Purity Culture in the UC: God’s Promise Part 1 and 2 on Blessed Child Podcast

God’s Promise Part 2

‘How do survivors of extreme religion and purity culture even start to date? Well, its a long journey, and one episode can’t even begin to cover it all, but we can start. This episode is part 1 of a 2 part conversation, we dive right into dating post UC. Join in as HK Ishida, Cathlene Bell and myself talk on dating post UC, including how we recognized co-dependency, how to nourish self love, self awareness, social skill building and the consent mentality.’

2. WAIT team – abstinence education through dance. Still appreciate, the dancing. 3. Don’t have to throw out everything from the buffet. 6. Normalized codependent relationships. Dating is complex. Realizing I’m codependent. 8. Church did not encourage personal development or investing in personal appearance because you were going to get married anyway. Getting all value from other people to feel any sense of worthiness. Living for the sake of others means you don’t have any self worth. 13. Being a blank slate to be whoever your partner wants you to be. 16. Our marriages were for world peace, not ourselves. No room for selfishness or preferences. So in dating we learn to think what do I want. 22. Inner peace is more important than world peace in a relationship. 25. Cult tactics to use the responsibility of World peace to control you. 29. Some matchings have worked, not because of the match, but because of what they brought to the relationship. 32. Green flags in a relationship. 34. Take time to work out who you are before dating. Fall in love with yourself first. 37. Not just cults talk about soul mates and the one. 38.How I treat myself is the standard to which other people will treat me. 38. Children treat women how they have seen their mother treated. 42. Relationship skill building and understanding consent. 44. Consent not taught in the cult. Man makes the decisions. Your wife’s body is yours. Marriage is arranged and sex happens in the marriage so there’s no discussion about consent. Not allowed to masturbate and wife’s responsibility is to meet her husbands sexual needs so consent is not part of the conversation. 50. Guilt tripping wife into having sex. Arranged marriage as sexual abuse. 53. Now, how to avoid making anyone feel like that again. Consent is the antithesis of what a cult is. Now it’s OK if someone doesn’t like me. And so much better when a person does want to be with me. 55. Enmeshment. We’re not supposed to become one. 56. Apologizing for things that happened in a relationship. We never got taught that. 57. Cathlene’s song about being OK to be wrong. 1.00 we think the men had the power but they couldn’t make choices either. The only power was held by the cult. 

God’s Promise Part 2

‘Join in as Cathlene Bell, HK Ishida, Ryka Christopher and myself talk on dating post UC. We speak on how we are recovering from being raised in a high control group that stifles autonomy, gender roles in the UC, what sex means to us, and so much more.’

1. Dive deeper into what sex and consent means to you. 2. Taking back the power after church has assigned roles of male and female. No autonomy in the church. 7. Liberating to let go of masculine stereotypes around sex. 10. Women using sex as an act of service. 12. Develop healthy ways to have sex. 14. The rhetoric around ‘Absolute Sex’ put too much pressure on sex as the solution to world problems. 16. Sex and connection is a human need. 18. Consent. Asking if you want to have sex. Sex education in the Netherlands. 20. So sexy to be asked, ‘can I kiss you?’, you don’t have to read her mind. Women have been conditioned to let the man decide when a move is made. 24. BDSM with pre-agreement, safe words and aftercare. Role playing safely. 26. Moon’s idealized abuse of Hak Ja Han during the ‘seven year course.’ 28. Sex is a need, can be used as connection and stress relief. Not a way to create world peace. 30. Sex as an expression of care and connection, with partner and with myself. Sex is another art form. Not the sole means by which anything is expressed. 34. Sex with yourself is learning about yourself and maybe you’re the only one who can give you that pleasure. 35. What is the appropriate amount of self worth to attach to someone wanting to have sex with you. 39. It’s adult play. It’s fun. 40. Pelvis muscles need stretching or stress gets held in one spot. Masturbation releases that. 45. Sex means something different to everyone. Sexual wellbeing is connected to general wellbeing. 47. Sexual play is a low stakes adult game which has boundaries. But in the church sex was so insanely high we couldn’t explore anything. 46. Sex is an easy way to control people. 51. Cathlene Bell’s podcast ‘create imperfect anyway’ . 52. HK Ishida can be found on Instagram. 54. Enryka Christopher. People who leave the church and go into mental health and psychology work. Coercive control is everywhere.

