This thread is a great walk down memory lane for me. Some more thoughts:

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quiet one
Many pages ago I talked about the "membership card campaign" that occurred a few years ago. Danny Nagashima reported that he got yelled at by President Ikeda because the numbers in the US had slipped. So we were asked to get many new people who didn't want to become active members to fill out membership cards. Family members, friends, co-workers, etc., anyone who was even somewhat supportive of SGI was to complete a card. We were told we would get great benefit if we got many new cards filled out. At the end of the campaign, surprise! SGI claimed many new members. I was very embarrassed that SGI was doing something so ridiculous.

The yelling from the top down is just like a psychological displacement chain reaction propagating all the way down to the lowest member. It's an organization of mind games, fear and manipulation.

When you have the "disciples" deceiving the "master" and the "master" screaming at the "disciples", is it any wonder that the organization/cult is as dysfunctional as it is?

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quiet one
A long time ago, back in the days of NSA, the hancho had to collect money every month for World Tribune subscriptions. Anyone remember that? Well, at least in my area, we were not allowed to drop anyone that did not practice anymore from the World Tribune. So if the hancho was unable to collect the money, he was expected to pay for it. Every month the World Tribune collection was a nightmare, and it caused a lot of resentment from the people who were expected to collect the money. We were told how sad and upset Mr. Williams would be if the World Tribune numbers went down.

The numbers game has caused a lot of resentment and embarrassment and is undoubtedly a reason for SGI's continuous shrinking membership. SGI gets many people to join, but it just can't hold on to them.

Williams' middle name stood for "More World Tribune Subscribers." It was an obsession with the man. Ever wonder why every member of your family, including your pets (if they had human names) and gardeners, had to have their own subscription? Japan does the exact same thing with the Seikyo Shimbun (even Japanese members in America are expected to take it, in addition to all the regular English subscriptions). WHY? It's always a matter of "faith" and "supporting the organization/cult." How ironic that all these extra copies are invariably used for the bottom of bird cages or the doggy-pet corner.

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evergreen
it feels like my parents make it a point to discuss SGI and it makes me uncomfortable. On a deeper level, I don't even think they know how to relate to others who aren't in SGI so they just quote Ikeda or use SGI language. They are telling others about me cause I've gotten some messages from different people out of the blue who just want to say hello - people who wouldn't know my phone number any other way than through them.

Nobody ever contacts you from the organization/cult to just say "hello." There is always an ulterior motive. ALWAYS. Once you start to unwrap the layers, you'll eventually trace it back to somebody who knows you or somebody who is desperate and under pressure from the numbers game discussed above. "Evergreen", I've been there. I used to get messages, notes, post-cards, etc., with addresses or phone numbers to call. I always got a good laugh out of it, especially when it was from somebody who never cared, never really knew me, or even gave me the time of the day back when I was a hard practicing and sincere member. With a shrug of the shoulders and a smile of my face, I always just tossed the stuff into the garbage can.

"What A Wonderful World", [www.youtube.com] indeed. :-))

You keep this up Hitch and the top leaders will give strict guidance to all the members to avoid you like the plague, neither to contact you nor even to read your messages. But they themselves [the top leaders on the SGI internet committee] will be reading your notes every day.

Nichijew



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2012 08:10AM by Nichijew.

I would love to know the traffic to this forum. Moderator or Anticult, can you help me?

Nichijew

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Nichijew
You keep this up Hitch and the top leaders will give strict guidance to all the members to avoid you like the plague, neither to contact you nor even to read your messages. But they themselves [the top leaders on the SGI internet committee] will be reading your notes every day.

Nichijew

In that case, my advice (I'd never be as presumptuous as them and give guidance), is that they should chant more.

Speaking of chanting:

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Hitch
When you have the "disciples" deceiving the "master" and the "master" screaming at the "disciples", is it any wonder that the organization/cult is as dysfunctional as it is?

