CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/19/2025

Unification Church, Legal, Japan, SGA, Gabriel of Urantia

Mainichi: 'Second-gen' of Unification Church members in Japan sue for 320 million yen in damages

"Eight individuals who are the children of followers of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly the Unification Church, filed a lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court on July 24 seeking a total of about 320 million yen (roughly $2.19 million) in damages from the religious organization.

These "second-generation" members claim that their parents prevented them from making free decisions and caused them severe psychological harm. The plaintiffs hold the church responsible rather than their parents, arguing that the parents' actions were strongly influenced by the church's teachings.

According to the plaintiffs' attorney, this is believed to be the first class action by second-generation members. The plaintiffs argue, "The church instructed parents to prioritize religious practice over the human rights of their children, severely distorting the environment in which the second generation grew up. These children suffered abusive acts that violated their rights to freedom of religion and marriage, among others."

The issue of second-generation members suffering due to their parents' religious beliefs gained national attention after the July 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Nara. Tetsuya Yamagami, who was charged with murder and other offences in the shooting, reportedly claimed his family was destroyed by his mother's deep involvement with the Unification Church."

AsahiShimbun: Unification Church land seized for donation refunds

"A Tokyo court has approved the provisional seizing of land housing the former Unification Church's Japanese headquarters, a key step toward allowing former followers to reclaim large donations made to the religious group.

A legal team that supports victims of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification's fund-raising tactics announced the development at a news conference on July 30.

The Tokyo District Court issued the ruling on July 18 in response to a request by 10 women in their 50s to 80s who are former members of the religious organization.

The women claim to have collectively lost 227 million yen ($1.52 million) to the former Unification Church, through what they describe as exploitative donation extraction practices.

The court order prevents the organization from selling its property in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, effectively freezing the asset while legal proceedings are ongoing.

However, activities at the headquarters may continue as usual."

Obituary: Gabriel of Urantia: 1946-2025, Death of the Cosmic Gatsby

"Many words have been used to describe Gabriel of Urantia over the years — preacher, prophet, father, grifter, cult leader, con artist, "CosmoPop." On Friday, August 8th at 2:10 a.m., Gabriel of Urantia passed away at the age of 79. He was not doing well — there were difficulties related to diabetes and a 2010 kidney transplant, so in some ways this wasn't a shock. Then again, he was a cult leader, and cult leaders don't necessarily make it easy to know what's going on with them health-wise, so we were all taken a little off-guard."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/15/2025

Conversion Therapy, LGBT, Paraguay, Unification Church, Bulgarian Orthodox Church

CNN: 'God, please fix me': Inside the dangerous resurgence of 'ex-gay' conversion therapy

"He remembers walking towards the worst experience of his life. The dorm hall was a concrete tunnel, with chipped white paint on the walls and a stench of sweat trapped inside. The stairs, he recalls, squeaked underfoot. They led to a wooden door, which Andrew Pledger pried open.

He stepped inside, sunk into a peeling black couch and locked eyes with the man sitting across the desk.

And then something happened.

"Everything around me just faded away," Pledger says. He floated out of his body. "I almost couldn't hear him anymore … time just completely slowed down."

The next thing he remembers is leaving the office, a pounding pain in his chest. An hour had passed. Whatever happened in that room had shaken Pledger, then a tormented, depressed student at a private evangelical university in South Carolina. A voice filled his head, telling him: "You cannot do this. This is unhealthy. This is not good."

Pledger had just experienced conversion therapy – the discredited, pseudoscientific practice that purports to help a gay person change or resist their sexuality. The practice doesn't work: Virtually every major medical association denounces it as junk science. A flood of studies has warned of its dangers; young people who experience conversion therapy are more likely to suffer depression and attempt suicide, researchers have found.

But conversion therapy is still practiced in nearly every state, monitoring groups say. Efforts by right-wing lawmakers to repeal city and state-wide bans have claimed their first successes. And former leaders of the "ex-gay" religious movement told CNN the practice is enjoying a resurgence — this time in more cloaked, subtle, secretive forms.

Pledger wasn't sure that he wanted to change his sexuality, but he needed something to change. In the months before he sat on that dusty couch, he had been relentlessly bullied, he had harmed himself, and on one dark evening in his dormitory, he'd held a bottle of medication in his hand and considered ending his life. He remembers it all.

And yet the meeting itself is lost to the deepest recesses of Pledger's mind. "I just disassociated," he says. His response is not uncommon — multiple conversion therapy survivors told CNN they had blocked out the details of the practice. It might as well never have happened.

