Aum Shinrikyo (Asahara)

Aum Shinrikyo

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Aum Shinrikyo
Formation	1984
Type	New religious movement
Membership	1,650
Key people	Shoko Asahara

Aum Shinrikyo (currently known as Aleph) is a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.

The name “Aum Shinrikyo” (オウム真理教, Ōmu Shinrikyō^?) derives from the Sanskrit syllable Aum, which represents the universe, followed by Shinrikyo written in kanji, roughly meaning “religion of Truth”. In English “Aum Shinrikyo” is usually translated as “Supreme Truth.” In January 2000, the organization changed its name to Aleph in reference to the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and Phoenician alphabets. It changed its logo as well.

In 1995, the group claimed they had 9,000 members in Japan, and as many as 40,000 worldwide^{[citation needed]}. As of 2008, Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph membership is estimated at 1,650 people by the Japanese Government.^[update]

Contents [show] 1 Doctrine 2 History 2.1 Activities 2.2 Incidents before 1995 2.3 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks and related incidents 2.4 After 1995 3 Current activities 3.1 Monitoring of Aum Shinrikyo 3.2 Split 4 International opposition 5 See also 6 Notes 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] Doctrine

Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph is a composite belief system that incorporates Asahara’s idiosyncratic interpretations of YogaBuddhism and Christianity, and even the writings of Nostradamus. with facets of

In 1992 Asahara published a book, within which he declared himself “Christ“, Japan’s only fully enlightened master and the “Lamb of God“. His purported mission was to take upon himself the sins of the world. He claimed he could transfer to his followers spiritual power and ultimately take away their sins and bad Karma. He also saw dark conspiracies everywhere promulgated by the Jews, Freemasons, the Dutch, the British Royal Family, and rival Japanese religions.

Ultimately, Asahara outlined a doomsday prophecy, which included a Third World War. Asahara described a final conflict culminating in a nuclear “Armageddon“, borrowing the term from the Book of Revelation.^[1] Humanity would end, except for the elite few who joined Aum.^[1] Aum’s mission was not only to spread the word of “salvation“, but also to survive these “End Times“. Asahara predicted Armageddon would occur in 1997.^[1] He named the United States as The Beast from the Book of Revelation, predicting it would eventually attack Japan.^[1]

[edit] History

The movement was founded by Shoko Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo‘s Shibuya ward in 1984, starting off as a Yoga and meditation class known as Aum-no-kai (“Aum club”) and steadily grew in the following years. It gained the official status as a religious organization in 1989. It attracted such a considerable number of young graduates from Japan’s elite universities that it was dubbed a “religion for the elite”.

[edit] Activities

While Aum was considered a rather controversial phenomenon in Japan, it was not yet associated with serious crimes. It was during this period that Asahara received rare Buddhist scriptures and was awarded a stupa with remains of the Shakyamuni Buddha.

Aum’s PR activities included publishing. In Japan, where comics and animated cartoons enjoy unprecedented popularity among all ages, Aum attempted to tie religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes – space missions, extremely powerful weapons, world conspiracies and conquest for ultimate truth.

Followers were discouraged from consuming Aum’s publications like Enjoy the Happiness and Vajrayana Sacca, which were aimed primarily at the outside world; researchers later misinterpreted the ideas as being part of Aum’s internal belief system. One of their most extraordinary publications, about ninja, traced the origins of martial arts and espionage to ancient China and linked the supernatural abilities ninja were rumored to possess with religious spiritual practices, concluding that the “true ninja” was interested in “preserving peace” in times of military conflict.

Isaac Asimov‘s science fiction Foundation Trilogy was referenced “depicting as it does an elite group of spiritually evolved scientists forced to go underground during an age of barbarism so as to prepare themselves for the moment … when they will emerge to rebuild civilization.”^[2] Aum’s publications used Buddhist ideas to impress the shrewd and educated Japanese not attracted to boring, purely traditional sermons. (Lifton, p258) Later, the discussions about pre-requisites of Aum appeal factor resulted in some traditional Japanese Buddhist shrines adapting the Aum ‘weekend meditation seminars’ format. The necessity to ‘modernize’ the traditional Buddhist approach towards followers also became the common refrain.

Aum Shinrikyo had started as a quiet group of people interested in yogic meditation, but later transformed into a very different organization. According to Asahara, he needed “to demonstrate charisma” to attract the modern audience. Following his decision, Aum underwent a radical image change.

The rebranded Aum looked less like an elite meditation boutique and more like an organization attractive to a broader, larger population group. Public interviews, bold controversial statements, and vicious opposition to critique were incorporated into the religion’s PR style.

In private, both Asahara and his top disciples continued their humble lifestyles, the only exception being the armored Mercedes-Benz gifted by a wealthy follower concerned over his Guru‘s traffic safety. In rather rare footage, Asahara is seen on the street in front of a large clown doll resembling himself, smiling happily. He never ceased repeating that personal wealth or fame were of little importance to him, but he had to be known in order to attract more people.

Intense advertising and recruitment activities, dubbed the ‘Aum Salvation plan’ included claims of curing physical illnesses with yoga health improvement techniques, realizing life goals by improving intelligence and positive thinking, and concentrating on what was important at the expense of leisure and spiritual advancement. This was to be accomplished by practising the ancient teachings, accurately translated from original Pali sutras (these three were referred to as ‘threefold Salvation’). Extraordinary efforts resulted in Aum becoming the fastest-growing religious group in Japan’s history.

The religion’s practices remained shrouded in secrecy. Initiation rituals often involved the use of hallucinogens, such as LSD. Religious practices often involved extreme ascetic practices referred to as “yoga”. These included everything from renunciants being hung upside down to being given shock therapy.^[1]

With ambitious young graduates from Japan’s top universities, Aum’s ‘department’ system also changed its name. Thus ‘medical department’ became ‘ministry of health’, ‘scientific group’ became ‘ministry of science’ and people with martial-arts or military backgrounds were organized into a ‘ministry of intelligence.’ Female followers involved in the care of children were assigned to the ‘ministry of education’ accordingly.

[edit] Incidents before 1995

The cult started attracting controversy in the late 1980s with accusations of deception of recruits, and of holding cult members against their will and forcing members to donate money; a murder of a cult member who tried to leave is now known to have taken place in February 1989.

In October 1989, the group’s negotiations with Tsutsumi Sakamoto, an anti-cult lawyer threatening a lawsuit against them which could potentially bankrupt the group, failed. In the same month, Sakamoto recorded an interview for a talk show on the Japanese TV station TBS. The network then had the interview secretly shown to the group without notifying Sakamoto, intentionally breaking protection of sources. The group then pressured TBS to cancel the broadcast. The following month Sakamoto, his wife and his child went missing from their home in Yokohama. The police were unable to resolve the case at the time, although some of his colleagues publicly voiced their suspicions of the group. It was not until 1995 that they were known to have been murdered and their bodies dumped by cult members. (See Sakamoto family murder).

Aum was also connected with such activities as extortion. The group commonly took patients into its hospitals and then forced them to pay exorbitant medical bills.^[1]

In 1990, Asahara and 24 other members stood unsuccessfully for the General Elections for the House of Representatives under the banner of Shinri-tō (Supreme Truth Party). Asahara made a couple of appearances on TV talk shows in 1991, however at this time the attitude of the cult’s doctrine against society started to grow in hostility. In 1992 Aum’s “Construction Minister” Kiyohide Hayakawa published a treatise called Principles of a Citizen’s Utopia which has been described as a “declaration of war” against Japan’s constitution and civil institutions. At the same time, Hayakawa started to make frequent visits to Russia to acquire military hardware, including AK47s, a MIL Mi-17 military helicopter, and reportedly an attempt to acquire components for a nuclear bomb.^[1]

The cult is known to have considered assassinations of several individuals critical of the cult, such as the heads of Buddhist sects Soka Gakkai and The Institute for Research in Human Happiness and the attempted assassination of the controversial cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi in 1993.

