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I pray to *whatever*, that an org leader has the decency NOT to say, "Something deep in your life caused this to happen".

Ho ho ho! Welcome to the board, PollyAnna!

I've really enjoyed this board and it's been a great source of information and support. The last thing I expected was derision.

Wishing everyone the best on their journey, recovering from SGI. Over and out.

Eyzopn, I'm really sorry that the anger and sarcasm of members of the mb has made your participation here so short. I'm not apologizing for anyone, but expressing my regret.

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It is this kind of thinking that has resulted in the SGI being the most callous, cold-hearted, stingy, mean, socially destructive cult around. Okay, the FLDS are right up there in the running, but that's a discussion for another board!

I think if we look at cults like the Peoples' Temple, Heaven's Gate, Falun Gong, the Solar Temple, the Branch Davidians or the Heide Fittkau-Garthe group. sgi is fairly small potatoes. While sgi is skeevy on pretty much every level, I'm pretty sure there haven't been any mass suicides/ murders encouraged by or in the name of Senseless. And of all the posts I've read on this mb (and admittedly I haven't read them all), I have as yet to come across one that said someone's life was irretrievably ruined and they were broken beyond recovery. We've been bruised and battered, but we're only as scarred as we allow ourselves to be. You can choose to be a victim or you can choose to be a survivor.

The people who've chosen to stay with sgi have made their choice and if they were unhappy with it, they'd make the choice to leave. Just as we did. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think we're here to judge people or subject their comments to derision or ridicule . . . that smacks too much of cult-like shaming for expressing an unacceptable opinion or sentiment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2013 08:16AM by meh.

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TaitenAndProud

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Confirmation bias galore in the members' illogical justifications for such events. I'm also of the opinion that the $GI CULT Org. numbers spiked in the NY area post 9-11. Same theme. Same modus operandi. Same manipulation. Same results (unfortunately).

So what? Christian churches likewise saw a surge of attendance increase - for just a few months. Then their attendance numbers dropped to below pre-9/11 levels.

I made no other statements beyond the personal "opinion" that $GI cult numbers increased, in the aftermath of 9/11. Such a phenomenon is to be expected during times of societal anxiety in any nation.

I also believe that hard-core fundamentalism increased as well (both, in the religious and atheistic domains), in response.

I have no doubt that in $GI's case, numbers eventually dropped, because the N$A/$GI CULT Org. has always had big problems retaining new converts over the long haul. The cult org. just can't help itself, it naturally drives many of its "members" away, with time.

Also, based on my anecdotal observations via youtube, the NY area cult org. clips look a lot like the "new" hardcore circles that I grew up in on the west coast in the old N$A (with FNCC and $oka Cult U., being the other exceptions).

*****

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Nichijew
Intuitively, from watching the videos and from my own experience with the cult, my sense is that the numbers of youths joining the cult must be way down [because recently you see more and more Japanese Americans featured in the cult videos rather than Caucasians and African-Americans]. It could also be that the more diehard Ikedabots are Japanese Americans. Anyway, my thoughts.

nichijew

I see the same kind of thing, in my original area. The vast majority of the "YOUTH!" are members' kids who have simply grown up in the cult org., rather than independently joining up from the outside. Time will tell, if even they remain, though; as they learn how to think for themselves / outgrow the cult org..

Many, including African-Americans, that I see, are of mixed ancestry, with one asian or Japanese parent / grandparent somewhere in their family line.

The gakkai cult org. still, however, attracts a small number of caucasian asianophiles to its ranks, like a magnet. That hasn't changed and has always been a constant, as far as I can tell.

*****

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meh
I mentioned earlier on that I was the subscription coordinator in my district; I attended a number of area meetings, and the average percentage of members having subscriptions ran around 27% for each district. That being said, once weird tribune and lying Buddhism were combined under one subscription, quite a few families in which one partner received one sub and the other partner got the other, didn't renew with each partner getting their own sub. We were actively discouraged from buying gift subscriptions for other members (they needed to make that cause!), but a lot of members bought them for non-member friends and family members. As everyone is aware, though, district numbers are wildly inflated.

