Bartholomew's Notes

The AP reports from Bhutan:

“The creature has always been out there, and it’s out there still,” says Sonam Dorji, 77, sitting on the pockmarked wooden floor of his small farmhouse…His son-in-law, listening to the old man’s stories, laughs dismissively from across the room…”There’s nothing out there in the forest. Any educated person today knows this.”

…”We can’t live today like we did in the 17th or 18th century. Our culture has to be dynamic,” says Khandu Wangchuck, Bhutan’s finance minister. “Within the last 40 years, we’ve jumped 300-400 years.”

And the yeti? Wangchuck pauses. “I think most people today know this is just a story.”

Meanwhile, in the USA:

Hunters in northern Georgia, claiming to have found Bigfoot and stored him in a freezer, are promising to release telling pictures and DNA evidence of the creature.

…Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer plan to fly to Palo Alto, Calif., and unveil proof of their discovery at a noon press conference this Friday at the Cabana Hotel, according to a report by Searching for Bigfoot Inc. The event will be open to members of the news media only.

A photograph of some kind of dead ape in a chest freezer is provided.

The story in fact first appeared in July in the Fayette Daily News, and was noted by the Bigfoot Researchers’ Lunch Club. Details in this earlier account are not encouraging:

…In one video, posted online by “RDYER678,” Whitton and Dyer interview a “pathologist” who is shocked at the Bigfoot, but then, in a follow-up video, the pair admits the “doctor of pathology” is actually Whitton’s brother. Standing in a kitchen, Whitton’s brother says to the camera, “Live and let live. What happened to that? Guys just trying to have a little fun, you know?”

Dyer said the claims are not a prank, though, and not just an attempt to have fun. Reached on his cell phone Tuesday, he insisted the body is real and will be unveiled on Sept. 1 on the web site

“Why would we jeopardize Matt’s job? Why would we risk the embarrassment of the backlash that we would get? We just have a lot to lose if this is a hoax … I thought Bigfoot trackers and hunters were ridiculous and I made fun of them, to be honest, and I still do. They know nothing as fact. We do,” Dyer said.

Dyer said the Internet announcement and the obvious lie were meant to draw detractors and “build hype.” Other Bigfoot researchers were dismissed by Dyer, and he said he and Whitton are the best trackers because they “have a body.”

…Dyer said he and Whitton plan to sell the Bigfoot body and make a lot of money.

“As of right now,” he said, “we’ve been offered a million bucks for it, from a very credible source. But we’ll make 10 times that. This will change history forever.”

The alleged discovery comes just a few months after the publication of a paper by Matthew Bowman in the Journal of Mormon History, entitled “A Mormon Bigfoot: David Patten’s Cain and the Concept of Evil in LDS Folklore”. Patten claimed to have encountered a very hairy person in 1835, and that this was none other than Cain, from the Bible:

As I was riding along the road on my mule I suddenly noticed a very strange personage walking beside me… His head was about even with my shoulders as I sat in my saddle. He wore no clothing, but was covered with hair. His skin was very dark. I asked him where he dwelt and he replied that he had no home, that he was a wanderer in the earth and traveled to and fro. He said he was a very miserable creature, that he had earnestly sought death during his sojourn upon the earth, but that he could not die, and his mission was to destroy the souls of men. About the time he expressed himself thus, I rebuked him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of the Holy Priesthood, and commanded him to go hence, and he immediately departed out of my sight…

UPDATE: The London Times reports:

An American police officer who claimed to have found Bigfoot has been fired from the force after it emerged that the hairy heap in his freezer was not the half-man, half-ape of myth, but a full-length rubber gorilla costume.

…”As soon as we saw it was a hoax, I filed the paperwork to terminate his employment,” said Chief [Jeffrey] Turner.

“He’s disgraced himself, he’s an embarrassment to the Clayton County Police Department, his credibility and integrity as an officer is gone, and I have no use for him,” he declared.

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In an unusual development, Mr Justice Eady has made a ruling that does something positive for free speech on-line in the UK. Out Law  reports:

Defamation on internet bulletin boards is more like slander than libel, a High Court judge has ruled. Mr Justice Eady said that bulletin board discussions are characterised by “give and take” and should be considered in that context.

