As the events surrounding Golden Dawn unfold, presenting Greek society with chilling details about the structure and actions of the organization-party, many questions arise. What drives these people to operate in such a way?
Human life seems to have no value in their minds if it is not white, or if the generation does not hold directly from Kolokotronis… What is going on in the minds of these people? The answer comes from the lips of Diane Benscoter who recounts her experience of becoming a member of the Unification Church — and remaining for five years. She shares through her experiences a perspective on religious groups and extremist movements and suggests a new angle for thinking about today’s troubling controversies.
Watch the video, the full translation follows
My journey to be here today began in 1974. That's me with the funny gloves. I was 17 and I was on a peace march. What I didn't know, though, was that most of these people standing there with me were members of the Unification Church. (Laughter) And within a week I was convinced that the second coming of Christ had happened, that it was Sun Myung Moon, and that I had been chosen and prepared by God to be his disciple.
As impressive as it sounds, my family was not thrilled about it. (Laughter) And they did everything they could to get me out. There was an underground rescue network that was operating in those days. Some of you may remember it. They were called "deprogrammers." And after about five years, my family removed me in this way against my will. And then I became a "deprogrammer." I started removing people from organizations. And after about five years, I was arrested for kidnapping. In most cases, my interventions were done against the will of the people I was removing. What happened was that the family had to provide their loved ones with a safe haven in some way. So they would take them to a safe haven. And we would go and talk to them, usually for about a week. And after that happened, I decided it was time to stop doing this work.
About 20 years passed. But there was one question that wouldn't let me rest. And it was, "How did this happen to me?" And what exactly happened to my brain? Because something happened. That's why I decided to write a book, an autobiographical one, about this decade of my life.
And towards the end of writing this book, a documentary came out. It was about Jonestown. It gave me goosebumps. These are the dead in Jonestown. About 900 people died that day, most of them suicides. Women poisoned their babies, and they saw the foam coming out of their mouths as they died.
In the top picture is a group of Unification Church members who were blessed by their messiah. Their companions were chosen for them. In the bottom picture is the Hitler Youth. This is the leg of a suicide bomber. What I had to admit to myself, with great disgust, was that I understand it. I understand how this could happen. I understand how a person's brain, how their mind can come to a place where it makes sense -- it would really be wrong, when your brain works that way -- not to try to save the world through a genocide
But what is it? How does it work? And I came to see that what happened to me is a “viral,” mimicry infection. For those of you who are not familiar with mimicry, a meme is defined as an idea that replicates in the human brain and moves from brain to brain like a virus, much like a virus. The way a virus works is — it can infect and cause the most damage to someone who has a compromised immune system.
In 1974, I was young, naive, and lost in my own world. I was a real idealist. These easy ideas on complicated questions are very appealing when you're emotionally vulnerable. What happens is that circular logic takes over.
“Moon is one with God. God will fix all the problems in the world. All I have to do is follow humbly. Because God will stop war and famine — all these things I wanted to do — all I have to do is follow humbly. Because God is ‘working’ through the Messiah. He will fix all of this.”
It becomes inaccessible. And the most dangerous thing is that it creates “us” and “them,” “right” and “wrong,” “good” and “bad.” It makes everything possible, everything can be justified.
And the thing is, though, if you were to look inside my mind during my years in the Unification Church — neuroscience is expanding exponentially, as Ray Kurzweil said yesterday. Science is expanding. We're starting to see inside the brain. If you were to look at my brain, or any brain that's infected with a "viral" mimicry infection like this, and you were to compare it to the brain of anyone in this room or anyone who uses their critical faculties frequently, I'm convinced it would look very, very different.
And that, even though it sounds strange, gives me hope. And the reason it gives me hope is that the first thing we have to admit is that we have a problem. But it's a human problem. A scientific problem, if you will. It happens in the human brain. There's no evil force trying to trap us. And that's why it's something that, through research and education, I believe we can solve. And that's why the first step is to realize that we can all do this together, and that there's no "us" and "them." Thank you very much. (Applause)
