About
Dr. Kwon Yonghyun권용현
I trained as a physician, and I never stopped being one. What changed is that I stopped pretending the questions patients actually brought me fit inside the chart. This is where those questions led — and I have tried to follow them without abandoning the standard of evidence that made me useful in the first place.
The path
How a physician ends up here.
2000
Medical school, and a Tai Chi master nearby
I entered Korea University's medical college and, that same year, found a Tai Chi master practising near the campus. Both trainings started at once and neither has stopped. It took me fifteen years to work out that they were the same subject.
2007
Licensed, then the aesthetic years
Graduated and licensed. A brief period working as a legal medical tattoo artist, then Bloom Clinic — nine years as its medical director, from 2008 to 2017. Aesthetic medicine, which is the conventional career done conventionally, and functional medicine, which was there from the start rather than arriving later.
2012
Cosmetics, and a professional association
R&D director at a cosmetics manufacturer for five years, and from 2014 chair of the Korea Aromatherapy Association — a private professional body, not a government one (the name is conventional; it isn't a national authority), four years before the cannabis work. The thread was already running; I could not see it yet.
2013
A book, and the beginning of the doubt
I wrote 의사는 성형하지 않는다 — a doctor doesn't get plastic surgery — while directing an aesthetic clinic. Alongside it: a master's course at Hanseo University's graduate school in Sun-do, Korean traditional qigong, never finished; and functional, alternative and holistic medicine read the way a physician reads, for what the evidence actually carries.
End of 2015
I got sick, and could not fix it
Adrenal fatigue, probably. Burnout, certainly. I had a full medical education and it was not enough to get me back. So I tried everything — and what worked was not what I had been taught. Cannabinoid medicine, energy healing and spirit medicine entered my life as things I needed, not as a philosophy I adopted.
2018
Chairing the association, then opening the clinic
Chairperson of the Korea Cannabinoid Association — connecting patients with doctors, matching businesses, advising on cannabis in Korea. The year after, a clinic of my own: 에너지힐링의원, Energy Healing Clinic, practising holistic medicine under that name in Seoul. Not a private interest kept quietly beside a career. The career.
2019
Proof, from someone else's licence
By then I already knew cannabinoid medicine helped. What I did not have, in Korea, was anyone licensed to confirm it. So I found that confirmation abroad — in Canada, then Malaysia — formal consultations and real prescriptions, legal in the countries where they were written. It mattered less as paperwork than as proof: this was medicine, not a belief I had talked myself into.
Korea
Treated as someone handling narcotics
Working with cannabinoids in South Korea meant being harassed by people who hear the word and think only of a drug, and being ignored by the institutions I had trained inside. It also brought a criminal case and a prison term — a matter of public record, and not something I intend to argue out on a web page. I kept researching anyway, and published and lectured where anyone would have me.
Thailand
Legal access, and practitioners willing to be examined
Thailand gave me what Korea would not: lawful access to the medicine, and spiritual lineages and practitioners who were willing to have their work looked at closely. Muay Thai keeps the body in the conversation and the discipline honest.
December 2022
Ordained as a ngakpa
Took refuge in Tibetan Buddhism through the Maitreya Sangha in Korea, then ordained as a ngakpa — a non-monastic Vajrayana practitioner-priest, trained in ritual and practice without taking monastic vows — under Lama Glenn Mullin. One more tradition folded into the same practice, not a departure from the others.
Now
Practice, teaching, and the shelters
Seeing clients and teaching from Thailand, in English and Korean. Part of the work supports an animal shelter, orphanages in Chiang Mai, and a refugee village in Mae Hong Son.
On the record
Credentials, stated plainly.
- Name
- Kwon Yonghyun · 권용현 · 權容現 · known as MahKha 麻哥
- Qualification
- MD — licensed physician
- Medical training
- Korea University medical college · 2000–2007
- Postgraduate
- Hanseo University graduate school · Sun-do, Korean traditional qigong · master's course, not completed
- Practice disciplines
- Sun-do · Qigong · Tai Chi · Yoga · Meditation · Energy healing
- Lineage
- Took refuge in Tibetan Buddhism through the Maitreya Sangha in Korea; ordained as a ngakpa — a non-monastic Vajrayana practitioner-priest — under Lama Glenn Mullin, December 2022.
