Holy crap - at least sgi isn't going this far:

[www.huffingtonpost.ca]

Holy frijoles, Spartacus! And I thought *I* had presented damning quotes! Wow - if those were to be posted over on reddit, I can think of one ikeda fanboy who would wet himself! Hmmm...(gets a thought)

Shocking, absolutely shocking. Say, do you remember that Japanese term from back in the day that meant "government based on (Nichiren) Buddhism"?

What everyone should keep in mind is that these are absolutely based on Nichiren's writings.

1. Spiritually: Make all the Japanese belong to Soka Gakkai. Nichiren repeatedly petitioned the government leaders to get rid of all the other sects of Buddhism and their leaders, to the point of executing them and demolishing their temples, with the expectation that all the people would then be forced to follow HIM.

2. Politically: Have the Komei Party take the rein of the Japanese government. We do things a little differently nowadays, but the focus and goals remain the same.

3. Economically: Have business enterprises affiliated with Soka Gakkai control Japanese financial circles. Naturally, this would happen automatically if Nichiren's wishes had been granted. And now, the Soka Gakkai has inherited that intolerant mantle and proclaims itself the only "true" inheritor of Nichiren's legacy.

4. Have Soka Gakkai members slip into key positions of Japanese society, including administrative organs, the Ministry of Justice, the media, educational organizations, cultural organizations, etc., then take control of Japan. This would be SO much easier if all the competing Buddhisms could just be wiped out, wouldn't it? So much effort and planning required to get around these pesky secular concepts of human rights and democratic process! But don't worry - once WE'RE in power, we'll return everything to a nice, tidy feudal system.


5. Then finally, Daisaku Ikeda will become a man of absolute power to rule Japan. I think those quotes clarify the delusions of grandeur Ikeda was laboring under, particularly when he was still a young man. Oh, he had GREAT plans! No doubt about it! But now that he's old and feeble, I can only imagine the weight of failure that now crushes him (provided he's even still alive).

I remember at some study meeting back in the day, and I think it had to do with the priesthood, that it was pointed out that, until people are rich, they seek wealth. But once they are wealthy, THEN they seek...power! So this was supposedly the priesthood's downfall - now that the Gakkai had made their sect wealthy beyond anyone's wildest dreams, those eeeeevil priests now just wanted to make sure they were the boss of everybody! I didn't realize at the time just how much the SGI was tipping its hand, how accurate that "mirror guidance" was proving to be. As Nichiren said, what we see in others reflects our own tendencies - it is these that are familiar to us, after all. In psychological terms, it's called "projection."

I was able to convince myself of all sorts of crazy things and nutty scenarios while I was in the cult - the one-two punch of magical thinking + chanting to bend reality to our will. I truly believed that I could "make the impossible possible" and it's a real head-shaker to look back on what I thought reality looked like. Insane!

So I'm sure that Ikeda was certain that, within a few short years, he would be effectively king of Japan, thanks to the network of cronies and sycophants Toda had started but that he himself had cultivated into a force to be reckoned with. With his charisma and effectiveness, he had the "actual proof" that convinced him that, yes, even HIS wildest dreams could become reality!

I think Ikeda really, sincerely believed it, at least up to a point (when he fired Mr. Williams?). He believed he could make his megalomaniac fantasies come true.

One comment I ran into online was that, in the wake of the publishing scandal, when newly elected Komeito candidates attempted to use their newfound government power to squash the publication of a book critical of the SG, when Komeito was forced to strip off all religious features and become just a plain political party, its membership stopped growing. Since it could no longer be publicly regarded as a religious project depending on the members, and one that would show everyone just how powerful and important the SG was, its influence stalled.

I keep remembering that video Hitch shared with us, where new SGI-USA president Fred Zaitsu was reading his address and Ikeda was saying it was even better than President Clinton's inaugural address (Ikeda's invitations to Pres. Clinton to hold a "dialogue" with him having been unceremoniously refused, leaving Ikeda in quite a fury), where Ikeda was sitting at a desk, randomly slapping it, proving quite a distraction to poor Fred Zaitsu, who was trying to get through his speech with dignity, while poor ousted Mr. Williams sat slumped in his chair, defeated.

