Quote
Hitch
As alluded to by Nichijew, behind closed doors the top leadership pines for various degrees of Dear Leader relics. When I was in, so-called third degree / class relics were common. Salaried and top non-salaried "leaders" would often go ga-ga over items / gifts directly from Sensei (something signed, a handwritten message, or something stamped with his emblem, etc.). I've also seen Ikeda calligraphy, stamped emblem furoshiki being given to selected people (I even got a couple during my time in the YMD.).
The gakkai cult org. has since gone on steroids and graduated to second degree / class relics . . . . (again, see below) .
Quote
sleepy skunk
Yes, you've reminded me that I was told one of them was a "gift from sensei". I thought, "as if, but whatever". Same as any other little trinket like pencils, pens, booklets, cards, etc. Unless you give it to me personally and say whatever, I don't make the connection. Especially if they are thousands of miles away and I have never met them.
Quote
sleepy skunk
What is this degree stuff? I know of the exams and some people didn't react too kindly. I didn't see the big deal. Honestly, it's just a rote memorization test. Soon after, it's useless and forgotten. I don't know if they are still doing them since people seem to have an issue with it and it was taken out of practice for a while I guess. I still have a left over feeling that my every action and word was being analyzed and it ended up being all for nothing. Ha!
Quote
They do, however, really do this kind of stuff with Dear Leader items now. It's always in hardcore circles, which by definition includes salaried leaders.
Quote
Chris Butler JAGAD GURU SIDDHASWARUPANANDA ... - YouTube
of her husband Chris Butler nail clippings . ... THAT THEY WILL GET GREAT SPIRITUAL ...
10 min -
[www.youtube.com]
Chris Butler aka Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahansa I ...
Lets face the truth Chris Butler in order to get his disciple TULASI ... of Butler nails clippings ...
3 min -
[www.youtube.com]
MEMORIES OF SRILA PRABHUPADA: PART 1 " JAGAD GURU ...
IT IS CLEAR AND PROVEN THAT CHRIS BUTLER AS SOME OF HIS DISCIPLES EAT HIS ...
12 min -
[www.youtube.com]
part 2 HAWAII -DOWN TO EARTH stores are a front for a sinister cult ...
Chris Butler and his wife WAI LANA have even fed the disciples of BUTLER his toe nail ...
4 min -
[www.youtube.com]
Search - Cult Education ForumRe: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity. Drinking foot bath water and
eating toenail clippings. Well, here I am again to shed some light ...
forum.culteducation.com/search.php?12,search=flashlight... - 37k - Cached - Similar pages
RRI site search: guru - Rick RossResults 511 - 520 of 7845 ... Jagad Guru aka Chris Butler ex-participants [7.207% Popularity: ... one has
consumed foot bath water or guru toe nail clippings, one ...
search.culteducation.com/search?np=51&q=guru&s=RPD - 26k - Cached - Similar pages
RRI site search: guru - Rick RossResults 521 - 530 of 7865 ... Re: Chris Butler, Jagad Guru, Science of Identity [7.207% ... one has consumed
foot bath water or guru toe nail clippings, one has ...
search.culteducation.com/search?np=52&q=guru - 26k - Cached - Similar pages
Jagad Guru Chris Butler and Wai Lana involved in BLACK MAGIC?Oct 3, 2012 ... Jagad guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa …..aka Chris Butler as ... the
sinister distribution of Chris Butler nail clippings ….that disciples eat in the ...
SPIRITUAL BENEFITS IF THEY EAT THEIR GURU TOE NAILS) It is ...
subliminalmindprogramming.com/jagad_guru_chris_butler_and_wai_lana_ involved_in_black_magic_tulsi_gabbard_one_of_their_victims - 25k - Cached - Similar pages
MIKE AND TULSI GABBARD ARE MEMBERS OF THE “CHRIS ...Sep 24, 2012 ... (SHE WAS BORN AND RAISE IN THE CULT ) IS CHRIS BUTLER DIRECTING ....