- Yoga training
- 50-hour Yin Yoga Teacher Training · Bodhi Tree Yoga, Pai, Thailand · January 2024
- Published
- 의사는 성형하지 않는다 — a doctor doesn't get plastic surgery · 한스미디어 · 2013 · and a contributed chapter in a collected volume
- Cannabinoid medicine
- Chairperson of the Korea Cannabinoid Association since 2018 — the body that connects patients with doctors, matches businesses, and advises on cannabis in Korea.
- Continuing education
- International College of Cannabinoid Medicine — Overview of Medicinal Cannabis: Foundations · The Endocannabinoid System in Health and Disease · Cannabis Pharmacokinetics · Safety of Medicinal Cannabis · CBD Prescribing Considerations · Medical Cannabis in Treatment of Chronic Pain (Parts 1–2) · 7 CPD hours · February 2022
- Recognition
- Korea's first physician to practise cannabinoid medicine.
- On screen
- Pull (풀), 2025 — a credited subject in Lee Soo-jung's documentary on the Korean hemp movement, premiered at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival
- Founded
- PRASM Foundation — for Kayan refugee families from Myanmar in the hills of Mae Hong Son, Thailand
- Society role
- Invited director, academic society of Spirit Medicine
- Based
- Southeast Asia · practising in English and Korean
Posts held, as his own résumés record them
Continuing, as of his January 2020 résumé
- 2018 —Chairperson, Korea Cannabinoid Association한국카나비노이드협회Connects patients with doctors, matches businesses, and advises on cannabis in Korea
- 2014 —Chairperson, Korea Aromatherapy Association한국아로마테라피협회
- 2018 —Wellness Director, PRASMBioinformatic network · Korea
Earlier
- 2019Medical Director, Energy Healing Clinic에너지힐링의원Holistic medicine · 통합의학
- 2017–2019Founder & CEO, HALO Korea헤일로코리아Functional-medicine wellness start-up
- 2016Co-Founder, Humanscape휴먼스케이프Healthcare start-up, recovery care
- 2012–2017R&D Director, K&H OrganicK&H 오가닉Cosmetics manufacture
- 2008–2017Medical Director, Bloom Clinic블룸의원Aesthetic and functional medicine
Medical advisor
Organization of Legalizing Medical Cannabis in KoreaMedical advisor · listed 2017 and 2018
Association of Ankylosing Spondylitis PatientsMedical advisor · listed 2018
Novena Lifecare GroupWellness centre and clinic franchise · listed 2018
NOVU aestheticSingapore-based aesthetic clinic franchise · listed 2019 and 2020
Aesthefill · RegenBiotechPLA filler · listed 2017 and 2020
Dermaspring Eye · NFindersPDO thread · listed 2017
Novetafill · DexLevoPCL injectable · listed 2017
Elsewhere, in other people's words
MJBizDaily (Marijuana Business Daily)19 July 2019
South Korean medical cannabinoid imports surpass 300 units since law passed
Yong-hyun Kwon, the first doctor in Korea specializing in cannabinoids, said he expected more than 300 approvals in that time.
Matt Lamers · Read it there
Korean Film Council (KOFIC) · KoBiz databaseReleased 18 June 2025 · KoBiz entry 27 June 2025
Pull (풀)
The film questions whether ecologists, academics, poets, doctors, musicians, architects, and others who perceive hemp's vitality and efficacy differently from conventional wisdom can overcome the deeply entrenched prejudices in Korean society.
Read it there
The posts above are transcribed from his own curricula vitae, the most recent dated January 2020 — so anything shown as continuing was continuing then, and is stated on that basis rather than as today's fact. His medical registration: No. 93400, South Korea, issued 27 February 2007 by the Ministry of Health and Welfare — a number, not only a CV's claim about itself. He holds no separate licence to practise in Southeast Asia: his sessions are conducted online rather than from a physical premises, and he sees no clients in person. The publication list wants ISBNs for the same reason a claim like this needs a number behind it.
