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corboy
IMO tolerance is not enough.

To be genuine a welcome has to be private as well as public. Public face and private behavior must cohere.

Agreed, 100%. Excellent points and examples, Corboy.

I was in the gakkai cult org. long enough to know and see for myself that the $oka Gakkai Cult Org.'s current stances are all a pose.

Here's another blatant example of the pseudo-buddhist cult org. monster attempting to change its stripes:

[www.youtube.com] (Thanks to Nichijew's site for directing me to the YouTube clip.)

In a veiled attempt to forever link the Ikeda name to Gandhi-King, they have created a Gandhi-King-Ikeda "Prize." See the 29:30 minute mark, for Ian McIlraith, $GI-USA Cult Org. Propaganda Chief, presenting an "interfaith" tolerance award.

What a crock of shite!! Back when I was in, I was appalled by the degree of INtolerance from fellow cult members AND leaders. Blatant, in your face, aggressive, ignorant, condescending push back toward any other faiths. As I've even mentioned before, I was shocked to have to listen to a completely unsolicited tirade, by George M. Williams-Sadanaga, in private, against "Mary The Blessed Virgin." It was the "virgin" part that he was going on about.

The gakkai cult org. (and that wolf in sheep's clothing McIlraith) can shovel their crap in another direction, because I definitely am NOT buying any of it, not for a second.

CULT revisionism, lies and deception to conform to the times, nothing more. What a joke. As I've mentioned before, the cult org. and Ian McIlraith, yet again, insulting people's intelligence.


- Hitch

PS - I forgot to add, I even witnessed firsthand, stepped in between and redirected a group of intolerant gakkai cult members while they were ganging up on a couple of Christians who had the gall to approach them after a large cult venue event and politely offer Jesus literature. I've written about this "experience" before on this thread. The cult org. zombies were redirected at ME! How dare I even be courteous enough to accept their slanderous literature and show any amount of tolerance toward their misguided and slanderous ways. I was glared at, verbally attacked and given stern off the cuff appeal to adverse consequences "guidance" during the ride back on the cult org. zombie bus. Keep in mind, all I did was offer the compromise that the gakkai members take the Christian literature in exchange for the Christians taking the $GI literature. The Christians did accept, but I was the only one who would accept their literature. I was even told to throw it away before getting on the bus to return home.

"Tolerance", . . . . my @ss.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2013 06:58AM by Hitch.

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During the period of imprisonment with his mentor, Toda experienced a profound spiritual insight about his mission to rid society of misery through spreading the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. Toda was released from prison in 1945 and, after World War II ended, he rebuilt the organization as a religious movement of social reform, renaming it the Sōka Gakkai. Under Toda's leadership from 1951, when he became the second president, until his death in 1958, Sōka Gakkai membership grew from 3,000 to 750,000 households, and its policy of shakubuku, a form of evangelism that also included "cajolery and intimidation", was dubbed "militant" and widely criticized in the popular press and, remarkably, by other Buddhist sects. In a typical pre-1964 "forced conversion" session, Gakkai members would surround a home and yell and make noise for hours until the residents came out and agreed to join. Threats of divine vengeance and bodily harm were frequent, and a child's illness or death could be attributed to lack of Gakkai membership. There was infrequent violence, and 1952, the Justice Department forced Toda to denounce intimidation and violence during shakubuku. In October 1954, Toda made a speech to over 10,000 Gakkai members while mounted on a white horse, saying, "We must consider all religions our enemies, and we must destroy them." Local leadership would often destroy the ancestral altars of new members. [en.wikipedia.org]

Yeah, I gotcher tolerance right there ^ *eyeroll*

Here is that "experience", mentioned above, with gakkai cult org. so-called "interfaith" tolerance, firsthand, [forum.culteducation.com], for those who haven't seen it. I have others, too, but this was the time that I was personally involved, on the receiving end of their discrimination, ignorance and attacks.


- Hitch

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TaitenAndProud
If you were in the YMD, you were expected to be clean shaven. With short hair. ESPECIALLY if you were going to be a Soka!

100% correcto mundo, T&P. Within the SGcult, one's value as an individual is far less than one's value as a member of the group. The individual's identity must be replaced with the group identity, in order to solidify control and compliance by the cult.

