THE UNIFICATION CHURCH (Hansard, 22 October 1975)

§ Mr. Paul B. Rose (Manchester, Blackley)

There are currently operating in this country a number of bogus and bizarre bodies which purport to be religious cults. They benefit from the laxity of the law relating to charities. Among them, and perhaps the most pernicious, is the body commonly known as the Unification Church, with its fraudulent fund raising, its dubious medical and psychological claims, its rather sinister political connections and the dangers which it holds in relation to the health of potential or actual recruits.

To quote a Mr. Christopher Yapp, who spoke to me today on the telephone, having attended one of its courses in the United States, it uses the emotionally deprived and disturbed converts as "slave labour", to quote his words, at the base of what is a £6 million pyramid. At the head of that pyramid stands a man who is claimed as the new Messiah, a Korean multi-millionaire, who left his land under something of a cloud.

Its sophisticated brainwashing techniques, its efforts to split youngsters from their families and to give up their worldly goods are equally a danger to health and are a matter of concern. The whole set-up constitutes a criminal conspiracy, only the fringes of which have been dealt with by convictions in court.

Walking along, say, North Audley Street, or New Street in Birmingham, or in Cambridge or in Newquay, a man may well be accosted by youngsters selling candles and claiming that the money is going to charity or to build homes for drug addicts or medical centres in under-developed countries. One such 679 candle I have at my own home. It was sold on my doorstep, and the person selling it said that the money was going to charity and handed over a leaflet asking for a donation to charity.

Among other things, this organisation has an associated limited company called United Family Enterprises Ltd. The directors of that company are Messrs. Hertzer, Miller, Thomas, and the organiser, Mr. Orme, and they are about as hard to interview as they are free with their threats of libel proceedings against those who seek to expose them and tell the truth about this organisation.

The organisation's activities have prompted certain responses, and in particular a response from a prominent and eminent theologian, Professor Lambe, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Professor Lambe circulated to all theological faculties a warning from a student who took advantage of one of the organisation's all-expenses paid trips to the United States for a six-week stay.

Incidentally, the organisation masquerades under at least seven names—the International Cultural Foundation, the Unification Church, the Unified Family, the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, One World Crusade, God's Light Infantry and the International Federation for Victory over Communism. It not only masquerades under various names but uses sinister techniques. A description of those techniques has been given in the letter to which I referred by a Mr. Low, who writes: The six week course in America is a fierce exercise in total indoctrination. The object of this is to reduce the victim to a mental condition in which he can only follow completely the orders of the organisation and propagate their work. Needless to say, membership is total and encourages financial commitment of a high order, and in most cases everything is handed over. I have met many parents recently who have lost children to this group, for they are notorious destroyers of families. 'I he reason for this is that in the ' New Unified Family', the neophyte's former family remains in the world of sin and should only be contacted with a view to conversion. Examples of the dangerous humbug one reads about have implications for my hon. Friend. It is clear that Mr. Moon demands total obedience from his fol- 680 lowers, including the right to control their fives and to choose their marriage partners, but he reserves the right, according to certain documents, to have relations with an entourage of his own female initiates. In one of his speeches he said: When you really love your car and become one with it, even at the point of danger others cannot collide with you. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport would have something to say about that.

One of the sales gimmicks that my hon. Friend will be concerned with, which features prominently in the account of the United Family Enterprises, is ginseng tea. One church brochure that was withdrawn from circulation but which I have seen—it was investigated by the advertising standards authority—claimed that the tea could be used "against cancer". Incidentally, it still claims properties which relieve the symptoms of about 20 different maladies.

The cult's political connection with various Fascist and Nazi-type organisations, particularly in Japan and South-East Asia, is a matter which will concern many hon. Members. It is interesting to know that Mr. Orme, the organiser, in opening the latest brain-washing centre at Lancaster Gate on 1st August, made a highly political speech which was not far out of line from the remarks of Mr. Sun Myung Moon, who not long ago told his followers in a pamphlet entitled "Answer to Watergate": It is your duty to love Richard Nixon. God has chosen Richard Nixon to be President of the United States. On a more serious note, I have some heart-rending letters and newspaper exposes. A great deal is owed to the magazine Time Out for information about the way in which young people are turned away from their families. At Stanton Fitzwarren, the cult's estate, local residents are particularly annoyed, and claim that people work with no pay or pocket money and that they are separated from their parents. They are troubled by parents coming to look for their children. In one case a letter from a husband tells of his search for his wife who had joined the cult. A local medical practitioner in another letter complains about the cult's claims in respect of ginseng tea and about 681 its brainwashing techniques. Another complains that his wife is now missing and is regarded as a missing person because she cannot be contacted.

