4: Laura Muir & Shincheonji

Dave speaks with Laura Muir about the deceptive recruitment process that saw her devote five years to the Korean doomsday church Shincheonji, founded by Lee Man Hee who claims to be an apocalyptic prophet. Laura reflects on her time in the church as an evangelist and the process of discarding her former beliefs and moving forward. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Hi, I'm Dave Mullins. Welcome to Aftercult, a podcast of interviews with former cult members by a former cult member. Today's guest is Laura Muir, who spent five years inside the Korean church, Shinchonji. The founder of Shinchonji, Lee Manhee, claims to be the final prophet who will fulfill the prophecies of Revelation. As with many Christian cults, the book of Revelation, aka the Apocalypse of John, plays a crucial role within the doctrine of the church. I imagine many of you, like me, have long assumed that this book of the Bible was written by Jesus' disciple John. However, it seems to have been authored by a much later John, known as John of Patmos, Patmos being the Aegean island where he supposedly had the visions that form the basis of this very bizarre book. Key elements of John's revelation include allusions to a new Jerusalem, where the faithful will enjoy the end of evil on earth and eternal communion with God, but not before a wave of destruction, ushered in by Jesus himself to rid the world of the rest of us. John famously mentions that 144,000 faithful will be sealed, to use biblical terminology. The book also states that Jesus will open a scroll that has seven seals, with each broken seal unleashing a new calamity upon the unbelievers of earth, purifying the planet of evil, which, if you ask me, sounds a lot like something a totalitarian state with a hateful ideology might want to implement. Shinshonji has made regular headlines in recent years due to deceitful recruitment practices, especially at universities in Australia and elsewhere. And I was very keen to speak to Laura about her experience of this process, as well as her experience inside the group and the process of doubt that led to her departure. So with that, let's chat to Laura. I feel like I don't know much about Christian fringe churches. Um, mystical, and it seems like a different branch of cults.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, it's like a different category.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

A different category, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

There are so many Christian cults. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yes, especially in Korea.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, there's a lot of them in Korean, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

So did you dive into some research when you started reflecting on your experience?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Um yeah, I did. It's just it's a little bit hard to follow, I find, just because of the language barrier sometimes. But I mean the the gist of it is that there are many.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

And then they there's like a family of them, and it's like a family tree, and you can follow it down to Shinshonji, and probably from Shinshonji there'll be others.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

But that's really fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Yeah, super fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

They're all just like kind of built off each other.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I'm certainly no expert, um, so I apologize to Korean listeners if I'm getting any of this wrong or simplifying it. I'm sure I will. But it was fascinating to look up a few articles of some people who are more expert in this and get a sense of what their take is on why South Korea has such a proliferation of these churches. And there are lots of causes which you would expect. But when you look back at Korean history over the last 100, 120 years, it's been quite wild. I mean, we're all aware that, you know, the Koreas are separated and militarized. But even before that, you know, in the early part of the 20th century, Japan had colonized Korea. And it doesn't sound like it was a particularly polite colonization, if there is such a thing. I mean, they were going after their culture, their language. It was pretty full on. So that's not that long ago in history. For decades, that was taking place. Of course, the Second World War comes along. Japan lose out in that. The US and the Soviet Union split Korea as a result of that war coming to a conclusion. Not long after that, North Korea invades South Korea ever since. They've had this DMZ that we're all probably very familiar with. And for decades after that, there was there were several military dictatorships. I think they've been in martial law 16 times, I was reading over the course of those decades. And even just a few days ago, um, I think the president uh enacted martial law, which fortunately it sounds like had a lot of water thrown on it very quickly. But it sounded like that really triggered some people who have lived through prior decades, especially older Koreans, I imagine.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

To take on this. And of course, the US influence in South Korea after the war. So perhaps there was an introduction of Christianity there in a way that hadn't been as strong before, I don't know. But it does seem that it was in the 50s that these churches really started to explode, particularly with a group that is referred to as the Olive Tree Movement that was founded by a guy called Park Tayson, I want to say.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, that's correct.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

And there's the story of him, I think, in the mid-50s, having this massive conference or sermon, and he heals someone who's been disabled their whole life in the audience, and they start walking again. And from there on in, it seems that he became very, very popular, very similar to Li Man He, it seems to me, in his belief systems, like about the book of Revelations, about being one of the two witnesses of the Book of Revelations, Park Tay Son claimed to be. Very supernatural sort of belief systems. It was also interesting to me to read about the fact that Buddhism and sort of the shamanistic folk religion of Korea tend to intertwine a lot.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

And and that shamanistic religion involves members of that folk religion who commune with the dead or at least people from other realms. So within the culture, there is this precedent for supernatural things, even though I'm sure a lot of modern-day Koreans might look at it with some amusement. So all of that history, very tumultuous, it seems that the people I've been reading from Korea who are more expert on this than I will ever be, seem to suggest that these religious groups with very strong and unambiguous ideologies are incredibly appealing to a lot of people within the culture.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Again, anyone from Korea listening, I'm sorry, I'm sure that's very simplified, but it is very interesting to look at that history because it is, you know, quite a traumatic history for a country.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, very.

unknown 6:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

And I think a lot of these groups also they have some kind of hope at the end. And because the beliefs are all black and white and certain, it gives them something to hold on to, which it's true also for people in New Zealand, of course. Totally. Like there's there's a reason that we're joining this and that we're putting all of our lives into this. But I think if you've just gone through something really traumatic, then obviously there's more people looking for something, looking for some hope at the end of like this really dark time.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah. And I've had this comment by some other guests, which really resonates with me that, you know, education is important to prevent people getting involved in this sort of thing. But I think it's the emotional vulnerabilities and and draw cards that really are the issue more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

But your experience was with a relatively more recent church and has been making a lot of headlines recently, in Sydney anyway, for engaging in what would be called some very aggressive and deceitful recruitment practices. And the name of the church is Shinchonji.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

And it was founded by uh a guy called Li Man He in 1984, which is very much based around the book of Revelations. So Li Man He believes that he's perhaps one of the two witnesses. He's a Christ-like figure in a sense. And there's certainly a doomsday prophecy, and that this is a special group that will be saved, unlike other churches around the world. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, that's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Can you tell me a little bit about your experience with the church? Like how long you were there and how you got involved?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Sure. Um, so I was in the church for five years.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

And that's not including the time that I was being indoctrinated into the group. So I got involved without knowing I was getting involved. Um, so I I met a girl at my church. So I was on the information desk, which was like my my volunteer duty that I did at my church. And I met this guy just during one of the services. He came and talked to me. And he talked to me for a really long time. And I thought he was just new to the country and wanted to make friends. And so I invited him to like my young adults group or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

A Korean guy? No. No.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Um, none of the people I met initially were Korean.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Um, so he was Australian, but spent time in America and had just moved from South Africa. So he had a really strange accent. Okay. I couldn't place where he was from. And he didn't invite me to do anything. He just talked to me for ages. And I was like, okay, well, that's cool. Like I thought maybe he's interested in me as or something. I don't know. And then a few weeks later, I was walking out of a church service, and a South African girl came to talk to me. Uh, and she said she was new to the country and she was just visiting at this church, and she had two free coffee vouchers because they give them to the new people when they come visit a church. And so she's like, Oh, do you want to share this coffee with me? And I was like, Yeah, sure. Um, and she was lovely, and I really liked her, and we got along really well, and so we agreed, well, let's go have coffee.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

And so later on, a few weeks later again, we went for coffee and our conversation became very deep, very fast, and she shared lots of her struggles in her faith, and some of those things really connected with me. I was quite a cynical Christian and really struggling.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Can I ask what church you were in at the time?

