She looked forward to the day when she, too, would experience the elation of being Blessed. She attended her mother’s Blessing, a large-scale wedding ceremony with couples whose marriages were arranged by the leader. In some ways, Kohn immersed herself in the Moonies out of a deep-seated desire to be with her mother.Īt various points in her life, Kohn truly believed that Sun Myung Moon was the “True Parent” of humanity she was fully immersed, attending a continual stream of workshops and lectures, and reciting “The Pledge” weekly to reaffirm her commitment. She recalls begging her mother to spend time with her, and sitting outside of her mother’s door, waiting to be acknowledged. Kohn straightforwardly recalls her feelings of abandonment because her mother chose the church, church duties, and even taking care of other people’s children before her own children. She struggled to find a place in the Moonies, always wondering where she truly belonged. She lived in two worlds: on weekends, she and her brother visited their mother, who abandoned them for the Moonies during the week they stayed with their father, a bartender who considered “slut” a term of endearment and encouraged the use of recreational drugs. Lisa Kohn’s memoir of growing up in the 1960s and 1970s under the influence of the Unification Church-the “Moonies” cult-is at once heartrending and mind-blowing.
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