At the end of 1993, the cult started secretly manufacturing the nerve agent sarin and later VX gas. They also attempted to manufacture 1000 automatic rifles but only managed to make one [2]. Aum tested their sarin on sheep at a remote pastoral property in Western Australia, killing 29 sheep. Both sarin and VX were then used in several assassinations (and attempts) over 1994–1995. Most notably, on the night of 27 June 1994, the cult carried out the world’s first use of chemical weapons in a terrorist attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto, Nagano. This Matsumoto incident killed eight and harmed 200 more. However, police investigations focused only on an innocent local resident and failed to implicate the cult.

In February 1995, several cult members kidnapped Kiyoshi Kariya, a 69-year old brother of a member who had escaped, from a Tokyo street and took him to one of their compounds at Kamikuishiki near Mount Fuji, where he was killed with an overdose and his body destroyed in a microwave-powered incinerator before being disposed of in Lake Kawaguchi. Before Kariya was abducted, he had been receiving threatening phone calls demanding to know the whereabouts of his sister, and he had left a note saying “If I disappear, I was abducted by Aum Shinrikyo”.

Police made plans to simultaneously raid cult facilities across Japan in March 1995.

[edit] 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks and related incidents

Main article: Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

A wanted poster in Japan. As of February 2010, three people are still wanted in connection with the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway: (left to right) Makoto Hirata, Katsuya Takahashi, and Naoko Kikuchi.^[update]

On the morning of 20 March 1995, Aum members released sarin in a co-ordinated attack on five trains in the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 commuters, seriously injuring 54 and affecting 980 more. Some estimates claim as many as 5,000 people were injured by the sarin. It is difficult to obtain exact numbers since many victims are reluctant to come forward.^[3] Prosecutors allege that Asahara was tipped off about planned police raids on cult facilities by an insider, and ordered an attack in central Tokyo to divert attention away from the group. The plan evidently backfired, and the police conducted huge simultaneous raids on cult compounds across the country.

Over the next week, the full scale of Aum’s activities was revealed for the first time. At the cult’s headquarters in Kamikuishiki on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons and biological warfare agents, such as anthrax and Ebola cultures, and a Russian Mil Mi-17 military helicopter. The Ebola virus was delivered from Zaire in 1994.^[4] There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people. Police also found laboratories to manufacture drugs such as LSD, methamphetamine, and a crude form of truth serum, a safe containing millions of dollars in cash and gold, and cells, many still containing prisoners. During the raids, Aum issued statements claiming that the chemicals were for fertilizers. Over the next six weeks, over 150 cult members were arrested for a variety of offenses. The media was stationed outside their Tokyo headquarters on Komazawa Dori in Aoyama for months after the attack and arrests waiting for action and to get images of the cult’s other members.

On 30 March 1995, Takaji Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency, was shot four times near his house in Tokyo, seriously wounding him. While many suspect Aum involvement in the shooting, Sankei Shimbun reported that Hiroshi Nakamura is suspected of the crime, but nobody has been charged.^[5]

While on the run, Asahara issued statements, one claiming that the Tokyo attacks were a ploy by the US military to implicate the cult, and another threatening a disaster that “would make the Kobe Earthquake seem as minor as a fly landing on one’s cheek.” to occur on 15 April. The authorities took the threat seriously, declaring a state of emergency, stocking up hospitals with antidotes to nerve gas while chemical warfare specialists of the Self-Defence Force were put on standby. However, the day came and went with no incident.

On 23 April, Murai Hideo, the head of Aum’s Ministry of Science, was stabbed to death outside the cult’s Tokyo headquarters amidst a crowd of about 100 reporters, in front of cameras. The man responsible, a Korean member of Yamaguchi-gumi, was arrested and eventually convicted of the murder. His motive remains unknown.

On the evening of 5 May, a burning paper bag was discovered in a toilet in Shinjuku station in Tokyo, the busiest station in the world. Upon examination it was revealed that it was a hydrogen cyanide device which, had it not been extinguished in time, would have released enough gas into the ventilation system to potentially kill 20,000 commuters. Several undetonated cyanide devices were found at other locations in the Tokyo subway.

During this time, numerous cult members were arrested for various offences, but arrests of the most senior members on the charge of the subway gassing had not yet taken place.

Shoko Asahara was finally found hiding within a wall of a cult building known as “The 6th Satian” in the Kamikuishiki complex on 16 May and was arrested. On the same day, the cult mailed a parcel bomb to the office of Yukio Aoshima, the governor of Tokyo, blowing the fingers of his secretary’s hand off. Asahara was initially charged with 23 counts of murder as well as 16 other offenses. The trial, dubbed “the trial of the century” by the press, ruled Asahara guilty of masterminding the attack and sentenced him to death. The indictment was appealed unsuccessfully. A number of senior members accused of participation, such as Masami Tsuchiya, also received death sentences.

The reasons why a small circle of mostly senior Aum members committed atrocities and the extent of personal involvement by Asahara remain unclear to this day, although several theories have attempted to explain these events. In response to the prosecution’s charge that Asahara ordered the subway attacks to distract the authorities’ away from Aum, the defense maintained that Asahara was not aware of events, pointing to his deteriorating health condition. Shortly after his arrest, Asahara abandoned the post of organization’s leader and since then has maintained silence, refusing to communicate even with lawyers and family members. Many believe the trials failed to establish truth behind the events.

[edit] After 1995

On 10 October 1995, Aum Shinrikyo was ordered to be stripped of its official status as a “religious legal entity” and was declared bankrupt in early 1996. However the group continues to operate under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, funded by a successful computer business and donations, and under strict surveillance. Attempts to ban the group altogether under the 1952 Subversive Activities Prevention Law were rejected by the Public Security Examination Commission in January 1997.

The group underwent a number of transformations in the aftermath of Asahara’s arrest and trial. It re-grouped under the new name of Aleph in February 2000. It has announced a change in its doctrine: religious texts related to controversial Vajrayana Buddhist doctrines that authorities claimed were “justifying murder” were removed. The group apologized to the victims of the sarin gas attack and established a special compensations fund. Provocative publications and activities that alarmed society during Aum times are no longer in place.^{[citation needed]}

Fumihiro Joyu, one of the few senior leaders of the group under Asahara who did not face serious charges, became official head of the organization in 1999.

In July 2000, Russian police arrested Dmitri Sigachev, an ex-KGB and former Aum Shinrikyo member, along with four other former Russian Aum members, for stockpiling weapons in preparation for attacking Japanese cities in a bid to free Asahara. In response, Aleph issued a statement saying they “do not regard Sigachev as one of its members”.^[6]

In August 2003, a woman believed to be an ex-Aum Shinrikyo member took refuge in North Korea via China.^[7]

[edit] Current activities

A June 2005 report by the National Police Agency showed that Aleph has approximately 1650 members, of which 650 live communally in compounds.^[8] The group operates 26 facilities in 17 prefectures, as well as about 120 residential facilities.

