6
Thursday, October 30, 1975
University Daily Kansan
Local families
From page one
"the pattern was there," she said. "The cases were all carbon cones."
--she said, she then tried to deceive the deprogrammer into thinking that they succeeded.
At that point, Osborne's parents decided to take her to a deprogrammer before they lost contact with her completely. That decision involved a big risk, Mrs. Osborne said, because if the attempt had failed, they never have seen their daughter again.
"We were willing to take the chance
because we wanted our daughter's
freedom," she said.
Osborne's parents, along with two of her brothers, drove to Akeron, Ohio, where a group of deprogrammers were waiting for in a motel room.
THE DEPROGRAMMING WAS the most experience she ever had, Osborne said.
"The church instills a great fear of deprogrammers," she said. "They say you'll become very sinful, very fallen, if you are deprogrammed.
"The closer we got to (Akron), the more I was on panic. I knew I couldn't go through with it."
She did go through with it, but not without a fight. O馨oborn said she had escaped once before. She didn't go back, caught her before she could go far. Knowing she wouldn't get another chance to escape,
"I felt like a little messiah, setting a higher standard for the world to follow."
OSBORNE SAID THE deprogrammers had stayed with her constantly, explaining to her how she had been misled by the church.
But that attempt failed, too. She said one of the deprogrammers told her, "I can see the devil in you, and we're going to get him out of you. We're going to stay here if it takes three months until you get your own mind back."
"they talked to me about the church and showed me how the church had twisted the Bible around," she said. "Those consoled me and saved my life." And until she began question her beliefs.
"I finally opened my mind and admitted that maybe I was wrong," she said. "That was too hard."
Mrs. Osborne said that the deprogramming process wasn't the evil thing that was the problem.
When the family was on its way to Ohio, she said, her daughter told her tales of how the deprogrammers lied church members before the attack until they finally broke under pressure.
Instead, she said, the deprogrammers simply told Osborne and forced her to change the date.
OSBORNE SAID THAT THE
deprogramming had been a terrible
experience at times because of the mental
turnoll it put her through.
"Deprogramming is hell at times," she said, "but I can't think of a better way to get people out of the church. I'm just thankful that I went through it."
The transition in adjusting to a new way of life without the church has been difficult, she said, because she has had to re-establish values that was destroyed by the church.
"I REALIZE NO WOW THAT I had
I REALIZE with God," she said. "It was all a
thing."
Observe isn't bitter toter individual church members, she said, because most of them aren't aware of what the church is saying. But she does have some bitter feelings.
She said that the church had been a crutch for her because she was unsure of her identity at the time she joined. She had wholeheartedly adopted the church's values and philosophy, she said, and had let the group's leaders do all the thinking for her.
I hold a lot of the church leaders responsible for what they're doing to people," she said. "They're playing with people's minds, and that's not right."
"The church is a big rip off, really."
Despite her feelings now about the episode that the episode was a good learning experience,
"I realize now that I've got to live my own life—as Jan Osborne."
She said she was taking life a day at a time, not looking too far ahead. She is assisting in some deprogramming efforts in Ohio, working with people who are in the same position she was in just a few months ago.
OSBORNE SAID SHE wanted to return to Lawrence soon to finish a paper for a sociology class. When she completes that task, she realizes nothing she had decided not to do last May.
Her mother is lecturing on Osborne's experiences to various church and civic groups in the Independence area. Mrs. Osborne is thankful to have her daughter back, she said, and wants to do what she can to help bring other families together.
"If I can help just one person, one family, that's all I care about." she said.
The summer ordeal for the Osborne family is over. The family is reunited. It has time to relax and enjoy life. The relationship that had once been almost completely severed.
THE STORY OF THE Fanshier family hasn't evolved that way. It is a story of bitterness, confusion and uncertainty of what is wert to come.
Fansher got involved in the church soon after Osborne had joined last spring. Fansher, like her roommate, had no strong ties to the church and had many questions about her own life.
And like Osborne's parents, the Fanshiers were thrilled to learn that their daughter had finally discovered a religion that interested her. But as they learned more about it, they reading literature and talking with people, they grew suspicious of the organization.
After Osborne was successfully deprogrammed, the Fanshiers chose the same recourse to get their daughter out of the church. But Fanshier escaped from the deprogrammers and made her way back to Lawrence.
THE FANSHIERS OBTAINED a civil commitment to have their daughter detained for psychiatric examination. But she was released in August from Kansas Medical Center in Great Bend, her attorneys got a modified court order that released her from the hospital during the series of examinations. A final hearing is scheduled to decide Fanshier's mental competence.
Fansher is back in Lawrence awaiting the results of the examinations. She is confident that the court will declare her mentally competent. Her parents are hoping otherwise, because if she is declared mentally competent she can be held for further tests.
Fansher and her parents agree that the legal proceedings are a battle not of religious freedom but of individual looks at the proceedings in a different way.
