For Sure - Just my two cents on this – when I was younger there seemed to be clicks within the SGI that tried to arrange couples – ie dating – marriages – and so on – also with my children we had several attempts to get my kids involved with other SGI in relationships and I have seen lots of members marrying other members! SO for sure there is a underlying emphasis on trying to get and keep SGI members to start families to make more fortune babies $$$



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2010 04:19AM by cyclops.

Quote
Stoic
It was not my intention to cause division amongst you but simply to point out that conclusions based on emotion rather than logic have long been used to hoodwink people who have little understanding of probability theory.
Just because it feels right it doesn't necessarily follow that it is right. Our feelings are changeable and easily manipulated.

On the subject of "If it feels right, does that mean that it IS right?", I like what Corboy posted in another forum.

From the Byron Katie thread, "Cults, Sects and New Religious Movements" Forum (posted by Corboy.)

[forum.culteducation.com]

------------------Beginning of Quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone on another discussion, wrote 

Quote:
Just because I think or feel something doesnt make it real or true.

It is so common for someone to say, 'But I experienced this' when trying to prove some guru or workshop was the real thing.

Experience, even when intensely felt, does not always mean something exists or is true.

Example:

I had flu followed by double pneumonia some years ago.

According to what I experienced, I was freezing my ass off. Felt so cold my bones felt like ice. I was shivering violently and rolling up in blankets and felt cold, cold, cold.

But when I used a clinical thermometer to take my tempeture, I was actually by that termometer at a body temperature of 104 plus degrees Farenheight--as in I was in a high fever, and though I experienced myself as cold and needing warmth, my body was actually blazing hot and needed to cool down!

Later, I read that the hypothalamus portion of the brain can be confused by chemicals released by the body's efforts to fight fever. Cytokines can confuse the hypothalamus and we can experience ourselves as freezing cold when we are actually running high fevers and are hot.

So that by itself demonstrates that personal experience, no matter how intense, does not by itself prove that something is 'real'.

When someone says, 'That was my experience' that can be a guru induced fever.
-------------------------------End of Quote----------------------------------------------------------------
In my SGI days, I would have insisted that chanting made me feel better, and more focused, so that meant that SGI, or at least Nichiren Buddhism, was the right thing for me. Does that mean that it was? Did I feel better, and have positive experiences in my life because of my chanting -- or because I expected to? Would chanting something else, silent meditation, tai chi, singing, drumming, or reciting poetry have had the same effect?

I suppose I could try something else, but I've just become more skeptical, and maybe that would also have an effect on the results I'd get.

Quote
The Anticult
A question about SGI New Zealand at this link, and sexual manipulation. [forum.culteducation.com]

Have noticed some manipulative sexual behavior around SGI recruiting.

But it may not have come from SGI, but SGI just served as a "green light" for certain people to act-out without guilt?
The explanation seemed to be, that anything goes to recruit new members to SGI, as then that person believe they will get a better Karma and more Goodies. So by recruiting you into SGI, they seem to believe they are getting a Karma commission.
.

I've never heard of any SGI women offering sex with the goal of shakabuku'ing (recruiting) anyone, but there certainly is the mentality of 'the ends justify the means." The end of getting someone into SGI is considered so important that members will lie and pretend friendship to get someone to join.

Years ago, I went to a Young Women's Division meeting where some girl asked a leader if the YWD should just date guys who were SGI members. This leader said no, actually dating nonmembers was a good thing, as it exposed nonmembers to SGI. (Please note: Nobody said that we should expose ourselves to nonmembers. We were supposed to expose Buddhism to nonmembers, not our bodies.)

Back at that time (1980's), SGI had rather puritanical attitudes about sex. Young Women's Division members were told not to live with their boyfriends, for example, as it was a bad example to the younger girls (and perhaps gave other people a bad image of SGI...can't have that.) The Lotus Sutra, and Nichiren Daishonin, as far as I know, say nothing about premarital sex....so it was just SGI, concerned about SGI's image. I think that SGI has pretty much given up that "no living together" guidance up these days, simply because living together is so common now.

I think that Anticult is right in saying that SGI's "do whatever you have to do to recruit new members" mentality has simply given some people the green light to do whatever they want. If a woman wants to experiment sexually, or if she already has a pattern of using sex to get attention, favors, or gifts.....she might decide to use sex to get a guy to go to a meeting. But this has to be pretty rare. It would be an individual decision, certainly not encouraged by SGI.

That, or I just missed all the fun.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2010 04:59AM by tsukimoto.

It probably depends which local SGI "clique" a person is in, as they do recruit their friends, and chant together, have meetings...

But using the lure of relationships/dating/sex is certainly very very common in certain SGI cliques.
Some can personally attest to having constant invites of "come to my house to meet person ______ this weekend"
Then in turns out its a SGI chanting meeting.

