Subject: GVI Inside info on Cleophas
Robert asks:
>>Help a newbie out. I am interested in information about the
Cleophas/resurrected Heung Jin Nim phenomena.<<
This whole incident was very unsual. I share your concerns about it because
it looks horrible when it's written up in the Washington Post (as the
Cleophas story was) and because it is unhealthy to be led by dead people.
This second point is essentially a matter of power. Admittedly,
Christianity has been pushed along from the start by Jesus and the Holy
Spirit. We might guess that the disciples experiences after Jesus died of
his return were similar to the Heungjin-nim/Daemon-nim phenomona. However,
the role is archangelic, to help you. It cannot be to lead. Physical people must be
in charge of themselves.
The Korean church has experience of this type of spirituality and is very
careful to control it. I personally feel that only Moon family "returning"
in this way will be allowed. If Jesus were to "return", I believe the
elders would stop it unless somehow "he" got to Father.
I understand the Cleophas phenomenon in three stages:
I. The preparation
Some time after Heungjin-nim was killed, several members began getting
experiences with him. Some "channelled" him. Often it was unlikely people
who did this, even people who were not that spiritual. There was a sister
in Britain called Faith Jones who gave guidance from him. A Dutch brother
called Gerrit van Dorsten, who had been on the New York City Tribune also
did. There were also some wacky stories. I heard that once in a European
center, members were stunned when someone started channelling Father. After
a while someone asked "who are you?" and the answer was "Father", and the
person said "Father who?"and the answer came "Father Murphy." This was all
in early 1987. I noticed at the time that the key control on this phenomena was
unity of the channeler with a "central figure." Those who lost it, as Gerrit appeared
to, went off on self-absorbed tangents. I haven't researched this but this was my
impression at the time.
In Korea, the church blocked the phenomena. It therefore centered around
western members and a group of American members who were responsible for a
huge program at that time bringing American clergy for one week DP seminars to
Korea. We had experiences of Heungjin-nim being chanelled at his gravesite. Once
we went with a group of second generation blessed children and "Heungjin-nim" asked
we older western members just to hug them and all these teenagers burst into tears
because they had been so unhappy. There were one or two Korean members also
channelling and they joined with the westerners. They tried to organize a meeting at
the HQ church one night but church officials came in and broke it up. Such was the
concern. Already there was one large group led by a messiah which saw itself as Joshua
to the UC Moses and they didn't want any more.
At the time the phenomenon had a marked effect on people's spirituality.
Then around mid-87 we heard the news that a brother in Zimbabwe was
channelling Heungjin-nim 24 hours a day. This was Cleophas. Although his
identity was kept secret until after it was all over. Other GVI-ers know
his personal story better and can perhaps relay it.
The previous channelling served as a kind of preparation. Except in Korea,
where it had been banned, there had been widespread experience and debate
about the phenomenon. People had worked out why Heungjin-nim channellers
couldn't speak Korean and didn't seem to know his personal friends as well as
they expected he would. It was because channelling is not possession.
2. The acceptance
There is a story behind Cleophas' rise to acceptance. You can imagine that
for a non-blessed, black brother from a fringe providential country in the
hierarchical environment of the UC to get into Father's presence required
some strategic development. I believe there was a successful development of
acceptance from local missionary-regional missionary-Rev Kwak/Kim
Won-pil-Father. Others can speak better to this history. But when it
happened, it seemed to have a wonderful therapeutic effect. It was a
demonstration that black is beautiful, Africa is beautiful, non-blessed is
beautiful, obscure is beautiful and English-speaking is beautiful. I saw in
Korean leaders a freeing of some prejudices. They looked at us ordinary
mortals differently for a while.
Cleophas began holding "conferences" with blessed couples during which they
were to repent for their sins. These conferences began as one-on-ones, but by
the time he got to America it was mass production. After the US, he came to Japan
and then Korea. The effect was like a huge liberation. The list of "sins" included
misuse of church money and "any other things that burden you" but otherwise
essentially concerned sex. One or two things like masturbation were thrown in
to make sure that no one had nothing to repent about, but the big crimes were
infidelity and deviancy. Of course, you didn't talk about people's personal crimes,
but being curious, I developed sources on this. Some incredible tales came out,
one of a leader who had a concubine, another of a brother in America who stole
sisters' underwear, of sisters falling in large numbers with church ministers and so on. It
appeared that the westerners were more faithful to their spouses but
exhibited more deviant behavior, while the east Asian men were much, much
more unfaithful. What these confessions revealed was a huge volume of guilt that
at the time was seen to have been immobolising the blessed membership.
