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those who resisted the practice from their early years, but encountered some significant life event(s) stressor (like we all do inevitably) and turn to the cult org. in desperation and for easy answers. They join up to become hardcore, lifelong devotees. This latter group (2), I've seen a lot of. They've essentially been softened up for years by under the radar cult peer pressure and it is the most logical and obvious direction in the world, for them to turn to when life throws those inevitable curve balls.

This is exactly what happened with my father. His parents were missionaries in Burma. They met and married there. Because they were Christian, they were directed to plan on having 4 children - two to replace themselves, one to replace the one that would die, and one to increase the population ("Go forth and multiply"). That was in the 1920s - how things have changed since we discovered antibiotics! So they had the 4 children that were required of them, you know, to show what good Christians they were.

But as it turned out, they were FAR more interested in churching it up than in actually loving their own children, so as soon as each child reached the ripe old age of 6, they shipped him/her off, halfway around the world, to the Fanny Dome Home, a full-time boarding facility for missionaries' children, to be raised by (often cruel) strangers. And they didn't care what happened to their children there - they couldn't have cared less. Out of sight, out of mind. When my father's eldest brother took desperately ill and they thought he would die, did they bring him close to spend every last possible moment of his life with him?? Don't be silly! They shipped him off, halfway around the world, to distant relatives to die there among strangers so as to not interfere with their own selfish, self-centered, self-promoting, self-aggrandizing jesussing! They couldn't be bothered with some burdensome sick child they obviously didn't even care about.

He unexpectedly recovered. It was in going through my grandfather's old correspondence after my grandfather's death that we all realized they had expected him to die - and sent him away knowing full well they would never see him again! They just didn't give a sh!t! The only thing that mattered to them was indoctrinating strangers into Christianity! It's truly a sick, twisted mind that operates that way, that puts something so *stupid* and *TRIVIAL* as religion ahead of real, live human beings. Especially children. Especially YOUR OWN CHILDREN!! Imagine, the kind of parent who would deliberately get rid of his/her own child just to be able to spend all his/her time preaching at strangers.

Monstrous, despicable, disgusting people. It's hardly surprising my dad, the youngest child, ended up acting out and being out of control. He went into the Navy, and had one of those "bolt out of the blue" "experiences" you hear about. My uncle, his eldest brother, told me privately he thought my father was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. I guess family members had sent him to talk to my dad, and my dad had told him, "I'll become Christian eventually, but not yet."

So like you were pointing out, he was completely primed, indoctrinated, set up. All it took was the proper combination of overwhelming, catastrophic stress to drive him into the programming they'd stuffed into his brain. And it worked. He's been devout Christian his whole life (he's 80 now), but, surprisingly, he got into a tiff with his pastor at the last church he belonged to, and he hasn't been to church in about 5 years! I never would have imagined my father "unchurched"! :D

Taiten wrote:

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Imagine, the kind of parent who would deliberately get rid of his/her own child just to be able to spend all his/her time preaching at strangers

Preaching to strangers-- perhaps missionizing the way these people did was their way to engage in the chase, the quest, and each convert they made was like scoring dope.

All that preaching and crusading might have been little different (neurologically) from the junkie's quest for heroin.

But..with the aura of prestige.

By contrast, taking care of tiny children--parents have to defer their own gratification, in service to the needs of the children. There isnt the prestige in childcare that there was (and is) in winning pagan souls for Jesus. And in the 19th/early 20th century little was known of the catastrophic effects on children of being separated early from parents.

Again, it is part of heroin addict jargon to speak of 'going on a mission' or 'being on a mission' when looking to score dope.

It would be especially interesting to find out if your great grandparents' church was temperance based.

Some transfer the addict mentality from use of alcohol and drugs to crusade mentality on behalf of an organization.

They're still chasing dopamine but the focus is different.

And with religions, if an addicts mentality is in play, whether its missionizing for Jesus or missionizing for Ikeda, its no different--its the aching 'rush' -- the dopamine thrust.

