March 28, 2025 • 30 mins
When caught up in a cult, the line between what’s acceptable and what constitutes abnormal behaviour starts to blur. For one South Korean man in 2011, this lack of clarity appeared to lead to one of the most baffling acts of self-mutilation in recent history...
This episode was written by James Connor Pattinson and Richard MacLean Smith
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Please be aware this episode contains scenes of gore and mutilation.
Parental discretion is advised. For many, the idea of joining
(00:20):
a cult might seem almost as remote as the prospect
of going to space. Nonetheless, there is something undeniably magnetic
about the notion of cults. A testament to our fascination
with them can be seen in the popularity of cult
related documentaries and news stories, which we devour with the
(00:40):
same dark enthusiasm we have for serial killers and true crime.
Perhaps we feel drawn to them like the way some
people who, despite being afraid of heights, find themselves drawn
to the edge of cliffs, not because they fear they
will fall, but because they fear they might jump. In French,
(01:01):
they call it lapel d vide, the call of the void.
I would never join a cult, we might think, congratulating
ourselves on our own relative lack of gullibility. I would
never be caught under the spell of a megalomaniac like
Jim Jones or David Koresh, we casually reassure ourselves. But
(01:24):
what if submitting to cultish behavior was about more than
simply following a charismatic leader. What if all it took
for someone to be considered a member of a cult
was to unthinkingly submit themselves to prevailing orthodoxy, to something
we might otherwise take for granted as normal. In Shirley
(01:46):
Jackson's classic nineteen forty eight horo novella The Lottery, residents
from an unnamed fictional village in New England practice and
annual ritual. Despite all other aspects of their existence. Appearing
friendly and mundane, the ritual betrays a sinister adherence to
group think at the heart of society. I won't spoil
(02:09):
the story for anyone who hasn't read it, but needless
to say it is well worth the read. James Demonico's
twenty thirteen dystopian thriller The Purge deals with a similar concept,
as does Robert Hardy's nineteen seventy three folk horror masterpiece
The wicker Man. What makes the artistic representations of cult
(02:32):
like behavior such as these so terrifying isn't that we're
forced to imagine a world in which their scenarios are
alien or outlandish. On the contrary, each story heightens the
normalcy of everyday life to emphasize how plausible our collective
descent into violence actually is, how the maintenance of our
(02:54):
liberal way of life in the Western world might ultimately
require it, and how each of us is complicit in
turning a blind eye to its prevalence. In her twenty
twenty one book Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, American linguist
(03:17):
Amanda Montell describes the twenty first century utilization of cult
like language to inspire consumer devotion to everything from multi
level marketing schemes like Amwaycore, Avon, and Neutralite to fitness
societies like Soul Cycle, CrossFit, and Peloton. She suggests that
(03:39):
the prevalence of online communities has facilitated the spread of
fringe ideas and conspiracy theories like QAnon. What all these
groups seem to have in common is the promise of
individual betterment through adherence to an ideology, while frequently perpetrating
financial manipula on its members at the same time. Ultimately,
(04:05):
Montell's thesis is that we shouldn't be so quick to
judge when we hear stories about people's involvement with cults.
Many of us already adhere to cult like behavior without
even realizing it, and have the potential to be swindled
just as comprehensively as anyone else. More alarming is the
(04:26):
fact that once we've already drunk the cool aid, as
they say, Montell shows that escalation can lead seamlessly to
acts of self sabotage, the committing of crimes, and even murder.
Sometimes the cult has insinuated itself so completely into the
life of its subject that it isn't immediately clear whether
(04:49):
a crime has been committed at all. The line between
what's acceptable and what constitutes strange or abnormal behavior becomes
so blurred that the perarameters of reality itself seemed to
shift and upbraid. For one South Korean man in twenty eleven,
this lack of clarity appears to have led to one
(05:11):
of the most baffling acts of self mutilation in recent history.
You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. By
all accounts, Kim John Bong was a quiet, unassuming man,
(05:33):
someone who shied away from the trappings of the modern world.
He worked hard and cared for his family, but always
seemed to be yearning for something more, as though he
were waiting for something meaningful to save him from the
unrelenting grind of life. Something cosmic and world shaking something
(05:54):
that might write him into history, he hoped. Many Koreans
of the fifty eight year olds generation, Kim's upbringing was
marred by political strife and civil unrest. Kim himself was
born in nineteen fifty three, in the immediate aftermath of
the Korean War, when the division of the country into
(06:17):
North and South produced a psychosocial sense of displacement that
would take years to rectify. Against this backdrop, Kim's childhood
and early adulthood would have played out under the shadow
of military coups, presidential assassinations, popular uprisings, and government crackdowns.
