Huge Moon church scam in Japan is revealed

“Japan. Wow! My eyes were opened.” A huge UC / FFWPU scam in Japan is revealed.

Updated November 16, 2020


Sun Myung Moon inspecting fundraising items produced by the Unification Church. In the cabinet behind him is a small statue of Buddha (see below) produced by Il Shin Stone, a UC company, and sold in Japan by members.


Thousands of Japanese members were instructed by Moon church leaders to become members of a Buddhist religion, Tenchi Seikyō. They then carried out the infamous ‘spiritual sales*’. This worked well in Japan, a Buddhist country. The Moon church members hid their real allegiance to Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han.

As explained some years later by Tyler Hendricks, those ‘Buddhist members,’ and the home members they had recruited, had to be integrated into the Unification Church in special ceremonies when Tenchi Seikyō was mainly dissolved.

At the time the Tenchi Seikyō scam was started, the terrible reputation of the Unification Church in Japan was affecting fundraising results – and Moon wanted hundreds of millions of dollars.


* 霊感商法 reikan shōhō – the selling of spiritual goods


Kawase Kayo 川瀬カヨ was born on May 30, 1910 in Hokkaido, Japan. From a young age she sensed spirits. She became a charismatic spiritual medium who focused on the spiritual causes of illness, tragedy, and general human discord. She had three marriages, but then led a genuine ascetic life. She first met the UC in 1973. She and a daughter joined. Kawase Kayo was attracted to the marble vases and then to the Divine Principle teachings about the spirit world. She saw these as beneficial for her shaman-traditional Japanese folk Buddhist group. It was called the ‘Spiritual Stone Worshippers’ Association’ 霊石愛好会. On October 14, 1982 she had a ‘single marriage / blessing’ from Sun Myung Moon in Seoul. Some other members of her group were also married then. Kawase Kayo had revelations from Moon’s son, Heung Jin, who had died in January 1984.

The African black Heung Jin, Cleopas Kundiona, (photo below) met Kawase Kayo on his visit or visits to Japan in about January to February 1988 and he catalyzed the formation of Tenchi Seikyō 天地正教 = True Teachings of Heaven and Earth. He directed her to gain legal status for a new Miroku (the coming or future Buddha) church. He “suggested their altar’s colorful lighting, their ‘New Age’ mood music, the use of ‘The Water of Life’ for purification rites, and a stone-striking ceremony for the casting away of Satan.” (Pearce)


A statue of the Seated Maitreya, the Future Buddha, as seen on the altar in the photo below. It was manufactured by the UC in Korea used by Tenchi Seikyō members – and sold by them.


▲ 上聖人祭 Enshrining of the Saints. Cleopas Kundiona standing in front of a Tenchi Seikyō 天地正教 altar at the Shinjuku dōjō 新宿道場 in Japan on February 27, 1988. These two photos may have been taken during the opening ceremony for this dōjō, which apparently happened around this date. There are photos of Sun Myung Moon, Hak Ja Han and Heung Jin Moon on the altar. Cleopas’ holy robes have gold braid which only members of the Moon’s family and their spouses wore. There is information about the pagoda (on the right side of the altar) further down on this page.


Cleopas Kundiona and the Unification Church members bow in the dōjō of their “new” religion.

The name change took place on February 1, 1988. “Most of the resources were mobilized from the Unification Church” (Sakurai). Twenty-seven centers, or dōjō, were established all over Japan within months. They were staffed by covert Unification Church members. Tenchi Seikyō taught that Sun Myung Moon was the returned Future Buddha, Miroku Bosatsu 弥勒菩薩. The UC, a Christian messianic group with shaman undercurrents, needed a more direct fund-raising and witnessing approach within a predominantly Buddhist country. Of the 111,000 members (at one time) in Tenchi Seikyō, seventy to eighty per­ cent are housewives.

Tenchi Seikyō made very large donations to Sun Myung Moon following heavy and frequent demands from him. In the early 1990s “some Tenchi Seikyō centers had to close down because of the angry reactions of Tenchi Seikyō members who had learned of the identity of the group’s parent organization or the final destination of donations made to the group.” (Pearce) Since 1995, following religious ceremonies, pictures of the Moons have been on their altars, and Tenchi Seikyō is apparently managed by UC leaders from Korea.



 Sun Myung Moon and Kawase Kayo.


An American UC state leader gives some insights into the situation in Japan: “In 1999 Father called all State Leaders to a meeting in Kodiak, Alaska. He also called leaders from Japan to come. He made trinities with one Korean one Japanese and one American leader and ordered a thirty day exchange program between the American and Japanese leaders. Father talked to us about people from the three nations making one heart and even living together. It was a beautiful ideal.