IN the early seventies in Dallas, there were only two chapters. The two chapter chiefs were YMD leaders. Those two were myself and Jerry O. We were also the sokahan chiefs for the Texas General Chapter. Jerry and I were always letting our hair grow a bit too long to fit the "clean cut Sgcult youth leader image" that was imposed upon us by the cult. Not accepting our excuses of lacking enough money for a haircut, on more than one occasion our sr. leader, Mrs Vaden, actually pressed money into our hands and commanded/demanded that Jerry and I head straight to the babershop for a trim (and don't come back without one)!

After Vaden chased me down at my brother's place in the country (previously posted that story in detail), browbeating me into submitting to her will and returning to Dallas, the first thing she did when we got back to the Kaikan was to insist that I shave my newly sprouted moustache. I had never grown one (was still too young to grow one when I got sucked into the sokahan) until that eye-opening week of freedom experienced during my first escape from the Sgcult. The moment I shaved that proud first moustache off, I knew deep down that my return to the cult was going to be short-lived. My anger and resentment came boiling back up, while my newly acquired thirst for freedom could not be beaten down. A few weeks later, I disappeared from Dallas again (for the last time), only this time I went far away, where the Sgcult could never again track me down and convince me to return against my will.

SGI members were/are required (coerced) to conform to imposed cult standards such as wearing short hair, wearing uniforms, banning facial hair, using cult speak, losing one's identity to the hive, abandoning reasoning, accepting doctrine as absolute trooth, submissively submitting, never complaining or questioning, encouraging group enforcement of "infractions" by individuals, adhering to arbitrary rules, singing cultish songs, and idolizing the top leaders. These are all great examples of behaviors designed to nullify one's self-identity while indocrinating the member deeper and deeper into the cult.

Losing one's self-identity to the cult is a major stepping stone into the anguished, tortured heart of darkness and spirtual slavery.

Spartacus

Ran across this on the subject of cult mentality:

Cult Mentality with Jon Rappoport (Apr 17, 2013) —

This mentality applies to government and follows the three stages of cult development. By development, I mean deterioration.

I think this mentality also applies to religious cults such as the SGI.

Take a federal agency—FBI, ATF, FDA, CIA, NIH, CDC (or the SGI). Each organization starts out with great enthusiasm, upon its creation. It announces big goals and makes an important mission statement. The ideals are high-flying. The personnel are filled with hope and energy. Stage one.
That corresponds with the Makaguchi's era.

In remarkably short order, something takes shape out of the fog: the leader is far more important than anyone realized.

He not only sets the tone. He sits at the apex of a structure. At first, the structure was merely assumed to be whatever was necessary to forward the objectives. But now, in stage two, it assumes primacy. The leader informs the members (personnel) that the structure must survive. In order to do that, it will have to grow.

There is no going back to the beginning. Widening the organization is a mandate of great priority. And for growth to happen, the members must assert extreme loyalty to the overarching goals, yes, but actually to the organization and the leader.

The leader personifies the structure. He is the monarch. He issues the marching orders to his major minions, and they pass these orders, through the command-and-control apparatus, down to each member.
That corresponds to the Toda era.

Through repetitive brainwashing, realities are impressed upon the minds of the adherents (members, personnel). No one can wander off the reservation. Initiative and independent action, while seeming to be useful, are actually counter-productive and even dangerous. This the party line—exactly what would, for instance, keep a police officer from following his nose and his innate curiosity in politically charged investigation like the Marathon bombings.

There are rules, and the burgeoning number of them are there to ensure the survival of the group. The rules have been carefully crafted. They are “for the greater good.” “We’re all in this together.” “What one person does affects everyone.” “Don’t go rogue.”

In this stage two, a transformation is taking place. The idealism of the early days is being squashed, in favor of the collective.

The survival of the collective is hammered, again and again. at the members. Without extreme obedience, the whole structure would fall apart and wash away. And who wants that kind of death?
That corresponds to the Ikeda era begining in 1960.

Stage three makes it appearance with pronouncements about external enemies. The leader carries that essential freight; convincing the members they are under threat is the mind-control glue that holds everybody together.

These enemies want to destroy (or de-fund) the organization. They want to denigrate the group’s objectives. They want to defame the leader.

The enemies, real and imagined, are named. It only matters that they seem to proliferate. Their threatening presence further tunes up the members. “We’re under attack. Don’t waver now. Only the strong survive. Take heart. We will win this war. Obedience is more important than ever.”
That corresponds with the split with the priesthood.

It’s an easy step from external to internal enemies. That is the cherry on the cake. “We have a mole. There are traitors among us. Someone has leaked proprietary information. We’ve been infiltrated.”

Now, an atmosphere of secrecy, suspicion, and paranoia spreads like poison among the members. The leader orders internal investigations, to root out the turncoats.
Soka Spirit much?

