Herding the Moo: Exploits of a Martial Arts Cult
by Joe Smith
Trafford Publishing (Victoria, BC, Canada). November, 2006. ISBN: 1412085144
(paperback), $22.50. 308 pages.
Whenever I spoke about cults for more than twenty years
throughout the United States and in Canada and Poland, someone in the audience
would ask, “What is a cult?” Foreseeing this question, early on in my
presentations I defined the term. Cults don’t have to be religious or
philosophical in nature, I always pointed out. The definition has nothing to do
with ideas and everything to do with methods of high control over members, the
manipulation and deception and frequent resulting abuse. This scenario can
happen in any group or small collection of people, regardless of the ideas that
draw them together.
My point is again proven in an interesting book, Herding
the Moo: Exploits of a Martial Arts Cult. Although the martial arts are
considered by most people to be harmless and physically beneficial, the author,
an ex-member, describes the careful process by which “students” were
systematically hooked into and kept in a martial arts group and how all of the
elements of mind manipulation were present in the group’s method of operation.
Promising a better life and self, and access to powerful
mind and body secrets from “Master Kim,” touted as “Champion of All Asia,” the
men (mostly men, few women, because they are not capable of this kind of
achievement, according to the doctrine) donated all past, present, and future
income to the expensive classes—all of the money, of course, going to support
the “Master’s” luxurious life style. They donated their time and energy until,
physically and psychologically exhausted, they had totally given their lives
over to the group. All romances were discouraged or forbidden. Few leaders or
“students” had family lives. Every new job, friendship, activity—even the
purchase of clothing, transportation vehicle had to pass muster with the
leaders. The leaders created their own bizarre language, which followers had to
speak at all times (one example of the language: “Be all right to ask if
yourself is all right?”). The members also continuously had to follow
painstakingly spelled-out, prescribed rituals. The leaders “dispensed existence”
by arbitrarily promoting “students” to a higher martial arts rank or by
stripping them of rank. They narrowed the men’s world so that they lived only to
serve the group and its “Master.” Physical violence or threats of violence
against members and meddling outsiders helped to keep doubters in line.
And, of course, intense friendship bonded the group’s
vulnerable members, many of whom lived together. As the author describes it,
After that first campout, many of us felt we were
in a unique club, a strange sort of extended family with its own odd little
secrets nobody talked much about, and [we] went along with the program. We began
to accept things as facts; the cult had filled a void in many of our lives.
The author writes elsewhere,
This is what it was all about, eating boxed pizza
while sitting on the floor of the next fabricated champion of Asia cash
collection facility and patting each other on the back for being true, right and
correct. The feeling of camaraderie was the greatest hook, nearly as great as
the demanding workouts.
“The Moo” is a derogatory term coined by detractors from
1979 to 1990 and still used today for the martial arts group known at various
times as Chung Moo Quan, Chung Moon Doe, or Oom Yung Doe, the name the group
currently uses. “Mooing” refers to practicing the martial arts regime and also
to all activities related to the group: cleaning, cooking, waiting on “The
Master” and his family, running errands, operating the various “schools” (at the
group’s height, more than fifty in the United States), building new facilities,
going on camping trips at the whim of the leaders, snaring new “students”, and
so on.
An expose of the group by CBS News in Chicago in 1989
entitled “The Cult and the Con” precipitated its temporary downfall. “Master
Kim,” or John C. Kim, whose real name apparently is Park, and top followers were
convicted in 1996 of conspiracy to commit massive tax fraud for nearly twenty
years because they destroyed records of the all-cash transactions. Many
disillusioned former “students” testified against the group. Park received a
sentence of up to sixty months in prison; six top leaders went to prison also.
Park was paroled in April of 2001. The group still operates, albeit at a reduced
level, now with about ten locations.
Herding the Moo is far too long and repetitive. The
author makes his points many times over, and does not need to tell every story
available. The narrative voice of the book is often confusing, and the author
changes tenses frequently. The tone and style is overly familiar and the writer
glib—for example, sometimes addressing the reader directly using terms such as
“dude.”
Conversely, the book contributes to the cultic studies
field. It is fascinating in its presentation of obviously ridiculous (and
ever-changing) doctrine that the “students” swallowed. With the leaders’
promises of attaining secret miraculous knowledge if they’d just hang in there a
little longer, followers fell for it, dazzled by the promise of becoming one of
the elite, and finally probably just wanting to recoup their extensive time and
financial investment.
Ex-members of this group or other exploitative martial arts
groups will certainly want to read this carefully researched book. Those readers
interested generally in cults will again be amazed at how intelligent people can
be so skillfully manipulated.
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