#254: Korea’s Biggest Sex Grooming Cult With Over 100k Members - The JMS Church

28:01He said, you are cancer-free. She gets a call from the doctors the next day, saying, hey, I'm so sorry. I think we misread your charts. You do not have cancer. You're cancer-free. So the victims are slowly, carefully, methodically indoctrinated that when they get to the point of him calling himself the Messiah, it makes logical sense in their mind. So please, let's just be careful about what we say about the victims in this case. I saw a lot of online discourse about how, oh my god, I would never fall for something like this. Like, how do people actually believe this? I'm a firm believer, anyone, like you, him, me, like literally anyone can fall victim to a cult given the right circumstance, right timing, like right place in your life.

28:50It's scary. So side note, if you're wondering how Jung was able to pull off so many miracles, maybe he was the Messiah. I'm not sure about all of them. I don't have the answers to all of them. But I don't know. Who knows? Maybe Jung spread some of these rumors himself. But remember that woman that got cancer and then she got the call immediately after the day after saying that, hey, we misread your charts. I'm sure it didn't hurt that her doctor was also a member of JMS. So whether the whole thing was a little set up to have a miracle happen, or the doctor was like, you have cancer, just kidding.

29:22It was all a set up for a miracle. Or if maybe the doctor was like, maybe she won't notice she has cancer if I just lie and say she doesn't have cancer anymore. It's just weird.

29:36Also, Jung claimed that he studied medicine in his free time for funsies for the past 40 years. And he said that he was more than well equipped to cure a simple thing like cancer. As for the presidential election predictions, it's unclear to this day how he was able to predict the rankings of every candidate. We don't know if he knew someone on the inside. We don't know. But he was able to. Being the new messiah, Zhang decides to make his hometown, his village in the mountains, is the new Jerusalem, he said. This is going to be the sacred place where people from all over the world are going to come and worship at my feet.

30:08He even promoted this place in massive newspapers like the Korea Post, encouraging religious tourism to the mountains. He starts using church funds to build this massive compound in the mountains. Thousands of followers would gather their tent out in tents in the mountains to listen to him preach, to be in his presence, to attend events that were like the mini Olympics. Modeling competitions, dancing and singing competitions held by JMS Church. It was a lot. It's like an Olympics Coachella Burning Man mashed together with heavy religious overtones. He's a literal celebrity at this point. He had tours, nationwide tours to go meet with more followers.

30:50And I'm serious. Like this man took himself so utterly seriously. He would throw flowers into crowds of followers and they would just be like scrambling at the ground to pick up the flowers. People would be holding up signs like, I love you, Jung. Everywhere he went, to meet with him one-on-one was nearly impossible. He's constantly surrounded by his young, beautiful entourage. To even see him in person, people were starstruck. They felt honored to be breathing the same air as him. Some followers were even lucky enough to be asked to live on site in one of the compounds. These followers were coincidentally all attractive young women that were over 5 feet 6 inches tall.

31:32Their living conditions were deplorable, vaguely reminiscent of sardines shoved into a tin can. They were crammed into this tiny little trailer with no privacy, no personal space, absolutely nothing. But they were told over and over again, you are so lucky to be here. You should be grateful that you can live at such a holy place. Not many can say that. Like are they there long term or? As long as Zhang decides. Some were more long-term than others. And that leads us to the God's brides, the Lord's brides. We've talked a lot about sex cults, and this one is a little different. One principal teaching at JMS Church was that celibacy was the way to save humanity.

32:18Like, no sex is the way to save the future of humankind. Even after marriage, nobody should be having sex, really. It just wasn't allowed, you know? One of Jung's most famous interpretations was the story of Adam and Eve. He claimed that the apple that Eve ate was a metaphor for sex, which means Jung was going to save the world from all their sins, all the corruption by forbidding people from having sex, the original sin. So if you have sex with anyone, you are betraying the Lord. So no babies? He doesn't want babies anymore? He like has to allow it because there are a lot of babies that are born into this cult.

32:57But I think most of them, I don't think most people got married once they were in the cult. Typically, it's married couples who joined the cult. That's another sad thing about this is a lot of people gave their lives to this cult for decades, never got married, never started a family because of his teachings. Some married couples would become celibate. Young university students were indoctrinated and now they refuse to get married or even date because they didn't want to betray the Lord. I mean, they were just thinking about the effects of all of this. And I don't want to say that sex is everything.

33:30But the fact that these young students refused to even consider starting families or getting married because they felt this intense fear that they were going to go to hell for it, it's just really heartbreaking. So nobody's allowed to have sex. Except, of course, of course, Jung. He claimed he was the Messiah. Therefore, he was the pure Adam. And by having sex with women, he was showering women with God's love through his body. His body was a tool. It's not that he wanted to do this. It's not that he wanted to have sex with women. But he did it for the greater purpose of saving the world. He preached that he himself was suffering by doing this.

34:12He was suffering. He was exhausted by using his body as a way of giving God's love. and his followers should suffer for him as well. Suffering was noble. Female followers were encouraged to take cold showers and pray multiple times a day. He even instructed everyone to pray in his name instead of Jesus' name. One former follower remembered he had went home one day. His parents are not in the cult, so it's just him or the church. Sorry, I gotta stop saying cult before they come for me, okay? His parents were not in the church and he's home one day praying out loud. and at the end he said in Zhang's name we pray instead of in Jesus name we pray and his mom stopped what she was doing she froze and said what the hell did you just say like why are you praying in some random man's name followers were instructed to cut ties with the outside world or people who didn't understand they were encouraged to lie to their families to their parents they were told that these non-believers they can't tell what the truth is even if you tell them the truth they won't believe you.

35:17Our truth is higher than them. So things are really amping up and it's going to take a really, really dark turn. So the brides, let's talk about victim A. Victim A was at a JMS volleyball game that Jung was playing in. Nobody was particularly rooting for one team or another. They were basically just rooting for Jung. Okay. It's like a volleyball game. All the girls are on the sidelines like, ah, pass your Jung. And victim A is on the sideline like, yay, pass your Jung. And she's cheering as hard as she can. And she thought she was imagining it at first. But Jung kept looking over at her while he's playing the game, like glancing at her.

35:52And it made her feel uncomfortable. Like she thought that was kind of odd. But after the volleyball game, she forgot about it. And since this is in the mountains and she wasn't one of the lucky ones to live there, she was setting up her tent. You know, followers sleep in the tent while they're visiting. She's setting up her little tent and one of these unnies. So anni means like older sister, but it's not biological older sister. One of these annis came in and they were called informants in the JMS church. They're basically female followers that were right hand women to Jung. Their main job was to recruit and indoctrinate other beautiful young women and bring them to Jung to be raped.

36:32One of the annis opens up the tent and tells her, hey, like Pastor Jung wants to see you. Thichyme is confused, nervous, kind of excited. She didn't suspect anything weird or bad was going to happen to her. She was hoping to get acceptance and blessings. Maybe she would get prayed for. She was so nervous. She was intimidated by this guy. I mean, the way that he was talked about, it's like he was greater than God. I mean, the power imbalance here is insane. She goes to the building that Jung is in, and there's a line of girls outside all waiting to go see Pastor Jung. and the Eun-ni says, you can go in first since you're new.

37:07So victim A walks past all the girls, opens the doors to see Pastor Jung who's sitting down and he tells her, come here, sit next to me. She sits down next to him and she's just starstruck. Her heart is beating so fast. She couldn't believe that she was sitting next to the Lord. She had no idea what was going to happen. Like, is he going to pray for her? Was he going to help her family teach her something that would open up her mind? he starts touching her thighs telling her to come closer and she just remembered his like hot breath on her neck and she was so uncomfortable and she didn't understand like is this what the lord does?

37:43he starts whispering in her ear that she was lord's masterpiece he instructed her to stand up and pose for him and the reasoning was he wanted her to be the lord's cheerleader but cheerleaders aren't allowed to have bow legs which means like the legs bend out they were supposed to have straight legs So he's like, I need to check your legs. He checks her legs and says, the Lord will be proud of you. He kept calling her beautiful. And when she sat back down next to him, he aggressively stuck his hands in her shirt and started groping her. He closed his eyes and said, the Lord is instructing me right now to check for lumps in your breast to make sure that you don't have cancer.