Weird Tribune subscriptions used to be the "official" barometer for cult org. membership numbers. As such, the stats were always heavily manipulated (padded) in novel and ultimately unsustainable ways (hence, one facet behind the fall of Williams-Sadanaga). Lots of denial, lies, wishful thinking, fear, and creative ghost subscriptions were a common part of the cult org. subscriptions con-game. In the cult motherland, it's all justified as an informal means of "gokuyo" (cult org. donations / support, that promises magical-mystical slot machine payouts in return).

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meh
The manipulation never ends. One of the most offensive little sgi events was that stupid freaking exam. One of the many cracks started to form when I saw how seriously other district members took it . . . they would agonize over, spending hours and hours studying. For what? I have to admit that I never studied and always did well when taking it - it just wasn't that hard. I dodged it this year, fed up with the BS surrounding it.

Regarding the exams . . . . I HATED them, with a passion. I never could get into any of that crap, like others seemed to. I think they were used as a gauge to identify and promote cult members up the cult org. "leadership" ladder (i.e., an official way of documenting the kool-aid consumption of the members, how much they were retaining, processing it, etc.).


- Hitch

Speaking of $GI CULT Org. Kool-Aid,
[www.youtube.com]

Enjoy! (Burp, ..... err, excuse me.)


- Hitch

PS - And, always remember, you're "Winning!" [www.youtube.com]. (Even when you're losing.) ;-)

Hitch, I love the "unceasingly ponder" part at 1:32. What a man!

Every once in awhile, I do stumble around on some of the other mb's here, and one I read today actually made me a little optimistic. Someone was speculating what might happen when the leader of their org pops his clogs, and I have to wonder the same thing about sgi. The group is so ickeda-centric, that it does lead to some curiosity as to what the future would hold when that event occurs. Of course their will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth, but after that? We heard repeatedly over the past few years that there will be no central leader, and that the reins would be handed over to the "youth" of the org. I can't imagine how that would work, but I can see the pompous little Nazis really being hard core about everything. And I can see some of the less zealous of the group losing some of their enthusiasm. If it gets turned over to ickeda-junior, he has about as much charisma as a wet sock . . . a perfect puppet, however. Without some kind of centralized leadership, I can see things falling apart over years; the leadership and true zombies will stick around, but the absence of Senseless as the arbiter of all things Buddhist may drive away those who really need a "saint" to follow. I definitely think that we'll see a thinning of the ranks.

It would be nice to think that sgi would go the way of the Shakers and fade away through attrition. That would be my definition of "winning"!

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I pray to *whatever*, that an org leader has the decency NOT to say, "Something deep in your life caused this to happen".
Ho ho ho! Welcome to the board, PollyAnna!
I've really enjoyed this board and it's been a great source of information and support. The last thing I expected was derision.

Aw, don't be mad, eyzopn! I was just laughing at the idea that SGI leaders would have the decency NOT to say "Something deep in your life caused this to happen"! Because that's *ALWAYS* what they do - EVERY SINGLE TIME! The leopard don't change his spots, ya know.

So I wasn't deriding YOU - not at all! I was deriding THEM! PollyAnna, for any people too young to recognize the reference, was a movie with a young Hayley Mills, I think, back in, like, the 1950s. She played a girl who always saw the best in things, no matter how horrible the objective details.

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Storyline
A little girl comes to a town that is embattled by feuds and intimidated by her aunt. By the time she must leave, she has transformed the community with her indominatable will to see the good side of even the worst situations and bring it out for the betterment of all.

Even after having lived the hardscrabble life of a missionary's daughter all her life and seen the loss of both parents, young Pollyanna Whittier refuses to be depressed. Instead, she must be glad about anything she can think of, and it's paid off big time. Now, however, she must go to live with her cold, spinsterish aunt in a town inhibited by embittered, unfriendly souls. Can she use her glad game to win over everyone and transform the town? [www.imdb.com]

It was often used to describe someone with an unreasonable expectation that things will turn out well or that people will suddenly do an about-face and behave the opposite of how they've always behaved. It's an expression of one's utter disbelief that it could turn out that way, but that's not a slam on you, eyzopn. It simply shows you still have humanity and a good heart; the leaders who put the organization above all, on the other hand, seem to have lost theirs.

I have really enjoyed your comments and observations, and I hope that, if you're still around, you'll continue to be around!! Just to make it clear, I both like and respect you and I think you're good people.