Thailand
I live and teach here. The distance from where I trained turned out to be useful — it made it easier to see which parts of medicine were medicine and which parts were habit.
Muay Thai
I train. It keeps me honest: a discipline where the body's feedback is immediate and cannot be argued with is a good corrective for anyone who works with subtler signals all day.
The shelters
Part of this work supports an animal shelter, a children's home, and a refugee village in Mae Hong Son. It is the least abstract thing I do.
추천사
Letters, from people who knew me before this.
마가와의 인연은 약 10여 년 전, 강남의 한 테라피 센터에서 시작되었습니다. 처음 그를 만났을 때 그는 수려한 외모와 인자한 미소를 지니고 있었지만, 그 미소 너머에는 쉽게 설명하기 어려운 깊은 아픔이 함께 비치는 사람처럼 느껴졌습니다.
서로 닮은 점이 많았던 우리는 자연스럽게 친구가 되었고, 여러 프로젝트를 함께하며 적지 않은 시간을 보냈습니다. 그 시간 동안 제가 가장 인상 깊게 지켜본 것은 마가가 끊임없이 배우고 연구하며, 다양한 실험과 경험을 통해 얻은 치유의 에너지를 사람들과 나누고자 했던 진심이었습니다. 그리고 그 마음은 말에 그치지 않고 실제 행동으로 이어졌습니다. 그런 모습을 보며 저는 그를 단순히 의사라는 직업을 가진 사람이 아니라, ‘참된 의사’라고 생각하게 되었습니다.
법적으로든, 경제적으로든 자신에게 불리한 상황을 감수하면서까지 아프고 힘든 사람들과 소통하고, 그들이 안고 있는 문제를 해결하기 위해 애쓰는 모습을 저는 가까이에서 여러 차례 보았습니다. 또한 그러한 과정 속에서 타인을 치유하는 것에 그치지 않고, 자신의 상처와 삶의 문제들까지 하나씩 마주하고 극복해 나가는 모습 역시 지켜볼 수 있었습니다.
저는 그런 그의 삶을 깊이 존경합니다. 단순한 지식이나 이론이 아니라, 직접 부딪히고 고민하며 살아온 한 사람의 시간과 진심이 담겨 있습니다.
많은 사람들이 그의 생각과 삶의 궤적을 따라가 본다면, 지금보다 조금 더 건강하고 성숙한 자신을 만날 수 있으리라 믿습니다.
타카시 그린
Translated from the Korean
My connection with MahKha began about ten years ago, at a therapy centre in Gangnam. When I first met him he had a handsome face and a kindly smile, but beyond that smile he seemed to me like someone in whom a deep pain, not easily explained, showed through as well.
We had a great deal in common and became friends naturally, and we spent no small amount of time together across a number of projects. What impressed me most over those years was MahKha's sincerity — that he was learning and researching without pause, and that he wanted to share with people the healing energy he had arrived at through all kinds of experiment and experience. And that intention did not stop at words; it carried through into what he actually did. Watching that, I came to think of him not as a person who simply holds the occupation of doctor, but as a “true doctor”.
Accepting situations that told against him, legally and financially, he would still talk with people who were ill and struggling and work to resolve the problems they were carrying — I saw that at close hand, more than once. And I could watch how, in the middle of it, he did not stop at healing others: he faced his own wounds and the problems of his own life, one at a time, and worked his way through them.
I have deep respect for the life he has lived. What is in it is not simple knowledge or theory, but the time and the sincerity of one person who has lived by running into things directly and thinking them through.
I believe that if many people were to follow his thinking and the trajectory of his life, they would meet a self a little healthier and more mature than the one they have now.
Takashi Green
Written for the launch of this site
홈페이지 개설을 진심으로 축하드립니다.
저는 대한민국 한빛 영의학 연구학회 회장, 불광정사 주지 최순대 도원스님입니다.
