Quote
Nichijew
As an aside, NEVER share intimate personal information when you are receiving guidance because sooner or later, everyone in your circle [or should I say pyramid] will know your business and some WILL use it against you. This happened to my wife and even though I was a "good ikedabot" at the time, I was livid when I found out.
Oh YES, most DEFINITELY! The Japanese WD's existence is made all the more exciting by gathering (via home v's or one-on-one-heart-to-hear-life-to-life communication) this info. and hungrily sharing it with each other (they even do it against each other and each others families/husbands) like a bunch of graceless hyenas at feeding time. It's really sick. To be honest, I don't think some of them are ever truly happy unless they are sticking their noses into others people's business and creating problems, moving from different people to different people and repeating the cycle as needed.
Quote
KREven reading something that sounds as outrageous YD touting the merits of Sensei, I sit in disbelief saying this can't be true. Even with this cute little
youtube vid of these young women singing "Bring Sensei Back" I often say, they had to be coached. This is purely manufactured and in no way would these ladies get caught singing this drivel on their own accord.
The indoctrination is a slow and subtle process. The brainwashing is a very soft sell that is just constantly repeated over time - it slowly, imperceptibly soaks in. The YD in particular is a hotbed of peer pressure and mind games by the whacko youth leaders, especially with the adult members out of sight. Although it may or may not have been stamped down a bit since I was in it, it was pretty militant during my time. I've always been immune to peer pressure (even as a teenager), so it had the opposite effect on me.
Quote
KR
Can some posters in this board confess to never fully being brainwashed because of the free work they performed? (doing Toban, manning the parking lot or watching the door in the event some "evil" NST priest show up.) For doing all of the free work and rarely having the hospice of watching an Ikeda video has been a true SGI benefit for it kept me from being fully brainwashed.
Even though you'd miss a lot of the propaganda by not officially taking part in many activities because of your behind-the-scenes support, it was always more than made up for in special YD activities where there was (it seemed to me) an even more skewed propaganda drilled into you. That said, it didn't always work for some people. A clutch of us YMD made up our own "secret" chants and slogans that basically incorporated some cutting remarks about some of the youth "leaders" that we mutually despised (hilarious stuff, now that I think back).
Quote
KR
A year ago from this month, (middle of the month- can't remember the exact date) I did my final "free month" of SGI when I had the displeasure of meeting the national YWD Leader Vinessa Shaw. The arrogance of SGI and these women who gallantly came from somewhere, USA to espouse guidance to the young women of my town was the biggest eye opener throughout my entire experience with SGI. They were so disrespectful towards all of those who had volunteered to do "free work" on their behalf. They had no time to even make eye contact much less light conversation. I lost a entire weekend putting up with there shenanigans and that's when I decided to fully divorce myself from SGI. So I will be celebrating a full year since I left SGI. The greatest joy from such an unpleasurable experience came when I found out that 3 members, one you could call a fortune baby who had just given birth to a child and going through issues of her own had given SGI the shaft.
That's another
key point for me. The noble philosophy that is supposed to imbue the hearts of the members was never translated into the interpersonal relationships in actions and behavior between the actual members, ESPECIALLY in the YD (but I've seen it the other divisions as well). ZERO humility and very little to zero appreciation for those that freely slave in support of the activities. IMO, it's just emulation of behavior from the top (Ikeda/Japan), all the way down (through the national, regional, local leaders to the lowly members). I still harbor memories of some especially abominable leaders whom I witnessed treating both the youth and even ADULT (MD) members with the same disrespectful disregard; if I ran into this kind of individual today, I wouldn't hesitate to get back into his face and call him out on it. (In fact, it was the kind of behavior that would probably be captured on hidden cell phone video nowadays and exposed for what it is). As I mentioned before, I maintain that some of these "leaders" have some real mental pathology going on.