The Illusion of Dahn or Dahnworld

Dear Vicky,

Some older members say that they have been treated well by Dahn and that no harm has come to them. Understand, however, that members over 50 and/or those with a successful company, are generally not targeted to become Dahn Center masters. Some even get the red-carpet treatment-if such treatment will further (the founder) Ilchi Lee’s agenda. 

Below the surface layer of potentially beneficial exercises and meditation, if you care to check, you see younger, vulnerable, and susceptible recruits who become more like slaves to Dahn than “masters”.

 I ask those who support Dahn, or those who are in business: Would you coerce, or even allow, your employees to work up to 100 hours per week with no overtime pay? Would you pressure your employees to give up their spouses, children, parents, old friends and new friends—their entire support network – in order to work for your business? Would you accept greencard marriages for your employees and relocate employees to prevent attachments? Many ex-members, trainees, and masters have reported this and other emotional and physical suffering. 

At least one trainee, a healthy woman, died in 2003 during master level endurance training. Has her death told us nothing? 

Comparing Dahn to fitness clubs: In fitness clubs, you’ll find first aid kits and people trained in emergency first aid. In polling a few Dahn centers in Canada, Korea and the United States none of them had this. Blithely hoping nothing goes wrong in a Dahn center is a recipe for disaster.

  Advocates say Dahn is about peace and healing the earth. I don’t see Dahn’s huge octopus of businesses donating profits to suffering populations or to environmental causes. I see the companies buying Arabian racehorses and real estate. Lee travels in a humvee with bodyguards, as his wife enjoys a Mercedes and trips to the golf course. Is it naïve to believe that Ilchi Lee and his Dahn empire don’t profit greatly from others’ sacrifices. Perhaps if individuals involved in Dahnhak would ask Dahn the hard questions and explore beyond the surface, we would all see Dahn the same way. 

  If, as Ilchi Lee says, we are already spiritually enlightened, then we don’t really need to pay him tens of thousands of dollars to realize this, do we? Do the effective and transformative results of Dahn include persuading people to pay a hefty sum for liberation of their ancestors to go to heaven, or to set off on 18-hour hikes without proper hydration or emergency equipment? 

 Yes, Dahn would like us to give up all critical analysis, to stop thinking—and for what? For no other reason besides teaching exercise, the masters work to aggressively market Dahn’s expensive “enlightenment” programs (using persuasion techniques and outright pressure), distribute slick brochures, and meet financial “visions” for Dahn Centers—or else! 

If the Dahn Center business is the path to enlightenment, I say no thanks. I’ll take critical analysis any day.