Except that there is one more thing that Pledger remembers: fumbling into his pocket in the moments before the session began, pulling out his phone, and hitting "Record."

Pledger said he was told in a conversion therapy session on the BJU campus: 'We're going to deal with this sin like we would deal with any other sin.'"

BBC: Why a South Korean church bought a village in Paraguay (The Documentary Podcast)

"How a controversial religious group from South Korea gained ownership of a remote village in Paraguay.

Puerto Casado is a remote village in Paraguay, in South America. It's not dissimilar to many other rural towns in the area: red-brick houses, small grocery stores and unpaved roads. But what makes Puerto Casado an exception is that it's at the centre of a land dispute between the Paraguayan state, local residents and the Unification Church, a controversial religious group from South Korea."

Bulgarian Synod warns against neo-Hindu "spiritual teachers" with false Christian elements

"The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has issued a strongly worded statement warning Bulgarian citizens against what it calls "pagan neo-Hindu propaganda with false Christian elements" being spread by touring gurus and self-proclaimed spiritual teachers.

In the statement published yesterday, the Church leadership expresses concern about religious groups that "interweave their pagan beliefs with incorrectly used elements from Christianity" with the goal of leading "as many people as possible into spiritual delusion" to increase their followers.

The Synod specifically names several prominent figures including Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Sri Chinmoy, Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Osho Rajneesh, Sai Baba, Shibendu Lahiri, and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar among the "neo-Hindu spiritual leaders" whose initiatives are being promoted in Bulgaria and abroad."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/24/2025

Unification Church, Korea, Legal,  Tvind School Cooperative of Denmark,  TB Joshua, Nigeria, Sexual Abuse

UPI: Special prosecutor begins probe into Unification Church executives

Included are allegations of bribery via a religious intermediary, embezzlement of church funds for casino gambling and interference in law enforcement.

"South Korea's special prosecutor has formally designated Hak‑ja Han, head of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, popularly known as the Unification Church, as a criminal suspect.

The office is extending its investigation to include allegations of bribery via a religious intermediary, embezzlement of church funds for casino gambling and interference in law enforcement.

Prosecutors allege that luxury goods -- including designer handbags and diamond jewelry -- were acquired to be given to the former First Lady Keon‑hee Kim, wife of the recently impeached former President Suk-yeol Yoon.

The items had been transferred through Seong‑bae Jeon, known as "Geonjin Beopsa," a spiritual adviser to the church. Investigators are working to establish whether directives came from senior church officials and if funds were misused for political influence.

The special prosecutor's office has announced that summonses will be issued soon to several senior Unification Church executives."

Sky News: Red House: 62 people now say they experienced abuse at children's home run by a 'cult'

"The home was run by the Tvind School Cooperative of Denmark. A controversial group founded in the late 1960s, they opened around 30 radical schools in Denmark, mostly for disadvantaged children, and two in England."

Daily Mail: Constance Marten's 'life was ruined' by joining a Nigerian religious cult that beat women with horsewhips and whose leader required followers to call him 'daddy'

" ... The cult was called SCOAN (The Synagogue Church of All Nations) and its leader, TB Joshua, targeted the UK for new, wealthy recruits by infiltrating Evangelical churches in the south of England.

Through her connections to one of these churches, Constance's mother, Virginia, was persuaded to travel to Nigeria with her daughter to the sect's compound in 2006.

Virginia believed TB Joshua, who styled himself in internet videos as a miracle healer, could rid her daughter of her 'rebellious spirits'.

Speaking to Trial Plus hosts Caroline Cheetham and Jack Hardy, author Matthew McNaught, who wrote a book about the cult and its abuse of British recruits, described how SCOAN operated and how Marten became affiliated with it.

'Some church members came across this ministry in Nigeria – there were videos being sent around for publicity. They were incredibly graphic, very dramatic videos showing seemingly incredible things.

'I was very sceptical of TB Joshua from the start – the videos were so extreme and gross. You would see sores and bare breasts, gore and nudity that was incredibly hard to watch.

'As soon as people started becoming disciples – their personalities began to change. They withdrew from old friendships and people within my church started to become suspicious.

'Constance was in Lagos for six months. She got in contact with me in 2013 after I wrote a blog detailing TB Joshua's abuse. Her experience was the same as many others I had spoken too."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

Special prosecutor begins probe into Unification Church executives

Included are allegations of bribery via a religious intermediary, embezzlement of church funds for casino gambling and interference in law enforcement.

