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evergreen
Recently at a large youth meeting the leaders showed clips of SGI Brazil and their thousands of youth at a convention - crazed out of their minds, crying because they felt connected to their mentor in life. The youth leaders then said something about how the youth of Brazil were leading the way for all of us, then tried to make a connection that the American youth needed to match Brazil's fervor for kosen-rufu, etc.
YO, American Youth! -- I'm talking to YOU! You need to be crazed and crying and out of your mind -- because if you are, your logic and judgement won't be working so well! We at SGI NEED your brain to be whacked out on adrenaline! Otherwise, how the hell is SGI going to con you into giving all your time and money to us!? C'mon! Don'tcha wanna be having a blast like the Brazilian youth!? Or do ya wanna be dull, boring, party-pooping, critical thinkers, just sitting around with long faces?
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Stephen Halley, in the article "Brainwashing and Thought Control In the News, But Far From New," (Rick Ross archives), says this:
"Sargant goes on to explain that emotional reactivity is crucial in thought control and behavior change. When a person becomes emotionally involved, this person enters a state of mind that is wide open for suggestibility. Sargant, a religious man himself, illustrates this with the example of charismatic ministers of all faiths who are skillful at hooking their audience with emotionally-charged messages. Sargant says ministers are more likely "to achieve success if they can first induce some degree of nervous tension or stir up sufficient feelings of anger or anxiety to secure the person's undivided attention and possibly increase his suggestibility."
John Stacey, in his article, "Cults -- Public Perceptions vs. Research" (also Rick Ross archives) says this:
"Emotional control is another means by which cults change people. Cults manipulate emotions in order to gain compliance. The cult's goal is to convince people that within the group, everything is joyful -- while outside of the cult, there is most often negativity, spiritual blindness, misery and despair."
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When I first joined SGI in the eighties, I thought Buddhists were calm, serene people. I didn't know what to make of SGI meetings where people acted so excited! Leaders instructed us to behave that way -- especially when guests were present. During the eighties, we also had many conventions and large meetings -- and these meetings made our high-school pep rallies look subdued. This rah-rah-rah atmosphere at meetings seemed manipulative and phony to me...and I wish now that I had heeded my discomfort with it. Why didn't I? Possibly because I'd come from a family that was uncomfortable with showing emotions, even positive ones -- so I felt that my discomfort with SGI was just that I was too inhibited from growing up in such a family. I thought that the problem was me -- that I just needed to loosen up! Well, maybe I did -- but it is also true that SGI DOES deliberately arouse members' emotions for the purpose of manipulating the members.
Biologically, stimulating feelings of fear, excitement, anger, anxiety DOES stimulate adrenaline, and CAN increase attention and receptivity to a message.
SGI IS deliberately arousing members emotions at meetings -- in order to make their brains more receptive to SGI's messages.They do it in many ways -- touching and uplifting experiences, creating situations where members may be hungry, exhausted, or thirsty, criticism from leaders, the anxiety of having to perform or speak in front of a group, hearing talk about the evil Nichiren Shoshu or disloyal SGI members. Just being with people who are very excited -- or angry -- also can push you toward feeling the same way.
Guess what -- it works! At least temporarily. THAT was why I couldn't leave! The emotionality of the meetings felt creepy....and yet hooked me at the same time!