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sixtyseven
I too have noticed the growing phenomena of young women loving Ikeda especially on facebook. A lot of Ikeda photos are posted by women on facebook and an unbelievable mass -hysteria - likes and shares and comments and blinking hearts. That is so so disgusting, how can these attractive, intelligent young women(from all over the world) love an old and ugly man in Japan? Is it l'amour par distance, beginning mass- schizophrenia? I'm not a doctor in psyciatrics but when I spend more time on facebook among the SGI members I could become one.
It’s an interesting point you raise there sixtyseven.
I can only speak from my perspective of my time in the young women’s division. I remember meeting after meeting where we were told that President Ikeda had cited the young women especially as leading the way for kosen rufu due to their special qualities of courage and compassion. Anyone who joined the dedicated lilac group (equivalent of byakuren) received constant messages about how we were carrying out Sensei’s work and being his ‘arms and legs’ in working hard. Just before I left there was a big deal about this Kayo Kai Ikeda group for all the young women. Apparently you didn’t have to do anything to join, all you had to do was decide that you were part of it. There is a song to accompany all this (of course) one of those patriotic ones that is supposed to install the feelings of love and loyalty to our mentor – you have probably heard it - I think it has come up on this forum.
Talking of songs, on one of our young women’s courses there was great emphasis given to a story about the young women who used to report to Ikeda in Japan – the byakuren – I think in the 1950s. According to the story this group of young women spent all night composing a special song for him. However, when he heard it, he told them it wasn’t good enough and they had to go back and make it even better. I think he might have done this to them several times until he was perfectly satisfied with their efforts. The way this was related to us was to make us feel that we should never be happy with a half-hearted attempt and should be prepared to go back again and again until things were perfect!
Of course, this message is like holding a red rag to a bull for anyone who might have slightly obsessive issues. Young women who already had this tendency would have their attitude amplified 10-fold – this would usually be the leaders who would never be satisfied with the way an activity was run and would communicate this attitude down the chain until we were all running round like headless chickens having near nervous breakdowns.
From a personal point of view, receiving messages like this played on my insecurities about not being good enough. I always felt guilty that I was being too laid back about kosen-rufu and if I was having a bad time in my personal life, it was no surprise because I hadn’t made enough effort with home visits, the young women’s entertainment for the HQ course, hadn’t chanted strongly enough etc, etc, - the list was endless.
Also, looking at it from a wider point of view, young women/women are a very good group to target in this way. They often receive the cultural messages from society that they need to be caring, look after people, listen to an authoritarian ‘father figure’, not upset people, be polite, etc. So the SGI are reinforcing internal messages that a lot of young women already hold about themselves to use them for their own ends – in this case to lay down their lives and worship Ikeda.
So I have to say I’m not surprised that some of these young women are posting on their FB about Ikeda, making up ridiculous songs and being obsessive. I remember feeling like this myself when I was in the depth of all the psychological manipulation but I am so glad to be back out of this madness and thinking clearly - very grateful for all your comments on this forum.