“[Bulletin board posts] are rather like contributions to a casual conversation (the analogy sometimes being drawn with people chatting in a bar) which people simply note before moving on; they are often uninhibited, casual and ill thought out…Those who participate know this and expect a certain amount of repartee or ‘give and take’.

“When considered in the context of defamation law, therefore, communications of this kind are much more akin to slanders (this cause of action being nowadays relatively rare) than to the usual, more permanent kind of communications found in libel actions…People do not often take a ‘thread’ and go through it as a whole like a newspaper article. They tend to read the remarks, make their own contributions if they feel inclined, and think no more about it…Opinions may be expressed in exaggerated and strident terms; the only requirement is that they be honestly held.”

…”I would not suggest for a moment that blogging cannot ever form the basis of a legitimate libel claim,” he said. “I am focusing only on these particular circumstances.”

It seems to me, though, that this may be of relevance when it comes to comments left on blogs: alleged libels by commentators can cause difficulties for blog owners, as I noted last year. Unlike libel, slander requires evidence of actual financial loss.

Eady’s ruling is a dismissal of a claim made by a certain Nigel Smith, who runs a shareholder action group. Smith went after 37 contributors to a discussion board, and his targets included posters who had simply objected to Smith’s litigiousness.

Mr Justice Eady said that Smith had persistently pursued cases which were without merit and issued a civil restraint order against him, barring him from starting further actions. He later conceded that he could not do that, though, because he had stopped lawyers arguing about a civil restraint order in the course of the trial.

Eady’s ruling comes two years after another man named Smith won damages for libellous comments in a Yahoo discussion group.

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(updated 20 August 2008)

Over the past couple of years, various pro-Palestinian activists (some more reputable than others) have received strange menacing emails from a person who styles himself as “Dr Charles Edgbaston”, or “His Eminence The Very Rev. Charles J. Edgbaston, D.D., Ph.D”. The rambling emails – which contrast “Holy Israel” with the “Satanic Palestinians” – typically warn the recipients that they have been judged to be supportive of Palestinian terrorists, and that:

…it is my solemn duty to inform you that our Ecclesiastical Court has issued an edict inscribing you as a SLANDERER OF ZION and a TERRORIST COLLABORATOR. This means that, ipso facto, you are deemed to be an ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.Our disciples are hereby empowered to facilitate your removal from your residence and from your place of employment. They are also to initiate a 24/7 monitoring program of your activities.In addition, an application will be made in London to have the administrative law courts revoke your passport for consorting with certain groups that are fronts for proscribed Middle East terrorists. Your inscription on the watch lists of the United Kingdom, the United States and the EU will be sought. Cause will also be given to diminish your pensionable earnings under the Terror Act. As well, a notification of this indictment will be printed in the American, British and Israeli print media and your associates and family will be so notified.

…May our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Son of Mary, have mercy upon you.You may wish to exercise your right to have this decree set aside. In such case, you are invited to submit a notarized affidavit renouncing your calumnies against the holy Jewish state, circulating a statement of support for the victory of the holy Jewish people in the Holy Land against their terrorist enemies to all your affiliated organizations and publishing it in the media, both online or offline, and paying our court costs of US$7500.

So, who is Charles Edgbaston? According to the emails, he is

Chair, Christians for Moses Ministries Inc. and Rector, Zion College of Canada, Penticton.

Neither of these organisations has any web presence, and Edgbaston himself is obscure. The earliest web presence that I could find dates to 2003, in an ombudsman’s report on Middle East coverage by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

Rev. Edgbaston wrote to complain about [a] CBC Radio program’s interview Jan. 21, 2002, with the controversial Israeli historian, Prof. Ilan Pappe, who has largely adopted the Palestinian critique of Israeli policies. The complainant described the interview as “sickening,” saying “Prof. Pappe had nothing but venom to spew out against Israel…Rev.Edgbaston asked for a review, saying “the rot at CBO is entrenched and must be uprooted.” 