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Hitch
those who resisted the practice from their early years, but encountered some significant life event(s) stressor (like we all do inevitably) and turn to the cult org. in desperation and for easy answers. They join up to become hardcore, lifelong devotees. This latter group (2), I've seen a lot of. They've essentially been softened up for years by under the radar cult peer pressure and it is the most logical and obvious direction in the world, for them to turn to when life throws those inevitable curve balls.

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TaitenAndProud
So like you were pointing out, he was completely primed, indoctrinated, set up. All it took was the proper combination of overwhelming, catastrophic stress to drive him into the programming they'd stuffed into his brain. And it worked. He's been devout Christian his whole life (he's 80 now), but, surprisingly, he got into a tiff with his pastor at the last church he belonged to, and he hasn't been to church in about 5 years! I never would have imagined my father "unchurched"! :D

Is it more likely during times of stress that the pressure is on for joining, for donations, proselytizing or anything they want because they know you are vulnerable at those times?

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Preaching to strangers-- perhaps missionizing the way these people did was their way to engage in the chase, the quest, and each convert they made was like scoring dope.

All that preaching and crusading might have been little different (neurologically) from the junkie's quest for heroin.

But..with the aura of prestige.

By contrast, taking care of tiny children--parents have to defer their own gratification, in service to the needs of the children. There isnt the prestige in childcare that there was (and is) in winning pagan souls for Jesus. And in the 19th/early 20th century little was known of the catastrophic effects on children of being separated early from parents.

Again, it is part of heroin addict jargon to speak of 'going on a mission' or 'being on a mission' when looking to score dope.

It would be especially interesting to find out if your great grandparents' church was temperance based.

Some transfer the addict mentality from use of alcohol and drugs to crusade mentality on behalf of an organization.

They're still chasing dopamine but the focus is different.

And with religions, if an addicts mentality is in play, whether its missionizing for Jesus or missionizing for Ikeda, its no different--its the aching 'rush' -- the dopamine thrust.

I think you nailed it, corboy.

While I'm not sure about their church's precise teachings on alcohol, I never saw them drink and, since they were Baptists, it's very likely that temperance was a part of their church's doctrines. My grandfather had two sisters who were Pentecostals - CRAZY Pentecostals, if that gives you any further background.

In fact, the one, Great Aunt Grace, awoke one night to see Satan sitting at the foot of her bed! "Satan, you get out of here!" she said. And he did!

Another time, she was having trouble with her adenoids. Oh, how they were bothering her! So she prayed and prayed one night, and when she got up the next morning, she blew her nose, and there they were in her handkerchief, the nasty things!

Only problem with that story is that the adenoids are absorbed by the body at puberty...and disappear...

Did I tell you about how the other Pentecostal Aunt, Aunt Jane, tried to get my uncle to speak in tongues? She had him kneel by the sofa, and she knelt behind him, and started whacking him on the back, over and over, yelling "Praise him! Praise him!" After about a minute of this, he said, rather quietly (as was his style), "I don't think this is working." She then sat back on her heels, sighed, and said, "You just don't praise him."

That reminds me of when I was a newly minted YWD - hadn't even gotten my gohonzon yet. We were preparing for that Liberty Bell trip out to Philadelphia and for marching in their parade, so we from Minneapolis were driving down to Chicago each weekend for practices. That was, like, an 8-hr drive or so. Well, I'd burned the inside of the crook of my arm, the inside of my elbow, ironing, and I went the one weekend, while it was fresh, and between the sun, the sweat, and the sunscreen (this was summer, remember), it wasn't good. It was getting infected. So when my YWD Chapter Chief said something to me about the next weekend's trip, I cited my infecting arm and said I was going to stay home. She shook her head and sighed, "Maybe someday you'll develop the 'no matter what' spirit." I pointed out that I had already spent the previous weekend there and that, since I already knew the music AND had more marching experience than anyone, I was the least likely to *need* to go. She then acquiesced, "Yeah, I suppose that was kind of snarky" or something. I wasn't yet beaten down enough to pull that crap on, you see.

