The Choi family's entanglements with Moon - The Tragedy of the Six MarysThe Tragedy of the Six Marys

The Choi family’s entanglements with Sun Myung Moon (and the story of Choi Seong-mo’s second wife)

Updated May 13, 2023

▲ These are the only known photos of Choi Seon-gil (also written as Sun-kil Choi) and Sun Myung Moon together. They were taken around early 1955 by Eu Hyo-min, probably in Seoul. He explained that Choi had challenged her husband when she caught him having sex with two women.

From a Japanese article:
“It is complicated. This is the part that has been erased from the history of the Unification Church.

Sun Myung Moon’s first wife was Choi Seon-gil LINK

She was the niece of Choi Seong-mo (see obituary below)

Choi Seon-gil’s uncle was Choi Seong-mo

He was the brother of Choi Seon-gil’s father.

Choi Seong-mo’s wife was Lee Duk-sam.
[He married Lee when he was 29. Lee left Choi to follow Sun Myung Moon.]

Choi Seong-mo’s eldest daughter: Choi Soon-shil
[She arrested for group sex in Moon’s church in July 1955.] LINK

Choi Seong-mo’s second daughter: Choi Soon-wha LINK
[She is the mother of Sam Park, born in 1966, fathered by Sun Myung Moon.]

Choi Seong-mo’s eldest son: Choi Soon-yeong LINK
[He inherited the chaebol/business]

Choi Seong-mo’s second son: Choi Soon-kwang

Choi Seong-mo’s third son: Choi Soon-kil

I can understand the feelings of Mr. Choi Seong-mo, who was the husband of Mrs. Lee Duk-sam. He pushed the police to investigate Teacher Moon, and he wanted to beat the Unification Church. At first I thought Mr. Choi Seong-mo hated Teacher Moon because Moon married Choi Seon-gil, who was Mr. Choi’s niece. But apparently he was indignant about the relationship between his wife and Teacher Moon. That is why he called Teacher Moon ‘the devil’.

It’s become a mess.”

[One of the sons, either Soon-kwang or Soon-kil, was active against Sun Myung Moon, but was heavily persecuted by the organization.]

▲ Oh Yeong-choon is standing on the right, next to Hak Ja Han and her mother Hong Soon-ae. Oh was involved in the selection of Hak Jan Han as the wife of Sun Myung Moon. This photograph was taken at around the time of that selection. Oh raised money to get Moon out of jail in 1955, following the Ewha Womans University sex scandal. LINK

Oh Yeong-choon witnessed to Lee Duk-sam in Busan. After Lee Duk-sam joined, she brought her two daughters, Choi Soon-shil and Choi Soon-wha, into the UC. Choi Soon-yeong who was younger resisted recuitment, even though he was under pressure from his mother to join. Moon took the daughters to Seoul to be with him in the fall of 1953. It has been reported that he “restored” the two of them in a small hotel near the Seoul train station. Soon-shil went to Yonsei University and Soon-wha to Ewha Womans University. In 1964 Soon-wha traveled to Washington, DC, to go to university there. She wanted to get away from Moon. In 1965, during his first world tour, Moon spent three months in DC having sex with Soon-wha, aka Annie. He did not leave the US until he knew she was pregnant. Sam Park was born on January 28, 1966.

▲ Sam Park is sitting next to Hak Ja Han. Sam was hidden in Bo Hi Pak’s family and did not discover who his biological parents were until he was 12 or 13. Sam Park’s story: LINK

韓国・毎日新聞1976年6月28日記事

崔聖模씨別世
新東亜「그룹」會長

26일상오

◇ 故崔聖模씨

新東亞그룹 崔聖模회장이

지난26일 宿患으로 別世、親知및 財界重鎭등 弔客이참석한가운데 28일상오 京畿도楊州군瓦阜면月文리 선영에서 장례식이엄수됐다。
享年67세의 故人은 黄海道沙里院출신으로 지난55년釜山冷凍을 창업한이후 東亞綜合産業、新東亞火災、韓國메타놀、泰興産業、大成木材등을 설립해 新東亞그룹을 이뤘으며 統一主體國民會議운영위원과 全経聯부회장을 歷任한 重鎮實業人이다。
유족으로는朴貞淑여사와 4男 4女가 있다。