This breaking up of families is one of the matters with which my hon Friend will, I am sure, be concerned. In a thesis recently produced at the University of Durham it was concluded in a most objective study that in many ways the cult was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan and of the Cagoule in France. It went on to point out that cohabitation with marriage partners was permissible only for those couples whose weddings had received Moon's personal blessing since 1960.

This is the kind of mumbo-jumbo with which we are dealing. One letter from Oxford asks that the cult's status as a charity be looked into, and I would ask, as the letter does, for a police investigation as a result of the experiences of that person and many others during their association with the cult, not least their periods of indoctrination at seminars in the United States.

Perhaps the most poignant example of the distress that has been caused comes in a letter from which I quote without referring to names. A father writes: It had proved impossible to make contact with our daughter in Cambridge. She remained dumb to our communications…because she felt that she had to devote herself entirely to the service of God via the Unification Church. She was brought home. The father goes on to say that for three days she was in a state of shock, crying almost incessantly. She had a nervous rash on her face and an infection of the ear. Her father said that she looked like a ghost. She had been told that: The second Christ was already on earth in the shape of Mr. Moon. The cult's members bow down deeply to Mr. Moon's picture three times a day and pray to him. They get up every Sunday morning at 5 o'clock to give "The Pledge". They are told that Mr. Moon has succeeded where Christ failed. The letter goes on in this way. Members are discouraged from having, or forbidden to have, any contact with their parents because they are regarded as agents of Satan. Every time before entering the house where they lived they have to throw salt, blessed by the leader, over their left shoulder and say, "Subjugate, 682 subjugate, subjugate, Satan." They perform a continuous three-day fast at the end of every month. Most of them are expected to live on four hours' sleep or even less. They are told that that is the best cure for insomnia. It is one of the cult's brainwashing techniques that it keeps people in a state of sleeplessness for long periods while preaching to them from 6 a.m. to 12. That is possibly even a little worse than this House.

After a series of convictions in New-quay for street-collecting offences the bank paying-in book was confiscated. It revealed some rather interesting things. Among other things it revealed that in six weeks five collectors had collected £6,000. A sum of £12,000 had been sent to Korea. The financial aspects of the organisation are, I realise, more for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and the Home Secretary. They are a mystery. The conviction of minor pawns is no substitute for action on what is a criminal conspiracy to defraud.

The interrelation of the United Family Enterprises organisation as a business organisation with what purports to be a religious charity needs detailed investigation. One would want to know how, according to one letter, a typewritten certificate could be produced by a member of the Church purporting to be an authority for collection of money for the Unification Church on 3rd July 1974. In that case my correspondent was told the story that the money was to help people who were disturbed and unable to find their place in society.

Mr. Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, the former Member for Belper, perhaps one of the most fervant anti-Communist Members in the last Parliament, wrote a letter to me in which he referred to the cult, after his experience, as a "blasphemous bogus religion", and said: the anti-Communism which they boast about is pure drivel, and they collaborate with an international anti-Semitic organisation called the World Anti-Communist League. It certainly is known that it has strong links with various racist organisations all over the world, most particularly with organisations such as the Black Dragon Society and others in Japan.

Mr. Moon controls a £6 million empire in South Korea which includes the manufacture or production of ginseng tea, 683 titanium and pharmaceutical products and even small arms. Large estates are owned in the United States worth £6.8 million. They have been bought by the so-called Moonies—some of us might term them loonies—through their street collections and through getting people to sign away their money, goods and inheritances when they are converted. It is of that sort of activity in this country of which I complain particularly as well.

