meant to say how is it that Japanese people r more brainwashed than us. I don't know that to b true just thinking about those awful videos ww were forced to watch the first of every month!

Also did not mean to infer Mr. Williams wa
s blameless just in case it sounded like that.

I missed the entire priesthood thing. That may b a reason I continued to practice again

I would love more discussion about the Japanese culture & how it
our experience. I'm sure it is an opportunity to actually do the one thibg we were always told we should do but couldn't do to manipulation & all that SGI stuff...the word is unite.

There is an article (pdf file) posted back on page 404 that has an in-depth discussion of the cult's foothold in Brazil. Here it is, [nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp] once more. There are many complex reasons for its spread like wildfire in Brazil and the abundance of Japanese immigrants and consequent offspring is definitely one of them.

**********

I had to slowly get over my sympathy for Sadanaga/"Williams", due to all the years of brainwashing growing up in the cult. "Ikea" certainly screwed him over and that should also be a valuable lesson to all of the salaried cult "leaders", past and present, as to where they all, too, precipitously stand. Yet, somehow, I doubt it will really register. I remind myself that he IS/WAS a cult leader and simply reaped what was sown. He's also a flawed human being (as we all are).

**********

In terms of Japan, its history and the gakkai: one need not look much further than the hysterical cult of emperor Showa (Hirohito) and the destruction that that fanatical blind devotion wrought on the entire nation. They still subjugate themselves (IMO) by defining their existence in terms of emperor "eras", the current one being "Heisei" (Akihito). Don't forget, as well, that although the emperor may not "officially" be a "god" an paper, he is still viewed as being semi-divine by many. That said, WWII was a harsh lesson for Japan and it changed the very fabric of who they are and how they view themselves; it's a slow process and is of course ongoing one.

Another interesting point regarding the gakkai was how, immediately after WWII, they manipulated confirmation bias and non-sequiturs to equate the U.S. and its allies as "shoten zenjin", the protective buddhist gods/forces, that appeared for the sole purpose of allowing for the propagation of the true "law" / buddhism (the gakkai's version, of course). Post WWII has also been labelled as "the rush hour of the gods" for a number of understandable and complex human nature reasons. (More here as well, [www.culteducation.com]).

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tsukimoto
"Not normal" can start to feel really normal.

Here's another "normal" that never really sat well with me when I was "in" and, of course, even more so, now, looking back: the concept of people being "leaders" and the ever pervasive mentality surrounding that label. The higher the "leader", the more special they were viewed and treated, too. I was always asking myself, "by virtue of WHAT?"

As we all know, anybody can be a leader in the cult and this also extends to the salaried positions. I've never understood why people always felt compelled to go to their "leaders" and simply relinquish their own ability to think for themselves and hand it over to an idiot (sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's honestly how I see it from my experience growing up in the cult). In some cases, seeking advice about things that the "leaders" have absolutely zero practical knowledge about.

Looking back, I can't think of one cult "leader" whom I can say is worthy of being looked up to and emulating. Not a single one (and believe me, I've honestly tried, very hard, to recall any).

In the mid to late 80s : Weren't some groups named after local leaders; "Smith Group", "Johnson Group" etc. ? It changed to location by 1990. "Jonestown District" , "Waco Chapter" etc. (These are made up names, of course).

I seem to recall that in my area the "hans" were named after local "leaders" (fairly nice people, but not very bright), their last name + "Han." Districts had other silly names, like "Victory District" (no joke), etc.. It was all definitely a bunch of crap.

Anybody read these books by Mark Gaber?

[www.amazon.com]

1. Sho Hondo
2. Rijicho

"Officially" labelled as "fiction" (for legal reasons), but definitely not.

I've read them both and was constantly shaking my head, nodding "Yup!" all the way through them. Fascinating reads and recommended.

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jlynneda63
Hitch,
I would like a book written about all of this partially because as happy as I am to be rid of SGI I still hold a desire to understand the culture of the people I cared & still care about. I don't want to be resentful of a culture because I don't understand it.

First off you have every reason to be resentful of the way SGI treated you and tried to brainwash/sucker you into a ludicrous belief system based on religions favourite non provable Bullshit FAITH!!! Faith over reason is not a virtue, it is idiocy. We all know this, but when it comes to religion(s) people are forced into having faith. The fact is that there is not one religion in existence that have any proof other than peoples so called experiences and these are subjective events with absolutely no reality what so ever, 'this happened to me therefore this religion is the one true religion ' is utter nonsense. If you believe this is reality you need to check your head and get out of the brainwashing love bombing club that you are getting sucked into. jlynneda63 this is not a dig at you because I was involved for a time as well with SGI-UK and at first was sucked into the chanting gets results mentality. After a while i realised that most people there had lifes that were erractic to say the least, and most bizzare of all they truly seemed to believe in the abhorrent M/D nonsense. I got out as soon as i realised this and felt angry and annoyed with my self. Like most people I first went to a meeting at low point in my life, looking for anwers and all you find is lies and a false reality.