Do you suppose that Ikeda had realized it was game over, and so there was no longer any reason to put effort into presenting himself as a wise, mature, and o-so-serious international leader? Since the trained monkeys would clap and adore no matter what, and since he realized that he'd failed to gain the international importance and standing he'd worked so hard to build, he could do whatever he wanted, behave as ridiculously as he liked, and at least get some satisfaction over just how gullible, worshipful, and sycophantish all his followers could be counted upon to be. Sort of like that English noblewoman who used to invite other ladies to tea and serve them small sandwiches that had thin slices of soap in them, knowing they would not dare be so rude as to refuse to eat or to - heaven forfend! - spit out the soap. So she could smile and chat and enjoy watching their discomfort...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2014 03:46AM by StillTaitenAndProud.

The man's hubris knows no bounds. Conveniently, though, I'm sure the members have conveniently erased all of this from their RAM. Besides, that was all in Japan, and we all know that senseless didn't really mean that he was actually going to do all that per se! It was a metaphor for the eventual conquest of the world by cousin rufus. Gosh.

Check out this creepy one minute Scientology superbowl promo ad. Yet another cult that claims to bring together science and religion.

It's rather easy to image this clip as a promo ad for the SGcult. Both cults make the same absurd claim - that science upholds the magic of their religion. According to the SGI, the law of cause and effect is scientific, right? Therefore, praying/chanting is based on science, not magic, right? Wrong! That's a misleading convoluted logic, useful for making a pseudo connection between science (based on observation and empirical, repeatable evidence) and religion (based on faith and suspension of a questioning, reasoning, and logical mind).

In reality, a vast majority of SGcult member experiences we have heard (or maybe given ourselves at one time) assigned full credit for "received" benefits directly to an object of worship. The SGcult's dogma claims that all benefits are manifested through the law of cause and effect. But in actuality, the real emphasis of member experiences consistently gives credit and praise to the mystic (magical) power of the object of worship to grant the petitioner's wishes as a reward for X amount of praying/chanting. The second president of SGcult even called the gohohzon scroll "a wish-granting machine." Yes sir, just repeat this magical phrase in front of a magical scroll and presto, you can get anything you want! It's science! No?

Simply put, SGcult members are subtly led into the deluded belief that a special piece of paper wields ultimate power and control over their lives through the Mystic (Magic) Law. That's just as wacko as Scientology members believing in an invasion of Thetans from the Planet Teegeeach. However, for a cult its all the same, it doesn't matter what incredible tenet is presented, just as long as the cult possesses a means to control the minds (and pocketbooks) of their members.

Did L.Ron Hubbard create Scientology on a bet made at a science fiction conference? Yes, he did! Here's testimony from Otto Maddox that reinforces that claim:

"I took a class with Joe Haldeman back at Tech and got the story first-hand.
Several sci-fi writers, including Joe and L. Ron, were sitting around
drinking at a Con. Someone mentioned that any science fiction writer worth
his/her salt should be able to create a religion that people would follow
en mass. Much drunken raving ensued, the upshot of which was that if
L. Ron hadn't made one million dollars within ten years, he'd pay Joe
$10. In fact it only took around three years."

"I've always wanted to mention that to the poor dupes who stand on the
sidewalk and ask you to take their personality test." Otto Maddox

Hubbard and his drunken friends weren't thinking big enough - making a million in ten years is peanuts. Anybody wanna make a ten dollar bet with me that creating a religious cult can't generate billions of dollars IN ONE YEAR? Oops, that's a losing bet - SGI already generates twice that much - to the tune of 2 billion a year! And they don't even have to bother with spending ridiculous sums of ill-gotten money to run superbowl TV ads!

