spac Nation is a black majority church whose Sunday services attract up to 1,000 people, mostly aged under 30. Accounts lodged at the Charity Commission show it had income of £1.17m and expenditure of £1.19m in 2018.
It borrows the imagery of urban music and the terminology of gang culture to attract young members. Some members live in shared “trap [Take Risks And Prosper] houses” rented by the church.
Tobi Adegboyega has been living in a luxury property on a private estate in Surrey. Photograph: Steve Finn/Steve Finn Photography
Its leader, Adegboyega, leads an affluent lifestyle and has been living in a luxury property on a private estate in the Surrey stockbroker belt where residents reported seeing him driving Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce cars.
Both mothers described the effect of Spac Nation on their daughters as like that of a cult, explaining that the girls had become alienated from them, as well as their siblings and friends who were not involved in the church.
A WhatsApp chat between one woman and a pastor, obtained by her mother and seen by the Guardian, showed how a senior member demanded money.
A separate document showed how it appeared the same woman had adopted a secretary role for a “line” of congregants, keeping tabs on how much money each was contributing, how they were getting it and suggestions to give them on where to obtain more.
Daniel Ogoloma, a Spac Nation spokesperson, said that the church’s work in the community “has helped change many lives, and has helped reduce violence”. Critics, such as Reed, were making allegations that “cannot be substantiated with any proof or concrete evidence” and that “they are causing a stir by spreading hearsay”.
He added: “We understand also that parents and their children can have issues ranging from financial issues to emotional issues. As a church, we deal with a lot of these and we can only give advice to them and cannot force any solutions.”
Jayde Edwards, centre, with Shaun Bailey, the Conservative mayoral candidate, left, and Mario Creatura, far right. Photograph: -
Vilanda Nagyte, a former member of the church, publicly condemned the church last week on Twitter, saying pastor had opened two business accounts in her name and rented out a “trap house” in her name.
Reed said he was “inundated” with complaints after he began to raise concerns about Spac Nation.
“Former members tell me it operates like a cult, targeting vulnerable young people, isolating them away from their families in houses they control, then pressuring them to take out multiple bank loans and hand over the money,” he said.
Edwards was nominated with the support of Mario Creatura, a former Downing Street aide who is the party’s candidate for the marginal Croydon Central in the forthcoming general election. In the picture of Edwards and Johnson at last party conference, Creatura appears a row behind.
Dozens of Spac Nation members turned out to support Edwards and the Conservatives in the early phases of the council byelection campaign, although Spac Nation members were not present on election day last week.
Reed said he was concerned that Creatura, who has been frequently pictured with Edwards in recent weeks, and the Conservatives had “not performed basic background checks” on Spac Nation, before allowing them to act as leafleters and canvassers in Croydon. Creatura declined to comment.
The two mothers said several other mothers from the same community had told them their children have been recruited into Spac Nation. “Our belief is because 98% of the congregation are black children that is why the police have done nothing,” said one. “If it was white children in this group they would shut it down right now.”
Morton Myers says he’s not an active member. But with family on Scientology’s staff, he says he’s uniquely positioned to find middle ground with the church.
Tracey McManus Tampa Bay Times November 12, 2019
CLEARWATER — When Morton Myers introduces himself as the latest mayoral hopeful, he fields questions about Scientology the same way he did as a child growing up in Clearwater.
Myers, 40, said he’s always been “neutral” on religion. But his parents were dedicated Scientologists, having spent much of their adult lives in the Sea Org, the church’s military-style workforce. They left the religious order in 1983, when Myers was 3, to raise a family.
He lived an active childhood in the Wood Valley and Oak Acres neighborhoods, camping with the Boy Scouts, dirt biking with his brothers and attending public schools.
About a year after his mother died in 1999 from melanoma, Myers’ father returned to the Sea Org. His youngest brother, then 12, joined too. His other brother joined a few years later at age 20.
Myers chose a different life. He married his high school sweetheart and blended with her family, a clan he described as “devoted Christians.” He has run a slew of businesses over the years and now owns the Dairy Kurl ice cream shop and Tampa Bay Pawn, both on Gulf to Bay Boulevard.
While Myers says he is “not an active member of Scientology,” his family roots in the organization bring a rare, if not unprecedented, dynamic to the mayoral campaign. Throughout Scientology’s history in Clearwater — from its arrival in 1975 with written plans to take over, to the recent flood of commercial real estate purchases downtown — no candidate for City Council has spoken as openly about having ties to the church.
