Different images for many different people the simplest definition of a cult is a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object but cult can also be defined as a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing this is considered the cult of personality that we give to our leaders our movie stars who are rock gods we worship their voices and their ideas every time we purchase one of their songs by a tickets to their movies or vote for them in our elections over the next few days and weeks pundits and talking heads will make grand statements and accusations about the bomber suspect regarding his motives and reasonings and while many will blame donald trump and whatever else our cowardly bomber reid tweeted or posted about in his social media be if you will take a step back and ask the bigger question. Are we all just a bunch of cult members at the end of the day whether through religion politics or pop culture is not joining a Political Party nothing more than pledging your allegiance to its leaders to follow and do what they condition you to believe is the name of the game or guard lists of the leaders last name is Clinton Schumer senators Mcconnell Paul or even donald trump are we really as independent minded as we like to believe we are or are we really all of us just a tweet a Facebook Post a prayer a marriage or a vote away from going a little mad sometimes well i think its time we start practicing some independence and start watching the whole. World that were going to watch for the harks i am tyro but for all and im to have a flawless reverend Sun Myung Moon was born in what is now north korea in 1925954 he had founded what was to become the Unification Church after a 5 year sentence at a north korean labor camp he considered the cold war between communism and democracy to be the final conflict between good mean evil in the 1960 s. He began to hold mass wedding ceremonies and which partners were matched by the church and by 982 he was holding mass wedding ceremonies for the arranged marriages in places like Madison Square garden but moons church often called moony years as their members wasnt just about forced arranged marriages it was also a lucrative business that used media to perpetuate the reverence extremist believes in 1902 the uniform the Unification Church and moon started the Washington Times newspaper and to this day it is a paper known for publishing extreme views related to things like White Supremacy and Climate Change just to name a few but. Despite various scandals lawsuits and Horror Stories that have come from those who have escaped the religion now characterized by many as a cult it wasnt it doesnt stop his sons from taking the church even further in march of this year the late reverend moons sons hold a mass where you get a very rod of iron Ministries Church in pennsylvania in which they are 15 or a necessary part of the ceremony all the same roles the same control of thought body and soul earlier we sat down with lisa cohen author of the book to the moon and back about her experience growing up in the Unification Church and what her taught what it taught her about extremist cults like the Unification Church and can make even the most independent people lose themselves. So i want to start today just ask you how to jew. No is probably a complicated question but how did you become involved in the Unification Church and how long were you member of the church or to be so the 1st part complicated i got involved when i was 10 years old in 1904 my mom my mom went to hear everyone speak in january of 174 and then in june in 174 she went up to a workshop at belvedere a baritone one of their church places churches states and she went up and back and up and back and then took us up somewhere in july and we were in so i was in it 10 years old 174 the how long is a little bit more complicated because some people leave and they leave on a specific date and my brother like to say i just kind of drifted away and so somewhere between 17 to 2021 was when i was like less less less less less a member it was hard to leave i could imagine. What in the whats interesting is when you kind of think about being involved in a church thats so involved in the daily life or a cult or any kind of organization and. It is every day and you think about it as being very strict in a very strict upbringing but your experience is actually. Its a little different its a little different i was arrested a polar opposite experience within being part of church or the call to get you know you want to know youre looking out i can use a lot of the polar opposites that you were living was so my passport when i was young and we lived with my mom and she joined the church and we became members so that was the fanatical extreme religion on one side but through a process of what happened we end up living with my dad so we were members i was best friends with his kids were there whenever we could be involved in the church but on the weekdays i lived with my dad in the east village in new york city of my i describe it my friends describe it as sex drugs and squalor it was just he was a hippie it was crazy it was so we had we have both these really weird contrasting worlds going on at the same time in our lives and my brother and i in our brains how did you handle that is your. World still talking about you know you said 2117 to 20 more the prime of who we are in life what. Kind of. What did you 1st try to do if you could member of this isnt quite right not to become a figure out of for me so i. Believe that with all my heart he was right there he was my messiah. And i saw the church is true and my fathers life is saved tannic in evil and so. On and that was it there was no question and youre taught youre taught not to question youre taught that if you ever questioning it say in trying to win you back so as soon as you question you stop questioning because you know its evil and its a