“At that time I was the state leader of Washington State and was sent to Miyazaki Japan. Wow!! My eyes were opened. Compared to the American church organization the Japanese organization was a much bigger well oiled machine. They treated us, what passed for the leadership of the US church, like VIPs. I was toured around in the back seat of a limousine, was taken to expensive restaurants for most of my meals and given pocket money with no receipts required. I sat in on staff meetings that were held twice a day and was provided with an interpreter. I was taken to various local groups where I stood up and testified to large assemblies of members. They hung on my every word. It was really heady stuff.

“Of course we all knew that Japan was the Eve nation in the providence and was responsible to raise the funds that were required to save the world. Everyone had heard testimonies of the hard working sacrificial members who were raising blood money. We tasted a fraction of this culture and lifestyle on MFT (Mobile Fundraising Teams).

“The top leaders seemed to be up front when explaining their operation. When we arrived in Tokyo we went as a group to the headquarters and were briefed on the operation. The vice president of the church spoke to us in detail about how they raised funds.

“It went like this. Japan is a Buddhist country and Buddhist beliefs permeate the culture and form the basis for how people think. When Japanese people are unhappy or meet difficulty and misfortune they believe that the cause is that their ancestors did evil things and the solution is to resolve those evil deeds by doing good deeds today.

“Our members contacted people and built a network. They counseled their contacts repeatedly about how to solve their unhappy circumstances. They offered them an array of products that had spiritual properties. If they bought/donated money their ancestor’s misdeeds would be erased and they would be happy. The products ranged from ginseng tea, personal stamps to marble vases, temples and statues of the Buddha. Their monthly, weekly, daily and even hourly goals were huge.”



 A name stamp, inkan 印鑑, as sold by the Japanese members. Customers were told that if they changed their name-stamp they could change their fortune.


The UC leader continued: “At the regional headquarters in Miyazaki I was able to observe first-hand how they managed the operation. It looked nothing like the family, movement or church that I had joined. The headquarters building was an eight story mixed use building with some living space, offices and meeting rooms. In the main hall where large meetings were held, there was a low stage with an altar on which were placed pictures of True Parents, Heung Jin Nim, Dae Mo Nim, the photo of True Mother’s mother, and the Gulfstream jet that they were determined to buy for True Parents. 

“Every meeting began by bowing to the altar and reciting the Family Pledge in Korean. Staff meetings consisted of various leaders reporting on their goals and the daily efforts of the members to meet their goals. There was a heavy emphasis on testimonies of the miraculous, often last minute, work of the spirit world to make a goal. Same as MFT only it was on a much bigger scale. I saw nothing of the personal life of leaders or members.”


▲ These marble vases were made by the UC in Korea and sold by members in Japan. A statue of the Buddha can also be seen in the corner.


He continued: “There was some nominal witnessing effort from a video center that I visited. I spent one day fundraising with small donation products going door to door. I was told this kind of activity was only used for training younger members. The main effort was the marble vase donation activity.”


▲ Kawase Kayo promoted the selling of marble vases and pagodas (there is one behind her). She had a belief in their spiritual power.


“One day I was taken to visit a Buddhist group that was waiting for the return of the Buddha. They had accepted True Father as the returned Buddha.”


▲ Moon Sun Myung as the returned BuddhaMiroku Bosatsu. Kawase Kayo, received a revelation on January 1, 1994 that Moon “was the modern Maitreya as well as the Messiah”.


This was how they promoted Sun Myung Moon:

Maitreya Buddha. The Buddha to come to this Age, he will bring enlightenment and abundance to all mankind by exemplifying True Love in the family unit. This will create the foundation for the Ideal Society of the Golden Age.
Virtues: Divine Will, Unconditional Love and Planetary Healing.  NC4”

[The virtues appear to be the ‘Three Blessings’ in disguise. They are described in the Divine Principle.]


The UC leader continued: “They [Tenchi Seikyō] were actually a parallel movement that also raised funds. They were absolutely Buddhists and had nothing to do with what I thought of as the Judeo-Christian foundations of the Unification Movement. Probably many members were aware of these activities in Japan and I was, vaguely, as well but to see it drove home the huge cultural gap that existed in the movement.

I later discovered that his group was not a main line Buddhist group but was a group that liberally mixed Buddhism, shamanism and animism. The founder [Kawase Kayo ] was a Japanese woman psychic who did healing and fortune telling in her native Hokkaido. She merged her group and a local stone worshiping group with the Unification Church.