38:22It was incredibly painful, but she had heard and she had been groomed to expect these medical exams. In fact, she was told that if she were ever examined by him, by him himself, she should be grateful. It was painful. It didn't feel right. But she just thought, maybe it's because it's my first time. I don't know. Like, I'm supposed to be grateful for this. He's checking for cancer. He had cured cancer, so that makes sense. Who was she to say no? So even if everything in her gut told her to scream and run out of there, it was like this mental war that she was fighting. Like a battle in her mind.

38:55Before she could react, he pushes her down on the bed so she's laying flat on her back. And without warning, he tells her that he needs to examine her uterus. He said that the Lord needs to make sure that she doesn't have any cyst. She was terrified. She saw him lick his fingers and announce, the Lord is examining you. And you can imagine what happened next. Vic Demay was in a lot of pain. She said that she closed her eyes and looked away. And she kept telling him, please, it's painful. basically telling him to stop. But he responds very casually. It always hurts the first time. She didn't understand what that meant.

39:32I mean, the first time I'm being examined, like, I don't get it. So she looks down. He was full on assaulting her, full on R-wording her. She said that she froze in fear and she was so confused. And then he starts getting aggressive and biting her everywhere. And it was just so violent. He kept telling her while he's doing this that she's God's bride now. literally while assaulting her he also continues to tell her you are no longer allowed to look at other men you are no longer allowed to think about other men because you are god's bride now if you were ever to marry another man or even think about a man your private parts would be mutilated if you ever have children with a man they will be deformed side note this is something that jung told all of the brides they believed it because why wouldn't they they were terrified and they prayed.

40:22They prayed to God that they would never be interested in anyone but the Lord. It was so ingrained in them. One victim even started self-identifying as a lesbian because she was so scared of the prospect of falling in love with a man. A lot of girls said that they struggled. It's nearly impossible for them to want to be with Zhang, aka the Lord. So they would pray at night, praying that they would have the tools to love him the way that they were supposed to. They would punish themselves when they didn't feel love for Jung in the sexual sense. Like it is so heartbreaking hearing that. Like the victim said, they prayed and prayed, but it was just so disgusting, painful and traumatizing.

41:05They thought something was wrong with them. Jung would assault them and make them call him oppa, honey, dear. He told them that they can never think about other men. He would say incredibly unholy, vulgar, disgusting things while he was assaulting them. But then he would claim in the same breath that this was God's love. So the victims, they're just so confused. They felt that they were confused, though, because they weren't good enough believers. Like, they weren't good enough followers. So Victime runs outside after the assault and runs straight into the Anya that had brought her here. And Victime is looking at her like, please, you need to explain the situation because I'm so confused.

41:40I'm so traumatized. But the Anya just smiles and congratulates her. She said, remember, we can only love Pastor Jung now. We are his brides. How was it? Victim A was shocked. She asked, did the same thing happen to you? And she responds, you might not understand it right now, but in some time, everything will start to make sense. The only proceeds to tell her that these examinations, that's what they were calling these assaults, these exams were important. He had already detected serious diseases and cancers during these examinations. He had already saved lives. This was a good thing that Pastor Jung was being so proactive.

42:19All the girls that get personal exams should be grateful. Some girls would confide in the unis and say, you know, I'm just really confused. I felt like that was rape. They would say, of course it's confusing. I was confused my first time too. But it's the Lord's love and you're going to soon realize that. Now, before we go and attack all of these unis, I think it's just really complicated. I need to give you a bit more context. All of the God's brides, they started as victims. and I think that they are still victims at the end of this. But one of the biggest roles that you get as a bride is to bring more brides to Zhang.

42:57They all got brainwashed that all of these brides were being purified. They were being saved. So why wouldn't you want to save fellow women? They were literally brainwashed into thinking this. They were saving these girls. They were doing the Lord's work. They were saving the world. One of the victims slash Eun-ni said, when you're his bride, he might not want you anymore. Zhang always wanted younger and younger women. And you're getting older. So you bring him beautiful young women and you get rewarded. You feel like you're doing something for the world, for the Lord, for the church. You start to feel important.

43:29Sometimes you can even be promoted as a minister or a priest inside the church. And that is how victims turn into perpetrators. So a lot of these aunties would come out later and say that they regretted everything. They said, you know, it's confusing because you're a victim. And then later you're a perpetrator. you create another victim and then they become a perpetrator and it's like this vicious cycle and when you're inside the cycle you can't even see it but when you get out of it you start questioning yourself like i don't even know if i was a victim or a perpetrator and all of this am i a victim or am i the most evil person ever all of the girls feel guilty for becoming on knees in a sense they blame themselves afterwards but they also blame themselves while it was happening they thought that all this guilt that they had for being an onni was because they weren't good enough for the role.

44:16They felt like they just had more to learn. So again, I think that all these girls were victims. And a lot of these girls were so indoctrinated, they actually legally changed their last name to Jung to show that they were committed to being God's brides. Victims stated that they were so committed, they would go into his room, four or five girls at a time, sometimes 10 to 15, and he would assault them all at once, one by one. One victim said the most she's seen was about 30 women being assaulted at once. They were told in order to enter heaven because Eve is the original sinner, right? They need to purify themselves from the sins of womankind, basically Eve.

44:54And the only way was to let Jung assault them. They didn't say it like that, but they said, you know, make love with the second Messiah. And it's just sick. He would assault women on the basis of the premise that tens of thousands of years ago, allegedly, A woman picked an apple off a tree and ate it, and now every woman needs to be raped. Once they were assaulted, they were considered property of the second Messiah. They were told that if they ever betrayed him by even looking at another man, they would fall to the greatest depths of hell forever and their souls would rot. Sometimes the girls would be instructed to help wash him in the shower, and he would force his entire bed to be filled with women at night.

45:33In the middle of the night, he would just wake up and pull girls on top of him to assault. It said that sometimes he assaulted 50 women in one day. He would, okay, so he would assault them, but he wouldn't release, if that makes sense. And it was clear that this whole thing was just about power and abuse. That's all it ever was. The victim said it was more like he was marking his territory. He would be assaulting you, claiming you as his, and then move on. Sometimes brides weren't even picked to be purified by Jung. they were just told their life purpose their godly duty was to bring jung a fresh supply of women and they would be rewarded if they did and a lot of this was hidden in plain sight so you know those like soccer games and events and festivals they would have well jung would score oh this is another thing about the soccer games jung would score 60 to 120 goals in one soccer game the world record held by one professional soccer player is 13 goals in one game so is this guy messy reincarnated or what?

46:35No. One game would go on for five to six hours and everyone would just let him score. His opponents, I mean, people would literally see the goalie jumping, pretending to block the ball, but they would fall on the opposite way of where the ball was going. They were just letting him win. So for five to six hours, there were cheerleaders on the sidelines just cheering him on, screaming his name, bringing him water, wiping off his sweat. And in the end, an on year or two would go around, pick some cheerleaders, tell them to go to the bathroom and wait for Zhang because he was almost done. They would wait in the showers where they would be forced to wash him and they would be assaulted by him.

47:13Side note, what happens if a victim falls pregnant? One victim said that she straight up asked Zhang that she was worried and she said, what happens if we're engaging in activities and I fall pregnant with the Lord? He flat out told her that she would need an abortion. She said it was jarring. I mean, this went against the Christian values that she was taught. Like, what is going on here? Another victim said that she had her own confusing moment when she had all this bloody discharge. She went to the doctor and she was told that she had early stage ovarian cancer. They had to remove her uterus.

47:45She remembered being shocked and thinking Jung had examined her nonstop. He prayed over her private parts on a daily basis and did routine health checks but she still had cancer. Another victim said the wake-up call for her came when they were all sitting in Jung's bedroom and they were watching the news. So it's Jung and a bunch of women and it was about a fire. The news was about a fire that had taken the lives of a lot of people. Jung runs up to the TV and he starts smacking it and he's shouting, what a waste of pussies. He yelled at the Eunnies and said, you should have converted these girls before they died.

48:22They should have been brought to me. He was upset he couldn't R-word them before they died in a fire. That's what he was upset about. Another victim, Victim B, had made it out of the JMS church. She tried to move on with her life. She never reported the abuse. She just wanted to forget all of her trauma. Then she got married and had children. And she keeps looking at our children. She's like, I don't want to raise my kids in a world where there's a monster like that out there. Just free. She said, when I look at my kids, I can't stay silent anymore. She was recruited into the church when she was a sophomore in high school.

