According to a recent survey about pseudo-religions that 293 CBNU students took part in, 47% of them had an experience where they met pseudo-religion propagators. In addition, 28.7% of the students ran into the propagators more than five times. Regarding the places where the students met the propagators, 51.1% of the students met them in the Jung-mun area. The most frequent way that the propagators used to approach the students (49.3% of responses) was to give free gifts for the purpose of getting students’ phone numbers. It shows that a lot of students have been bothered by propagators who approach the students with the purpose of spreading their pseudo-religions.
  Indeed, there are lots of methods that the pseudo-religions use for spreading their religions, but these can be summarized in three representative ways. First of all, they impersonate some CBNU departments to make students believe that they are scientific religions and that they also have tradition and history so that they can induce CBNU students to join their religion. In fact, they usually ask students if they have an interest in studying the human psyche, and then they tell the students that they major in psychology. Second, by using free gifts as bait, they lure the students into joining their religions or giving their personal information. They get the phone numbers of students and then pester them with continuous phone calls. The last method is impersonating the central CBNU clubs. By doing so, they can hide their true identity and approach the students. They stimulate the students’ interests by using various activities, such as studying the Bible or learning origami, and then gradually reveal their real intentions.
  These methods that the propagators utilize to spread their religions have been causing some problems. In the case of the first method, a negative perception of the departments that the propagators impersonate can form. This is because people might think that the department has a connection with the pseudo-religion. Regarding the second measure, it is possible that the personal information of the students’ might leak out to pseudo-religious groups, and it might cause secondary damages. The third problem is that if they feign like they are central clubs, the students might misunderstand the clubs and avoid participating in the clubs’ activities because of the distrust formed by the pseudo-religion propagators.
  There have been frequent social problems caused by pseudo-religions beyond the boundaries of CBNU. Actually, in Kang-Seo Gu, Seoul, a 41-year-old woman named Choi, who followed the pseudo-religion called Jinsamo, which worships a Jindo dog, left the cult after her 3-year-old son was assaulted by Kim, who was the leader of Jinsamo. As a result, her son died. There have been pseudo-religion problems in other university’s central clubs. In 2004, the clubs’ federation in Jeon-Nam University was encroached by a pseudo-religion called Shinchunji, causing five Christian clubs to be expelled from the university.
  Since the pseudo-religions travel through the campus with confidence, it is hard to detect and prevent these situations. One of the possible solutions is to ask the students to be vigilant about pseudo-religions. Most importantly, the campus needs to clearly remind the students that there are no relationships between departments and particular religions. Also, the reinforcement of receiving reports from students about the pseudo-religion propagators who use free gifts as bait on campus should be strengthened. In addition, recently, CBNU presented a solution for students who witness or experience the suggestion of joining a pseudo-religion. If this happens, students can report this to the student affairs section (043-261-2019).

By Min Byung-woo
 bw38@cbnu.ac.kr