◇ The late Mr. Choi Seong-mo

韓国・毎日新聞1976年6月28日記事
Mainichi Shimbun, June 28, 1976 (Korean Edition)

Mr. Choi Seong-mo, the President of the Shindongah Group, Passed Away in the morning of the 26th

Seong-mo Choi, the President of Shindongah Group, passed away due to a chronic ailment [liver cancer] on last 26th. The funeral service was conducted in the morning of the 28th on a family burial ground located in Wolmun-ri, Wabu-myeon, Yangju-gun, Gyeonggi-do, attended by mourners, including his friends, relatives and prominent figures in the business world.

The deceased, who passed away at the age of 67, was from Sariwon, Hwanghae-do. He founded Busan Youngdong in 1955, and then established Dongah Integrated Corporation, Shindongah Fire Insurance, Korea Methanol, Taeheung Corporation, and Daesung Lumber, which formed Shindongah Group. He was a prominent businessman who served as a committee member on the National Council for Unity, and Vice President of the Federation of Korean Industries. He is survived by his wife, Park Cheong-sook, four sons and four daughters.

▲ Park Cheong-sook

Moon “must have sexual relations with 70 virgins, 70 widows and 70 men’s wives”
Moon may have once been the center of his United Family [Unification Church / FFWPU] members’ sex lives in quite another sense, according to an unpublished paper written by Yun Ho Ye [The name Ye may be equivalent to Lee] at Princeton Seminary in 1959. This Korean minister cites evidence that when Moon founded his Tong-il Kyo sect, as it is called in Korea [HSA-UWC / Unification Church], he and his followers practiced a sort of messianic pansexuality, though in secrecy. Moon was initiated into the free-love cult by a woman, aged fifty, in 1946, Chong Deuk-eun, whom he then regarded as his divine mother: Chong later confessed this after having a revelation, according to Ye, who cites published sources. According to Ye, when witnesses revealed his cult’s secret promiscuity, Moon was imprisoned on the grounds that it was destructive to the family and injurious to public morals. Imprisoned in Pyongyang [in 1946], Moon met Kim Il Duk and his wife, who also believed in promiscuity. Moon continued to dogmatize promiscuity with Chong after he was released, Ye says, and he was arrested [in 1948] and imprisoned again, this time in Heungnam [for five years]. Ye quotes from the purported confession of an early Moon follower who said that when Moon was forty “the present world will be ended through the Third World War,” though the end might be postponed six years if Moon’s goals were not realized by then, which would have been approximately 1960. “By that time,” according to the confession, “Moon becomes the Divine Father of 210 women; that is, he must have sexual relations with 70 virgins, 70 widows and 70 men’s wives. The 210 women will develop to 144,000 spiritual people. These people will be saved from the war.”
Allen Tate Wood: Moonstruck: A memoir of my life in a cult, page 170 LINK

Park Cheong-sook 朴貞淑 – What happened to her?

She was the ‘Honey trap’ Moon used to ensnare Choi Seong-mo.

▲ Park Cheong-sook is next to Moon, on his left.

Pak Chong-hwa: “At about the time when the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity was founded at the Bukhak Dong Church in Seoul in May 1954, Shin Jeong-soon reported the location of Park Cheong-sook’s house. Eu Hyo-min went out to do some errands in the city, and quite by chance he met Park Cheong-sook. Then Eu Hyo-min witnessed to her, trying to persuade her to join. She came to the church and heard the principles, and then she received the [pikareum] return ritual from Sun Myung Moon. Park Cheong-sook already had a daughter who was about to turn five years old, and since she lived without a husband, she could attend church without any issues.