48:59She was a minor, a 16 year old. That's when her nightmare started. She was recruited to join JMS, but victim B's dream in life was to become Miss Korea one day. So she's studying scriptures at JMS and she tells her like, I want to, I want to be Miss Korea one day. Like that's my goal. The Annie says, well, you have to get permission first. I'm going to arrange a one-on-one meeting with the Messiah the next time he visits. Victim B is like, oh my God, thank you so much. Like, I'm so nervous. I'm so excited. She wondered what they would talk about. The only said, you need to ask him for permission about being in Miss Korea.

49:35Victim B said, meeting someone like him was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me. I felt like I was getting closer to God. She remembers being taken to the hotel room that he was staying at. She opens the door to his room and he's sitting there with another woman. The other woman was instructed by Jung to leave. So now Victim B is completely alone with Jung. And she finally gained the courage to talk and said, I want to try out for Miss Korea. It's been my life dream. Jung smiled and said, Hmm, let's see. I just want to make sure that you can handle it before I give you my response. He instructs her to get naked.

50:08She thought maybe the Lord knows something. She thought if Jesus appeared right in front of you and asked you to do something, wouldn't you do it? So she stripped. Jung grabbed her out of nowhere and said if you try out other men will try and fuck you she was frozen in fear she was so shocked it was vulgar it was bizarre I mean what is going on he throws her on the bed climbs on top of her and starts rubbing she was so scared to move she just laid there and he kept instructing her to call him baby and honey and all these things he kept aggressively telling her to reach a climax and when he was done, he told her that she could never tell a soul of what happened.

50:49Another reminder, she's 16. She's a minor. She had no idea what was going on. She always believed that Zhang was this pure man that devoted himself to God. She was scared. She felt so alone. She grabbed her pants, ran out of there. He ruined her life. She didn't realize it then, but she recognizes it now. He literally ruined her life. She said the moment that he was doing what he was doing to her and making her call him honey has been burned into her memory since then. Little bits and pieces of these victim stories were starting to come out. Allegations of sexual assault were swirling starting from 1991.

51:311991, this is like a million years ago. Just so you know how up to date, this isn't even an old case. He was recently arrested in 2022, like a few months ago. So 1991, sexual assault allegations were swirling. It's said that some of the youngest victims of Jiang were as young as elementary school children. Literal children. It's said that he would assault these victims in front of other women. He just felt unstoppable. But for some reason, none of these allegations made it mainstream until 1999, the end of the decade. Four members of JMS Church were arrested for kidnapping. These were allegations that even the police can't ignore.

52:15They open up an investigation and they try to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Miss Huang is the victim. She was 27 years old at the time and she said that she was a former member of the JMS Church. She decides this is a cult. Like, this is a cult. She decides to leave the group. She realized that JMS was not what they were saying it was and she was pretty vocal to the church. She said, I'm leaving because I don't want to take a part of this. Like, I don't want to be a part of a cult. Please stop contacting me. I'm over it. She wasn't planning on going public with anything. She wasn't planning on doing any of that.

52:48She just wanted to go home, return back to her normal life. The followers refused to let her do that. They're bombarding her with phone calls, accusing her of hating Pastor Jung, betraying him, being possessed by the devil. And in the same breath, they're telling her to come back to JMS so that they could save her from the devil that she was possessed by. She refused. She's like, no thank you. You're unhinged. One night, they drag her from her house into a dark van. They kidnap her to JMS's house in the mountains. She saw rows and rows of shoes laid out in the front door and through the window, she could see that Jung was having an orgy with his female followers.

53:26We don't know if she was assaulted on this night, but she was beaten an inch of her life by four members of the church. They kicked her, punched her, stomped on her hands. Every inch of her body was badly beaten for four hours straight. They said that they were beating the devil out of her and the picture of their crazed eyes staring at her while they were kicking her in the face, she said she would never forget it. When they were done, they threw her back in the van and on the highway, she's trapped in the back of the van, okay? And she spots a police car driving right next to her. She looks around.

54:03None of the church members are paying her any attention. She stares down the police car, hoping that they would feel eyes burning into the side of their face and look over at her. And she's like making weird faces, twisting her face into these bizarre, painful expressions. She just wanted to look so strange that the police would stop the car, but not make enough noise or draw enough attention that the driver or the rest of the church members would see what she was doing. By some crazy miracle, it worked. The police looked at her and were like, that's weird, we need to pull them over. Ms. Huang was brought to safety and immediately filed a police report.

54:40This comes to light. This hits mainstream media. Same time, you know, those sexual allegations are starting to come back up. The sexual assault allegations are getting more and more attention. More victims start coming out, talking about the horrible things that Jung did to them and the disgusting things that he would say to them. I mean, how do his devout followers react to stuff like this? How do they react to news like this? There's a police investigation. There's an arrest. Literally, four of your members kidnapped someone. There must be some truth to all of this. The followers defend Jung with more passion.

55:13So this part is weird. But followers said that he predicted this would happen. Back in 1981, he allegedly told his followers that he would be on the news. He would be crucified for something that he didn't do. he would get sued and all of the undeserving followers would abandon him. But the real ones, they would stay because it's a test of loyalty. So after 10 years of stability, after 10 years of joy, he said they are going to face the tomb phase, which is the hardship phase, the darkest of times. He even predicted the year that it would happen. So now he is telling his followers, I told you guys, I told you guys that we're going to face some hardship and chaos and this is that time.

55:51So his devout followers, they're enraged that he was being falsely prosecuted like Jesus Christ himself. They also felt like their loyalty was being put to the test. And this was their way to prove that they were devoted to the Lord. They raised their hands in the air and they prayed out loud. Heavenly Father, those evil men are trying to crucify our leader. Heavenly Father, please free our leader. Please prove his innocence. They felt like the whole world was against Jung and it wasn't fair. and one of the biggest opponents was a group called Exodus. Let's talk about Exodus. Exodus is the second book in the Bible where Jewish people have been enslaved for generations by the Egyptian pharaoh.

56:32They pray and pray and they almost lose hope but suddenly God uses the most unexpected person to save them, the pharaoh's own adopted son who turns out to be Jewish by blood. This is the biblical story. So miracles, death happen, more miracles, more death happens And finally, the pharaoh releases them. And they walk out as one big group that's led by the pharaoh's adopted son. They walk towards the horizon, towards freedom. They all walk. They're freed. An online forum called Exodus pops up. And it was centered around testimonies of SA survivors from JMS Church. The forum was created by a mathematics professor by the name of Kim Do-young.

57:13He taught at a university, and I'm sure he called the site Exodus for a reason, and I'm sure JMS knew the reason. But Professor Kim had heard rumors since 1995 about the Messiah. He even attended JMS Church once to see what it was all about. And he was so shocked. Everything in the sermon sounded so sexual. There's even posters that Jung would hold up in his sermons that were like female anatomy posters of like the uterus and the womb. It's weird. Jung kept calling himself the Messiah. He would say vulgar things, just bizarre things. He called women bitches and sluts. Jung would also be heard in sermons saying a lot of people say that they can't see God.

57:58They're looking for God and they can't see him. Well, here's what I say. Stop looking for him. Look for me. I'm right here. I'm God. You don't know who I am? I'm the Messiah. Professor Kim was shocked. He said Jung was cocky, vulgar, overly sexual. He was stunned. He realized that this was far from a religious group. It was just weird. But he would look around and everyone is like, Amen, Amen. Okay, what's going on? Jung would say things like, Don't read the Bible. I know more than the Bible. Ask me. I'll tell you how it was. At first, Professor Kim did not know what to do with this information that he just gained from this sermon.

58:40He goes home and he's like, well, who am I to judge these religious people? He stops thinking about it. But his girlfriend was working on a paper on contemporary religion. And she told him about how she had come across all of these allegations, these suppressed stories of essay allegations from JMS church members. Professor Kim was so disgusted, he started Exodus to give the victims a place to unite and heal and ultimately to take down JMS, which they would. But at an insane cost, Professor Kim's dad was almost murdered and Exodus members were attacked. It gets really crazy. So the website goes from being a casual meeting place amongst victims to this strong activist movement that would be crucial in JMS.

