[1] Lee started teaching his methods in a park in the 1980s, and since then, the practice has developed into an international network of for-profit and non-profit entities.

[7] Eventually, a larger group of people gathered in the park, and inclement weather necessitated that the classes be moved indoors.

In the meantime, many corporates and government organizations, including Samsung Group, Hyundai, POSCO, and Ministry of National Defense of South Korea employed Lee's program for their employees.

[18] Korean religions scholar Dr. Hai Ran Woo describes Ilchi Lee's Dahn World Co. (formerly Dahn-Hak-Sonwon) as South Korea's largest 'New Age' (or 'self-cultivation') 'meditation industry' with sales reaching $280 million in 2005.

Dahn World has described their spiritual products as the most lucrative of all Korean exports; they plan to expand to 36,000 training centers worldwide by 2010.

[26] The Sedona Ilchi Meditation Center is described as "the home from which the ideals of Tao Fellowship may flower and go forth to awaken the human consciousness," and as the location of 12 "energy vortexes".

)[29] According to his official website, Lee is no longer in direct management of the Dahn Centers, instead focusing on developing educational applications of his training system and serving as president of the consulting firm BR Consulting in Sedona, AZ,[30][better source needed] which provides services to corporations that provide his training programs, including management of trainer education programs, training and licensing of trainers, marketing and media relations, business analysis and planning.

The award was for the culture of peace Lee's Brain Education program brought to El Salvador's public schools.

Brain Education has been taught in Salvadoran schools since 2011, beginning with a pilot project in Distrito Italia, an area on the northern outskirts of the capital of San Salvador.

[40] The South Korean Government conferred the Order of Civil Merit on Lee in 2002,[12][45][46] honoring his dissemination of Korean traditional philosophy and culture throughout the world through his founding of the Institute for Traditional Korean Cultural Studies (국학원 Gukhakwon, also known as the Kukhak Institute), an educational non-profit organization devoted to the study and development of traditional Korean philosophy[45][47] Through this and other affiliated NGOs and projects, such as 'Erecting 369 Tan-gun Statues in Schoolyards', which proved controversial in Korea in the late 1990s,[48][49] Lee contributes to the revival of Korea's nationalist movement by mobilizing large numbers to revere Korea's legendary 2333 BCE divine founding father Tan'gun [or Dangun, Tan-gun, Dahngun],[19] an indigenous tradition said to exist prior to the influence of foreign religions.

[56] Although actual practices resemble yoga, martial arts, meditation, and other recognizable Eastern disciplines, they have been modified with the said intent of uncovering the practitioner's natural brain potential.

[57] Lee's Power Brain Kids book describes that these practices may also be combined with other games and activities intended to develop mind-body connection and mental acuity.

[59] Exercises and practices followed during this phase are heavily influenced by the notion of ki energy as it is understood in Traditional Korean medicine.

[62] One of the mental and physical health enhancement techniques that Ilchi Lee created, Brain Wave Vibration[63] (head-shaking), was used as a kind of moving meditation in a research study published in the international journal, Neuroscience Letters, in July 2010.

[64] Using two psychological questionnaires, this study suggested that regular practitioners of Brain Wave Vibration were less stressed and experienced more positive emotions and fewer psychosomatic symptoms.

Among these were claimed experiences of being visited in his mind, (in meditation) by Lester Levenson, a master who had recently dropped his body,[clarification needed] who urged Lee to buy his Sedona Method group's Sedona retreat property, which Lee later bought after much vacillation, due mainly to the price, but he found a way to handle it.

[71] Though millions of visitors are drawn each year to Sedona, Arizona's red rock formations, Lee believes there is much more to be gained than what can be seen with the eye.

According to one review, "The Call of Sedona offers powerful guidance for all people seeking to connect with their inner selves, nature, and the spirit of this magical region.

[70][71] Ilchi Lee's brain education claims have been described as pseudoscience by Ben Goldacre in his Guardian column[3] and by Brian Cummings, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine.

[80] Two plaintiffs acknowledged that they brought this lawsuit primarily because of the misrepresentations made by their former attorney Ryan Kent about their claims and his ability to handle their case.