As I described earlier she worked very hard. During the day she prepared meals for the members and in the evening she washed bromide photographs for our business. She used water from a well – even during the cold months of winter.

She also received more love from Sun Myung Moon than anyone else. The two of them did not want to be apart, even for a moment. It seems that Moon had a long term strategy aimed at getting the property of Lee Duk-sam’s rich husband, Choi Seong-mo.” [Lee Duk-sam had left her husband and joined Moon’s church in Busan in 1953.]

▲ Sun Myung Moon with Six Marys in Seoul in about 1956. The fifth woman from the left is Lee Duk-sam. She was the original wife of Choi Seong-mo. She met the UC in Busan. Moon invested a lot of time and effort to recruit her. He knew her husband was very rich. Choi Seong-mo always hoped his wife would return to him, but she never did.
Park Cheong-sook is standing third from the left, in front of Moon. She was another of the Six Marys. She was the ‘honey trap’ Moon ordered to marry Choi Seong-mo. (She wanted to stay with Moon.) Park Cheong-sook is named in his obituary above.

Lee Duk-sam died of cancer. At the end of her life she realised she had been deceived by Sun Myung Moon. He had sent church representatives to the hospital to get her to change her will in his favor.

Eu Shin-hee also confirms that Moon pushed one of the Six Marys to marry the founder of a ‘chaebol,’ a Korean conglomerate. (see Question 10 in the interview she gave in the middle of Six Marys chapter 7.) LINK

Sun Myung Moon had pikareum sex rituals with Lee and Park, the first and second wives of Seong-mo Choi, and with two of his daughters, Soon-shil and Soon-wha Choi.

Pak Chong-hwa: “The church had moved several times. This all happened while it was located at Cheongpa-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul. The church was expanding and people were moving in. Sun Myung Moon was preaching to men and women at length about ideal partners. Just as many members of the church thought, Park Cheong-sook thought that her dream of an ideal partner was shattered, and she left the church.

Park Cheong-sook was living alone somewhere downtown when she was active in the church. During this time the girl’s father, Choi Seong-mo, who was wealthy, had built up a relationship with his daughter while visiting them. Choi Seong-mo’s persistent courtship resulted in the couple getting back together. Sun Myung Moon also encouraged Park Cheong-sook’s relationship with Choi Seong-mo whose business flourished and rose to become a Korean conglomerate. She gave birth to a boy, but Choi Seong-mo, the company chairman, died [of cancer on June 26, 1976] and she became a widow. Her husband’s whole business was passed to his eldest son, Choi Seong-yong, from his first marriage (to Lee Duk-sam). Park Cheong-sook then lived the life of an outcast with just her son. After that for some time she was married to an entertainer, but they got divorced and she was once again on her own. She then lived with her father or her housekeeper.

The eldest son of Choi Seong-mo, despite inheriting the business, did not take any care of Park Cheong-sook, who was his stepmother. Also, Park’s biological son refused to look after his mother.

Although it was like that [with the sons not taking care of her], even Sun Myung Moon, who had secretly called her and met with her many times, whenever there was a chance, during her good married life with Choi Seong-mo, completely ignored and abandoned Park Cheong-sook.

Now she rents just one room, and has a lonely life. I [Pak Chong-hwa] went along with Eu Hyo-min to meet her. She was so impoverished that she did not even have money to buy food.

Under the pretext of restoration, Sun Myung Moon defiled women’s bodies and chewed them up for all their assets, only to spit them out [or kick them to the curb].”

Information for this article comes from the Japanese Tragedy of the Six Marys pages 158-159 with additions from the Korean edition of the book which was edited by Eu Hyo-min, and other sources.

▲ Park Cheong-sook with Kim Won-pil. She had a good relationship with Moon’s first son, Moon Sung-jin. Moon took him away from his mother, Choi Seon-gil, when he was about nine. She never saw him again.