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Uh it was life in Auckland.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Is that what sort of church is that?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

It's a Pentecostal church, it's an offshoot from Hillsong, if that gives you a frame of reference.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Um, very similar.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Uh and I didn't really like it. And I didn't feel very connected there. Like I felt it like everyone was very superficial, and yeah, I just wasn't really happy. And I felt quite insecure about my faith. And so these were the kind of things that she was saying that I was like, oh my gosh, me too. I've never met anyone that like has these same struggles as me. Right. Maybe they're all just not talking about it. And so it was really refreshing. And and I was quite excited to have found this person who I could relate to on these levels. And so we met up a couple of times, just getting to know each other like that. And then she invited me to meet her flatmate. Um, her flatmate was Korean, and she said her flatmate wanted to meet me because I had been to Korea before, which is uh quite a you know a random reason to want to meet someone. I'm sure a lot of people have been to Korea, but I was like, well, okay. Um and she also built up her flatmate as like this really incredible Christian who was like her mentor who had this incredible testimony. And because I was quite insecure about my faith, I was not really sure that I wanted to meet this person necessarily. Um, but I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

I met her and I went there for dinner. She cooked us some Korean sticky chicken, which was delicious. And yeah, she shared her testimony with me, and we had like quite a nice time, but she was also super intense as well. Okay. Her personality was like really fun and really outgoing, but also super intense. It's quite hard to define.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

From a religious perspective, what is generally an intensity to her?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Just really like um she would dominate the conversation and like what she said was true. Like you couldn't have another opinion.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Like she would convince you of her her way, but she was also really like warm and loving and kind. So it wasn't like she was this really hard person, you know? Like she was lovely, and so she kind of got away with her really intense side of her. Yeah, so she asked me if I wanted to join them for like a once a week, or actually she said twice a week Bible study. And I was like, oh no, like I can't, um, because I was finishing my exams at that time for university, and um, I was also looking for a job and I was still working my previous like part-time job, and there was just a lot of things going on, and so I was like, Oh, no, I don't think so. Maybe I could join you once a week. And so we agreed to meet once a week, and then every time I met them, she'd try and persuade me again for this the second time in the week. But I was like, no, no, no, I don't want to do that. Um, and so the Bible studies were really like quite basic, they weren't anything that was out of the ordinary for me. I did feel like she was really focused on me rather than my friend, which I thought was weird. But I mean, you don't really expect that there's anything suspicious about it. Like I just didn't expect anyone would I mean I just thought it was a Bible study.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

So Yeah, yeah. Did you have the impression she was part of another church or she was just independently quite fiercely?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

She was just independent, yeah. Um she like mentioned about the Presbyterian Church, and so I just assumed, okay, she's associated with the Presbyterian Church.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

And I grew up in the Presbyterian Church, so I mean that's a a trustworthy denomination in my eyes.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

But no, I I don't wasn't totally sure what she was doing here because I didn't think New Zealand like particularly needed missionaries. Like it was seemed kind of weird, but I didn't really get much answer to that question.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Apart from that, she was teaching lots of Bible studies.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Right. Which I understand is quite a common approach for this church, is and I I did watch a brief documentary from Korea, and a lot of the people interviewed mentioned this. Uh I think they all mentioned it, that these Bible study classes were just pretty straightforward. There was nothing that suspicious about it, just nice people reading the Bible, classic sort of Christian stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, and the the process is it's like a global process. Everyone goes through those these same stages that I'm describing.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Right. It's a deliberate process.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

It's yeah, it's all planned out, and all the lessons are like provided by the church.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

So there are lessons within the recruitment process.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

So they're laying a foundation. So what they taught me in those lessons is that the word is very important, the word being the Bible, uh, that you can't get to know God without knowing the word. You can't trust God without trusting the word. So like everything comes back to it, you have to know the word very well.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

And then within the word, the most important part is prophecy and fulfillment, because that's how you can believe that Jesus is the Son of God, is because he fulfilled all these prophecies. And then you also need to know what the prophecies are in the New Testament so that you can believe Jesus when he comes back again.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Because you're not a real Christian if you're alive at that time and he comes back and you don't believe them. It was all leading towards a conclusion, but it seemed very logical at the time. Like, yeah, of course, the people who don't believe in Jesus at the first, his first coming weren't saved. They were the bad guys in that story.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

And so there's prophecies that the word that you have to understand very clearly, I assume that word is kind of interpreted by the leader of the church in very peculiar ways, I can only imagine. You know, when I even even when we talk about fundamentalist Christianity, there always seems to be someone interpreting that word and that Bible in their own particular way. How did that flow from Lee Man He down to these groups? I mean, at this point you probably had never even heard of Lee Manhi.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

No, I had no idea this was anything. I mean, I just thought this is us and a little group of friends meeting up.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

So what happened was she, after a few times of one-on-one study, she said that she she had a friend who was also a missionary, who was also Korean and was also in New Zealand and teaching a couple of people. She was teaching a couple of other people. She said, Oh, why don't we start a group class? Like it's it's all coming together. Like God's brought it together, like what an amazing opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

So this is all organic.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

It's all very organic. So nothing planned about this at all.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And I said no again to this because I had now got a job and I was finishing my exams, but I already had like another church group, and like it just I I didn't want to miss out on that. And yeah. And so I said, no, I don't think so. And then she persuaded me for like an hour very intensely that I should come. And like, oh, it's only for she said it's only for three months. What an opportunity. It's like what you've been wanting. Um, you can go back to your church group after, like, why would you not do this kind of thing? And they were putting it on for free. So I mean, I I am a people pleaser and I really struggled to say no under that level of persuasion. Like it was a lot.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

And so I was like, okay, fine, I'll come.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

So this required you to be separated from your church in order to have the time to do this?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Is that um just I couldn't go to my middle of the week church group, but I didn't I still could have gone to my church. Like there was no talk of me leaving my church at that point.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

So how long until you were invited to this had the Bible study been going on?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Um, not that long. Maybe about a month.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Yeah. And I was only meeting them once a week. Yeah. And so this group started and they said it was associated with the Korean Presbyterian Church.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

And that the guy who was teaching, so her friend, he was teaching, and then she was like the review teacher. So should after the lessons, which were very formal on a whiteboard, and we sat at desks, we would have a little review session, and she would talk us through all the things that we learned and answer any questions that we had, that kind of thing. But yeah, we just thought this was from the Korean prescritarian church. That was all that we knew.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

So but you were getting some new interpretations of the Bible back.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

We were, yeah. So um it started out um more of the same of what I had been learning in the one-on-one small group um study, and then they started talking about figurative language. And this is where it gets very similar to other Korean cult groups.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

And they all or a lot of them have like an interpretation of parables and and they and they branch off towards their different belief systems. But yeah, so they said the way you have to interpret these prophecies is through understanding figurative language, because prophecy is written in figurative language, which makes sense. Like if you read some of these books, like Isaiah or whatever, there's a lot of very confusing language and you couldn't really understand what they're talking about. And they used heaps of examples of Jesus and how he fulfilled these prophecies and how that it was really hard to understand. Like you couldn't have known that fulfillment was for that prophecy. And so we don't have a hope of knowing how Jesus is going to return unless we understand this figurative language.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Yes, through the eyes of the leaders of whatever church you happen to be in.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yeah, yeah. So it feels like really important. Like if we don't understand this and we happen to live at that time, then Jesus comes back and we're we don't have salvation. So it feels quite like urgent that you have to know this.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

