SF mayor Gavin Newsom is in a bit of hot water after declaring Sept 7 “Ilchee Lee Day” in San Francisco in 2007.
Ilchee Lee, a.k.a. Lee Seung-heon, is the founder of Dahn World (or Dahn Yoga), a Taoist practice that focuses on developing the mind. Unfortunately, two SF media blogs — here and here — accuse Dahn Yoga of being a cult.
Lee is the Korean leader of Dahn, a yoga and holistic health organization that sells workshops and retreats teaching a technique called “brain respiration.” News reports and cult-watchers have called Ilchee a cult leader, saying his organization has used the concept of “brain eduction” to lure victims into spending their savings on pricey classes and retreats. According to a New York Post report, one patron’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2005 after a patron of Lee’s Dahnhak yoga and holistic-health movement was allegedly made to walk herself to death in the Arizona desert.
“The suit calls Dahnhak a cult and alleges that it drugged (Julia) Siverls, loaded her backpack with 40 pounds of rocks, gave her little food or water, then took her on a hike up Casner Mountain, near Sedona, Ariz.,” the Post reported.
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Lee seems to be following the footsteps of fellow South Korean and purported cult leader Sun Myung Moon. Or maybe Lee’s the next L. Ron Hubbard, messiah of Newsom’s former Scientologist paramour Sofia Milos.According to Ross, “Lee now controls millions of dollars in real estate holdings, including the Sedona, Arizona retreat where client Julia Siverls died, and another retreat property recently purchased in Ellenville, New York.”
When I was young, my family would spend summers near Ellenville. I now live in Korea. Coincidence? Not likely.
Never thought of Danhak as a cult, frankly. A bit weird, perhaps. But then again, I don’t really know a whole lot about them.
(HT to Oranckay)
UPDATE: My bad — Mayor Newsom declared Ilchee Lee Day in 2007. However, a Marin County lawyer filed suit on behalf of 24 former Danhak members late last month, hence why the story is ongoing.
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I’m not sure why they went with the Sun Myung Moon if they were going to mention other “purported” South Korean cults. The Moonies are so last century. I would have thought Jung Myeong-seok and his fellow rapists would have been a better mention, especially with Jung’s hiding out abroad, running from police, getting extradicted back to Korea and convicted. Helluva lot more recent and relevant than Moon.
The mayor is in a bit of hot water? Over this, for 2 years? I doubt it.
(September 7…2007)
I can’t quite recall the Ellensville reference but it sounds vaguely familiar. Was a cult housed there?
As for cult vs. religion, I don’t really grasp the point of differentiation. When a logician looks at religion, there isn’t too much of a need to differentiate.
Dahnhak IS a cult, and they don’t simply provide members with spiritual/mental training. The core idea of the words and texts they use in their training is from 천부경 and is extremely nationalistic, which is ultimately used to brainwash the members. Perhaps this is equivalent to Shintoism/Judaism + spiritual training. Many of the trainers are working without reasonable payments in exchange for the titles they get in their organization. The benefit, however, is no better than that of yoga, but the damage can be really bad for some members, although Dahnhak is not as bad as 대순진리회 and 증산도, another nationalistic religions. I was appalled that they charge members that high for their stupid programs in states.
If you know anyone who did or may join them, tell them to stay away from it. I’m serious.
Sorry for making that look confusing, Marmot.
I just find it tragicomic that one sees yet another cult privately owned and operated by a Korean ajeossi, and that Western victims are to some degree victims of their own orientalism for buying his potions. Sadly it’s stories like this that give legitimate “alternative” medicine a bad reputation among the general American public.
When I see stories like this I think the lesson is the same: before committing any of your money or your life to a church, club, organization, business enterprise, service, thought system, or school (at any level, even if accredited) that is run or dominated by its founder or owner or by any one overly-long-term individual, do a thorough background check. Even if it isn’t at all a religious organization, it could very well be a “personality cult.” Multiply the risk tenfold for Korea and the overseas Korean community, because in that context people (Koreans) easily recognize the organization as being run that way and, as if writing it off, just let the individual have his way with what is seen as “his” organization, further removing all checks. The mix becomes especially harmful to potential victims in cases like this one. There are more than a few groups (schools, orgs like this) run by Koreans in the US that are seen as less than honorable and legit by the Korean community while non-Koreans join unsuspectingly, having no idea it could possibly be so bad because they haven’t seen as many “one man shows” as Koreans have.
I recall when Time magazine looked at doing a story on Dahn about 5 years ago, but their intern/staffer was so spooked by the threatening phone calls she received that it was scrapped.
There is a difference between a cult and a religion, but it is possible for a group to be one without the other and also possible to be both at once. Signs of abuse and excessive control of others are things to watch for.
Amen to Oranckay’s note about Korean one man shows. This country is a particularly fecund ground for cults and New Religious Movements (the PC term for groups often suspected or accused of being a cult). I met some people once in Itaewon who tried to convince me that God is a mother.
And I was once at a Korean Studies conference at which one professor gleefully recounted his voluntary abduction to a retreat by one Korean cult group, just to see what they were like.
In other words, religion. To me anybody who attempts to use guilt, acceptance, and other forms of psychological pressure to manipulate me into buying into some manufactured cosmology is guilty of abuse and excessive control. But, I suppose you are saying that it is a matter of degree.
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