Myers said he decided to run for mayor in the March election over concerns about the city’s proposed spending on Imagine Clearwater, a $64 million plan to transform the waterfront and revitalize the depressed downtown. He said he wants to keep three key city-owned waterfront parcels out of the hands of developers.
His priority is to be a voice to neighborhoods outside of downtown that he sees as overlooked.
“I’m not here to campaign for Scientology," Myers said. "I have nothing to do with their agenda. I’m actually here for the people of Clearwater.”
But Myers said his family’s involvement in Scientology gives him an insight no other candidate could provide when dealing with the church.
In October, the Tampa Bay Times reported that companies tied to Scientology spent $103 million since 2017 buying nearly 100 commercial properties around the downtown waterfront and Scientology’s international spiritual headquarters. The push has given the church decisive control over the future of the retail district.
Myers said his background positions him to be able to communicate with the church about its plans.
“I think they might actually talk to me because of my relations,” Myers said. “I don’t find myself as an ally, but I don’t think I’d be looked at as an enemy.”
Just like when he was a child growing up in Clearwater, Myers has had to explain a complicated balance to voters: He is not a practicing Scientologist, but he maintains that parishioners like his father and brothers “are just trying to be happy.” He said he has read news reports over the years about alleged human trafficking, abuse and financial exploitation but has never seen it firsthand. Sign up for our Daystarter newsletter
“With the Church of Scientology, you have a group of people that are trying to do their own thing and they are protected by the First Amendment," he said. “There’s been a lot of prejudice in this city towards their group, so I can understand why they would do things on their own.”
Myers is the fourth candidate to announce a run for the mayor’s office, which is one of five equal seats on the City Council in the city manager form of government. He joins environmental advocate Elizabeth “Sea Turtle” Drayer, former mayor Frank Hibbard and former council member Bill Jonson. Myers has until Friday to submit the required 350 voter petition cards to qualify for the race.
He first ran for City Council in 2013, inspired by a desire to campaign against the Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s proposal to build a new facility on the city-owned downtown bluff property. He dropped out two months after filing paperwork to focus on his businesses.
This time, Myers said he’s advocating on similar ground. While he supports Imagine Clearwater’s goal to improve the waterfront for the public, he disapproves of spending $64 million.
The plan calls for developers to build housing with ground-floor retail on the former Harborview and City Hall sites. Myers said he opposes leasing or selling the bluff properties to any developer.
Instead, he is proposing a city-run community center for the Harborview site. Myers said the city should build a parking garage on its 1.4 acre vacant lot across the street from City Hall; the aquarium sold the lot to the city in 2017 for $4.25 million after Scientology offered $15 million for the site.
As for the City Hall property, Myers said the city should preserve the building and convert it into an arts center or museum. He also proposes building an on-ramp to the Memorial Causeway Bridge through the City Hall property to re-direct traffic through downtown via Drew Street and Osceola Avenue.
In 2005, the city completed the new bridge to Clearwater Beach that rerouted beach traffic from downtown’s main artery of Cleveland Street to Court and Chestnut streets a few blocks south. Myers considers that move “the final straw that killed downtown” businesses.
“If I could move the bridge back I would,” he said.
Besides working to keep the city’s bluff properties from developers, Myers said he is running to bring more resources to other parts of the city, like shelters and bathrooms in neighborhood parks. He wants to help simplify city codes to make it easier for entrepreneurs to open businesses in long-vacant buildings.
Although Scientology has a policy that forces members to shun family, friends and associates who act against the church, Myers said he would not be influenced by Scientology as mayor.
“We need a new angle," he said. "You get a guy that has seen both sides of the fence and can, you know, have friends on both sides. ... My family is who they are and I am who I am. I’m throwing myself out there. I hope not to get caught up in the crossfire of what feels like a battle downtown.”
