meh, Mark Rogrow used to be a regular contributor here before the great crash of '13. Not sure now that its been a while, but I think his username was nichijew. Maybe we could give out a shout out to him over on his website and encourage him to return here and give us some more of his insightful posts.

Would it be stalk-ery to reach out to nichijew, hitch and a few others as well, via private messages? I've thought about it, but then again thought that if they wanted to stay connected here, they would have done so.

Can tell you that if high stacks of paper sit around, its a fire hazard. Can attract vermin, too.

Can offer a story.

A person who was librarian for a famous Buddhist center, told me that she cancelled the library's subscripton to a magazine after she was given documentation about the abusive nature of the guru and organization that published it.

She told me that she got a phone call from the distributor for the magazine imploring her not to cancel the subscription.

She suspected that the distributor feared punishment if she were told face the guru and inform him that one of the most renowned Buddhist centers in the country had cancelled its subscription to his magazine because of all the reports of his abusiveness to students.

We dared wonder whether the distributor may have chosen to pay for the subscription on the sly, rather than face punishment as a bearer of bad news.

Spartacus

"SGI has always been a self-centered cult that wouldn't lift a finger, much less provide a dime to help sick, destitute, hungry, or homeless members - even if they had previously sacrificed everything they had to provide unquestioning loyalty and monetary support to the cult.org. Yet, the cult.org has no problem coming up with money for Marriott Hotel presidential suites to house their leaders in during "guidance tours".

That's it about cults and bad relationships in general.

Unreciprocated loyalty.

Haha! One of the first things I did when I decided to leave das org was to get rid of all the books and publications. My life smelled so much better after that!

Sorry I did not want to be a party pooper on the sublime message issue. To me it seems a bit farfetched and I am more inclined to blame group pressure and - sorry to say that – what many of us once misinterpreted as our faith in what we thought to be Buddhism. As said earlier on this message board leaving a cult takes time. It takes time to detox and sometimes I guess we externalise reasons for having become involved in the first place.
When I see one of these Videos/DVDs (relatives of mine are still in SGI) I have to be careful not to burst out laughing. I guess to an outsider it is more obvious than to any inhabitant of SGI-land. When I became more resentful of SGI the reason I stayed was not to lose contact with some other members who I thought to be friends.
At this point I do not ponder on why and how I could have become involved in the first place. I do my best to make others aware what SGI is about.
I would not compare them to you tube videos as the ones who posted them do not necessarily have to be members. I would not be surprised that some officials in SGI are quite aware of the fact that most of these videos are bit o.t.t. and embarrassing. Some of the old videos had music on them that resembled elevator music or the tunes played when displaying products on those home shopping channels.

Yeah . . . sgi will never be famous for its outstanding musical taste.

Not so much a party pooper, but I guess some of us strongly believe that das org will do anything it deems necessary to keep the flock in line. They are so good at the psychological manipulation, and I see peer-pressure as only a part of it. Among the posts that were lost was a discussion (at least one) about how much of the meetings were really geared towards inducing a trance-like state when, of course, nearly everyone is open and receptive to pretty much anything they're told. A lot has been written, and not related to this site, about how easy that is to do, and how powerful.

Well I believe its simply the love bombing that takes place within meetings. Many of us had little knowledge of Buddhism and I guess we just thought that that’s the way its supposed to be. We started to feel uncomfortable and just could not put our finger down to what made us feel uncomfortable at first. It took a while.
Then we see ourselves in something that is anything but Buddhism, not even Nichiren Buddhism, but what turns out to be a cult of personality – Mr. Ikeda.
What also does the trick is that SGI claims such high goals and it takes some time of observation that SGI does not really engage in those areas. Just take Soka University – they do not even teach Buddhist Studies … how could they anyways as the knowledge is not there.
I guess I thought for along time that I was contributing to something noble, unseen before and it just turns out at some point as a simple cult. For instance the members of my former group: 8 out of 10 SGI families/marriages turned out highly dysfunctional. The ones that where to suffer were so called fortune babies.

Well, we can agree to disagree on that; I think it goes much deeper than the simple love-bombing.

While Soka U may not try to teach Buddhism (as you point, there is an astonishing lack of knowledge in that area), the complaints against them for discriminating against non-sgi staff have been pretty frequent. Apparently, chanting groups are all over the campus, and any one who isn't a member must feel pretty excluded.

I'd bet that an awful lot of members originally thought that they were contributing to something noble along with straightening out their lives. I think it's the nature of most people who are interested in Buddhism to want to better the world somehow; sgi just happens to be handy, accessible and full of persuasive BS.

Having said that … anyone, not SGI affiliated, sending their child to Soka University must be out of their mind anyway – especially these days given the means of internet research. So if Soka University will survive in the West it will be due to subsidies from SG-Japan. Personally I believe that SGI is in rapid decline anyway, also due to message boards like this one. From my own observations long standing members increasingly decide to take the back door and simply disappear from SGI's surface. The number of those who decide to bin their Gohonzon or store it away is much higher than those who openly declare their exit. I did declare my exit but still have the Gohonzon but I decided to send it to a Nichiren Shu priest some time soon. To me it has become something that I would like to see to leave my home completely by now. Books authored by Ikeda made it to be recycled a long time ago.

Rothaus wrote:

1) "SGI claims such high goals and it takes some time of observation that SGI does not really engage in those areas."

2) "I guess I thought for along time that I was contributing to something noble, unseen before and it just turns out at some point as a simple cult."

3)"Personally I believe that SGI is in rapid decline anyway, also due to message boards like this one"

4) "At this point I do not ponder on why and how I could have become involved in the first place. I do my best to make others aware what SGI is about."


Four Noble Truths, Rothaus! Well done! These four points are spot on. Together, they read like a long term progression leading into, through, and out of the SG cult land wringer.


Meh wrote:

1) "it's the nature of most people who are interested in Buddhism to want to better the world somehow; sgi just happens to be handy, accessible and full of persuasive BS."

2) "...meetings were really geared towards inducing a trance-like state when, of course, nearly everyone is open and receptive to pretty much anything they're told."

3) "...das org will do anything it deems necessary to keep the flock in line. They are so good at the psychological manipulation,"

4) "Then we see ourselves in something that is anything but Buddhism, not even Nichiren Buddhism, but what turns out to be a cult of personality – Mr. Ikeda."


Kudos Meh, Four More Noble Truths! Again, as with Rothaus' truths, these points are like snap shots taken from a long trip through SGcult world.