Soka Spirit was/is nothing but a farce - an attack dog created to keep Sgcult members whipped into an irrational frenzy. When it first started up, I went to only one meeting, and quickly decided to stay away after seeing it for the smelly puss-filled sore that it was. But what a great way for HQ control to find the best brain-washed candidates to fill the rank and file senior leader positions. They can rest easy knowing their zealot appointees have totally signed onto the shit-for-brains bandwagon of total submission to the facetious cult.org.

Speaking bald-faced lying - senseless INVENTED the fife? What utter bullcrap! Tell that to the American revolutionaries. What the hell were they playing Yankee Doodle on, skin flutes?

I've never heard worse performances of music anywhere than those I suffered through from BrASS Band & Fife Drum Core. An insufferable torture of music like no other! Normal brained folks would be embarrassed, but culties just couldn't get enough of it, as the praises flowed for their torture of our ears. But hey - senseless demands military music for his militaristic org. He should have been referred to as "General" instead of "president". Mayabe there won't be a pres after daisucku - if they change the title of the office to "general".

Mey, we ex-culties will all rejoice the day we see Sgcult "dissolving like a pile of dog-crap in the rain". Spot on metaphorical comparison! If the world gets lucky, that day may not be so distant with Ikee's impending death.

Psychopaths are notorious for turning on the charm to fool those who have no knowledge about their unbalanced addiction to control and prevarication. Outsiders (potential victims) are never shown the real picture. A false face works wonders when there's a need to fool, mislead, and manipulate unsuspecting others. Yes, it takes a village, and it takes a lot of mental illness to build a cult village.

"Puss-filled sore" - exactly.

I remember asking one of the local leaders about sucka-spirit - at the point, I was still a "good member," and I just wanted some clarity on how the hostility directed towards the temple aligned with Buddhism. She swelled up like a blowfish and said "there is no hostility! How can you even say that? We chant for them to practice properly!" Whoo! I think I may have actually seen sparks shooting out of her eyes!

This was the same woman who candidly explained that her COPD was caused by several suicide attempts - she had tried to stop her own breath, you see. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she'd smoked for most of her adult life and, at 5'2" or so weighed about 300 pounds.

My second husband was one of the most charming and handsome men you could ever meet. Everyone who met him was so favorably impressed! He was kind, generous, very well-spoken, intelligent . . . you really couldn't help but be won over by him. Until he had a certain amount of alcohol in him. At that point, he became a completely different person - I'm not sure how one human being could contain that much rage. We were together for a year before I saw it. While I nursed a black eye and swollen lip, I wondered what I had done to make him punch and head-butt me. Certainly, it had to be me, right? This went on for another year or so . . . it probably happened three or four more times; often enough to be horrifying, but infrequently enough for me to easily convince myself that it had to have been something I had done. I'm not sure what it was that made me understand that it wasn't me, it was him, and I didn't want my children (from my first marriage) to be subject to it or to think that it was normal or ok. Getting him out of my life was one of the hardest/scariest things I've ever done.

My mother's response? "If you were a better housekeeper, he wouldn't go out and drink and then come home and hit you."

I have a couple of points here - first, that we are always to blame when someone does something shitty to you. This correlates to the whole if-you-chant-enough/practice-well-enough/connect-to-your-mentor mentality of sgi. Always blame the victim - they are the one who is falling short somehow, and if they swallow more of the Kool-Aid, their life will improve. It's our fault if the ooga-booga doesn't work, since it's perfect.

The other point is that it's easy to teach someone to accept bad behavior; the first couple of times you get punched, it's kind of a shock, but if there's even a single fiber of your being that's capable of overlooking or accepting that punch as a norm (or maybe even deserved), it will invade your entire being. Your norm becomes incredibly bent and twisted, and you gradually learn to accept the unacceptable.

It took me many years to realize that my mother was giving what she deemed as good advice. Her early life, which was always a deep mystery, must have been really rough if she could dispense that as a more reasonable solution than leaving him.

