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obsidianQuote
tsukimoto
SGI, as far as I know, has NOT done # 97, demanded ALL of the members' wealth, 99, totally isolated members
#97 They don't demand all your wealth, but if they could, they certainly would. They just know that by not demanding ALL the wealth, they would end up getting MORE, i.e. a little bit from everyone, instead of ALL from very few.
#99 They do isolate members to the best of their ability. There are so many activities and functions that anyone who goes to work/school does not have time to do any other social activities outside of SGI. On top of that, you are instructed to bring all your family and friends to meetings with you. The thing about SGI is they don't isolate you forcefully. They make you isolate yourself through gentle persuasion and false promises. That's why they're so dangerous.
A. Orange's article was talking about the extreme cases -- Jonestown, with people stuck in the jungles of Guyana with a madman, followers living in isolated ashrams with tyrannical gurus. The Moonies, where someone joins and has to turn over all of their worldly assets -- bank accounts, credit cards. Scientology, where converts mortgage their houses to pay for all the courses they must take. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who had 93 luxury cars; he demanded that his followers show their devotion by giving him such expensive gifts. And I'm also thinking of the Byron Katie thread. She cons her followers into giving her their wedding rings, laptops and even houses.
So I was thinking, "Well, at least SGI isn't THAT bad. You can still have your own car, job, and house or apartment. You are not forced to reject nonbelieving friends and relatives, as members of some cults are." Then I thought some more about Obsidian's post and thought about the story of boiling a frog to death. The story goes, if you just threw the frog into a pot of hot water, he'd leap right out. On the other hand, if you put the frog in cool water, and slowly turn up the heat, the frog stays in and doesn't know when to get out -- so he gets boiled to death. (Please note that I am not recommending that anyone actually try this at home.)
When I first encountered SGI, I thought of cults as being like Jonestown or the Moonies. I think I'd have run away from something like that....but SGI seemed so safe! Gentle persuasion, nice-sounding (though false) promises....I could keep my own job, my own place, wear and eat whatever I liked. My leaders and fellow members said that I could set, and achieve my own goals and dreams, whether it was being a stay-at-home mom or the CEO of a big corporation. How could this be bad?
For YEARS, I really didn't see how my life was slowly being taken over by SGI, and my thinking was manipulated. I felt guilty when I didn't want to do SGI activities all the time. I felt that my resistance was due to laziness and selfishness on my part -- rather than a very reasonable desire to have more balance in my life.
So Obsidian, I agree. The "start out cool and turn up the heat" approach had to be a conscious decision on the part of the SGI leadership. They can get more members, more work out of the members, and more money if they go softly and slowly. Sure, if Ikeda took us off to the middle of the jungle, he could be king of the jungle -- but that's not what he wants. That's far too limiting. He wants to be powerful and regarded as legitimate in the real world. You don't get that by taking your followers to some isolated, fenced-in compound. You get that by having a varied following, people who are educated and successful in different fields. People who have money, and skills to share over a period of decades, people who are respected by others, so that your group becomes integrated into the mainstream society. Buy a degree here, a degree there, get your picture taken with famous people, powerful people, intellectuals.
Quiet one, I always found the ideas of "human revolution" and "We all have the Buddha nature, as we are," contradictory. If I'm really a Buddha as I am, why do I have to do human revolution? Maybe it's like the old principle of advertising -- people who are satisfied with themselves buy less. Make someone feel flawed, and they'll buy things to correct the perceived faults. People buy all these diet plans, and books, gym memberships, exercise equipment, but how many people really lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off? How many people actually change their lives after reading self-help books? Likewise, I see so many SGI members who say that they've improved their lives. Yet they still have all the same financial, health, relationship, and family issues now, as they did fifteen years ago, as far as I can see.