Note: The following statement was read by Jiha Kim during a press conference announcing the reasons for his separation with Dahn World and its founder, Seung Heun Lee. It appeared shortly on the newdahn.com site. The below statement has been translated into English. The translation is unverified but we have no reason to doubt the content.

Press Statement by Jiha Kim

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon of October 8, 1999, in SooHeeJe located in Insadong in Seoul, I first spoke of my reasons for separation from Dahnhak and for requesting an official protection from the Koyang Police Department in light of the violence threatened by Dahnhak on me, Kyu Haeng Lee (senior advisor to JoongAng Daily), and Professor 000 (Spiritual Cultural Center). When I first joined Dahnhak, it is true that many close friends and advisors became worried. However, Dahnhak has over 1,200 young people who are so pure at heart as to seem stupid, engaging in energy training, mountain climbing, and mud bathing. When you speak to these young people of the tragic separation of our nation, you can see tears well up in their eyes. I thought that if I could teach them our national spirit so that it could merge with their innocence, they would be great leaders for our future. That’s the reason I joined Dahnhak.

In Dahnhak, I was engaged in the work of recovering Korea’s lost ancient history centered around Dangun (original king of Korea), I heard constant rumors of Dahnhak’s corruption. I also heard constant criticisms of Dahnhak by what amounted to 2nd or 3rd highest ranking members in Dahnhak hierarchy. However, Seung Heun Lee regarded all these attempts at reformation of Dahnhak as acts of treason. I told Seung Heun Lee that the rot at the core of Dahnhak must be fixed and that if he didn’t fix it, I would reveal it all to the public so that his public life would be humiliated and ended. He asked me to wait because he would take on an internal reformation. Therefore, I kept quite for one month. However, Seung Heun Lee, instead of moving forward with the reform effort, fired and/or imprisoned the people who opposed him, and hired a thug from CheonAn area (Seung Heun Lee’s hometown) for key positions, even going as far as designating three people to threaten and do bodily harm on the few well – known public persons who opposed Dahnhak. On October 8th, the team investigating this incidence received testimony from In Kwon Kim (reporter for JoongAng Daily) that members of Dahnhak told Soon Hyun Song (president of Spiritual Cultural Center) that I was the number 1 target for retribution.

Concluding from my own experience, in addition to those who quit Dahnhak, this group is, first and foremost, anti – patriotic, anti – social, and criminal organization. Second, although this group seeks to teach something to others, their spiritual level does not even reach “0”, and resemble a Stalinist regime revolving around the person of Seung Heun Lee. They also engage in a YoungKiTong (spiritual connection training) with a photograph of Seung Heun Lee, training the people to become nervous when they are away from his likeness and cannot her his voice, which is nothing more than a form of hypnosis. Such training should be condemned. Third, during the IMF currency crisis when the nation was practically bankrupt, Seung Heun Lee ordered his people to bring in $10,000 in cash each from Korea to Sedona, resulting in illegal transfer of dollars out of Korea. With the money, he bought lavish houses in New Jersey, Los Angeles, yacht, and other luxury goods to support his profligate lifestyle. He even recruited pretty young women and made them engage in massages and other “prostitution – like” activities with Americans; those who tried to escape from these forced activities were caught by a team dedicated to recapturing such runaway’s and detaining them illegally. Furthermore, Dahnhak kept their passports, forcing its people to act in ways not unlike the orphans in Oliver Twist. Fourth, Seung Heun Lee is the worst kind of sexual predator who, under the pretense of teaching sexual Tao mastery, has sexually violated over 200 (some say 500) of his female disciples. Although I cannot reveal the names involved, the head master at MyungDong center, who is married and a known beauty, slept on a steady basis with a high ranking manager of a newspaper in order to persuade the newspaper to do an interview with Seung Heun Lee. This is all done according to Seung Heun Lee’s orders. When I visited Sedona for training, Seung Heun Lee sent two women to massage and check upon my every move, demanding me to act as the Dahnhak spokesman and deny the criticisms against Dahnhak that Modern Religion recently published.

How can you expect any longer that such criminal enterprise will reform itself? What can we do now? Seung Heun Lee has grabbed hold of many key people in society through money and women. If the press doesn’t talk, then the government will sit idly by. The press must speak out loud. If domestic press is faint of heart, I will personally contact overseas press, although it will take more time. If we don’t want to be embarrassed by the international society and rescue the Korean spirit from the clutches of these people who would sell Dangun and Shinshi [important people and events in Korean history], we must investigate these people’s anti – people’s actions and punish them. If the government won’t do this, then I will, along with the countless conscientious people on the Internet, reveal the nature of Dahnhak’s and Seung Heun lee’s corruption and anti – social, anti – human, and anti – Korean people’s criminal acts, knowing that they will be punished by heaven, whether suddenly or gradually, for their misdeeds.

On this year 1999, by Jiha Kim