A Taiwanese-based UFO cult was "discovered" this
past week by the American media after a worried
mother reported her 16-year-old daughter kidnapped
to Sheriff's officials in Los Angeles County.
While the group may or may not be considering
suicide, a number of eerie similarities have
cropped up between this group and the Heaven's
Gate group that committed suicide this past march
near San Diego.
Nan Hwa Chiang was reunited with her mother at the
Sheriff's department on Mon. Dec. 22. Lt.
Roosevelt Blow told the Los Angeles Times that "we
have no evidence of a crime," although an MSNBC
news report stated that a Sheriff's investigation
is continuing. The girl was living in an apartment
complex next to "God's Salvation Church" (the
group's registered name in California) in San
Dimas. MSNBC reported that her father, a church
member, had reportedly died of cancer and
requested she stay with her uncle, also a member.
Her mother flew from Taiwan to get her, and is
expected to return with her daughter.
The group -- usually known as "Chen Tao," or "True
Way" in English -- believes that God will make his
presence known this March 31 (a little more than a
year after Heaven's Gate) when He inhabits the
body of its leader, Hon-Ming Chen (whose last name
is conveniently in the group's name). The event
will be televised nationwide on channel 18,
presumably by the power of the Holy Spirit. The
group has no official name; in addition to Chen
Tao, its literature gives names such as "God's
Salvation Church, God and Buddha Salvation
Foundation" and "The Chinese Association of the
Light of Soul." After the San Dimas fiasco, "God
Saves the Earth Flying Saucer Foundation" was
dropped as a name.
After the Salvation Church was exposed, group
members made their move to Garland, TX (a suburb
of Dallas), which they had already been planning
for months. The Houston Chronicle quoted Tawnia
Winchell, whose mother-in-law lives across the
street from their principal residence, as saying
that "They all came down here this past summer and
bought up all the houses with cash. It's a trip."
The Dallas Morning News reported that the group
has bought 21 homes in the suburb.
As to why God has chosen Garland, member
Chen-Sheng Wu told the Houston Chronicle that
"Garland" sounds similar to "God's Land," although
"we don't know if that's the reason" why God told
him to move to the land of 110,000 people. Chen
prophesies that the Western Hemisphere, and
especially the United States, will be safe from
the Holocaust of the next two years -- but more on
that later.
It's not yet clear as to whether the group
actually plans to commit suicide, although KCBS-TV
news in Los Angeles reported that Taiwanese
officials told the Sheriff's department that the
group planned to commit mass suicide, according to
the City News Service. But Yu-Chung Lo, deputy
director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural
office who had met the group in Garland, told the
Associated Press that there is nothing to fear
from Chen Tao: "I believe they would never commit
suicide because as so far as I understand they are
very gentle, friendly and most of them are highly
educated." Reports haven't come in yet as to
whether Mr. Lo had knowledge about Heaven's Gate
or Jonestown before he made that statement.
Church members themselves deny that they're going
to commit suicide: "To commit suicide is to kill
God... It's killing your soul that was delegated
to you from God," an unidentified follower in San
Dimas told the AP. The Los Angeles Times quoted
Lo: "When I asked them about it, some of them
reacted very angrily, some of them said it was
ridiculous." The Chronicle quoted an unnamed
"Taiwanese cultural officer" from Houston who
visited Garland said that _some_ members of the
group bought round-trip airline tickets, leaving
open the possibility that not all members have
made contingency plans. Lo himself appears to be
erring on the side of caution: he told the Dallas
Morning News that officials will visit the group
periodically. "We are keeping a file on each
person... Families in Taiwan want to know how
their loved ones are," Lo said. He seemed less
certain about the group's beliefs: "To me, it's
just like somebody who believes in Santa Claus,"
the Chronicle quoted him as saying.
KXAS-TV in Dallas reported that the group began in
Taiwan in the 1950s, though the evolution of the
group wasn't fleshed out through a recent
Lexis-Nexis search. Chen, a 42-year-old former
sociology professor, told the Dallas Morning News
through an interpreter that he began receiving
messages directly from God in 1992, although he
received prophecies from a "golden ball" as a
small child. At their Tuesday news conference in
Garland, Chen or his interpreter made a possible
Freudian slip while announcing that "People worry
about our mass suicide. But we are really worried
about people's mass suicide when the great
tribulation happens" in 1999.
