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corboy
Again, correct me if I am taking things too far.

If (and here I want to stress the 'if') -- if, the actual point of assigned tasks is not to get the tasks done but to set a situation where members are to be rebuked, then there is no way one can ever do ones work to the satisifaction of the leader.

What satisfies the supervisor is shaming the volunteer, not getting the task done?

A shame ridden person is more amenable to indoctrination. And in a group already bound by shame, a confident person would create discord, remind them of what they have lost.

Robbing someone of confidence and getting them to feel shame would boost the group solidarity.

All these are just speculations on my part. I am an outsider. Only insiders, especially those who were once supervisors, would know if these hunches of mine are accurate--or not.

I had many simular abusive experiences in the cult. I don't believe there are any written SG rules or guidelines that direct the leaders to ridicule, shame, insult, degrade, or dehumanize members. Yet these are common leadership behaviors. Even phantom leader ridiculed his vice president on stage. Well, ass kissers are smart little monkeys. They have a talent for imitating their superiors' behaviors, learning to observe and copy cult leaders social habits and attitudes for the purpose of their own advancement up the heirarchy. So they pick up a lot of ugly behaviors from their seniors, and/or realize that their cult leadership position gives them a green light to act badly, especially since doing so usually enables and reinforces cult indocrination. All just the opposite of becoming "enlightened". How far away from Buddhism can you get?

Once, my WD senior leader instructed me to "get tough" and bar a pioneer member from coming to district discussion meetings, knowing this would upset the woman. She knew she would get a call from the lady complaining about my harsh action. This senior leader was already planning on how to manipulate my member, preparing a plan to psychologically use her anger and frustration against herself. Cult control in a nutshell. I sheepishly complied with her plan, but it stuck in my craw, eventually turning from cult experience revulsion to cult experience revelation when I began to see SG for the cult it is.

Spartacus

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Hitch
Byakuren, Ikeda Kayo-Kai, $oka-han, Gajokai, ... all of these stupid names are just that, silly names given to manufactured groups with The Gakkai CULT Org. "YOUTH!" division, created for the sole purpose of manipulating and CONTROLLING (in gakkai cult-speak = "training") its most vulnerable members...

Keep in mind, our "official" $oka-han uniforms were white pants, white long-sleeved shirts, red N$A ties, white or black shoes and a light blue windbreaker with a $oka-han Cult Secret Service Wanna-be Agent logo on the left breast area. Only the top cult $oka-han got the walkie-talkies and ear-pieces. Your average $oka-han's weapons were your flashlight, juzu-beads in your pocket and "faith" for Cousin Rufus. Lots of YMD, $oka-han amongst them, had tell-tale little yellow spots in the zipper area of their usually dirty cult uniform. Why? Because when you did have time to go to the bathroom, you did it just like everything else when you are a cult-org slave --> on the run, & quickly.

The gakkai cult org's charter says something about respecting "human dignity." Well, as is always the case, more hypocritical duality in the way things really are in reality in the gakkai cult org..


- Hitch

Had to laugh at the great comment, "blue windbreaker with a $oka-han Cult Secret Service Wanna-be Agent logo on the left breast area". The TCD (Traffic Control Division - emphasis on the word 'control') blue windbreaker was like a cult badge of honor. It's elite nature gave one power to dominate and control the regular joe members. And if you had stripes on your sleeves like I did, you could just about move mountains with a single order. I was such a hypocritical putz. I hated the military cap that went with the windbreaker, yet I foolishly acted like a big wig commander (being a Leo didn't help either). Couldn't conceive of behaving so badly now. Apologies to any members that suffered due to my superior attitude and indifference (like making members get back on the bus without a chance to finish eating their meals), fostered by the psuedo power of that damn SGcult's TCD windbreaker.

Spartacus

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Hitch

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corboy
Maybe (we need some former high ranking insiders who can tell us if I am taking this too far) --Maybe there are instructions given to find something, anything, to make a member feel shame, so that he or she can be shifted off balance.