So there was a a real focus on the end of days stuff, or it was implied or it was explicitly spoken about it.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

It was explicit, like this is the the promise that God has given us, because they said like the New Testament is like God's promise for this period of time. And like if we don't know it, then Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

So you've got to know the word, you've got to know the New Testament, and you have to understand the interpretations coming from the top, even though at this stage it sounds like you still don't know that it's part of it No, we don't know there's a top, but yes. Yeah. Do you know? Uh I I mean, before I I'm very keen to hear the rest of this story. I'm just wanted to jump in and ask, do you have a sense of why this this deception is used so deliberately rather than them just coming out and saying, Hey, this is our church and this is our leader and this is what we do. Do you want in?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Well, originally they did do that. They had flyers and they would hand them out to people on the street in Korea. Um, and they did grow that way. But as people got to know them, they got to know them as a cult, like, oh, these guys believe something strange and people didn't want to go there anymore. I think people would like warn against them because they were very intensely evangelizing. And then slowly they developed this new way of evangelizing. And I don't know like the details because this is all very early days, like probably it was early 90s or even late 80s that it was being developed. But that's what I've heard from like really high up leaders in Korea. They would tell this story that they got evangelized by a flyer, but people nowadays they might just go to a university club and get evangelized there.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

So yeah, so it's kind of it's a deliberate decision from the leadership to have recruiters mislead people and deceive people. And they consider this to be okay because it's a means to the end, and the end is everything. Um but the fact that uh and I assume this all comes from Lee Man He, but all comes from this notion of, well, you know, this is about saving people. So if to do that you have to deceive them, given the reputation that we've developed over the years, then that's that's uh that's praiseworthy.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because then they would use examples like, you know, you don't always tell your child the truth, like you might lie to them to get them to eat vegetables or whatever, you know it's good for them, and so you might lie to them or lie to them to protect them from things that might hurt them, they're not ready to understand. And so they would say, like, we're not ready to understand, and so we have to tell a little story to get us on the right path, and then they'll reveal the truth to us when we're ready.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

That's part How they would justify it to us. And they did they shared heaps of Bible references to back it up as they were going. Depending on what stage we were at, there was always an explanation for why they're not saying everything to us or um why they've lied to us or why it's okay for us to lie to other people.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

It's such an opening for exploitative churches and cults that uh biblical language is so metaphorical and is open to so much interpretation. You know, if someone is convincing enough and charming enough and powerful enough, you know, they can explain these things in a way that suits, they can even change their explanations over time. And because it's so vague, you can shift the goalposts quite easily. Very easily. You know, if you were tied to something more rational, more scientific, it would be incredibly hard to do that. So it's interesting how often this metaphorical language of the Bible and other texts, not just in Christianity, uh, are used for that purpose. So how did how did things progress after this? So you went to this group with this so-called Presbyterian Korean missionary. Uh, what happened after that?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

So that um class lasted, well, before we officially joined the church, this period was about three and a half months of that group class. And we just like became very close as a group. And we were meeting three times a week. I don't know if I mentioned that. So we're meeting really regularly.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

How many of you?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Uh there was six of us plus the two Korean leaders.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

It's a very intimate.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Very intimate, yeah. And so we were all a similar age. There was one that was a lot younger, and then the rest of us were in our late twenties. And a few of us went to the same church as well.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

So I, you know, I felt like I could trust these people that were from similar background, working full-time, or one of them was doing a PhD. Yeah. So we became very close and we were like going through this really intense experience together, like finding out all these things we never knew that were so important. And oh my gosh, like it's really amazing, but also stressful, and we have to find out everything. And over time we started to realize that oh, it's kind of weird that other churches aren't teaching this if it's so important. And then at this time they started to tell us, like, actually, you know, other churches don't have the truth.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Um, only a small group of people have the truth. And that this is because it is actually like the end times. And this was all over a very slow process. And every parable would unlock another layer of this doctrine.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

We felt like our eyes were opening to this whole new world. Like it felt amazing at the time and also terrifying. And everything was backed up by so many verses, and so without going back and reading like whole chapters of many books in the Bible, you couldn't really, it was very hard to um check the context of everything. I knew that would have been the right thing to do, but there was just so much content they were throwing at us three times a week.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

I'm gonna possibly keep up with it. And I'm bad at doing my homework like I've always been bad at doing my homework.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

And if it feels very exciting at the time, and you know, I remember this feeling in the Gnostic movement. You know, we had these courses that were meditation and out-of-body experiences. It was a more mystical process, but they seemed a lot less threatening than the actual work that we had to do in order to achieve salvation or whatever you want to call it. And that did come along very, very gradually.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

And that gradual process does really grab you. You know, if you're interested in initially, especially if you get along with the people and the people who are teaching you, uh, tend to be quite charismatic and charming, and they seem quite confident, and they're they're doing all the things that we know people do in this situation. And then one day you get some weird information and you think, well, maybe that's maybe that's legit.

SPEAKER_03 25:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

And then another bit, and then another bit. And it is bizarre when you look back, you know, I think I actually have a friend who I've been in touch with who was also in my group back in the day. And it's been interesting going through the emails that the cult leaders would send us when we were at the top of the ranks, running chapters in other countries and you know, giving up our entire lives for these people. And looking through the emails after years and years and seeing the way that Mark and Edith spoke to us officially in email, copying in other members and other followers to shame us. It's just email after email over the course of years and years and years, this abusive, coercive behavior, just clearly manipulative.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

You can't look at all these emails without seeing it. I mean, at the time I didn't perceive it that way. I thought I was being tested. Good for me. You know, I'm being tested by the masters. Wow. Um, you still suffered because they weren't saying to you you're being tested. You just had to assume that was what was happening. But, you know, that's not the vibe we had on day one. That's not the vibe we had in the initial workshops and courses. They were so lovely. They were like parental, you know, this couple. You know, someone who didn't have the best relationship with his parents, that was kind of a big deal for me to have these two people who seem so engaged in me.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

So pain so attentive. And then, you know, months later, years later, you know, I've given up I pretty much gave up my 20s for these people and what they wanted to achieve. You know, I would not have signed up for that. So I think that gradual process of, I mean, let's just call it brainwashing uh is incredibly powerful. I think it can be hard for people to appreciate who haven't been through it, but there is really something that works about this process on on perfectly intelligent people.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Yeah, totally. I mean, I think it's just every step, it's only a tiny bit further than the than it was the previous step. And so you can accept it. But by the time you get to the last step, you're so far from where you began. But because you just did it just a tiny mouthful at a time, like it was totally fine and you don't realize.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Totally. You know, it's interesting you make the point of the church coming to the conclusion that, you know, normal people are pretty much like children. These people are not smart enough to understand the word. We are, so you have to infantilize them, you have to treat them like children, and you have to deceive them for their own good. What a dangerous precedent for a recruitment drive. So so please, I'm I'm so curious to hear where this leads. So you're getting this further information from this group that is clearly linking back to Shinchongji. Am I saying that right? I keep thinking I'm saying that. That's right. Not that I'm afraid of offending the cult, by the way, but I'm just worried I'm massacring Korean language. But so you're you're getting information about the fact that it's linked to this church. There's some bizarre stuff coming at you that you're accepting because of that gradual process. At what point are you like linking back to Li Man He, this church, and really accepting that this is becoming what you're involved with?

