Calm down Anticult - outside Japan SGI is adiffernt thing - not less dangerous but still different. would like to hear other peoples expreience on that issue.

These experiences that I'm quoting are from actual SGI members. I know they aren't made up because I have known many people whose experiences have appeared in the pages of the World Tribune. The experiences are almost always printed with the member's photo as well. However, the latest experiences that I have seen just go over the top with the Ikeda worship. The common pattern used to be Problem, Chanted, Resolved Problem. Now it's always Problem, Chanted, Read Specific Ikeda Guidance Addressing My Problem, Resolved Problem. I think the SGI has sent out the message that unless you gush about how Ikeda's guidance pointed you in the right direction, we won't be printing your experience. But that's the scary part: these are real people who really think this way! Since I'm a fortune baby myself, I've met so many people like this in my life it's not even funny. Heck, some of them are in my family! Experiences like this make it utterly clear how effective brainwashing is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2009 08:55AM by SGBye.

From the website GakkaiOnline.net/Experiences

This person gives an experience about being able to overcome health issues after -- guess what -- contributing to SGI's May Commemorative Contribution Campaign. After much initial reluctance, this member contributes -- and almost immediately, a three-month long fever suddenly breaks, and in the end, the member is even able to get a new car!

I know a couple of people who've gotten their experiences published in the World Tribune. Is EVERY experience that is published there real? I don't know, but I think that many are. They're real in the sense that the person who gave the experience believes it happened to him or her. These people may be exaggerating how bad their lives were before chanting, or how good their lives have been since chanting. Or maybe they believe that chanting alone solved the problem when in fact other things that they did solved the problem. SGI teaches people to reframe their lives, and reinterpret their experiences like that.

GakkaiOnline.net has a variety of experiences -- health, finances, relationships, family problems, job problems, all resolved through chanting. Life was terrible without chanting, wonderful with it. There's also the section on people who left SGI, found their lives just turned to pure misery, and then they saw the light, came back and life was good again. People who went to Nichiren Shoshu temples found themselves just feeling spooked, creeped out, like they were suddenly sucked into a Twilight Zone of despair and heaviness.

All so predictable, and yet it works. Knowing what I know about SGI, I read these experiences and STILL found myself wanting to go back to it! I should probably avoid GakkaiOnline. This stuff gets into your mind, you think you've gotten it out...and yet their propaganda can still trigger the old responses.

-------Beginning of Quote, GakkaiOnline.net-----------------------------------------------------------

The months of March through June were rather difficult. My physical health became quite an obstacle, with repeated episodes of pneumonia, asthma symptoms, kidney stones, infections from the antibiotics, and the list goes on. Being out of work for three months, my finances were getting really tight as well. For someone otherwise in perfect health, I couldn’t understand why all this was going on — I told myself it was bad karma that had to be dealt with. My practice was fair, and I used fatigue as an excuse to skip practice, usually in the evening. Relationships were becoming stressed; work was growing impatient with my absence, causing me to fear for my job. My life declined, as it should when one chooses to put his or her practice on the back burner. I was even beginning to doubt my practice altogether.

June 10 was my last chance to participate in May Commemorative Contribution at World Peace Prayer. I had only $7.00 in my wallet at the time, but there was a bit of money in the bank that I called my “emergency fund” — money that usually gets spent on some non-emergency like a weekend at the beach. What to do... last day to contribute... only cash accepted at the community center... well, there is always next year.

About mid-way through the meeting on Sunday, my friend reminded me it was the last day for contributions and said it would be a great cause to give 50 cents if that’s all I could give. I thought to myself, I have $7.00 to get me through the next five days, even 50 cents is going to be a stretch. The excuses prevailed and I came home having made a total contribution of $0.00, not a dime.

Later that afternoon, an experience arrived in my inbox from a Yahoo Group about contribution. It left me no room for excuses and taking a leap of faith, I went to the SGI-USA website and made a contribution using the “emergency fund.” It wasn’t what I really planned on contributing, but it was a lot more than I’d given so far.