An article on the Mainichi Shimbun on 11 September 2002, showed that the Japanese public still distrusts Aleph, and compounds throughout Japan are usually surrounded by protest banners from local residents demanding they leave. There have been numerous cases where local authorities have refused to accept resident registration for cult members when it is discovered that Aleph has set up a facility within their jurisdiction. (This effectively denies cult members social benefits such as health insurance, and a total of five cases were taken to court by cult members, who won every time). Local communities have also tried to drive the cult away by trying to prevent cultists from finding jobs, or to keep cult children out of universities and schools. Right-wing groups also frequently conduct marches near Aum-related premises such as apartments rented by Aum followers with extremely loud music broadcast over loudspeakers installed on minivans, which add to their neighbors’ displeasure.

[edit] Monitoring of Aum Shinrikyo

In January 2000, the group was placed under surveillance for a period of three years under an anti-Aum law, in which the group is required to submit a list of members and details of assets to the authorities.^[9] In January 2003, Japan’s Public Security Investigation Agency received permission to extend the surveillance for another three years, as they have found evidence which suggests that the group still reveres Asahara.^[10] According to the Religious News Blog report issued in April 2004, the authorities still consider the group “a threat to society.”^[11]

In January 2006, the Public Security Investigation Agency was able to extend the surveillance for another three years. Despite the doctrinal changes and banning of Vajrayana texts, the PSIA advocates an increase of surveillance and increases in funding of the agency itself; periodically, the group airs concerns that texts are still in place and that danger remains while Asahara remains leader. Aleph leaders carefully insert passages into almost everything they say or write to prevent misinterpretation, including karaoke songs.

On 15 September 2006, Shoko Asahara lost his final appeal against the death penalty imposed on him after his trial for the sarin attacks. The following day Japanese police raided the offices of Aleph in order to “prevent any illegal activities by cult members in response to the confirmation of Asahara’s death sentence”, according to a police spokesperson.^[12]

So far, 11 cult members have been sentenced to death, although none of the sentences have been carried out upon any of the members, nor have the time and date for the executions to take effect been publicly established.

[edit] Split

On 8 March 2007, former Aum Shinrikyo spokesman and head of Aum’s Moscow operation, Fumihiro Joyu, formally announced a long-expected split.^[13] Joyu’s group, called Hikari no Wa (Ring of Light) is committed to uniting science and religion, thus creating the new ‘science of the human mind’ having previously aimed to move the group away from its violent history and toward its spiritual roots.^[14]

[edit] International opposition

Aum Shinrikyo has been formally designated a terrorist organization by several entities, including Canada,^[15], the European Union,^[16] and the United States.^[14]

[edit] See also

Sun Myung Moon

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Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han
Korean name
Hangul	문선명
Hanja	文鮮明
Revised Romanization	Mun Seon-myeong
McCune–Reischauer	Mun Sŏnmyŏng
Birth name
Hangul	문용명
Hanja	文龍明
Revised Romanization	Mun Yong-myeong
McCune–Reischauer	Mun Yongmyŏng
Japanese name: Emoto Ryūmei (江本龍明?)

Sun Myung Moon (born February 25, 1920) is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects. One of the best-known of these is News World Communications, an international media conglomerate which publishes The Washington Times and other newspapers.^[1] He is famous for holding blessing ceremonies, often referred to as “mass weddings”.

Moon has said, and it is generally believed by Unification Church members, that he is the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ and is fulfilling Jesus‘ unfinished mission.^[2][3] He has been among the most controversial modern religious leaders, both for his religious beliefs and for his social and political activism.^[4]

Contents [show] 1 Early biography 1.1 Life in Korea 1.2 Marriages and children 1.3 Name and titles 2 Basic teachings 3 1970s 3.1 Founded CAUSA to confront World Communism 3.2 Move to the U.S. 3.3 Support for Nixon 3.4 Public speeches 3.5 United States congressional investigation 3.6 Church role in munitions manufacturing 4 1980s 4.1 U.S. tax case 4.2 Ronald Reagan 4.3 Death and “return” of second son 4.4 Founding The Washington Times 5 1990s 5.1 Visit to the Soviet Union 5.2 Relationship with George H. W. Bush 5.3 Daughter-in-law’s book questions role as “True Parent” 5.4 Son’s death 6 2000s 6.1 Schengen ban 6.2 Coronation 6.3 120-city world speaking tour 6.4 Successor 6.5 Helicopter crash 6.6 Autobiography 7 2010s 8 Criticism and controversies 8.1 Theocracy 8.2 Comments on homosexuality 8.3 Jews and the Holocaust 8.4 Allegations of sex rituals 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Early biography

He was born in 1920 in northern Korea and named Yong Myung Moon (later changed to Sun Myung Moon). His birthday was recorded as January 6 by the lunar calendar (February 25, 1920, according to the Gregorian Calendar).^[5]

[edit] Life in Korea

Moon was born in Sangsa-ri (上思里, lit. “high-thought village”), Deogun-myon, Jeongju-gun, North P’yŏng’anProvince^[6] (now in North Korea; Korea was then under Japanese rule). His father, Kyung-yoo Moon, was a scholar. His mother, Kyung-gye Kim, was a homemaker. He was one of thirteen children and the second son. When he was a child, Moon was heavily affected by his elder brother Yong-Su Moon’s deep faith. The family went into bankruptcy when the elder brother of Sun Myung’s grandfather, Rev. Yunguk Moon, gave most of the money belonging to the family to an independence movement from Japan. ^[7] In 2009, the Yonhap News Agency reported that Moon had plans to establish a sacred sanctuary at his birthplace.^[8]

In the Moon family, there was a tradition in the form of a superstitous belief that held that if the second son was to receive a Western-style education, he would die early. As a result of this, Sun Myung received a Confucian-style education when he was a child and did not receive his first Western-style education until he was 14 years old.^[9]Confucianist beliefs, but converted to Christianity and joined the Presbyterian Church when he was around 10 years old. Moon taught Sunday school for the church.^[10] On April 17, 1935, when he was 16 (in Korean age reckoning), Moon says he had a vision or revelation of Jesus while praying atop a small mountain. He says that Jesus asked him to complete the unfinished task of establishing God’s kingdom on Earth and bring peace to the world. When he was 19 (in Korean age reckoning), Moon criticized Japanese rule over Korea and Japanese education at the graduation ceremony speech, which made himself a focus of police.^[11] The Moon family held traditional

Moon’s high school years were spent at a boys’ boarding school in Seoul, and later in Japan, where he studied electrical engineering at Waseda Advanced Engineering School. During this time he studied the Bible and developed his own interpretation of it. After the end of World War II he returned to Korea and began preaching his message.^[10]

Moon was arrested in 1946 by North Korean officials. The church states that the charges stemmed from the jealousy and resentment of other church pastors after parishioners stopped tithing to their old churches upon joining Moon’s congregation. Police beat him and nearly killed him, but a teenage disciple named Won Pil Kim nursed him back to health.

Moon was arrested again and was given a five-year sentence in 1948 to the Hŭngnam labor camp, where prisoners were routinely worked to death on short rations. Moon credits his survival to God’s protection over his life and his habit of saving half his meager water ration for washing the toxic chemicals off of his skin after long days of work, bagging and loading chemical fertilizer with his bare hands. After serving 34 months of his sentence, he was released in 1950 when UN troops advanced on the camp and the guards fled.