Why all the deception, number paddings, yelling and manipulation? Wasn't everyone chanting enough?!?

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quiet one
A long time ago, back in the days of NSA, the hancho had to collect money every month for World Tribune subscriptions. Anyone remember that? Well, at least in my area, we were not allowed to drop anyone that did not practice anymore from the World Tribune. So if the hancho was unable to collect the money, he was expected to pay for it. Every month the World Tribune collection was a nightmare, and it caused a lot of resentment from the people who were expected to collect the money. We were told how sad and upset Mr. Williams would be if the World Tribune numbers went down.

The numbers game has caused a lot of resentment and embarrassment and is undoubtedly a reason for SGI's continuous shrinking membership. SGI gets many people to join, but it just can't hold on to them.

It wasn't just your area "quite one." I remember the exact same thing going on in my area, too. Every month, somebody would complain until somebody would cough it up to keep up appearances for an additional month. It was for a "good cause" and you'd get back double that in fortune (so they said). I even remember them alternating month to month with different sincere members "volunteering" to pay and essentially spreading the pain (er, I mean "fortune") around.

On a related note, I also remember them pushing hard the guidance at youth meetings for the very young ymd to mow lawns, wash cars, and the ywd to babysit (yeah, I know they were very sexist) so that you could get and pay for your own subscription to The World Tribune and not expect your parents to do it for you. If you had fantastic parents who absolutely insisted on paying it for you, then you were encouraged to do it anyway and use the money for zaimu contribution months. I kid you not, every word of this is true. This kind of guidance was not just gently suggested either, I recall some of the younger members who were honest enough to admit that they didn't get their own copy, in their own name, being admonished at very close range in a very loud voice to follow the guidance and report back by the next meeting. They always made it a point to go around checking and ask everybody from time to time. Insanity. In retrospect, the desperation really showed.

Btw, Nichijew, I saw you mention this on another thread:

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Nichijew
He could as easily have been a persona non grata. If he was donating a few thousand a month or he had he been converting several people a month, a vice general director would have been knocking on his door.

You are correct. Here's another truth that I can vouch for - if you were a big enough donor, you could even get Rijicho (the general director) to attend your small/select han or district zadankai meeting. A hefty monetary contribution for Cousin Rufus would get quicker and almost instantaneous results than all of the 24 hour daimoku tosos and midnight gongyos that you could ever manage to muster out of sincere faith. Go figure, huh.

This is truly great "dialogue"!!! I mean, seriously...this is true, great stuff! The stuff you can never get in the SGI!

Reading the "guidances" from Tariq Hassan, Linda J., Danny N. and Youth Disciples Extraordinaire Gauer and Shaw, was like seeing Twilight Zone episodes....not good ones.

I am convinced more than ever that Mentor/Disciple is for the ego of Daisaku Ikeda far and above anything else.

And let's face it, Nagashima, Johnson, etc. etc. make some fairly healthy salaries, yes?

This thread/mb is a veritable treasure trove of things that ex-members can relate to. I've just found a bundle of some more random things.

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Songshand
...... sounds like you were a good leader because you knew exactly when you were qualified to give guidance and when you were not. Also I think it is common sense that if someone comes to you who is an abusive situation to tell them or even assist them in any way you can to get it. It is irresponsible to advice someone to just chant. Tell them chant once they are in a safe situation.

Is there such a thing as a "responsible" cult leader?

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sushigrl
Isn't it amazing that what they told me all those years about "high life condition" after chanting and especially after activities was only adrenaline (adrenaline = ichinen) or being mesmerized by chanting with a group (itai doshin). Finally I can sit here and say that my life condition is higher after I have left!!! I have the hope that my future internal life will not be dictated by some past slogan that was drilled into me.

We were constantly being challenged to maintain "a high life condition" even in the midst of the insanity of conventions or during especially stressful times of organizational chaos, and to whitewash the bad behavior of "leaders". It was just a call to arms to activate the adrenaline and superficial "happy face" so that we could impress our leaders.

