That is very interesting to what Anticult is stating. Drawing the parallel between the techniques of Bryon Katie (which has nothing to do with religion) and the SGI (The self proclaimed "largest religious organization in the world") and the methods are so eerily similar. A business model to preserve the cult of personality.

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The Anticult
Too bad for SGI-USA, that it seems hundreds of SGI believers read these threads, to explore the inner doubts about SGI in the privacy of their own computer and home, and to make up their minds for themselves.

I often ponder the true state of the SGI-USA membership in 2012. Not Japan, Brazil, India or Singapore because they are totally different monsters.

Whether it be "religion", Bryon Katie, or the cult of the $oka (Dai$aku) Gakkai, they are all invented traditions, used to control and manipulate people. Definite similarities.

There is always one amazing coincidence of these sects...their leaders earn many millions of dollars each year in personal income through their private "spiritual" corporations, and they don't pay any tax, and their families are all living high on the hog, off your money and labor.


Byron Katie is running very sophisticated methods, as outline in the other threads. SGI-USA is much more in your face, as they are just running simpler patterns of persuasion, but hey, they work. SGI makes way more profit than Byron Katie.

But they both used unpaid labor, to cut labor costs for their Corps.
Byron Katie tries to pitch herself as being basically about the Buddhism No-Self...but its all smoke and mirrors. The "content" is simply a DISTRACTION to occupy your mind, while the sales process goes on.

Which is the same as SGI, their use their fake "Buddhism" as a fig-leaf to conceal their money-gathering business.
The SGI business is the business of collecting your money.

Happy 4th of July, everyone! Sounds maybe corny, but when I think of today, the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that we have freedom of religious preferences. That's why America came to be...Freedom to to pursue the beliefs of our choice, or non-beliefs.

We know the far-right Christian organizations would love to have "One Nation under God" and have the whole nation be Christian. The SGI agenda? Everyone for SGI! Same thing. Anyone else who's not interested in the program, well, there you go.

Democracy. To be free to express your opinions, your concerns, your misgivings. SGI agenda? No can do.

What KR wondered about the state of SGI-USA membership at the present time.....People aren't lining up for Gohonzons en masse by any means. Where I'm at seems to be at about the same participation. No great influx of newbies. And the grapevine say that M/D is causing a stronger undercurrent of distress then what's appearing on the surface.

I would 100% agree with shavoy's comments. The biggest problem I have with religion today is the fanatacism and were right, your wrong mentality. Back in my glory days in sgi ( I use that term loosely) when we would have these big shakabuku campaigns we bound and determined to tell the whole world the error of their ways. Total arrogance and ignorance I might add. I simply can no longer deal with people that have the ours is the only true religion mentality. It comes down to personal preference and what works for the individual. To this day I refuse to be involved with organized religion. It seems to me they all want the same thing in your time, your money, your heart and soul you name it.

I second the fact that we live in america where we have the freedom to choose religion or no religion. I can't fathom what it would be like any other way.

As far as the state of sgi membership goes personally I think its in the toilet. I know most of the people I practiced with back in the day are long gone. I also know the real diehards who are still with the org, but there numbers are very small at least in the area I live in.

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Shavoy
What KR wondered about the state of SGI-USA membership at the present time.....People aren't lining up for Gohonzons en masse by any means. Where I'm at seems to be at about the same participation. No great influx of newbies. And the grapevine say that M/D is causing a stronger undercurrent of distress then what's appearing on the surface.

That's my anecdotal take on it, as well:

My original area has about a dozen or so pioneer members still plugging away, but they are moving very slow, getting older and older and dying off very quickly every year now. Most of the members are 2nd-3rd generation gakkai family members, with a smattering of "new" adult, later in life, conversion members thrown in. Overall membership seems to be dramatically down from the earlier heydays and my time in. The old appeals and tricks are starting not to work anymore. Times are changing and the cult has zero chance of completely shutting down internet free speech and criticisms. One of the reasons I decided to join and start posting here, was to get the word out about this destructive and manipulative cult.

I love that comment about the men's div.. It rings true. They are slow to stir, but once they do, they protest with their feet and just leave, rather than waste all their time and energy speaking out.

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coolshyone
As far as the state of sgi membership goes personally I think its in the toilet. I know most of the people I practiced with back in the day are long gone. I also know the real diehards who are still with the org, but there numbers are very small at least in the area I live in.

I hope it is (in the toilet), too. But, whenever I see that new NY kaikan and their youtube clips, I sometimes wonder. There's a reason the top salaried leaders were redistributed back in the mid-90's to the east coast (NY, Boston, Florida, etc.). The cult was just rebuilding in areas that were more receptive to increased membership.

I see it declining in spots too, but I wonder if it isn't just sprouting up again in different areas where the soil is more conducive to the easier cultivation of superstition / where the greater resources are located.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2012 07:24AM by Hitch.

Bear with me because this post is a little long, but Shavoy’s mention of how the mentor and disciple thing is causing a negative stir in the SGI has prompted me to write this. Towards the end of my time in the SGI I was always wondering if I was the only one who was bothered by (or even noticed) the fact that all we ever did was sit around and praise Ikeda. Last year, I decided to finally return my Gohonzon and had that question answered. It brought me a tiny sliver of optimism that not everyone in the SGI is a lost cause.