The beginnings of the church’s official teachings, the Divine Principle, first saw written form as Wolli Wonbon in 1946. (The second, expanded version, Wolli Hesol, or Explanation of the Divine Principle, was not published until 1957; for a more complete account, see Divine Principle.) Sun Myung Moon preached in northern Korea after the end of World War II and was imprisoned by the regime in North Korea in 1946. He was released from prison, along with many other North Koreans, with the advance of American and United Nations forces during the Korean WarPusan.^[12] and built his first church from mud and cardboard boxes as a refugee in

In 1954, he founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in Seoul (also known as the Unification Church).^[13] The Unification Church expanded rapidly in South Korea and by the end of 1955 had 30 church centers throughout the nation. In 1958, Moon sent missionaries to Japan, and in 1959, to the United States of America. In 1975, Moon sent out missionaries to 120 countries around the world.^[12]

[edit] Marriages and children

In November 1943, Moon married Sun Kil Choi. Their son, Sung Jin Moon, was born in 1946. They divorced in 1953 soon after Moon’s release from prison in North Korea. Choi and Sung Jin Moon are now both members of the Unification Church.^[14] Sung Jin Moon married in 1973 and now has three children.^[15]

Moon was still legally married to Choi when he began a relationship with his second (common law) wife Myung Hee Kim, who gave birth to a son named Hee Jin Moon (who was killed in a train accident). His church does not regard this as infidelity, because Sun Kil Choi is said to have already left her husband by that time. Korean divorce law in the 1950s made legal divorce difficult and drawn out, so much so that when Myung Hee Kim became pregnant she was sent to Japan to avoid legal complications for Moon.^[16]

Moon married his third wife, Hak Ja Han,^[17] on April 11, 1960, soon after she turned 17 years old, in a ceremony called the Holy Marriage. Han, called Mother or True Mother by followers, and her husband together are referred to as the True Parents by members of the Unification Church.

Hak Ja Han gave birth to 14 children; her second daughter died in infancy. The family is known in the church as the True Family and the children as the True Children. Shortly after their marriage, they presided over a Blessing Ceremony for 36 couples, the first of many such ceremonies.

Nansook Hong, the former wife of Hyo Jin Moon, Sun Myung Moon’s eldest son, said in her 1998 book In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family that both Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han told her about Moon’s extramarital affairs (which she said he called “providential affairs”), including one that resulted in the birth of a boy raised by a church leader, named by Sun Myung Moon’s daughter Un Jin Moon on the news show 60 Minutes.^[18]

[edit] Name and titles

In 1953, Moon changed his name from Mun Yong Myong to Mun Son-myong (which he spelled “Moon Sun Myung”). In a speech Moon explained that the hanja for moon (문, 文), his surname, means “word” or “literature” in Korean. The character sun (선, 鮮), composed of “fish” and “lamb” (symbols of Christianity), means “fresh.” The character myung (명, 明), composed of “sun” and “moon”, (which was part of his given name), means “bright.” Together, sun-myung means “make clear.” So the full name can be taken to mean “the word made clear.” Moon concluded by saying, “My name is prophetic.” ^[19]

In the English-speaking world, Moon is often referred to as Reverend Moon by Unification Church members, the general public, and the media. Unification Church members most often call Moon Father or True Father. He is also sometimes called Father Moon, mostly by some non-members involved with Unificationist projects. Similar titles are used for his wife: Mother, True Mother, or Mother Moon. Dr. Moon has also occasionally been used because Moon received an honorary doctorate from the Shaw Divinity School of Shaw University.

Marshall Applewhite

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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

Marshall Herff Applewhite
Born	May 17, 1931(1931-05-17) Spur, Texas, United States
Died	March 26, 1997 (aged 65) Rancho Santa Fe, California , United States
Occupation	Leader of Heaven’s Gate
Religion	Cult
Spouse	Ann Frances Pearce
Children	Mark Pearce Applewhite b. 1957 and Lane Ann (Mary) Applewhite b. 1959 [1]

Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. (May 17, 1931 – March 26, 1997), known among his followers as “Do”, was the leader of the Heaven’s Gate religious group. A self-proclaimed prophet and messiah, he died in the group’s mass suicide of 1997.

Contents [show] 1 Early life 2 Bonnie Nettles and Heaven’s Gate 3 Heaven’s Gate mass suicide 4 Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate initiation tape 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early life

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. was born in Spur, Texas to Louise Haecker Winfield and Marshall Herff Applewhite, Sr. He had two older sisters, Louise, born 1927, and Jane born 1929 as well as a brother, John Winfield born 1942^[2]. Applewhite’s father was a Presbyterian minister who started new churches and moved from place to place in Texas about every three years. Applewhite hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a preacher as well, but his sister and father encouraged him to develop his musical talents. In high school, Applewhite proved more dedicated to music than religion, and joined the school choir. In 1950, at age 19, Applewhite enrolled at Austin College, where he pursued a degree in Music and Pre-Theology at his father’s urging.^{[citation needed]}

In college, Applewhite studied voice and education, fueled by his passion for choir singing. In 1954, upon his graduation, Applewhite was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was stationed in Salzburg, Austria, and then White Sands, New Mexico, where he became a Signal Corps instructor. He was drafted a year after the conflict phase of the Korean War ended, so he did not go to Korea, nor did he see any action while in the service. According to his sister, he was honorably discharged at the rank of Sergeant in 1956 after two years of service.

After he was discharged, Applewhite became a college music teacher. Later, in his thirties, he led a musical career. He played starring roles in stage musicals in Colorado and Texas, was the choir director at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Houston, sang 15 roles with the Houston Grand Opera, and taught music at the University of Alabama. Applewhite married Ann Frances Pearce in a Presbyterian church. He had a son named Mark, born in 1957, and a daughter named Lane Ann, but known as Mary, born in 1959. Applewhite was estranged from his family when his children were young. In September 2007 Applewhite’s granddaughter Hannah Overton was convicted of capital murder following the death of her foster son Andrew Bird. Applewhite was fired from his job as an adjunct music professor at the University of St. Thomas in 1970. The official reason given by the university was “health problems of an emotional nature”.

[edit] Bonnie Nettles and Heaven’s Gate

In 1972, Applewhite met a 44-year-old nurse named Bonnie Nettles at a Houston psychiatric hospital, which he had voluntarily entered because of depression and hearing voices. Nettles convinced him that they were on earth as aliens and that Armageddon was coming. On August 28, 1974, the 43-year-old Applewhite was arrested in Harlingen, Texas for stealing credit cards.

After Nettles told him that he possessed special astrological attributes, Applewhite declared himself the individual in whose mind was held that of Christ, the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. By 1975 they had begun Total Overcomers Anonymous together, that eventually became Heaven’s Gate.

In 1975, Applewhite and Nettles convinced 20 people from Waldport, Oregon to join their group. Applewhite told them there would be an alien appearance by means of a UFO, but when the encounter never happened they left the group. However, more people joined and soon the group had 93 members. Initially, meetings were held in various locations in the Waldport area, and soon spread to multiple meetups at churches, halls, lecture theatres, and new age awareness centers elsewhere. Over a 9-month period in 1975 Applewhite, Nettles, and small groups of their followers travelled to nearly all 50 states and parts of Canada. The group became more structured, and moved periodically over the years to various locales in California, Colorado, and New Mexico. Finally, Heaven’s Gate moved to the mansion at Rancho Santa Fe, California, the site of the group’s mass suicide.

Nettles and Applewhite were nicknamed ‘Ti and Do’ or the ‘UFO two’. Nettles died in 1985 of cancer and Applewhite led Heaven’s Gate alone from her death to his suicide in 1997. At some point, Applewhite had himself surgically castrated.^[3]

Their activities inspired the 1982 TV movie Mysterious Two, with John Forsythe as “He”, the Applewhite role, and M-31, A Family Romance, a novel by Stephen Wright.