SPEAKER_00 28:41

When they started revealing that there is like so Man He Li is the one sent by Jesus at the second coming, according to Shunchonji. And so they they started revealing that there there is a person and he's like on the earth right now, and that's where this word is coming from. But we don't know any other details, and we can't look up anything on the internet because that's poison, and like it's just the thoughts of the world, and then we'll we'll lose the word that we've just been gaining. So, you know, you can't can't look up what other people say. Um and we were all very good at not doing that, and so none of us knew anything.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Yeah, and you don't need to be you don't need to be forced not to look up other information. You just believe that it's not worth it.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Yeah, that's right. We wanted to keep this truth that we had been learning, and we were afraid of being poisoned, of like Satan's spirit coming coming into us from like the thoughts of the world.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Right. And in some way, that sort of deceptive angle, I imagine, sort of ups the dial on the superiority one might feel for having this information, the fact that there needs to be this deceit when explaining it to people in the world. Maybe that that adds to that feeling of we've got something special, so special that we need to be quite manipulative in the way we deliver it.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah, I don't know. It was just seen as like a necessary thing. Right. Like you just have to. I never delighted in it. I did not like deceiving people at all. Um, but I just saw it as something you have to do to give people salvation.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

That's how I just accepted it and did it to other people.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

But yeah, I I totally believed that this was the truth. Like I had a few doubts along the way and I would ask my questions and I would write things down. And I noticed that my friend who I'd met originally, and anytime I had a question, I'll write it down in the back of my book. She'd be like, Oh, what's that? Like, what's your question? And then she'd call like the the teachers over and ask my question. So I couldn't just write it down and like digest it myself. She was always like watching me. Right. Which I didn't think much of at the time, but it becomes relevant.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

So right towards the end of that three and a half months, maybe about three months, they had like a special lesson, and we were all fully in it at this point, like really believing, excited. We know there's this church we have to join. There's this man, we don't know who he is, we don't know what the church is called, but we're gonna join it. That's all we know. And we have to join it to have salvation.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

And these people who were running this group, to be clear, are already well and truly in this church knowingly.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yes. So the the two leaders have revealed, oh, actually, we're part of this group the whole time. And and so they would explain, you know, that you know, we were like children and they had to deceive us and blah, blah, blah. And that's all happening gradually. Like they'll reveal just the easier to accept lies first. So they're the easy to accept ones, because they're the the teachers. They clearly know more than us. This word is clearly coming from them and from somewhere. And they also told us, oh, we told you this course would only be three months, but you know, actually you can see that this is gonna be more than that because there's this church you have to join and you never stop learning. So it's like, okay, this is a lifetime commitment. But on this special lesson, they revealed that two of the students were actually also part of the church, and one of them was my friend, and they had pretended to be students in order to help us to join the church to gain salvation.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

And that was like a really, really intense time. I couldn't believe it, and I felt really betrayed because I had really valued her as a friend, and like I had valued her honesty and like her openness. Like, okay, but like is anything she said actually true? So that was really difficult, but I did I could see that other people in the group, like the other three actual students, they they didn't outwardly they didn't seem to struggle with this. And so and they were all like amazed and like happy and grateful, and like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you did this for me. Like you've given so much time to like help us um come to learn the truth.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

And I was just quietly like that is that is wild. I mean, so far to me, that aspect of the story is really jumping out just in the sense of conformity and how how readily we conform to something when people around us are performing in that way. I mean, there have been studies in science on this subject where, you know, confederates in an experiment pretend to be participants in the experiment, and then the one real participant thinks they're in a group of other participants and will follow along. You know, not everyone does, but there is a tendency to follow along with what the group is doing.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

It's quite a high percentage of people that will follow along, even to something that they know is wrong. Yes, yes, just to be part of the group. I think it's the um ash conformity test.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yes. So yeah, so a group of people, only one real participant who thinks they're surrounded by other participants, and they're shown lines up on a screen or on a board, and everyone in the group says that the shorter line is the longer line or something like that. And then the participants regularly will agree with the group, even though they know that it's not true. And I think some subsequent research um came to the conclusion that this is driven a lot by wanting to fit in. So not necessarily being deluded about the length of the line or whatever the subject is, but the the urge to fit in and not be wrong can really guide our behavior in a way. And in this sense, I mean that this church has effectively put you in that experiment.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Yeah. Every class is that experiment.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this so this comes out, you react to it with a sense of betrayal. Do you react to it with a sense of betrayal or do you keep that inside?

SPEAKER_00 34:33

I inwardly react. Like I'm not a very out there kind of person with my feelings anyway. And like I would rather just go home and like, you know, think about this. Um so I mean, I was just quiet, like I was just listening and observing kind of what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah. And the fact that they were, you know, you couldn't write a question down without them spoon feeding you their answer very, very quickly. So you couldn't process it is a very interesting angle as well. Yeah. So eventually you you do sort of dive into this despite that betrayal. What happens at that point?

SPEAKER_00 35:08

I mean, I just kind of persuaded myself that they had like I should be grateful. They kind of guilt tripped us a bit. Like, if you don't feel grateful, you just haven't perceived the gift that you've been given. Like you don't understand. And and so I was almost like, you know, you don't want to be the person that doesn't understand. So yeah, like I remember journaling about it. Uh, you know, it's true that I I couldn't get here without her. And you know, I have been given salvation. So yeah, I should be grateful for that. And so I'm like persuading myself. And yeah, I mean, over time I did just become grateful. Like it's just you repeat something to yourself enough. I just convinced myself that, you know, what she did was right and good. And so it was only like a week after that we learned what the name of the church was, what the name of Manhill was, and then we joined like very shortly after that. Yeah, but at that time the church was so small it only had 13 members in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

Yeah, wrong.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

We were only the second group to join in New Zealand. So it was a bit of a non-event, like we were in the same house where we had the the Bible studies, and a lot of the people we knew already, because we were already eight of them, and there's only thirteen. So and one of them was this guy who I met originally at the info desk, and like he told me how he had told this girl to befriend me, like he'd talk to me first and then talked her to come and recruit me, basically.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

So orchestrated. Yeah. You know, the people-pleasing angle is interesting. You mentioned, you know, and also the fact that you know, you feel this per these people have invested so much in you. You've invested so much in it, not wanting to be ungrateful, not wanting to express your emotions, even though they're quite valid. All of this stuff sort of rolls into an acceptance quite quickly. Did it grow?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yes, it it grew a lot. Like now there's probably, I mean, I'm I'm guessing, but there might be like between 300 and 400 members in New Zealand. Also, when it's very small, you can't be anonymous. Like every person is a really important person, and especially new recruits are incredibly important. And so they put so much time and effort, like taking care of us and what I now understand to be love bombing us, really treating us like we were special and amazing, and we were going to be the leaders of New Zealand, and we were gonna lead New Zealand to salvation, and blah, blah, blah, like really making us feel so special and like this was something incredible that we were embarking on. So, yeah, the feeling. I felt like I was like the 12 disciples, you know, like, wow, we're the first people in New Zealand to know the truth. And it felt like just the day-to-day life of the mostly the workers were from South Africa. So that started the South African church. It had grown really big to like more than a thousand members, and then they'd sent some people over to New Zealand. So that's why like people were Korean and South African. Right.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