When parents are obsessed with something to the point that they neglect their own children, the children grow up with damaged brains. It doesn't matter how supposedly "virtuous" the parent's obsession is - it's still sick and destructive.

Did I mention that my missionary grandfather's father (at least - probably his mother, too) was a missionary living in China? So my grandfather was simply replicating the absentee parenting he himself had endured as a child.

What resulted is that my dad is basically disconnected from his own family and discounts family relationships. He's got a girlfriend (they're a committed couple but her benefits from her late husband would be cut off if they married so they decided to stay together without formally marrying) and she's got a granddaughter with a young child. Well, at one point, I got a strange text message from the granddaughter, so I called her. Turns out she had the flu - she was running a 105-degree fever, and was there alone with the baby (because her husband was at work). She'd texted me by mistake - it was meant for someone else. Because she wasn't thinking straight. So I called my dad to alert them (him and the girl's grandmother), and he said, "She's got her support system (meaning her husband), so she's fine." End of discussion. So I called his girlfriend and told her that this girl needed help and that she probably wasn't in any shape to be watching over a toddler alone at that point, and his girlfriend told me, "I know, but he won't let me go!"

What more could you expect from someone who was abandoned by his own parents? He never learned about proper family relationships. The push to get women separated as soon as possible from their babies, and the babies into day care so that the women can return full-time to the work force as soon as possible is destroying people.

Taiten and Proud, your account of your missionary grandparents' neglect of their children is heartbreaking. A parent sending a sick child off to die with strangers -- so that the parent could preach to strangers? Horrible.

It reminded me about something I had read about the women's division, doing shakabuku in Hokkaido. This was a statement from Nobuhiro Nobuko, an SGI-Japan women's division leader, who alleges that she was raped three times by Ikeda when he visited Hokkaido's SGI Center. She was not a very credible witness, as she waited years to come forward. She also asked for money from SGI and Ikeda.

It was another part of her statement that got my attention -- how her activities in SGI affected her children. She speaks of pregnant women going out in the cold Hokkaido winters to do street shakabuku, and of mothers carrying small babies out in bad weather to do shakabuku. She also speaks of spending so much time at SGI activities that she and her husband did not eat dinner with their children. Her child's teacher reprimanded her about her neglect of her children.

This is not limited to Japan, or the 1950's or 60's. Jean Anker, on her www.fraughtwithperil.com blog, Byrd's Chicks, writes about being pressured by her SGI leader to take her colicky newborn out into very hot summer weather, to do street shakabuku. To Jean's credit, she refused. I also remember the frenetic rounds of SGI activities in the 1980's, meetings practically every night. Some members who were doing all these activities just left their kids home, while others brought their children. So either some reluctant youth division member got stuck watching the kids -- or nobody really paid attention to the kids, and they were bored, frustrated and acted out. I often wondered how these kids would feel about their parents and SGI when they were older.

----------------Beginning of Quote, page 123 of this thread-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am completely separated from the Soka Gakkai May 5, 1992. My husband and I had entered the Soka Gakkai February 26, 1956, was the epoch of the second President Toda, and from that day until now, my long involvement in the Soka Gakkai totaling thirty six years.

The sacrifice of my family

Before talking about my experience on how I was treated by Ikeda, I talk a little about the path I have followed the ratings Gakkai. Since our commitment Gakkai, my husband and I are making great strides in our business for Gakkai, the sacrifice of our family in order to propagate Buddhism seriously in the world. At first, we entered because after giving birth to my first son, my health was not very good. My husband was worried, and accordingly went to a reunion discussion of the Soka Gakkai. At that time, Hakodate was the main stronghold of the Gakkai in Hokkaido, because of the passionate towards his first manager Chapter Yasoutaka Noujou. My husband returned from the reunion of discussion and decided to commit, saying, "if it is not good, I'll go away after a year." Each night after that my child fell asleep, me too, I revered the Gohonzon late at night around 1 o'clock in the morning to see what could happen. This happened in the space of just five days. Just continuing to worship the Gohonzon, I cured of my disease, which afflicts me constantly. Since I had faith in the Gohonzon above all.