tannic so that went on for a very long time. Kind of the the real starting of the breaking point the summer between my junior and senior year of high school my dad sent me to music camp im convinced to keep me away from the church for a summer and i had friends who were gay and bisexual for the 1st time that i knew of from my life and my life and and my church as a huge sin its evil and i so i wrote to my mom what do i do when shes like theyre evil stay away from them or convert and those are your choices and that was the 1st time it didnt they were wonderful and i love them and their friends and it didnt it didnt make sense in my brain and so i started to just one juror and question and feel uncomfortable and so i went to my senior year of high school me to display a conscious decision to pull a little bit away from the church fearing that i had joined as a 10 year old as a child and so as a adult at 17 i was going to pull back and make an adult decision to go back in and i. Became involved more involved with friends in high school and york city at stuyvesant and got closer and found more more of myself the more unconditional love there and then made the huge mistake of having a boyfriend which is the other sin and oh no and yeah and saw everybody freaked out and i i went to cornell i went to college and. Decided to break up with him but didnt and it just kind of escalated from there i i when i left i firmly believed it was true i just didnt want to do it anymore which was what was hard. One of the things was in your book and in speaking to people in various religions or cults that a band like the Unification Church in which you have these very strict rules about dating and who you could who you can talk to and who you can be friends with and who is good and who is who is evil there is an extremism and that and that extremism i feel people say its coming back like we have it now is that we have it but like i said i remember even as you know i was a kid. The mass weddings on new years and seeing things like this it doesnt seem that far away as if it all sort of goes away extremism what is it about or what was it for you you know the to believe what was so intoxicating about that message from reverend. The reverend. And do you see that in that happening in a lot of religions or cults or political ideology or whatever it is what is that a toxic asia so so 1st off will we when we join the church my mom joined it was a haven for us the funny things are these 2 contrasting worlds and in many ways the church was structure and safety and Loving Community so as a haven from the craziness beforehand and then in many ways having the outside world probably also help my brother i leave because there was that outside sense but to directly answer your question so as as human beings we crave certainty purpose and community and an organization like that gives you certainty purpose and community and so when you use it intoxicating i say there is nothing as intoxicating is knowing you have the truth its this unbelievably powerful feeling you dont have monday morning blues saturday blues you dont wonder why am i here you know this is absolutely true and this is absolute gods will or the right thing of the right way and theyre all wrong and this is saved and this is not and its its sureness like you dont have any other way and it doesnt exist it exists a lot now there are a lot of extra religions or a lot of political groups or a lot of terrorist groups and its all that sense of if this is true then i will do anything i would i would do anything. Come its a cold 1000 pandemic change the International System only have us trying to relations been altered and is the west experiencing buyers remorse in english. Thinking of getting a new phone the ones weve gotten here she has no problem why is he didnt know what to do hes trapped in this tiny little wired coach be going near the crate with him he will just start freaking out and she will want to spray him anywhere near. Breeding dogs or caged in in human conditions on puppy farm i mean 67 years you know theyve been locked up in a cage outside you see no protection from the weather the heat you know the courtier the rain the snow the funder nothing they have no protection. To get you. To get through kid. Across the u. S. Cruel puppy mills are supported by dog shows and pet stores most of the puppies are coming from these large Scale Factory farming kind of operations are being sold and at stores even joined a good businesses are involved like agoa mom son to there has been a shocking amount of organized opposition to adverts to increase the standards of care for dogs bred in commercial breeding for so many most of that opposition is coming from huge agricultural groups and industries that have nothing to do with jobs dont buy dog on o. T. Show small seemed wrong all roles just dont call. Me to be yet to shape out just they become agitated and in gains from it equals betrayal. When so many find themselves worlds apart when shes to look for common ground. Thank. You. But mr griffin finally escaped or of years in the Amish Community she had a 3rd grade education severe p. T. S. D. And a desire to save other people from the horrors she experienced in her book tears of a silent and honest true crime memoir of childhood sexual abuse brutal betrayal and ultimate survival she tells her story from the age of 6 she was forced into a religion a lifestyle that saw her as less than human that punished her for her abuse or sins and her secrecy allows croll physical psychological and sexual abuse to go unchecked and cloistered communities like the amish across the United States we started by asking mistake about how she 1st became a part of an Amish Community. Well when i was about 6 years old my stepfather started having my family dress and live like the amish so we started started down like a journey in that direction and by the time i was 10 years old we were