Is South Korea’s President Park a cultist?

The late religious leader Choi Tae-min befriended a traumatised Park Geun-hye after the 1974 assassination of her mother - whom he said had appeared to him in a dream. Park treated him as a mentor.

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South Korean President Park Geun-hye apologised on television last week for giving friend Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of late religious leader Choi Tae-Min, who was married six times, had multiple pseudonyms and set up his own cult-like group known as the Church of Eternal Life. Photo: AP

Published: 3:59pm, 2 Nov 2016Updated: 4:01pm, 2 Nov 2016

Is South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye a follower of a religious cult called Yongsaenggyo, or the Church of Eternal Life?

The question has been plaguing Koreans as evidence mounts concerning Park’s mysterious relationship with her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil.

Choi, 60, a daughter of the late cult leader Choi Tae-min, is suspected of pulling strings in state affairs and illegally profiting since Park took office in February 2013.

Choi’s alleged exploitation of her relationship with the president is fueling speculation that Park, who is supposedly the country’s most powerful person, has been under the spell of her cultist confidant after becoming a follower of the religious cult.

Choi Tae-min, known as President Park Geun-hye’s mentor and founder of a religious cult, watches Park during a political event in 1977. Park was acting as first lady at the time. File photo: Korea Times

Choi Tae-min, who died in 1994 at age 82, is believed to have founded Yongsaenggyo in the 1970s by combining differing beliefs in Buddhism, Christianity and the indigenous Korean religion Cheondoism that arose in the early 20th century.

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