Edit: Just noticed - this post was #6666!!!! :D

I saw-wee :( I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I would have answered sooner, but I've been out of town - just got back in the wee hours of this morning.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2013 02:14AM by TaitenAndProud.

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Even when they were claiming a USA membership of 300,000, the circulation of Weird Tribunes was around 40,000, so probably they had an active membership of 30,000. When confronted with the facts, Guy McCloskey had to admit that the 300,000 number was quite inflated.

OMG! When did THAT happen?? What did he say??? I would have *loved* to hear that!!

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While sgi is skeevy on pretty much every level

The point is that the SGI actively teaches *AGAINST* charitable giving (to anyone or anything other than itself, of course). In this detail, it surpasses all the other sects and cults in stinginess and callousness.

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So what? Christian churches likewise saw a surge of attendance increase - for just a few months. Then their attendance numbers dropped to below pre-9/11 levels.

I believe I was unclear. Lots of stuff going on resulting in scatteredbrainishness, don'tcha know. Apologies all around to everyone I've offended!!

What I was attempting to illustrate was that the SGI is seeing the same trends as every other religion in the USA. Despite having vibrant cohorts of Middle School/Junior High School and High School believers, once those pious youth reach about age 18, they disappear. And they don't come back. The Millennials (those who came of age - turned 18 - in the year 2000 and after) have demonstrated far less desire to associate with organized religions, voting with their feet, as it were. So ALL the organized religions are in trouble, and this includes the SGI. None of them are adding adult members via free choice; they keep their numbers up through counting members' newborn babies as fully-fledged members from birth and then just keeping them on the books forever. Young people simply don't want the organizations, and given the SGI's increased emphasis on wanting to suck ol' Dai-Suckee's dick, it's hardly surprising that it is ever more unappealing to young people who appear to want the freedom to make their own choices instead of being dictated to. And it doesn't matter whether the person doing the dictating is a priest, a pastor, a minister, a mullah, or an SGI leader.

All the religions' memberships are graying and dying, and we are learning more and more that they *all* cook their membership books, claiming far more members than they actually have. Claiming as members people who have left and joined other groups, so there's no doubt a lot of double, triple, and even quadruple counting going on, given how frequently people tend to change religious affiliation. The only nonconformist group in that regard that I'm aware of is the Jehovah's Witnesses - from what I've heard, they keep their membership rolls pared to the bone, and typically more people attend their activities than the total number of members they have on their books.

So anyhow, I DO appreciate everybody's observations, insights, and perspectives. I just want to make that clear.

everytime I read your comments I feel so relieved that the doubts I had about the practice were not my inherent weakness (as they say) and I feel so glad and truly thank God for saving me from ruining a beautiful life by believing in their demented philosophies.

On the one hand, I wish that all of the people who were voting with their feet would go through the formal resignation process to let das org know that they're failing. On the other, maybe a stealth departure is better? That way, leadership will wake up one morning and realize that they are the only ones at the meetings. I do love a surprise, especially a nasty one for people I dislike! The "old school" members (and I include the more rabid members of the yd in that category) will probably hang in there, shaku-buku a few people and hobble along until the bitter end, which might be a generation in coming. I agree, too, that middle-class millennials are going to be a harder sell in terms of dragging them in; many of them are pretty cynical and haven't been able to develop the attention span to sit and chant for extended periods. I'd point out, though, that nobody came into this practice (or any other) because they thought their life was going well; we were all looking for something to offer us a perceived control over whatever negative stuff that was going on in our lives. There will always be vulnerable, unhappy, lonely and somewhat-disenfranchised people who will be open to predatory cult tactics. 9/11 was one instance, the present economy may be another.

Time will tell. I'm sure that we'll see a substantial shake-up when ick-eda casts off this mortal coil, but I'd be willing to bet that das org already has plans in place. They're too smart not to, and I'm betting they have everything tightly orchestrated as to exactly what they'll do when fat-boy kicks it. They won't be caught with their pants down.

Tushita, you weren't suffering from any inherent weakness, you were listening to your instincts - something I (and so many people on this mb) wish I'd done. I've started reading stuff on basic Buddhist practice again, and the gap between that and what sgi preaches . . . well, it's the difference between apples and golf clubs; no resemblance at all.