Stranger Things

This thread will be longer.....

Oct. 11, 2000: Rev. Moon, North Korea & the Bushes (https://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/101100a.html) (Robert Parry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parry_(journalist)) for Consortium News)

QuoteThough historically an ardent anticommunist, Moon negotiated a business deal in 1991 with Kim Il Sung, the longtime communist leader, the DIA documents said.

The deal called for construction of a hotel complex in Pyongyang as well as a new Holy Land at the site of Moon's birth in North Korea, one document said. The DIA said the deal sprang from a face-to-face meeting between Moon and Kim Il Sung in North Korea from Nov. 30 to Dec. 8, 1991.

"These talks took place secretly, without the knowledge of the South Korean government," the DIA wrote on Feb. 2, 1994. "In the original deal with Kim [Il Sung], Moon paid several tens of million dollars as a down-payment into an overseas account," the DIA said in a cable dated Aug. 14, 1994.

The DIA said Moon's organization also delivered money to Kim Il Sung's son and successor, Kim Jong Il.

"In 1993, the Unification Church sold a piece of property located in Pennsylvania," the DIA reported on Sept. 9, 1994. "The profit on the sale, approximately $3 million was sent through a bank in China to the Hong Kong branch of the KS [South Korean] company 'Samsung Group.' The money was later presented to Kim Jung Il [Kim Jong Il] as a birthday present.

October 24, 2004: Rev. Moon and North Korea (https://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2004/10/24/rev-moon-and-north-korea) (Science Blogs)
Note: The above is a summary of the Robert Parry article above it with some commentary.

Dec. 26, 2011: UC President on Condolence Visit to North Korea (https://web.archive.org/web/20120109081542/http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2011/12/26/79/0401000000AEN20111226008300315F.HTML) (Yonhap News/Internet Archive)

QuoteThe youngest son of Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon is visiting Pyongyang to pay his respects to the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the church said Monday.

Nov. 26, 2012: End of Pyongyang's Auto Venture (https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2012/11/26/socialAffairs/End-of-Pyongyangs-auto-venture/2963002.html) (Korea JoongAng Daily)

Jan. 22, 2013: North Korea Grants Rare Citizenship to American (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-22/north-korea-grants-rare-citizenship-to-american/4479254) ABC News)

QuoteNorth Korea has granted a rare honorary citizenship to the US boss of an automobile company partly run by the communist state in a bid to encourage new investment by him.

Park Sang-kwon, the CEO of Pyeonghwa Motors, a joint venture run by North Korea and the Unification Church of South Korea, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that he received the citizenship in Pyongyang last month.

Jan. 9, 2023: The Unification Church, Japan, & North Korea (https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/the-unification-church-japan-and-north-korea/) (Professor Isozaki Atsuhito for The Diplomat)

This quote doesn't pertain to North Korea, but I want to post it here for furture reference:

QuoteAs a researcher of the Korean Peninsula, I have been advised by senior researchers to be wary of organizations affiliated with the Unification Church and academic journals published by the organization. In Washington, I encountered some Unification Church members who invited me to a symposium, offering a huge honorarium. I declined because I was aware of the back story, but many respected researchers have been signed up for such symposia by groups affiliated with the Unification Church, which have approached them under different names. This has misled the researchers into inadvertently endorsing the "legitimacy" of the Unification Church.

I had been meaning to read this book since I first heard about it earlier in the year as it does have some references to Moon's Unification Church. I bought the Kindle version on September 22.

April 2026: Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung & The Christian Roots of North Korea's Personality Cult (https://amzn.to/4dTD01k) (Jonathon Cheng)


Coincidentally, I then noticed Andrew Salmon of the UC-owned The Washington Times published a piece about the book two days earlier.There is one mention mention of UC in his article.

Sept. 20: How North Korea's 'Kimdom' Drew Inspiration From Founding Dictator's Christian Upbringing (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/sep/20/north-korea-kimdom-drew-inspiration-kim-il-sung-christian-upbringing/) (Andrew Salmon for the UC-Owned Washington Times)

Quote"He (Kim Il-sung) had a remarkable re-engagement with the religion of his youth," said Mr. Cheng. "It was not an embrace — but he re-engaged." He (Sung-il Kim) built two churches in Pyongyang and invited South Korean, Korean-American and American pastors to visit. Among the pastors invited were Rev. Moon Sun-myung, founder of the Unification Church (who escaped North Korea and survived a Korean War massacre) and U.S. Evangelist Billy Graham, who unleashed two barn-storming sermons in Pyongyang.

So far I've just searched my copy for mentions of the UC, and this sentence, which isn't a sentence I would expect to see quoted in The Washington Times, caught my eye:

QuoteAs Mun's (Rev. Sun-myung Moon) erstwhile daughter-in-law put it after abandoning the faith she was raised in: "The Unification Church is a classic example of what psychologists call a cult of personality."

That daughter-in-law, as identified in the footnote accompanying the above, is Nan-sook Hong. (https://peterdaley.net/strangerthings/index.php?topic=67.0) Another interesting detail I wasn't aware of: Jim Jones also took an interest in how North Korea was run. Jim Jones, Moon, and Kim Il-sung - birds of a feather flock together.

And there a lot of mentions of the word "cult" in Andrew's piece. I have to wonder if they gave him pause to consider cultic aspects of the UC.

QuoteUltimate personality cult

In the late 1950s, as North Korea rebuilt from the devastation of U.S. bombing, Kim began forging his personality cult with a vengeance. ... As the cult expanded, fellow comrades bore witness. ...
"Kim was perhaps the greatest persecutor of the Christian faith of the 20th century," Mr. Cheng continued. "He crushed it while building an alternative that was very close to Christianity."

At least the UC's plans to take over the world don't involve crushing, but the UC would certainly love to be in control of a similar society. (https://peterdaley.net/strangerthings/index.php?topic=68.0)