Good luck with the "Code of Conduct". More whitewashing and excuses and favoritism for the leaders to play with.

This forum is great. It's a great thing to be able to write these things for other to read and understand.

I agree, it's great to be able to put all of this out there for posterity for others to see and relate to. Wonderful insight and examples: "It was just a call to arms to activate the adrenaline and superficial "happy face" so that we could impress our leaders." Yup. I will also add that it also had a tendency to make you feel better than your average "Joe", too. We had the secret "key" to happiness and walked taller, prouder and faster.

Deluded is more like it.

The main thing I remember from all the chanting, was not so much being "higher than the sky", but my legs killing me. I never was able to warm up to the fact that we had to sit on the floor for everything, like some kind of mini-Japan-wanna-be society.

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tsukimoto
--SGI has the nerve to tell members who have complaints with the organization, "Be the change you wish to see." Hah! There's NO way for members to change SGI. Everything is so top-down!

--If you question, criticize, or disagree with anything in SGI, you are always wrong.

--SGI just gets you one step at at time. Would you just go to a meeting? Then, why don't you just try chanting? If it doesn't help, you can always quit! Would you give an explanation of the practice at a meeting, would you give an experience, could you invite a friend to a meeting? Say yes to one of these, and then they'll have more things that they want you to do....it just escalates until you're working long hours for SGI, and pestering everyone you know to join....you've reframed your experiences in SGI language, changed your worldview...and turned into a deployable agent, recruiting for SGI.

They would tell you "you have nothing to lose, except a little bit of your time", so "just try it!" "If you don't like it, or it doesn't work, you can quit." I heard the same thing - A LOT. Then, once they tried it, they'd pull a big benefit out of a hat and confabulate it into some sort of mystic working of the universe because you changed your karma and life condition. If the new convert was skeptical, they'd just keep reframing it until you either accepted it or were a reluctant believer. If the latter was the case, you'd be encouraged to try it some more. (Repeat the cycle here.)

If you wanted to quit, the guilt, threats to adverse consequences, manipulation and fear would be pulled out. If you managed to resist it all and depart, I can tell you this much - nobody ever left with a cordial handshake, good wishes and a smile from the gakkai members who had shakubuku'd you; it would be more like "F*** off!, go die, fall into the gutter and receive your cosmic retribution. See you again someday when you realize the error of your ways."

At least that's the pattern I always saw.

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SGBye
Here's an excerpt from Ikeda's New Year's Message in the 1/1/10 issue of the World Tribune. It may be one of his kookiest quotes yet regarding the mentor-disciple relationship:


"The Brazilian astronomer Dr. Ronaldo Mourao, with whom I have published a dialogue, remarked that an individual's innate potential can blossom in a much more vigorous form through the mentor-disciple relationship, and he said that he considered this the most correct 'orbit' for human beings to travel."


Huh? What? If someone out there can logically explain what the hell that even means, I'd appreciate it.

It has no meaning. It can mean whatever you want it to mean. This is the most mind numbing thing about Ikeda's "guidance" and especially "dialogues." Pretentious, self-serving, verbiage devoid of actual meaning. Non-sequitor garbage for the ignorant.

And I've found some more:

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dragon14
I swear once we went through Higher Than the Sky about 25 times. I played trumpet in brass band, and my chops felt like they were lying on the floor. And I remember thinking, "WHAT ARE WE DOING??"

This post jarred open a long forgotten memory. I don't even remember exactly when we played it (before a big meeting, during the intermission, afterward, or all of the above), but now I DO recall playing "Higher Than The Sky" over and over and over again, dozens upon dozens of times, non-stop, to keep the momentum and energy level of the meeting up. It was times like that that we really worked our keesters off in the brass band for the sake of the meetings.