It is difficult to recall now but this was tremendously liberating for the
movement and lasted several months. I don't know why confession was
instituted, as the Catholics have it, at this time. But there's never
follow-up with these things. He bought a real heart. He claimed, as
Heungjin-nim, to have spent 3 years visiting people and learning in the
spirit world, and told tales about providential figures. (If anyone ever
collected his speeches I wish I could receive them). He also made
liberating statements such as, in Britain, the Koreans will never unify the
world, but the British can. He also bent the rules to allow couples to
start married life even though they didn't have the necessary spiritual
children etc. In addition to this he held workshops and visited church
companies and so on.
One thing that became apparent was that you could not question or cross him
in any way. He reinforced this quite strongly. I was told by the missionaries
around him that absolute obedience was the only way this would work. You
don't free yourself if you're saying "Yes, but.." and the purpose seemed to be
personal freedom from sin and guilt.
The questions began when Cleophas used physical beating and restraint to
make this point. He also had a thing about guns. He did not accept
unwillingness during the conferences. If you were unwilling, the thing to
also was not turn up, but because people didn't know what it was about they
often didn't have that choice. Some people were very badly beaten.
Cleophas came last of all to Korea and proclaimed the Korean church to be
the worst (it was). He took this out on Rev Kim Young-hwie who received a
bad and humiliating beating (12 strokes of a baseball bat on his backside)
in front of the 6,000 couple sisters. The beating of Doc Park was even more
eggregious, but it was private and Doc Park has not revealed what happened.
There is a report that Hyojin was also involved. He is believed to have
been handcuffed, punched and had his head banged against the wall. He
developed two blood clots and had an operation in Seoul. The surgeon said
that when he drilled into the skull, the blood spurted into the air and
that it would have killed him had he not had the operation. Cleophas at
first appeared to think Doc Park was exaggerating his injuries but he later
visited him in hospital with Heungjin-nim's wife (no there was nothing
happening there). Doc Park's people thought it was all a scheme by Rev Kwak
to eclipse him. Some members freaked at this point, but most others assumed
that Doc Park may have been guilty of some offense that made him hated by the
True Children. Doc Park wrote a letter to Father in which he said he considered
it inappropriate for a religious movement to employ violence. By Korean loyalist
standards, this was a major protest, and was, by all accounts, acknowledged by
Father which may explain why Cleophas was sent back to Africa.
It appears that Cleophas was seldom challenged. One 36 couple wife went for
him verbally I believe when he visited a company and said "how long have
you been in the church?" As I heard it he was very nice to her and took her
and some others out for a meal.
A feeling at the time was that the ultimate purpose behind all this was to
sort out the True Children, especially Hyojin. What happened there I don't
know. He did meet with other blessed children. He came to the dormitory in
Seoul for foreign children at the Little Angels School. As I heard it he
brought some tapes and they got down and boogied.
3. The fall
As I understand it, the story of the fall of Cleophas began after the
confessions were complete in December 1987. Father told him he should learn
Korean, and also that he should do a mission in southern Africa. At this
point, if my theory fits, he must have disunted with his central figure -
Rev Kwak - thinking that, as Heungjin-nim, he was a True Child and
therefore superior. Of course, he wasn't Heungjin-nim. He was Cleophas
receiving Heungjin-nim. The story from there is one of rapid disintegration
- starting his own cult, providential bonking, rape, embezzlement, violence,
near-murder, intimidation and decline. As those in the know will recount,
the spirit seems to have gone and he's just plain old Cleophas again.
What does this all mean for Daemo-nim?
The key I see is that she'll go off if she disunites with Rev Kwak or
whoever TP sets between her and them. But this is made easier because she's
Korean and speaks the language and therefore more acceptable to the
"Abels".
I don't think you have to bother going to Chongpyong if you don't want to.
Perhaps others on GVI who have been will advise on the relative merits.
Mike