And these South African workers, like, they weren't doing any work in the world. They were just full-time working for Shin Shenji. And we really looked up to them, like, wow, every day they're going out like evangelizing, they're like teaching Bible studies, they're doing peace work, which was also something Shin Shenji does. And so we really wanted to be like them and we wanted to be full-time members as well. And it was encouraged, like that kind of idea, like, yes, you should give your whole life for this, absolutely, because everything in the world is meaningless.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Exactly the same with the Gnostic movement. I mean, that was the whole thing. If you wanted to really reach the top of the mountain, you had to give up everything for it. It was unacceptable to be just doing your own thing at the cost of humanity that needs to be saved. You know, even these emails I mentioned that I was just looking through today, actually. I was just shocked at the number of times in these emails, he's essentially saying we're not doing enough for humanity. This kid in Canada is not doing enough for humanity. So I should be giving up everything. Meanwhile, we're raising a small child. We've moved to the other side of the world with no family, we're struggling financially. I'm working during the day to pay rent, but I'm spending all my free time running these courses, going to the local library, putting up advertising, giving talks to hundreds and hundreds of people, thousands of people it would have been in the end, and then running the workshops with the more committed students. And all of them knew that the ultimate end goal was to become a member, which sounds very sort of banal, but it was this notion of being in the inner circle. You have to go through a process of learning to teach. Spreading the word was one of the three main things that you had to do in order to reach, you know, the end goal.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Really.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

And it was everything. You know, you really had to give up everything. And to the point where, like I say, we were getting emails shaming us for not doing enough for humanity, and we would take it on the chin and just feel terrible. And I mean, what an absurd demand to have of people in their 20s. Yeah. Just I mean, and this and I remember that feeling you talk of of just feeling so amazing at times that I was part of this chosen few who knew the truth. Like, how wild is that? When you believe that, that's a huge feeling.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Yeah, and and the sense of purpose that it gives you. It's like nothing else.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Like nothing else. Like nothing else. I don't know if you've heard of Robert Lifton. I think he was around in the 60s primarily. He wrote a book about thought reform, uh, which was inspired by his analysis of the communist Chinese government and their re-education practices. And he had a series of tactics that he outlined that he used to reform people's thoughts and to become part of what he called a totalistic system. And one of them is this sort of thought-terminating process and using jargon, you know, we talk about figurative language, but using jargon that's very insular to the group that stops you from thinking about things or questioning things because the jargon explains itself in the way the doctrine sort of explains itself. And he also talks about things you've touched on in this conversation about minimizing the outside world and other people, not accessing information, which he calls milieu control. Um, so knowing that outside information is harmful and not worth paying attention to. But yeah, it's uh it's uh yeah, it's just amazing how similar these experiences can be when on the surface they seem so different.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Who would have thought that you know a a a Christian church in Korea was using the same tactics as a South American cult that's very mystical?

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Yeah, I mean it just shows it's not about the belief system at all, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Like exactly.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

It's about the coercive control systems of influence, yeah, which are all really similar.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Really, really similar. What were your goals as a member of that uh that cult?

SPEAKER_00 41:54

I just wanted to do God's will. Like that was always what I wanted to do, and to know that I was doing God's will, because the problem is like in the Christian world, God's will is like all very wishy-washy, and you never know if you're doing it. But then there's these verses that say it's very important to be doing it. So it was it was like a stress for me. I never knew if I was doing God's work. And so it was like so great that I could just I don't have to think anymore. I just say amen and I do what I'm told and I know I'm doing God's work.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

Well, see, it's interesting that that is so appealing because, and I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's just this, it takes the anxiety out of it. You feel like once you've bought in, you're like, oh, I I know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

My Christian life was incredibly anxious, always, because I never felt like I was good enough. I didn't have the right answers. Like I I just knew there was the standard that I wasn't living up to. But joining Shinchanji like answered all of those problems or questions. Like it it gave me a very clear path. It gave me certainty, like this is what you have to do, and then you'll be fine. And it it was like a relief for me because I found it so stressful to be a Christian. Yeah. Like it wasn't a good time for me. I know some people like have a great time being a Christian, but I did not have a good time. Yeah. So I mean, it wasn't all fun and games, because obviously, even within the system, you can fall short, which over time I realized this, and it and that was also like awful. Um, but as long as I stayed inside of the the church, I felt like I, you know, this is the hope was. Yeah, and I I really um had such a strong sense of purpose, um, particularly once I also became a teacher. So about three months after I joined, like I very quickly like gave up my whole life for this. Um like I went part time at work only a couple of months after joining, and then a couple of months after that I quit my job altogether and almost immediately moved into a house with other members so that we'd have to be secretive.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

Did the church Fund people who were teaching full-time or were you on your own that way?

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Uh it it varied at different times. So when I first became a full-time worker, um I was just funding myself, but they would give me accommodation and food. So like my costs were not very much, but I still had no income. Um I actually told my parents that I was doing a qualification that I wasn't doing and asked them if they could financially help me. And I survived like that for a while. And that was fine because they were contributing towards the kingdom, and so they would be blessed for that. And that's why how I justified that. But yeah, at other times they gave us like$400 a month, so$100 a week, including accommodation and and sometimes food, not even always food. And so you literally have to provide for all of your needs on a hundred bucks a week.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Very difficult. But uh yeah, I very quickly became a teacher, and I failed a lot in the beginning. I was terrible because I wasn't very confident in the doctrine. But as I became more confident, I became very good at it. And the the sense of purpose that I got from helping my students was just incredible, and that is really what kept me going for most of the time. Like I wasn't interested in a lot of the other parts of the church, but I just loved teaching and I loved helping students and like seeing them understand the doctrine the way that I had and like their life would be totally changed. I mean, now obviously I don't think for the better, but um yeah. So that was really what what kept me there, I think. Like I really felt like I was doing something amazing and like having a good impact in people's lives. Um, I also led one of their peace groups for I don't even know how long, it might have been one or two years. What's a peace group? Um so they have three peace groups, um, and then sometimes they'll have like front groups for their peace groups, depending on how much people know about Shinchunji, where they operate. Um, because they pretend they're not part of Shin Chunji. So the there's one called Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Life, which is quite amount of HWPL, um, which obviously sounds quite religious, so people are a little bit suspicious of that one. And then there's the International Peace Youth Group and the International Women's Peace Group, and I was the leader of the International Women's Peace Group in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

What is the uh ostensible intention of that group? And what is it really doing?

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Yeah, so I mean they would say they want to bring peace to the world, you know, it's just something small. Um they would run like uh scripture dialogue, so that'd be this was actually a very interesting part of it. They would have people from all different religions come along. They'd have a Shinji come person come along as a Christian representative. They wouldn't say they're from Shinshanji, and they would have a pre-prepared, like really impressive speech about whatever topic HWPO had chosen, which is Shinchanji. And this guy's also from Shinshanji, so he already knows what the topic's gonna be. And it's something that favors Shinji, and something they can answer really well. And then they would all discuss their doctrines. And the point of it was try to persuade these people from other religions that the Christian doctrine is the best, and then get them to do Bible study with this Christian.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

It's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

It never worked in New Zealand, I'm aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

It's really interesting. So it's deception but in a totally different way.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

Yeah, I mean, they're really committed to the deception, aren't they? So you were in this peace group, and that just felt like in what way did it feel useful to you at the time? I suppose you felt that the church was getting what it needed from it.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

