It is often called the "foot reading cult", because its founder, Hogen Fukunaga, claimed he could make a diagnosis by examining people's feet.
[6] They used shocking words to fuel their concern, falsely claimed their diseases could be cured through training in his cult, and swindled exorbitant amounts of money from them.
[3] They were urged to purchase high-priced scrolls and other ornaments that were said to ward off evil, cure illnesses, deliver from sin, and break family curses.
[8] Staff members eagerly studied Fukunaga's methods of threatening people to make them enroll in special training sessions, the sources said.
[7] Fukunaga reportedly obtained 60 billion yen from more than 10,000 people over the past 13 years, while he spent enormous amounts enhancing his reputation as a religious leader by "buying" audiences with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II,[4] President Clinton, Mother Teresa,[7] Margaret Thatcher, Sathya Sai Baba and celebrities.
[9] According to a report by Christian newsweekly World: "The Clinton White House fundraising scandal", In May 1996, a fundraising dinner organized by Mr. Huang was held at the Sheraton Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Yogesh Gandhi, a distant relative of Mahatma Gandhi, paid for his ticket and that of a friend, Dr. Hogen Fukunaga, with a $325,000 contribution.
Mr. Fukunaga, leader of a Japanese religious sect known as Ho no Hana Sanpogyo, is a multimillionaire, while Mr. Gandhi, a naturalized American, is a man of little means, indeed a "pauper", according to papers filed in his recent divorce case.
After The Los Angeles Times reported in October the details of Mr. Gandhi's lowly economic status, the DNC concluded that the $325,000 he had donated probably never belonged to him and returned "his" money.