Ansu in the Unification Church on Blessed Child Podcast

‘Join in on a conversation between Ryka, Marina, Alex and myself as we speak on Ansu, cults, religion and culture. Just to be absolutely clear, Ansu is child abuse. Find Ryka on instagram at @princessryka, Marina on IG at @marinka_dink and you can email Reneethomasart@yahoo.com for any questions,’

1. Ansu is institutionalized child abuse. Sets people up for self harming behavior. 2. Mentally challenged girl being held down and beaten. 6. Beaten so hard and screaming. Hit so hard you see stars – concussion. Can cause neurological disorders. 9. Moonies is a good cult to study as it’s still new. Most religion start as cults. 10. Judeo-Christian religions are all misogynistic. 13. Ten commandments said don’t start a cult and they all started a cult. 15. Satanic Temple and Satanic Church. 20. Suicide ideation. Self destructive tendencies. Escape through video games, art, school. 21. Educate myself to be able to argue and critically think. 24. Healing.

Midnight Mass Moonie Edition: Blessed Child Podcast

“TW- Suicidal ideation, religious abuse, child abuse, child abandonment, purity culture, human trafficking. Join in on a super casual- triggering AF conversation between 4 ex-moonies that happen to be in the same dining room the week after New Years 2022. Find Ryka @princessryka on IG, and Marina at @Marinka_dink on IG. Questions and comments can be sent to reneethomasart@yahoo.com or Renrobot on facebook and instagram.”

1. Holidays suck for people who grew up in a cult.  Intro to Marina, Enryka, Alex. 3. Westboro baptist church. Dating. One night stands. 14. Dating older men. 16. Outcast as a teenager. 20. Being wild in clubs in 20s as a result of trauma. Substance abuse, psychosis. 21. Doing crazy things for attention. Thrill seeking. 24.Attempted suicide, to feel alive and cry for help. 25. Social media has been good to make community. Virtual commune. 31. Talking about matching at 14 years old. Being taught what not to do with your body to attract boys, so we did it deliberately. 33. Mourning sibling separation because of GOP. 34. Lying to get back into school after GOP. 38. Pranks in GOP. 43. Moonie cliques. 45. Letter from Ryka to birth parents. Ryka received a card from her birth parents hoping for Ryka to find a future spouse. So she needed to write to explain. 49. Letter – purity culture, judgement, LGBTQ+ people being judged. Frightening that value come from who I marry. Terrified to be married to a stranger. suicidal due to the church. Putting church before children. Child trafficking. Violent mysoginist Moon. Don’t believe in monogamy. Decades of therapy required. The Internet has resources, and the Cult of Trump is a good book. 59. Depression and drugs. 60. Getting kicked out of Camp One Heart. 69. Leaving the church, AA, mother leaving and realizing new things every day. Everyone needs to go to therapy. Spiritual bypassing. 72.Jumping in front of trains. In the fight or flight brain. 

Purity Culture in the UC: “The Buffet” with Cathlene Bell on Blessed Child podcast

“In this episode I speak with Cathlene Bell. Trigger warning: we speak on religious trauma, suicide, the treatment of special needs individuals in the Unification church and coercive control. I’ve come to realize that even when the conversations are feel good conversations, topics surrounding the Unification church must come with a trigger warning. That is in part because the GOD in the eyes of the cult was framed as a suffering God. Although, this conversation is a wonderful one, it still comes with- a trigger warning. You can hear more conversations with Cathlene at the podcast Create imperfect anyway. Tune into her newest episode, with me, “Renee: On befriending your art”! https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ToWrJ51cD1n25Kt6D0mEN?si=3YoH68BWTBmNO55ZGenYZA&utm_source=copy-link
Find Cathlene on Instagram: @Cathlene_sublimates , @CreateImperfectAnyway
Questions and comments for this show can be sent to reneethomasart@yahoo.com and on facebook or instagram at @Renrobot.art”

Summary:

Intro to Cathlene. 5. We grew up with the narrative of peace and saving the world. 6. Moon’s connections to North Korea. 7. Parents joined based on a dream, they would not have joined if they were told we’re trying to make this one man rich. 9. We didn’t decide who we would be until we knew who we’d be married to. 10. Sense of belonging depends on these stories. 12. Special needs brother. 13. Father questioning, left the church, then took his own life. The dream was too strong. Mother believed it was spiritual ancestral problems. 16. Mother never re-blessed. 17. Noble suffering. Always taking care of everyone else. Korean folk story of Shimjung, a young woman who makes sacrifices to save the kingdom. 21. Because of a special needs brother there was more pressure on Cathlene to fulfill all the blessed child responsibilities. 22. Special needs matching and blessing. Arranged marriage for special needs people is illegal as they can’t give consent. 25. Asked to give an offering child to her brother. Some good took place in special needs workshops but arranging marriages without consent is not OK. 29. Justification of suffering now for a happy forever. You can justify anything with that logic. 30. The winner is the narrative. Promise of perfect children but then special needs children made people question it, so a blessing for special needs children would continue the narrative. 33. Ansu for special needs children in Chung pyung who can’t advocate for themselves. 36. Magic in words. Story telling is a magic power and can be twisted into manipulating people. Need to surround yourself with good people who call you out on your bullshit. 43. Analogy of a kimchi and rice eating contest. We’re told we have to keep eating. Cult hopping. It’s like you are welcomed by another eating contest but you keep eating too much. So the problem is not what you’re eating, it’s how you’re eating. But actually life is a buffet you eat what you like but not too much. And sometimes you like a bit of rice and kimchi, there are things from the church that were good, which can be kept. Walk away from the toxic stuff. 49. We keep the fellowship from the church. 51. Will talk about migration next time. Cathlene starting a podcast called Create Imperfect Anyway. 

Purity Culture in the UC: “Couldn’t say no” on Blessed Child podcast

“Join part 2 of the purity culture talk with Mi Sook and Becca, a continuation from “God in the eyes of the cult”. Please listen with caution, we cover a range of difficult topics surrounding “the lynchpin of trauma”(Jenae, 2021) in the UC; Purity Culture. These are our personal stories and experiences, which are uniquely our own.  Find Mi sook at @unconventional.souls and follow @mightybrecca on instagram for when she starts her own podcast in the German language with transcription. The music today was composed by Jenae sun, please reach out to her and let her know how her music made you feel at jenaesun1@gmail.com. In our next episode I interview Cathlene Bell a UC survivor who has started her own podcast “Create imperfect anyway” @createimperfectanyway . Email Reneethomasart@yahoo.com for questions or comments”

Summary:

Intro trigger warning. 4.purity culture enforced by siblings. 5. Parentification. 9. Emotional injury between siblings. Sisters unable to talk to brothers. 14. Demonizing each other. Making us complicit in our abuse. Making us think it was good for us. 16.grieving the loss of sibling relationships because of the inability to talk to each other. 17. Jen Ae’s music. 19. Toxic competitivity between siblings. Golden child. Comparing children and trying to live up to unreasonable. standards. 23. Moon has chosen favorites of his sons. Pitting kids against each other. 25. Now being able to set boundaries between siblings. It was hard to show up as ourselves even with our siblings. 28.Purity culture sexualizes children. Makes it weird between literal brothers and sisters. 32.Overcome subject/object dynamic by dating other women. Finding out what you want is hard and then communicating it. In the dualistic theology there’s nothing in between. 34. There is not just male and female genitals, there is a gradient of genitalia. Intersex people, non stereotypical genitalia. 37. We shame people based on genitalia but it’s all beautiful. Purity culture divides into man and woman and disregards everything in between. 40.Offering child. Becca’s mother didn’t want to give the baby but the family were so grateful at the option that they did. Condition was that they could meet once a year. 44. Ticket to heaven to have a blessed child. 46. Couldn’t say no to giving away a child. The blessing was marriage trafficking so it made sense.49. Jacobs children. 50.trauma leaving the body. 

Purity Culture in the UC: “God in the eyes of the cult” on Blessed Child podcast

“⚠️⚠️Trigger warning, sexual assault, religious abuse, financial abuse, and difficult family dynamics. We welcome Mi sook and Becca to speak more on purity culture in the Unification Church and what that means, this is part 1 of a 2 part episode. For more on Mi sook and Becca search @mis_mend and @Mightybrecca on instagram. Contact Reneethomasart@yahoo.com for question, comments or feedback. Please take care of your mental health during this holiday season.”