Meh wrote:

"The other point is that it's easy to teach someone to accept bad behavior; the first couple of times you get punched, it's kind of a shock, but if there's even a single fiber of your being that's capable of overlooking or accepting that punch as a norm (or maybe even deserved), it will invade your entire being. Your norm becomes incredibly bent and twisted, and you gradually learn to accept the unacceptable."

When abuse throws us into shock, we lose access to the adult part of our mind and thus to our critical thinking.

In shock, right after verbal or physical assault, we are disoriented, and thrown into a much older neurological grid. We seek orientation and grounding. We will bound with who or whatever is nearby--and thats often the same person who abused us.

Who stands closest to us after we've been verbally or physically punched?

Our assailant, thats who. So in this shocked mode, we look to the very person who assaulted us for an explanation.

***This is not a state of full adult consciousnessness. It is a state of shock and impaired judgement. This is not love or consent. Too often an abuser may feel self loathing just before the assault or just after hurting you.

The assailaint is unable to handle adult emotion -- which is why he or she hurt you.

When he or she is ashamed after seeing you hurt -- he or she will project shame onto you by blaming you further!

And in that state of shock, too often you will take it.


Dunno if I told this story here already or not.

Mom and I were fishing off of the pier.

On her fishing line, Mom hooked something and pulled it up onto the dock.

On her line was a baby octopus.

The poor creature was out of its element, probably shocked. So -- it reached its tentacles to cling to something for orientation.

And..who stood nearbly? The person who pulled it from its home.

The fisherperson.

The octopus wrapped its tentacle around the ankle of the person who pulled it up and into confusion -- Mom, the owner of the fishing line that caught it.

But, luckily for this octopus, Mom didnt want to cook it. So she put it back into the ocean.

Unfortunately, in human on human abuse, the outcome doesnt usually end so well.

So a strong state of shock can disorient a victim.

(Note a great way to ID potentially abusive social scenes to to find out whether the term victim is acceptable or frowned upon. Exploitative and abuse tolerant social scenes blame the victim or will frown on victim mentality. Avoid those. The term victim is used all the time in law and in journalism. Anyone or any social scene that tries to load the language by suppressing use of that term is a potential bad scene.)

Or we can grow up in situations that are already eccentric and learn at early ages to normalize stuff that other people consider bizarre.

Dad used to walk around the house in his underwear. (Including wearing only briefs when carrying the garbage out to the driveway) My Irish American grandmother was rather upset when coming to visit.

Every morning when Dad injected his insulin, he'd whine and moan. Took that for normal. Ditto for his gun collection.

Mom kept a bottle of Gordon's gin by the toaster. I took all that as normal.

I became so used to eccentricity that I learned to tune a lot of stuff out that was actually quite fucked up.

So if one has a background that is off kilter, one can get in the habit of normalizing stuff that is scary wierd, develop porous boundaries without knowing one has done so.

And later in life normalize cultic behavior or limit pushing behavior from a bad news date.

***This is not consent***

If your early life is like a funhouse mirror, one normalizes warped images.

Again, humans have a vast capacity for adaptation. It is our glory and our danger.

But...we can relearn to relish dignity and privacy.

My memory is usually excellent. Never interfered with my having served as a juror on trials, for instance.

The episodes I described were rare and dramatic.

And dissociative amnesia gives little relief. I still had the horrible emotions that triggered the blanking out, but no recollection of the images that did validate it.

That just drove me nuts. When I did recall the episodes, I felt relief.

I think I had the episodes to keep me from accessing the full dimensions of my rage when right at the scene of this abuse. I didnt have the courage to stand there and yell at them as they deserved. So it was a way to muzzle myself.

Remember the scene in which Oedipus blinded himself after being told the full truth that the plague in his realm was caused by his presence, after his having become contaminated by murdering his father and marrying his birth mother?

He splits off an aspect of himself -- his sight -- faced with what he finds unbearable.