So at the time that was I I struggled with the peace group. I did not understand what was good was coming out of it. I felt like we were doing nothing, and that was correct. Yeah. Because we would have a peace walk. Um, like I organized the 2016 peace, no, 2017 peace walk in Wellington. So it's like all these pictures of this peace walk, and I'm like, that was that I organized that. Um, but with a bunch of other um organizers, uh like organizations as well. And so we would join with other organizations, but then we'd stick our sign like everywhere, so it looked like it was us.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Um we did that like every year. This does seem to be a common pattern in a lot of groups is having these sort of different organizations that don't represent the actual church or sect or school or whatever it is, as a way of hiding, which shows that people know that they're doing something dodgy. They might believe that it's for good reason, but they're aware they're doing something sketchy.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Or that other people would think it's sketchy. They never think they're sketchy.

unknown 48:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

But yeah, we would have to meet politicians and like try to promote ourselves and community leaders and religious leaders. And I hated it because I felt I couldn't, I just couldn't persuade them to believe in us because I didn't believe in us, and I'd feel very guilty over it. But I just couldn't understand what we were doing, and other organizations were doing so much better work, and we were told like telling them to join us, and I was like, We should join them. They're doing some really good work. Um and they even created uh an international law that they said should replace the UN laws, and every person that we met was like, well, we've already got this under the UN.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

Shinchangia was coming up with this and trying to put it forward.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

They they made a law, yeah. They like hired a bunch of lawyers to put Man He Li's words into some laws. Incredible. It's very interesting. It hasn't taken off.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

No, I'm sure. Um well, I'm glad actually, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

But it was it was a big struggle for me. Yeah. It was a great source of doubt in my life.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Can I ask what I I ref I keep referring to him as Lee Manhe, I'm not sure if I'm saying his name in the right order, but is was was there some sort of pathway that was conceptualized that he had in mind, or was it a more sort of general, you know, he's more or less Jesus. We need to just do whatever he says and spread the word, and or was there more to it than that?

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Yeah, I mean, there were there was a few different things that we had to do. So, I mean, the piece work that was kind of um for the great multitude. So there's two groups. We had to create the 144,000 who are gonna be like the the priests, the leaders of the world. So when everyone comes into Shinchanji, which is gonna happen in the future, um, it's the the priests that are gonna be the leaders of the world. And so the people who came in first, they're that we were training to be the priests. So what we had to do was to evangelize, and then we had to seal ourselves with the word, meaning that we had to write the word on our hearts and we had to be able to testify the word and um teach others. So we were all um trying very hard to evangelize and and and teach if you're a teacher, and then also studying, so much studying all the time, like trying to understand everything deeply, perceive new things all the time, and like be able to repeat it in a really understandable way because you're training to be a priest. So that was it wasn't like very clear levels. You never knew if you're sealed or not, you just keep trying and trying, and you can never say that you're sealed because then you're arrogant, like you have to be humble and always keep trying. And then yeah, the the peace work was for the great multitude. So it was like preparing the world to accept manually, and actually doesn't matter which way around you say it, because one's the Korean way and one's the English way. They we were trying to show the world he's a peace messenger, like he's a leader in the world, and and so it would be easy for them to realize, oh, he is like the the messenger of Jesus at the second coming. They'll be able to accept it because they'd see all the great work that he's done. So it was kind of propaganda for members and but it was also propaganda for the world, kind of. And then we were preparing the world for God to come down and live with us because the old Which was nigh.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

It wasn't something in the distant future.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

It's gonna happen any day. Um so uh uh eventually heaven in the spiritual world is gonna come down and join with heaven in the physical world, which is Shinchongji. And then that's when we're gonna have eternal life in the flesh.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

Okay. And looking back at this, what what do you think Li Man He was looking for here? What what was his goal, do you think? I know it's hard to look into the mind of someone who's doing something like this, but do you have a sense?

SPEAKER_00 52:35

It's it's hard. Also, I never met him. Like, I mean, I I saw him in person a couple of times, but I never met him and talked to him here on his big screen anyway. It's pretty hard to get a sense of someone from such a a distance. However, um, he lives in a palace, so that tells you something.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Is wealth a a um a factor in Shinchonji? Is there taught I know there are some Korean sects that focus on like gathering power and wealth and through spiritual means.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Is that part of it at all? Not overtly. Um, I mean, giving is very encouraged. Um, and anytime anything is happening, like members have to, like you're supposed to give your whole selves, including your money, to the church. Um, but they their requirement is like a tithe, which is pretty similar to any normal church, 10% of your income. And then there's like all these offerings on top of that. And it's like the the better believer that you are, the m you'll give to all of these other things.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

But the minimum to keep the covenant, to remain in a good, like a proper believer written in the book of life, you have to like tithe, and then you have to give once a month to like three other things. And it doesn't matter the amount. So it's pretty like the the level of giving isn't crazy, um, the very minimum. But of course, if you're a good believer, you're not just gonna do that.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

That's right. I'm aware of one person in our group who essentially handed over her inheritance. I mean, yeah, it's very disturbing when you when you look back at these things and just think, you know, I'm glad I didn't have any money in a way. Like nothing to lose. So where where are you? I mean, you five years of this of going through that, what is it that led you to sort of um walking away from it? What what what caused it to crumble?

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Um, well, it began with COVID. I think a lot of people's cult stories yeah, a lot of people left due to COVID. It's quite interesting how that's impacted people. Um but yeah, with COVID, Shinshunji had quite a role in COVID and became famous um because of their patient 31 um was a Shinshon-ji member in Korea. This was really early on, like February 2020, or it might have even been the end of January, I'm not 100% sure, but a Shinshan Ji member got COVID and then spread it like wildfire throughout, I think it was Daegu. Uh, and so suddenly like Shinshanji's in the news, and they're very secretive, and they don't want to be in the news, and they're everywhere, like worldwide, everyone's reporting on this cult. Like, cult spreads coronavirus throughout Korea. Like it's not. How did I miss this? It's a it's a really big deal, and so you'll be able to find it still now. There's so many news articles about it. And because of that, the government of Korea requested that Shinchunji provide like a list of all of their members. And the Xinjiang leaders were very slow to provide a list, and when they did, I think it wasn't complete, or like there was there were some questions about like how well they've fulfilled this um request from the government. And later Man Healy and some other leaders of Shinchanji were like prosecuted. Okay. Yeah, quite a big deal. And then as a result of all of this, so before any of that happened, because of all these news articles, Shinshanji shut down everywhere in the world. So even though we didn't have a lockdown yet, we didn't have anything going on in February in New Zealand, we were told we can no longer see one another, we can no longer teach Bible studies, we can't meet together for services, we all just have to sit in our house and have a lockdown, basically. Because if anyone catches COVID, they can trace back all of the Shintrenji activities and they don't want to be traced. So it was because of contact tracing mostly, and because they don't want to be responsible for any other outbreak in the world because it was such bad press. Right. Yeah, so I was living in a house with we had two people to a room, a three-bedroom house, and then three of them left because they were all Koreans, and all the Koreans went back to Korea during COVID, like around that time, because they were afraid of getting stuck in New Zealand and didn't have the right visas or whatever. So I had my own room for like the first time. Since I ever since I um joined Shenzhenji, this is the first time I have my own room. This is amazing. Um, also I didn't have any duties. I didn't have to teach anyone, I had no classes, there was just nothing going on. It was like incredible and also like terrifying.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

So you're living you're you're in a room with someone else who's also a a member of the organization, you're constantly busy doing things. All of a sudden you've got time to actually reflect and think.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

Yeah, and time to sleep. I have been sleep deprived for five years.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

