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I live in Korea. No particular authority, but if anyone has additional questions I can take a stab at answering.

by sho_hn 10y ago

rjbwork 10y ago
Is this "8 Goddesses" cult thing legit, or is yet another paranoid conspiracy theory meme? It's really hard to tell as someone who doesn't speak Korean. there's just little bits of info leaking out, mostly just talking about Choi Soon-Sil.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sho_hn 10y ago
  Dunno. The facts on the ground are that Choi's father became an ordained priest in '75 (reportedly he paid handsomely for his ordainment and didn't actually complete theological studies) and set up his own Christian-Shamanistic church. Commentors describe him as having been mostly interested in political gain and using his cult as a means to do so. It's unclear in what capacity his daughter has actually continued to do so. One of Korean's Shaman associations has publically distanced itself from both of them this week, effectively calling them self-appointed charlatans. Basically, cults do exist in Korea, and cults and political leadership have been involved with each other. Whether there's a grand conspiracy I can't say. I'm no fan of religion myself, but in fairness it's important to note that "Shaman" & co are sort of a trigger word for a Western audience, invoking images of the barbarians at the gates - that's our Christian cultural-historic bias at work (I'm originally from Germany). This conflict actually plays out in Korea as well, owing to a large percentage of Christians among the population (how that came to be is in itself a fascinating topic). But really it's just a tree of folk religions. The problem here is how easily it's invoked by cult schemes, I guess.
patrickg_zill 10y ago
What about 8 Goddess, Megalians , and the Megalian woman who had her boyfriend sexually assault girls she didn't like? Has that been proven to be true or is that part still in the rumor category?
- sho_hn 10y ago
  I'm not really on top of the whole Megalian thing (and not familiar with the case you mentioned). While it's true that the gender conflict in Korea is trending tenser in general (it was interesting to watch how the Gangnam Station murder results in lots of semi-related venting), I think Megalian is about as fringe as /r/redpill or something. It's not something average Koreans are aware of or that comes up during normal conversation.
scarmig 10y ago
1) How much do people actually believe the sinking of the Sewol was a human sacrifice of hundreds of children to honor a cult founder? 2) How likely is it that that's actually true?
- sho_hn 10y ago
  > How much do people actually believe the sinking of the Sewol was a human sacrifice of hundreds of children to honor a cult founder? I've encountered this belief in the wild. Let's put it this way, my impression is that a lot of Koreans feel there's something fishy about the Sewol case (one of my engineer friends was involved with data recovery from the cellphoens collected from victims, and has expressed similar sentiments). I doubt there's a strong belief in this specific scenario, but there's a lot of distrust that jibes with it - it's more a "can't rule it out at this point", perhaps? Overall there's probably more "casual Sewol truthers" than 9/11 truthers, for a comparison. > How likely is it that that's actually true? Haven't the faintest. My own mind tends to assume incompetence above all other causes for disaster, but maybe it's a line of inquiry someone should have a look at.

I live in Korea. No particular authority, but if anyone has additional questions I can take a stab at answering.

by sho_hn 10y ago

I live in Korea. No particular authority, but if anyone has additional questions I can take a stab at answering.

Is this "8 Goddesses" cult thing legit, or is yet another paranoid conspiracy theory meme? It's really hard to tell as someone who doesn't speak Korean. there's just little bits of info leaking out, mostly just talking about Choi Soon-Sil.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sho_hn 10y ago
Dunno. The facts on the ground are that Choi's father became an ordained priest in '75 (reportedly he paid handsomely for his ordainment and didn't actually complete theological studies) and set up his own Christian-Shamanistic church. Commentors describe him as having been mostly interested in political gain and using his cult as a means to do so. It's unclear in what capacity his daughter has actually continued to do so. One of Korean's Shaman associations has publically distanced itself from both of them this week, effectively calling them self-appointed charlatans. Basically, cults do exist in Korea, and cults and political leadership have been involved with each other. Whether there's a grand conspiracy I can't say. I'm no fan of religion myself, but in fairness it's important to note that "Shaman" & co are sort of a trigger word for a Western audience, invoking images of the barbarians at the gates - that's our Christian cultural-historic bias at work (I'm originally from Germany). This conflict actually plays out in Korea as well, owing to a large percentage of Christians among the population (how that came to be is in itself a fascinating topic). But really it's just a tree of folk religions. The problem here is how easily it's invoked by cult schemes, I guess.

patrickg_zill 10y ago

What about 8 Goddess, Megalians , and the Megalian woman who had her boyfriend sexually assault girls she didn't like? Has that been proven to be true or is that part still in the rumor category?

sho_hn 10y ago
I'm not really on top of the whole Megalian thing (and not familiar with the case you mentioned). While it's true that the gender conflict in Korea is trending tenser in general (it was interesting to watch how the Gangnam Station murder results in lots of semi-related venting), I think Megalian is about as fringe as /r/redpill or something. It's not something average Koreans are aware of or that comes up during normal conversation.

scarmig 10y ago

1) How much do people actually believe the sinking of the Sewol was a human sacrifice of hundreds of children to honor a cult founder? 2) How likely is it that that's actually true?

sho_hn 10y ago
> How much do people actually believe the sinking of the Sewol was a human sacrifice of hundreds of children to honor a cult founder? I've encountered this belief in the wild. Let's put it this way, my impression is that a lot of Koreans feel there's something fishy about the Sewol case (one of my engineer friends was involved with data recovery from the cellphoens collected from victims, and has expressed similar sentiments). I doubt there's a strong belief in this specific scenario, but there's a lot of distrust that jibes with it - it's more a "can't rule it out at this point", perhaps? Overall there's probably more "casual Sewol truthers" than 9/11 truthers, for a comparison. > How likely is it that that's actually true? Haven't the faintest. My own mind tends to assume incompetence above all other causes for disaster, but maybe it's a line of inquiry someone should have a look at.