At the same time, the organization is committing crimes. They are lying, they are stealing, they are making alliances with “influential people from the outside.”

This is happening at the highest levels of the structure.

Gone are the high-flying emotions of the early days. Life in the organization is grim.
Yes, but the money has flowed to the top of the pyramid very nicely for decades.

The structure has become large enough and criminal enough that some members are secretly looking for ways to game their own system. Others have gone passive and simply do what they’re told.

The leader is pictured as a heroic embattled figure, standing on the parapet, directing his troops against invaders.
Ah yes, Dear Leader.

Defectors from within the ranks are multiplying. But to a degree, the brainwashing holds.
Membership is down, but the bucks are still rolling in.

“In these dangerous times, your work is more important than ever. Deserting your post could defeat our objectives. We’re the good guys. Only we know how vital our goals are. We hold the key to survival. Your leader needs you. We all need you. Don’t back out now.”

There is another level of brainwashing inside big government (and relgious) cults (departments, agencies). “Government is good. Without it, society would collapse. The larger government is, the better it is. The purpose of government is to serve. We need more government, not less. Never do we need less.”

Members are now told, are made to understand, that lying and cheating are absolutely necessary. “For the greater good.” “Ends justify means.” This becomes the cultural imperative.
Dont let being rational get in the way!

As time passes, and these government cults continue to expand, the language of criminality filters down from the high echelons, where it has been “the royal speech” for a very long time, to the lower levels.
The pretense is stripped away. “Do what you need to.”
"Kosen rufu - no matter what!"

In retrospect, a true investigation would show that any one of these big government cults has been colluding with outside criminal forces for a very long time, even perhaps from its beginnings.

Over decades, cult leaders come and go. They assume new qualities. They are now the faceless soulless ones. They run their machine organizations according to the principle of caution and plausible deniability.
Endless "New leader appointments" to replace the cult casualities.

Each one of the cults employs a balance of androids, game players, and true believers. They are all finally ground down to a fine mixture of particles. It no longer matters what the members believe or feel. They fill posts and positions and they do their jobs. Lying, cheating, stealing, and even killing are ordinary aspects of the jobs.

That is how a cult endures.

This is what author Hannah Arendt was talking about when she coined the phrase, “the banality of evil.”

The hive, the nest, the group, the cult, the collective weaves a fairy tale about its vital contributions, but underneath it all, it assumes all the features of a mafia.
May I present a fine example of this - the Sgi cult!

Within the cult, an air of unreality pervades. The astonishingly sharp division between its announced aims and its real practices produces an acrid stench which, through its public relations people, is blown across a sanitized air conditioning system, in hopes of achieving a neutrality that will escape attention.

The cult is a double-decker psyop aimed at the outside world and its own members.
SG cult has this down to an art!

In typical bland fashion, government cults present a determined face to the public. “We do our jobs in a systematic way. We know the best methods and we employ them. We get results.”

Therefore, when independent researchers and investigators discover gaping holes in the way these cults go about their business (Aurora, Sandy Hook, Boston), the official response is: conspiracy theorists; nuts; crazies; obstructionists.
Backsliders, devils, malcontents, slanderers.

You could call this the fourth stage of the cult. It no longer looks like a devoted band of followers with a leader. It no longer looks like an organization composed of individual humans. It looks like an army of units. It looks like an apparatus. It looks like a computerized set of functions.
It looks like mindless zylots regurgitating cult speak while endlessly repeating the same mind-numbing rituals.

On closer inspection, it resembles a fungus. Individual cells reproduce, and their offspring in turn reproduce. The overall organism moves out in every direction, developing strategies to attach itself to organic and inorganic matter.

Any Something can be a host.

Watching this process, outsiders who have surrendered their own souls as independent individuals begin to realize this is the apotheosis of their dream. To promote and somehow belong to the advancing mold, the spreading decay.

This, they believe, is power. The only power.

Perversely, the original stated goals of the cult, the high-flying ideals, are reintroduced. Now, in their new incarnation, they are grotesque cartoons.
Welcome to your new cartoonish identity - enjoy and obey!

But as Nazi propagandists knew, the bigger the lie, the greater the likelihood of it being believed.

Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, the father of modern public relations, and the cadres of psychological warfare specialists who followed in his wake, understood that, by speaking to the masses over and over, by addressing the collective, by building up stereotypes of human beings, they could wipe out and reprogram a significant number of individual minds on the planet.

In doing so, they vastly multiplied the supply of potential cult members.