Fansher's mother, Frances Fansher,
said that all she wanted was to have her
daughter removed from the church long
enough to do some thinking of her own. As
long as her daughter is with other church
members, the church does all the
thinking for her.
IF SHE'S ALLOWED TO think for herself, Mrs. Fanshier said, then perhaps her daughter will come to realize what the church is doing to her.
"We're concerned about her mind, not her religion," Ms. Fanshard said. "Worshiping God is one thing, but worshipping Jesus is another." Avior (the Rev. Mc) is another thing.*
She said she and her husband were trying to get their daughter out of the church because no one else could, particularly Fanshier herself.
"I don't think Pam could leave because the influence of the church is so great," Mrs. Johnson said.
But Fanshier she said she thought her rights as an individual were being stepped on by her.
"I GET THE IMPRESSION that I'm going to have to change," she said, "that I'm going to have to leave the church and give them their expectations or they're not going to go.
"That's their goal for me in life, but I will go ahead and goals for me. I have to follow my own path."
Fansher said that it had been her conscience that she had followed in joining the band. "We were very hardworking," she said.
"If I could find a higher truth, then I'd leave this church in a minute. But so far I haven't found it."
Fanshier said she could leave the church at any time if she wanted, and would do so without hesitation if she could find something better.
People leave the church on their own all the time, she said, and feel no contempt toward the church. The only people who are bitter toward the Unification Church are those who have undergone the deprogramming process. Fanshier said.
had pressure her into joining. Now that she said, she's the happiest that she's ever been.
"If I could find a higher truth, then I leave this church in a minute. But so far I haven't found it. That doesn't mean I'm goin't to stow looking."
"The CHURCH OFFERS hope for all mankind," she said. "Whether it works, I am confident."
"It has given me a very deep understanding of God that I never had before," she said. "It made me realize many things about myself that I really wasn't aware of before. And it makes me a stronger, more self-confident individual."
She said that if anyone was guilty of brainwashing people, it was the case of the United States.
"Compare the tactics used by Joe Alexander (a deprogrammer) and his people," she said. Alexander is the person responsible for Osborne's deprogramming.
"YOU'ARE FORCED TO listen and repeat what they say. And they'll keep you there, or warn them it takes. That is how I worried them. But if that I wasn't going to get out of there until either I convinced them of my conversion or actually started believing that they were
Fansahil said the deprogrammers and other critics of the church dealt with exorcism, but Mr. Hammond says the
"They lock you into a motel room; there's no outside stimulus from anywhere. The only people you're allowed to talk to are those individuals that they bring in.
"It's so obvious to me who's wrong."
The church doesn't program its members to sever family ties, she said, but instead encourages them to maintain good family relations. In her situation, she said, because the legal action against her, she hadn't been able to maintain a healthy relationship with her family.
Pam Fanshier
"BECAUSE OF THE TEACHINGS of the church I have come to realize how important it is that they take them for granted, but now I realize what they've gone through to raise me, the sacrifices that they have made for me, the moral would be if I cut off all ties with them?"
"There's definitely a separation that was never there before and it's getting deeper and deeper and wider and wider the more they continue to work against the church.
Fansher said that if the court ruled in her favor, then perhaps she could begin improving the relationship with her family. But until that happens, she said, she'll concentrate her efforts on working for the church.
"When they hurt the church, they hurt me. But nothing they could ever do to me could ever destroy the love I have for them."
"D I L E Y TO GO HOME very much," she said. "Just because I joined the Unification Church doesn't that I don't want to go back and see my plants and my horses and my brothers and sister. I want to move ever, but it is just impossible at home."
"I wish we could have a normal relationship."
Fanshier said she would also like to patch
"Friendship goes deeper to me than just having different religious beliefs," Fanshier said. "My friendship with Jan and my parents goes deeper than that. The thing they have to learn is that I'm still the same person."
up the close friendship that she had for several years with Osborne. Osborne expressed the same desire. But both agreed that, considering the circumstances, reestablishing their relationship would be difficult.
Osborne said that Fansher had appeared to be normal when she last talked with her before the examinations in Great Bend. But she said Fansher was confused and didn't understand all that was going on within the church.
"I DO HAVE DIFFERENT religious beliefs and they're going to have to accept me with those beliefs. I'm still the same; I wish they would understand that."
"The worst thing is that we don't have a friendship because we don't trust each other." Osborne said. "But I still want to be her friend."
The rift over Fanash's religious beliefs has gone far beyond her family and friends. Much of the Great Bend community has reacted to all the publicity that has come from the legal proceedings. Lately church leaders have joined the churches have centered on the Fanash family.
SOME CLOSE FRIENDS OF the Fanshers are circulating a petition to be sent to the Senate and to demand that attorney general and state legislators demanding a federal investigation of the Unification Church. The church poses a threat to the national security of the petition says, but also to the entire country.
One woman who is aiding the effort said petitions had been circulating throughout the western part of the state, in other parts of Kansas and in Texas.