59:26Professor Kim said that he had never felt so much rage in his life. All he knew was that Jung needed to be taken down. He recalls when he was much younger and much more volatile that this was the only time in his life where he had thought about killing someone. He wanted to kill Jung. He hoped that members of JMS would see the truth, but they didn't. All they saw was the devil. They thought Professor Kim was the devil reincarnated, trying to take down Jung. They all got into some heated arguments. Professor Kim would call... Okay, this is a little weird. he would call jms hq headquarters and he'd be like let me just speak to the fucking asshole and they'd be like how dare you call our messiah an asshole listen you might think that he's jesus reincarnated but he's nothing but a horny dog and heat to me so put the fucker on the phone the followers were shocked they were like wow he truly is the devil okay

1:00:53And there was a fire being lit under Jung's ass how he used his position of power to sexually assault female followers. Allegedly, over 100 victims were contacted for information in the making of the series. When the broadcast aired, over 10 ,000 followers of JMS gathered to protest. They believed media was run by the devil. The devil was out for Zhang, the messiah. He was being falsely prosecuted. One follower even confessed at the time that he contemplated getting a hot air balloon, putting explosives in his backpack, and flying straight into the SBS building to blow himself up and the SBS headquarters up.

1:01:36That's how serious they were. He said the only thing in his mind at the time was to stop the devil. Right after this broadcast, Zhang was sued by victims. And he fled the country, okay? He told his followers that he was going to go on a mission trip to convert and save more souls around the world and spread his blessings. But he was literally just a fugitive. OK, he went to Hong Kong and from there he traveled around from Malaysia, Taiwan, mainland China, New Zealand. He said that he was spreading the news, spreading the blessings. But he was just going around indoctrinating and raping more women to the point where it almost became a diplomatic issue for South Korea.

1:02:12That this South Korean church leader was going around creating a trail of victims in all these other Asian countries. But even that wasn't enough. Jung would fly female followers out from South Korea to rape them wherever he was. Then he would ship them back to Korea when he was done with them. And he still had a tight grip on his Korean followers. He would send them videos of his sermons that they were told to study and worship. He kept in close contact with everyone. He would send them gifts and letters and he would demand letters in return. He would even provide phone counseling sessions while he was overseas to his Korean congregants.

1:02:47and while he's on this world tour basically his following only grew and so did the extent of his damage and side note this guy has some freaking nerve okay because his followers are taking out loans remortgaging their homes selling all their belongings in an attempt to make sure that he would be okay if anything were to happen to him they're still out there raising money meanwhile this guy is living in mansions throwing parties he would rent out an entire resort to throw parties with young, beautiful, tall woman. He would fly out girls willy-nilly from South Korea just so he could assault them.

1:03:22Two victims shared their story with Netflix. They're sisters. They were both flown out to see Jung in Hong Kong. They were recent recruits, so people were still recruiting more girls into JMS, even when Jung had fled the country. They said, SBS is a liar. They're the devil. All of these people, they're jealous. They just want to see him come down. He's too good for this world. The sisters believed it. They had heard stories of him being this devoted miracle worker. They had no doubt that a holy man like him could never do the things that he was accused of doing. They were encouraged to write letters to show their support to Zheng.

1:03:57They believed in his innocence wholeheartedly until it happened to them. The two sisters arrived in Hong Kong. They were rushed into his room in the middle of the night. He was laying in bed when they walked in. So this is the first time that they're meeting him. They joined after he fled. And the unis that brought them in told him, give him a massage. The Lord is tired from, you know, saving the world one soul at a time. And they lock the two sisters into his bedroom. The sisters were honored. They give him a massage and he instructed them to sleep on either side of him. So he's sleeping in between the sisters.

1:04:34They kind of thought it was weird and it was strange, but they didn't feel like they were in a position to say no. Sister number one fell asleep rather quickly, but sister number two, she wasn't able to fall asleep. In the middle of the night, Jung thought both sisters were asleep. He leaned over sister one and starts taking her clothes off and assaulting her. He kept whispering her to be quiet and not wake up her sister, who is awake but too scared to do anything. And he whispered that this is the Lord's will and her soul will be damned if she doesn't let him do this. After it happened, Sister number one snuck out of the room and ran into the room next to Jung's bedroom, which is where all the unnies were.

1:05:14These are the ones that she trusted, the unnies that had brought her here. And she's trying to shake them awake. And she's like, please, you have to help me like he just raped me. All the lies, they're not lies. Please wake up. She's shaking them. And these unnies are pretending to be comatose. They're basically just staying asleep. They're choosing to ignore what happened to her. It's clear that they're in on it too. The two sisters talk about what happened and they realize that they were in danger. If it seemed like they were going to go back home to South Korea and start trouble for JMS or say that he R-worded them, they didn't know what was going to happen to them.

1:05:49So the rest of their Hong Kong trip, they had to act like they were enjoying their time while probably being assaulted further. It is unimaginable how the sisters must have felt. like going through the most traumatic thing that anyone can go through in a foreign place, feeling betrayed by the people that you trusted, and to have to act like you're having a blast, to act like you were being blessed. When they were flown back to South Korea, they immediately reached out to Exodus. Professor Kim was disgusted. He said Jung is not a human being. So Professor Kim is amping up Exodus while Jung is abroad, and Jung is getting more and more reckless.

1:06:27He started an international crime spree, really. The reason that he traveled to so many different countries was, yes, to assault more women, but also he just kept stirring up so much trouble legally with local governments that he had to flee countries nonstop. He did this so many times. He was put on Interpol, International Police's red notice list. He was wanted for sex crimes, fraud, and embezzlement. So if anybody caught him entering or leaving a country, they would flag him, ship him back to South Korea in handcuffs. In theory, it was great, but somehow it didn't work. Jung assaulted nearly 100 Taiwanese women, and it became a huge problem.

1:07:09In addition to how horrible his crimes were, it was a diplomatic nightmare. He had been recruiting Taiwanese followers from universities, and once news came out that he had assaulted so many Taiwanese woman, Taiwan was absolutely insulted. When it got bad, he flew to Hong Kong, somehow escaping Interpol. It was in Hong Kong that he ran out of pages in his passport. This is not a metaphor. Like literally he ran out of pages in his passport, which typically it's a normal procedure. You go to the consulate and say, hey, I ran out of pages in my passport. Can I get more pages in my passport? And they'll give it to you.

1:07:47But Jung was paranoid. He's on Interpol's red notice list. So he decided the only way to get pages in his passport was to bribe the consulate officials. He comes in with a massive giant crystal worth probably tens of thousands of dollars. An expensive bribe. And it was dumb because nobody at the consulate knew who the fork this guy was in Hong Kong. But he just walked in with a massive shiny spotlight on top of his head in the form of a giant crystal. So they're like, if this guy is trying to bribe us with tens of thousands of dollars, we should probably do a background check on him. seriously yeah so they look into the system instead of giving him more pages they find out that he's wanted he's arrested on the spot and the plan was for him to be extradited back to south korea immediately but he escapes out the consulate door and he's free once more oh so it's like okay exodus feels like we gotta do something these international police they don't care we gotta do something so june 2003 exodus receives reports from their informants that Jung was in Hong Kong.

1:08:51They know this because female followers from South Korea are being flown to Hong Kong to meet with him. Professor Kim tried taking this information to the Hong Kong authorities, thinking, I mean, of course they're going to want to get Jung. He's on the red notice list already. But the authorities are like, it's not that interesting. It's fine. Thankfully, Exodus had members who were part of the police force. So they had some investigative abilities. They put together their own rogue mission and they flew to Hong Kong, waited until the female followers landed in Hong Kong and literally stalked them because they led them right to Zheng.

1:09:28Yeah, they're like bounty hunters, except they weren't getting paid. So they arrive at Zheng's hideout in the mountains in Hong Kong. It's a very remote area surrounded by fields and forests. The Exodus team knew that they couldn't go in on their own. They were outnumbered. So they needed to stake out the area and come up with a plan. They climb up the mountains near the back of the house And they could see through the windows He was already in bed assaulting the three women They immediately call the Hong Kong immigration officers They're like, this is proof he's assaulting people right now in Hong Kong And they said, okay We're going to send out a full team the very next morning to arrest Jung Exodus is so excited But they want to make sure that there's no chance that Jung is going to get away When was this?

1:10:102003 I know This is a long time ago Because he gets arrested in 2022 it's a long week wow I feel like this person I don't even want to call him I don't know what to call him but he's lived like 20 million lives and all of them are horrendous he's the devil himself yes literally literally the devil that just keeps reincarnating coming back coming back I don't know so the next morning Exodus is like well we gotta show up because there's no way we're gonna let the Hong Kong authorities not arrest this guy so they come the next morning and they have all their filming gear They climb up to the back of the mountain.