Rather than giving a happy family life to my children, I think I've made anxious. The years following my appointment, my second son was born, and I remember like it was yesterday, bringing with me while shakubuku. I was shakubuku every day thinking, 'or can I change his diaper? " A verse of a song Gakkai says, "our bulging bellies in the blizzard ...", but I think I was the true image of that song while I was walking in the intense cold of Hokkaido carrying my baby.

After that my son starts school, he wrote a composition in which he mentions our lifestyle. "I alone watching the house every day." His teacher read the composition and called me at school. He asked, "What you may well make you the mother of this child?" I do not recall that our family has ever had a dinner together.
-------------------------------End of Quote----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From a child's viewpoint, does it matter if the parents neglect him because they are out saving souls...or because they're out trying to score some crack? Neglect is neglect!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2013 03:48AM by tsukimoto.

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tsukimoto
From a child's viewpoint, does it matter if the parents neglect him because they are out saving souls...or because they're out trying to score some crack? Neglect is neglect!

Perhaps I may be able to speak a little bit to this.

For a long time, I had much anger and resentment about it all. Let's just say that growing up as a (mis)fortune baby and with a hardcore gakkai kamikaze parent, the family *always* came second (or even third) to gakkai cult activities and Cousin Rufus. If I go into too many details, I'm sure I will give myself away to some people out there, so I won't.

As I got older, matured and processed it all over time, that evolved into a more compassionate understanding. I know that they *need* the practice and I also know the reasons *why*. So, with that understanding, I eventually came to an acceptance of it all. They are an imperfect human being, just as much as I am (we all are) and they did the best they could, with what they had, what they were given and their circumstances. That understanding, however, doesn't erase or make "OK" everything that happened, but the lessons from it do aid in one's growth as a human being and have enabled me to ultimately be able to sympathize with their chosen (but in this case, also harmful) means of coping and all the inadvertent ramifications that came from it.


- Hitch

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sleepy skunk

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Hitch
those who resisted the practice from their early years, but encountered some significant life event(s) stressor (like we all do inevitably) and turn to the cult org. in desperation and for easy answers. They join up to become hardcore, lifelong devotees. This latter group (2), I've seen a lot of. They've essentially been softened up for years by under the radar cult peer pressure and it is the most logical and obvious direction in the world, for them to turn to when life throws those inevitable curve balls.

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TaitenAndProud
So like you were pointing out, he was completely primed, indoctrinated, set up. All it took was the proper combination of overwhelming, catastrophic stress to drive him into the programming they'd stuffed into his brain. And it worked. He's been devout Christian his whole life (he's 80 now), but, surprisingly, he got into a tiff with his pastor at the last church he belonged to, and he hasn't been to church in about 5 years! I never would have imagined my father "unchurched"! :D

Is it more likely during times of stress that the pressure is on for joining, for donations, proselytizing or anything they want because they know you are vulnerable at those times?

Absolutely! It's the prime time to pounce, a (fake) "karma" changing "golden" opportunity and a "shakubuku" ("break and subdue" / show "compassion" for that person's suffering - whichever revised cult-speak the member prefers) chance.


- Hitch

5 clips showing a very recent $GI Cult Mtg.. March 16th = Cousin Rufus Day. YOUTH!" cult festival for Northeastern U.S..

Part I [www.youtube.com] Introductions (gongyo portion on stage is cut out). Typical gakkai cult-speak laden speeches. "Thank You SOOOOO Much!!!" Horrible band playing gakkai songs, follows. Beginning recommended for cult-speak examples. 10 minutes.