They recognized Sun Myung Moon as the returned Buddha”.


Kawase Kayo (June 1910 – February 1994). She said: “If the world only understood the existence of the spiritual world, it would become so much better”

Below is a book which was published in 1985. It has her name on the cover, but apparently it was written by church members who wanted to promote their fundraising products.
霊能者 川瀬カヨ を語る    The medium Kawase Kayo speaks
Note the pagoda on the cover and the table of contents below. 

目次

第一章 おいたち    16
(1) 一度目の結婚 20
(2) 二度目の結婚 28
(3) 三度目の結婚 34
第二章 神への旅立ち 43
第三章 高麗大埋石壺との出合い 75
第四章川瀬先生に感紺する信徒の集い 103
第五章 多宝塔の天的価値 123

Table of Contents of the book
Chapter 1 Biography (Upbringing)   16
(1) first marriage        20
(2) second marriage  28
(3) third marriage       34
Chapter 2 The journey to God    43
Chapter 3 Encounter with special Goryeo (Korean) marble vases   75
Chapter 4 Gathering of followers of Teacher Kawase                       103
Chapter 5 The heavenly value of the pagoda                              123


The Unification Church shamelessly used Kawase Kayo.



Here are Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han with a pagoda. The caption below the photograph reads: “Father and Mother with marble sculpture made by our Korean family and sold in Japan.” They were worth about $3,000, but sold for over $60,000.


The UC state leader continued: “Next we moved as a group to Korea to meet the Korean third of our trinity. Our time in Korea was a lot shorter than in Japan. The first activity was a meeting with True Parents at the Hanam Dong Residence [in Seoul]. Father sent us off on a three day bus trip to visit historic and cultural places around Korea including mountains, museums and holy places. Of course we visited a Dae Mo Nim Museum, the old Headquarters Church in Cheongpa-dong and the holy places in Busan where True Parents wrote the Principle [1951-1952] and began the church. It seemed to me that Unification Church culture fit almost seamlessly with Korean culture. After the bus trip we all went to stay with the regional church leader that we were paired with. We lived with the church leader’s family and some single members in the regional headquarters church. I was much more comfortable in the Korean church that seemed to be almost identical to the protestant churches in Korea. I was much more at home with, and comfortable with, this church. The church leader took us up a small mountain every morning to pray and exercise. Then we went to a sauna to relax and soak in the hot water. After lunch we usually visited different church and CARP (College Association for the Research of Principles) centers and then handed out fliers on the street. I found out that Korean people liked me and I liked them.”


In Japan some scholars have written about this fraud since at least 1994.


Some Japanese former members of the UC have explained how they were suddenly asked to join Tenchi Seikyō and work full time as members of that organization – and to fundraise under their banner. Thousands of UC members joined Tenchi Seikyō.


Tenchi Seikyō members attended Black Heung Jin’s liberation sessions which were organized by the Unification Church in Japan. However, UC leaflets denied any relationship between their organization and Tenchi Seikyō.


 A newsletter from Tenchi Seikyō announcing the ascension of Teacher Kawase Kayo. It says: “She has fulfilled all her mission on earth and has returned to heaven.”
教主さま 御昇天。地上でのすべての使命果たし、浄土ヘ御帰還される


Further information about the relationship between the Unification Church and Tenchi Seikyō:
A Case Study of a New Religions Cult, the Tenchi Seikyō, Affiliated with the Unification Church (2000) by Professor Yoshihide Sakurai.


Tyler Hendricks wrote about how Tenchi Seikyō in Japan was later merged back into the UC!

“Our own movement there has had multiple branches and forms, including the ‘K-J church’ [Koreans in Japan Church?] and a form of Unificationist Buddhism called Tenseikyo (sic). The leadership is now merging these into the Family Federation proper, as one movement with one structure and one spirituality. They are doing this very carefully and respectfully, through prayer and ritual services, removing the Tenseikyo symbols from various chapels and replacing them with symbols directly representing Unificationism. President Ohtstuka told me that this is a model for the transcendence of all religions once they are ready.”

Tuesday, October 19, 1999        LINK



 Sun Myung Moon claimed he knew nothing about the selling of temples and statues of the Buddha in Japan, but here he is at the Il Shin Stone Company in Korea which made the pagodas.


 Sun Myung Moon with Kawase Kayo in November 1993. She visited him on Cheju Island while he was running the October – December 1993 workshops for Japanese female members. The workshops netted Moon $500million from the workshop fees he demanded. See link below for further details.


