Black Heung Jin Nim

Black Heung Jin Nim is the name given by members of the Unification Church to refer to a Zimbabwean member named Cleophas during the period of time that he was approved by Sun Myung Moon as a continuous mediumistic channel for Heung Jin Moon, the second son of Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Hakja Han Moon, after his death at age 17 in 1982. "Nim" is an honorific suffix in Korean.

Background

Rev. Moon taught that Heung Jin Moon's death had great significance, and that he had become the leader of heaven.

Longtime president of the Korean Unification Church Young Whi Kim wrote: "They all refer to Heung Jin Nim as the new Christ. They also call him the Youth-King of Heaven. He is the King of Heaven in the spirit world. Jesus is working with him and always accompanies him. Jesus himself says that Heung Jin Nim is the new Christ. He is the center of the spirit world now. This means he is in a higher position than Jesus."

Members reportedly started receiving messages from Heung Jin Moon, "channeling" his spirit by speaking his words to those on earth. According to one report: "Often it was unlikely people who ['channelled' him], even people who were not that spiritual. There was a sister in Britain called Faith Jones who gave guidance from him. A Dutch brother called Gerrit van Dorsten, who had been on the New York City Tribune also did." Andrea Higashibaba, then state leader of the Unification Church of Tennessee, wrote a lengthy article in Today's World magazine detailing her encounters (in spirit) with Heung Jin Moon, leading up to a "liberation ceremony" for deceased civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Soon many members around the world were "channeling Heung Jin Nim."

Zimbabwean as "continuous channel"

Nansook Hong, ex-wife of Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han's first son Hyo Jin Moon wrote a tell-all book, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family, in 1998 in which she summarizes the Black Heung Jin Nim episode:

In 1987 the Reverend Chung Hwan Kwak went to investigate reports that Heung Jin had taken over the body of a Zimbabwean man and was speaking through him. The Reverend Kwak returned to East Garden professing certainty that the possession [sic] was real. The African presented himself to the Reverend Kwak as the physical embodiment of Heung Jin's spirit. The Reverend Kwak had asked him what it was like to enter the spirit world. The Black Heung Jin said that upon entering the Kingdom of Heaven, he immediately became all knowing. Without even meeting the man who claimed to be possessed by the spirit of his dead child, Sun Myung Moon authorized the Black Heung Jin to travel the world, preaching and hearing the confessions of Unification Church members who had gone astray.

He went to Europe, to Korea, to Japan, everywhere administering beatings to those who had violated church teachings by using alcohol and drugs or engaging in premarital or extramarital sex. Reverend Moon was using the Black Heung Jin for his own ends, just as he had used the American civil liberties community before him. No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings. The Black Heung Jin was a passing phenomenon in the Unification Church. Soon the mistresses he acquired were so numerous and the beatings he administered so severe that members began to complain. He beat Bo Hi Pak - a man in his sixties - so badly that he was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown Hospital.

Washington Post staff writer Michael Isikoff reported that "Later, Pak underwent surgery in South Korea to repair a blood vessel in his skull, according to Times executives."

Damian Anderson reports seeing him "knock people's heads together, hit them viciously with a baseball bat, smack them around the head, punch them, and handcuff them with golden handcuffs" and describes the "brute force applied to stop people leaving the event, or the building, and imprisoning protesters by force and with handcuffs in isolation." Anderson was particularly upset that top church officials and their assistants prevented people by force from leaving.

Dan Fefferman recounts:

This violence was defended by some Church leaders as equivalent to acts of penance and contrition in the Catholic Church. This rationalization may have had merit, if all we were talking of were a light slap on the face and the imposition of conditions of fasting and prayer - and in most cases, that's all it was. But in many cases - not just isolated incidents, but nearly everywhere this African Heung Jin preached - acts of serious violence, force, and intimidation were carried out.

For example, members were actually informed that they could lose their 'Blessing' (sacred marriage) if they did not attend one of the African Heung Jin's conferences. Once inside, they were strongly discouraged from leaving. In Washington, D.C. the church's doors were actually locked to prevent people from departing. Members, both men and women, were handcuffed to radiators. Many were beaten strongly, not just slapped. In Barrytown, one member's nose was broken; another was sent to the hospital with broken ribs. In New York, an elder member was handcuffed and beaten with a club so severely that he spent a week in the hospital with head and body injuries, and later required surgery. In Korea and Japan, several more members were sent to the hospital. 'Heung Jin' also walked around armed with a pistol.

I realize that the use of violence by the African Heung Jin has been condoned even lately by Church leaders. (Rev. Moon's living son Hyun Jin, for example, stated that: "When Heung Jin Nim came in the black brother's body, you thought 'that can't be Heung Jin Nim.' And some of you were upset about him beating you... If I got hit by Heung Jin Nim, I would say 'great.' Physical pain will go away. But the failures you have in life could stay with you for eternity.") "Tough Love," it is said, sometimes requires strong discipline. The fact remains, however, that if the principle of institutionalized violence - even in the name of True Love - is left unchallenged, we are leaving a very dangerous precedent for future generations.

Hong continues:

Sun Myung Moon simply announced that Heung Jin's spirit had left the Zimbabwean's body and ascended into Heaven. The Zimbabwean was not quite so ready to get off the gravy train. At last sighting, he had established a breakaway cult in Africa with himself in the role of Messiah.

The cult Cleophas started caused tremendous difficulty for church members throughout Southern Africa. Church property was sold without HQ permission and proceeds abused by breakaway church leaders. Marriages were broken up, adultery committed in the name of Heung Jin Nim, but after Rev. Moon had decertified Cleophas as a channel.

Controversy

Several views of the phenomenon have emerged. Supporters of Cleophas maintain that his channeling was legitimate, at least at first, pointing to the endorsement by Rev. Moon. Some critics do not believe there ever was genuine channeling, and fault Rev. Moon for knowingly letting the violence continue over an extended period. Hong writes:

Sun Myung Moon seemed to take pleasure in the reports that filtered back to East Garden of the beatings being administered by the Black Heung Jin. He would laugh raucously if someone out of favor had been dealt an especially hard blow. No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings. Leaders around the world tried to use their influence to be exempted from the Black Heung Jin's confessional. My own father appealed in vain to the Reverend Kwak to avoid having to attend such a session.

Some church members held (mostly after the fact) that the continued legitimacy of the channeling by Cleophas should be questioned because Cleophas's church leader, or "central figure," Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak supported the channeling, but reportedly ordered Cleophas to sleep regularly and eat heavy meals, in order to prevent its leading to possession, and that there was no evidence that he complied with this order.

Rev. Moon received regular reports about Cleophas's world tour, and as such the beatings tacitly authorized by him, but supporters claim he did not know of the extreme severity of some of the beatings, and, for example, looked shocked at the appearance of Bo Hi Pak. Some church leaders and church security staff helped enforce the locking of doors and the violent coercion of members at some sessions.

Doubts about the incarnation include the fac that Cleophas could not speak Korean, recognize people Heung Jin Moon knew on earth, or remember details of Heung Jin Moon's life. Explanations were provided, which at the time were apparently sufficient for most members, but others were skeptical.

Church teaching explicitly rejects the doctrine of Reincarnation. A person who dies can conduct returning resurrection by cooperating with an earthly person, but "possessing" them has no value for spiritual growth, except to "punish" evil spirits by rejecting them.