I had gotten my original Gohonzon back in '89 when I moved out of my parents‘ house. In the mid-90's I was pressured into exchanging that "evil" Nikken-inscribed Gohonzon for the new SGI-approved ones. I didn't really want to, but you know how persuasive SGI-ers can be. Anyway, fast forward to 2011: I no longer have any use for a Gohonzon as I have quit the SGI and everything that goes along with it, so I decided to return it to the local kaikan. I hadn't stepped foot into an SGI building in over 2 years so I was slightly apprehensive. When I walked in, I approached the guy at the toban desk and said I'd like to return my Gohonzon. He said no one was in the office to accept it (since it was a Saturday) and asked me to come back during the week. He then asked, "Just out of curiosity, why do you want to return your Gohonzon?" I told him that there were many reasons but one was "the whole mentor and disciple thing being shoved down my throat." To my surprise, he nodded in agreement and said, "I know what you mean. A lot of people don't like it." I was pretty taken aback to be told this by someone doing toban desk duty. We started talking and what he basically told me was that he only attends his local neighborhood meetings where the discussions stay on Buddhism (the bigger the meeting, the more of an Ikeda love-fest it becomes I guess). He also said that as far as publications go, he can tell which articles are "of substance" and which ones are “BS.” Basically, this guy believes in the benefits of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism and was somehow managing to stay in the organization while maneuvering around the nonsense. And he knew of others who were doing the same. He insisted that I do more research into the benefits of Buddhism - any Buddhism - but I told him that I'd had enough of any and all religions. Being in a cult for nearly 4 decades will do that to you.

A little while later I returned on a weekday and a very nice gentleman was working in the office. He accepted my Gohonzon, took down my name, and that was surprisingly it. While he did say that they have “great meetings” and that I was welcome to them, there was no hard-sell, which was quite refreshing. Of course, I think that many of the positive aspects of this episode was due to the area in which I returned my Gohonzon. The folks I dealt with were laidback and liberal, much more so than the city I had previously practiced in. If I had tried to return my Gohonzon there, I have a strong feeling that things would have gone much less smoothly. But to be honest, a part of me was kind of looking forward to going head-to-head with an Ikeda-bot. The whole thing turned out to be somewhat anti-climactic in that sense! Oh, well… I achieved my main goal, which was to get rid of that scroll that was taking up valuable space. Just as a footnote, I have yet to be struck down by lightning.

In some of the Aichi 7th Peace Cultural Festival clips posted earlier in this thread, one can see Wayne Shorter performing. Upon further exploration about some of these lesser know cult "celebrities", I came across this:

"Shorter married Teruka (Irene) Nakagami, in the 1960s; they met in 1961 and later had a child, Miyako.[7] Some of his compositions are copyrighted as "Miyako Music". Shorter dedicated some pieces to his daughter: "Miyako" and "Infant Eyes". The couple separated in 1964.[8]

Shorter met Ana Maria in 1964 and they were married in 1970.[8] In 1986, their daughter Iska died of a grand mal seizure at age 14.[1] Ana Maria and the couple's niece Dalila were both killed in 1996 on TWA Flight 800 while en route to see him in Italy. Dalila was also the daughter of the jazz vocalist Jon Lucien who was married to Shorter's sister.[8] Shorter married Carolina Dos Santos, a close friend of Ana Maria, in 1999. He is a Nichiren Buddhist and a member of Soka Gakkai.[8]"

[en.wikipedia.org]

It's fascinating to note the connecting themes with some members (e.g., marriage to a Japanese, that probably got him started down the cult road). And until I saw it on wiki, I was never aware that he lost his (second) family to such unfortunate circumstances. I also find it very interesting how such horrible "karmic" events and abandonment by the so-called shoten zenjin (buddhist "gods") are never discussed openly or shared at meetings, for the membership to see both sides of the real world (i.e., the confirmation bias going on).

When I was participating in large events, I was a true believer for cousin rufus. So wanting non-believers to become part of this noble effort. Never really bought the ikea worship, kind of faked that part a little bit. I never really expressed my doubts about NSA, I knew they would not be well received. Large events generated ecstatic feelings, akin to pentacostals in the spirit. Eventually I became disillusioned and depressed and drifted away. Wish I had never been in this cult in the first place.

Freedom of religion, and freedom FROM religion of course need to go together.
And the right to criticize these religions and cults openly is essential.

Believe it, if this forum was not a proven protected space, as many cults have failed to shut it down [www.culteducation.com]
SGI-USA would move to censor it and take it down, like SGI has done with other websites.

SGI-USA would have this thread removed if they could, they just know they can't.


It would be nice to remove the tax-loopholes which seems to be the entire driving force behind all of these cults/religions, including SGI.
They exist, because using the tax loopholes, its running a business without paying any tax.
Like the Scientology founder said, you want to get rich, start your own religion.

So all these sects, like SGI and countless others, just become a huge cash-washing cesspool.
They can take money and assets, and escape any taxation or regulation, and hide behind it being a "religion".

If the tax laws were changed, and "religions" paid tax like any other business, probably 80% of these new age cults would vanish, as the financial incentive would be lost.

Imagine if SGI-USA had to pay proper taxes on all those billions, and if all the paperwork had to be filed.
Sure, many corrupt public corporations exist, but they are dwarfed by the corrupt religious corps operating in secret, like SGI.
No one knows where SGI's money goes. Its all concealed.
Its all controlled from Ikeda's chair, whoever is sitting in it now.

Would be great to end the tax-exemptions for all all these sects and cults in the USA.

Every clever crook who wants to get rich as quick as possible, opens up some type of new agey religious corporation, as you can live like a king, and pay no tax, no capital gains, no regulations, no nothing. Its the perfect business arena for every clever crook.