Walk into the headquarters of any government agency or large corporation (or large religious cult) and you will see the result.

They are inside the hive dream.

We (the cult survivors) are outside.

Believe it or not: our platform is stronger.

Coming to understand that fact in your blood, muscles, brain, mind, and imagination is the key to the door that opens into the river, the river of unbounded energy, where freedom is the future. (by Jon Rappoport)



A great article on cult mentality.

SGIcult and its propagandic "World Peace" lies are indeed grotesque cartoons of real world peace. May the Sgcult (and all cults) quickly rot away beyond the 4th stage and into oblivion.

Spartacus

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There is another level of brainwashing inside big government (and relgious) cults (departments, agencies). “Government is good. Without it, society would collapse. The larger government is, the better it is. The purpose of government is to serve. We need more government, not less. Never do we need less.”

*sniff* *sniff* Smells like Tea Party to me -_-

I really enjoyed the rest, though! Spot on with the correlations!

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SGIcult and its propagandic "World Peace" lies are indeed grotesque cartoons of real world peace.

Back to the discussion (recent or old? Can't remember - this is one long-ass thread!) about the SGI's glaring *lack* of charitable activities. I brought this up early on, because I *noticed* that the SGI (then NSA) never did anything for anyone. There wasn't even a "charity box" with old clothes or small amounts of money that the needy could take! I was told that, in Japan, gakkai doctors, who work 6 days a week already, donate one of their days off a month providing free medical services to the poor. Gakkai lawyers likewise provide free services to the needy. It's hard to remember now - it's been so long since I heard this - but the whole focus was that, in Japan, where the organization is in a "matured" phase, they do *plenty* of charity. We can't do any charity in the US because the organization is too "young" - it hasn't "matured" yet. But when that magical time comes, THEN boy howdy, will we ever do charity!

When's that gonna happen, I wonder?

At the time, I accepted that explanation, but it always bothered me. I didn't see why, in that very active HQ where I first joined, with its vibrant youth corps, no one was interested in helping the needy. I did charity work in spite of the SGI - like serving Thanksgiving meals to the needy (I worked for Pillsbury back then and they advertised the opportunities) and delivering every other week for Meals on Wheels over my lunch hour (with my coworker). It always embarrassed me deeply that the SGI never did anything to help those in need. And the attitude that "They need to chant to overcome their own problems" is mean and cold.

I even remember one "experience" in the Weird Tribune by this black woman. She'd been really poor, so she went into one of the SGI "Community Centers" looking for help. Surprise, surprise - they told her to chant. "Don't you even have a poor box??" she asked. Nope, you have to chant. Long story short - she chanted and "got over" being poor, as if it really was just as simple as changing her attitude. It's obscene.

More Gakkai history!

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Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871-1944) was the founder and first president of the Soka Gakkai, the Value Creation Society. Makiguchi was a grammar school principal in Tokyo who was deeply concerned about the educational system in Japan. In 1928, a fellow principal convinced him to convert to Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism. From the age of three he had been raised in the household of his uncle which was affiliated with the Nichiren Shu, but religion had never been a significant part in his life until his conversion. [fraughtwithperil.com]

That reminds me of something I heard long ago. I believe I read it in the World Tribune. This Japanese gakkai family had a small boy, maybe age 3, who developed a *terrible* (fatal) brain tumor. He would have seizures where he was in so much pain he would convulse, screaming, "Save me, President Ikeda!" His distraught parents sought "guidance" and were told it was because their family had, at some point, committed slander through Nichiren Shu. So they carefully checked their family histories, and sure enough, a great-grandfather (or something) had been...wait for it...a PRIEST with Nichiren Shu! THAT is why their child had the agonizing and ultimately fatal brain tumor! So the parents chanted with sincere apology (because, after all, it was their toddler SON'S FAULT that the great-relative he'd never even met had...whatever).

The boy died.

The mom got pregnant again and had another son. And wouldn't you know it - the new infant had *birthmarks* on his scalp exactly where his deceased brother had had shunts put in! O_O So that proved that this baby was a reincarnation of their dead 3-year old.

It's just obscene. Disgusting and obscene.

Notice how *nobody* suggests that Makiguchi's children died young because of his early (and innocent) rubbing shoulders with Nichiren Shu O_O

None of the scare stories ever apply to the leaders, you'll notice. But if something bad happens to the "precious members", the leaders will look all solemn and wag their heads and tongues, declaring that the misfortune was *all* because they slandered/skipped gongyo/had impure faith/didn't study enough/didn't make enough contributions/didn't follow guidance/[fill in the blank with whatever else you can think of]. It's practically official policy to make every hardship WORSE by insinuating (if not outright declaring) that it only happened because whoever's grieving didn't do as they said.