Spartacus

I did try to read Dianetics years ago; it seems to me (if memory serves) there was an element of racism in it that I found uncomfortable. As gullible and open to such woo-woo at the time, it still seemed like a load of twaddle to me.

There were a couple of SF books that discussed the founding of new religions - Stranger in a Strange Land, of course, and Cat's Cradle come to mind. I'm sure there are plenty of others out there. I think hubbard's pseudo-science/self-help approach made dianetics (isn't that a fine scientific name for crap?) perhaps made it more do-able and realistic for those who got into it.

Cracked.com has a number of articles on scientology that were pretty interesting; the one about growing up as another flavor of mis-fortune baby was pretty horrifying:

[www.cracked.com]

I go back to what I wrote a couple of days ago - you get sucked into what resonates for you. I found the whole scientology-scenario to be laughable hooey, whereas sgi made perfect sense to me at the time.

A million dollars was a ***huge**** sum in the 1950s. L Ron was thinking big.

Thought for the day:

"To tell men that they are equal has a certain sentimental appeal. But this appeal is small compared with that made by a propaganda that tells them that they are superior and that others are inferior to them."

Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato -
Volume 1, page 96 Princeton University Press, 1966


My hunch is that no matter what its doctrine or methods, a cult offers members a promise of becoming special or assurance that one is superior versis those who do not see the appeal of the cult -- or are put off by it.

Am wondering whether what Karl Popper termed a closed society has some useful similarties with those of cults.

And this is important, because a closed society will be incompatible with an open society.

If a cult meets the criteria of a closed society, a cult's demand that its views be treated in a 'balanced manner" and thus in open society is not good faith - an closed, cultic society will eventually try to take over the open society that naively gives it permission to make inroads. For an open society has something the cult leaders will fear and try to suppres - access to information about the cult - and an open society will offer other and perhaps more appealing options than those provided by the cult.

A bit more on Karl Popper's ideas on closed vs open society


of [www.iep.utm.edu]

(quote)In fact, (Popper) said, the view that some collective social entity—be it, for example, a city, a state, society, a nation, or a race—has needs that are prior and superior to the needs of actual living persons is a central ethical tenet of all totalitarian systems, whether ancient or modern.

Nazis, for instance, emphasized the needs of the Aryan race to justify their brutal policies, whereas communists in the Soviet Union spoke of class aims and interests as the motor of history to which the individual must bend.

The needs of the race or class superseded the needs of individuals.

In contrast, Popper held, members of an open society see the state and other social institutions as human designed, subject to rational scrutiny, and always serving the interests of individuals—and never the other way around. True justice entails equal treatment of individuals rather than Plato’s organistic view, in which justice is identified as a well functioning state."

The needs of the race or class superseded the needs of individuals. (Popper quoted from above)

Word substitution

The needs of (SGI) supersede the needs of individuals

Back to our discussion of SGI and congratulations to all who left that closed, cultic society and are now happily in open society once again.

Caught up. Great posts. Thanks

Nichijew

Nichijew! You naughty boy! Where have you been?? Thought we'd lost you :'(

Say, do you happen to know where to find that video Hitch shared privately, of that leaders meeting with Ikeda back in the 1990s, where Fred Zaitsu was reading his address as newly installed SGI-USA national leader (while deposed/disgraced Mr. Williams sat slumped nearby), and Ikeda was randomly banging on his table like a baboon?

That was the one where he said that Zaitsu's address was better than President Clinton's inaugural address. Ikeda was royally peeved at Prez Clinton for not allowing Fatman to masturbate with his hand - I mean, not agreeing to a "dialogue" or at least a photo op so that Toady McFatboy could use his image to increase his status among the Ikedabots.

BTW, if anyone gets ahold of that video, it can only be shared PRIVATELY - the bots have their feelers out and get anything not favorable toward their cult taken down.

Hey Nichijew! Good to see you around!

Welcome back, NIchijew - we've missed you!