[edit] Heaven’s Gate mass suicide

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

On March 19, 1997, Marshall Applewhite taped himself speaking of mass suicide and believed “it was the only way to evacuate this Earth“. The Heaven’s Gate cult opposed suicide but believed they must leave Earth as quickly as possible. After claiming that a space craft was trailing the comet Hale-Bopp, Applewhite convinced 39 followers to commit suicide so that their souls could board the supposed craft. Applewhite believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another “level of existence above human”, which Applewhite described as being both physical and spiritual. This and other UFO-related beliefs held by the group have led some observers to characterize the group as a type of UFO religion.

Applewhite committed suicide with 39 other members in Rancho Santa Fe, California by mixing phenobarbitol with applesauce or pudding, then washing it down with vodka. They also placed plastic bags over their heads after ingesting the mix to ensure asphyxiation in case the drugs did not kill them. The cult members, aged between 26 and 72, are believed to have died in three groups, 15 the first day on March 24, 15 the next and nine on the third.^[4]

Member Rio DiAngelo, aka Richard Ford, did not commit suicide. He left the Rancho Santa Fe mansion weeks before the suicides to ensure future dissemination of Heaven’s Gate videos and literature. He videotaped the mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. However, the tape was not shown to police until 2002, five years after the event.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate initiation tape

The following transcript is from an initiation tape for Heaven’s Gate. While an edited and more precise version of these words appear on the Heaven’s Gate website, these statements are untouched and help provide the unscripted intensity that Applewhite’s image became known for. Applewhite appears before a purple curtain backdrop and remains fixated on the camera as he speaks about his beliefs.

“…or, in old language of a couple thousand years ago, Disciples, those who are trying to prepare themselves for entry into the evolutionary level above human synonymous with the kingdom of god, the kingdom of heaven. We’re going to talk to you about the most urgent thing that is on our mind, and what we suspect is the most urgent thing that is on the minds of those who will connect with us. We’ll title this tape ‘Planet Earth About to Be Recycled: Your Only Chance to Evacuate Is To Leave With Us’. ‘Planet Earth About To Be Recycled: Our Only Chance To Survive Or Evacuate Is To Leave With Us’.

Now, that’s (a) pretty major statement, pretty bold in terms of religion, in terms of anybody’s intelligent thinking, to most people who would consider themselves intelligent beings they would say “Well, that’s absurd. What’s all this doomsday stuff? What’s all this prophetic stuff?”

You know, intelligent human beings should realize everything has their cycle, they have their season. They have their beginning. They have their end. They have cycles. We’re not saying planet Earth is coming to an end; we’re saying planet Earth is about to be refurbished, spaded under, and have another chance to serve as a garden for another human civilization.

Now, the reason this is such an interesting time is not only we’re on the threshold of the end of this civilization because it’s about to be recycled, but because of where that finds us, where that finds you, where that finds those who would judge us, how we would speak of them and how they would speak of us.

Now you say you keep saying to us, “Who do you think you are?” Well, I in all honestly must acknowledge my father. My father is not a human father. My father is a member of the evolutionary level above human, the kingdom of god, the kingdom of heaven. My father gave me birth long before this civilization, gave me birth into that kingdom level above human, that kingdom of heaven, that kingdom of god.

Now you can say “I can’t believe that.” Well, it’s up to you whether you believe that or not. That’s not important to me, even though I wish you could believe it for your sake. For those who do believe it stand a possibility of a future beyond this recycling time. Now you say, well, according to religious literature I thought there was someone else who was going to come and be our savior here at these End Days. That, that was going to be Christ’s return. Well, the name Christ might be a little confusing, or the name Jesus, because the name Jesus, of course, was the name given to the body that the mind that was indeed from the kingdom of heaven came and that mind was here 2000 years ago and that mind came for the express purpose of teaching humans how they could be saved, how they would not be plowed under at the end of the age. Well, we’re at the end of the age.

So, the one, or the mind that was in Jesus. What? That mind is in me? You’ll have to decide that for yourself.

I must admit that I am here again. That I’m here saying exactly the same thing that I said then, trying to say it in today’s language. Trying to hope for your sakes you can see what we have to offer you, for our father offers you life. We’re not talking about human life, if the planet is about to be recycled, and we see the planet as a stepping stone. Planet earth – a stepping stone. That just as within a civilization, a civilization evolves upward, that each segment of civilization becomes civilized, becomes less barbaric in some ways. It’s supposed to, not that is necessarily does. Sometimes it seems to appear to be more civilized when in fact it becomes more barbaric, more quick to condemn the rest of the world, more quick to be – quick to kill the rest of the world that does not think as it thinks.

Well, I know what I just said. I said, I am the return of the son of my father. I’ll tell you something that’s even more remarkable. My father came with me this time. Came in the early 70’s, took on a human form, an adult human form, helped me get into an adult human form in the early 70’s, and we together helped those who came with us who that were also here 2,000 years ago get in the bodies that they were wearing so that they could rid themselves of human behavior, human activity, human thinking, so that they could be ready to move into the kingdom of heaven, or the evolutionary level above human. These that are sitting before me have been students of T and O, T my father, have been students of T and O, are still students of T and O, even though T returned to the heavens in 1985. And T is my heavenly father, gave me birth into that kingdom before civilization began.

Now I’m not here to sell you on that, or who I am, or who these are. I’m here to offer you as these are an opportunity to know the truth so that if you can connect with it at any level then you might survive the re-spading, or recycling, that is about to occur.

We made a tape just shortly ago. And in that tape we said that there are three types of individuals that will survive the…” (end of part 1).

Nation of Yahweh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other organizations with a name referring to Yahweh, see Yahweh (disambiguation).

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

The Nation of Yahweh is a predominantly African-American religious group that is the most controversial offshoot of the Black Hebrew Israelites line of thought. They were founded in 1979 in Miami by Hulon Mitchell, Jr., who went by the name Yahweh ben Yahweh. Their goal is to return African Americans, whom they see as the original Israelites, to Israel. The group departs from mainstream Christianity and Judaism by accepting Yahweh ben Yahweh as the Son of God. In this way, their beliefs are unique and distinct from that of other known Black Hebrew Israelite groups.^[1][2] The group has engendered controversy due to legal issues of its founder and has also faced accusations of being a black supremacist cult by the Southern Poverty Law Center^[3] and The Miami Herald.^[4]
The SPLC has criticized the beliefs of the Nation of Yahweh as racist, stating that the group believed blacks are “the true Jews” and that whites were “white devils.” They also claim the group believed Yahweh ben Yahweh had a Messianic mission to vanquish whites and that they held views similar to the Christian Identity movement. They quote Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance as saying groups like theirs are “the black counterpart of us.”^[5]
The Anti-Defamation League has criticized the Nation of Yahweh and some other Black Hebrew sects, stating, “In 1987, ADL reported on Black sects holding these views [arguing that today’s Jews are not the “chosen people” described in the Bible, … instead that the label applies to people of African descent], such as the Yahwehs and the Original African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem. Today, this form of Black supremacy is promoted on the Web by the 12 Tribes of Israel site, which cites hundreds of Biblical passages to prove that Blacks are the children of Israel and whites the Satanic offspring of Esau.”^[6]
Despite the recent death of their leader (see Yahweh ben Yahweh) the Nation of Yahweh is still active. Its members also claim to have abandoned their past racism and the leader’s daughter has apparently stated that all people are children of God.^{[citation needed]} An attorney and member of the group, Wendelyn Rush, insists their current war with the U.S. government is a non-violent verbal battle. The group is currently spread throughout the US and is no longer concentrated in one location (formerly Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA). They claim that their present literature downplays and has nearly erased all past racism.^{[citation needed] [7]}
The Nation of Yahweh is perhaps best known nationally for its purchase of infomercial time. The Nation airs a weekly half-hour program on stations across the United States, usually on weekends during little-watched early morning hours, that combines Biblical study along with discussion of the Nation itself.