Gakkai cult members, especially the Japanese ones, are sometimes a very superstitious bunch. That post just reminded me, I often heard that people's birthmarks, dark / large moles, Mongolian spots (!) / port-wine stains, pigmented naevi, etc., were "signs" of past "karma" or "slanderous" events in one's past lives, that manifest in their current life (i.e., the reincarnation cycle). Translation (of course) = practice harder for Cousin Rufus.

Superstition stems from ignorance, pure and simple. Same thing goes for the manipulative scare tactics that the gakkai cult org. member / leaders use. I heard it all the time - metaphysical threats and damnation. They were threats of last resort, because nothing else would work with me (like excluding me from participating in activities (YEA!!), leadership positions (No Thank You), or getting home-v'ed (peer pressure)). I just laughed it all off and felt sorry for them that they actually believed such nonsense (what a sad way to go thru life).


- Hitch



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2013 02:03PM by Hitch.

Ignorance, to be sure. It's when people have no information, no knowledge, that they turn to superstition instead - that's the world of faith, you see.

Remember how I told you that, when I let the cult leaders know that I was considering buying large (5' tall) original Nichiren Shu calligraphy gohonzon scrolls (not xeroxed crappy-ass crappy crap) to hang as art, I was home visited by a half-Japanese chapter WD leader? Who told me that my home had such a "warm and pleasant atmosphere" and that she would hate to see that atmosphere turn "dark and negative"? The implication was clear - if I went ahead and got even *ONE* of those scrolls, it would cause a superstition-based "change" in the atmosphere of my home, to the point that the delicate sensibilities of gakkai leaders and members of pure faith would be able to detect it like a geiger counter detects radiation.

Wow, huh?

I smiled inwardly, because I knew that I had already *purchased* TWO of these scrolls, and they were rolled up, right at the top of the stairs! This WD Chapter leader didn't realize it, and was trying to get me to believe that, if I had them, SHE'd be able to detect that "disturbance in the force" or whatever! MOBY FAIL!!!

What a joke *eye roll*

And then that Jt. Terr. WD Leader, a Japanese ex-pat, told me I should take them down after I'd hung them, and when I asked the doctrinal basis for my *not* having them, told me I just needed to chant until I agreed with her (!) and then dropped dead two weeks later for her trouble.

And here *I* am. I'm still alive and in good health. Haven't chanted or done gongyo in, what, 5 years now? My District WD leader is now dead, though she was younger than I. My husband brings home the bacon like a boss, while so many SGI members that I know struggle to make ends meet, despite chanting sincerely and abundantly. My former best friend, a Japanese fortune baby, saw her husband, who already had two felony strikes against him, re-offend when their infant son was only 6 months old. He's been sentenced to 70 years to life, despite her very sincere and abundant daimoku that he would decide to change his ways and become a respectable, upstanding member of society. Instead, he decided to hang out with a notorious gang and participate in not one, but TWO notorious jewelry store robberies. One of those robberies ended with him getting a hotel room afterward with a young female gang member - I wonder if they chanted daimoku together?? Somehow, I doubt it O_O

And *I* am supposed to want to emulate THEM??? What they were promoting clearly didn't work! None of it did! And *I* am supposed to feel bad that I left their "ideal orbit around the organization" or "around the planetary girth of Daisaku Ikeda"???

Some incredible (as always) and informative posts in the last few days. T&P's breakdown on Nichiren is excellent, for one. Really, where does the intolerance generate? This is what Nichiren preached. Squashing whole groups of humanity and belief systems in the name of his feeling absolute. Okay, humor me here, but I used to work that around in my mind, giving Nichiren the benefit of the doubt, thinking that because he cared so much about the tragedies around him, that's why he was soooo passionate about planting the seeds of KR. His way WAS the way to save human beings from their bad selves. It was out of compassion!!!

Well, well.

People get sick. People pass on. People can suffer devastating, life-changing tragedies---once again with Boston, to name just one.

People have financial setbacks. So many are in poverty. And, people experience joy and love.

This a simplistic view, but what it says is that regardless of religious affliation/belief, THINGS HAPPEN. And yes, they happen quite a lot for the people in SGI. Quite a lot. No matter what frame they pull out, there isn't an escape.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2013 02:17AM by Shavoy.