Fifteenth Anniversary Edition 1 - Heartbreak and Rage: Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon, A Cult Survivor's Memoir

Mass weddings. Matching ceremonies where people meet their future spouses for the first time. Desperate flower-sellers approaching bar customers late at night. Isolated farms where young men and women are rapidly transformed into fanatical devotees of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. All these are well-known aspects of life in the Unification Church, often called the "Moonies". In Heartbreak and Rage: Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon, a Cult Survivor's Memoir, K. Gordon Neufeld recalls his own participation in all of these events in a powerful and engrossing, and occasionally wistful and tender, memoir. Neufeld recounts his own rise in the ranks of the Unification Church to the position of a leader-in-training at the Unification Theological Seminary, a promotion that indirectly led to his growing disillusionment. Yet even when he found himself rejected by the woman Moon had chosen for his bride, and by the church to which he had been unswervingly dedicated, he refused to give up, but carried on until there was absolutely no way to continue. At last, demonstrating great courage, Neufeld broke free from his state of mental transfixion without the aid of deprogrammers. This is an unforgettable story of persistence, devotion, love and loss. Many people wonder how cults can have such power to convert capable people into dedicated cult followers. Neufeld carefully describes how cult mind control was established over him at the Boonville recruitment farm, despite his own initial resistance; and how, ultimately, he fell completely under its sway. In Part One: The Quest for Justification, Neufeld explains that he has felt a lifelong need to justify his existence. He describes his upbringing in Alberta, Canada, and his travels across Canada as a young man, ultimately settling into a…