Tiny authoritarian Christian sects like the one involved in the fatal Emeryville case can be more dangerous than larger, more ``exotic'' religious cults, experts on new religious movements said yesterday.

``Around 85 percent of the American population identify themselves as Christian. They are predisposed to think positively of Christian groups,'' said Cynthia Kisser, executive director of the Cult Awareness Network.

``These small groups are harder for us to monitor, and tend to be more extreme and brutal,'' she added. ``Larger cults are more sophisticated in their abuse. They have a public image to maintain.''

Neither Kisser nor other leading cult watchers had heard of the 15-member Jesus-Amen Ministries, nor its founder, 30-year-old Eun Kyong (Jean) Park, one of five people accused of beating a young Korean woman to death while attempting to ``cast out demons.''

Park and four of her followers -- her mother, Hwa Ja Ra; Tung Mi Sin; Natasha Baboulina; and Evgeni Mogilevskaya -- were all arrested on suspicion of murder this week after 25-year-old Kyong-A Ha's beaten body was found Sunday in an Emeryville apartment rented by the sect. Police said Ha had been struck 100 times in the chest, breaking several ribs, during a six-hour ceremony, and that she had been dead several days when her body was recovered.

Park told police that she was ordained by the United Fundamentalist Church of Bakersfield, which is not listed in the phone directory or in the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.

But according to J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, that tiny denomination was formed in 1949 by a radio evangelist, E. Paul Kopp, and is now run by his son, Leroy M. Kopp.

At last report, Melton said, the denomination claimed to have 250 missionaries and ministers.

Melton said the denomination maintains little control over its ministers.

``Since 1960, the number of religious denominations in the United States has doubled,'' he said. ``This is one of those groups with very loose ordination rules. They call themselves fundamentalist, but they are more Pentecostal.

``We have received a tremendous number of Korean immigrants, and many of them are the products of (Pentecostal) missionary groups,'' Melton said. ``Many were Koreans who came from North Korea and already had the energy of persecution on them. The Korea Buddhists didn't migrate, but the Korean Christians did.''

Many of these Korean Christians are Pentecostals or ``charismatic'' Christians, movements that put great emphasis on prophecy, faith healing, speaking in tongues and, sometimes, exorcism.

``Exorcism is one of those practices that are prone to abuse,'' Melton said. ``But when abuses happen, it's hard to blame the denomination.''

Kisser said about a third of the calls her Chicago-based Cult Awareness Network receives concern small ``Bible-based'' groups like Jesus-Amen Ministries.

``Many of these ministers are self-ordained or ordained by groups with low academic standards,'' she said. ``They rely on personal charisma or direct revelation from God. There is much less accountability than in larger churches.''

Brooks Alexander, an authority with the Spiritual Counterfeits Project in Berkeley, a conservative evangelical group that monitors religious trends, said most of these small Christian sects ``don't attract attention until something like this happens.''

``They don't stand out like the Hare Krishnas because they don't wear funny clothes or do weird things in public,'' he said.

Alexander said many of the new Korean charismatic sects are only nominally Christian.

``Korean culture is heavily infused with shamanism and spiritualism,'' he said. ``Many of these Pentecostal sects are led by Korean shamans dressed up in Christian garb.''

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