1- Do you reject the eating of BUTLER toe nail clippings by his ...
www.guiladshalit.com/.../mike-and-tulsi-gabbard-are-members-of-the-chris- butler-sinister-cult - 44k - Cached - Similar pages
Politics: Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo - Stealth Candidate in Hawaii ...There are some good articles about Mike Gabbard that mention Chris Butler, ... to
eat food (prasadam) prepared from the finger and toenail clippings of guru and ...
my.firedoglake.com/.../tulsi-gabbard-gabbard-family-science-of-identity- jagad-guru-chris-butler-cult-siddhaswarupananda-paramahamsa/ - 56k - Cached - Similar pages
Quote
Tulsi Gabbard Stealth Candidate - TopixChris Butler ... Google Tulsi Gabbard Chris Butler .... honor for devotees to eat
food (prasadam) prepared from the finger and toenail clippings of ...
www.topix.com/forum/city/honolulu-hi/T8GUCGNE3NLB6LQER - 125k - Cached - Similar
Quote
Jagad Guru Chris Butler Videos - MetacafeIt as been reported by now ex disciples of Chris Butler that this m... 20:23. Did
TULSI and MIKE GABBARD Eat the Nail Clippings of CHRIS BUTLER ..read the ...
www.metacafe.com/videos_about/jagad_guru_chris_butler/ - 68k - Cached - Similar pages
Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii Democrat, Poised To Be Elected First Hindu ...Nov 4, 2012 ... If you knew about Chris Butler and his followers eating his nail clippings(I swear, I
can't make the shit up) because they think he's so holy…if ...https://jhaines6.wordpress.com/.../tulsi-gabbard-hawaii-democrat-poised-to- be-elected-first-hindu-in-congress/ - 104k - Cached - Similar pages
Quote
corboy
This bit about 'relics' is fascinating.
Are they for private sale to or among hardcore members?
Used as marks of distinction in place of paying salaries?
Quote
corboy
By contrast, the SGI 'relics' would have some value only within SGI, and appears to be kept a secret and only shared among hard core members and those deemed worthy to be allowed to know about this and other insiders knowledge.
So this relic veneration in SGI does not give connection to a larger social world, not the way the old Catholic relic veneration and pilgrimages did and still do.
(PS There are discussions on a quite different but guru led group in America and led by an American born guru. There, the serious devotees drink water used to wash the feet of the guru. Toenail clippings from the guru, too. That is something one would keep quite secret from a disbelieving larger society.
To dare entertain doubts would force people to recall what they did and this is humiliating. )
Quote
corboy
And...again it would be interesting to find out if Ikeda's hardcore disciples pay for relics and how much.
Quote
corboy
And if his wash water and nail clippings are used in any special way, or disposed of in the the manner normal and ordinary in Japanese society.
Its considered an honor for devotees to do this with Butler's nail clippings.
As the British health adverts put it, "Fibre is your friend".
This was only because the Catholic Church controlled so much power within society and exerted so much influence that the countries where it reigned supreme came to be known as "Christendom." Those who did not wish to be a part of the Catholic system were imprisoned, tortured, even killed. THIS was the price that Catholic clergy eagerly accepted in exchange for their own rank and power. Back then, the Pope dictated law. The Catholic Church's power has significantly waned since its high in medieval times, and the clergy are none too happy about it. They will never be able to get that power back.Quote
And because it was part of the social belief norm, there was no need to conceal one's veneration for relics. Indeed, large pilgrimage journeys took place. (The one to Saint James of Compostella was the most important, but one among many).
By contrast, the SGI 'relics' would have some value only within SGI, and appears to be kept a secret and only shared among hard core members and those deemed worthy to be allowed to know about this and other insiders knowledge.
So this relic veneration in SGI does not give connection to a larger social world, not the way the old Catholic relic veneration and pilgrimages did and still do.
(PS There are discussions on a quite different but guru led group in America and led by an American born guru. There, the serious devotees drink water used to wash the feet of the guru. Toenail clippings from the guru, too. That is something one would keep quite secret from a disbelieving larger society.
