Fear and Loathing at Cheongpyeong Lake

There was a brief time in my life as a Moonie when all the pressure and theatrics of the Moon family dynasty seemed far away and the effects of Mass Psychosis had died down to a minimum. Family life and domestic issues were given high priority and folks had time to breathe and actually plan for their futures. Except for the occasional visits to our fair city from one of the members of Moon’s family, church life proceeded in a calm and predictable manner. The members were happy to turn out the assembly for the touring Moon family speaker, perhaps a few employees and the occasional VIP would attend. The speech covered all the familiar points to which all agreed and warmly applauded on cue. The Moon family member was feted at a luxury hotel and given a tour of the local facilities, all proudly provided with the donations of the local Moonie community. Then they were sent home amid Mansei cheers and congratulations….a total victory for God over Satan! The providence was marching on and on.

Then the madness started again. We had heard the rumors about a certain spiritualist in South Korea that was channeling messages from Mrs. Moon’s dead mother and others in spirit world, but no one really assigned any importance to this development. Perhaps we thought that our experience with the black Heung Jin was enough to scare the devil out of the membership and we had quietly moved on to another chapter in the dispensation. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. Workshops were being organized at a church facility in a place called Cheongpyeong Lake where members could attend and, for a hefty donation, have their burdensome evil ancestors exorcized. How this was accomplished wasn’t explained at first and the members returning from these workshops were reluctant to explain the process. Perhaps they were embarrassed or because it was so complicated or maybe it was just a mystery – nobody knew until they were initiated.

I didn’t have much interest based on my previous experiences with this sort of thing in New York City and expressed as much to my wife. She seemed to agree but as time went on the pressure from both peers and church headquarters to participate was gradually increased until my wife relinquished and committed herself. She decided to take a circuitous tour and visit her family in Japan first then spend the required time at Cheongpyeong Lake and alleviate herself of her sinful ancestors. Since we both agreed that my ancestors were probably more sinful than hers, we would forgo their liberation until some later date when we could better afford the cost of the service. Since we had three small children we decided it would be easier for her to take the eldest and I keep the younger two until the last week of her workshop when we would be reunited at the facility at the culmination of the workshop.

I really had reservations about the whole thing and we did argue about the importance of the event over our family finances but she eventually wore me down as most wives do. I was calculating in my mind the net cost savings of the money spent on “ancestor liberation” over extended stays in Japan with numerous visits to the hot springs, shopping malls, etc. Compromise for the sake of family unity seemed to be the order of the day so off she went for the forty day workshop.

My trip to Korea started pleasantly enough albeit with minor irritations like heavy snow fall and delayed luggage. My children and I were happily greeted by my wife and eldest daughter upon arrival at Cheongpyeong Lake but something about her seemed different. My wife’s neck and face were so swollen that her eyes were almost closed. I asked her repeatedly what happened but she declined to explain and assured me that it was nothing … really. We proceeded to our accommodation where I was surprised to find the members were sleeping in sleeping bags on foam mats on the floor of a building that was little more than a finished warehouse. Heat was furnished through the floor but only in the evening hours. My wife insisted on preparing our beds now even though it was still daylight because there were no lights and the choice spots on the floor filled up quickly. I was incredulous as I looked around me. There were families there with babies who were sick with deep hacking coughs; actually everybody seemed to be sick and miserable. I started to ply my wife with questions about the facility to which she was still reluctant to answer. She quickly adopted the pleading tone that she used to get me to go along with difficult directions from the church. I decided it was best not to make a scene and went into survival mode, preparing our bed along the wall so that we wouldn’t be trampled in the night by new arrivals.