And is that sleep deprivation just just all the all the stuff you had to do? And the Bible studies, which seemed like they were pretty intense.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Yeah, I mean, we would have meetings until like 1 a.m., sometimes even later, like uh planning our evangelism, planning our lessons, studying, doing tests. There were always a lot of tests. Just so many things going on. And then when all the meetings finish, then you have to prepare, actually, like do the work that you've just talked about in your meetings. You prepare your lessons and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

Again, just a classic, a classic tactic. Yeah. Yeah. Coercive control. And you you do, you know, when you're working that much and we were the same, you just don't have time to reflect, you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

No, you're just getting through each day. And each day is so much, like that you can't spend time self-reflecting, like thinking about your your difficulties and your doubts. There's no time. That time was amazing, but also at the same time, manually have been preaching for many years, saying there will come a time when God will say stop and you won't be able to work anymore. And so you can imagine what we all thought like when this happened. Like, oh my gosh, his prophecy is like fulfilled. It's happened. And that means like it's this is it. We're like done. We thought this it's all over. And I was like, Well, I'm definitely not going to be one of the 144,000. Like, I don't think I'm sealed. And like I was really worried that like I hadn't met the mark. And so in the very beginning, I'd spend all my whole day like trying to study because I was so worried that like, and that there was a like another one girl in the house, and we were just sitting in the lounge, like stressing out, like trying to study. So I wasn't relaxed at first. Yeah. So it was really like worrying and exciting, and we don't know what's going on. But it felt like a confirmation of my faith. So I certainly wasn't doubting at that point, but I was getting more sleep. So even though I was studying and stressed, I slept more and I was eating better, and I even went for like some runs. I did exercise, it was amazing. Um and we had a nice time, like me and the two girls in the house. Like it was it was really cool to be able to have actual social time and talk to each other properly, and it was cool. I really liked it. I even watched some Netflix, and that was something I had it for in years as well. Yeah, and then as time went on, then New Zealand went into a lockdown. So initially, like New Zealand was carrying on like normal, and we were the only ones in lockdown. So New Zealand went into a lockdown for like six weeks, I think. So it all became more normal. Like this is we're still not working. We were doing some services online, but not very much. Um, just compared to our life before, it was just so free. And I didn't have a job, so I really had my whole day free. I was like making TikTok videos. Just things that like I couldn't even conceive of. I mean, we were doing it as like, you know, a bonding activity. Like it was church-sanctioned kind of activities, but still it was fun. And we were doing stuff um that we just had never had time to do before. And during this time, I started reflecting more. Um, I realized there were lots of doubts that I had even in the very beginning that never had been addressed. And I was like, okay, well, now's my time. I'm gonna like go through and try and address these doubts. And so I I went through like a lot of the doctrine. I also realized there were things that I had done, like cut-off friendships, that I was like, well, actually, um, I was really encouraged to do that at the time. But if I want people to come into this church one day, I can't just cut them off and like think that they'll want to come in here later on. Like, I just really didn't agree with the decisions that I'd made. And so I was kind of like reflecting on things that I'd done and like coming up with a different answer now that there was no pressure on me anymore. And so like I reconnected with um a really good friend of mine, um, even though I was still in the group and still would leave the group, didn't want to leave, but it was really nice to reconnect with her. And then later, a few months later, uh, and during this year, I was also like questioning some things that were happening. We were told that God said stop, and then they said that we have to start evangelizing again. And I was like, wait a second, like this doesn't make any sense. And he told us, even in a sermon in June that yeah, that the great multitude don't need to be evangelized. And I was so happy because I didn't like evangelizing. So, you know, I I wrote it down in my journal, like, yes, this is great. Everyone's just gonna come flooding in and we don't have to try so hard anymore, or like we don't have to deceive anymore. But he went back on it really quickly, and and so I was like, Oh, wait a second, like, and I would ask other people what they thought, and they were like, No one seemed to have a problem with it, and I didn't understand why people don't have a problem with that. Things that he had said before about the order of things happening, like 144,000 have to be sealed, and then the great multitude will come in, and everything seemed to get like kind of blurry and it wasn't so clear-cut anymore, and it was like he was kind of going back on what he said, but not overtly, and and I was really struggling with that, but still I believed.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

And then my friend, my really good friend, who had been part of the church in New Zealand, but she'd gone back to South Africa. She was a South African worker, um, not the one that evangelized me. She rang me up and she told me that she's leaving Shinchunji. And this was like wild. I couldn't believe it. She was someone I really looked up to in the faith and never thought that she would leave. Like, she was someone who kind of pressured me a lot over my time to like work harder and do better. And like it was unfathomable that she would leave. And she told me she's not only leaving Shinji, she's leaving Christianity. Which again, totally. Yeah. And I wrote in my journal that night, like, oh my gosh, like I can't believe it. Like, I I don't think I could ever leave Xinjiang Ji. I don't think I could ever leave Christianity. But then, the very next day, I was like, you know, I never questioned the Bible in my whole life. And I've built my whole life on this assumption that I've never really checked with an open mind. And so I did a little Google search. And it was the beginning of the end. So it didn't take long to come up with some biblical contradictions that were like have me shaking in my boots.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:43

See, the internet gets a lot of shit, but it's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Really amazing. But I had like looked at stuff before, but never with an open mind. But now I looked like prepared for whatever was gonna come at me. Because I was like, you know, if I'm gonna devote my life to this, I I should be sure that the the Bible itself is actually true, not just this interpretation of it. And yeah, so I went down a rabbit hole and I read a lot of books, listened to audio books, watched YouTube videos, and honestly, within about three days, I was like, I don't think I believed it. Isn't that amazing?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

Three days. I mean, that time to reflect as well, of course, leading up to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

Yeah, I mean, things were slowly happening. I just didn't, not consciously. And then, yeah, that three days, my whole life was in turmoil.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:28

I mean, what that says to me is that these tactics are incredibly effective. If they hadn't been employed so rigorously, you would have come to that conclusion earlier.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

I mean, that is that too simple to say?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:39

Well, I think what what Shinshunji did is that it separated my attachment from like my previous Christian faith because I already believed all of that was wrong, and now only Shinshunji is right. I don't know. I felt really detached from it, and so it was easier for me to do. I don't think I could have done it before. I don't know. I mean, maybe I would have, who can say? But something about like just being at the end of your rope and like I think part of me didn't want to believe as well. Like, if I'm being honest, I was tired and I did not want to go back to evangelizing. I was just I was avoiding any doing any work because they were starting to ramp up again. I was like, I just I just don't want to, but I didn't want to admit it. But that doesn't change the things that I found when I researched. Like it was a really it was a logical decision, but there was also like a logical decision. Emotional baggage as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:33

That's that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:35

Yeah. So I I left three weeks later. Oh nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:39

Was that a sort of formal process or you just walked off?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:43

I I made it a formal process because I wanted to show them. I was so entwined with the people, and I had been like one of the original members, and I wanted to show them that I tried. And so I brought some questions to the leader who He was the acting leader. He was actually my friend from my original class. He was one of the guys that was in my class. And I brought him my questions and he couldn't answer any of them. I had a phone call with the actual like Korean leader who'd gone back to Korea and he couldn't answer any of my questions. And I met with that my friend like two more times. And yeah, there was just nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:19

Yeah, they couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:20

There was no substance like to their answers. They were really terrible. And now that I had a bit of like a an awareness of a very slight awareness of critical thinking, I could see the way that they were just avoiding answering, using reasoning that they would never have used in the church, but they were using it now to try to make an argument that suited them. But then they they're using opposite reasoning in their doctrine. So it just none of it made sense. And I was just could see that it was all just really nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