Tenchi Seikyō: A Messianic Buddhist Cult by Thomas H. Pearce

“The belief in Moon as Miroku Bosatsu [the returned Buddha] is rather secondary to the average Unification Church member, since church lectures place more emphasis on Moon as the returned Christ. Members are mainly con­cerned not so much with his supposed powers to control the spiritual world and effect healings as with his believed ability to remove sin, especially “original sin.” The former (spiritual) characteristics became primary and explicit only in Tenchi Seikyō. And the Unification Church of Japan ven­tured to create this “new” New Religion only because of Kawase Kayo’s faith, her already established religious organization, and an unfore­seen set of circumstances, primarily stemming from the nature of the movement’s fund raising and witnessing and the legal restrictions placed on those activities.

The spiritualist beliefs and practices of Unificationists, especially Unification Church of Japan members, are most apparent in their fund raising activi­ties and, to a lesser degree in their proselytizing. These fund raising activities, which have created quite a controversy in Japan and have severely tarnished the church’s public image, are not unrelated to the origin and operations of Tenchi Seikyō.”

The above is a quote from:

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies  LINK
Vol. 21, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 407-424

Tenchi Seikyō is a small New Religion in Japan that has converged with the Unification Movement of Rev. Sun Myung Moon. This paper presents the history and nature of Tenchi Seikyō, describes the life of its founder, Kawase Kayo, and outlines Tenchi Seikyō’s organization, beliefs, and practices. It also discusses the symbiotic relationship between Tenchi Seikyō and the Unification Movement (in Japanese, Tōitsu Undō), and the reasons for the two organizations to develop such a relationship.

TENCHI SEIKYō 天地正教 (True teachings of heaven and earth) is a small “new” New Religion (shinshinshūkyō 新新宗教 ) that seems at first glance to be a rather ordinary part of today’s Japanese religious milieu. With approximately 111,000 members in seventy-three local centers,1 its object of worship is a simple, pure white marble statue of the Seated Maitreya (Miroku Bosatsu 弥勒菩薩 ), the future Buddha.

Like other New Religions in Japan it focuses on the spiritual causes of illness, tragedy, and general human discord (HATAKEYAMA 1992). What makes this group remarkable is that it is the product of the clandestine convergence of two seemingly distant religious traditions: traditional Japanese folk Buddhism and the Christian messianism of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Movement (Tōitsu Undō 統ー運動 ).2 Founded by Kawase Kayo 川瀬カヨ, a charismatic spiritual medium and a secret member of the Tōitsu Kyōkai [Unification Church], this unassuming Miroku cult may be the newest chapter in the story of religious syncretism (AKAHATA 1990).3 A delineation of the history and nature of Tenchi Seikyō is no simple matter though, for it epitomizes the controversy for which Moon and his worldwide movement are so widely known.

Any discussion of how and why the Unification Movement gave rise to this messianic Buddhist group must take account of the following three factors:

1. Kawase Kayo and other Tōitsu Kyōkai members are attracted to Moon because they recognize him as the world savior expected by all religions and because of his supposed powers to control the spiritual world.

2. Tōitsu Kyōkai [the Unification Church] needed a more direct fund-raising and witnessing approach within a predominantly Buddhist country.

3. Tenchi Seikyō reflects and expresses spiritualist beliefs and practices already prevalent throughout the movement in Japan.

This paper will examine these factors in the context of the Unification Movement, Kawase Kayo’s life, and Tenchi Seikyō’s organization, beliefs, and practices. The reader should then be in a better position to understand that, though the creation and operation of Tenchi Seikyō is not without serious ethical problems, its development is viewed by Unificationists as a suitable means to aid the Japanese in achieving salvation. …

Footnotes:
1 Membership counts for religious groups are notoriously unreliable because the groups include in their lists every person who attends even one of their services.

2 The Unification Movement of Japan (hereafter Tōitsu Undō 統ー運動 ) includes the Unification Church of Japan (Tōitsu Kyōkai 統一協会 ) and all business, political, and social organizations that have been started by church members to promote the aims of the church. Many of the participants in the Unification Movement have not accepted Rev. Moon as the Messiah (or are not even aware of the connection between their organization and the church), whereas all Unification Church members have and say the complete church pledge as a sign of their allegiance.

3 Tōitsu Kyōkai [Unification Church] leaflets deny any relationship between their organization and Tenchi Seikyō.



▲ Cleopas Kundiona from Africa, the re-incarnated Heung Jin, with the Moons in January 1988. The original Heung Jin Moon had died in a car accident in January 1984.