1:10:47They're trying to make sure that Jung doesn't try to escape through the back of the house and up the mountain. But instead, they stumble upon Jung before the Hong Kong authorities get there. And he's sitting under this mosquito net. And there were the three victims from South Korea there. They were wearing bikinis. And Jung's pants are literally around his ankles. Professor Kim literally caught him red-handed. They were recording all of this, by the way. And the Exodus members who took the video said that they were just so stunned. I mean, Zhang was stunned too. But the one with the camera said he had been working with Exodus for a while and he was for years expecting this malicious cult leader, a serial rapist, someone so dangerous, so frightening.

1:11:32He was on Interpol's most wanted list. He would have been intimidated by seeing him. He should have felt scared. But with the camera shoved in Zhang's face, He was nothing but like this old sleazy Aizoshi that looks so cowardly and pathetic. He had his pants around his ankles, literally, and he seemed scared to come out of the mosquito net. So then he finally got out, pulled his pants up, and he starts trying to hit the cameraman, maybe in hopes to get rid of the camera footage. He's like hitting the camera, smacking it around, but the cameraman just hits him right back. He's like, don't touch me.

1:12:04And he starts stumbling back to his house. Jung runs back to his house screaming, you hit me, you hit me. like a little child. Exodus members were in so much shock. They had flown to Hong Kong to take down this serial rapist and they couldn't believe that on top of all the other horrible things that Jung was, he was a miserable coward. But at least the nightmare was over. They had him pinned down. They waited for authorities and Hong Kong authorities took him away in handcuffs. He had been arrested. He was done for. Even all the headlines in Hong Kong read sex-crazed cult leader arrested for sex crimes.

1:12:41Sex-crazed cult leader found in mountains. There was a literal video of him with his pants around his ankles. He was going to pay for his crimes. Jung hired a high-profile lawyer, paid$100 ,000 US dollars for bail, and was released. He instantly fled to mainland China illegally without a passport. He kept in touch with JMS supporters, sending them videos trying to do damage control because, I mean, objectively speaking, The video that Exodus took of him was pretty incriminating. He said that he would never assault female followers. Meanwhile, he was caught on camera quite literally with his pants around his ankles.

1:13:18The JMS community was enraged, but not for the reasons that you think. They were disgusted at Exodus and the fact that Hong Kong had the audacity to arrest their Messiah. This was the modern day Jesus getting arrested by the Romans. And Jung incited violence from his followers. He egged them on. He sent them videos basically waging a war against Exodus. He said in a video, which side note, these videos get weird. He starts developing a bit of an obsession with white tuxedos. I mean, he already liked white tuxedos, but he really becomes obsessed with white, very crazy, elaborate tuxedos. So he's wearing a full tux.

1:13:58Like full white wedding tux vibe. I guess he's trying to look heavenly and majestic. But he said, I was betrayed. Disloyal evil people cannot exist. Jesus said that to me himself. There is no war without casualties, and some killings are absolutely necessary. That is what the Lord has told me. JMS members were out for blood now. JMS starts hunting down members of Exodus, following them, threatening them, terrorizing them. They were able to find them because, well, I'll get into that in a second. But their first target was the Exodus law student that had flown to Hong Kong to arrest Zhang. He came home to his apartment building one day.

1:14:37And it's just like this small little entrance. Like think of your Asian apartment buildings. There's no receptionist desk. There's no front lobby. It's just a door and a motion sensor light and then stairs and you go to your unit. The front motion sensor light wasn't on that night. That, okay, that's weird, but maybe it's broken. He starts walking up the steps and there should be another motion sensor light that turns on. but it doesn't turn long either. He's cloaked in darkness, and that's when he sees a group of people descend down the stairs and attack him with a steel pipe. They're holding like a shiny steel pipe.

1:15:10He thankfully had his law textbook, and he used it to shield his face. He and the attackers tumble down the staircase. He runs out onto the street where there are streetlights, CCTV cameras, and the followers, they get scared and they run off. He survived. The injuries weren't that bad, but this was just a practice round for JMS. It wasn't the law student they were after. It was Professor Kim. Professor Kim was pretty careful once he realized how serious JMS was. You know, they're willing to go to the ends of the earth to defend a rapist. He took necessary precautions. He stopped visiting friends, family.

1:15:45He was worried that they would be targeted for their association with him. He remembered emotionally telling his parents, I can't see you guys for a while. You have to be careful. He would constantly call them, nagging them. One evening, Professor Kim was on the phone with his dad. His dad is driving home. And his dad starts screaming frantically on the phone. He's screaming, what are you doing? What the hell are you doing? Professor Kim is screaming, asking, what's going on? Dad, what's going on? There's no response. So he hangs up and he keeps trying to call back. No response. Turns out Professor Kim's father had pulled up to the house.

1:16:20There were men waiting for his car with steel pipes and metal baseball bats. they blocked him from driving forward and reversing they jumped on top of his car and started smashing the window professor kim's dad opened up his side of the window just a tiny crack to tell them that he was going to start driving like they need to leave otherwise they're going to get injured he's going to drive they didn't care they came up to the window forced their steel pipe in through the tiny little crack and started bashing professor kim's father in the face with the steel pipe. He didn't know how long it lasted.

1:16:54Five minutes? We don't know. He fell unconscious. The men fled. He was found by his other son. And the image of Professor Kim's father would be burned inside of his memory forever. He said that his dad had a hole in his face the size of a baseball. He was lucky to be alive. He was permanently disfigured from this attack. They broke almost all of his facial bones, his mouth would forever be twisted to one side and one of his eyes would never close again. When he was first brought to the hospital, they were shocked that he was even alive because of that hole in his face. Professor Kim's brother was so traumatized.

1:17:35The doctor said that all the veins on the left side of Professor Kim's father's face had been completely severed. And after all of this pain, after all of this trauma, Professor Kim's dad said that he was happy. He said, had it not been me, it would have been you, son. I'm happy it happened to me instead. And I thank God every day that I was attacked instead of you. Professor Kim said that he felt so much hatred and guilt. He questioned himself for why he even went after JMS, how this could happen to his dad. He thought to himself, how can someone do this? Even gangs in South Korea know not to mess with someone's parents.

1:18:15Gangsters. It was later revealed that there were prosecutors that were in the JMS cult who were able to pull information on all the Exodus numbers, where they lived, who their family members were, where their family members lived, their license plate numbers, everything. The police even discovered that the JMS cult members had found a way into Professor Kim's parents' house and bugged it. Planted listening devices. Every inch of that house was bugged. they were listening to Professor Kim's parents for God knows how long. It was utterly terrifying. Professor Kim was shocked. He realized he was dealing with something that was far more dangerous than what he thought.

1:18:57And while it might seem like JMS won the battle, they might lose the war. And sometimes it unravels from the inside. Let's talk about Hong Kong X-Files. This is the story in the beginning of this episode. JMS had a full-blown photography unit. There were photographers that would recruit young female followers to send pictures to Jung while he was overseas, basically nudes. Jung would then grade these pictures and send reports back to South Korea. So he would get hundreds of photos of women in dresses, in various stages of undress, and he would grade them and send the report back to Korea. And the Onis would be like, you got to be.

1:19:36So you got to do better now. Do you love the Lord? You have to do better. So this is how he graded it. if you're fully naked, you would get an A. If you were wearing a bikini, you get a B+. And if you're wearing short revealing dresses, you get a B. So if you get a B, your anu would come to you and be like, you need to get an A. Do you not love the Lord? They were told the more pleasing the pictures you can send to the Lord, the more blessed you'll be. Then it would escalate to sending videos. They would be encouraged to be nude with one another, do things to themselves, and say things like, my lord, you call him husband, oppa, dear, honey.

1:20:13They were told that they were helping the lord with his loneliness while he fought and struggled to save the world. And even if he felt uncomfortable, the pressure was too high to even say no. Most of the girls in the pictures had never even met Jung in person. He would buy lingerie for the followers and have them send pictures of themselves wearing it. And if he found a girl that he liked through the pictures of the videos, he would fly them out to wherever he was so that he could assault them. he would compliment them on the phone he'd say oh you look so pretty he would encourage them to send more explicit videos and photos he would even tell the girls you see my sweet girl when a man gifts you lingerie you basically owe him your body there was a recorded conversation where the victim is shook by that and she says what he said it means he loves you very very much don't tell anyone since i bought you the lingerie we're already lovers you can come see me if you want what would you do once you finally come here and get to meet me isn't he very old right yeah yeah at this point in his like 50s soon to be 60s and these are girls that are like 19 the girl would say um i would like to meet you and say hi what else would you like to do uh i would like to listen to your sermons there's no time for sermons hurry up and come there were hundreds of photos of women in various stages of undress there were videos upon videos that were incredibly graphic and more than that it was just so heartbreaking to see some of them were included in the Netflix documentary.

