Let's see, first they (the gakkai cult org.) told me (as a young cultie member) that the dai-gohonzon was sacred and important. My family and I donated our $$$$ to the construction of the sho-hondo, attended the opening ceremonies and numerous tozan-kai (pilgrimages), and now they say it's no longer important and it's authenticity is even suspect.

All right, that's fine.

Next, they drilled into me the importance and deep significance of the special joju-gohonzons at all of the cult kaikans (community centers) and cult national HQ (WCC) - so important that you must protect them with your life. Now, the very term "joju-gohonzon" is taboo, cannot be uttered by the membership and those *same* gohonzons are gone / disposed of / cease to exist / and are no more.

OK.

Finally, they take new members to local temples to stand before "priests", receive the gohonzon and recite "The Oath of Acceptance" - (anybody who joined back in those days, all had to say it) -

1. “Do you faithfully swear to practice the true teachings of Nichiren Daishonin throughout your life?”
2. “Do you faithfully swear to protect the Gohonzon of the Three Great Secret Laws throughout your life?”
3. “Do you faithfully swear to keep the precept of Nichiren Shoshu throughout your life?”

I remember the "Suuruouto youuwa riffu" (throughout your life) being vocalized with great and deep import (mispronunciations inclusive).

Then later, the cult org. demanded that those who received Nikken gohonzons to return them, break their vows (which played some severe mind games with true believers) and gave them cheap-o gakkai cult knock-offs as replacements.

Have I missed anything (specifically about the gohonzons)?

Okey-dokey, ..... hmmmmm, ...... let me think a little bit now, .......



















Who shall I believe? Nichiren Shoshu ..... or ..... $oka Gakkai ........, Nichiren Shoshu ........ or ...... $oka Gakkai Cult Org. ........ ????
























Well, anybody with a mind of their own would probably come the most logical conclusion that it's ALL BULL PUCKEY and that both parties are playing everyone and just fighting amongst themselves over the pot.




- Hitch

Incidentally, do any of you old time members remember seeing the Cult Org.'s version of "The Human Revolution" movie back in, what was it, 1974 (?) in America? [www.imdb.com]

I do. I was just a little "Hitchie" at that time and was dragged out to see it down in L.A. (I think it was the Shrine Auditorium) for a showing. I remember Toda (the actor) having a mindgasm in prison after chanting for days and days with milk carton tops as juzu beads.

Yep, I remember that indoctrination movie. I'd kinda like to see it again, to be honest.


- Hitch



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2013 07:08AM by Hitch.

To each his own...except SGI is a deceptive cult masquerading as a religion and whose followers likely do not know that both Ikea and the org are BILLIONAIRES, while they scrub toilets for free.

I roundly condemn SGI, it is a despicable organization. I do not condemn the people who feel they benefit from it (illicit drug users feel that they benefit from their addiction too, so feeling that you benefit from something does not make it a good thing), but I do hope they wake up and realize the truth about the what they really belong to.

Oh, yeah, I remember that movie. It was terribly hyped - I guess they'd gotten some hotshot Japanese director (Kurosawa? Naw, can't be...). This was in the spring of 1987. I was a brand new YWD - hadn't even gotten my gohonzon yet (that would wait until the next priest visit, August of that year). I still hadn't settled on which group meetings I would attend, and it was just the one HQ, so I went to this one meeting, and the WD leader was saying, "I've got all these tickets for 'The Human Revolution' movie and it's going to be terrific! So who wants to buy some?" They were, like, $6, which was pretty steep back then. So I said, "I'd like to buy two, please!" And she paused and said, "Oh. Well, I need to save these for my group MEMBERS. So who'd like to buy some??" Nobody else said anything. I got up to leave, and one of the YWD at that meeting, who was, like, a chapter leader or something, followed me out and said, "I'm really sorry - Ellen's just like that. You wanted two? I have two I can sell you."

Well, I managed to convince a young woman I worked with to come with me, and I said, "It's supposed to be really great, so if you like it, you can reimburse me the cost of your ticket."

I remember the Toda mindgasm scene, but I don't remember the juzus! I remember thinking, "You'd really have to BE already in the organization to be interested in this stuff - I can't imagine anyone thinking that somebody would be inspired to join on the basis of this."

Anyhow, the movie was really boring and I was embarrassed. My friend never gave me any money. But I stayed in, because my boyfriend was a member, and he was starting to get all distant and noncommittal, and, since I was in the middle of divorcing my first husband, I really wanted to make him want me, and NSA seemed like the only "in" I had - we had worked together, but then I'd gotten a job at a better company, so we were no longer working together. Our only remaining "connection" was the organization and activities, so I could call him and ask him questions about Buddhism and this and that. Yeah, I know, it sounds pathetic, but I was pretty pathetic back then!! :P

I was traumatized and vulnerable - the perfect NSA/SGI target.