Dissociation is a splitting off because one feels unable to face a situation with one's whole self. Pain and fear override the ability of the self to hold and contain -- like floodwater spilling over the walls of a reservoir.

The situation I was in with X's daughter and son in law was not the only thing that I faced.

What I unconsciously faced and could not yet acknowledge was a much more radical truth -- that X had covered up just how awful things actually were for her daughter and son in law and grandsons.

And this called into question whether X had told me the full truth about my mother and father.

I was was not yet ready to face this, so I couldnt face the implications of that dysfunctional family, hence my memory lapses.

It took two to three more years before I consciously faced I could not trust my dead stepmother's ability to be truthful. Took me a week to face this. For days I felt strange. My mind would feel dizzy and my body felt grounded. Next day my body felt clumsy and vaporish and my mind felt clear.

Took a week to adjust to this with mind and body in accord--whole.

We may forget with our minds, but our bodies remember. Healing is a coming together, whether its from a cultic type family or a cult that is an international institution that gives social validation.

Meh, what you went through...many alcohol dependant people do this. Not all, but very many. To the point where there is a term for it.

No one can control this or cause this. Anyone who finds they have a friend or partner who behaves this way is best advised to get away while still able to do so. They may love you dearly when sober, but they dont stay sober and its when they drink or use that the split off rage part of them comes out.

And one may not survive visits from this split off aspect.

People with this configuration are *not* qualified for relationships -- except with substance abuse professionals.

[www.google.com]

After seeing my Dad's behavior, I have zero interest in owning a firearm.

Too nervous to want to learn to use one, either.

Make sure nice is not performance art or emotional censorship
Posted by: corboy (global-66-249-175-76.dialup.o1.com)
Date: January 17, 2014 07:46AM

Spartacus: Accept that first bit of cognitive dissonance and one has slipped down the chute.

Meh: Nice is overrated. Thats why so many cult education sites have that classic warning

"When you have met the friendliest people you have ever known..."

Ive been burned enough that my instinct is to wonder what goes on behind the scenes when a group or person is not once but repeatedly described as "nice" as "unbelieveably nice" or "incredibly nice".

I now ask myself "They have this public reputation of being nice."

"What do they do with painful emotions?

"What happens when things dont go well and they feel frightened, angry, betrayed. This happens to any human being at some point in life.

"So what do these nice people do when not nice situations bring up their diffciult emotions emotions?"

"Are these people nice because they have strong character and consciously, humanely acknowledge and can deal with difficult painful emotions?

Or is this niceness performance art? A default social pattern slapped into place - especially in the presence of outsiders or potential recruits?

Can they acknowledge difficult emotions?

Or have theyve been taught to fear 'negative emotion'?

Have they been taught (formally or informally) or have they learned strategies by which to hide difficult emotions and cover these up, especially in the presence of outsiders?

Is it possible that they've been trained to believe that people who display a full range of emotion, including anger and sadness, are unevolved and *inferior* to them?

Will tell you I once knew a guy who belonged to group that had this kind of reputation.

Smile, smile smile.

Nice, nice nice. Members even avoided dark colors. Instead they opted for white, yellow, gold trim and flowers, especially white and pink roses. Other elements were lucite and mirrors. Their color range matched their emotional range -- pastel / sentimental.

This dude kept trying to impose elements of his belief system.

Repeatedly, politely, respectfully, I kept saying I wasnt interested in the stuff and didnt want any further discussions of it.

He kept bringing it up despite my repeatedly reminding him.

I finally felt so frustrated that I raised my voice and finally snapped at him.

So he'd sit there, still smile, smile smiling, and say, still smiling, "Why are you yelling?"

Passive aggressive. This nice person was not nice at all.

By his system, he got to win. He'd impose his belief system, ignore my polite statements that I didnt want to hear it. So he got to self soothe pattering about his belief system, gratifying himself, pretending mutuality while ignoring my repeated statement that I was not interested in this subject matter. The hell with me. He got to prosyltize, if only to himself. Self pleasure, self soothing.