1:21:57And I've never had to turn off a documentary so many times in my life to just get a breather. To see the mindset that these victims must have been in. I mean, they would be sitting in a tub saying things like, we want you, my Lord. Come here, honey. You must be so tired. They would be undressed, kissing and licking photographs of him. There were videos of sex parties and mansions. There was so much. And remember Kim, the beginning guy at the beginning of the story? Kim was a member of JMS and he was in charge of sorting through the mail. He stumbled upon these and he truly did not believe that Jung was capable of stuff like this until he saw the proof.

1:22:38So he took all of this back to Korea, all the evidence, uploaded them online for all the other JMS members to see. And he thought if he could just expose the truth, just like what happened with him, he would see what the truth was the truth. You know, these are not lies that exodus are spreading. And everyone would leave JMS. But we both know that that won't happen. At least not to the extent that we hope for. Many members of JMS did leave. They were utterly disgusted. But other victims started to come out. A victim in China said that she was so badly raped by Zhang, it would be categorized legally as sexual torture.

1:23:14He had dragged her into a shower and shoved a scalding hot water faucet into her body parts. and she was screaming and he told her to stay quiet or he would rip her private area off and he proceeded to slap her around as he assaulted her. So all of China was outraged by this, by Zhang. But he was still free and he would still have followers. Many members were told nonstop that this was the devil testing them, that this wasn't true and if it was, Zhang had a good reason for this. He was saving them. They wanted to send these pictures to him. Mainstream media picked up the news on this one, and the files would later be known as the Hong Kong X-Files.

1:23:57The public was disgusted, outraged, but still, JMS had a strong following, and Jung was already on the run when this happened, so nothing else has changed. He started moving around a lot more, and he still flew out members from South Korea to assault, and there are videos of him holding these massive Christmas parties where girls were wearing these red mini dresses with white fur on them. again nothing I would ever be dead caught wearing near a church otherwise I would be told I'm going to hell for being a sloot which is a different type of trauma I guess but they're dancing around him dancing on him and it just felt like the Hong Kong X-Files didn't even impact him that much Exodus never gave up though things were silent for about a year until one morning in 2007 the Ministry of State Security of China reached out to Exodus.

1:24:47This is like the CIA of China. They called Exodus and said they believed that they could lure Zhang out. They were hosting a culture exchange event between China and South Korea in China, and they believed that Zhang would show up. They were right. He showed up. They weren't able to apprehend him at that moment. They failed, but they tried again. And this time they successfully arrested Zhang in China And almost instantly after this arrest, Zhang's facade of being the Messiah, the leader, the savior, the God, it all came crumbling down. He instantly started acting insane to garner sympathy from Chinese officials.

1:25:23He starts acting similar to like a little ajaxi who's nervous. He was moaning and covering his mouth and touching his face frantically like he's losing his mind, which is not what the Messiah would do. Speaking of, Zhang was like, you think I'm the Messiah? you think i'm jesus that's insane i'm just a little pastor of a church oh my god he would scream you have it all wrong i'm just the leader of one church i didn't touch anyone i'm not the jesus i'm not messiah i'm just a pastor he would slap himself and make weird noises throughout the interrogation in another interrogation he got down on his knees and crawled towards the prosecutor rubbing his palms together, begging him, please sir, forgive me.

1:26:05This is all a mistake. It was shocking for the public. This powerful cult leader who had spent decades torturing women was on his hands and knees. And the church still stood by him. Many of them sold their homes to pay for his attorney bills during this legal battle. But this time, he wasn't fleeing. So he was extradited from China to South Korea to stand for his crimes. And JMS, again, never left his side. they're raising money. They're raising so much money trying to silence victims. They're thinking, hey, no victims to testify at a trial? No crime. One victim said they came to me and offered me $500 ,000.

1:26:44I rejected. They came back with a million dollars. I rejected. They came back with an empty check and told me whatever I wanted, I could write down and have. And I rejected. When money didn't work, JMS started threatening victims, threatening to kill their families. Only one victim that was scheduled to testify during the trial backed down, and the rest refused. They all testified. And even in court, they were being threatened. So you know how in trials, you can have people come and sit and visit and see the proceedings? JMS had known bodyguards, basically, the one that would beat people up and track people down.

1:27:20They were in the courtroom trying to intimidate the victims while they were testifying. It did not work. The woman fought to gain their strength back, and now there's no stopping a woman like that. There just isn't. When Jung realized he had made a grave mistake, he made one last pathetic attempt to stop the proceedings. While a victim was testifying, Jung starts convulsing and foaming at the mouth, screaming, I can't breathe. Paramedics rush in. He's completely fine. He also took the stand at the trial, and he said a lot of wild things. He said, I never raped anyone. There was this one incident, I remember, where naked followers approached me and they forcibly took my clothes off.

1:28:03And all I did was hug them in that moment, but no penetration. I swear. This next part is really heartbreaking, but he admitted during the trial publicly that he was not the Messiah and he claimed that he never said he was. This was shocking to his followers. Even the ones who had given up everything to help him fight the legal battles, they thought, why would he say that? Why would he do that? Jesus would never do that. the real Messiah would never deny who he is. They gave up everything for the man that he believed to be the Messiah and he was slapping them in the face by saying that he wasn't.

1:28:35One follower was so devastated because I think the reality came crushing down on her. She threw herself off a building and took her own life. So remember, these are all victims. They had dedicated most of their lives. They had ruined their families, their interpersonal relationships. They had never gotten married, never dated. They had no social life, no family. They gave up everything, all their money for this man that they believed is the Messiah. They believed that they had a purpose and they were doing good. Turns out he was a rapist and a coward. I just can't imagine how you even come to terms with that.

1:29:13In 2009, at 63 years old, Zhang was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Only 10 years. After thousands of victims, 10 years. after decades of traumatizing generations of people torturing them, all the damage he had caused, 10 years. It wasn't fair. People thought that he should die in prison for what he did. Yeah, but at least they hoped. You know what? Okay, he's going to go to prison. JMS is going to collapse. He was thrown in prison in 2009. Now, if you guys watched the Netflix documentary or saw the trailer, there is one victim who was kind of the center of the story. Her name is Maple. Jung was thrown in prison in 2009 Maple would join the church in 2012 What?

1:30:02It's still going on? And she would be raped by Jung countless times She met Jung while he was in prison She joined the church while he was in prison And she was visiting him as a devout follower She didn't believe the rumors They were all set up by the devil to test everyone She believed in Jung's innocence She believed he was wrongfully convicted. So yeah, JMS did not crumble. And a new chapter for JMS had started. A new chapter of victims had started. JMS followers were still active, especially online after his conviction. They were online spouting this narrative that the current media environment is toxic towards all religion.

1:30:43They argued that Zhang was being prosecuted for being good because mainstream media doesn't like religion right now. They said even if a religious movement has only positive effects in the lives of young people, the media is going to continue to categorize every religious group as dangerous or manipulative or like a cult. They argued that the government and everything that anyone had on Jung were all manufactured lies. New followers from all over the world were still joining JMS, or the Providence was the other name for the JMS church, like Liz. Liz was an Australian victim who spoke out later in 2014.

1:31:19she said that she joined providence when jung was in prison she remembered in australia a korean woman approached her asking if she wanted to fill out a survey that's how she joined the church by the end of the year she moved into a house filled with other church members and she just remembered how everyone was talking about how jung was falsely convicted and she believed it she was given a double picture frame one side had a picture of jesus and the other side a picture of Jung and she was instructed to pray to both of them, Jesus and Jung. And she had the honor of becoming an evergreen. This is the titles the girls were given in the Providence section and they were told that this is the greatest honor.

