I WITNESS: How to tell if you are a brainwashed cult member, Part One: An evening to remember
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During my late adolescence, as I worked diligently to misspend my youth in a fairly spectacular fashion, I had dinner with the Moonies.
The Moonies are formally known as members of the Unification Church, a religious cult led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. They lived together in a large mansion in the uber-fancy Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, just down the street from Burt Children’s Center. Burt Center was a residential treatment facility for children with profound autism. A very close friend of mine, Roberta, happened to work at Burt Center, which later became an interesting postscript to my tale of dining with the Moonies.
It all started quite innocently. I was new to San Francisco and had gone downtown to try to enroll in an art school (the name of which escapes me now). While standing on a corner on Market Street, I was approached by two very friendly young people who struck up a conversation with me. Always game for random social interaction, I wandered down the street with them.
They were very interested in me and my life—fascinated, in fact. Glancing backward with the advantage of hindsight, I find myself wondering exactly what could have been so fascinating about a bespectacled, wild-haired, 19-year-old druggie in the process of resolutely squandering her youth in San Francisco. But, of course, at the age of 19, lacking full executive function, I was oblivious.
In any case, these two young people were anxious to introduce me to the other people with whom they lived, communally, in Pacific Heights. They wanted to know if I was free to come to dinner that night. Well, of course I was free—I was adrift in the city, recently transplanted from my native Milwaukee, unemployed, untethered, and delighted to be offered a free meal in a ritzy neighborhood with people who appeared to find me mesmerizing.
Although I was frequently under the influence of one controlled substance or another during those hazy days, I never completely surrendered rational thought, and anyone who has known me for more than five minutes would be able to confirm that I have always maintained a high level of skepticism about almost everything. This came in very handy that evening.
I arrived at 5 p.m. and was greeted warmly by my two new friends. They were so delighted to see me! They asked me if I would like to help prepare the communal meal. Naturally, I said yes, and was given a sack of carrots to peel as I worked beside the members of what they referred to as the Creative Community.
They explained that the Creative Community was designed for people just like me—after all, I was obviously a creative person, as was instantly clear to everyone who lived there. I was ablaze with creativity. In fact, I radiated it. That was precisely why I had been invited to dinner. I virtually glowed with a creative spark so intense that it was probably visible from outer space. Yes, Vickie Shufton was a human klieg light of creativity.
That was when my “uh-oh” meter started twitching.
I was not the only invitee to dinner that night: As it turned out, there were legions of creative young people wandering the streets of San Francisco, just waiting to be invited to dinner and feted for their immense talents. Although we were misunderstood and unappreciated elsewhere in the world, without money, power, or prestige, the Creative Community existed to acknowledge and celebrate how special we really were.
I knew that something was not quite right. I surreptitiously scanned the walls for posters, political slogans, or religious objects, but found none.
When the meal had been prepared, it was served as a bountiful buffet in one of the large, well-appointed rooms of the mansion. I noted that only the invited guests were eating, but not our hosts. I asked my two new friends, “Aren’t you going to eat?”
No, they were fasting, they said. “Everyone who lives here is fasting?” I asked.
“Yes.”
It seemed absurd to me that on a day when everyone in the commune was fasting, they would decide to throw a dinner party for a bunch of complete strangers. My “uh-oh” meter twitched some more.
Following dinner, there was a presentation. A presentation about the Creative Community’s glorious farm in rural Boonville, Calif., located several hours north of San Francisco by car. Boonville was an idyllic setting perfect for fostering creativity, and their farm was also a source of food for the commune.
It was 1976. The whole idea of living communally in a back-to-basics, back-to-nature fashion was a front-and-center concept for young people and had immense appeal. Henry David Thoreau’s book “Walden” was selling like hotcakes for the first time since the 1800s, as was Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” published in 1974. Everyone I knew had a copy of Frances Moore Lappé’s “Diet for a Small Planet,” along with the “Moosewood Cookbook.” Of course, in our current American moment, the concept of living simply, in harmony with nature, has become passé. These days, it appears that acquisition, accumulation, and instant gratification are the drivers of our ethos. Instead of “back to nature,” we have “bigger, better, best.”
Meanwhile, back in 1976, the Boonville presentation—complete with a slide show—proceeded. It seemed as if Boonville was the promised land, a Shangri-La, where young people led creative, connected, self-actualized lives in community with kindred spirits. It was Nirvana! And also, there was this fabulous house right here in San Francisco! Wow!
As the slide show and presentation progressed, I became more interested in watching the faces of the other attendees as they watched the presentation. I saw longing in their eyes, longing for something other… or better… or more self-affirming. They leaned forward, utterly entranced.
At the conclusion of the presentation, we were told that we were in luck: It had been our good fortune to visit the Creative Community on the very night that they were going up to the farm in Boonville for a special three-day retreat, and they invited us to go with them. There was much excitement.
“Wait,” I said to my hosts, “you want us to go with you right now?”
“Sure,” they said. “Why not?”
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