The Cult Phenomenon in the United States (1979)/Green

by Joint-Congressional Proceedings, statements by Daphne Green

Senator Dole. Our next witness is Daphne Green.

STATEMENT DAPHNE GREEN, PAST CHAIRMAN, GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION.

Senator Dole. Daphne Green is past chairman of the Graduate Theological Union, resigned from all employment to devote time to investigative reporting regarding cults.

She does some deprogramming. She is past director of the Life Sciences of the Hastings Institute.

Ms. Green. Thank you, Senator Dole. When I appeared before you in 1976, I wasn't sure what a cult was, and I certainly couldn't accept the term "brainwashing."

I had been deluged with the Manson family , the SLA, and other organizations headed by God figures, which I dismissed as kooks.

At that time my primary concern was not what cults believed in, but why they could use deception in recruiting and fundraising and get away with it.

It became apparent that because they called themselves a church, they were free from public scrutiny.

Since that time through further study, research and scores of former members from every state of the union, specifically the members of the Unification Church, accompanied by my heartrending personal experience, I was forced to accept the frightening fact of life facing every free American today.

I'm talking about mind control.

Mind control which is subtle, it is ruthless, scientific, and very sophisticated.

The majority of people who join cults are well-educated, well-adjusted mean and women whose only mistake was to be spiritually or intellectually open to new ideas.

Behind the misery and destruction isa power-mad God figure counting millions of dollars, seeing our misery and confusion, and laughing at our respect for civil liberties.

You, representing the private citizen, cannot ignore what you see and read from former cult members, as well as the subcommittee's report on international relations.

In my work, I have seen the residue of mind control -- of the mind control process. Hundreds of distraught and helpless parents and relatives suddenly confronted with lies, contradictions, and the deception of their loved ones. They see sincere, frightened, mindless people who have been conditioned to respond to the push-button control of their leaders.

The State Department saw this when they left Jonestown, describing the people as, I quote, "happy and hardworking."

The State Department didn't lie. It didn't cover up when it reported exactly what was staged for them to see.

The happy button had been pushed.

Later, the violent button was pushed and over 900 are dead.

Their free will had been amputated. The fact that an American Congressman -- as any one of you up there -- could in good faith go down on an investigating tour and be killed, cannot be dismissed by either you or by the citizenry of this country.

The cults have managed to build financial empires with the ability to hire lawyers to protect their vast enterprises, and their holy armies by standing on First Amendment rights.

To those skeptics, I can only say that I witnessed my own daughter's attempt at suicide with a broken bottle rather than expose herself to love and reason.

The events of the People's Temple came as no surprise. Indeed, it was highly predictable and was merely a harbinger of what is sure to happen as cults see themselves threatened by actions of an aroused populace.

This is no passing fad. It is a fact of life getting stronger. More families are being harassed. A rattlesnake in a mailbox; guns for protection; dying for the cause; and a rampant paranoia are no strangers to the families of -- and friends of cult members.

They are part of the common experiences.

If I achieve anything today, I would like it to be a message to you and to the American people who believe in freedom and the First Amendment not to be intimidated. We cannot live under the fear of retaliation. Only the tacit support of the American people keeps cults alive.

We give them money; we give them tax exemptions, and we have laws to protect our citizens. It is the enforcement of those laws that I ask for. Enforce our statutes against fraud and deception.

We must protect freedom of belief, but not ignore that freedom because we are frightened by the words "church" and "religion."

We have laws to protect our citizens. We don't have laws to protect the crook with a bible in his pocket.

I stood stubbornly against the deprogramming, because I could not accept nor could I understand mind control. Scores of defectors pleaded with me to listen to their stories of fraud, deception and violence.

The brainwashing and violence were too unreal for me to accept. Then I spent a weekend with my daughter and finally saw for myself what they were talking about.

The end product of mind control can best be described by that weekend.

I saw my daughter walk in the fear of Moon, satan and evil, when once she would explore the world with love and spontaneity that was contagious to all around her.

I saw Katherine ignore man's freedom and dignity when for 18 years they were the most important things on here priority list.

I saw Katherine taking people for suckers and enjoying it, bragging to me and laughing how the Moonies lie, cheat, steal from the lonely.

I saw a woman who would kill herself or anyone else who got in her way.

I saw Katherine's body rigid with fear and hatred and yet under perfect outward control.

I heard my daughter agree that a great deal of her personality had turned to that of Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Indeed, I saw it myself.

I saw my daughter's eyes, once open to all loving, and expressive, now darting and piercing and pleading with me to understand her fear.

It was frightening and I, her mother, was helpless.

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