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TaitenAndProud
I was traumatized and vulnerable - the perfect NSA/SGI target.

Exactly. Prime target material.

****

Re: The Toda scene

I remember sitting on the edge of my seat, as they built up to it, "The meaning of NMRK, is, .... is, ....", "The meaning *IS* ....."

.... Pause .... wait for it .....

NMRK = "Life!"

Then, I sat back into my seat, deflated and said to myself, "Oh brother."

Even at that young age, the kool-aid wasn't going down.

****

My thoughts on "religion" in general are that although it doesn't have to be this way, it unfortunately all too often is:

"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think." - Schopenhauer


- Hitch

Quote
Hitch
Incidentally, do any of you old time members remember seeing the Cult Org.'s version of "The Human Revolution" movie back in, what was it, 1974 (?) in America? [www.imdb.com]

I do. I was just a little "Hitchie" at that time and was dragged out to see it down in L.A. (I think it was the Shrine Auditorium) for a showing. I remember Toda (the actor) having a mindgasm in prison after chanting for days and days with milk carton tops as juzu beads.

Yep, I remember that indoctrination movie. I'd kinda like to see it again, to be honest.


- Hitch

Found that one in my collection of Cult pics, is this the movie you are talking about? I have to go back through some facebook posts to find out more....

Freeheartandmind wrote:

Quote

"...illicit drug users feel that they benefit from their addiction too, so feeling that you benefit from something does not make it a good thing."

Thank you for putting it in those terms. Time and again, we hear people insist they have benefitted or felt bliss, therefore the entire organization that fondled their neurons has to be entirely good.

And all too often they dont want to hear of the harm done and sacrifices imposed on the low ranking members who labor behind the scenes of the Bliss Factory.

Whether the glow is generated by social engineering and chanting, or by alcohol, heroin, speed or some other chemical, it can produce selfish attitudes where one just lives from bliss hit to bliss hit.

Jerry Stahl, a recovering addict, and author of a memoir, Permanent Midnight, wrote that once you find the right dealer who has the dope, "The entire planet becomes a waiting room....within one week of meeting G, I was fully Pavloved. All I had to do was see his car, and the vultures in my heart would stop circling and start to coo."

I wonder...when someone experiences the full on bliss that SGI can engineer via the chanting and group meetings, does the planet "begin to feel like a waiting room" between orchestrated bliss hits?

Quote

To each his own...except SGI is a deceptive cult masquerading as a religion and whose followers likely do not know that both Ikea and the org are BILLIONAIRES, while they scrub toilets for free.

I roundly condemn SGI, it is a despicable organization. I do not condemn the people who feel they benefit from it (illicit drug users feel that they benefit from their addiction too, so feeling that you benefit from something does not make it a good thing), but I do hope they wake up and realize the truth about the what they really belong to. - Freeheartandmind

Sure, that's YOUR perspective.

But now we come around again to: WHO is qualified and authorized to declare whether another person is acceptably happy or not?

People choose their involvements for many different reasons, many (if not most) of which are not necessarily healthy. Damage drives us far more effectively than wisdom, I'm afraid. And people have to learn in their own ways. I would never walk up to someone cleaning toilets in an SGI Culture Center and try to drag him/her away! That would be grossly inappropriate.

Bottom line: If we want people to respect our path, our process, and our perspective, we need to extend the same to them. The SGI wasn't for us. That's fine. It might suit someone else. If we declare blanket condemnation on the SGI, then we're really no better than them. Intolerant is as intolerant does, after all.

Sure, the fact that it's profiting off the membership is despicable, but that is the story of ALL religious groups, you know. Every single one. Are you willing to issue the same blanket condemnation for Christianity and call for all those churches to start paying their fair share of taxes, at the very least, which would mean that every family in the US would pay about $1,000 LESS each year in taxes? If not, WHY not? They're just as bad.

Quote

And all too often they dont want to hear of the harm done and sacrifices imposed on the low ranking members who labor behind the scenes of the Bliss Factory.

Why should they care? The low ranking members who labor behind the scenes are volunteers, aren't they? Nobody's chaining them to a sink or a table, after all. Another bottom line: If there weren't people willing to sign up for these duties, there would be no organization. There are plenty of damaged people who sign on, and who's to stop them? Should someone be assigned to following them around all day, every day, just to make sure they aren't doing something that...someone...doesn't approve of?

Quote

I wonder...when someone experiences the full on bliss that SGI can engineer via the chanting and group meetings, does the planet "begin to feel like a waiting room" between orchestrated bliss hits?