The next morning I went outside to survey our situation and it became apparent then that there was no escaping the place without the assistance of the organizers. We were truly in the boonies as we had taken a two hour bus ride from Seoul to reach it. The nearest settlement was a couple miles down the road and would have required a taxi and probably a translator. Panic started to settle in as I suddenly realized that we were trapped. The only vehicles around were black sport utilities with tinted out windows. I walked past one glowering at the occupants who I could see through their open driver’s window. There were two Korean men inside who were smoking and laughing hilariously at me as if they could read my mind. My wife came running up to me to tell me with urgency that it was time for “Ansoo”. What’s that? Said I with trepidation as my world was spinning out of control. “Just come, please”. We started to walk back to the facility where I could hear singing, clapping and drumming. I reassured myself that it couldn’t be so bad – surely it was just preparation for lectures on Divine Principle like the old days.

We gathered the children and proceeded to the hall where all the singing was taking place and entered to find the members neatly sitting in straight rows facing toward the front stage. There were three or four youths on stage who were busy dancing and belting out holy songs to the driving beat provided by a bass drum and the clapping of the members. One of them would start screaming something incoherent in Korean and the members commenced slapping their bodies on locations proscribed by the cheerleader. These commands changed periodically to include a different location of your body. Sometimes someone behind would start pounding the person in front of them and then they would swap. Children weren’t spared in the ritual. The cheerleaders seemed to be working themselves into some sort of frenzied trance. There appeared to be cadre pacing the rows ready to swoop in and start pounding someone who lacked sufficient enthusiasm.

I immediately recognized where the swelling came from on my wife’s face as I watched her organize our kids into rows. She couldn’t look me in the eyes as I was furious and appalled at the same time. I grabbed her hand and dragged her to the back of the hall where I could explain how I felt to her. She tried to explain to me that she was doing this for our sake and I could see that she was torn between her desire to believe and participate and the frightening illogic of the whole scene. I grabbed the children and took them out of the hall and she followed me pleading with me to return. It became clear to me that she was embarrassed by my behavior in front of the other members so I moved back to the empty sleeping quarters to speak to her. I explained to her that I wasn’t going to be subjected to this mindless behavior and would not allow the children to suffer it either. I told her that we would leave on the first available bus with or without her and she started crying. At that point I didn’t care what the members thought about me as I was so indignant at the fact that she thought she could deceive me into participating against my own better judgment.

Eventually she relinquished when I offered to compromise by staying to the end of her workshop with the children so that she could go on beating herself up. I couldn’t change our flight schedule and staying in Seoul would have been more expensive. I spent the next three days touring the facility and amusing myself at what I observed. I wasn’t the only non-participant there as I found large numbers of Korean teenagers wandering around and in some cases pairing off in the hills surrounding the facility. The kids seemed to have more sense than their parents. I also discovered why the organizers were so adamant about using environmentally safe personal care products. It seems that the planners felt it was more important to ship in expensive marble from Italy than build a sewage treatment plant for the facility. Outfall pipes were plainly visible extending into the lake. While taking a walk in the front courtyard one frigid morning I noticed a kindred soul had expressed himself creatively on the monument that was dedicated to Moon. It was a giant phallic symbol resembling the Washington monument with highly detailed reliefs at the base depicting Moon doing battle with Satan and his minions. Someone had urinated on Moon’s face leaving frozen yellow icicles extending from his marble features. Moon was scheduled to visit the facility that very night so I felt the sacrilege was very appropriate.

While creature comforts were far and few between at Cheong Pyeong, we were delighted to find a public bathhouse on the facility one day, and quite by accident. There was a loud row between a large European sister and one of the Korean grounds keepers out front of the bath house. He had firmly planted himself with his broom in front of the entrance of the sister’s bath and was helping himself to glimpses of their glistening bodies when the door swung open. I met a member that I had been acquainted with on MFT many years previously while languishing in the bath house with my kids. He was now employed at the Washington Times and we had a hearty chuckle together as he recounted Moon’s sudden but timely about-face in the editorials of the paper on President Clinton’s adulterous affairs. Moon seemed to have switched abruptly from revulsion to open empathy right at the same time that his daughter and Nan Sook Hong were making very revealing public statements about Moon’s private life.