Although it purports to be a spiritual organisation, it is not long since 3,000 people at the Washington Hilton were given a free steak dinner, because nothing is too lavish for the organisation to influence those who they believe may see the cult as a useful political weapon. It has its Madison Square rallies that are often echoes of Nuremberg. A glance at the programme and its so-called standards in its indoctrination seminars is equally interesting. My hon. Friend has seen all these documents. The persons attending are virtual prisoners. They are refused permission to go out of the premises even to go to church. No. 6 standard, as it is called, says, for example, that Students may not leave the property during free time or without authorised permission. The programme sponsored by Mr. Denis Orme in England was described by Mr. Ray Kemp, a 22-year-old student, in the Sunday People on 2nd December 1973. He said that students find themselves imprisoned by barbed wire and locked gates, isolated from the world, unable to leave and harangued from 6 a.m. to midnight to accept Moon's teachings. Another student, Bob Parkinson, an Oxford architecture student, said that the cult was like the beginning of a Nazi Party with strong spiritual undertones.

Mr. Moon is financed basically from the sale of literature and candles, and donations which are largely obtained illegally. Some of the money is exported from this country. Nevertheless, enough is left to run 15 centres in this country, a new one recently having opened. The organiser was living in an opulent detached house—3, Barn Hill, Wembley—which was recently put up for sale, Mr. Orme having now left for more salubrious surroundings.

The prosecuting solicitor at Newquay, in a series of cases involving members of the cult, said: 684 The sect's collections were a bit of a con, and there was more moonshine than sunshine about it. The destination of this money is shrouded in mystery. The collections broke every rule—no permits, no collection boxes, no check on the money raised. World contributions exceeded £6 million last year. Mr. Orme, at these proceedings, threatened the prosecuting solicitor with libel, as such people always do, and said at the proceedings that Mr. Moon could snap his fingers and charter a jumbo jet. He admitted that there were 60 full-time fund raisers in this country.

It has been reported that one young American girl who left the Unification Church said that she was earning $100 a day simply by begging from passers-by, selling them candles, flowers and peanuts, according to the Guardian Weekly of 15th March 1975. Escapees from the sect's United States headquarters frequently seek help from nearby housing estates. Others march around and chant in a military fashion. In Britain it is not strong enough to do that, but I hope that my hon. Friend will ensure that they never become that strong.

In a letter dated 23rd June this year the Home Secretary expressed distress at the breaking up of families by the cult. The Director of Public Prosecutions is still considering a large file of documents I have sent along with further informamation sent from time to time. But it is lamentable that no action has been taken other than against the fringe—the pawns in the game. It needs more than my personal investigations and the voluminous files I have built up over the years. It needs Government and police action in order to extinguish the unlawful behaviour of this cult, and its harmful effects on young people in particular and on society in general. It also needs, for the purposes of my hon. Friend's reply tonight, action against the hazards to health involved in the employment of many of its techniques.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Meacher)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) for raising this matter tonight. He has clearly expended a great deal of time and trouble to elucidate the facts. He has told an extraordinary story, both well-documented and highly disturbing, 685 and has drawn out the worrying implications both comprehensively and clearly.

My hon. Friend has outlined the origins of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, or the Unification Church, or the United Family, to mention only three of the seven titles my hon. Friend gave it. Its teachings are rather more difficult to follow. I understand that Mr. Sam Myung Moon wrote what has in effect become the bible of the movement in 1954. The Divine Principle, as the book is called, contains a certain amount of rewriting of Old and New Testament stories and a good deal of the sort of mysticism which attaches the most profound meanings to magic numbers. It is difficult to see how this book, and the teachings based on it, can possibly justify a claim to be associated in any way with Christianity, since it is claimed, in effect, that Christ failed in his mission on earth, and Mr. Moon has been chosen to complete that mission.

To be quite fair to Mr. Moon, I believe he has not personally advanced that claim. He has merely said that the Lord of the Second Advent will have been born soon after the end of World War I, in a country in the East which is divided into two sections, suffering "unmerited persecution", and where Christianity is strong but where other Oriental religions are deeply rooted. I should add that Mr. Moon was born in Korea in 1920 which fits that definition well. He has also said that God has been in communion with him and has revealed His plan for the perfection of mankind and the final overthrow of Satan and all his works. It is Mr. Moon's followers who, I understand, have put the magical numbers of two and two together, so to speak, and concluded that Mr. Moon is the Lord of the Second Advent; and he has not contradicted this view.