Almost immediately, my three-month-long fever began to break!! Within moments, the fever that had ranged from 100° to almost 104° dropped to 97.8 degrees and has remained there. The fatigue started to lift, the cough ceased, the body aches and pain lessened. The next morning, just one day after my contribution, I woke up at 6:30 A.M. and was able to stay awake the entire day until almost 9:00 P.M. and felt good all day. That night, I slept like a baby for the first time in a long time and woke up the next morning on 6 hours or less of sleep and felt even better than the day before. That was the first Tuesday in a long time that defeat hasn’t been breaking down my door.

President Ikeda, the current president of Soka Gakkai International, wrote about how to chant “fighting daimoku.” It was time for me to take the action necessary to bring about some major life changes and to face these obstacles and challenges head on. The following day, I spent a few hours chanting Nam Myoho-Renge-Kyo victoriously, being sure not to disturb my neighbors. I also have become more involved in SGI activities and have studied more, keeping up-to-date on events within SGI, and working to help others find and develop this great Buddhist practice, never letting any obstacle stand in my way.

For such a small cause in contributing and practicing again with determination and a fighting spirit, obstacles started falling flat. Challenges became greater experiences. I never thought a cause that seemed so small on the surface would bring so much benefit. I’ve heard people give experiences about a new home, a new car, a promotion, a better boss... I got my health back, and there is NO greater benefit in my opinion.

Since then, my work and home lives have both improved, my relationships with others are dramatically improved, and my joy of life has been restored. We got the new car I’ve been chanting for… totally new!! Through this, I’ve learned that no matter how small the contribution made for the sake of Buddhism, there is a huge benefit in store and when facing problems, face them head on with my head held high and defeat each one with Nam Myoho-Renge-Kyo. Never again will I underestimate the power of making a cause, small or great — or the power of chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.
--------------------------End of Quote------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1989, I submitted an experience to the "World Tribune Press" and it was selected along with 24 other experiences from women across the USA to be published in a book entitled "Dawn's Early Light". The experience that appeared in the book was based on my experience, but it was heavily edited. Some things that were written were changed and did not happen the way it was stated at all. And at the end quite a bit of stuff was made up.

quiet one - my parents still have that book! I read it many years ago.

I would love to share my experience of being born into the practice. I guess I will do it slowly through time so I don't end up writing a book.

As for today, I'm having a problem with my in-laws and made the mistke of telling my mom. She said "just trust that the Gohozon will lead you the right way." I have to say my parents are happy to be blissfully ignorant. They have no friends outside of SGI. They can't maintain any relationships with my extended family. The list goes on and on. I have found it hard to see their "actual proof." They are good people. I think they joined because they couldn't connect with other people. They didn't fit in anywhere. SGI has become their family and they are loyal to the SGI and always will be. My mom's a bit of a rebel and I think I have been like that with certain aspects of my life such as not always joining the party line while I was working, It would be a natural thing for me to come and approach this practice in a rebellios way. I was the one who tried learning about other faiths. groing up I now maintain a few friendships with kids who grew up chanting. Some avoid it. Some are "born again."

The easrly years were spent pleasing my parets and my leaders. It took a while for me to see what was going on with the SGI. They called me a fortune baby. I am a staunch opponent of the fortune baby concept. I have never believed my life would be better from being classified as a fortune baby. Honestly, fortune babies usually believe that they will have more fortunate circumstances by virtue of having special status. I had problens enough. no clues, no magical experiences, I acually heard on a website that while explaining the fortune baby thing to someone on the blog went on to say that we were fortune babies and we were special. So I think the message I now have is that during my childhood I certainly did not feel fottunate encough. I had no additional get out of jail free cards growing up,

It took me a long time to break free from what was expected of me but once I did I became rebellious. I don't believe my leaders locally were trying to manipulate me because of an unspoken super plan to get SGI followers. Any manipulation was done at the higher levels of leadership.

Quote
Rothaus
well I would not really supect a systematic brain washing plan behind it. In due fairness I most say that the SGI childrens groups did kid stuff. Okay the odd tales by Ikeda - now semingly also a childrens book author ... kanta and the deer ans all that stuff.

I would call the above metioned story that of a fanatic member brain washing her child - no need for SGI to do that as it seems.

