But events are happening that also make this an exciting and hopeful time. Former members of cults are putting up web sites, and are writing blogs and publishing books. Many have, like myself become mental health professionals, and have gone on to have very successful careers. As we learn more about human behavior, we enhance our ability to help people who’ve been recruited by controlling organizations and cults. Today we have knowledge, including neurobiology research that explains what just a few years ago would have been considered magical, occult, or satanic.
Like most of us, I knew nothing about any of these phenomena when I was recruited into the “One World Crusade,” a front group for the Unification Church, better known for decades as the Moonies. I was a 19-year-old junior at Queens College in New York in February of 1974. I was an appealing target for cult recruiters as I sat in the college cafeteria and mourned the loss of my girlfriend. I was idealistic and bright, the only son of a loving middle-class family and especially vulnerable at that moment to the smiles of three attractive women who flirted with me and invited me over for dinner.