Edgbaston’s most detailed self-description is here:

Meanwhile, a comment left on a blog by “Ahinder Fonseca, Ph.D” tells us that

Dr. Charles Edgbaston is a leading Christian Zionist who has exposed Prof. Norman Finkelstein as a self-hating schizophrenic Hebrew. He was also the teacher of Prof. Harold Williams who demolished the fictional book “Beyond Chutzpah’ authored by Finkelstein. Dr. Edgbaston, 77, has a Ph.D. in Arabic and earned his Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) with his thesis on Muhammad’s Exhortations on Jewish Ownership of the Holy Land.

In his threatening emails Edgbaston has a tendency to associate himself with other organisations by beginning with the phrase, “Reliable sources at [Insert Org] have informed Christians for Moses Ministries that you are…” Organisations that he claims have “informed” him include the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and the World Association of Survivors of Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camps; in fact, there is no indication that he has had any contact these organisations or with any others that he cites, and I doubt that they would want to be associated with either his methods or his overheated rhetoric. In 2006 The International Christian Embassy issued a statement confirming that

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem wishes to clarify that we have never conveyed to Rev. Charles Edgbaston any views or opinions on Prof Ilan Pappe.
David Parsons
ICEJ Public Relations Officer

And Anglican Friends of Israel states that

In recent days some emails have been brought to our attention claiming to be from His Eminence the Very Rev Charles Edgbaston, D.D., Ph.D…These emails make claims about ‘reliable sources’ at Anglican Friends of Israel (AFI) and, in one case, ‘extensive consultations’ with AFI…We do not know at present if these emails are genuinely from Charles Edgbaston but, whatever their origin, we strongly reject any claim that Anglican Friends of Israel has been or ever would be involved in such activities. Our legal representatives are writing to Charles Edgbaston to establish whether the emails came from him and to demand that, if so, he desist from any such claims bout AFI’s involvement.

As for Edgbaston’s associates, Elias Aboud (var. “Elias Abboud”) is sometimes described as “Pastor Elias Aboud, Court Registrar for Christians for Moses Ministries Inc.” Edgbaston and Aboud appear with two other associates on a petition against a Palestinian academic:

Rev. Anthony Habib Zion College of Canada…
Pastor Robert Johnston Christians for Moses Ministries Inc.

Anthony Habib appears elsewhere as “Antoine Habib”; all are equally as obscure as Edgbaston himself. Harold Williams, however, entered a debate with the owner of this website; just as Edgbaston praises Williams, Williams in turn praises “the important expose by Rev. Edgbaston”. The two Arabic names, and Edgbaston’s fondness for Roman Catholic titles, suggest to me that he’s involved with some kind of Maronite traditionalist Catholic grouping, but that’s just a guess.

As well as hating Palestinians and their supporters, Edgbaston also dislikes the British:

Britain truly occupies Iraq. She truly occupies Afghanistan. In these countries, she has committed unspeakable tortures against innocent Muslim civilians. In Basra, this filthy colonialist occupier has destroyed children’s playgrounds, mutilated prisoners, forced young girls to perform oral sex on the male bodies of its troops and gone from neighbourhood to neighbourhood demolishing homes and community centres.

So why does Edgbaston keep such a low profile? Could it be because when it comes to threatening people he is one of those who can dish it out but not take it? It seems to me that a promise to have someone monitored and removed from their home and employment must count as either malicious communication, harrassment, or threatening behaviour, and that kind of thing tends to have consequences in the real world of court actions.

Incidentally, the name “Christians for Moses” is associated with Kahanist anti-missionary activity in Israel. Time reported in 1973:

Two weeks ago, eleven members of the Jewish Defense League were charged with arson against a missionary bookstore. At a protest fast at the Wailing Wall, the J.D.L.’s rabble-rousing Rabbi Meir Kahane announced, “If you lose a Jew in Auschwitz or through conversion, it’s still a soul lost.” He later proclaimed the formation of a 25-member countergroup called “Christians for Moses.”

The name re-emerged in Florida in the 1990s; a now-defunct website has some details:

Christians for Moses was co-founded by Ex-Baptist Minister The Late Delroy Brockett & Rabbi Yerachmiel Gersh of The Jewish Defense League in 1993 to bring G-d’s truth to both Jews & Gentiles.Why the name Christians For Moses if we rejected Christianity?