Part II [www.youtube.com] Cult skit and dance performances. The usual somnolence inducing cult performances. 7:28 minutes.

Part III [www.youtube.com] Anybody here remember Shunzo Ohno (jazz trumpet player)? This clip is his "experience", confirmation bias overcoming cancer (looking very cachexic). This would be a typical gakkai cult "heavy" experience. 10:47 minutes.

Part IV [www.youtube.com] Ohno performs with a band. Not my personal cup of tea. 12:36 minutes.

Part V [www.youtube.com] Two "YOUTH!" division closing remarks. Typical arrogant, pretentious and callow YMD speech. YWD appears to be Japanese who speaks Engrish as a second language. Clip ends with a prototypical artificial YMD MC announcing that new cult members will be receiving their own magic chanting scrolls. More cult-speak, "So, today, we are very fortunate ....." 13:16 minutes.

Nothing has changed. It's the same old formula, just a new generation of cult members putting on the same old cult show. This is a pretty typical "regional" big meeting, where people just dress a little nicer, put on their "best" performances and includes at least one obligatory "heavy" cult experience. If you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all - only the details and the players change over time.

This is essentially the public face of the gakkai cult org.. It's all superficial, it's all non-substantive and it's all ultimately confirmation bias, with lots of Cult-Disneyland automaton smiles and soda-pop fizzy bubbly cult enthusiasm that disappears as quickly as the event is over. Cue in the manipulation, cue in the mandatory "shakubuku" and cue in the next manufactured cult event to start preparing for to repeat the entire process from the beginning all over again.


- Hitch

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holly_golightly

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

I just watched it O_O

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

In case you missed them, here's a recap on my reactions to both of these awful songs:

On the "Japanese song/dance" video [www.youtube.com]:
Holy macarena batman! That video clip makes Assembly of God holy rollers speaking in tongues and writhing on the floor look, well, ah, almost normal?
I may laugh in between cringes now, but if I had to actually be there, I would probably commit hare-kiri (ritual suicide by disembowlment), because it would be less painful than that horrible song (and dance)!

And here's my little 'welcome to my nightmare story' that I made up for Hitch on the "we will do cousin rufus" video [www.youtube.com]:
I bolted straight up in bed, jolted awake by the terror of the nightmare - a hellish scene that just couldn't fade away quickly enough. I fumbled for a drink of water as I saw and heard the never-ending scenario replaying in my mind over and over , just as it had in my awful dream.
I found myself trapped at a Gakkai Karaoki party with no means of escape. First, I am weakened by continuous torture: out of tune, out of rhythm members, worbling all the favorite gakkai cult songs of love and glory for Great Leader. Tears stream from their eyes, and some choke up with emotion so great they can only produce eerie squeeking sounds or guteral grunts. Eyes bulge and faces contort. Zombie-like clutching all around forms a circle jerk (a big circle with a stupid jerk in the center - in this case, me).
Just when I think the torture is about to end, the zombies break into this very song! "We will, we will do cousin rufus" (It's like a Nichiren miracle that you ever found it!) My nightmare intensifies as the endless verses of this song go on and on, getting louder and more echoing with each repeating chorus. My ears begin to bleed as my eyes roll back into my head. I want to pass out - to leave the pain and suffering behind in blissfull blackness. But I can't - the song just keeps repeating incessently over and over. The pain - oh, the pain!
Now this nightmare song haunts my every waking hour. The famous hook melodic line from Queen endlessly playing in my head with the cult bastardized words forever cemented into my psyche. The brainwash is complete now. The words will always be with me, like you know, dear leader. Maybe I should write him a poem and send a letter...

Warning: do not listen to and never sing along with this song (or any other SGcult songs) - it's highly addictive message and effective propaganda technique is highly likely to endanger your mental reasoning, health, freedom, and cause spiritual enslavement. (See this forum for complete list of cult brainwashing side effects.) ;D

Man! I love the smell of indoctrination in the morning!

Spartacus