TRACEY MCMANUS
Pinellas County Commission, Scientology and Clearwater Reporter
S.A. Hassan (MEd, LMHC, NCC) , M.J. Shah (MA) Freedom of Mind Resource Center Inc., 716 Beacon Street #590443, 02459 Newton, MA, USA b Dare Association, Inc., 234, Huron Avenue, Cambridge, 02138 MA, USA
Received 1st August 2018; accepted 1st March 2019
Summary There is a need to update the legal system to recognize the use of hypnosis and undue influence occurring throughout the world. Extremist groups are deceptively recruiting and indoctrinating people to do terrorist attacks. Human traffickers are grooming and using hypnosis and social influence techniques to create labor and sex slaves. In this paper, a number of key concepts and models will be used to more fully define DSM-5’s Dissociative Disorder 300.15: Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory, along with Robert Jay Lifton and Margaret Singer’s work (1995) are the foundation of the BITE model of mind control (Hassan, 1988). Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional Control are the four overlapping components through which destructive groups bring people to be obedient and compliant to authority. A programmed cult identity is created through a complex social influence process. That false identity dominates real identity. The ethics and morality of undue influence are understood differently. In this paper, we analyze the techniques of breaking down the existing personality and creating a false or pseudo-identity. The Influence Continuum and BITE mind control model and Lifton’s eight criteria for Thought Reform are discussed; Scheflin’s Social Influence Model (2015) is presented as one tool for analyzing undue influence in a forensic and juridical context.
The author, most
recently, of ‘Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of
Political and Religious Zealotry’ selects books on the aftermath of
cataclysm.
Robert Jay Lifton
Commandant of Auschwitz
By
Rudolf Höss
(1959)
1. Despite its lies, inaccuracies and self-serving
distortions, Rudolf Höss’s book, written in 1947 during his trial in
Poland, is, as
Primo Levi
writes in his introduction, “substantially truthful.” Germans
serving in Auschwitz, Höss tells us, were expected to join in the
killing of Jews as their contribution to German society. Höss’s voice is
that of a frustrated bureaucrat bemoaning the incompetence of those
around him. “I lived only for my work,” he writes. He also speaks of
himself as a “fanatical National Socialist” for whom the “extermination
programme seemed to me right” for combatting the danger of “Jewish
supremacy.” He believed that inadequate Nazi leaders failed to live up
to the Führer’s beautiful principles so that true National Socialism was
never realized. Nazism’s malignant normality—fanatical, methodical,
mystical—has never found clearer or more murderous expression.
The aftermath in Hiroshima.
Photo:
Corbis/Getty Images
Hiroshima Diary
By
Michihiko Hachiya
(1955)
2.
Michihiko Hachiya was the director of the Hiroshima Communications
Hospital, located less than a mile from the atomic bomb’s hypocenter.
Despite his multiple injuries, he recorded what he saw in the bomb’s
immediate aftermath. The streets were “deserted except for the dead” and
the barely alive who were “so broken and confused that they moved and
behaved like automatons . . . people who walked in the realm of dreams.”
Many “had no faces.” Hachiya himself came to “consider a family lucky
if it had not lost more than two of its members.” He describes a macabre
scene in which a man came to the hospital and told excitedly of how
Japan had obtained the same mysterious weapon and dropped it on several
major American cities, at which point the ward resounded with
expressions of joy. Emperor Hirohito’s surrender announcement, Hachiya
observes, “produced a greater shock than the bombing of our city.”
Hachiya’s diary contains no general comment about the use of so horrific
an instrument of war—a silence that only seems to deepen its author’s
unspoken warning about the weapons humans have created.
The Black Death of 1348 and 1349
By
Francis Aidan Gasquet
(1893)
3. I came upon this book when searching for
historical parallels to Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. Francis
Aidan Gasquet was a late-19th and early-20th-century Benedictine monk
whose study of the plague included, prominently, the words of its
survivors. He quotes a French physician who stressed that the malady
“stands apart from all those which preceded it or followed it.” Although
Gasquet records some courageous behavior, the overwhelming emphasis is
on a breakdown of the bonds of civilization: “From fear of contagion, no
doctor will visit a sick man . . . neither does a father visit his son,
nor a mother her daughter, nor a brother his brother, nor a son his
father, nor a friend his friend.” Thriving metropolises became ghost
cities. As in Hiroshima, it was impossible to give proper burial to the
dead: “It became necessary to dig trenches, into which the bodies were
put by hundreds, laid in rows as goods packed in a ship.” Gasquet
mentions the religious revival that emerged from recovery, but his book
mostly testifies to another effect of the calamity—the profound
spiritual and moral degradation of those who endured it.
Asylums
By
Erving Goffman
(1961)
4. An Auschwitz survivor I interviewed told me
that there were two kinds of places to which she could never go: dog
pounds and mental hospitals. The former is a killing center, and both
are examples of what the venturesome sociologist Erving Goffman calls a
“total institution,” a place where “a large number of like-situated
individuals . . . together lead an enclosed, formally administrated
round of life.” Goffman did his field work in 1955-56 at St. Elizabeths
Hospital in Washington, D.C., at the time a 7,000-patient mental
hospital, where he investigated the ways in which inmates developed “a
life of their own that becomes meaningful, reasonable, and normal once
you get close to it.” Prisons are also prominent in his examples, as are
a wide variety of military, religious and political organizations. He
views all total institutions as “forcing houses for changing persons.”
