Followers of Huh Kyung Young, a controversial figure who claims he can levitate, cure illness with a glance, and boasts an IQ of 430, have started operating in Los Angeles. Huh, the honorary leader of the National Revolutionary Party of Korea, was recently accused of molesting a female believer in South Korea and has been sentenced to prison for violating the Public Official Election Act. This group of followers is particularly notorious for targeting uninformed seniors.
A sign reading “HUH KYUNG YOUNG DIVINE NATURE CENTER No. 1″ was posted on the second floor of a commercial building near Olympic Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles Koreatown. On June 10, the facility was gated and closed, but chairs and tables were already set up inside.
“People have been setting up the place since the beginning of this year before the sign was put up,” said an employee of a tenant in the plaza. “When I asked them what this center is for, they said, ‘It’s a place for the elderly.’ Probably because there are some issues with Huh Kyung Young these days,” he said.
The Huh Kyung Young Divine Nature Center is led by a group of Korean Americans who follow Huh as a deity. According to its parent organization, Haneul Goong’s (translated as “Heaven Palace”) Globalization Committee, the LA Huh Kyung Young Center is the first overseas branch of its Heaven Palace, a religious facility Huh runs in South Korea.
It was when Huh visited the U.S. five times between 2018 and 2019 to give lectures in Los Angeles and New York that some of his supporters set out to establish the Divine Nature Center. In February 2021, they held the opening ceremony for the first branch of the Heaven Palace at a Korean oriental medicine clinic in Southern California. This one on Olympic Boulevard is an expansion of it.
On June 10, Sangsoon Park, secretary-general of the Heaven Palace Globalization Committee, told the Korea Daily, “There are people from overseas who want to know about Heaven Palace, especially seniors who are not familiar with the Internet. The Divine Nature Center is a place where people get informed about the news of the Heaven Palace and where they can study and watch Mr. Huh Kyung Young’s YouTube lectures together.”
However, the controversy surrounding the Heaven Palace in South Korea is still ongoing. On June 4, a South Korean broadcasting company, MBC’s “PD’s Handbook,” aired a program titled “Huh Kyung Young’s Kingdom-Marketing Secrets of the Heaven Palace,” exposing the allegations and controversies.
MBC reported that Huh founded a corporation for the “hyper-religion” Heaven Palace in 2019 and that the Heaven Palace has grown to own roughly 3,500,000 square feet of land, starting from just a single Hanok (Korean traditional style house). Huh reportedly receives between 1 million won (about $725) and 100 million won (about $72,500) for “spiritual blessings” from him.
Last November, 80 former supporters of Huh accused him of violating the political funding law and the Food Sanitation Act. The alleged food hygiene violations stemmed from the sale of so-called “Bulo (eternal life) milk,” regular milk with a sticker of Huh’s face and name on it. The Heaven Palace sells the stickers to its followers, claiming that the milk is incorruptible and that drinking it will cure all ailments.
In March, the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency said that 22 men and women who visited the Heaven Palace filed a complaint against Huh in February, accusing him of indecent assault in a public place. The men and women alleged that Huh charged them 100,000 won (about $73) each for performing religious rituals and that he asked them to sit on his lap or hold him under the pretext of counseling. Police raided the Heaven Palace in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, in April.
On April 25, the Supreme Court of Korea sentenced Huh to two years in prison and three years of probation for violating election laws. He was accused of spreading falsehoods by saying, “I was the adopted son of the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Byung Chull and a non-elected policy aide to former Korean President Park Chung Hee,” in a televised speech while running for the 20th presidential election in 2022.
“The Heaven Palace has no worship activities and is not a religious organization, and it (charges) is because people who said they liked the Heaven Palace changed their minds. The political power is also suppressing Mr. Huh,” said Park, secretary-general of the Heaven Palace Globalization Committee.
The LA Heaven Palace Divine Nature Center’s website now reads, “The Heaven Palace community is a haven where heavenly beauty and our earthly reality are harmoniously blended. We invite you to join us on a journey of spiritual enlightenment and healing.”
The Korea Daily tried to reach officials at the LA facility by phone but was unable to talk to them.
“It is clear that Huh Kyung Young, which is a symptom of ‘direct vision’ that one is God or God-like, is wrong,” said Rev. Sunhee Han, president of the Christian Research Association Against Heresy in America.
“It’s important not to be tempted by the appearance of untruth when deifying and worshipping an individual. When someone is going through a lot or is unsure of one’s own beliefs and philosophy, it is tempting to rely on something that seems absolute. People must be careful because once we are really into a heresy or cult, it is difficult to get out.”
BY HYOUNGJAE KIM, HOONSIK WOO [kim.ian@koreadaily.com]