Actually this name is not original nor are the reasons & the concept as the concept was thought up way back in the 70’s by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane OF Saintly Memory as an answer & reaction to Jews For Jesus & similar type groups & brought to life by his student Rabbi Yerachmiel Gersh & The Late DelRoy Brockett an Ex-Bapist minister turned Noahide.

Today Christians for Moses is under the directorship of Mariano Otero a former Pentecostal Minister who today is a fully committed Orthodox Jew who teaches Bnai Noach & wayward Jews the truth as revealed in the Torah.

Mariano Otero is also known as Moshe Otero, and his “Christians for Moses” was part of an organisation called “The Ways of Israel“. I have blogged on Noahides in the past, see here. Edgbaston does not appear to have any links with this group, or to share its theology.

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From Interfax:

Over 500 representatives of youth organizations assembled near the European Union representation in Moscow on Saturday to pray for Georgia to stop aggression against South Ossetia…According to the organizers, Orthodox youth in Moscow will continue praying for peace in the Caucasus in front of the European Union representation office for the next days.

One of the “youth organisations” mentioned is Nashi, which has been described as the “Putin Youth” for its nationalist indoctrination camps. Usually when its members are hanging around a foreign building  in Moscow the purpose is intimidation rather than pious supplication to God; back in December 2006 the Telegraph noted:

Even the British ambassador in Moscow is not exempt from the fear and intimidation that are a constant part of attempting to do business in the country. Yesterday, the Foreign Office was forced to make an official complaint to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the treatment of the ambassador, Tony Brenton. For four months he has been the target of intimidation by Nashi, a Right-wing youth movement linked to the Kremlin. The group has trailed and heckled the envoy, picketing the embassy and triggering a violent incident outside his residence in September. So serious has been the harassment that there are now fears for the ambassador’s safety.

I blogged on Nashi here; just last month it was reported that the movement had “run out of steam” and was “listless”.

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From the Daily Mail:

Dozens of black cats are vanishing across Italy every day to be used in Satanic rituals, an animal welfare group claimed yesterday.

…The Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment estimates 60,000 were killed last year, to ward off bad luck, to be sold to cosmetics laboratories  –  where black fur gives the best results – and for use in Satanic rites.

Association president Lorezno Croce said…’we have strong suspicions that these cats are being used in Satanic rituals. We want to halt this massacre, educate people and restore dignity to black cats.’

As much as I couldn’t resist the headline, it should be noted that Croce provides absolutely zero evidence for his claim of Satanist involvement. The story seems to be an August staple; almost exactly the same tale appeared last year, although then the emphasis was more on the role of the Catholic church:

A leading animal rights group has estimated that 60,000 black cats are killed every year by Italians who believe that they bring bad luck.

The Italian Association for the Protection of Animals and the Environment claims that some are also killed as part of black magic rituals.

…Across large parts of Europe, black cats have been associated with witchcraft since the Middle Ages and were said to be the favourite companions for witches.

Lorenzo Croce, the association’s president, blamed the Church for spreading myths about the animals.

“The Catholic Church has perpetuated this idea for centuries and it is now deeply implanted in people’s minds,” he said.

Sara Lipton gives some historical background to the Catholic hatred of black cats:

[According to an accusation cited by Alan of Lille in the 12th Century] “Cathars are called after the cat, because they kiss the posterior of a cat in whose shape, it is said, Lucifer appears to them.” The same practice was mentioned by Gregory IX in a bull of 1233…Stephen of Bourbon referred to underground rites in which heretics conjured Lucifer in the shape of a cat and related that St Dominic expelled the devil in the form of a black cat from female heretics in Fanjeaux. (1)

Gregory’s Bull (entitled “Vox in Rama”) also mentions “a certain man…from the loins upwards gleaming more brightly than the sun…whose lower part is shaggy like a cat” (2). Some websites mentioning the Bull deal with the story rather loosely, as if Gregory had simply launched a denunciation of black cats.

I have blogged on fears about Satanism in Italy several times in the past, such as here and here. The most famous story of a cat being killed for occult purposes in Italy occured in Sicily in the early 1920s, when certain Raoul Loveday was persuaded by Aleister Crowley to drink the blood of a sacrifical feline. Loveday expired soon after; his widow blamed Crowley and the cat’s blood, but probably either drugs or the local water supply was the cause.