Yahweh ben Yahweh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yahweh ben Yahweh
Born	October 27, 1935 Kingfisher, Oklahoma United States
Died	May 7, 2007 (aged 71) Miami, Florida United States
Occupation	Leader of Nation of Yahweh
Children	Sincere Israel

Yahweh ben Yahweh, was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma as Hulon Mitchell Jr.(October 27, 1935 – May 7, 2007) to Hulon Mitchell (a Pentecostal Holiness reverend) and his wife Pearl Olive Mitchell. He was the founder and leader of the Nation of Yahweh.

Contents [show]

[edit] Leader of Nation of Yahweh

The Nation of Yahweh set up its headquarters in Liberty City, Florida. Yahweh ben Yahweh emphasized that God and all the prophets of the Bible were black and blacks would gain the knowledge of their true history through him. He also emphasized whites and particularly Jews as infidels and oppressors. Lastly he emphasized loyalty to himself as the son of God YHWH.
The Nation of Yahweh remodeled a series of buildings in Miami. These buildings allowed for the growth and development of the Yahwehs. He became the living Messiah of the Nation of Yahweh.
At the time his business and charity efforts earned him respect in the community. The mayor of Miami, Florida declared on October 7, 1990, “Yahweh ben Yahweh Day.”^[1] This occurred a month before his indictment for alleged crimes.

[edit] Crimes and aftermath

Although his followers remained devoted to him, by the 1990s he was in trouble with the law. From 1990 until his release on September 26, 2001, he served 11 years of an 18-year sentence on a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) conviction after he and several other Nation of Yahweh members were convicted of conspiracy in more than a dozen murders. He was acquitted of first degree murder charges in 1992.
Yahweh Ben Yahweh was released on parole in 2001 and returned to Miami, but his activities were strongly restricted until a few months before his death. He was prohibited from reconnecting with his old congregation. To assure this he was restricted from any form of speech by telephone, computer, radio or television that could place him in contact with any congregational members. In 2006, as he became increasingly ill with prostate cancer, his attorney Jayne Weintraub petitioned the U.S. District Court for his release from parole in order to permit him to “die with dignity”.
^[2]
A ruling on a failed appeal, U.S. v. Yahweh Ben Yahweh (792 F. Supp. 104) starts:

Violent crime cases are the exception in federal courts. The instant case is arguably the most violent case ever tried in a federal court: the indictment charges the sixteen defendants on trial with 14 murders by means such as beheading, stabbing, occasionally by pistol shots, plus severing of body parts such as ears to prove the worthiness of the killer. They were also charged with arson of a slumbering neighborhood using molotov cocktails. The perpetrators were ordered to wait outside the innocent victims’ homes wearing ski masks and brandishing machetes to deter the victims from fleeing the flames.

However, his lawyers’ attempt to end the conditions for his parole eventually succeeded.
Yahweh ben Yahweh only faced conviction for conspiracy. A primary component of the prosecution’s case was the testimony of Robert Rozier. Rozier, a former NFL player and Yahweh ben Yahweh follower, admitted to several of the murders and testified against Hulon Mitchell Jr., in return for a lighter sentence. Rozier would later enter the Witness Protection Program, but would return to prison after being given a 25 years to life sentence under California’s three strikes law, following a check kiting conviction.
He had the Federal Bureau of Prisons ID# 22031-034.^[3]
Yahweh ben Yahweh died May 7, 2007 from prostate cancer.^[4] Among other relatives he was survived by his younger sister Leona, who is a noted soprano who sang at the Metropolitan Opera.^[5][6]

Leo Joseph Ryan, Jr.

Leo Ryan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leo Joseph Ryan, Jr.
Ryan in 1977–1978
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives for California‘s 11th congressional district
In office January 3, 1973 – November 18, 1978
Preceded by	Paul N. McCloskey, Jr.
Succeeded by	William H. Royer
Constituency	11th District
Member of the California State Assembly for the 27th District
In office 1962–1972
Preceded by	Glenn E. Coolidge
Succeeded by	Lou Papan
Constituency	27th District
Mayor of South San Francisco, California
In office 1962–1962
Constituency	South San Francisco, California
Born	May 5, 1925 Lincoln, Nebraska
Died	November 18, 1978 (aged 53) Port Kaituma, Guyana
Political party	Democratic
Children	Five
Occupation	Politician

Leo Joseph Ryan, Jr. (May 5, 1925 – November 18, 1978) was an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as a U.S. Representative from the 11th Congressional District of California from 1973 until he was murdered in Guyana by members of the Peoples Temple shortly before the Jonestown Massacre in 1978. After the Watts Riots of 1965, then-Assemblyman Ryan took a job as a substitute school teacher to investigate and document conditions in the area. In 1970, he investigated the conditions of Californian prisons by being held, under a pseudonym, as an inmate in Folsom Prison, while presiding as chairman on the Assembly committee that oversaw prison reform. During his time in Congress, Ryan traveled to Newfoundland to investigate the killing of seals.
Ryan was also famous for vocal criticism of the lack of Congressional oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and authored the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, passed in 1974. He was also an early critic of L. Ron Hubbard and his Scientology movement and of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon.^[1] On November 3, 1977, Ryan read into the United States Congressional Record a testimony by John Gordon Clark about the health hazards connected with destructive cults.^[1] Ryan is the only U.S. congressman ever to be killed in the line of duty.^[2][3][4][5] He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1983.

Contents [show]

[edit] Early life and career

Leo Ryan was born in Lincoln, Nebraska.^[6] Throughout his early life, his family moved frequently through Illinois, Florida, New York, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. He graduated from Campion Jesuit High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in 1943.^[7][8] He then received V-12 officer training at Bates College and served with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946 as a submariner.^[9]
Ryan graduated from Nebraska’s Creighton University with an B.A. in 1949 and an M.S. in 1951.^[6] He taught History at Capuchino High School, and chaperoned the marching band in 1961 to Washington, D.C. to participate in President John F. Kennedy‘s inaugural parade. Ryan was inspired by Kennedy’s call to service in his inaugural address, and decided to run for higher office.^[10] He served as a teacher, school administrator and South San Francisco city councilman from 1956 to 1962.^[6]

[edit] Political career

Official Congressional photo from Ryan’s first term as Congressman, 1973.