Some of those who were/are doing this, probably have the best intentions, and are trying to play matchmaker, but they are playing right into SGI plans for recruitment.

Another piece of evidence that Ikeda-SGI doesn't "chant for wealth" and knows that is mere superstition for the masses.

Does SGI give its billions to SGI people to manage through chanting?
Hell no!

As proven in this thread, SGI hires finance pro's who are non-SGI, and pays them millions a year to invest the money, and likely also gives fat bonuses for profit targets.
That is not superstitious behavior, its hard-nosed investing. At the top, SGI operates about as superstitiously as General Electric or any large Japanese multinational Corp.

Quote
The Anticult
It probably depends which local SGI "clique" a person is in, as they do recruit their friends, and chant together, have meetings...

But using the lure of relationships/dating/sex is certainly very very common in certain SGI cliques.
Some can personally attest to having constant invites of "come to my house to meet person ______ this weekend"
Then in turns out its a SGI chanting meeting.

Some of those who were/are doing this, probably have the best intentions, and are trying to play matchmaker, but they are playing right into SGI plans for recruitment.

Certainly, SGI members recruit their friends to SGI, just as joggers ask their friends to jog with them, and theater buffs invite friends to plays. The matchmaking I saw seemed to be more about matching SGI members to other SGI members. Inviting a nonmember to a member's house, as if it's a social occasion, and then having it turn out to be a meeting? Yes, some people will do that. The festivals, to me, seemed quite manipulative too. Some nonmembers come, thinking that they're going to a "cultural festival" or performances, only to find that it's a commercial for SGI.

But it seems that K1W1, in the thread on the "Cults, Sects, and New Religions" Forum, was talking about something quite different -- a girl who had a sexual relationship with him, persuaded him to join SGI, and then ditched him without explanation as soon as he did. I can't imagine that this kind of thing happens very often -- girls having sex with guys just to get the guy into SGI, and then vanishing as soon as the guy does join. There could be way more to this story than the guy is telling us. Or maybe the women of SGI-New Zealand are running a sex ring, seducing guys into SGI. Just rockin' the era!

But jogging groups of course don't have recruitment targets, and are not punished/rewarded for those targets, as they are in SGI.

Sex/love/dating is used in most sects, Landmark uses it, Scientology uses it.

There is no real evidence that SGI uses blatant sex in the west at least, to the level of the Raelians.

But I noted long ago in this thread, that sexuality was being used by some in SGI for recruiting.
The most logical reason for this, is some SGI people must believe that signing people up to SGI will change their Karma, so they get obsessed, and will do anything to get people to sign-up. Including sexual manipulation of various degrees.

SGI New Zealand [forum.culteducation.com]

What happened to that guy, does not sound in the least amusing, as its obviously more about emotional manipulation around "true love", not simply sex. His comment that she bolted right after he "joined SGI" is believable. She got her new member number.
But obviously that guy felt a lot of pain over that, as he went to the trouble of searching the internet for a cult website, registering, and making a post. He could see something was up.

Without getting too harsh, its a fact that some in the SGI, are chanting to meet a rich spouse, for instant riches through marriage. There are other words for that! That is not speculation, that is going on and is widespread. And the SGI ideology would support that, and rationalize it totally.

But this is a part of SGI that has not been talked about very much. Its probably local to certain cliques, and it sounds like SGI New Zealand has something going on.

This the very kind of manipulation that has been noticed from some SGI members.
So-called "Buddhists" using dating/sexual tactics to get attention, and then on an alleged dinner date the passing out of SGI literature! And that happening a number of times from different people!
That is "kinda" a warning flag for someone who happens to have been "interested" in cultic reruiting and tactics for quite sometime.
;-)

Bottom line, some SGI people get themselves into types of Flirty-Fishing for SGI, as they become more obsessed/desperate with changing their Karma by recruiting new people into SGI.
Its a depressing experience to be sitting across a table from someone, and have them admit that they want you to join SGI, ultimately as its good for their own Karma.
You are like a Karma-Object to them.
That sticks in your mind, for a looong time, especially if you had feelings for that person. Its quite creepy to be seen as a Karma-Object.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2010 06:48AM by The Anticult.

Quote
tsukimoto

Quote
Stoic
It was not my intention to cause division amongst you but simply to point out that conclusions based on emotion rather than logic have long been used to hoodwink people who have little understanding of probability theory.
Just because it feels right it doesn't necessarily follow that it is right. Our feelings are changeable and easily manipulated.

On the subject of "If it feels right, does that mean that it IS right?", I like what Corboy posted in another forum.

From the Byron Katie thread, "Cults, Sects and New Religious Movements" Forum (posted by Corboy.)

[forum.culteducation.com]

------------------Beginning of Quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone on another discussion, wrote 

Quote:
Just because I think or feel something doesnt make it real or true.