Well, I got that feeling early on, in part because I was so petted and pampered, the "golden child" as someone upstream described. Plus, I was manipulating the hell out of my boyfriend, and that was immensely satisfying (need again). Once I "graduated" to WD and moved away, that all ended. As abruptly as slamming a door.

What I experienced in the SGI here in the San Diego area really surprised me. It appeared that people showed up at the activities for the sake of showing up at the activities. Not to see friends, not to get together - no one went out to, say, lunch or dinner after an activity. No parents made any efforts to get their school-age children together. There were "social" things, like a pot luck or whatever, but they seemed to be going through the motions. People were there for the organization - not the other way around. It struck me as really peculiar - if you're going to be in an organization, shouldn't you be making actual *friendships* within that organization? Shouldn't that be a priority? All the studies of health benefits from organization affiliation reveal that it is the social aspect that makes the difference - it doesn't matter what you're doing. Just like chanting - remember how the SGI used to say that some psychologist said that chanting was great, and chanting something REALLY SIGNIFICANT was even better??? Ha! I am quite confident that chanting *ANYTHING* will gain you the same benefits - the content of the chant doesn't matter in the least. The SGI even made a big deal about emphasizing how the SGI was the "most ideal, family-like organization" in the world. Really? Where people *never* get together, never call each other just to talk, never go out to movies, never do any of the things that friends do together?? It was such a joke!

When I joined in 1987, there were activities virtually every night. It was *exhausting*! But even then, people would get together afterward and go out to dinner or see a movie or something. Even with such a consuming run-on-the-wheel of activities. Here, though? Nothing! Even with activities only a few times a month, people still weren't getting together - except to meet to go on a "home visit" together. I watched, I listened. There were no outside relationships. When our district would have its District General Meeting, we'd sometimes meet at a park for a potluck and do the meeting there, but there was never any question - we were there because we had to be there. No one was ever eager to go; we went because we were supposed to go. Again, it was because we'd been told how important it was to "support the organization", if we wanted to maximize our benefits.

So I was relieved when I finally stopped attending activities - I'd never liked them, I'd never wanted to go - it always felt like a chore - and I never got anything out of them. Certainly not enough to make up for the pain in my ass of going and spending my time there! And when I stopped feeling like I should be getting some social payoff from my investment of time and energy, I found far more fulfillment through choosing for myself where that time and energy would be spent. It's like if someone promises you'll feel so much better if you do *this* and *this* and *that*, so you do it, even though you don't like it, and at the end, you find you AREN'T feeling better, so you say so, and the person says, "You just haven't given it enough time", so you continue, growing ever more frustrated and disappointed - and feeling ever so much more like a ponce. Then, once you say "The hell with this!", you experience a real sense of freedom. Sure, you probably feel more than a little silly for wasting so much time on that, but hopefully you learned something from the experience. If only NOT to be suckered into something whose activities you don't actively enjoy!!

Quote
Hitch

Re: The Toda scene

I remember sitting on the edge of my seat, as they built up to it, "The meaning of NMRK, is, .... is, ....", "The meaning *IS* ....."

.... Pause .... wait for it .....

NMRK = "Life!"

Then, I sat back into my seat, deflated and said to myself, "Oh brother."

Even at that young age, the kool-aid wasn't going down.

****

- Hitch

Lol. I didn't realise that there was a film of all this. But I remember having the same reaction as you after I read the account of Toda's enlightenment in the book. After reading it avidly to find out what the answer was I was really disappointed by the answer being 'life'. At the time I thought there must be something I was missing and that I hadn't studied it deep enough. I would love to see the scene that you describe sometime - I guess they will not re-release this film though. It sounds a bit too 'culty' for today's organisation and PR wouldn't like it.

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TaitenAndProud

So I was relieved when I finally stopped attending activities - I'd never liked them, I'd never wanted to go - it always felt like a chore - and I never got anything out of them. Certainly not enough to make up for the pain in my ass of going and spending my time there! And when I stopped feeling like I should be getting some social payoff from my investment of time and energy, I found far more fulfillment through choosing for myself where that time and energy would be spent. It's like if someone promises you'll feel so much better if you do *this* and *this* and *that*, so you do it, even though you don't like it, and at the end, you find you AREN'T feeling better, so you say so, and the person says, "You just haven't given it enough time", so you continue, growing ever more frustrated and disappointed - and feeling ever so much more like a ponce. Then, once you say "The hell with this!", you experience a real sense of freedom. Sure, you probably feel more than a little silly for wasting so much time on that, but hopefully you learned something from the experience. If only NOT to be suckered into something whose activities you don't actively enjoy!!

I can really relate to this TaitenAndProud. I too had the experience of dragging myself out to activities because I trusted the people that told me I would feel better and then kept on giving it one more chance even though it didn't seem to be helping. It is such a great feeling of freedom to take back that power isn't it?