(06:39):
His parentage and schooling would have struggled to cut through
against all the uncertainty of the future. With so much
of Korean society up for grabs, the young man's identity
was ripe for molding by the first source of promise
to offer him salvation, a clear sighted path out of sad.
(07:00):
The chaos following the division of the country in nineteen
fifty three, South Korea was a powder cake waiting to
ignite with the formation of the rigidly totalitarian state to
the north with its atheistic doctrine, and the more capitalists
right leaning state to the south, many conservative Christian movements
(07:23):
fired for influence and control among those who felt confused
by it all. Out of this turmoil, in nineteen fifty four,
the Unification Church was established. Its followers became known as
Mooney's after its founder Sun May Young Moon. Despite its
somewhat traditional Christian leanings, the church is often referred to
(07:47):
as being cult like in nature, with between one hundred
and fifty and three hundred thousand members in South Korea today,
the Moonies are known for their leader's radical claim to
be the embodiment of the Second Coming of Jesus, as
well as for their mass wedding ceremonies for him and
opposition to left leaning ideology, and significant influence over Korean
(08:12):
business and politics. Kim Junbong would have been a teenager
during the Mooney's aggressive global expansion in the mid nineteen seventies.
From what little we know about him, it seems that
it was during this period in his life that he
became an active member of the wider Christian community. As
(08:43):
Kim grew older, married, and settled down, he became involved
with a number of fringed religious sects. Kim's family became
deeply concerned about the people he was associating with. One
such example was sole based Master Jarrok Lee, founder of
Careers man Mint Central Church. In twenty eighteen, Lee was
(09:08):
convicted on multiple accounts of sexual assault and rape against
several members of his own congregation. Like the Moonies, the
man Min Central Church became notable for its founder's claim
that he was sinless and exempt from dying. As Kim's
devotion to this extremist sect deepened, so too did his
(09:30):
suspicions of any idea to the contrary. Working under the
apprehension that he was now part of a beleagued minority
subject to persecution and ridicule, Kim began fervently promoting the faith.
He started to leave home, sometimes for days or weeks
on end, supposedly to undertake missionary work, the details of
(09:55):
which were never made entirely clear to his family. Over time,
Kimjin Bond's wife and children started to notice that their
address in Mungjong had become a target for crank phone
calls and mysterious visitors. When word of their father's involvement
with the man Min's Central Church spread throughout the community,
(10:18):
Kim's children were ostracized by their peers at school, but
all this seemed only to harden Kim's devotion to his
church and justify his commitment to the cause. Worryingly, what
Kim's family were not aware of was that their father
was now regularly volunteering himself for some of the church's
(10:40):
most extreme missions. Members within the church were hardened to
have found in Kim a devotee who was so committed
to their cause that he started to neglect all other
facets of his life. He seemed uninterested in developing himself professionally.
He spent days away from home and stop looking. After
(11:01):
his appearance, his hair grew matted and his beard unkempt,
and in what his colleagues regarded as his utter abjection
and self humiliation, he reminded them of a modern day
Jesus Christ. And then in May twenty eleven, Kim Junpong disappeared.
(11:30):
It's a clear sunny day in early May twenty eleven.
Three men are hiking in the mountains near Mugong in
southern Korea. They're on the hunt for the perfect spot
to establish a b colony. As they step further and
further away from the city, the men revel in the
(11:50):
serenity of the landscape that morning. Something about the Saobak
Mountains seems to exude an extra note of tranquility. Perhaps
it's simply the lack of traffic noise, one of the
men observes. Or perhaps it's the fact that there seems
to be so little noise of any kind, neither insect
(12:12):
nor animal, which was odd given the vast array of
vegetation surrounding them. The men trudge on and soon arrive
at the edge of an abandoned granite quarry. One of
the men has brought a flask of coffee and suggests
they stop for a break before continuing on their journey.
(12:33):
They head down a steep pathway for a short while
until they spot the perfect outcrop of rocks to set
down their packs. One of the men talks excitedly about
the recent trip he took with his church group to Japan.