Stephen Sell, state director of the Unification Church, said there was strong criticism of his leadership when he was a relatively new religion and because it was still a small organization.
HE SAID IF MY meet with opposition when it first began in Korea and Japan, that but it was now looked upon no differently than other churches.
Sell said he couldn't understand why anyone would be opposed to either Fanshier's membership in the church or the church itself.
"It's a 20th century witch hunt."
"Pam's parents are holding her against
the wall," she said. "The people
people can close their eyes to that fact."
Both the attorney for Fansher and the attorney for her parents agreed that public support in Great Bend was running strongly in favor of Mr. and Mrs. Fansher's actions.
Robert Feldt, Fanshier's attorney, said he had received few, if any, cells or letters favoring Fanshier's side. He said his wife was involved in the court accusation of representing the wife.
FANSHIER SAID THAT the case had been blown out of proportion by all the publicity and that because of the strong reaction from voters it has been forced to continue their legal action.
"They feel like they have to follow the rules of this church, this church, no matter if it hurts me or not."
So the Fanshiers sit and wait, backed by an entire community, and hope for a court decision that would get their daughter away. The family is so completely altered their family life.
And Fanshier sits and waits in Lawrence, confident that the court will rule in her favor, and hopes that soon her family can be worse again, despite all that has happened.
Home subsidy rules to be presented today
Eligibility guidelines for the Douglas County Home Rehabilitation Program will be presented to the Douglas County Commission today.
According to the agreement, Penn House representatives will spend one morning each month in the city halls of Lecompton, Eudora and Baldwin, Coleman said. Homeowners may discuss home issues with the representative, if they are the representatives there, he said, or visit Penn House, 1035 Pennsylvania St., any weekday.
THE GUIDELINES, HE said, will be used by members of Penn House, a local nonprofit service organization, who have volunteered to keep working home rehabilitation or loans.
If approved, eligible county homeowners outside Lawrence will begin getting home rehabilitation aid next week, Ernest Coleman, county federal fund consultant and co-author of the guidelines, said vesterday.
Coleman, said the guidelines were a necessary step in the implementation of $50,000 in home rehabilitation funds and $21,800 in administrative funds, which the county received Aug. 26 as part of a $225,000 community development grant.
The home rehabilitation program is designed to help low-income county residents improve the safety and comfort of their homes.
Tentative plans call for counseling to begin in Leptonium next Thursday, in September.
Money for the counseling program, he said, would come from the administrative department.
Although a formal contract between Penn House and Coleman Consulting Services, the administrative office for the county's courts would be opened to anyone who would be signed within the next few weeks.
COLEMAN SAID HE and two assistants
in his office, Virginia Ashlock and Barbara Wilills, recently met to formulate the guidelines. He said that, though there were no laws that regulated the making of guidelines, the guidelines were similar to those used by Lawrence.
The guidelines, contained in a four-page booklet, explain eligibility, types of repairs that may be done and grant or loan application procedures.
Coleman said a person must have own home for at least one year and must fall in love with someone else.
The eligibility of farm families will be determined by their net incomes, he said, because operating expenses must be considered to evaluate total income. All other families will be eligible according to their gross incomes, he said.
THE INCOME LEVARS vary, he said,
from $4,084 for a single person to $7,670 for a
family.
She said that because there was no county housing code, people wouldn't be required to improve their homes. However, she said insights into the possible need for a code could be gained through the counseling program.
Ocee Miller, Penn House director, said the guidelines would be geared to correcting health and safety hazards rather than home appearance.
Coleman said there was no law that required the county commission to approve a development fund. County was the only Kansas county to have received community development funds, Coleman said, commission approval would be required for all that might receive funds in the future.
If the guidelines are approved, copies will be distributed at a public discussion of the county community development grant at 7:30 tonight in the commissioner's meeting room in the Douglas County Courthouse, he said.
CON PERSONAS
by Paul Stephen Lim
William Inge Memorial Theatre
TONIGHT thru Nov. 6 8:00 p.m.
Tickets $1.75
Student-Tickets Free with Registration Cards University Theatre Box Office Murphy Hall
864-3982
A discussion with two prisoners from '
the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth
Do Prisons Rehabilitate?
needs volunteers with experience or degrees in the following skill areas:
7:00-9:00 p.m. Thurs., Oct 30
Forum Room, Kansas Union
partially funded by Student Senate
SOCIAL SCIENCE
PEACE CORPS
BUSINESS HEALTH
MATH
SPANISH/FRENCH
SCIENCE
EDUCATION
JOURNALISM
Talk to recruiters Mon.-Thurs., Nov. 10th-13th (Union)
Seniors Sign Up in Respective Placement Offices
Thursday & Friday - Open til 8 p.m. on Thursday
Halloween Sale
LADIES' WEAR
One Group Slacks
All Print Blouses and Tops
-$10.99
- 20% Off
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- 25% Off
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(including leather and
down-filled jackets) -20% Off
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All Sport Coats - 25% Off (except corduroy)