Chen says that a series of events will lead to the
'99 nuclear holocaust, starting when China attacks
Taiwan next month. Eight months later, three
nuclear power plants will explode in Taiwan,
followed by October's nuclear bomb blast in the
Middle East. By 1999, there will be full-scale
nuclear war. But "America is the place that will
be protected by God," according to Chen. "After
the nuclear war, more than four-fifths of the
world population will be killed. More than a
hundred million of people (sic) are estimated to
be the select of God and saved by God." The last
U.S. Census reported that there were more than 100
million people; however, that census was taken in
1990.
God's plans weren't made clear in advance to
Charles Amyx, who lives next door to Chen Tao's
primary residence. At the press conference, he
asked if he's going to be in danger later next
year if he doesn't believe in Chen's doctrine.
Chen tried to assure Amyx that "There isn't any
danger... God comes not to judge people... it will
all become clear March 31." But Amyx wasn't
convinced, as he told the Chronicle: "They say my
house isn't insured for acts of God, so I guess
I'm not covered if God comes down in a spaceship."
Chen tells his believers that he was the father of
Jesus in a previous incarnation, making him either
God or Joseph. But he maintains that God has
Chen's face, which makes him (and possibly Joseph)
more God-like. He introduced the current
incarnations of Jesus and Buddha, ages 10 and 9,
to the national media at Tuesday's press
conference. Chen's Jesus is the Jesus of the East;
the group is still waiting for the Jesus of the
West, who they say is 27-30 years old and is
living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Chen Tao
reportedly placed ads in The Province and
Vancouver Sun newspapers earlier this year, hoping
to catch the eye of the holy man so he could meet
the eastern Jesus at an airport terminal this past
June 25.
How God is going to make his appearance isn't very
clear. The Chronicle reported that members spoke
excitedly about God's coming to Garland in an
aircraft or airplane, which some referred to as a
"Godplane." Aircraft from other dimensions will
also appear; presumably, those other dimensions
will have air in their outer space, if that is
where the aircraft originated from. But the craft
may appear to look like a cloud; KXAS quoted Chen
as saying that "You can call it a cloud or a call
it a flying saucer. It's just like a cloud." The
group has been seeing many cloud formations lately
in their trips across America, which constitute
part of their spiritual training. One of the
pictures they provided to the media showed a
formation that they purported to spell "GOD,"
although the formation looked more like "007"; it
was more likely a publicity stunt for the new
James Bond flick. How exactly God will enter
Chen's body is a mystery, but it's something we
can look forward to across the Americas on channel
18.
But like many groups with doomsday prophecies,
Chen Tao has left open the possibility that Mr.
Chen is wrong about God's taking over his body.
As Richard Liu, a translator for Chen,
melodramatically put it: "If it should not happen,
Mr. Chen will put his life on it. Whether he be
executed, stoned to death or put on a cross, it
doesn't matter." If history's any guide, he won't
be.
Elsewhere in Taiwan
The Taiwanese Soka Gakkai-esque Buddhist sect, Hsi
Lai, recently placed an advertisement on the
Internet site of the Taiwanese CCC news digest.
The group became controversial last year when it
was reported that Vice President Al Gore held a
fund-raiser at one of their temples in Southern
California. The ad recounts Gore's message of
unity at the meeting; "with the speech still fresh
in our minds, we find it hard to believe that this
wonderful civic event has been characterized as a
political fund raiser."
The statement, paid for "(by) Fokuangshan Hsi Lai
Temple (I.B.P.S.) Devotees," attributed the
misinformation in the American press to cultural
misunderstandings. "Western culture treats the
individual and society as separate entities. In
contrast, Eastern culture considers the individual
and the society to be interdependent. Trying to
westernize Buddhism and to do more to benefit the
American people, Hsi Lai Temple monastics have
chosen to be actively engaged in American
society." It goes on to list some of their
cultural accomplishments, while admitting that "On
some finer points, a minority of monastics may not
have been completely in tune with certain American
cultural mores. However, all the actions were
altruistically inspired, without the intention of
crossing any legal lines."
The ad ends by partly concluding (among other
things) that "The visit of the Vice President was
a civic luncheon, not a fund raiser." But what of
all those checks made out to the Democratic
National Committee in the names of temple workers
who had renounced material wealth, and who didn't
have the kind of money that was made out? The
statement insists that "No one ever mentioned any
matters related to the election, contributions, or
politics." However, non-verbal communications were
not brought up in the statement.
Got a question, comment or tip? Please email me at
drogers@lightlink.com.
Links:
- MSNBC report: http://www.msnbc.com/news/132184.asp
KXAS report: http://www.msnbc.com/local/kxas/9238.asp
Hsi Lai Temple "devotees' statement":
http://la.ccchome.com/advertiser/hsilai/index-e.html
CCC News: http://www.cccnews.com
Cults have always been controversial, so perhaps it
should be a surprise that what defines a cult is
one of the most controversial things about them.