Mao II
By
Don DeLillo
(1991)
5T. his novel, celebrated for the confrontation it
stages between writer and terrorist, begins with the mass wedding of
Unification Church members at Yankee Stadium. Here is the all-consuming
vision of “oneness,” with chants for “one language, one word.” Elsewhere
is the oneness of terrorist groups structured around the aura of
Mao Zedong.
As a sympathizer puts it, “there is a longing for Mao that will
sweep the world.” Bill Gray, a writer, is concerned that terrorists are
gaining the upper hand in cultural attention and influence. Yet he is
drawn to them and even considers offering himself as a hostage, though
he’s fully aware that they “carry the old wild-eyed vision, total
destruction and total order.” In contrast, he celebrates his credo of
the novel as “a democratic shout,” with “ambiguities, contradictions,
whispers, hints.” The book ends on a modest note of hope when a
photographer, returning from a photo shoot with a terrorist, looks down
from her balcony in Beirut to see a joyous wedding party emerge from
behind the turret of a tank, and joins in their happy toasts. In Don
DeLillo’s portrait of a world grappling with fanaticism and cultural
breakdown, we find stubborn expressions of openness, life enhancement
and love.
Customers marvelled at my psychic abilities but was that really what was going on when I told their fortune?
The man was agitated, with red-rimmed eyes and clammy skin.
“Help me,” he said. “I’m under a curse.”
At first it was just flickering lights, he said. And then a figure, at the edge of his vision. Now something grabbed his fingers or stroked his arm. There was more – and it was happening more frequently.
“I saw a Catholic priest,” said the man. “But he couldn’t help. Can you?”
Yes, yes I could. I knew exactly what he needed to do.
I was a fortune teller. Every Sunday, I climbed the stairs of an old terrace house in Sydney’s historic Rocks district, to sit in the attic and divine the future. I would read Tarot cards or interpret horoscopes.
As a teenager, I’d devoured a book called Positive Magic. An instruction manual for witches, its central idea was that if you wanted something, and you had good intentions, you just told the universe and magic would happen. Although nothing I wanted (fame, money, hot boyfriend) actually arrived, one thing led to another and I taught myself to read Tarot cards. At the time I was a science student, and just considered it a fun game at parties.
That changed after I took my cards to my part-time job and read them for a colleague during the break. She picked the card for pregnancy, which we laughed about, because she wanted her tubes tied.
A week later she said, “Guess what the doctor told me this morning?”
She was pregnant, and I was officially psychic.
Deciding to develop my gift, I enrolled in a psychic class, where I learned to say the first thing that popped into my head. “Your first thoughts are the most psychic ones, before your rational mind interferes,” said the teacher.
I also learned that all things are connected, and everything is a symbol of something else. Suddenly, I saw signs and omens everywhere.
‘The range of problems faced by people who can afford $50 for fortune telling turned out to be limited: troubles with romance, troubles at work, trouble mustering the courage for a much-needed change.’
‘The range of problems faced by people who can afford $50 for fortune telling turned out to be limited: troubles with romance, troubles at work, trouble mustering the courage for a much-needed change.’
To test my new skills, I volunteered to be a clairvoyant at the spiritualist church. Congregants would place a flower on the table, and the clairvoyants would choose one and “read” it at the microphone. Nervous, the first thing I grabbed was a packet of silver foil. The rose inside had been packed so tightly, its petals were crushed. I didn’t get a single vibe from it, so I just described the symbolism.
“You are feeling battered and bruised,” I said.
Afterwards, a woman approached and said she was a victim of domestic violence, and what should she do?
I was only 19 and had no idea, but my psychic reputation soared. The attention was intoxicating.
Then the universe told me I wasn’t cut out for science, by sending me my second-year results. I dropped out to pursue theatre and also signed up for a one-year course at the Sydney Astrology Centre, a cavernous commercial building in a seedy part of town.
The course began with the meanings of the zodiac, from Aries to Aquarius. Then the luminaries; the sun (what you will become), the moon (what you brought into this life) and planets. After that, how to calculate planetary positions and cast horoscopes.
Although astrologers use Nasa data for their calculations, horoscopes aren’t a true map of the heavens. The Babylonians who invented astrology believed the sun rotated round the Earth; modern astrologers still use Earth-centred charts, as if Copernicus had never existed. That’s only the start of the scientific problems.