Then when I became frustrated at being not listened to reaching the point of raising my voice in anger, X may have had a further satisfaction : proving himself superior using my anger as proof that I was less evolved. And proving himself to be superior to a practitioner of Zen Buddhism (me) because he succeeded in angering me while maintaining a smiling calm facade.

(This guy is a native born white American, btw)

All this meant ignoring he had direct responsiblity for having triggered this by ignoring me when I had communicated my boundaries in a normal range tone of voice.

Dont take nice at face value. Make sure its real, not performance art.

To many nice people are stuck people.

People stuck carrying the blacklisted emotions they're forbidden to acknowledge. They may be unrecovered adult children of addicts alcoholics (ACA)etc, and found a cult that rationalizes unrecovered ACA behavior.

They live out anger vicariously by conning non believing acquaintances into getting angry.

Or if things get seriously dysfunctional in their families, their children may subconsciously act out the dark stuff the parents(or cult) refuse to acknowledge.

And if they're rich, and the kids go too far embarrassing them, ship the kids off to some holding pen, out of sight and out of mind

Corboy -

" I think I had the episodes to keep me from accessing the full dimensions of my rage when right at the scene of this abuse. I didnt have the courage to stand there and yell at them as they deserved. So it was a way to muzzle myself."

I don't think it's a matter of having the courage at all. It's a matter of not having access to/knowledge of the emotional tools to deal with the situation. There aren't really many people who can model that behavior for us; we find ourselves in wrongful situations, and who the hell knows how to deal with them properly without a little guidance? When we find ourselves in a place where inappropriate things are going on around us, we may have a sense of their "wrongness," but when we are surrounded by so many other people that either ignore it, justify it or accept it, our feelings that something isn't quite right are negated without a word being said. You become wrong because you don't take the family- or party-line. Our personal feelings are being actively negated; the only defense is to remove yourself (however you can) or go with the effed-up flow and learn to deny your own emotions.

Sound familiar?

When everyone else around is seemingly accepting of bad behavior, and I'm seeing injustice or worse, I feel as though I am dangling on a rope, my feet scrabbling on a slick surface of ice, unable to find a spot to dig my toes in and climb up.

Will tell you that there was one situation where I did not back down and did keep my ground and resist.

When that guy kept pushing reincarnation at me, despite my repeated instructions that he knock it off.

He went too far when recommending a trashy new age book.

I finally accessed my rage, and fact checked the book and found out it was just a hunk of junk.

I chewed the guy out and walked out on him.\

Know why I finally knew what to do?

Because I had had ten years writing stuff on this website and had been validated by you guys, thats why.

So..thank you.

Internalizing a community of support is the real healing.

Until we get that, we are all alone, even when we sense something is indeed wrong.

You and many of the others who have told your stories of liberation have helped me.

And this former therapist, when he tried to invalidate me - used the same phrases and rationalising as the shame tripper trolls whoeve shown up here over the years.

Fuck paying for that kinda shite.

That is the big reason why, even with lost postings and all of the other BS this site has been through over the past few months, we need to keep posting anyway.

Despite sometimes having the cajones to do the right thing, like leaving das org under the circumstance I did, if I hadn't found the wisdom and stories here for validation (because, yes - I do need validation from time to time), I would have wondered whether I'd made the right choice. And, with all the pressure to go back, maybe I would have. During the first few weeks, you guys helped me stay sane and strong. You gave me a lot of holy-shit moments where I recognized myself in your writing, and you made me laugh. You helped me get through that shame phase very quickly, because of the wit and intelligence in your postings. When my so-called friends kicked me to the curb, y'all (all y'all?) were here.

My intuition told me some time ago that something was funky with sgi, and I kept stuffing it down. I've done that so many times in my life, and always to my detriment. I've learned that when that little voice starts whispering that there's a rat somewhere, I don't doubt it.

I raise a glass of grapefruit-fizzy-water to all of you!