Deceived: The Moo Years" is the true story of one young man's compelling, at times terrifying, former involvement with the martial arts cult Chung Moo Quan. Based on his soon to be published memoir, "Deceived: a Journey into Darkness", author and producer Russell Johnson's 12 week podcast combines a powerful narrative and witness interviews with martial artists, mind control experts and former victims of the Chung Moo Quan.

Some believe he was the greatest martial arts master that ever lived; faster and more powerful than Bruce Lee, more feared than Chuck Norris. To his followers, he had supernatural powers. Some said he could levitate and walk up the sides of buildings. To others, he appeared as a demon beast that haunted their dreams. On DECEIVED, we will peel away the mystery of a Korean immigrant who rose from being a janitor, to running a martial art school empire. This is the true story of the notorious martial art cult known as Chung Moo Quan; its powerful leader, Master John C. Kim.

When you stop at a coffee shop or a pizza place, you don’t expect to worry about being drawn into a cult. But there it was, right next door. An ad starts a teenager on an eight year nightmare, being drawn into the Chung Moo Quan. On DECEIVED, we will peel away the mystery of a Korean immigrant who rose from being a janitor, to running a martial art school empire. This is the true story of the notorious martial art cult known as Chung Moo Quan; its powerful leader, Master John C. Kim; and of one of the few men who would dare to oppose him.

Russell experiences a lesson in Bait & Switch and makes choices between career, love or the Moo. He is given an omen sign. Is it a warning of unforeseen events to come? If you like Deceived Podcast please share with your friends, follow us on iTunes, SoundCloud and Twitter! Please write us a positive review! A lot of hard work was done to be able to tell this story! Thanks!

One night while in a deep sleep, Russell felt a very hard slap on his waterbed and heard someone shout, “Wake up!” Without even thinking, still half asleep, he jumped to his feet and in bowing position said, “Yes, Instructor”. It was all instinct at this point. Standing in the bedroom was Keith Brown. He told Russell his waterbed was facing the wrong direction; it was bad to sleep with his head facing north. Keith explained that there was a certain bad energy from the north that could get into the mind at night, if he slept with his head facing north. Russell took this as a reference to North Korea. He immediately began to drain his waterbed, in order to take it apart and move it. It was 3 A.M.

Now, let’s say you’re shopping around for a good martial arts school and go into your local dojo in a strip mall to inquire about lessons. Upon meeting the instructor, he tells you the school will not only teach you martial arts, but also, they will instill within you irrational fears, phobias, and superstitions. And for a little extra money, they would throw in some rituals. He tells you by the time you reached black belt in their system, your head will be full of all kinds of weird shit. Would you run the other way?

Russell was told, that Master Kim said a Chung Moo Quan instructor had 3 weaknesses: women, alcohol, and gambling. He was told that women were faulted by design, and that they had no minds. An instructor could lose his mind over a woman; they want control over the relationship, and the man. Russell had a hard time with this thinking, because he was raised by his mother, one of the most wonderful people he’d ever known. One of the stories Keith liked to repeat was that, as part of Master Kim’s training, Grandmaster Wang Po ordered him to sleep with 3,000 women. Not only was he to sleep with them, but get a picture with each one. The purpose of the story was, to say Master Kim had a deeper understanding of women, which could be used to justify his non-feminist views taught at School. It was said that after Master Kim had slept with all these women, they either became nuns or committed suicide, because they could not be with him. This was before digital cameras; Russell’s thought was: that the Master’s film development bill each month must have been huge.

Part of learning to handle a Chung Moo Quan Martial Arts School involved giving a private lesson. Each ‘information’ that came into the School was treated differently- Everyone’s searching for something; that’s what brought them to the School. The instructor’s job was to figure out what that was. When they came in, instructors used ‘sideways conversation’ to ask questions without revealing the agenda. The first thing was to get them to take a free private lesson. Once they agreed, have them sign a release form, which was known in the School as the DDM form, which stood for - ‘death doesn’t matter’. There was a story that an ‘information’ came into a Chicago School, signed the form, challenged the instructor, and the man was killed. The release form stated that death may occur during private lessons at the School, so they release all rights to hold the School responsible. Most of the time you wouldn’t tell the information what was on the form; other times you’d see there was a guy who wanted to cause a problem, i.e. fight. Then you made very clear the form says death may occur. If they still wanted to fight, you gave them a quarter and pointed at the gas station across the street and told them to go call 911 because after the fight one of us would be leaving in an ambulance.

From the beginning of Russell’s training in School, he heard that Master Kim had the power to heal, and that he had a medical doctor’s degree. Russell watched as Aden performed acupressure, knowledge that he believed Master Kim had passed on to Aden. Keith told of an instructor in the Chicago area, who’d been dying in the hospital with some mysterious disease, that most assumed was cancer. All the doctors were in the hospital room, surrounding the instructor, when “Master” Kim entered. When he saw Master Kim, the instructor tried to get up from his death bed to bow, but Master Kim told him to stay down. Master Kim made all the doctors leave the room, even though they disagreed wildly. A short time later, Master Kim opened the door to announce, the instructor had been cured. The doctors were amazed and bewildered.

By passing out the flyers and signing up students for the school, I had changed people’s lives. I have heard from a few people, that listening of my podcast series has caused them to have nightmares and flashbacks. One friend said he did not know if he should hug me or hit me. PTSD is not uncommon for former cult members and it is certainly not uncommon among former Moo members. Because I had recruited a number of people into the Moo, I wanted to stop more from joining and pull more out than I ever signed up. I believe I have accomplished this goal.

When a new School opened for the first time, the instructors and assistants would stand quietly in the waiting area. Inside the practice area the National Instructors placed a prayer, from Master, behind the Korean and American flags. This is similar to a christening ceremony, in this case the blessing of Master Kim. Believing that Master Kim had the ability to put his mind into objects, this ritual allowed Master Kim to put his mind into the School. From that day forward, when they entered the practice area for the first time each day, they would stand toward the flags in bowing position. This was a long bow, so they could clear their minds of all outside influences and direct their thoughts towards Master Kim and Chung Moo Quan training. The ritual was silent and meditative. Russell would learn years later that the prayer note, placed behind the flags, asked to make Master Kim one of the richest men in the world. Russell thought Master Kim believed that if enough instructors bowed to the flags and thought about him, it would increase the chances of the prayer being answered.