Croce has also complained about the current Pope’s wearing of fur garments.

*****

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Under the predictable headline “South Ossetian bishop calls on people to rebuff Georgian aggression”, the Moscow based Interfax Religion presents the rallying cry of Bishop George, head of the Alania diocese in South Ossetia:

“We have once again experienced ‘care’ of Georgia – never-ending humiliation, insults, slander, terrorist acts and gunfire at civilians. Georgia has shown such ‘love and care’ for our people for the past 18 years”…

The report adds:

The bishop urged South Ossetians “to give full backing to those who protect their homes, children, wives, parents and friends and to serve the people and the fatherland with any possible talents and capabilities.”

Meanwhile, in Moscow, an Alanian/Ossetian cleric is calling on a saint to intervene:

“The [Alanian] representation’s rector hegumen Georgy (Bestayev) prayed all night through and in the morning he set off to the Holy Trinity- St. Sergius Laura to pray before the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh about peace and stability in South Ossetia,” churchwarden Oleg Khubetsov told an Interfax-Religion correspondent on Friday. He noted that Ossetian community of Moscow “together with all law-abiding Russian citizens is outraged with bold aggression initiated by “the little Hitler” against people of South Ossetia.”

One might think that when you’re defending the right of a large country to invade a smaller neighbour on the grounds of solidarity with an ethnic enclave across the border you might be better off avoiding Hitler analogies…

However, to be fair, Interfax also gives us the take of Georgia Catholicos Illia II:

…Georgian authorities stand for peaceful settlement of the conflict and are ready to carry out the policy of peace. I hope the Ossetian party will not exacerbate the situation. Centuries-old friendship and family relations bond Georgian and Ossetian people and what is most important we united with Christian faith and must live peacefully without blood.

Moscow Patriarch Alexei II has also called for a cease-fire, pointing out that “Orthodox peoples called by the Lord to live in fraternity and love confront each other.”

Bishop George, by the way, is a member of a traditionalist Orthodox church called the “Orthodox Church of Greece Holy Synod in Resistance”.

With interesting timing, the Tbilisi Messanger reports that just a few days ago Patriarch of Alexandria Theodore II arrived in Georgia with “the remains of Saint Matthew the Mediator which were exhibited at Sameba church in Tbilisi and Svetitskhoveli in Mtskheta.”

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Speaker known for views on “Muslim Antichrist”

News of an event:

A special two-night event: Walid Shoebat (Terrorism from a biblical perspective) sponsored by Hineni Ministries and Freeman Center For Strategic Studies Sunday and Monday, August 17 and 18, 7:30-9 p.m. 2400 Wilcrest, Houston 77042 (Christ the Servant Lutheran Church)

The Freeman Center For Strategic Studies is a pro-Israel outfit somewhat to the right of AIPAC, which it denounces for failing to oppose Israeli leaders it considers to be too liberal. Possibly its best-known member is Yossef Bodansky, an academic and one-time director of the “Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare”. Hineni Ministries, meanwhile, calls itself a “Judeo-Christian” organization, and its director, Frank Lanza, is also part of the Freeman Center. As well as Shoebat, Hineni’s upcoming events include a talk by Gershon Salomon, an Israeli extremist who campaigns for a new Jewish temple on the site of the Dome of Rock and who has been popular among American Christian Zionists for a long time.

Shoebat’s views have featured on this blog several times in the past few weeks. Having milked his alleged “I was a Palestinian terrorist” past, Shoebat is now roaming American churches with the preposterous claim that Book of Revelation contains the Arabic phrase “In the Name of Allah”, but that this was misinterpreted as “666” (I deconstructed all that here). Joel Richardson, who is Shoebat’s collaborator, crows that

Walid and I have put together a comprehensive Scriptural presentation as to why there is presently a revolution taking place within the world of Biblical prophecy. The revolution is away from the Roman End-Time Paradigm and towards the Islamic End Time Paradigm.

Rather than heading the revived Roman Empire based on the EU, apparently the Anti-Christ is now going to take control of the Muslim world. This is presented as some sort of advance in the understanding of Biblical prophecy, when in fact it is evidence that the whole approach is a farrago of nonsense: just like Hal Lindsey and all their other predecessors, the  method employed is simply to approach the Bible without any real understanding of literary or historical context, and then to match prophecies to whichever nation or group is currently in conflict with USA.