Then he suddenly notices that the other two aren't listening
to him. Both have stopped dead in their tracks. Aren't
(12:58):
you coming, he says, not stopping for coffee, The man's
companions say nothing. Transfixed by something in the middle distance,
he follows their gaze toward the outcrop, where he then
seeks what appears to be three large crucifixes that have
been erected on a rocky plinth. Drawing closer, he pushes
(13:21):
aside the branches of a laurel tree to get a
closer look. Given the remote location and mountainous to Reign,
he couldn't help thinking that the Bazaarre scene before him
reminded him of Christ's final resting place at Calvary. Remembering
that he has brought his small leather bound copy of
(13:43):
the King James Bible, he flips it to Matthew chapter
twenty seven, verse forty five. Then he reads it aloud,
and about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a
loud voice, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
Then one of the other men points toward the cross
(14:05):
in the middle. Only then did the first man appear
to notice the strange effigy that had been placed on it.
As the three men draw closer to the middle cross,
(14:28):
they hear the sound of buzzing. The place is teeming
with flies because it isn't an effigy that has been
placed on the cross, it's the body of a man
that appears to have been crucified. The smell hits them first,
the warm, putrid meat stench of death and day's old
(14:51):
human waste. One of the men recoils and vomits on
the ground. Another, all color drained from his cheeks, begins
to babble incoherently to himself. He points meekly toward one
of the figures hands. It's been bound with rope and
nailed through the wood. There's blood, he manages, almost in
(15:14):
a whisper. Up close, they can now see the dark
brown streak caked into the grain of the crucifix's crossbeam,
and the crown of thorns on the dead man's head
that dig into the flesh. At the top of his skull,
A thick black puddle of congealed blood as formed around
the cross's base. Strikingly, the man is dressed modestly as
(15:40):
Jesus had been, in a makeshift loincloth, with his hands
and feet bound tightly to the wood. One large casing
nail has been driven through both feet, and there was
a nail driven through the palm of both hands. As
he looks upon the terrible scene, the Christian among the
(16:00):
men can't help remembering how the chapter from Matthew finished
when it became clear to all who were present that
the life of their Lord Jesus had finally expired. He
recites it out loud, so when the centurion and those
with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and
(16:20):
the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, truly,
this was the son of God. When police arrive later,
more details come to light. The full bulk of the
dead man's weight is held in place by two crudely
fastened pieces of plywood, while the tools that were used
(16:43):
to construct the crucifix and crucify the man have been
left at the base of the pedestal. The man's car
is found in a layby leading up to the site.
The police trace it back to its owner, and from
there the dead man's identify is confirmed. It was, of course,
(17:04):
Kim Jun Bong. After an extensive investigation, the police concluded
incredibly that Kim Jen Bong had apparently acted alone, much
(17:26):
to the astonishment of his family and anyone else. Following
the story on the news, many voiced their concern that
it would have been simply impossible for Kim to carry
out the operation by himself. The logistics alone were enough
to confuse anyone. Questions began to be asked about how
(17:47):
someone could physically withstand the pain of such a procedure,
but also how had he been able to nail one
hand at the crossbeam before nailing the other without a
hand to hold. Then, in order to nail both feet
to the cross, Kim would have needed to hammer the
nail through the bones of both feet without passing out.
(18:11):
There was little to no evidence of painkillers in his system,
and the rapid advancement of blood loss from his wounds
would have meant that Kim would likely have needed to
complete the act while simultaneously losing consciousness. Either way, if
Kim had managed to crucify himself, it would have required
(18:32):
superhuman levels of strength and endurance. Then something new came
to light. Kim had been in communication with one of
his church's senior clerics in the days and weeks leading
up to his death. He outlined a desire to emulate
his Lord and savior, Jesus Christ by making the ultimate sacrifice.
(18:57):
He seemed to suggest also that a real life crucifixion
would send a message that would be hard for society
to ignore and that if that was what it would take,
he could be the man to do it. But the
question remains did he do it alone? Not only did
(19:24):
the senior cleric that Kim jn Bong had been in
contact with not to do anything to prevent him from
carrying out his ambition, something was about to emerge that
turns the entire case on its head, because, as it happens,
this senior cleric was one of the three men that
discovered the body, the one with all those Matthew quotes
(19:48):
readily to hand. Perhaps he had genuinely been stunned to
come across the body, or perhaps he had smiled radiantly
at the thought thought of his disciples ultimate sacrifice and
the tacit power of his own guiding hand that had
led him to that shocking end. We will likely never know. Surprisingly,
(20:14):
Kimjn Bond's gruesome act didn't remotely discourage his compatriots. In fact,
he came to be regarded as a martyr within his sect.