Maybe Evergreen could tell us more about that as born into the SGI-practise.

Anticult and others here have shown, without a shadow of a doubt, the systematic and advanced brainwashing techniques utilized by the top SGI functionaries. I have communicated with literally hundreds of members over the last several years. My evidence is that one can make an absolutely true, incontravertable or perfectly logical statement about just about any topic related to the SGI but if it is a criticism of Ikeda and the SGI, it will not be believed. When twelve out of twelve non-SGI members would unanimously affirm the truth of a statement or proposition that is perfectly supported but not one SGI member will admit to its truth, what else can we deduce?

Lies beget lies. Nearly anytime an SGI member discusses the true nature of SGI which is apparent to just about anyone [that SGI it is a personality cult centered around the Three Presidents and soon the fourth President], he will lie about its true nature and more often than not, not even realize he or she is lying. At the extremes, those most susceptable, brainwashing can cause an acute and even chronic psychotic condition leading to disordered and disorganized thoughts. According to the DSM 5 guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association under "post traumatic stress disorders'', subheading, ''brainwashing and mental health'' it is stated that brainwashing may lead to acute psychotic reactions mimicking both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. P.E.T. and MRI brain scans have revealed subtle adverse molecular changes in the brains of brainwashed individuals. Brainwashing has thus been proven to alter brain structure and function. This is an extremely evil organization to do this to their children, those most vulnerable.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2009 10:23PM by Nichijew.

@ Nichijew

I meant that in regard to children of young age, I suspect that in such a case that brainwashing is done by the parents, as in my experience young children were always showed into a back room with some YMD/YWD doing the baby sitting,
Sorry if I came accross wrong.
Brain washing on adults? No doubts yes. I joined as a teenager not as I child - so thats waht I want to learn more about by those who were very young when beien confronted with SGI.

Each person is going to have to figure out these complex issues for themselves, and it can be incredibly difficult.

But even this critical thread of SGI has had a lot of serious errors in it, that unknowingly favor SGI. Sometimes even some folks who have often gotten out of a group, can't really see all of the processes being used. Its very tricky stuff.
So yes, as as shown in that link on the previous page the video experiment about Inattentional Blindness [forum.culteducation.com] some folks literally don't see/perceive the processes being done.
That's the entire point!
It takes a lot of objectivity and research and training to see various processes, and everyone has blindspots.

As shown above from personal experience, SGI operates the same way the other sects like this operate, in terms of the submitted stories to their magazines. People know if they want to get a story printed, it had better be a good one.
And as shown, the stories get edited.
And they also get fabricated as well. Every group like this does this. Often, its better for them them to use people like a Lisa Jones to edit and write stories, as then there is no liability or complaints about editing.
So all these groups mix "true stories" with made-up stories, and edited ones. Its group persuasion by testimonial and anecdote. Every group like this does it.

Its similar to when people stand up to give testimony at SGI meetings. People know the better story they tell, the more approval they will get, its pretty easy to delude oneself.


And here's the fact, even though it may be hard to see from some perspectives.
SGI is directly targeting young children for very heavy indocrination and manipulation. (brainwashing, if you will).
They have those SGI cartoons, which are not cheap to produce, those are targeting SGI children.
They have stories and articles about getting 4 year olds to chant, and look at photos of President Ikeda, and the rest of it. That is systematic indocrination of children, as their minds are being formed. Every advanced persuader knows you have to get children when they are young, when their beliefs and core concepts are being formed in their brains.

And this SGI "fortune baby" thing is very damaging, and needs more research. It sounds like a way for SGI to indoctrinate both the parents and the child. This is going to be very damaging for a child to grow up thinking they are "special" in this way.
Other groups do the exact same technique with children, like "Indigo Children".

Kids who grow up in these sects can have a tough road ahead of them, as they have to go back and try to deprogram all of the stuff that has been put into their brains since they were almost pre-verbal. That is not easy.
For example, some people who grew up in a Christian Science families, have a very tough time making sense out of it.

Its very clear, and very obvious. SGI has a systematic, organized program to indoctrinate children and families into SGI starting at the earliest possible time. This can be very damaging, as SGI and Ikeda are going to be fused right into the core self-concept of the child, then the child has to deal with that decades later.

