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.