His example inspired others in the group to continue his
faith spreading mission and served for them as just further
evidence of their own persecution. His death was viewed as
(20:38):
a necessary, albeit extreme method of spreading Christ's teachings, and
the attention it drew to their cause likely served as
encouragement to inspire new recruits. Since Kim's death, there have
been a number of commemorations and memorials established by devotees
of his faith, including staffatues, plaques, and annual events. Like
(21:04):
other modern day Christian martyrs Ireland's Matt Talbot in nineteen
twenty five Matthew Iaiga in twenty fifteen, his asceticism serves
as a stark counterpoint to the frivolities of modern life,
offering an alternative vision of what it means to give
oneself wholly to a faith, regardless of what society at
(21:27):
large dictates. The opportunity to somehow escape or better yet,
transcend modern life are essential to the appeal of the cult.
The rejection of modernity in favor of so called traditional
(21:48):
values like self sacrifice and humility are often used to
justify the cult's existence. This, in turn, must be safeguarded
from outside corrupt, meaning members are encouraged to gradually shut
themselves off from anything that threatens these ideals, from family
(22:09):
and friends to the concept of their social standing and
even their entire sense of self. The growth of mass
media appears to play a significant role in modern day cults,
first the newspaper, then radio and television, and now the Internet.
It is perhaps no accident that with the further atomisation
(22:33):
of the so called civilized world, many people have started
to seek more radical alternatives to the pressures of information
overloadd and personal attainment. And with atomisation comes alienation. Though
you may well have found your tribe, for many, modern
life is an unceasing grind, in which we are continually
(22:56):
surrounded by people, be they are colleagues, fellow mutas, or
the hundreds of people that might read your socials on
any given day. And yet how many of these people
do we actually have a meaningful connection to. It is
little wonder that movements like Heaven's Gate, the People's Temple,
(23:17):
Agricultural Project better known as Jonestown, or even the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant or Isilfa short have
proliferated the way they have. Why they often fall apart, however,
is because more often than not, they center around one
singular figure, as earth bound and human as anyone else,
(23:40):
and often not quite as without ego as they might
like you to believe. One example of this would be
Charles Manson, of course, whose so called family committed murder
during the late nineteen sixties, but the Asia Pacific region
is not without its parallels. The twentieth of March nineteen
(24:02):
ninety five, a group known as I Am Shinyiko or
ALEF for short, committed the worst act of Japanese domestic
terrorism in the country's history when they killed fourteen people
and injured over one thousand others on the Tokyo Subway.
The incident became known as the Saren gas attack after
(24:23):
members from the group dropped two newspaper packages laced with
the deadly nerve agent on the busy Chioda line of
the city's underground. Their hope was that it would start
a war, from which they believed armageddon would come, and
with that a cleansing of the entire world to start
anew als. Leaders were caught and eventually brought to justice,
(24:49):
but much like Kim Jin Bong, their example inspired as
much as it horrified. Numerous copycat incidents have been foiled
by police in the years since, and the group's core
message continues to spread in the darker corners of the Internet.
It's tempting to dismiss Aleph's acolytes as deluded drones, or
(25:14):
the members of Heaven's Gate as gullible fools for truly
believing as they did that an alien spaceship hiding behind
the hail Bob Comet would take their souls to a
better place as long as they ended their own lives first.
We might look upon these and other examples of cults
(25:36):
as warnings about the danger of Messiah figures who seemed
to offer easy solutions to all the travails and complexities
of the modern world. But perhaps more than anything, what
the success of these cults demonstrate is simply the power
of a good story. So if we don't like the
(25:58):
stories that others telling, and we're tired of watching people
for for them, perhaps the only real solution is to
come up with a better one. This episode was written
by James Connor Patterson and Richard McLain Smith. James as
(26:21):
a brilliant writer and poet. His debut collection of poems
titled Bandit Country, Exploring the hinterland between the North of
Ireland and Republic, was shortlisted for the twenty twenty two T. S.
Eliot Prize and is out now to buy. Do check
it out. Thank you as ever for listening to the show.
Please subscribe and rate it if you haven't already done so.
(26:43):
You can also now find us on TikTok at TikTok
dot com. Forward Slash at Unexplained Podcast. Unexplained as an
Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All
other elements of the podcast, including the music, were also
produced by me Richard McLean Smith. Unexplained. The book and
audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase
(27:07):
from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please
subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts,
and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
to share. You can find out more at Unexplained podcast
(27:29):
dot com and reach us online through Twitter at Unexplained
Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained
Podcast
Please be aware this episode contains scenes of gore and mutilation.