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sushigrl
Dragon14, I think the Brass Band and the YMD had it harder than we did. It's ironic that Ikeda says "don't be careless", and then has dumba**** lead the youth in such a way as to endanger their lives. It happened countless times. Over and over, and because they could blame the individual for having "bad karma" to experience "accidents", the Gakkai thugs could get away with it. It makes me angry just thinking about it.

It happened to me more than once. Once as a Byakuren at Sea World, I was outside in the blazing hot sun just standing there for at least 8-9 hours before being given a break; no water or food. A park employee asked me if I was ok, and wanted to take me to an indoor rest station because I was becoming disoriented. I said no that I had a "mission". She thought I was nuts. A similar scenario happened to me in Japan. Both times, the leaders blamed my faith, not their insane practice schedule. Also in Japan, I had to buy water for my whole section; nothing was provided for us for a 6 hour practice. NOTHING.

Oh, the horrors. The hours and hours and horrors.

For those of us who sent thru the same absurd, meaningless youth training, we know immediately what you are talking about and can relate 100%. "Gakkai thugs" is a very apt description. They ran us into the ground and yelled at us constantly (not playing loud enough, hell, even if the person next to you wasn't playing loud enough, it was still your fault, because your ichinen wasn't carrying and lifting up the other band members as well). If anything ever went wrong or somebody got heat fatigue and puked, then THAT TOO was your fault for not preventing it (you didn't say anything sooner, you didn't notice it, you didn't use common sense). It was always everybody else's fault, EXCEPT for the people in charge. Yup, that pretty sums up most of our practices marching around our local DMV parking lot (because it was closed on Sundays).

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dragon14
My brother and his wife were visiting me from the opposite coast in '87 or '88. *$()#)$ Danny Nagashima was coming to Boston, and I was going to skip the event to take them to the airport. My YMD leader called me and told me that my relatives would just have to understand that the Gakkai activity was more important. I caved. That was also the day that my wife decided that the SGI was a stupid-ass organization and quit her brief practice.

Interesting that when the split occurred between the SGI and the priesthood, that this YMD leader and his wife (another hardcore member) sided with the priesthood and left the SGI.

If you've seen other posts from me, you know that I don't think much of Danny Nagashima. Nor Tariq Hasan, nor David Kasahara.

I never let any "leader" order me around to that extent, because I never completely went into "submissive" mode where I felt I needed permission for everything. That's not to say that they didn't try, though. For people who couldn't say "no", they'd have a field day with them. It amazed me to see the way some grown ymd and even some adults would regress and start to act like children again, who needed to be told how to think and what to do - completely relinquishing their independence and forfeiting their self-determination. I saw it happening all around me.

To this day, I have absolutely no problem saying "no" and I trace the origins of this tendency in me all the way back to those insanely dysfunctional gakkai days.

Check out this video and tell me what you think. SGI's version of Jesus Camp only more hip. That Japanese-American youth cult leader should be imprisoned. It made me want to puke:

[www.youtube.com]

I was kind of hoping that that boy at ~2:50 min. mark was going to say, "STOP! DON'T LISTEN TO HIM, DON'T BE BRAINWASHED! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

Poor kids, they know not what is being done to them. Reminds me of the horror genre film director, Alfred Hitchcock's remarks:

"One day when Alfred Hitchcock was still a churchgoing Catholic, he was driving through a Swiss city when he suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, "That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen."

His companion was surprised to see nothing more alarming than a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the child's shoulder.

"Run, little boy," cried Hitchcock, leaning out of the car. "Run for your life!"

I wonder how many of these kids will grow up to regret being starred in this promotional video.

(PS - It seems like they always pick different years from the future to hype up and make slogans for and create manufactured milestones for the membership to fight towards commemorating. The current one seems to be 2030. There'll always be more after that, too. Same tired ol' formula, unless you happen to be a "new" member. They'll learn with time.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2012 12:20PM by Hitch.