As Germany goes on investigating the Church of
Scientology for alleged human rights abuses,
it would seem that others are puzzled over what
makes for a "dangerous group" and what doesn't.
A recent
in the Washington
Times indicated that European governments
are compiling lists of sects and cults, and many
Americans aren't liking what they've put
together -- along with Scientology and Sun Myung
Moon's Unification
Church (which effectively controls the
Times), groups such as "Catholic
charismatics, Hasidic Jews, Baptists, Mormons,
Jehovah's Witnesses, Quakers, Buddhists -- and the
YWCA" have been labeled "dangerous sects" by
various state panels. (Let's not forget that the
Times has gotten stories seriously
distorted before -- lest we forget how just this
month, the paper's Insight magazine overblew
the story about how Clinton contributors got
special wavers to be buried at Arlington National
Cemetery.)
But if the Times report has any truth to
it, then it shows the sad state of the definition
of the word "cult". For anyone who's concerned
about getting people to understand the types of
groups profiled by Steve Hassan or
Margaret Singer, such a semantic problem is (and
has been) a very big one indeed. Many of us
remember how many people refused to take the
Heaven's Gate deaths seriously: that these people
were either kooky wackos that the world's better
off for not having, or that they knew fully what
they were doing, and maybe the type of alleged
deception used simply wasn't possible.
Another problem that counter-cult groups have had
(at least in the United States) is coming up with
money. Remember that the "old" Cult Awareness
Network was essentially sued out of existence by a
barrage of Scientology lawsuits; it never had an
easy time coming up with cash, and its fundraising
efforts became more desperate as it drew closer to
extinction. Perhaps to remind us of this (I wish),
the Boston
Globe reported on Dec. 9 that retired
investment banker Robert Minton has given a few of
Scientology's former members and critics a total
of $1.25 million for legal defenses and living
expenses. Noting that Scientology hasn't exactly
become "a good member of the world's religious
communities," he hopes to reform the church from
the outside. Upon returning home from a
Clearwater, Florida protest a couple of weekends
ago, he found that someone had given his
neighbors pamphlets describing him as a
"KKK"-style religious bigot. (Incidently,
similarly-worded pamphlets were also distributed
across the country in the neighborhoods of several
other critics that went to the protest, according
to the Philadelphia Inquirer on Dec. 13.
Imagine that!)
But not everything is cozy in the counter-cult
community. Last month, Landmark Education
(effectively the group formerly known as Werner
Erhard's est) reported that they had reached a
settlement with the "Cult Awareness Network" of
Chicago, which led most to conclude that it was
the "new" CAN,
which actually has that name. This week, Landmark
sent out a new press release clarifying the old
one -- that it was the "old" CAN, which is legally
blocked from using that acronym, for now. The Dec.
16 release noted that the new CAN is "operated by
the Foundation for Religious Freedom and (is) in
some way related to the Church of Scientology."
There are many reasons why it would be odd for an
Erhard-related entity to make a settlement with a
Scientology-related entity, especially given the
decades of animosity between the two. (Scientology
has accused Erhard of stealing its "tech" in the
formulation of his courses, and Erhard has never
denied having studied Scientology at one point).
Of course, such an agreement wouldn't have any
teeth to it, and that is undoubtedly the real
reason behind this settlement and follow-up press
release. Landmark's lawsuit was against the old
CAN's board of directors, and they recognize as
self-evident that the "new" CAN really is a
different group. (Acknowledging that the "new" and
"old" CANs are both the same would put them in a
rather precarious position should the old board of
directors get their name back.) And the "new" CAN
isn't likely to call Landmark, or any other group,
a destructive "cult" anyway.
But the decision to settle has already hurt the
credibility of the entity formerly known as CAN,
as a objective source for information. It could
keep them from regaining influence should they
regain any form of financial or managerial
stability, and it might even keep them from
getting that. If people know that a lawsuit can
keep them from providing information about any
particular group, other groups are likely to
follow Landmark's lead. It also implies a
double-standard in the old CAN's determination to
uphold its principles: it seems that it was right
to fight the Church of Scientology courtroom
attacks, even though it could not afford to do so,
because of the group's impact on society. But
Landmark has a smaller impact, and the old CAN
decided that it was relatively safe to settle by
never mentioning them again.
Got a question, comment or tip? Please email me at
drogers@lightlink.com.