[edit] State of California

In 1962, Ryan was elected mayor of South San Francisco. He served less than a year as mayor, before taking a seat in the California State Assembly‘s 27th district, winning his assembly race by a margin of 20,000 votes.^[10][11] He had previously run for the State Assembly’s 25th district in 1958, but lost to Republican Louis Francis.^[11] Ryan served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1964 and 1968,^[6] and he held his Assembly seat through 1972, when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. He was successively elected three more times to the United States Congress.^[6]
U.S. Congresswoman and former California State Senator Jackie Speier described Ryan’s style of investigation as “experiential legislating”.^[10] After the Watts Riots of 1965, Assemblyman Ryan went to the area and took a job as a substitute school teacher to investigate and document conditions in the area. In 1970, using a pseudonym, Ryan had himself arrested, detained, and strip searched to investigate conditions in the California prison system. He stayed as an inmate for ten days in the Folsom Prison, while presiding as chairman on the Assembly committee that oversaw prison reform.^[12][13]
As a California Assemblyman, Ryan also served as the Chairman of legislative subcommittee hearings and presided over hearings involving his later successor as Congressman, Tom Lantos.^[14] Ryan pushed through important educational policies in California and authored what came to be known as the Ryan Act, which established an independent regulatory commission to monitor educational credentialing in the state.^[15]

[edit] United States Congress

During his time in Congress, Ryan went to Newfoundland with James Jeffords to investigate the inhumane killing of seals,^[16][17] and he was famous for vocal criticism of the lack of Congressional oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), authoring the Hughes-Ryan Amendment,^[18][19] which would have required extensive CIA notification of Congress about planned covert operations.^[20][21] Congressman Ryan once told Dick Cheney that leaking a state secret was an appropriate way for a member of Congress to block an “ill-conceived operation”.^[22]
Ryan criticized L. Ron Hubbard‘s Scientology movement and the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. On November 3, 1977, Ryan read into the United States Congressional Record a testimony by John Gordon Clark about the health hazards connected with destructive cults.^[1] In this speech before Congress, Congressman Ryan noted that his greatest concern was: “for those young people who have been converted by these religious cults and for their parents, who have suffered the loss of their children.”^[1] Congressman Ryan went on to note that a parent of one of these young people had first brought Dr. Clark’s testimony to his attention.^[1] In previous correspondence with this parent, Congressman Ryan thanked the parent for her “detailed letter regarding Scientology”, and yet noted that “We haven’t yet found a way to attack these jackals who feed on children and young adults who are too emotionally weak to stand by themselves when they reach the age of consent.”^[23] Congressman Ryan supported Patricia Hearst, and along with Senator S. I. Hayakawa, delivered Hearst’s application for a presidential commutation to the Pardon Attorney.^[24]

[edit] Peoples Temple

Further information: Peoples Temple, Timothy Stoen, and Peoples Temple in San Francisco

In 1978, reports regarding widespread abuse and human rights violations in Jonestown among the Peoples Temple, led by cult leader Jim Jones, began to filter out of the organization’s Guyana enclaves. Ryan was friends with the father of former Temple Member Bob Houston, whose mutilated body was found near train tracks on October 5, 1976, three days after a taped telephone conversation with Houston’s ex-wife in which leaving the Temple was discussed.^[25] Ryan’s interest was further aroused by the custody battle between the leader of a “Concerned Relatives” group, Timothy Stoen, and Jones following a Congressional “white paper” written by Stoen detailing the events.^[26][27] Ryan was one of 91 Congressmen to write Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham on Stoen’s behalf.^[25][26]
After later reading an article in the San Francisco Examiner, Ryan declared his intention to go to Jonestown, an agricultural commune in Guyana where Jim Jones and roughly 1,000 Temple members resided. Ryan’s choice was also influenced both by the Concerned Relatives group, which consisted primarily of Californians, as were most Temple members, and by his own characteristic distaste for social injustice.^[28] According to the San Francisco Chronicle, while investigating the events, the United States Department of State “repeatedly stonewalled Ryan’s attempts to find out what was going on in Jonestown”, and told him that “everything was fine”.^[10] The State Department characterized possible action by the United States government in Guyana against Jonestown as creating a potential “legal controversy”, but Ryan at least partially rejected this viewpoint.^[29] In a later article in The Chronicle, Ryan was described as having “bucked the local Democratic establishment and the Jimmy Carter administration’s State Department” in order to prepare for his own investigation.^[13]

[edit] Travels to Jonestown

On November 1, 1978, Ryan announced that he would visit Jonestown.^[30] He did so as part of a government investigation and received permission and government funds to do so.^[31] He made the journey in his role as chairman of a congressional subcommittee with jurisdiction over U.S. citizens living in foreign countries. He asked the other members of his Bay Area congressional delegation to join him on the investigation to Jonestown, but they all declined his invitation.^[10] Ryan had also asked his friend Indiana Congressman Dan Quayle to accompany him – Quayle had served with Ryan on the Government Operations Committee – but Quayle was unable to go on the trip.^[32]
While the party was initially planned to consist of only a few members of the Congressman’s staff and press as part of the congressional delegation, once the media learned of the trip the entourage ballooned to include, among others, Concerned Relatives members. Congressman Ryan traveled to Jonestown with 17 Bay Area relatives of Peoples Temple members, several newspaper reporters and an NBC TV team.^[33] When the legal counsel for Jones attempted to impose several restrictive conditions on the visit, Ryan responded that he would be traveling to Jonestown whether Jones permitted it or not. Ryan’s stated position was that a “settlement deep in the bush might be reasonably run on authoritarian lines”.^[33] However, residents of the settlement must be allowed to come and go as they pleased. He further asserted that if the situation had become “a gulag”, he would do everything he could to “free the captives”.^[33]

[edit] Jungle ambush

Main article: Jonestown

On November 14, according to the Foreign Affairs Committee report,^[34] Ryan left Washington and arrived in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana located 150 miles (240 km) away from Jonestown, with his congressional delegation of government officials, media representatives and some members of the “Concerned Relatives”.^[35]

Jonestown

Georgetown

Kaituma

Jonestown, Guyana.

That night the delegation stayed at a local hotel where, despite confirmed reservations, most of the rooms had been cancelled and reassigned, leaving the delegation sleeping in the lobby.^[36] For three days, Ryan continued negotiation with Jones’s legal counsel and held perfunctory meetings with embassy personnel and Guyanese officials.^[37]

The Temple’s house in Georgetown.

While in Georgetown, Ryan visited the Temple’s Georgetown headquarters in the suburb of Lamaha Gardens.^[38] Ryan asked to speak to Jones by radio, but Sharon Amos, the highest-ranking Temple member present, told Ryan that he could not because his present visit was unscheduled.^[35] On November 17, Ryan’s aide Jackie Speier (who became a Congresswoman in April 2008), the United States embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Richard Dwyer, a Guyanese Ministry of Information officer, nine journalists, and four Concerned Relatives representatives of the delegation boarded a small plane for the flight to an airfield at Port Kaituma a few miles outside of Jonestown.^[34] At first, only the Temple legal counsel was allowed off the plane, but eventually the entire entourage (including Gordon Lindsay, reporting for NBC) was allowed in. Initially, the welcome at Jonestown was warm,^[31] but Temple member Vernon Gosney handed a note to NBC correspondent Don Harris which stated, “Please help me get out of Jonestown,” listing himself and Temple member Monica Bagby.^[33] That night, the media and the delegation were returned to the airfield for accommodations following Jones’s refusal to allow them to stay the night; the rest of the group remained.^[34]

Aerial view of Jonestown

The next morning, Ryan, Speier, and Dwyer all continued their interviews, and in the morning met a woman who secretly expressed her wish to leave Jonestown with her family and another family. Around 11:00 A.M. local time, the media and the delegation returned and took part in interviewing Peoples Temple members. Around 3:00 p.m., 14 Temple defectors, and Larry Layton posing as a defector, boarded a truck and were taken to the airstrip, with Ryan wishing to stay another night to assist any others that wished to leave. Shortly thereafter, a failed knife attack on Congressman Ryan occurred while he was arbitrating a family dispute on leaving.^[39] Against Ryan’s protests, Deputy Chief of Mission Dwyer ordered Ryan to leave, but he promised to return later to address the dispute.^[34]

Camera-shot by Bob Brown (NBC) of shooters.