Parental discretion is advised. For many, the idea of joining
(00:20):
a cult might seem almost as remote as the prospect
of going to space. Nonetheless, there is something undeniably magnetic
about the notion of cults. A testament to our fascination
with them can be seen in the popularity of cult
related documentaries and news stories, which we devour with the
(00:40):
same dark enthusiasm we have for serial killers and true crime.
Perhaps we feel drawn to them like the way some
people who, despite being afraid of heights, find themselves drawn
to the edge of cliffs, not because they fear they
will fall, but because they fear they might jump. In French,
(01:01):
they call it lapel d vide, the call of the void.
I would never join a cult, we might think, congratulating
ourselves on our own relative lack of gullibility. I would
never be caught under the spell of a megalomaniac like
Jim Jones or David Koresh, we casually reassure ourselves. But
(01:24):
what if submitting to cultish behavior was about more than
simply following a charismatic leader. What if all it took
for someone to be considered a member of a cult
was to unthinkingly submit themselves to prevailing orthodoxy, to something
we might otherwise take for granted as normal. In Shirley
(01:46):
Jackson's classic nineteen forty eight horo novella The Lottery, residents
from an unnamed fictional village in New England practice and
annual ritual. Despite all other aspects of their existence. Appearing
friendly and mundane, the ritual betrays a sinister adherence to
group think at the heart of society. I won't spoil
(02:09):
the story for anyone who hasn't read it, but needless
to say it is well worth the read. James Demonico's
twenty thirteen dystopian thriller The Purge deals with a similar concept,
as does Robert Hardy's nineteen seventy three folk horror masterpiece
The wicker Man. What makes the artistic representations of cult
(02:32):
like behavior such as these so terrifying isn't that we're
forced to imagine a world in which their scenarios are
alien or outlandish. On the contrary, each story heightens the
normalcy of everyday life to emphasize how plausible our collective
descent into violence actually is, how the maintenance of our
(02:54):
liberal way of life in the Western world might ultimately
require it, and how each of us is complicit in
turning a blind eye to its prevalence. In her twenty
twenty one book Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, American linguist
(03:17):
Amanda Montell describes the twenty first century utilization of cult
like language to inspire consumer devotion to everything from multi
level marketing schemes like Amwaycore, Avon, and Neutralite to fitness
societies like Soul Cycle, CrossFit, and Peloton. She suggests that
(03:39):
the prevalence of online communities has facilitated the spread of
fringe ideas and conspiracy theories like QAnon. What all these
groups seem to have in common is the promise of
individual betterment through adherence to an ideology, while frequently perpetrating
financial manipula on its members at the same time. Ultimately,
(04:05):
Montell's thesis is that we shouldn't be so quick to
judge when we hear stories about people's involvement with cults.
Many of us already adhere to cult like behavior without
even realizing it, and have the potential to be swindled
just as comprehensively as anyone else. More alarming is the
(04:26):
fact that once we've already drunk the cool aid, as
they say, Montell shows that escalation can lead seamlessly to
acts of self sabotage, the committing of crimes, and even murder.
Sometimes the cult has insinuated itself so completely into the
life of its subject that it isn't immediately clear whether
(04:49):
a crime has been committed at all. The line between
what's acceptable and what constitutes strange or abnormal behavior becomes
so blurred that the perarameters of reality itself seemed to
shift and upbraid. For one South Korean man in twenty eleven,
this lack of clarity appears to have led to one
(05:11):
of the most baffling acts of self mutilation in recent history.
You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. By
all accounts, Kim John Bong was a quiet, unassuming man,
(05:33):
someone who shied away from the trappings of the modern world.
He worked hard and cared for his family, but always
seemed to be yearning for something more, as though he
were waiting for something meaningful to save him from the
unrelenting grind of life. Something cosmic and world shaking something
(05:54):
that might write him into history, he hoped. Many Koreans
of the fifty eight year olds generation, Kim's upbringing was
marred by political strife and civil unrest. Kim himself was
born in nineteen fifty three, in the immediate aftermath of
the Korean War, when the division of the country into
(06:17):
North and South produced a psychosocial sense of displacement that
would take years to rectify. Against this backdrop, Kim's childhood
and early adulthood would have played out under the shadow
of military coups, presidential assassinations, popular uprisings, and government crackdowns.