Many people may find it difficult to understand how a movement professing the beliefs enunciated in "The Divine Principle" can have any appeal whatever to Christians, particularly Christians belonging to Western Churches. In fact, I understand that about half the world membership of the Unification Church live in Korea, where the church was founded. However, the extremely limited 686 appeal of the church's basic doctrines is supplemented in the various countries to which the church has spread by ideas and arguments designed to be popular in each. In the words of one commentator, the principles amount to an ellegedly commonsensical defence of institutions that have long enjoyed traditional authority in Britain. Thus, members are active campaigners for the restoration of the death penalty for the murder of policemen, on unequivocal guarantee that policemen shall not use guns, the eradication of pornography, firmer control over trade unions, the suppression of allegedly Marxist influence in the mass-media, the restoration of unity to Ireland as a Christian nation, the expulsion of all Communist agents from Britain, the ridicule of such 'pseudo experts' as academic psychologists, sociologists and criminologists, and the adulation of such national hereos as Lord Nelson and Sir Winston Churchill. In short, defence of the 'British Way of Life', 'the British heritage' and 'Britain's great traditions' is the pivotal point of the group's ideology. Hon. Members may find it difficult to reconcile such an ideology with the idea of a "Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity ". In addition, the literature of the movement contains a good deal of entirely unexceptionable sentiments to which we can all subscribe; and the uncritical reader may tend to think that because he agrees with these sentiments he agrees with the movement as a whole.

One whom most people would still regard as a greater authority than Mr. Moon said: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves…By their fruits ye shall know them. The fruits of the Unification Church are not as yet abundant, at any rate in this country. A few young people have been induced to leave their homes, give up their work or their studies, and beg in the streets or sell candles, flowers and ginseng tea, a product of one of Mr. Moon's companies. A very few older people have associated themselves with the movement, and some of these have given money and property to the church. Quite substantial sums of money have been remitted to Korea: what effect this has had on the Korean members of the church is not clear, but Mr. Moon has undoubtedly prospered.

It could be argued that all this has very little to do with my Department of with the Government. My hon. Friend 687 spoke of a criminal conspiracy to defraud, and, as he indicated, these are specifically matters for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Anyone is entitled to be deluded into giving his time, effort and property to a movement which is perfectly legal. Although there have been certain irregularities and breaches of the law—for example, on the part of some of the young collectors, and in the extravagant and even illegal claims for the virtues of ginseng tea—these matters have been dealt with and do not justify attacks on the Unification Church itself.

My hon. Friend emphasised the health hazards involved in the techniques employed by the church, but I am bound to say that no evidence of such hazards has so far been brought to the attention of my Department which would justify action under the present law.

My hon. Friend will recall that in April last, in reply to a Question he put down, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security invited him to send the Department any evidence in his possession about the harmful effects in question, and I willingly repeat that invitation if my hon. Friend has any evidence which would justify action under the present law.

In a much wider sense, however, the matters to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention may properly be regarded as concerning us all. In a truly healthy society there is no place for "churches" which degrade their members and enrich their founders.

The Unification Church has at present very few adherents in this country— 688 though my hon. Friend seemed to suggest that the numbers may be rather greater—but it is only one of many organisations which have sprung up in recent years and have attracted followers, many among the best and most idealistic of our young people.

These organisations are, generally speaking, careful to avoid any illegal activities, since clashes with the law would interfere with their primary purpose of money-making. Their teachings are designed to attract those who for any reason are discontented or disappointed, and they are always ready to modify or drop altogether any tenets or practices which might reduce their financial appeal. Public opinion, together with those organisations which are traditionally responsible for moulding and influencing it, must accept primary responsibility for combating these cults.

There are limits, which we should all wish to recognise, to the extent to which it might be desirable for the House or the Government to intervene in the affairs of such cults so long as there is no suggestion that the law is infringed or is truly inadequate to deal with grave scandals and abuses. If there are such suggestions, they are in the first instance for the police, as I believe my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Solicitor-General have explained to my hon. Friend. Nevertheless, my Department—