Youngjun Kim
UPI
July 9, 2025

SEOUL, July 9 (UPI) -- South Korea's special prosecutor has formally designated Hak‑ja Han, head of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, popularly known as the Unification Church, as a criminal suspect.

The office is extending its investigation to include allegations of bribery via a religious intermediary, embezzlement of church funds for casino gambling and interference in law enforcement.

Prosecutors allege that luxury goods -- including designer handbags and diamond jewelry -- were acquired to be given to the former First Lady Keon‑hee Kim, wife of the recently impeached former President Suk-yeol Yoon.

The items had been transferred through Seong‑bae Jeon, known as "Geonjin Beopsa," a spiritual adviser to the church. Investigators are working to establish whether directives came from senior church officials and if funds were misused for political influence.

The special prosecutor's office has announced that summonses will be issued soon to several senior Unification Church executives.

Among those investigators are set to question Young‑ho Yoon, former director-general of the church's world headquarters; Young-ho Yoon's wife, previously a leading figure in church finances; Won‑joo Jung, deputy director at the church's central Cheonmu Institute.

To date, no such individuals have been taken into custody or formally interviewed, but prosecutors have confirmed plans to bring them in for questioning as part of the unfolding inquiry.

A travel ban had been placed on all three. Won-joo Jung had been granted permission last month to visit her critically ill husband. However, to date, she has not yet returned to Korea.

Financial audit teams uncovered records indicating that church donations -- totaling tens of billions of Korean won -- were allegedly used for gambling at Las Vegas casinos, dating from 2008 through earlier this year. Investigators traced rewards‑club reports reflecting substantial bets and gaming sessions attributed to church figures.

Prosecutors are also probing whether the church attempted to obstruct a separate police investigation into this gambling activity. Authorities executed search and seizure operations July 8, seeking internal communications that could demonstrate exertion of political pressure or bribery to obstruct the earlier inquiry.

This probe spans multiple suspected criminal offenses: illicit transfer of luxury goods as political bribes, embezzlement of church funds for gambling, obstruction of justice through interference with police investigations, and potential collusion involving religious leaders, former police officials and political intermediaries.

The formal opening of a criminal case into Hak‑ja Han marks a pivotal escalation in this investigation. As summonses to key church figures draw closer and forensic evidence continues to accumulate, questions are mounting about the church's financial and political entanglements.

This case has generated intense interest in the Korea media over past several months. It represents one of the most high-stakes probes into religious-political influence in South Korea, raising significant questions about institutional transparency and accountability.

Earlier this year, the Tokyo District Court issued an order for the dissolution of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification in Japan -- formerly called Unification Church Japan.


https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/07/08/unification-church-executives-criminal-suspects/6581752003509/

Travel ban imposed on Unification Church leader amid probe into ex-first lady scandal

SEOUL, May 22 (Yonhap) -- Prosecutors have imposed a travel ban on the leader of the Unification Church as part of an investigation into allegations that the wife of ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol received luxury gifts from the church, sources said Thursday.

The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office recently imposed an overseas travel ban on the church leader, Han Hak-ja, in connection with its investigation into allegations that a high-ranking church official gifted a diamond necklace worth 60 million won (US$43,405) and two Chanel bags to Kim via a shaman.

The shaman, Jeon Seong-bae, also known as Geon Jin, allegedly delivered the items to Kim and asked for various business favors on behalf of the church after Yoon was elected president in 2022, according to the sources.

Prosecutors suspect the church official may have acted either under Han's direction or with her tacit approval, given the high value of the gifts and other circumstances. The church has maintained that the gifts were offered based on the official's personal motives.

Prosecutors have yet to locate the necklace and bags, while Jeon has claimed that the items were lost.

Investigators, however, have confirmed that the bags were delivered to a member of Kim's personal staff, surnamed Yoo, who reportedly exchanged both for different models after paying surcharges.

Kim's side has asserted that the gifts were never handed to her, suggesting that the shaman and Yoo may have had a separate personal connection.

Shaman Jeon Seong-bae, also known as Geon Jin, attends a trial session at the Seoul Southern District Court in Seoul in this May 12, 2025, file photo. (Yonhap)

graceoh@yna.co.kr

(END)

https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250522010300320

Mass wedding, messier truths: Moonies say ‘I do’ amid cult claims and Japan crackdown

This picture taken on April 12, 2025 shows couples attending a mass wedding ceremony organised by the Unification Church at Cheongshim Peace World Center in Gapyeong. — AFP pic

MalayMail

April 23, 2025

They’ve been called a cult, accused of coercive fundraising, and legally disbanded in Japan. But in a mountainous town nestled in South Korea, thousands of “Moonies” gathered this month for a mass wedding.