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Follows methods developed by Korean “Grandmasters” jailed for fraud in 2000

The video above shows members of the London Metropolitian Police extolling the virtues of “Ki Health”, a particular branding of Qi Gong available in London and other cities around the world.

A report in the Irish Times gives a bit of background:

‘ENERGY MONKS’ are growing in popularity in Ireland. These complementary healthcare practitioners work for the London-based charity Ki Health International.

…During a typical ki energy treatment, the practitioner makes quite a lot of hissing, blowing and burping sounds. The treatment itself lasts for between 10 and 15 minutes, during which time the practitioner will have aimed to open up all the body’s energy channels.

“The length of the treatment is useful because in London, we treat doctors and nurses, fire fighters and other people who work for the London emergency services. Many people tell us that they feel an immediate benefit from the treatment,” says Master Jin. There is no charge for the treatment, although donations are accepted.

…And, if all of this sounds a bit like a cult in the making, the ki masters are keen to dispel any suspicions that they are converting people to a new religion. “People of all religions and cultures do the training. Basically, the principles of Taoism follow the laws of nature and our aim is simply to create a mind/body harmony and balance which will bring health,” explains Master Jin.

The Ki Health International website itself is not particularly informative as regards the organisation’s background, mentioning only unnamed “Ki Masters”, although the site itself is registered to a certain Renate Damhuis, a Microsoft employee who has enthusiastically endorsed the practice on related sites (some of which are now defunct), such as that of Jungshim Ki Energy New York.

According to documents submitted to the Charity Commission, Ki Health International used to be known as Chun Do Sun Bup, about which there is a bit more detail at this website:

Chun Do Sun Bup (CDSP), which literally means “the heavenly way to recover body, mind, and spirit” is a 6000-year-old Taoist form of South Korean martial arts training. For thousands of years, this discipline was secretly passed down from generation to generation until Dr. Haeng-Yong Mo and his wife Gui-Dai Park began to explore “The Way of the Taoist Immortals” and were called upon to revitalize this tradition for the modern era.

The Grandmasters were to endure 30 years of arduous and often life-threatening ascetic training in the mountains of Korea, until ultimately they were capable of transmitting the perfect balance of yin/yang energy or Ki.

As they wrote in The Book of Heaven, when Grandmasters Mo and Park perfected the “heavenly way” of the Taoist Immortals, they received extraordinary healing abilities. They traveled in Japan, and South America performing miracles and treating thousands of people relieving their illness and suffering. Yet, as they traversed the world, they realized that they would never be able to reach everyone who needed their help. Finally their prayer to “serve humanity” was answered in the Chun Do Sun Bup Ki Energy Training.

KI ENERGY TRAINING Today there are more than 200 nonprofit International Chun Do Sun Bup Ki Energy Centers operated by Korean and Western Masters who teach this ancient art in South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and England. Ki Masters dedicate their lives to cultivation of their healing abilities to serve humanity. Introduced to North American in 1994, Ki Energy Centers are now located in Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Vancouver.

A defunct CDSP site from Australia (many CDSP-related sites are blocked from caches and Wayback) has pictures of “Dae-Ra-Chun, the headquarters of CDSB in South Korea”, and of a fountain, with the caption “The Water of Life at the headquarters has incredible purity and healing properties”.

So why doesn’t the website of Ki Health International mention Mo and Park? An AP report from 2000 gives us a clue:

A South Korean court sentenced two leaders of a doomsday cult to 10 years in prison each Tuesday on charges of swindling followers out of millions of dollars.  Mo Haeng-ryong, 66, founder and head of the indigenous Chunjonhoe, or Heaven’s Gathering, and his wife, Park Kui-dal, 52, were found guilty of fraud in Seoul District Criminal Court.

…The cult, which incorporates Confucianism elements, urged followers to donate all their money, saying the world would end on Feb. 19 when it lost all its spiritual energy, prosecutors said.  With doomsday approaching, the cult leaders were preparing to flee the country with much of the money, prosecutors said.