I still don't understand Japanese culture or ir's people but I think in some ways thay r more brainwashed than us. How is th

I don't believe that this is a cultural thing at all, the one thing i do think it is, is that Nichiren was Japanese and people want to believe the true saviour was from their land. Simple as that. Brainwashing has no regard of national boundaries but when the suggestion is that a guy from your home country had access to the TRUTH then, I think people are more eager to believe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/22/2012 05:01PM by TheVoid.

Hi Void, although you addressed your post to jlynn, I just wanted to add a few thoughts:

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TheVoid
First off you have every reason to be resentful of the way SGI treated you and tried to brainwash/sucker you into a ludicrous belief system based on religions favourite non provable Bullshit FAITH!!! Faith over reason is not a virtue, it is idiocy. We all know this, but when it comes to religion(s) people are forced into having faith. The fact is that there is not one religion in existence that have any proof other than peoples so called experiences and these are subjective events with absolutely no reality what so ever, 'this happened to me therefore this religion is the one true religion ' is utter nonsense.

I agree. They all have their subjective "truths" and base their entire lives around it (whatever floats one's boat, but I also call "bull-s***").

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TheVoid
Like most people I first went to a meeting at low point in my life, looking for anwers and all you find is lies and a false reality.

Love those words. Perfectly stated. "Lies, a false reality" and I would also add manipulation.

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TheVoid
I don't believe that this is a cultural thing at all, the one thing i do think it is, is that Nichiren was Japanese and people want to believe the true saviour was from their land. Simple as that. Brainwashing has no regard of national boundaries but when the suggestion is that a guy from your home country had access to the TRUTH then, I think people are more eager to believe.

On that note, I think it is all, ultimately, just too provincial and way out of proportion to reality. Basically, primitive fairy tales, manufactured to superficially provide "deep" answers and appeal to as many people as possible.

same WWII documentary, also had a lot of info, and actual video, of Japanese citizens commiting mass suicide.
This was all directed by the word of the Emperor of Japan, who was the legal/divine head of the armed forces.

Is it cultural, or was it indoctrination?
It clearly was deliberate indoctrination by the military.
As just before WWII, Japan was very friendly to the west for a time, but the military changed that with mass persuasion of the public.

There were islands in Japan where hundreds and even thousands of Japanese citizens committed mass suicide, and even murdered their own family members, when the Americans came to take over the island.
So was the mass suicide cultural?

Well, on other islands where there was no military presence, there were no reports of mass suicide.
Only on the islands with the Japanese military were there mass suicides of the public.

The Japanese public was deeply indoctrinated, and even brainwashed by the Japanese military power-structure, systematically, with very careful techniques.

It seem very clear that Ikeda and SGI copied many of those techniques that were developed by the Japanese military to indoctrinate and brainwash the population of Japan, to the point they would do anything, including mass suicide, and including murdering their own mothers.
There were Japanese citizens admitting they murdered their own mothers, and felt now they had been pushed into it by the indoctrination by the military.

the bottom line is that Japan had a very very "advanced" system of brainwashing their entire population, and certainly some of those techniques of mass-propaganda and brainwashing were directly copied by Ikeda and SGI.

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Hitch
In terms of Japan, its history and the gakkai: one need not look much further than the hysterical cult of emperor Showa (Hirohito) and the destruction that that fanatical blind devotion wrought on the entire nation. They still subjugate themselves (IMO) by defining their existence in terms of emperor "eras", the current one being "Heisei" (Akihito). Don't forget, as well, that although the emperor may not "officially" be a "god" an paper, he is still viewed as being semi-divine by many. That said, WWII was a harsh lesson for Japan and it changed the very fabric of who they are and how they view themselves; it's a slow process and is of course ongoing one.

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SGBye

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Shavoy
That could also explain why, despite all the YD imploring and praying for Sensei's Welcome Home to America has not produced Sensei in the last several years.

Every year, without fail, some leader at the New Year's gongyo meeting would proudly exclaim, "We're going to welcome Sensei back to America this year!!," and every year it didn't happen. And there's this obsession they have about all of his past trips to the U.S. and how great and significant they were, how "golden memories" were created, how "we went to greet Sensei at the airport and got there late," how he "talked to my American husband who wasn't a member and now he's a chapter chief," blah blah blah..... I'm sure many of you have heard those stories ad nauseum. If you haven't, consider yourself lucky.

Heard it all in all of its variations many times. Will also add that I noticed at about the half-way mark or 3/4 of the way through the "new" "sensei-less" year, they would start talking about and raising hope for the next year (subtle admission that he wasn't going to be transported down from The Enterprise that year). Rewind and replay every year, as needed and clean that picture up on the wall even better next time and put some more elbow grease into polishing up the locked-hidden-sensei-séance-room-table.