fully dressing amish and amish clothes and. We started slowly like living the lifestyle we lived on a ranch when i was 11 and thats when my sister and i were sort of isolated on a mountain. And. Yeah at that point thats when life got like really hard like my sister were almost completely isolated we had very little contact with the outside world and my mother and stepfather were extremely abusive and when i was 19 i almost 19 i tried to run away off the mountain and. My stepfather was afraid that perhaps i would make it off the mountain one day go to the police so a few months later they took us to an Amish Community and i was in too great. It into the community i learned german in my sister and i both to be key. Members of the church. Now one of the things that you mentioned in your in reading your book. Is that the abuse that happened to you was interest sexual or psychological. There was a lot of physical abuse in the name of religion and one thing that stuck out to me was was that sort of beating the devil out of someone wasnt just an expression where you were can you how how was the faith because i have known a number of families i grew up around them and reading your story horrified me because i think we just start to realize how much we dont know is going on in these sort of communities how was face expressed with violence in the in the Amish Community you were involved in. So. Most of the physical violence that i experienced was when i was a child with my mother and stepfather when they were not really amish they were just sort of mimicking the lifestyle. But. Among the amish like there is you know violence Domestic Violence you know child abuse those kinds of things. Its considered to be necessary in order to keep people in line like if there is not strong discipline then the devil conservative take your souls so in order to keep you on the Straight Path then you need to keep everybody in line and if that requires force then you have to use force yeah some people do say its beating the devil like for me in my case like i always heard it was beating the devil out of me basically. You know i want to ask you this too but its sensible how common is. You know that were talking about abuse in these communities how common is sexual abuse in amish communities and and how common is it that the victim is actually blamed for the abuse whether whether its sexual or violent or physical you know how common is the victim blaming in these communities. Pretty much in every case that i know of the victims blamed like in my community there was a 14 Year Old Girl who was sexually abused and the rumor i mean this is adult men married fathers who are saying this that the reason she was sexually abused was because she was too friendly the guy that it was like in his fiftys in this girl was 14 and she was traumatized from what happened to her in the room or around the whole Community Like people would talk about it and everybody always said it was because she was too friendly i mean they couldnt say it was because the way she dressed you know some christians say you know if you dressed right or if you didnt go to parties or if you were alone with men this wouldnt happen to you but in the amish you cant say that because everybody is dressed from head to foot so there has to be an excuse and it cant be that mans fault because usually its considered. That the person who has the abuse to do so for some reason somehow so it has to be the victims fault and the only fault they could find was that she was a very friendly girl and they said thats why it happened to her bridgewater or just. Awful. Oh im one of the you know i weve talked a lot about lately on our show about cults about how you know people are being brainwashed or held into these situations and you talk a little bit and you talk in your book about. About the bishop when you were sent to live with just the bishop and what happened there and i think your story is one that that actually shows that something happened but. Can you tell a little bit about just just a little bit about what happened and where are the gentleman who abused you and it up. My case i went to be a made for the bishop and his family the family that i was assigned to in the Amish Community was having some problems so the bishop said you know come live with us they had 7 children all under the age of 12 so i basically moved in with them to help out in the family and right from the beginning the bishops started molesting me. So it was about 6 months of that and i started to suspect that he was molesting his children and one morning he came into my room an attack to me and it was a pretty brutal attack and thats when i went to the police but he wasnt arrested at that time he wasnt charged with anything and he ended up excusing him to canada and 10 years later his 3 oldest daughters they asked a Neighbor Lady for help and he was finally arrested but by that time he had molested almost all of his children. So so theres really i mean i i commend you and i just tell you how strong it is that you did that not for yourself but for somebody else and for you i mean and that being the point when you leave Something Like that how did it feel because the outside would be people dont leave these sort of coiffed certain environments whether its amish mennonite or any number of them if people dont leave so how do you feel when you 1st left and and what was that transition what helped you during that transition. So for me like coming from the background that i came from you know you were taught that if you ever leave the amish youre going to hell thats what youre taught from you know if youre born into it youre taught that from basically when youre a baby so leaving is traumatic in itself because youre kind of scared you know am i going to hell am i doing the right thing and for me that turning point was me realizing that basically everything i had been taught was a lie because you know