MiSook poem – ‘I believed.’ 6. Need for parental support. Blessing is like being thrown in a pool when you don’t know if you can swim. 10. Concept of virginity. 12. Body language policed. Not able to receive love as you have to live for the sake of others. 17. Alcohol and energy. Somatic therapy – trauma is in your body. 19. Make positive connections with previously traumatic objects. 22. Power dynamic and toxic masculinity. The church taught subject and object, female and male – positive and negative. 26.toxic masculinity in Moon’s sons. 30. Invite men to talk. 31. Trauma makes me cold. Idea of what a woman should be. Specific trauma, not many people can relate. Isolation in this trauma. 37. Relationship with God was an abusive one. Grieving. Connection through telling these stories. Strength in numbers. Grief of purity culture. 50. Atlanta shooting based on purity culture. 56. Moon sexual example. And hypocrisy. Money and wealth while members are poor. 

Purity Culture in the UC: “Your genitals are not your own” on Blessed Child Podcast

“Tw ⚠️⚠️ trafficking, sexual assault, violence, victim blaming, religious trauma.  Part 2 of “The everlasting gobstopper” where Second gen Ex-Moonies meet to deconstruct the trauma of growing up with purity culture in the Unification Church. Together, we are finding the words to describe the hidden complexities of growing up Moonie. Thank you @mightybrecca for joining this panel, and all other survivors who have anonymously contributed to creating this resource on purity culture in the UC. It is an honor to collect this wealth of wisdom.”

Summary:

Hard conversations. Rock out on workshops. Not allowed to dance with hips. Hip problems as a result of purity culture. Clitoral atrophy – clitoris shrinks if not used. The book The body keeps the score is helpful in understanding this. 10. Movement is good to release trauma. We are strong for surviving. PTSD is in the body. Guilt for intimacy with husband. Fear and shame is still there. Shutting down during sex. Told we’re not allowed to hug boys, even as friends. Early memories of talking of marriage and getting in trouble for talking about marrying. Dad explaining your husband will be chosen. 19. Teaching kids about consent. Virginity commodifies people with vulvas. Sexual organs belong to your spouse. That’s a dangerous message in terms of allowing others to take advantage. ‘Your genitals are not your own’ is something a Sex trafficker would say. 26.Asexuality. If you can control someone’s sexuality you can control them. Cult tactic. Obligation to have sex with partners when you don’t want to. Our parents went through the 3 ceremony. Shame about expressing intimacy which programs you to be abused because you don’t want to talk about it. After an assault you have a crush on the person. As a survival method. You don’t have that communication with yourself that it’s assault. Recovery involved a relationship with someone thoughtful. And talking about it with a friend. Recognize assault. We don’t understand consent. Shamed for sexual assault. Having children can be healing or re-traumatizing. Realizing you would never do to your child what was done to us. Parents need us to have a successful blessing for their sake. Ticket to heaven. Parents saying they won’t love your kids as they are fallen. 50.There is no unconditional love. Blood lineage and purity culture. Children going to blessing is for our parents to fulfill their responsibility. No unconditional love as it was not that. It warps your brain because its not true. Jen Kiaba’s blog on first love trauma. Your first love experience sets the blueprint for later relationships. It can be undone. Moral injury of being part of the machine that caused damage. 

Purity Culture in the UC: Everlasting Gobstopper on Blessed Child podcast

‘⚠️⚠️⚠️ sexual assault, murder, trafficking, child abuse, child abandonment, religious trauma. Join in part 1 of 2 parts with a panel of UC survivors talking about structured life courses, spirit world, purity culture and so much more. Email Reneethomasart@yahoo.com for feedback, find Becca at @mightbrecca on IG. ❤ Thank you all the survivors of PC in the UC for coming forward and sharing your story 🖤 we are not alone.’

Summary:

Definition of consent. Knowledgeable agreement was absent so the blessing qualifies as human trafficking. Injuries stemming from purity culture. Intro to panel of four voices. New Eden Academy/Bridgeport International Academy. Still policing dating even though not all students are moonies. Moon put a lot of emphasis on starting schools, which were cult fronts. Group think, communal living, reporting on each other and streamline the children into STF and labor trafficking. Bridgeport was dangerous, high crime rates. 20. Unsafe areas on STF – feeling protected because we’re doing God’s work. Teaches us to disregard our own sense of safety. Dissociate from rational thinking. If bad things happened no-one would talk about it. It would be explained away by providential reasoning and nothing done about it. Moon gave a speech saying it was spirit world punishing people for straying from heavenly path. Invalidating the grief and twisting. Victim blaming. 29. They told us to be afraid of the outside world but then put us in these dangerous situations. ‘Restoration’ of money. 31. Flirty fishing. That’s what we were doing in order to sell product, even if we didn’t know we were doing it. No sense of self preservation. 34 Rapes and deaths on our parents’ Mobile Fundraising Teams. Labor trafficking. All part of this narrow road we were programmed to do. 36. Purity Knife. If we were assaulted it would have been better to kill yourself. Lineage more important than life. 38. Concept of virginity. Hetero-normative which dismisses everyone else. 42. Sense of abandonment was so strong that you don’t want to loose your parents again so afraid to break the rules. Emotional castration. So dangerous to have a crush. If I do anything wrong I will loose my parents’ love. Shame and guilt around love. Emotional and sexual restriction like foot-binding. Really scarring. 46. First Love Trauma – on Jen Kiaba’s blog. Brain conditioned into thinking being in love is dangerous. Fear of something bad happening to the one we love because of the fear tactics. And fear of abandonment. And believing I don’t deserve happiness. 55. Nightmares and panic attacks. Inner Child and self soothing. 57. Need to get rid of the magical thinking. 58 Forgiveness ceremony – before that it was terrifying that you would loose everything, Spiritual death. 60. Purity culture put the pressure on women…. to be continued.

Purity Culture in the UC: Mother’s Milk on Blessed Child podcast with Renrobot

‘⚠️⚠️⚠️tw: grooming, child abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, self-harm, murder. Join in on a panel of survivors talking about purity culture within the Unification church. We do a deep dive into the intersections of purity culture, lack of autonomy, lack of boundaries and what that means. Part 1 of a multi-series. We dive deep with @Mightybrecca who has contributed this episodes cover art. @Mis_mend who is in graduate school for licensed therapy in psych and mental health and @princessryka who is a researcher at Harvard Med for trauma, reintegration, rehabilitation and extremist violence prevention. You can find them on instagram.’

The House Wrapped in Sorrow: Teresa Obayashi, Aurl Jin Vornbrock and Limi Bauer on Falling Out podcast

Elgen speaks to Teresa who was nursery staff at Jacob House, a chrurch nursery in the eighties where Aurl Jin and Limi were infants.

Summary:

1. People are leaving the church because of the podcasts. Mosaic of stories so people can see the whole picture. 11. Teresa joining church. Running nursery in San Francisco. 1983 Mass mobilization for blessed wives to go out for 3 years. Nurseries around USA. San Francisco. Boulder, Ohio, Jacob House. Goal was to make 60,000 members, By women. Left the church 15 years ago. Ostracized for talking to a woman in a spin off cult in Japan. 21. Teresa was sent to New York to be the face of a new nursery. Moon bought 250 trucks for food distribution. Church focus on the Christian churches. 32. Origin of Jacob House name due to big mural of Jacob slaying an angel. 36. Gracemere. 42. On Sundays fathers could get the kids because the mothers were mobilized. Sundays were difficult days. Children crying when fathers brought them back. Jacob House wrapped in sorrow. 45. Aurl Jin sick at nine months and nearly died in JH. In early 1984 moon was on trial and needed good public opinion and a social worker looked at Jacob House and said they needed a license. So then it was shut down. 50. Because Aurl Jin got sick. When it was inspected CPS only saw preschool, not the residential nature of it. 58. 100 day ceremony is where Korean babies were given up. 65. Moon’s words about giving up your children. ‘How dare you ask to keep them. God gave up his son so you should be able to give up your children too. Koreans didn’t even have the luxury of a nursery.’ 75. Teresa vowed not to have children if they had to be treated like that. All the staff knew it was wrong. When moon says he gave up his kids he did leave them but they had their own Korean caregivers. Sean moon was there at 2 and he always had a plastic sword. 88. Teresa joining at 18. Love bombing. Not told it’s UC or moon until you’re in a 7 or 21 day workshop. Never time to stop and think. In Korea, realized these are not chosen people. That was a turning point. Church preys on idealism. No precursor to joining. Anyone can join. At a vulnerable time. 101.Nan Sook Hong’s book is good. There must be more information to come out. 109. Moons speech: ‘husband must give up wife and children or Satan will invade. Don’t worry about your children’s health.’ He challenges you to not be the guy who Satan’s going to invade. Similarity to Trump. 121. Black and white thinking. Common cult tactic. Certainty is comforting. What other stories from JH are still to come out? End of Season Two of Falling Out podcast.