…The cult was established in 1985 by Mo and his wife, who claimed they were given an order from heaven to build a holy shrine, called Daerachun, or big spiritual heaven, at Hongchun.

(Hat tip: Cult News Network, as well as posters at Cult Exit and JSM Cult )

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American Buddhist blogger Precious Metal  has received an unwelcome missive by email from UK libel specialist law-firm Carter-Ruck:

We act for the Buddhist monks William Van Gordon and Edo Shonin and write in connection with an article entitled “A Mother’s grief: ‘The cult guru who turned my son into a zombie'” that was published by the Daily Mail on 25 May 2007 and which is also published by you…

The article contains a number of false and highly defamatory allegations of both our clients and has caused considerable damage to their reputation. We write to give you formal notice that we have issued High Court proceedings for defamation on behalf of our clients against the publishers of the Daily Mail and ask you to remove the article from your website as a matter of real urgency. The article has been removed from the Daily Mail’s own website.

Articles critical of Edo Shonin (or “Edo Shonnin”, born Edward Penney) have also appeared on The Buddhist Channel.

Edo and Van Gordon run the “Tranquil Abiding Buddhist Retreat” in rural Wales, formerly known as the “Pine Forest Sangha”; according to a profile on its website

Br. Edo, originally from Scotland has dedicated the best part of his adult life towards spiritual development. He has received many transmissions and has been formally ordained in both the Hinay?na and Mahayana Buddhist schools. Br. Edo has followed the example set by his first teachers who in addition to being Buddhist monks also practiced the less familiar ways of the Yogi and have preferred as much as possible to remain unknown and unimportant…In a visit to Thailand earlier this year both of the Brothers received transmissions and further formal ordinations as Yogis under Master Draythep Chantawanno in Northern Thailand…The Brothers believe that whilst lineage and tradition are very important and special, sometimes people risk falling into the trap of following a particular group just because it can make impressive claims or has teachers with impressive titles for example.

Questions had been raised about Edo Shonin’s lineage in the past; an older website for the Pine Forest Sangha dealt with this in a rather less modest way:

At Pine Forest Sangha, we remember that the Buddha, Christ, Guru Nanak and Mohammad did not have any so called lineage or impressive title. They awoke to a universal realisation and they attempted to communicate to everyone that each and every sentient being is born with the capability of this realisation regardless of lineage or school of thought.

This older website also had more details in its profile of Edo Shonin:

Edo Shonin has been a monk in the Nygma and Shingon traditions for 43 years. Born to a devoted Buddhist family, his monastic education began at 5 years of age. From the beginning he has been devoted to the traditional Shingon ways as well as the Lam Rim and Zog Chen teachings of the Nygma. He has dedicated all of his life to learning and teaching Buddhism in various Asian countries…Having been Abbot of various monasteries in the East, he has now been invited to Great Britain.

Van Gordon, meanwhile, is his disciple, and it is his mother who made the allegations that were reported in the Mail. There is no other mention of “Master Draythep Chantawanno” that I could find on-line, although of course there may be Thai sources and alternative transliterations of his name.

Precious Metal has been given seven days to comply with Carter-Ruck’s demands or face “an injunction, damages and legal costs”. However, the blog is based in the USA and the owner has declined to comply; a couple of American court decisions support his position. Wired noted one in 2003:

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday that Web loggers, website operators and e-mail list editors can’t be held responsible for libel for information they republish, extending crucial First Amendment protections to do-it-yourself online publishers.

Online free speech advocates praised the decision as a victory. The ruling effectively differentiates conventional news media, which can be sued relatively easily for libel, from certain forms of online communication such as moderated e-mail lists…The court based its decision on a section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, or the CDA. That section states, “… no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

And in 2006 California brought us this:

The court, in a unanimous decision, said those claiming defamation can only sue the original source of the allegedly offending comments, not publishers or distributors, even if the distributor is an individual. Internet users are protected by the same 1996 Communications Decency Act that grants immunity against defamation claims to publishers in most circumstances, the court said, overturning a San Francisco appeals court.

(Hat tip: Cult News Network)

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Yes, it’s the St Stephen the Great Trust again. Luckily, the author of the article has his own blog.

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