theyre telling me if i leave this church im going to hell but in this church they are committing all of these horrific crimes against humanity so i that opened my eyes you know that day i went to the police and so somethings not fitting together here theres something wrong with this picture and thats when it all kind of just came together for me that what i had been taught had been a lie basically and that gave me the strength to to leave you know i felt i couldnt stay in that culture i felt like i would be an accomplice to these crimes if i stayed so thats what finally. Gave me the strength to leave i guess i didnt want to be a part of that and you know for full disclosure im still a christian so i believe my faith in god i hope to me through that transition time but leaving the amish was 6 very scary i mean it was like being teleported from the 17th hundreds into the 2 thousands i mean i pretty much didnt know anything that was going on in the outside world so. Im glad you said that because i didnt want to ask you about your faith was did you how was your faith tested your personal faith tested by learning or did you hold on to it was it hard to to walk out of that and still have your faith your religious faith. Once you realize that people of faith to you and other people without a hard transition or is that work for kept you going. I would say thats what kept me going i get so many people that ask me you know how can you still be a christian you know that doesnt make any sense you know christians are the ones that they did this to you i mean almost killed you basically i mean that these were christians and i tell them no these people were not following jesus example just because they claim to be christians does not mean they were actually christians so for me i dont believe my faith was tested because. For some reason ive just had a strong faith since i was a small child and i believe god would get me out of that situation one day and i mean he did i believe he did. So i believe it made my faith stronger and thats why im here today. You know i want to i think it was due to these as a whole or do you think it was just you know kind of this one community that you were involved. And what can people do who find themselves in similar situations to you to kind of climb out of you know and find that help and find a new way of life and find the freedom. That kind of appears. Yes it is indicative of the whole amish religion basically because they all have the same underlying. Beliefs and the belief is that. We are the amish and we do not. Contact the outside world we do not turn a brother or a sister over to the outside law those things have to be handled in the church and by the church and if you go to the outside law in some cases you can be shunned. Sometimes you come across a piece of human ingenuity so cool that it makes you wonder why we cant fix all the rest of our problems in the world that same kind of brilliant creativity case in point the good folks at the European Space agency who have been child on least upon plato for the 1st time busy with moon well in actuality its fake moon dust that basically works just like the real stuff but thankfully you dont have to go to the moon and back to get it anyway our friends at isa have used a 3 d. Printer loaded up with fake moondust to print small screws gears bolts and even if a coil a wire slightly scientists and researchers making stuff you could just as easily find in your junk drawer well because theyre looking for a forward thinking solution to the costly and logistical problem of bringing supplies back and forth to a future moon base or colony in other words you dont have to bring the Hardware Store to the moon if you can utilize one of the biggest Natural Resources r. D. Their hair is to human ingenuity and im looking forward to 3 d. Printed supplies in my moon condo right is lead is not cool and then you see is that these little to you and i guess there are they have like the density of like a dinner plate like theyre ceramic as opposed to like a metal yeah but theyre very strong yes i mean susie ceramic and some kind of ceramics they use on the bottom sides of shuttles these to use and it was a ceramic but it was stronger than almost anyone how they found is that theyve also i guess back in august theyve also been making bricks in the same process out of moon dust where that way then when youre up there you dont have to bring all this with you you can make it out of the resources that are there i definitely want my condo on them own to be made out of them and bricks loom bricks or bricks or as others are sort of a bit of a remember everyone in this world were not told that were loved about so i told the wall i love i am tired rolled with a downtown of the lalas hes been watching those hawks number great lady. The world is driven by a dream shaped by. The day or thinks. We dare to ask. Fine art market which i think is a great market to give an indication of where prices are weather heading the fact that fine art of sothebys and other auction houses has gone up dramatically over the past 10 or 1520 years spectacularly so its not reflected in the price of bread until it hits and now its starting to be that way so that inflation that we saw in the High End Products is down going to end up being in the staples like wheat bread food chicken i just saw somebody post a image of a chicken for sale somewhere that price was up 100 percent. Hey folks this is Dennis MillerDennis Miller plus one todays guest u. F. C. President dana white will talk about the recent u. F. C. 249. 00 odyssey and its eventual cancellation and then also the birth of the sport where it stands today all that as i said with u. F. C. President dana white and Dennis Miller plus. A folks welcome to Dennis Miller plus one of our guests today well i would say arguably since pete roselle got the n. F. L. On the map to a large degree i dont think anybody sponsor