The food at Cheongpyeong was rather plain even by Korean standards and consisted mainly of rice, Kimchee and a curious dish that was diplomatically described as “spicy crabs”. It consisted of tiny sea crabs cooked in cayenne sauce until crunchy but digestible. I had never encountered it before or since and it reminded me of other traveller’s accounts of eating locusts in Africa. The only other choice was ramen noodles and other vending food being sold for a premium at the company store. When sitting in the cafeteria one time enjoying my spicy crabs, I noticed the local church honchos chowing down on a six course meal in the corner, complete with Bulgogi and other Korean delicacies. I made my displeasure evident as I slowly lead my children around their table on our way out and they responded by loudly sucking their teeth.

Moon finally made his promised appearance and the members lined up on either side of the main road six deep to greet him. I chose to go up on top of the roof of the main hall with my family for a better view. I was alarmed to see him arrive in a fancy Mercedes sedan at a high rate of speed which barely missed some of the members by inches as it roared up the road. Rather than stop in front of the hall and enter in grand style as he always did in the US, he chose to speed by the crowds and go down into a secret underground parking garage. The members began packing themselves into the main hall to hear Moon speak and I could see the cadre organizing the members on the floor by ethnicity. Japanese members seemed to get preference in the front rows closest to Moon with Westerners in the back. I assumed that this was done for security reasons, probably an indication that Moon shrewdly anticipated possible attacks from his own followers.

Predictably, his speech was long and barely engaging, especially for those of us in the back of the hall with small children. I gently placed my kids on the piles of bedding along the wall as they each dropped off to sleep and turned to whisper to my neighbors. It seems that we were all struggling with the same issues of humiliation and dismay over what had become of our time in the church. Finally Moon announced a break around midnight for us to get food. What about sleep? I thought out loud as the members stood, stretched and gathered their kids up to start shuffling toward the exits. I quickly realized that there was going to be a bottleneck at the stairwells and lifted one child onto my shoulders and placed one in front of me. I was trying to follow my wife and eldest daughter through the crowd. The horde of bodies began pressing together in the stairwell when my daughter looked up at me and told me she couldn’t breathe. I quickly reversed course and led her back into the hall against the flood of humanity. She had a mild case of asthma and I wasn’t going to take any chances. We later met at our sleeping quarters with my wife and eldest daughter who brought us each a plate of spicy crabs. After our midnight snack I told my wife that I preferred to go to bed early on the last evening of our vacation at Moonie land. She was disappointed but understanding and returned for the glorious finale of Moon’s speech.

The kids and I awoke refreshed and full of anticipation for our long flight home to the US. We didn’t have an opportunity to see the celebrated Dae Mo Nim in person but I didn’t have any regrets. I was just glad to be done with the whole sordid affair and as we queued up for the bus, I could tell that the other members were equally relieved that it was over. It has been a number of years since our experience and my wife and I haven’t discussed it in detail. I think it’s safe to say that we are both grateful to almighty God to have returned us from the edge of the abyss with mind, body and family intact.

Sincerely as always, Frank Frivilous

Soon-ae Hong (the mother of Hak Ja Han) spent two years in Chuncheon Prison after Ansu beating an 18-year old boy to death.

Dae Mo Nim (Hyo-nam Kim) pours guilt on the Japanese

Fear, guilt and shame used to trap the Japanese members.

What Makes an Ex-Moonie Tick? – Frank Frivilous

The FFWPU / Unification Church and Shamanism

Shamanism: The Spirit World of Korea

Any understanding of the so-called New Religions of Korea would be difficult without some knowledge of shamanistic influences upon them.

FFWPU Holy Grounds and the Shamanic Guardians of the Five Directions

Hananim and other Spirits in Korean Shamanism

Black Heung Jin Moon – Violence in the FFWPU

FFWPU / UC of Japan used members for profit, not religious purposes

The Atsuko Kumon Hong “suicide / murder” of August 2013