SGI has openly stated they want adults to dedicate their entire lives to SGI, and many do. Those who are vulnerable the the SGI sales-pitch can get lured in quite easily.
SGI is a mammoth, incredibly rich, powerful, political, capitalistic, highly organized, global "cult".
The SGI system of recruiting in the west, by getting friends to bring in friends, is highly effective, and well structured, even though it appears casual. That is its strength.

To try and say that SGI in the west is different than Japan, is a mistake. Its one SGI.
The bottom rung of SGI in the west is mainly about money for SGI. But SGI plucks people from the bottom rungs, and moves them up the ladder as they see fit. That is a fact.
For vulnerable people in the west, they can easily get sucked into SGI for decades.
SGI is systematically using every powerful indoctrination technique in the book on people.
What SGI is trying to do to children, is truly awful.

This is a key point.
Advanced indoctrination, thought reform, "brainwashing", is not what most people think it is.
These days, they are able to do it and make it appear Voluntary to the subjects. They are also able to make it appear invisible to the untrained eye.
So the SGI members and subjects are not able to see what has been done to them, systematically, with the SGI processes over months and years.
SGI knows humans can literally believe anything, so they slowly modify the belief systems of their members, using the same techniques used by others.

They become true believers in SGI. And they become conditioned to believe that recruiting others to SGI, is good for everyone's Karma, especially their own.
They use the exact SGI lingo in public, without even realizing it.

SGI, when researched carefully, is one of the most advanced and organized sects in the world in their methods and techniques. SGI also appears to be the richest "cult" on earth, and no one really knows it yet.
SGI also tends to target a demographic who wants to believe what they are selling.
The SGI masterminds are very smart about the realities and fallibilities of human nature.

Quote
Nichijew
... I have communicated with literally hundreds of members over the last several years. My evidence is that one can make an absolutely true, incontravertable or perfectly logical statement about just about any topic related to the SGI but if it is a criticism of Ikeda and the SGI, it will not be believed. When twelve out of twelve non-SGI members would unanimously affirm the truth of a statement or proposition that is perfectly supported but not one SGI member will admit to its truth, what else can we deduce?

Lies beget lies. Nearly anytime an SGI member discusses the true nature of SGI which is apparent to just about anyone [that SGI it is a personality cult centered around the Three Presidents and soon the fourth President], he will lie about its true nature and more often than not, not even realize he or she is lying. ...

My goodness, that piece above from GakkaiOnline.net is just a piece of crude trash!
But yes, it can work. SGI understands how vulnerable and desperate some people are.

There are so many embedded messages in that written Story. (all these groups write most of their key stories).
But the message is, slack off with SGI chanting, and your health, love, work, all down the toilet. Your life will be over.

Then here is the REAL SGI, the evil SGI, that accepts cash only.

Take your Emergency Fund of savings from the bank and transfer it to SGI on a Sunday afternoon online when you are desperate, even when you are desperately broke and don't have any money left.

Then by magic, you will be healed, and be happy and manic.

SGI has literally copied the crooked TV evangelists with that one. They also say, make a large cash donation to them, and you will be instantly healed.

This material by SGI is so vile, so crude, so greedy, but unfortunately it can work.
Its simply a hard-core technique for SGI to EXTRACT MONEY from desperate people. They target those who have health problems, who are broke, alone, and tell them GIVE MONEY to SGI, and by magic all your problems will vanish.
They even go so far as to get at people's emergency savings. Its not enough to go for their expendable income, SGI wants your last savings.
Why?
Again, other groups do this, as the more broke and desperate people become, the more they rely on the group.

Notice SGI does not say, just chant, and your problems with vanish.
Its about giving SGI money, and a lot MORE money than you want to give.

That is what SGI-USA is all about, money money money, extracting money for SGI.
SGI wants to clean out your bank account, and emergency savings, when you are broke.

Meanwhile, SGI-USA literally has hundreds of millions in investments and real estate, and probably billions more concealed in the SGI "religious" organization, and many more billions worldwide.
It can't get any more blatant than that.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2009 04:25AM by The Anticult.