With prospects in the gutter, who can blame millennials for turning to the stars? | Nell Frizzell
The astrological meanings themselves derive from a principle called sympathetic magic, where things that look alike are linked together. Mars looks red, so it rules red things like blood. How do you get blood? You cut, so Mars rules surgery and war.
You forecast by combining meanings with planetary movements. Say Saturn, planet of restrictions, is about to transit the First House of self – your life will contract! You’re going to get more responsibilities than usual. Or maybe you’ll be denied the chance to take on more responsibilities. Or maybe a cold, critical person will come into your life. But anyway, it’s a good time to go on a diet.
Astrology is one big word association game.
I loved it, though I was losing interest in other mystical practices. Partly I didn’t have time, because I was now immersed in theatre while working as a temp typist at St Vincent’s, a Catholic hospital. But as I bounced from one department to another, my views changed. I’d understood organised religion to be something between an embarrassment and an evil. Yet as Aids did its dreadful work – this was the 1990s – I watched nuns offer compassionate care to the dying. Christian volunteers checked on derelict men with vomit down their clothes. I became uncomfortably aware that New Agers do not build hospitals or feed alcoholics – they buy self-actualisation at the cash register.
Finally, I was accepted into a music degree and my days filled with classes, my nights with rehearsals. This caused a cash crisis, because I could only do office work during academic holidays. When I saw the ad for a fortune teller, I pounced.
My credentials impressed the man on the counter (“My name is Ron,” he said. “My spirit guide is Blue Star. He’s on the intergalactic committee”) and I was hired.
We charged A$50 an hour, a significant sum at the time, and I wanted to offer value. No fishing for clues from me – I printed a horoscope or laid the cards and started interpreting immediately, intending to dazzle the customer with my insights.
Half the time, though, I couldn’t get a word in. It turned out what most people want is the chance to unload for an hour.
The range of problems faced by people who can afford $50 for fortune telling turned out to be limited: troubles with romance, troubles at work, trouble mustering the courage for a much-needed change. I heard these stories so often I could often guess what the problem was the moment someone walked in. Heartbroken young men, for example, talk about it to psychics, because it’s less risky than telling their friends. Sometimes I’d mischievously say, “Let her go. She’s not worth it,” as soon as one arrived. Once I heard, “Oh my God, oh my GOD!” as an amazed guy fell backwards down the stairs.
I also learned that intelligence and education do not protect against superstition. Many customers were stockbrokers, advertising executives or politicians, dealing with issues whose outcomes couldn’t be controlled. It’s uncertainty that drives people into woo, not stupidity, so I’m not surprised millennials are into astrology. They grew up with Harry Potter and graduated into a precarious economy, making them the ideal customers.
‘Intelligence and education do not protect against superstition.’
‘Intelligence and education do not protect against superstition.’ Photograph: Alamy
What broke the spell for me was, oddly, people swearing by my gift. Some repeat customers claimed I’d made very specific predictions, of a kind I never made. It dawned on me that my readings were a co-creation – I would weave a story and, later, the customer’s memory would add new elements. I got to test this theory after a friend raved about a reading she’d had, full of astonishingly accurate predictions. She had a tape of the session, so I asked her to play it.
The clairvoyant had said none of the things my friend claimed. Not a single one. My friend’s imagination had done all the work.
Yet sometimes I could be uncannily accurate – wasn’t that proof I was psychic? One Sunday, I went straight from work to a party, before I’d had time to shuck off my psychic persona. A student there mentioned she wasn’t sure what to specialize in – photography, graphic design or maybe industrial design?
“Do photography,” I said.
She looked at me, wide-eyed. “How did you know?” she said, explaining photography was her real love, but her parents didn’t approve.
I couldn’t say, “because my third eye is open”, so I reflected for a moment. Then it hit me. “You sounded happier when you said ‘photography’,” I said. My psychic teacher was right – the signals we pick up before conscious awareness kicks in can be accurate and valuable.
I don’t even believe in astrology, so why am I addicted to this horoscope app? | Stephanie Convery
Well, maybe I wasn’t psychic, but it didn’t matter. It was just entertainment, after all, until the cursed man came in. The one who’d seen the Catholic priest.
“Get to a doctor,” I told him. “Now.”
That very week, I’d typed letters for a neurologist who specialized in brain diseases. Some of those letters had documented strikingly similar symptoms to this man.
“Are you saying I’m crazy?” he said, his hands balled.