권용현 원장님은 2018년경 대한민국 강남에서 에너지 힐링 의원을 운영하시던 중, 심신의 어려움을 겪으면서 불광정사를 찾아 저와 인연을 맺었습니다. 이후 자신의 삶을 돌아보고 내면을 성찰하며 새로운 길을 걸어왔고, 현재는 태국에 정착하여 에너지 힐링을 연구하고 실천하며 많은 사람들에게 따뜻한 마음과 희망을 전하기 위해 노력하고 있습니다.
저는 권원장님이 사람에 대한 존중과 봉사의 마음을 잃지 않고 꾸준히 자신의 길을 걸어가는 모습을 가까이에서 지켜보았습니다. 앞으로도 자신의 경험과 연구를 바탕으로 더욱 많은 이들에게 밝은 에너지와 희망을 전하는 힐러로 성장하시기를 진심으로 기원합니다.
우리 모두의 내면에는 밝은 생명의 빛이 존재합니다. 그 빛을 바르게 발견하고 이웃과 함께 나누는 삶이야말로 참된 치유와 회향의 길이라고 생각합니다.
권용현 원장님의 앞날에 건강과 평안, 그리고 한없는 발전이 함께하시기를 축원드립니다.
2026년 8월 1일
- 한빛 영의학 연구학회 회장
- 한빛 심령정화센터 원장
- 한빛서원 출판사 대표
- 대한불교 태고종 불광정사 주지
최순대 도원스님
psihealing.netTranslated from the Korean
My sincere congratulations on the opening of this website.
I am the Venerable Dowon (Choi Sun-dae), chairman of the Hanbit Society for Spiritual Medicine Research of the Republic of Korea and abbot of Bulgwang Jeongsa.
Around 2018, while Dr. Kwon Yonghyun was running an energy healing clinic in Gangnam, Korea, he came to Bulgwang Jeongsa during a time of difficulty in body and mind, and it was then that our connection began. In the years since, he has looked back over his life, examined himself inwardly, and walked a new path. He is now settled in Thailand, where he researches and practises energy healing and works to carry warmth and hope to many people.
I have watched from close by as he has walked his own path steadily, without losing his respect for people or his willingness to serve. It is my sincere wish that he continues to grow as a healer who, building on his own experience and research, brings bright energy and hope to still more people.
Within every one of us there is a bright light of life. A life spent finding that light rightly and sharing it with those around us is, I believe, the true path of healing and of 회향 — the turning over of one's own merit to others.
I offer my prayers that health, peace, and boundless growth go with Dr. Kwon Yonghyun in the days ahead.
1 Aug 2026
- Chairman, Hanbit Society for Spiritual Medicine Research
- Director, Hanbit Centre for Spiritual Purification
- Publisher, Hanbit Seowon Press
- Abbot of Bulgwang Jeongsa, Taego Order of Korean Buddhism
Ven. Dowon (Choi Sun-dae)
On the name
MahKha麻哥
In an English class at Korea University I chose Marcus, after Marcus Aurelius — the emperor who wrote his discipline down and then had to live up to it in public.
Years later, deep in cannabinoid medicine, a claim caught me that I have never been able to settle or to leave alone: that the anointing oil of the gospels may have contained cannabis. It turns on how you translate a single phrase in Exodus — qaneh-bosem — and honest scholars land on both sides of it.
ObservationA reading, not a finding — and not one I claim to have settled.
It sent me to Mark. Marcus in Latin becomes Marco, and Marco is the evangelist whose gospel is largely a record of somebody healing people. In Korean churches he is 마가 — Maga.
Those syllables carry no meaning of their own in Korean, so I gave them two. 麻 ma, hemp. 哥 ga, a fellow. A cannabis person. It was accurate — and in Chinese it sounds closer to Marcus than the Korean does.
The spelling changed once more, and that part I can report but not explain: it arrived as the memory of a name I had held before. MahKha. I am aware how that sounds coming from a physician. I would rather be the kind of physician who tells you anyway.