It was nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

And so you so you also stepped away from Christianity in general, or you s where are you now with your spirituality?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Yeah. So I mean that research that I did into the Bible, I mean, I continued that after I left, and I read a lot of books and um processed things a bit more thoroughly. And besides all of the obvious like religious trauma that I experienced, I just genuinely didn't think that I I believed in the Bible as like the word of God. I felt it very much was written by people. And yeah, there's some like nice things in there, but there's some horrific things in there, and that was not something that I wanted to base my life on anymore. So yeah, I left Christianity behind when I left Shimtra.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:38

What do you think the experience has kind of spoiled spirituality for you in a way? Or I mean, for example, I'm quite atheistic, but I do miss certain aspects of being spiritual, but I also don't think they're real, so I don't want to go down that road. But I get it. You know, when people when we have when I have conversations like this and you talk about how you felt when you believed, it's like I totally get it. And on some level, I miss that feeling. I don't really, like I have no drive to go back to that. But I'm just curious, because you know, I was quite uh militantly atheistic when I left the group. I just it was kind of an overcorrection in a way, I think. But I am also very skeptical of religion and spirituality in general. I think we have to be questioning even mainstream religions all the time. You know, you have to stand up to criticism no matter what you believe, um, because the risks are too great and these belief systems are morphing all the time and capturing people in certain ways that aren't very healthy. But but what's your your view of spirituality in general since you made that decision?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

I don't dabble in anything these days. Um I do find myself feeling quite resistant to spirituality of any kind. I'm more open to like Eastern spirituality than I am like anything Christian or whatever. Obviously, just because it's totally different. But I still I still feel very suspicious of things and I I don't I can't see myself getting involved in anything, not in the near future.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

I mean that sounds healthy to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Yeah, I I think it's fine. I'm I'm over time just trying to be a bit more like not shutting other people down. Not that I do this like openly, but in my mind of like shutting people down who like believe anything religious, but try to be open and like accepting of other people's beliefs because even that is like difficult when you've have this very specific experience really colours everything, but realizing that you know there's many different ways that people can live out their faith, and not all of them are harmful, and you know, for some people it can really help them, but I mean definitely I know that religion is also used by people to to harm a lot of different kinds of marginalized people, and it's it's really not okay. And I'm never gonna be okay with that, but yeah, yeah, I just I'd like to make room that there is a possibility of having it in a non-harmful way.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:03

I hear you. I hear you. I'm still getting there. Yeah, of course. Oh look, I I understand, you know, and and I think about this a lot because I think culture and belief systems are so important and entwined with our experience as human beings. I I'm endlessly fascinated by it. You know, as much as I'm suspicious of groups and and and sex and cults and even mainstream religions in a way, I know it's coming from somewhere deeply ingrained in us. I think there's a reason we get attracted to these belief systems that don't seem to tie to reality. Um I think we need to do a better job of understanding what the appeal is, uh, because it doesn't they don't seem to be going away, even with the internet, even with all this information and scientific knowledge. Um there are many scientists who claim to be very religious as well. And it's I think understanding the reasons, but also understanding how organizations can really manipulate those reasons into situations like you and I are in, where it is really coercive control, and that is very damaging. And I mean, we won't go into that today, and I've spoken about that with other guests, but it it has a real long-term effect in some cases, and everyone comes out of it a bit differently. But there is very good reason to be critical of all of these things, I would say. And you know, the point of this podcast, as you know, is that I'm I've been quite embarrassed to talk about it. It's been amazing to have these conversations because it does, it is helping me. I I sometimes feel quite clammed up and because it's as though we're recording it live and I'm shouting it from the rooftops, and I'm just so embarrassed about what I believed and what I did. And I think when the time comes to release all these episodes, I'll be particularly anxious. But I think uh I'm hoping it will be useful to people who have been through similar things and maybe don't talk about it in the way I haven't spoken to anyone about it. And I hope that maybe if they come across this and they're listening to it, they might go, you know what? It's it's okay that I went through that experience. People go through these experiences, and I can in a way own it and process it rather than burying it and and living in that sort of shame. Do you did you have any experience with this coming out of it uh in terms of like struggling with what you'd been through and and then talking about it the way you are recently?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Yeah, I I really struggled with it when I first left. Like I was deeply ashamed, especially because so many people had told me that I was in a cult. And I had said, no, I'm not. Um, you know, it's the truth. Um so I mean it's it's a not a nice feeling to have to be like, you know, I was wrong, you were right. And it took me like a whole month to tell my parents that I had actually left. I mean, I lived in a different city from them anyway, but um, I went back and visited and they asked me like how things were at the church or something, and I was like, oh, I don't go anymore. I was just so embarrassed. But and yeah, especially meeting new people, I felt like there's this um elephant in the room. Not that they knew there was, but I knew there was, and I'm just so afraid people might ask me something about the past five years, which how on earth am I gonna explain what happened to me? Even just applying for a job like is so filled with anxiety. Like, how can I possibly explain what happened to me? Yeah. Um, and I've found a way through those situations, and it's just gets easier over time as you have more life after the group that you can use to relate to people, um, more TV shows that you can do.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:36

Yeah, that's right, more internet to look at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:38

Yeah. And also, like the more um processing that I've done, the more books that I've read and like other testimonies that I might have watched on YouTube, like people that have their own experiences, I realize how easily that it can happen to anybody. And also that everyone has their own baggage, like everyone has been through things that they might consider like hard or embarrassing, and we all make bad decisions, and it actually is a strength, a sign of strength to be able to change your mind and to go in a better direction. And framing it in that way really helped me to accept it and to be able to talk about it. And the more that we talk about it, also the more other people will feel comfortable with their story, and also other people might not even join. So I feel like the benefits are so important that I I want to talk about it. That's why I'm doing things like this podcast. I don't know. I think over time I just become a bit more comfortable owning the story, even though I mean, even now it's a little bit embarrassing.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:42

I understand. I think that's just such I think you just encapsulated all of that beautifully. I couldn't say it better myself. Laura, thank you so much for coming on. I've loved the chat. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:55

Speak to you soon. Many thanks again to Laura, such a great account of deception and conformity and cults, and so many similarities to other cults discussed in this series, despite the apparent differences between them, which uh I increasingly realize are quite superficial, actually. Hence my relative lack of interest in the details of their doctrines and programs given their shared absurdity. I find it much more interesting to discuss my guests' subjective experiences under the influence of common cultic mechanisms. Deception became an increasingly important aspect of my cult, the Gnostic movement. Mark and Edith were not shy about a fight and would direct their followers to smear former members or detractors, often using secret identities online to gang up against anyone who made any criticism of them or their school. This was particularly common when someone left the group and spoke out. In fact, I remember seeking to engage pro bono lawyers in Toronto when Mark alerted me to online forums that had started calling him out as a cult leader. Many cultic organizations, even bizarre ones such as ours, have government-sanctioned privileges such as charity or non-profit statuses, which help them obtain legal aid to defend against legitimate criticism, all the while pilfering followers' donations for their own benefit. Yet cult members who leave, often with less money and a diminished sense of power, often struggle to be heard. Once again, thanks for listening. I hope these conversations are helpful and relatable for those of you who have been through similar experiences. And I hope you'll join me next time. Bye for now. Thanks to Neil Sutherland for producing and the band PVT for the music. For extra content and updates, please visit us at aftercultpod.com or on Instagram at Aftercultpod.