The Japanese WD (Women's Division) were the queens of this kind of stuff. Info. was usually obtained either by a) direct, unannounced, spy, home-invasion-visitations or b) by "confidential" personal guidance sessions with senior "leaders." The Japanese WD are the proverbial flies-on-the-wall for the gakkai cult org.. They *live* for this kind of stuff and all the juicy gossip that goes with it. They were the "go to" gakkai gestapo with the dirty trick information bag.

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corboy
A shame ridden person is more amenable to indoctrination. And in a group already bound by shame, a confident person would create discord, remind them of what they have lost.

Robbing someone of confidence and getting them to feel shame would boost the group solidarity.

I've found the gakkai cult org. merely to be an extension of the Japanese mindset and group herd mentality. The cult org. just takes it much, much further and uses it in completely evil and controlling ways.


- Hitch

Spot on Hitch & Corboy! I couldn't agree more.

Spartacus

A (rare) reverse propaganda gakkai cult org. video clip. This one uses the American $GI movement to brainwash all the Japanese homeland members into the notion that The Dear Leader & his cult org. are helping to save America, with a "Victory Over Violence."

Part I [www.youtube.com]

Part II [www.youtube.com]

Lots of gakkai cult org. kool-aid in these clips. They are killing several birds with one stone in this campaign:

1) Manufacturing a cult org. manipulation event to indoctrinate the "YOUTH!" of $GI-USA

2) Reinforcing the notion that The Dear Leader is on par with Martin Luther King and M. Gandhi

3) Creating a reverse propaganda video opportunity for the cult motherland

The Gakkai Cult Org. is NOT about all of this so-called "world peace" crap. Enough time has passed (this event was back in 2000 and earlier) that many members who participated in this particular domestic CULTural festival will attest to the fact that it was a bust - all whistle and fireworks show, without lasting substance (even harmful consequences in some cases when members did too much at the expense of their normal lives out in the real world).

I've seen this same pattern, over and over again, from my time in. An elaborately crafted delusional alternate cult world reality, that doesn't last much beyond a few days or weeks following the campaign's closure. Confirmation bias may hand over a few perceived benefits to some, but many will continue waiting for their life changing benefits to come ... and when they don't, rewind, repeat and redouble your efforts for the next big cult org. event (which is now 2030, in the US cult org.).

I repeat, the gakkai cult org. is NOT about all the "world-peace" stuff and official $GI charter nonsense. It's all a manipulative lie. It isn't even "real" buddhism. The cult banners of "world-peace" and "NMRK", if you unwrap it all, you'll find Ikeda - The Dear Leader, underneath. Everything the cult stands for, publicly, is in someway violated by words, action and behavior on the inside of the cult org..



- Hitch

Holly wrote:

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I learnt very quickly never to say that I felt confident about doing an activity, e.g. stepping up to do m/c, lighting a candle, leading gongyo, etc, etc because I knew from bitter experience that if I did I would probably be accused by one of the leaders or a fellow member of being complacent (huge SGI sin) and that having this arrogant attitude might be creating room for 'the devel of the 6th heaven' to intervene and cause huge sansho shima. So I learnt to always say that I was 'struggling' with this or that activity or that I was having a 'real challenge' with it. A bit manipulative I know, but I couldn't handle all that ear bending and I repeated it so often I ended up believing it most of the time - lol.

Friends, knowing our areas of competance is part of knowing who we are as persons.

It isnt arrogance. It is part of how we locate ourselves, ground ourselves, on the rippling heaving net of sensation.

To reframe competance as arrogance is a classic method of instilling self doubt, and makes people look to designated authority figures, even the ones doing the shaming, rather than trusting in their own capacities.

Its part of how we develop through life, from the joy of a little kid who acquires competance learning to walk, to making a drawing or sculpture exciting enough to show to Mum and Dad.

(Hey Look at what I have done!!!).

A big part of depression or abuse or both is to instill that awful feeling "I am no good at anything".

So what Holly described as her learning to speak cautiously and conditionally of what she was actually good at doing--thats to lose grip on one's own identity.

Congratulations on getting yourselves back and telling the world how this works.

Note: nasty boyfriend or girlfriends will do this sort of thing to a victim, too. Ditto for abusive parents and spouses.

I will never forget how I did a great job answering a complex question in third grade. The teacher swatted me down saying too bad I wasnt that good in the subject I was weakest at.