Cleopas Kundiona timeline. These people have written about ‘Black Heung Jin’:  
Nansook Hong   
James A. Beverley   Damian Anderson
Dan Fefferman   Michael Mickler   Theological Uproar in the UC


川瀬カヨ

出典: フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 (2014/12/14 04:32 UTC 版)

川瀬 カヨ (かわせ かよ、1910年?6月15日? – 1994年2月4日) は、北海道十勝国中士幌出身の新興宗教家。「天運教」を設立し、教主として活動していた中で、「統一教会」(統一協会)の教えを受け入れ、「天運教」を「統一教会」(統一協会)へ導くための教団、「天地正教」に変えて、初代教主として活動した。


Unification Church Tied To Sales-fraud Scheme In Japan

Moon personally extracted $500 MILLION from Japanese sisters in the fall of 1993. He demanded that 50,000 sisters attend HIS workshops on Cheju Island and each had to pay a fee of $10,000.

Japan High Court judge upholds “UC used members for profit, not religious purposes”. This has serious ramifications.


There have been thousands of court cases against the UC because of the Spiritual Sales.

Washington Post – Once-generous Japanese become disenchanted with Moon’s church

The activities of the Unification Church of Japan


Sun Myung Moon   November 24, 2011  
Cheon Jeong Gung, Korea

“I haven’t been able to release my grudge towards Japanese people yet. Who chose Japan as Eve nation? (‘It is Father.’) Nobody knows it(s background).”

“People recently said, ‘If Rev. Moon dies, the Unification Church will disappear.’ It will not disappear for millions of years. Instead, I would say 10 to 100 nations will disappear in the future.”

“From my childhood, the spirit world taught me how to interpret the words.”

http://tparents.org/Moon-Talks/SunMyungMoon11/SunMyungMoon-111124.htm



▲ At this meeting in Japan, the banner reads:
「国家メシア歓迎」記念礼拝

~母の国使命完遂結団式~
“Welcome to the National Messiah” Commemorative Worship Service
~ Gathering Ceremony to complete the mission of the mother nation ~

Moon placed Japan in the Eve position in relation to Korea as the Adam nation. Moon said Korea was shaped like a penis. As Eve nation, guilt and shame was implied – reflecting Eve’s guilt and shame from falling. Moon and DaeMo-nim also (falsely) blamed Japan for the abuse of 200,000 Korean Comfort Women during their  occupation of Korea.

Moon said that, as the ‘mother nation,’ Japan was responsible for providing the money for the providence: the third Adam (himself) and the Korea. Therefore Moon gave the Japanese movement huge financial goals.

Shocking video of UC of Japan leader demanding money – Japan looted for the benefit of the Moons. Complaints reach over $1billion


Sun Myung Moon    October 13, 1970    Seoul, Korea

“From the Principle point of view, I first have to lay the national indemnity foundation. I have become a man of victory, so from now on we will see the horizontal foundation on the national level. That horizontal foundation must be done through Japan; that is the Principle formula. Many prophets and pioneers in Japan had to make sacrifices in the past. For what purpose did they do that? It is, of course, necessary to establish a nation in the masculine position [Korea as Adam], but their sacrifices were to establish an Eve nation. The Eve nation should be filled with gratitude to be suffering for the sake of the Adam nation. That is the historical task of Japan.”

from:
Change of Blood Lineage: The Real Experience of Salvation by the Messiah


A Japanese article about Kawase Kayo and Tenchi Seikyō 天地正教

A Japanese woman is recruited and sold by the Moon church to a Korean farmer, who is not a member. Her sister’s research reveals the psychology used to gradually ensnare her innocent sister who finally wanted to marry a Korean stranger.

The Comfort Women controversy

Top Japanese FFWPU leader who left, Yoshikazu Soejima, was interviewed by The Washington Post in 1984

Hiroshi Sakazume, the Japanese church’s director general of public relations said, however, that the Japanese church is transferring money overseas. In church theology, he said, it is Japan’s duty to play the mystical role of Eve, giving succor to the church’s children in other countries.
LINK


A second gen member is ashamed to be Korean because of the crimes of the Sun Myung Moon organization
1. Moon’s first son wrote a letter saying his father was a fraud.
2. Ashamed to be Korean
3. Sun Myung Moon: “Women have twice the sin”
4. “Japanese blood is dirty,” Mrs Gil Ja Sa Eu said
5. Moon’s Divine Principle Theory Applied
6. Sun Myung Moon’s explanation of the Fall of Man is based on his Confucian ideas of lineage, and his belief in shaman sex rituals.
7. The establishment of a worldwide government under Moon


Asian ginseng – there is currently no conclusive evidence supporting any health benefits

Wikipedia – As of 2017, there is insufficient evidence to indicate that ginseng has any health effects