Around 1,300 couples from dozens of countries tied the knot at the Unification Church’s sprawling headquarters in Gapyeong, north of Seoul, under the supervision of their controversial leader, known as the “holy mother”.

The spectacular tradition, which dates back to the first so-called “blessing ceremony” featuring 36 couples in 1961, is an integral part of the broadly neo-Christian beliefs held by the church, founded by Moon Sun-myung and now run by his widow, Han Hak-ja.

The church claims these mass weddings can help reverse South Korea’s woeful birthrate, improve family values, and ultimately bring about Moon’s goal of completing the unfulfilled mission of Jesus Christ to restore humanity to a state of “sinless” purity.

“I’m just really grateful,” American Emmanuel Muyongo, 29, told AFP at the ceremony, where he married his Japanese wife, whom he met years ago and grew close to at a church in the United States.

Muyongo’s own parents married at a mass wedding, and he said that he was honoured “to experience what my parents’ experienced”.

“We love you, Holy Mother Han!” the couples shouted in unison at one point during the event, which featured blaring fanfare and confetti cannons.

Han, 82, looked almost eerily calm throughout the festivities, once slowly waving at her excited followers while wearing sunglasses and a green dress.

The church, which was founded in 1954, claims to have around three million followers globally — including 300,000 in South Korea, 600,000 in Japan — and oversees a sprawling business empire encompassing construction, tourism, education and media, among others.

But in Japan, the church has been accused of coercive fundraising, especially after the 2022 assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, allegedly carried out by a man who harboured resentment toward the sect.

A court there revoked its legal status as an organisation last month, although its members can continue to meet.

Abe’s accused killer blamed the church for his family’s financial ruin, after his mother made huge donations. Abe — along with other world leaders including US President Donald Trump — had sent video messages to events linked to the church.

But at the mass wedding this month, followers were unfazed by the recent legal blow, with the visibly emotional couples — including Japanese — radiating joy and gratitude to Han.

After Moon’s 2012 death, Han stepped up to lead the church and is now referred to by members as god’s “only begotten daughter” and the “holy mother”.

The church has links to everything from a major South Korean newspaper to a high-end ski resort used for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. It is also affiliated with esteemed art institutes.

In 1991, Han joined her late husband — revered by followers as a messiah but dismissed by critics as a charlatan — on his trip to North Korea to meet with its founder, Kim Il Sung, to discuss the reunification of the divided peninsula.

When her husband died, North Korea’s current leader Kim Jong Un sent a personal message of condolence. He later presented her with a pair of North Korean Pungsan dogs, a token of his goodwill.

This week, South Korean media alleged that the church had bribed former first lady Kim Keon Hee — whose husband, Yoon Suk Yeol, was recently ousted over his declaration of martial law — with a diamond necklace worth around US$41,970 (RM185,000).

Indemnity

The church has appealed the Japanese court’s decision.

Experts say that Japan, Korea’s former colonial ruler, has long been a financial hub for the sect.

“Usually, religious businesses like Unification Church target isolated lower-middle class individuals,” Vladimir Tikhonov, Korean Studies professor at the University of Oslo, told AFP.

“Their main ‘hunting ground’ is not South Korea, it is actually Japan,” he added.

Since the 1960s, the church is believed to have generated as much as 80 per cent of its global revenues from Japan, according to Levi McLaughlin, a religious studies professor at North Carolina State University.

During Japan’s 1980s bubble economy, its branch reportedly sent up to ¥10 billion (US$70 million) per month to the South Korean headquarters.

Japanese followers are told to “atone” for the country’s colonial past, and McLaughlin told AFP the mass weddings have been framed as a form of “indemnity”.

The church plays a role in match-making couples, experts say, with Japanese women often matched with non-Japanese men — and critics slam the cult-like cutting of family ties that sometimes results.

But this month in Gapyeong, more than 1,000 couples — each bride in near-identical white gowns and modest tiaras — wiped away tears, held hands tightly, and swayed to music as they danced and took selfies.

The couples “started from happiness and love, but it seems that those who don’t understand it well are misinterpreting it and only seeing the negative aspects”, Remi Kosuga, 27, one of the brides, told AFP.

“We simply want to believe in and learn about love. ... I hope people can see that.” — AFP

https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2025/04/23/mass-wedding-messier-truths-moonies-say-i-do-amid-cult-claims-and-japan-crackdown/174194