Re: Former SGI members and cults
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: August 24, 2009 05:06AM
A quick note about "cults", sometimes it seems some references make it far too complicated.
And of course, there are many "cult apologists" who deliberately try to confuse the issues.
Its unfortunate people often think of "cults" as being bald-headed bongo drummers, or mass suicides. Those are the most extreme examples.
But there are countless other much larger cults, where things are not so black and white, where people dress normally, hold jobs, etc.
And there are currently more advanced "cults" who deliberately portray themselves as to contradict the cult criteria! So the criteria for "what is a cult" certainly needs to be updated. There are many sects now who deliberately use reverse psychology on people, and make their Org look very different from a "cult", in terms of the criteria.
They do this on purpose, as one can see from their websites, where they list the common cult criteria, and then say they don't meet the criteria for a cult! This is to convince members they are not in any type of cult.
And of course, people in "cults" generally don't see it as a cult, or if they do, they reframe the word cult to means something positive.
But the criteria for a cult, can be just using common sense.
Exploitation:
In what way are people being exploited and used? Sometimes, for lower level people, all the cult wants is their money, free labor, and to reruit their friends. Only people way up in the cult are asked to give everything to the sect. That is how SGI works.
Someone said that Ikeda doesn't trust anyone who has not been SGI for 10 years? That is probably correct, as anyone under 10 years, is just a pawn/peon to them.
Deception:
SGI consciously uses deception to recruit people, that is a proven fact, even seen in this thread where they get someone to meet them under false pretences, then ambush them at the SGI center with 6 hrs of high-pressure conversion tactics. That's a cult.
They even go as far as training the everyday SGI people to recruit, without knowing what they are really doing. So they are giving false information to people, but also doing it by deceiving their own SGI people.
SGI also uses very advanced and carefully constructed persuasion techniques, which have changed with the times, and strategies.
So no question, SGI is a cult. But the SGI-USA and the other levels of SGI are really seperate operating systems.
The inner-circle of SGI seems to be absolutely fanatical. What would happen to a person or their family, if someone who knew the inside scoop on SGI inner circle, spoke out in public?
SGI would go at that person with every tactic in their arsenal, and many that have only been hinted at so far. Especially at the highest levels, SGI is very fanatical, and dangerous.