1:32:00You're basically God's bride now. You can never get married. You can never look at another man. You are for God. Liz was encouraged and told that she needed to send Jung letters while he was in prison and a lot of them became very quickly intimate. She ended up sending pictures of herself in bikinis. She recalled Jung would write back to her saying things like, women are more beautiful when they're naked. He told her that her pale white skin aroused him. So Liz was eventually asked to fly to South Korea and visit Jung while he was in prison, and she did. I know. Okay, I know what you're thinking.

1:32:34Liz visited a convicted serial rapist and molester in prison. But two things to remember, because I see a lot of people victim blaming with this case. Liz is a victim. She was indoctrinated, taken advantage of. Groups like this, they can spot a weakness from a mile away and they're going to use it to their advantage to convince you that what you're doing is right for you, the family, the world. And the second thing is, why the fuck is prison letting him have young female visitors to begin with? Like, I don't understand that. Why is he even allowed to receive nude and or bikini photos from young women?

1:33:06But he was yeah he's basically doing the same thing he's been doing yeah and they're like well now you get free meals basically so liz she ends up falling into the vicious cycle of victim to perpetrator pipeline she starts helping recruit more young women the jms church ran a modeling group at the australia national university campus so it was it was easy for her to recruit beautiful young and tall woman. Even in prison, Jung had learned nothing from his crimes. Looking back, of course, Liz says she regrets everything. And she genuinely, genuinely believed that she was saving people. She genuinely believed that she was doing the right thing.

1:33:50JMS even told her, Satan uses your parents to try and convince people to get out of the group, to recant them from being saved. So they convinced her to stop talking to her parents altogether. And once she did that, she felt like there was no going back. She said when you're in it, you're brainwashed into thinking that life will be horrific if you ever think about leaving. Not only will you go to hell, but your life itself will be horrible. You think if it's hard now, this is nothing compared to the agony of leaving. Luckily, Liz got out before Zhang was released from prison, but Maple was not so lucky.

1:34:21Okay, Maple is a really pivotal part of this story because she's the one that gets him rearrested. Mabel was born in Canada in 1994. Her parents had moved to Canada from Hong Kong, and they were trying to make it as immigrants. For a while, things were good, until they weren't. Her family moved back to Hong Kong, and by the time that Mabel was in high school, her life was just very unstable. Her parents were constantly fighting. Mabel was getting bullied in high school. She felt very lost, alone, and vulnerable. She's a sophomore in high school, so a second-year student. she went to the mall with her sister and she was approached by this young college girl and it was just a nice conversation they exchanged numbers and this onni kept calling her wanting to meet up with her and talk to her about life maple ignored her at first thinking okay this onni is kind of weird but one night she felt particularly lonely and vulnerable and she just reached out to the onni and texted her what even is the meaning to life like what is the meaning of love.

1:35:22The only starts comforting her and referencing the Bible and tells Maple God created men with purpose. And that purpose is love. God loves people. God loves you a million times more than a parent could ever love you. Maple said that she was moved. She didn't realize love like that could even exist. And it, it made her feel hopeful. She starts meeting up with the only who is so nice and welcoming and Maple grew to really trust and admire her. She was introduced to other members of JMS and they too, they're very nice and warm and welcoming and she's like, oh my gosh, maybe I'm finding my place in life.

1:36:01She said that she found forgiveness and freedom with JMS. The community was always there for her to hold her up whenever she fell down. She just didn't feel so alone anymore. She was told that Zhang, their leader, was put in prison but it was all fake. It was the devil who put him in there. They told her that Zhang was in prison to bear the sins of mankind. He was doing it for us. He was sacrificing himself for mankind. And that, that is true love. Side note, while in prison, Zhang did request some very, very odd things from his followers. His inmate number was 1178. So he's inmate 1178, right?

1:36:37Just a random systematic number. and he told his followers, if you pray at 1am, 1pm, 7pm, your life will be 8 times better. 1178. Also, number significance for no reason strikes again. He said 1178 is also the total length of the Korean peninsula in kilometers. So, I don't know what that makes him. Mr. Korea? I don't know. Okay, I digress. So, like Liz, Maple remembers early on the members were asking her to take pictures of herself in her bikini to send to Zhang while he's in prison. It started off really slow. Her auntie asked her to come swimming with her. And while they're goofing around in their bikinis swimming, she's like, let's take pictures to send to Zhang.

1:37:18But then the pictures got more and more scandalous and Maple just remembers being confused and things were escalating so quickly she felt like she couldn't say no and nobody else around her seemed alarmed. Maple tried to reason with herself, these are for the Lord who loves me and already knows everything about me, so it can't be bad. She remembers telling JMS members that she never lived a clean life. She said that recently she had drank and smoked because she just wanted to get rid of her life problems. She was a sinner. And JMS was like, no, love the Lord with a pure heart now. You will be purified once you meet the Lord.

1:37:54And with that, she was requested to visit Jung in prison. She just remembered being so happy. This was like the opportunity of a lifetime. She was reminded over and over again by everyone. not everyone gets to see him in prison. You should be grateful. She remembers crying because she felt so moved by him. She started visiting him frequently while he was in prison and she would just cry and pray with him. She would cry, dear God, our dear Lord is suffering so much in prison for all of us, for all of mankind, for all of our sins. I will spread the word to more people. So please, please just let the Lord be released soon.

1:38:31Please. Her true nightmare would begin when Zhang was released. in 2018 Jung was released at 73 years old he was put on the sex offenders list and was ordered to wear an electronic anklet for 7 years which he compared the electronic anklet to the nail that crucified Jesus Christ Professor Kim was devastated when he was released the founder of Exodus he said it felt like a monster had escaped from a zoo far more dangerous than a tiger or a lion had broken out of its cage and was released back into the world. After his release, he goes back to his mountain compound where his followers are eagerly waiting for him.

1:39:14They had welcome banners for him. They cried. They performed dances and songs that they had been prepping for him for the past couple of years. At this point, Maple had been a part of JMS for six years when he's released. She is a devout follower at this point, and she quickly becomes one of Jung's favorites, like one of his right-hand women. She's constantly being rewarded. She was forced to dance and sing at massive events. She was kind of like a local celebrity inside of JMS. Zhang acted like no time had passed since he had been in prison. He went straight back to preaching and assaulting. Honestly, I think he became a bit more unhinged compared to before he went to prison.

1:39:55Maple did everything in her power to be someone that Zhang and JMS would be proud of. And one day it seemed like her efforts were paying off. She was asked to keep Jung company one night in his residence. Her auntie told her, you'll be sleeping here tonight to take care of the Lord. I have some things I need to tend to. She obliged. She showered, got dressed in her PJs, set up a blanket on the ground in Jung's bedroom, because that's what she was told. And she laid down on the floor. And she thought it was weird. You know, it was kind of intimidating that she was going to be alone with him in the room.

1:40:27But she would do anything for him. Like, he's the Lord. so she falls asleep and wakes up to Jung touching her she was paralyzed with fear and he starts touching her everywhere and he digitally assaults her and he told her God is here God is giving you his love God loves you God has chosen you but you cannot tell your father because he might misunderstand Mabel recalls what happened on the Netflix documentary and you can just see how hard it is for her to even tell these stories to like think back in that moment and it's just really heartbreaking to watch she would later ask the on the like what happened i'm so confused this happened that night that i was alone with him and she was told can't you see maple he adores you so much.

1:41:18You're just so pretty. And Mabel's like, I think I might leave. Listen to me. I left you with him on purpose. I was trying to give you a chance, a chance to be loved, a chance to get closer to the Lord. Mabel's like, oh, well, I'm confused and embarrassed because maybe she's right. I should feel lucky that the Lord loves me, right? I mean, most people would die to be loved by the Lord. Okay, so Mabel stuck around. She was invited back to his residence, and over the next few years, she would be continuously raped by him. The first time it happened, Jung announced that the two of them were going to be praying together inside of his bedroom, but instead he kept calling her beautiful, and he instructed her, and I quote, get on all fours on the floor like a cat.

1:42:10Mabel was too scared to say no at this point. You know, she had been in JMS for almost a decade. She's fully indoctrinated in every sense of the word. That night he assaulted her. She was bleeding. It was painful. And all she wanted was for him to stop. And he told her, you've been ruptured now and your soul is so big and pretty now you should never change. Mabel left confused and disgusted. But she was more disgusted about herself. She said she was disgusted for being disgusted because this is the Messiah. Whenever she felt traumatized or upset about what happened, about what he did to her, she would convince herself she's feeling these things because she's unworthy of love from the Lord.