It is so common for someone to say, 'But I experienced this' when trying to prove some guru or workshop was the real thing.

Experience, even when intensely felt, does not always mean something exists or is true.

Example:

I had flu followed by double pneumonia some years ago.

According to what I experienced, I was freezing my ass off. Felt so cold my bones felt like ice. I was shivering violently and rolling up in blankets and felt cold, cold, cold.

But when I used a clinical thermometer to take my tempeture, I was actually by that termometer at a body temperature of 104 plus degrees Farenheight--as in I was in a high fever, and though I experienced myself as cold and needing warmth, my body was actually blazing hot and needed to cool down!

Later, I read that the hypothalamus portion of the brain can be confused by chemicals released by the body's efforts to fight fever. Cytokines can confuse the hypothalamus and we can experience ourselves as freezing cold when we are actually running high fevers and are hot.

So that by itself demonstrates that personal experience, no matter how intense, does not by itself prove that something is 'real'.

When someone says, 'That was my experience' that can be a guru induced fever.
-------------------------------End of Quote----------------------------------------------------------------
In my SGI days, I would have insisted that chanting made me feel better, and more focused, so that meant that SGI, or at least Nichiren Buddhism, was the right thing for me. Does that mean that it was? Did I feel better, and have positive experiences in my life because of my chanting -- or because I expected to? Would chanting something else, silent meditation, tai chi, singing, drumming, or reciting poetry have had the same effect?

I suppose I could try something else, but I've just become more skeptical, and maybe that would also have an effect on the results I'd get.

@ tsukimoto,

I understand your point of view, I hope you understand mine, my experience with Buddhism over 25 years can not be put down to "coincidence". However, I greatly understand how belonging to a group that has you believe in something and adds their own spin to it could cause you to disbelieve everything. THis was also my big challenge, luckily for me, I have started on that path of separating fact from fiction I am still working on it. Thus far I have come up with: No you don't need a mentor to attain enlightenment, yes the Gohonzon and the Lotus Sutra does provide benefit and protection , just my experience, but a valid one I think never-the less.

@morgaine & tsukimoto

I feel that I've become more "scientific" minded since I have left SGI. I'm less spiritual, I guess. Now I don't attribute human behavior and things that happen to chanting, but instead to scientific evidence. For example, I might think, "Well, science shows that this is the explanation for xyz" when at one time I would have said, "I chanted and did activities and that is the reason for xyz". As Morgaine said, I am "separating fact from fiction" much better now. (Not to say that science is necessarily right!) I do still chant, but so much less than when I was with SGI. Many pages ago I talked about neurological changes in the brain produced by praying/meditating/chanting and Tsukimoto talked about "6-beat chanting" and the effects on the body/mind. I do think that chanting causes this type of sensory change. But chanting for things, including protection, just doesn't seem likely to me any more. There's too much evidence against it!



@ anticult

I never saw members using sex to recruit new members. Sometimes there were pretty girls who paid a lot of attention to a guest at a meeting (who responded by being very flattered and joining) but I don't know of any times when "sponsors" used sex to get the guest to join. Not to say it didn't happen, but I really don't think it was very frequent. Members did think that shakabuku was SO important, but "flirty fishing" wasn't a part of SGI. That's just my opinion.

Quote
The Anticult
SGI New Zealand [forum.culteducation.com]

What happened to that guy, does not sound in the least amusing, as its obviously more about emotional manipulation around "true love", not simply sex. His comment that she bolted right after he "joined SGI" is believable. She got her new member number.
But obviously that guy felt a lot of pain over that, as he went to the trouble of searching the internet for a cult website, registering, and making a post. He could see something was up.
.

I'm not convinced. People will pretend friendship to get new converts. They might go so far as to arrange a date...but to carry on a love affair, over time? Pretending to be in love with a guy, just to get them to join SGI? A person would have to be a hell of an actress to pull that off. It would be time consuming, emotionally draining -- and all you're going to get, is maybe one convert? In the time it would take to have that relationship, she could have shakabuku'ed a dozen people!

As for the relationship, we only have his side of the story, and we don't even know him. He's an anonymous poster on a message board. The woman might have left for reasons that had nothing to do with "getting a new member number." Maybe she wanted the relationship to work out, and she hoped that if he joined SGI, then the relationship magically would work out. When SGI didn't do this magic, maybe she just didn't know what else to do. Maybe he was angry from his divorce, and not over his ex wife. Even if you personally know both the man and the woman, you don't necessarily know what they did or said when they were alone together -- or what their motives were.

And yes, Morgaine, I'm in a skeptical mood these days, and maybe it is because I was too trusting when I was in SGI. At this point, I think that chanting seems to work because we expect it to, and because chanting anything causes neurological changes in the brain. You believe otherwise. As with my Christian friends, I just accept that people believe different things.