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~This is my story, my name is Danny Harth, I am a survivor of the Unification Church. Allow me to tell you (the readers) my story, while I was a member of the UC. Which points are relevant before, during, or after my life as a member of the Unification Church? To me all! They intertwine, one event leading to the next. Like dominoes lined up and falling in place. To save boredom and time for you though, I’m going to share just about some of the situtations which stand out in my mind. The stories that aren’t shared by the witnessing Moonies. Especially, when they are witnessing to the new sap that happens across their path.

~I am going to give you a glimpse into my life and mind as having survived my experience as a Moonie. “Survived,” is the key word here, some members have not survived, so I should try to remain truely grateful. Some have died at the hands of sleeping while driving, others died at the hands of criminals while witnessing or fundraising. Medical attention, as well as natural causes is another way some have kicked the bucket. The UC is famous for neglecting their members health.

~I am going to start this story in my teen life. I was a teenage alcoholic and drug addict. A party animal from the late 60’s. I started drinking in the spring of 1968 at 12 years old. Barreling head first into drugs that summer. This continued at a progressively insane speed, like most addiction’s do. Rarely does an addict notice his/her world crumbling around them, I am no exception. Around 1973 I fell in love with a beautiful girl. Yes! Totally in love, young, dumb and full of .....wisdom, yeah thats the ticket.

~While attempting to win this girls devoted heart, I stopped drinking and using. Early summer of 1973 was when I began my long journey of sobriety, without recovery, by holding on to promise of love. Anything for a kiss and willing to die for more. While in love and sober I began to go the Community College path. It was there I was introduced to communal life style. I found books on various spiritual communites located all across North America. That is where I got a really bright idea, which eventually lead into my lifelong trap within the Unification Church’s grasp, becoming an Aspostle want-a-be.

~The girl dumped me so typical of my life as a Romeo. With the exception of my loving beautiful wife, I have always been the dumpee and never the dumper. Broken hearted, like a dumb teenager, I decided to go and hitchhike and visit various communes and Zen Temples. I couldn’t join the foreign leagion, it didn’t exist anymore, otherwise I probable would have. I did the next best thing, I planned to became another Siddhartha or St. Francis. That would show that girl what a big mistake it was to dump me. I was off to learn from the wissest, oldest, drugged out psychotic hippy I could find.

~After traveling around a little, changing my mind in going to a Zen Temple, the haircut is what helped me come to my senses. I decided to see some sights. I then visited a cultish pentecostal Christian commune in Morro Bay, California. Talk about insane, I didn’t last longer than a weekend there. Tried to find my long lost love, quite unsuccessful I might add. I must have figured she would be walking down the rual roads of Highway 1. Starving and filthy, I decided to come home to Riverside, California via bus, through L.A.. No one in there right mind hitchhikes through L.A.. Not that I have ever been in my right mind. It was while changing busses in downtown L.A., that I was approached by a lovely Dutch girl. Her name was Hetti Canton. After a sincere attempt by me to invite Hetti to laze around the beach and escape for the evening. I succumbed to her wishes. I went to my first UC meeting.

~After listening to the introductory lecture of the Divine Principle(DP), I left the LA Center and went home. I left them with their mouths wide open,scratching their heads and other parts of their bodies. At home the profound ability, of the round piece of DP to fit into a square hole, began to work on my mind. I rested the whole weekend and first thing Monday morning, I showed up at the front door of the Center in Riverside. It was a new Center, which lasted a very short time, a record short time. The members were all in shock and disbelief, due to me just showing up. Me, ready to go to the Camp Muzumdar in the San Bernadino Mountains was too much for them. They believed I was a secret spy of destruction. I sat through their scrutiny and waited for them to call Hetti, to confirm my bizarre story. After this, they finally began to relax. I wish I would have really known why they were so paranoid, maybe I would have high tailed it to the hills. I had never heard of the Moonies before. Lack of education was my dilemma. They sent me to the camp, where I had the time of my life. It was so campy, so summer campish, so Brady Bunch and Happy Days combined. I thought it was so real, when it was more like a fantasy with “The Children of the Corn.”