Felt my little soul had been yanked out.

This teacher was soon fired. Word went round she was addicted speed. Nasty minded stance classic of shame ridden addicts.

Because she was full of shame, she couldnt stand to see confidence in the eyes of the little kids in her care. Our vitality probably reminded her of what she'd lost via her own depression and addiction.

Persons sucked dry by shame in SG probably seek to bash down vitality in new members, and for similar motives???

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I will never forget how I did a great job answering a complex question in third grade. The teacher swatted me down saying too bad I wasnt that good in the subject I was weakest at.

Felt my little soul had been yanked out.

This teacher was soon fired. Word went round she was addicted speed. Nasty minded stance classic of shame ridden addicts.

Because she was full of shame, she couldnt stand to see confidence in the eyes of the little kids in her care. Our vitality probably reminded her of what she'd lost via her own depression and addiction.

Persons sucked dry by shame in SG probably seek to bash down vitality in new members, and for similar motives???

A particularly piquant insight, corboy. Dead on.

Something similar happened to one of my nephews in 3rd or 4th grade. His homework assignment was to write "A Dinosaur Story". So he wrote the story of, oh, I can't remember - something like Robby the Dinosaur's birthday party at the amusement park. He titled it "Robby the Dinosaur's Birthday". He got an "F" because he didn't title it "A Dinosaur Story" O_O

His mom was pretty steamed. I think THAT teacher was soon gone after THAT little incident, too.

Back to the video: [www.youtube.com]

I just watched it O_O

First funny point was where the lady in the gray T-shirt is first on camera, maybe 4 seconds in - she's carefully stepping *away* from the older Japanese lady in the red and black who's gyrating to that awful music!

It was "SGI-Arcadia" - where is this? Another thing that amazed me about that video is that virtually *all* the people there are Japanese! Since it's SGI, it's *not* in Japan - this is somewhere other than the Japanese motherland. But here we have almost exclusively Japanese members!

A sign of the times? That was uploaded in 2009 - I was *done* with SGI by then, so I don't know what's happened to the demographics of the membership.

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TaitenAndProud
Back to the video: [www.youtube.com]

I just watched it O_O

First funny point was where the lady in the gray T-shirt is first on camera, maybe 4 seconds in - she's carefully stepping *away* from the older Japanese lady in the red and black who's gyrating to that awful music!

It was "SGI-Arcadia" - where is this? Another thing that amazed me about that video is that virtually *all* the people there are Japanese! Since it's SGI, it's *not* in Japan - this is somewhere other than the Japanese motherland. But here we have almost exclusively Japanese members!

A sign of the times? That was uploaded in 2009 - I was *done* with SGI by then, so I don't know what's happened to the demographics of the membership.

OMG that tune is so evil. It's been going round and round my head all day at work in an incessant fashion. I even found myself humming it at one point and realised what I was doing - The Horror! I think I would even prefer 'We will, we will do cousin rufus' compared to this one - LOL

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Hitch
You can either laugh, cry or give respect after watching the following clip [www.youtube.com].

I give my respect to the lady in the front, wearing a gray t-shirt, off to the left side of the room when the camera pans around (she shows up a few times, at 0:25 seconds, 1:13, and 2:14 minute marks, before they stop including her in the pan around).

I know exactly how she feels. Bless her heart. My respect goes out to her for having the courage to not partake in the behavior regressing and thought-stopping cult org. rituals. There's always one or two in the crowd (thank goodness).

- Hitch

Is it bad if I laughed HARD out loud? I went to watch this half expecting to find it being a video of me at WPG. While I didn't oh so clearly wear disdain on my face like her (bravo!) that was me pretty much every time we had something like this, looking bored as hell.

Thank you for that I have been having a rough time.

No, I'm not going back. I'm no fool. :)

The FNCC US Gakkai Cult Org. Retreat, celebrates its 15th Anniversary:

"Hosted by the youth division This is the opening of the meeting Feels so good"

[www.youtube.com]

Let's play with tri-colored $GI Cult beach balls and all go back to mental Kindergarten for our cult meeting.

This stuff makes roller-skating human pyramids look downright sophisticated.


- Hitch