(06:39):
His parentage and schooling would have struggled to cut through
against all the uncertainty of the future. With so much
of Korean society up for grabs, the young man's identity
was ripe for molding by the first source of promise
to offer him salvation, a clear sighted path out of sad.
(07:00):
The chaos following the division of the country in nineteen
fifty three, South Korea was a powder cake waiting to
ignite with the formation of the rigidly totalitarian state to
the north with its atheistic doctrine, and the more capitalists
right leaning state to the south, many conservative Christian movements
(07:23):
fired for influence and control among those who felt confused
by it all. Out of this turmoil, in nineteen fifty four,
the Unification Church was established. Its followers became known as
Mooney's after its founder Sun May Young Moon. Despite its
somewhat traditional Christian leanings, the church is often referred to
(07:47):
as being cult like in nature, with between one hundred
and fifty and three hundred thousand members in South Korea today,
the Moonies are known for their leader's radical claim to
be the embodiment of the Second Coming of Jesus, as
well as for their mass wedding ceremonies for him and
opposition to left leaning ideology, and significant influence over Korean
(08:12):
business and politics. Kim Junbong would have been a teenager
during the Mooney's aggressive global expansion in the mid nineteen seventies.
From what little we know about him, it seems that
it was during this period in his life that he
became an active member of the wider Christian community. As
(08:43):
Kim grew older, married, and settled down, he became involved
with a number of fringed religious sects. Kim's family became
deeply concerned about the people he was associating with. One
such example was sole based Master Jarrok Lee, founder of
Careers man Mint Central Church. In twenty eighteen, Lee was
(09:08):
convicted on multiple accounts of sexual assault and rape against
several members of his own congregation. Like the Moonies, the
man Min Central Church became notable for its founder's claim
that he was sinless and exempt from dying. As Kim's
devotion to this extremist sect deepened, so too did his
(09:30):
suspicions of any idea to the contrary. Working under the
apprehension that he was now part of a beleagued minority
subject to persecution and ridicule, Kim began fervently promoting the faith.
He started to leave home, sometimes for days or weeks
on end, supposedly to undertake missionary work, the details of
(09:55):
which were never made entirely clear to his family. Over time,
Kimjin Bond's wife and children started to notice that their
address in Mungjong had become a target for crank phone
calls and mysterious visitors. When word of their father's involvement
with the man Min's Central Church spread throughout the community,
(10:18):
Kim's children were ostracized by their peers at school, but
all this seemed only to harden Kim's devotion to his
church and justify his commitment to the cause. Worryingly, what
Kim's family were not aware of was that their father
was now regularly volunteering himself for some of the church's
(10:40):
most extreme missions. Members within the church were hardened to
have found in Kim a devotee who was so committed
to their cause that he started to neglect all other
facets of his life. He seemed uninterested in developing himself professionally.
He spent days away from home and stop looking. After
(11:01):
his appearance, his hair grew matted and his beard unkempt,
and in what his colleagues regarded as his utter abjection
and self humiliation, he reminded them of a modern day
Jesus Christ. And then in May twenty eleven, Kim Junpong disappeared.
(11:30):
It's a clear sunny day in early May twenty eleven.
Three men are hiking in the mountains near Mugong in
southern Korea. They're on the hunt for the perfect spot
to establish a b colony. As they step further and
further away from the city, the men revel in the
(11:50):
serenity of the landscape that morning. Something about the Saobak
Mountains seems to exude an extra note of tranquility. Perhaps
it's simply the lack of traffic noise, one of the
men observes. Or perhaps it's the fact that there seems
to be so little noise of any kind, neither insect
(12:12):
nor animal, which was odd given the vast array of
vegetation surrounding them. The men trudge on and soon arrive
at the edge of an abandoned granite quarry. One of
the men has brought a flask of coffee and suggests
they stop for a break before continuing on their journey.
(12:33):
They head down a steep pathway for a short while
until they spot the perfect outcrop of rocks to set
down their packs. One of the men talks excitedly about
the recent trip he took with his church group to Japan.