1:42:50In the documentary, I had to turn it off in so many points. Watching Maple sob while she talked about how she blamed herself, I have never in my life watched a documentary and wanted to jump through the screen so bad and hug someone and then go hunt someone down and punch them in the face so badly. She literally said she begged God every day to give her the ability to love this old, disgusting man. I mean, think about it. He's in his 70s. He's creepy. He's scary. She was praying to be able to love him the way that she felt like she needed to. She started punishing herself when she couldn't. She started self-harming.

1:43:31She was in pain from the assaults, but then she would get mad at herself when she was conflicted. And she cries out in the interview, he's disgusting. I hate everything about him from his personality to his looks. I begged God so many times and days to give me the opportunity to love that old man. I used to punish myself, even though I was in so much pain. I kept thinking, how can I be so ungrateful? How can I be so disgusted when the Lord loves you this much? Like the way that our brains find reasons to make sense of traumatic events and find ways to blame ourselves for these events. There was another victim who journaled after her assault and she wrote in her journal I didn't understand why he did that, but I think I get it now.

1:44:14He was cleaning me forgiving me making me his Jesus did strange things when he made miracles The victim's name is amy and she said, you know You would think that I would realize that I was being assaulted Maybe even right after but No, I didn't I was so brainwashed then one day near the end of 2021 maple had been in jms for nearly 10 years a foreign jms member texted her telling her about how she had been by jung and how so many of the foreign brides had been abused and she urged maple she's like maple i know i know how close you are to jung you need to get out of there you need to leave maple was 26 now and every day since the day that jung had started the abuse, she had thought about ending her own life every single day.

1:45:03She knew that she had to get out, but she had to be careful. She told Jung, I haven't seen my parents in so long. I'm just going to fly to Hong Kong for like a week and I'll be right back. Jung requested one more night with her before she left. Coincidentally, because she had to travel, she had gotten the COVID vaccine that day. So she had an intense fever. Jung knew this. She's ill. She's burning up she has a fever Jung invites her into his room and Maple knew what was going to happen and in a very scary life-threatening moment she recorded audio of the assault it's played in the Netflix documentary and I do not advise you to listen to it especially if you have any experience with being essayed if like it is one of the most triggering audios that I have heard in so long.

1:45:54The translated transcript reads something like this. And side note, during the audio, you can hear Maple whimpering in fear and you can hear slapping noises. Basically, you can hear the assault. Jung tells her, hug me tighter, hug me tighter, say you love the Lord. this is literally while he's assaulting her she says i love the lord touch me here again it's bigger it's so amazing when you do that when a man hugs a woman he gets so damn hard there are more slapping sounds and he continues you have such white hips such white hips now if If you watch like the dubbed version on Netflix, or if you just read the translations, it translates to do you like that?

1:46:47But it's actually so much worse in Korean. He says, you like it so much you're losing your mind, huh? She gave no indication throughout the audio that she liked it at all. In fact, she gave every indication that she was in pain. But he continued to ask if she had reached the destination. and if so, how many times? Three, four, 20? He continues to say, I have climaxed 50 times. And he continues, you see, God has chosen you like this. Make sure nobody touches you like this because this belongs to the Lord. Maple was crying in the Netflix interview explaining how she had to keep calling out the Lord's name while he was doing this to her.

1:47:32She said she asked God why she had to go through something like this. Professor Kim, the founder of Exodus said, he said something that really stuck with everyone. He said, the first time I visited JMS was in 1995. Maple was not even one years old. She was a baby in a diaper. And now, now that baby is sitting here as another victim of sexual assault. More than 30 years of victims and three decades of pure terror. And Maple was determined to put an end to it. She escaped to Hong Kong. And just five months later, she came back to Seoul to hold a press conference on March 16th, his fucking birthday.

1:48:15She didn't want anyone to go through what she went through. And if you guys know sexual assault cases in South Korea and really anywhere, you know, no victims want to come forward because it stays with you for life. The internet is with you for life. No one wants to put their face to this. No one wants to be victim blamed, especially in this situation. there is so much victim blaming against me but she said she's willing to put her name her face, her story this audio clip of one of the most traumatic things a woman can go through she's willing to make it all public to stop this monster she said somehow JMS knew that she was flying out to Seoul they contacted her and threatened her they said things like you're doing this because you don't really know Koreans basically saying you don't know what we're capable of JMS members in Hong Kong tried to stop her at the Hong Kong airport, trying to get her to not get on a plane to Korea.

1:49:07Once she got to Seoul, she was being followed. She was being watched by JMS members. She was suffering PTSD, anxiety attacks to the point where her body couldn't take it anymore. On the way to the press conference, her body literally shut down. There's footage of this. She's throwing up nonstop in the car on the way to the press conference. She had to stop by the hospital. Nothing was helping. she's still throwing up and the person accompanying her that was i believe a producer for netflix asked do you just want to reschedule it's okay if you do and what she said she said not even god will be able to stop me from doing this i swear i feel like my heart broke in a million pieces during this documentary during the press conference she sat there and she powerfully declared, in no shape or form is Jung a messiah.

1:50:03He is not fulfilling the Lord's will. And due in part to Maple's bravery, Jung has been rearrested. There were mixed responses to her press conference. Of course, JMS members believed Maple was working with the devil. She had betrayed everyone. And they worked hard to spread lies about Maple and her family. They were vilifying her, attacking her character, her credibility. They insinuated that she was mentally ill and that she was lashing out. One JMS member said with his whole chest, if this really did indeed happen, she would have left the church and looked for a solution. That's the natural logical thing to do, but she didn't do that.

1:50:41So we don't think this happened. There were other victims that watched the press conference, older victims, and they had been too scared to come forward. And they said, I felt a lot of guilt. I felt like I should have been the one to say something. Maybe if I had done more, if I had said more, if I fought harder, then maybe Maple wouldn't have been a victim. Maple's parents have been supporting her every step of the way. They know that Maple did nothing wrong and they told her they're so immensely proud of her courage, her morals, her belief, and she's the world to them. In October 2022, Jung was rearrested.

1:51:18Professor Kim sighed a brief breath of relief but it was bittersweet because his father had just died a few months prior to Jung's rearrest so he didn't get to see Jung get rearrested so after four years of being released Jung was rearrested on the same charges but things are a bit different now with the Netflix series there's a lot of international attention on this case and I know social pressure isn't necessarily a great thing when it comes to court decisions but I do hope that we'll see something more than 10 years this time. And even if Jung is never going to be a free man ever again, I just can't imagine how the victims feel.

1:51:56More victims have been coming out with the traction of the Netflix series and I'm very sad to tell you that JMS is still going strong. His following is still loyal. They are threatening victims, doing everything in their power to stop word from getting out. They even tried to stop the release of the Netflix documentary. The courts ruled against them and in favor of Netflix. So now they have spread this narrative that the documentary is proof that the media is conspiring against Jung in conjunction with the government. They argue that the Netflix documentary is being released too close to his trial date, and it was strategically trying to take him down.

1:52:32Cho Sung-hyun, the NBC producer that produced the Netflix documentary, said NBC had been wanting to do a documentary on JMS, but they were too scared. so he brought this to Netflix and asked them so that it would be released under Netflix as an extra layer of protection which I don't know if it really worked side note the producer this is not just a job for him it was revealed that he had family and friends that were victims of JMS and cults so this meant a lot for him the series is actually not just about JMS there are other episodes of other cults in South Korea If you guys are interested, I can also look into those.

1:53:13But the producer said that since the start of filming for this, not even the release, he had been followed, threatened, watched. He said in his 15 year career, he had never bought a self-defense weapon until this case. And to make matters worse, the producer said what's released in this Netflix documentary is not even 10 percent of the crimes he learned about from JMS. This is the tip of the iceberg. The production teams, the lawyers, they wouldn't allow him to release the other 90 % because it was that bad. It's just terrifying. I think it's really gross that Jung has used religion to commit these heinous crimes.

1:53:52And I want to say that even though there are still members of JMS that support him, I think to a degree, in their own ways, these are all victims too. Jung is currently awaiting trial and he is 77 years old. I hope this time we will see some sort of justice and I hope the victims find some peace and happiness after all of this is over And I just hope that they get to sleep at night knowing that he's gone But that is the jms cult the case that I was way too scared to cover while I was in korea What are your thoughts? Please leave in the comments and please stay safe and i'll see you guys on wednesday for the main episode.

1:54:31Bye