The entire group left Jonestown and arrived at the Kaituma airstrip by 4:45 p.m. local time.^[34] Their exit transport planes, a twin-engine Otter and a Cessna, did not arrive until 5:10 p.m.^[34] The smaller six-seat Cessna was just taxiing to the end of the runway when one of its occupants, Larry Layton, opened fire on those inside, wounding several.^[34] Concurrently, several other Peoples Temples members who had escorted the group out began to open fire on the transport plane, killing Congressman Ryan, three journalists and a defecting Temple member, while wounding nine others, including Speier.^[25][40] The gunmen riddled Congressman Ryan’s body with bullets before shooting him in the face.^[41] The passengers on the Cessna subdued Larry Layton and the surviving people on both planes fled into nearby fields during and after the attack.^[34]
That afternoon, before the news became public, the wife of Ryan aide William Holsinger received three threatening phone calls.^[42] The caller allegedly stated, “Tell your husband that his meal ticket just had his brains blown out, and he better be careful.”^[42] The Holsingers then fled to Lake Tahoe and later to a ranch in Houston.^[42] They never returned to San Francisco.^[42] Following its takeoff, the Cessna radioed in a report of the attack, and the U.S. Ambassador, John R. Burke, went to the residence of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.^[34] It was not until the next morning that the Guyanese army could cut through the jungle and reach the settlement.^[34] They discovered 909 of its inhabitants dead; the individuals died in what the United States House of Representatives described as a “mass suicide/murder ritual”.^[34]

[edit] Conviction of Larry Layton

Larry Layton, brother of author and former Peoples Temple member Deborah Layton, was convicted in 1986 of conspiracy in the murder of Leo Ryan.^[43] Temple defectors boarding the truck to Port Kaituma warned about Larry Layton that “there’s no way he’s a defector. He’s too close to Jones.” ^[44] Layton was the only former Peoples Temple member to be tried in the United States for criminal acts relating to the murders at Jonestown.^[45][46] He was convicted on four different murder-related counts.^[47]
On March 3, 1987, Layton was sentenced to concurrent sentences of life in prison for “aiding and abetting the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan”, “conspiracy to murder an internationally protected person, Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission for the United States in the Republic of Guyana”, as well as fifteen years in prison on other related counts.^[48] At that time, he would become eligible for parole in five years.^[49] On June 3, 1987, Layton’s motion to set aside the conviction “on the ground that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel during his second trial” was denied by the United States District Court, of the Northern District of California.^[49] After spending eighteen years in prison, Layton was released from custody in April 2002.^[50]

[edit] Memorial

[edit] Burial

Ryan’s headstone

Leo Ryan’s body was returned to the United States and interred at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California. The official Congressional Memorial Services for Ryan were compiled into a book: Leo J. Ryan – Memorial Services – Held In The House Of Representatives & Senate Of The U. S., Together With Remarks.^[51] Remembering the funeral of her brother held in the San Francisco area, Ryan’s younger sister Shannon stated she was surprised both by the number of supporters that attended the funeral, and by the “outgrowth of real, honest sorrow”.^[3]
For his efforts, Ryan was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan.^[52][53][54] He is the first and only member of Congress to have been killed in the line of duty.^[2][3][4][5] In President Reagan’s remarks upon signing the bill awarding Congressman Ryan the Congressional Gold Medal, he stated: “It was typical of Leo Ryan’s concern for his constituents that he would investigate personally the rumors of mistreatment in Jonestown that reportedly affected so many from his district.”^[52] Ryan’s daughters Erin and Patricia had helped to garner support for the Congressional Gold Medal, in time for the fifth anniversary of Ryan’s death.^[55]
After his death, Ryan’s daughter Shannon Jo changed her name to Jasmine and joined Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a cult,^{[31][56][57][58]} while her sister Patricia became president of the old Cult Awareness Network.^[59][60] Ryan’s daughter Erin worked for the C.I.A. before eventually becoming an aide to her father’s former aide Jackie Speier, who had in 1998 been elected to the California State Senate.^[60]

[edit] Anniversary

Sign at the Leo J. Ryan Memorial Park

Leo J. Ryan Post Office Building

On the 25th anniversary of his death, a special memorial tribute was held in his honor in Foster City, California. Ryan’s family and friends, including Jackie Speier and Ryan’s daughters, were in attendance. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that “Over and over today, people described a great man who continually exceeded his constituents’ expectations.”^[61] Near the end of the memorial service, parents of those who had died in Jonestown stood to honor and thank Congressman Ryan for giving his own life while trying to save those of their children. After the service ended, mounted police escorted the family and friends into Foster City’s Leo J. Ryan Memorial Park. A wreath was laid next to a commemorative rock that honored Ryan.^[61] The same year, Ryan’s daughter Erin attended a memorial for those who died at Jonestown, at the Oakland, California Evergreen Cemetery.^[62] On the anniversary of Congressman Ryan’s death, Jackie Speier traditionally visits his grave at the Golden Gate National Cemetery with his daughter and her friend, Patricia Ryan.^[33]
For the 30th anniversary, Congresswoman Jackie Speier sponsored a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 210 South Ellsworth Avenue in San Mateo, California, as the “Leo J. Ryan Post Office Building”.^[63] President George W. Bush signed it into law on October 21, 2008.^[64] On November 17, 2008, Jackie Speier spoke at the dedication ceremony at the post office. In part of her speech, she said, “There are those – still, thirty years after his passing – who question his motives, or the wisdom of his actions. But criticism was just fine with Leo. Leo Ryan never did anything because he thought it would make him popular. He was more interested in doing what he knew was right.”^[65]

Precept of Fornication and whoredom

Religious Philosophy

Precept of Fornication and whoredom

Fornication and whoredom

MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH

The False translation of sexual immorality was done in conspiracy, denying the pervasive theme of idolatry used throughout the Bible.

Revelation 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Revelation 17:14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. 15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. 16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. 18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

The empathy for a person with a spouse or with an only child is something that people generally can understand………

Isaiah 54:4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 5 For thy Maker is thine husband the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.

Ezekiel 16:15
But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was. 16 And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so. 17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, 18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. 19 My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD. 20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured.
Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, 21 That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them? 22 And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood. 23 And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;) 24 That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street. 25 Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. 26 Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger. 27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way. 28 Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. 29 Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. 30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; 31 In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire; 32 But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband! 33 They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. 34 And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.

35 Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD: 36 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them; 37 Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. 38 And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. 39 And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. 40 They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords. 41 And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more. 42 So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry. 43 Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord GOD: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.

44 Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.

Hosea 2:1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. 2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. 7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. 8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. 9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

Jeremiah 3:6
The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. 9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD. 11 And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.

12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.

Jeremiah 3:20
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD. 21 A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God. 22 Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.

Jeremiah 31:29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. 30But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. 31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

Symbol Fornication and whoredom

Symbol Fornication and whoredom

Fornication and whoredom

Isaiah 54:4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 5 For thy Maker is thine husband the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.

Ezekiel 16:15
But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was. 16 And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so. 17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, 18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. 19 My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD. 20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured.
Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, 21 That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them? 22 And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood. 23 And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;) 24 That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street. 25 Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. 26 Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger. 27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way. 28 Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. 29 Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. 30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; 31 In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire; 32 But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband! 33 They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. 34 And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.

35 Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD: 36 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them; 37 Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. 38 And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. 39 And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. 40 They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords. 41 And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more. 42 So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry. 43 Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord GOD: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.

44 Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.

Hosea 2:1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. 2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. 7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. 8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. 9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

Jeremiah 3:6
The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. 9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD. 11 And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.

12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.

Jeremiah 3:20
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD. 21 A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God. 22 Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.

Jeremiah 31:29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. 30But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. 31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH

Revelation 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Revelation 17:14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. 15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. 16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. 18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.