Then he suddenly notices that the other two aren't listening
to him. Both have stopped dead in their tracks. Aren't
(12:58):
you coming, he says, not stopping for coffee, The man's
companions say nothing. Transfixed by something in the middle distance,
he follows their gaze toward the outcrop, where he then
seeks what appears to be three large crucifixes that have
been erected on a rocky plinth. Drawing closer, he pushes
(13:21):
aside the branches of a laurel tree to get a
closer look. Given the remote location and mountainous to Reign,
he couldn't help thinking that the Bazaarre scene before him
reminded him of Christ's final resting place at Calvary. Remembering
that he has brought his small leather bound copy of
(13:43):
the King James Bible, he flips it to Matthew chapter
twenty seven, verse forty five. Then he reads it aloud,
and about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a
loud voice, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
Then one of the other men points toward the cross
(14:05):
in the middle. Only then did the first man appear
to notice the strange effigy that had been placed on it.
As the three men draw closer to the middle cross,
(14:28):
they hear the sound of buzzing. The place is teeming
with flies because it isn't an effigy that has been
placed on the cross, it's the body of a man
that appears to have been crucified. The smell hits them first,
the warm, putrid meat stench of death and day's old
(14:51):
human waste. One of the men recoils and vomits on
the ground. Another, all color drained from his cheeks, begins
to babble incoherently to himself. He points meekly toward one
of the figures hands. It's been bound with rope and
nailed through the wood. There's blood, he manages, almost in
(15:14):
a whisper. Up close, they can now see the dark
brown streak caked into the grain of the crucifix's crossbeam,
and the crown of thorns on the dead man's head
that dig into the flesh. At the top of his skull,
A thick black puddle of congealed blood as formed around
the cross's base. Strikingly, the man is dressed modestly as
(15:40):
Jesus had been, in a makeshift loincloth, with his hands
and feet bound tightly to the wood. One large casing
nail has been driven through both feet, and there was
a nail driven through the palm of both hands. As
he looks upon the terrible scene, the Christian among the
(16:00):
men can't help remembering how the chapter from Matthew finished
when it became clear to all who were present that
the life of their Lord Jesus had finally expired. He
recites it out loud, so when the centurion and those
with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and
(16:20):
the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, truly,
this was the son of God. When police arrive later,
more details come to light. The full bulk of the
dead man's weight is held in place by two crudely
fastened pieces of plywood, while the tools that were used
(16:43):
to construct the crucifix and crucify the man have been
left at the base of the pedestal. The man's car
is found in a layby leading up to the site.
The police trace it back to its owner, and from
there the dead man's identify is confirmed. It was, of course,
(17:04):
Kim Jun Bong. After an extensive investigation, the police concluded
incredibly that Kim Jen Bong had apparently acted alone, much
(17:26):
to the astonishment of his family and anyone else. Following
the story on the news, many voiced their concern that
it would have been simply impossible for Kim to carry
out the operation by himself. The logistics alone were enough
to confuse anyone. Questions began to be asked about how
(17:47):
someone could physically withstand the pain of such a procedure,
but also how had he been able to nail one
hand at the crossbeam before nailing the other without a
hand to hold. Then, in order to nail both feet
to the cross, Kim would have needed to hammer the
nail through the bones of both feet without passing out.
(18:11):
There was little to no evidence of painkillers in his system,
and the rapid advancement of blood loss from his wounds
would have meant that Kim would likely have needed to
complete the act while simultaneously losing consciousness. Either way, if
Kim had managed to crucify himself, it would have required
(18:32):
superhuman levels of strength and endurance. Then something new came
to light. Kim had been in communication with one of
his church's senior clerics in the days and weeks leading
up to his death. He outlined a desire to emulate
his Lord and savior, Jesus Christ by making the ultimate sacrifice.
(18:57):
He seemed to suggest also that a real life crucifixion
would send a message that would be hard for society
to ignore and that if that was what it would take,
he could be the man to do it. But the
question remains did he do it alone? Not only did
(19:24):
the senior cleric that Kim jn Bong had been in
contact with not to do anything to prevent him from
carrying out his ambition, something was about to emerge that
turns the entire case on its head, because, as it happens,
this senior cleric was one of the three men that
discovered the body, the one with all those Matthew quotes
(19:48):
readily to hand. Perhaps he had genuinely been stunned to
come across the body, or perhaps he had smiled radiantly
at the thought thought of his disciples ultimate sacrifice and
the tacit power of his own guiding hand that had
led him to that shocking end. We will likely never know. Surprisingly,
(20:14):
Kimjn Bond's gruesome act didn't remotely discourage his compatriots. In fact,
he came to be regarded as a martyr within his sect.