Quote
The eating of Christ's body, the devotion of the host and the cult of relics provided the background for so-called medicinal cannibalism, the eating of small pieces of mummies, powdered skulls, bone marrow and so forth, practices of European cannibalism that have only recently drawn the attention of scholars (Gordon-Gruber 1993; Himmelman 1997). Up to the mid-19th century, corpses of executed men and women were dismembered, torn to pieces, dried or mixed with other ingredients and sold as medicine. Shreds of human skin were worn as amulets, and in pharmacies the so-called 'Armsünderfett’ ('poor sinners' fat') from executed bodies could be bought to heal rheumatism and skin diseases (Brauneck 1978:71). Heike Behrend, Resurrecting Cannibals: The Catholic Church, Witch-Hunts, & the Production of Pagans in Western Uganda, 2011, CPI Group (UK) Ltd., Croydon, CRO 4YY, p. 49
Bishop Hugh was attempting to take a piece of this monastery's Magdalene arm bone back to his own church, but he didn't get anywhere with his dagger and resorted to finally chewing off a finger. The monks were not pleased O_OQuote
Bishop Hugh of Lincoln outraged the citizens of Fecamp (France), followers of Mary Magdalene, by chewing
on the relic of her arm bone, and saying that if he could touch the body of Christ in Mass, then he could
certainly chew the bones of a saint (Caroline Walker Bynum, “The Female Body and Religious Practice
in the Later Middle Ages” in Fragments of a History of the Human Body, eds. Michael Feher with
Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi (New York: Zone Books, Part One, 1989)
If you wish to see an example of how relic worship is now the subject of ridicule, see the circus surrounding the "Holy Foreskin". It has been in the news recently, to the great amusement of many of us. It was supposedly left behind after Jesus’s circumcision (in a dozen duplicates). [www.forbes.com]Quote
By the 16th century, cannibalism was not just part of the mental furniture of Europeans; it was a common part of everyday medicine from Spain to England.
Initially, little bits of pulverized mummies imported from Egypt were used in prescriptions against disease, but the practice soon expanded to include the flesh, skin, bone, blood, fat and urine of local cadavers, such as recently executed criminals and bodies dug up illegally from graveyards, says University of Durham's Richard Sugg, who published a book in 2011 called Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians.
Medicinal cannibalism reached a feverish pitch around 1680, Sugg says. But the practice can be traced back to the Greek doctor Galen, who recommended human blood as part of some remedies in the 2nd century A.D., and it continued all the way into the 20th century. In 1910, a German pharmaceutical catalog was still selling mummy, says Louise Noble, who also wrote a book on the topic called Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture.
While Europeans ate "mummy" to cure their physical ailments, the same culture sent missionaries and colonists to the New World to cure New World indigenous people of their purported barbaric cannibalism, some of which was entirely fabricated as a rationale for conquest, Bowdler says. "It's certainly possible that Europeans were consuming more human flesh at the time than people in the New World," Sugg says.
"It's a big paradox," Noble adds. The term cannibal was being used to describe someone inferior while the "civilized in Europe were also eating bits of the human body," she says. [www.sott.net]
Quote
"...I will also say that if you take any salaried leader, and I don't care how "normal" they may appear, or how in control of their demeanor they may usually be, . . . . . if you place them within physical proximity of The Dear Leader Ikeda, especially right in front of him, you will see them either sweat bullets, go ga-ga, or even break down and cry (or all of the above).
Quote
Mark Miller wrote,)
'The community is at root [a society devoted to glorification and myth-making in relation to DFJ, who is truly the ultimate example of "Narcissus", the mythical figure DFJ uses to describe those who are unenlightened. This supreme Narcissist requires the constant adoration of not only himself, but also of everything associated with him -- his properties and possessions (including the "holy sites"), and the "murtis" (pictures) of him, etc.
These inanimate objects serve as extensions of his huge ego, and the construction of them and/or worship of them serve to usurp huge amounts of devotees time and money.
''... Once people leave the group, there is no guarantee they will stop the "esoteric practice" Da Free John (DFJ) mythologization. That is just one reason why some people you've met who leave the group still believe in all kinds of nonsense about DFJ.
"It can be difficult to see all of the ways in which habitual mythologization is operative and to understand the full range and scope of its influence. Waking up can take time. Many can't seem to develop much insight into their delusions and commitment to myth-making about DFJ, beyond identifying the crudest and most obviously "cultic" level of it.
This is why some of the group's beliefs and assumptions are retained indefinitely by many people, even long after they leave. '