“No,” I reassured him. “But Catholic priests know what they’re doing. If he couldn’t help, this isn’t a curse.”
That made the man angrier.
“You’re a fraud!” he shouted, and stormed downstairs to demand his money back.
The encounter shook me, badly. Shortly afterwards, I packed my astrology books and Tarot cards away for good.
I can still make the odd forecast, though. Here’s one: the venture capital pouring into astrology apps will create a fortune telling system that works, because humans are predictable. As people follow the advice, the apps’ predictive powers will increase, creating an ever-tighter electronic leash. But they’ll be hugely popular – because if you sprinkle magic on top, you can sell people anything.
The killing of three women and six children is a brutal epilogue to a forgotten exodus.
Washington Post
Michael S. Rosenwald
November 5, 2019
They refused to bend to the will of Congress. So the Mormons set off for Mexico by horse and wagon, their bags packed with dried fruit and baked goods, their belief in polygamy unshakable.
It was 1885. That year, Mark Twain published the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” A French ship delivered the Statue of Liberty to New York City. A skyscraper went up in Chicago. And the U.S. government had just outlawed polygamy, plural marriage that critics equated with slavery.
To avoid arrest, hundreds, then thousands, of Mormons fled to land purchased by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Chihuahua desert, the site of a brutal ambush Monday of a fundamentalist Mormon family. At least nine people — three women and six children — were killed.
Polygamy was eventually renounced by the church. But for Mormons, the colonies established in Mexico represent an important chapter in church lore — an event, as one historian described it, that “constituted the last great effort of Mormonism to retain its peculiar nineteenth-century integrity by physical flight from an unfriendly environment.”
One of the families that made the trek to Mexico was the Romney family, including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s grandfather Gaskell Romney. His only wife gave birth there to Mitt’s father, George Romney, who, like his son, ran for president of the United States. (Mitt’s great-grandfather Miles Park Romney had multiple wives.)
Getting to Mexico was arduous.
Without reliable maps, the families traveling by wagon relied on notes and drawings pinned to trees by settlers traveling the same routes before them. They came under constant surveillance by hostile Native Americans. Arriving at the Mexican border, custom officials charged them hundreds of dollars in duties.
In Mexico, life for the Romneys and other Mormons was both backbreaking and mystical, as Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff recounted in 2011 during Mitt Romney’s campaign for president. The family, he wrote:
lived out of wagon boxes and helped chisel irrigation canals along the sides of the valley to plant apple orchards, which soon became the most productive in Chihuahua. When the river ran dry, the colonists prayed for water, according to family lore, and the 1887 Sonora earthquake struck soon after, rupturing an aquifer upriver, as if by providence. Water has flowed reliably through the valley ever since.
About 4,000 Mormons ultimately made the journey to two provinces — Chihuahua and Sonora — where they settled in eight communities, according to “The Trek South: How the Mormons Went to Mexico,” a 1969 academic paper in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly.
But their time there was somewhat truncated.
For one thing, the church began phasing out polygamy, all but ending such weddings by 1904, according to the academic article. That stopped more settlers from coming, depriving the communities of new resources.
And then, during the Mexican Revolution in 1912, the Mormon migrants became targets of violent attacks by rebel leader Inez Salazar. Almost all of the Mormons fled back to the United States, with large numbers of them settling in Texas.
But some Mormons, including Romney’s relatives, stayed and still live in the region today. They are separate from the fundamentalists, who still emigrate to the region to practice polygamy, including the LeBarons, the family targeted in this week’s attack.
![Bob Duggan, second from right, receives the 2016 Venky Award from Rod Alferness, dean of the College of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara. Duggan, a longtime Church of Scientology member, says he has given much more to church causes than the previously reported $360 million, and continues to do so. [ERIC ISAACS]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSqmAOOsqo2yJ0KkPHuixuuO5BzNNjYJv4OHQoB5iku_l46Q5hBhSzzO6OXAuhK65scVDUQ41TKrr6PUmSAagDYNk6ATrSEoVkE_VPNayG3qDGLgUwpgY2Aa_P8hmN4Fvx9bb-jFsi2F0/s1600/VQKHSCQFDJFMNAW7I5BHZV3WEY.jpg "Bob Duggan, second from right, receives the 2016 Venky Award from Rod Alferness, dean of the College of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara. Duggan, a longtime Church of Scientology member, says he has given much more to church causes than the previously reported $360 million, and continues to do so. [ERIC ISAACS]")