His example inspired others in the group to continue his
faith spreading mission and served for them as just further
evidence of their own persecution. His death was viewed as
(20:38):
a necessary, albeit extreme method of spreading Christ's teachings, and
the attention it drew to their cause likely served as
encouragement to inspire new recruits. Since Kim's death, there have
been a number of commemorations and memorials established by devotees
of his faith, including staffatues, plaques, and annual events. Like
(21:04):
other modern day Christian martyrs Ireland's Matt Talbot in nineteen
twenty five Matthew Iaiga in twenty fifteen, his asceticism serves
as a stark counterpoint to the frivolities of modern life,
offering an alternative vision of what it means to give
oneself wholly to a faith, regardless of what society at
(21:27):
large dictates. The opportunity to somehow escape or better yet,
transcend modern life are essential to the appeal of the cult.
The rejection of modernity in favor of so called traditional
(21:48):
values like self sacrifice and humility are often used to
justify the cult's existence. This, in turn, must be safeguarded
from outside corrupt, meaning members are encouraged to gradually shut
themselves off from anything that threatens these ideals, from family
(22:09):
and friends to the concept of their social standing and
even their entire sense of self. The growth of mass
media appears to play a significant role in modern day cults,
first the newspaper, then radio and television, and now the Internet.
It is perhaps no accident that with the further atomisation
(22:33):
of the so called civilized world, many people have started
to seek more radical alternatives to the pressures of information
overloadd and personal attainment. And with atomisation comes alienation. Though
you may well have found your tribe, for many, modern
life is an unceasing grind, in which we are continually
(22:56):
surrounded by people, be they are colleagues, fellow mutas, or
the hundreds of people that might read your socials on
any given day. And yet how many of these people
do we actually have a meaningful connection to. It is
little wonder that movements like Heaven's Gate, the People's Temple,
(23:17):
Agricultural Project better known as Jonestown, or even the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant or Isilfa short have
proliferated the way they have. Why they often fall apart, however,
is because more often than not, they center around one
singular figure, as earth bound and human as anyone else,
(23:40):
and often not quite as without ego as they might
like you to believe. One example of this would be
Charles Manson, of course, whose so called family committed murder
during the late nineteen sixties, but the Asia Pacific region
is not without its parallels. The twentieth of March nineteen
(24:02):
ninety five, a group known as I Am Shinyiko or
ALEF for short, committed the worst act of Japanese domestic
terrorism in the country's history when they killed fourteen people
and injured over one thousand others on the Tokyo Subway.
The incident became known as the Saren gas attack after
(24:23):
members from the group dropped two newspaper packages laced with
the deadly nerve agent on the busy Chioda line of
the city's underground. Their hope was that it would start
a war, from which they believed armageddon would come, and
with that a cleansing of the entire world to start
anew als. Leaders were caught and eventually brought to justice,
(24:49):
but much like Kim Jin Bong, their example inspired as
much as it horrified. Numerous copycat incidents have been foiled
by police in the years since, and the group's core
message continues to spread in the darker corners of the Internet.
It's tempting to dismiss Aleph's acolytes as deluded drones, or
(25:14):
the members of Heaven's Gate as gullible fools for truly
believing as they did that an alien spaceship hiding behind
the hail Bob Comet would take their souls to a
better place as long as they ended their own lives first.
We might look upon these and other examples of cults
(25:36):
as warnings about the danger of Messiah figures who seemed
to offer easy solutions to all the travails and complexities
of the modern world. But perhaps more than anything, what
the success of these cults demonstrate is simply the power
of a good story. So if we don't like the
(25:58):
stories that others telling, and we're tired of watching people
for for them, perhaps the only real solution is to
come up with a better one. This episode was written
by James Connor Patterson and Richard McLain Smith. James as
(26:21):
a brilliant writer and poet. His debut collection of poems
titled Bandit Country, Exploring the hinterland between the North of
Ireland and Republic, was shortlisted for the twenty twenty two T. S.
Eliot Prize and is out now to buy. Do check
it out. Thank you as ever for listening to the show.
Please subscribe and rate it if you haven't already done so.
(26:43):
You can also now find us on TikTok at TikTok
dot com. Forward Slash at Unexplained Podcast. Unexplained as an
Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All
other elements of the podcast, including the music, were also
produced by me Richard McLean Smith. Unexplained. The book and
audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase
(27:07):
from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please
subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts,
and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
to share. You can find out more at Unexplained podcast
(27:29):
dot com and reach us online through Twitter at Unexplained
Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained
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