~Having grown up in a financial disadvantaged family, I had never been to a summer camp at least one that was like this summer camp. I was easily overwhelmed. The group singing, the entertainment during and after dinner. Deep friends appeared out of the woodwork. I began to fall in love with some of the girls at the blink of an eye. The girls would get some dirt in their eyes, blink, and I would be in love again. While at the camp I stayed for the typical 3, 7, and then the 21 day workshops. All those DP points seemed to fit like a glove, for a highly-educated teen like me. They covered so many, if not all, the questions I had about life. They appeared so perfect and original. Little did I know that they were neither original nor perfect. Many people I encounter on various UC e-mail sites argue that the DP is still the truth. With close investigation, as well as good research, one can find many flaws and mistakes throughout the whole Aquarian DP. From the camp, I was sent to the Riverside Center. It was my choice, I wanted to save all my friends and family. Like Paul the Apostle, I wanted others to follow the new Christ, Rev. Sun Myung Moon. I wanted to save my family and friends, I wanted to be a hero to them. A famous hero, that would go down in history for all of eternity. No small dreams for this young lad. Instead, I ended up alienating all my family, friends, and even my high school teachers. Friendships that would never mend and be the same again. Even I wonder about some of my family relationship, though they have improved a lot. My parents on the other hand, have perfected the art of un-conditional love.

~During this time, by Grandfather became real sick, stayed in a hospital and eventually died. He was hospitalized 5 blocks from the Center, prior to his death. I was told to stop seeing him to do God’s work and I would see him in heaven for eternity. That control over me, as a new slave of the UC, was so typical of power minded Central Figures (CF). When he died, I was not allowed to go to the funeral, he was of Satan’s family and my True Parents (Rev. Moon and his wifee) would take me to heaven. Eventually, my family and ancestors would also be saved by SMM. I secretly weeped deeply about this, to do so in the open would be an admission of faithlessness, I loved that old man. From Riverside, shortly after Gramps death, I was sent to the Hollywood Center. It was a few blocks away from the famous Hollywood Blvd., a witnessing Mecca, filled with runaways, wanderers, hookers, homosexuals and many other religious groups. In Hollywood I became very close to a sister. She was my new love, we were good friends, we would witness and pal around and have a great time. The CF for the Center saw we were getting too friendly for UC standards so she came up with a brilliant idea.... MFT! It would make a man out of me. I was sent to the Pasadena Center to fundraise on there Mobile Fundraising Team (MFT).

~In the Pasadena MFT, I went around for a few months learning how to fundraise, how to approach strangers in shopping center parking lots, how to ask for change if they didn’t want the silly product. Then the MFT took me to Texas, to milk the Texans with $20 generaiums. Shortly after this, they sent me to the best of the best fundraisers. I was sent to fundraise on “Fathers Special Task Force” MFT. The kamikaze fundraisers, the Green Berets of MFT’ers. The ultimate in slavery. I would go down in history as “ONE OF THEM”. Little did I know what it was ultimately going to really cost me, physically, mentally, and spiritually. To do this many of us were flown to N.Y.. Where we went to a huge house across the street from Belevedere. It was given a name, like all the other property that the UC and Rev. Sun Myung Moon (SMM) owns. I cant remember it’s silly name. It was a georgeous classic mansion, overwhelming beautiful, radiating big bucks. There, we endured many more lectures and trained in the secrets of fundraising. Then I was sent to the Philadelphia Center. Friendships I made, I thought would last for eternity. As P.T. Barnum once said, “A Sucker is Born Every Minute”, or was that W.C. Fields? There they began to train me, by working me to death, on how to fundraise. I began my training as a spiritual Jedi, (under the guise of the MFT), heavenly warrior, Green Beret for the UC and the pocket book of SMM. Like that other saying, “To be all you can be”.

~I remember the first time I played soccer. It was on a Sunday, in the front yard of the MFT Center in Phili.. Pure fun. I was a goalie and gave my all. Playing for God’s Providence coupled with the joy in just having a day off. Days off, no matter how few in-between they were, always were the most enjoyable times. While on the MFT we would get token days off. We would go to real nice restaurants and eat or go to the movies. Just relax but remember we would work 7 days a week, from morning to night, and real late on Friday and Saturdays. Doing bar hopping fundraising from 10PM to 2AM. So token days off with an expensive restaurant and a token movie was really nothing. To us it was something, but in reality it was a token nothing. I was then put on a team with a Captain from the insane Berkeley Family. His name was Tom Philips. After slaving away for sometime, we were sent to the Georgia area to fundraise. Our Commander was Mr. Simba, he died of stomach cancer or intestinal cancer later on. While I findraised parts of Georgia, Tom told me to have no more contact with my evil, sinful, descendants of Satan family. No more weekly letters to mom, no phone calls too. That was a heart breaking time for me, I really love my parents deeply. My mom was also heart broken, I use to send her weekly letters telling her of all the wonderful sites I had seen, now nothing. No warning, no see you in several months, just nothing. This gave her time to talk to friends and be a living example of how the UC and SMM take kids away from families. Tom must have been a public relations person for the DMV in his past life.

X-MEMBERS TESTIMONIALS - SECTION Danny Harth Gordon Neufeld Sveta Bill Taylor Brenda Henry John Guzman Bora Uzima Harlan Simantel Isshi Natalija Velikorodina Todd Harvey

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