TaP: "If all these high-level leaders (and their offspring) couldn't manage to overcome these obstacles, why should anyone think that this practice works in any sense that is not just random chance?"

The thing about these jerkwads is that they spin this shit into more "opportunities" to overcome the obstacles of grief, anger, whatever. We've all done that; the bullshit that you encountered at work, wasn't that just another opportunity to work on your own "human revolution"? So, as Basho said, it's all good. If you win a million dollars, it's a huge benefit; if your kid is permanently disabled and in a wheelchair, it's your own human failing if you can't turn that into a benefit. I was the queen of that (well, maybe not THE queen, but A queen); the contract I was working on got cancelled? Thank you, mystic law! My rent went up? Oh, yay! Another opportunity! I bought that garbage myself, and sold it to others - not to do so, I felt small, helpless and disloyal. We don't need no stinkin' reality.

And, Hitch, you're on the money about the org in terms of exploiting any small successes we had. We may have had the high-fives and backslaps when the victories came along, but the idea that they happened because of something we'd personally done (that I know I was too zombified to recognize) is completely denied. That you'd worked your arse off and dedicated your time and effort to accomplish a goal was meaningless; apparently you could sit there doing your nails while the mystic law took care of everything . . . who knew?

That confirmation bias is powerful stuff, and is a linchpin for the success of the org. I was trying to explain this whole mess to my son over the weekend, and I used a metaphor of a baseball player who wears his cap backwards during one game and his team wins. They play another game, he has his cap on properly, and the team loses. An association is made. He starts wearing his cap backwards all the time; if the team loses, he's dishonoring the magic of the cap . . . he practices harder, spends more time in the gym . . . the team's win ratio goes up. It's the magic of the cap, and it has nothing to do with him making stronger efforts to improve his performance. It's the cap, and he can take no credit for his own hard work, and can only blame himself for not honoring the cap if the game doesn't go well. To complicate it further, his fans and the media talk about his magic cap and encourage him further to believe in its power. That is some cap.

Total change of subject, one of the wd leaders lives less than a block away from me; when I sent my original resignation letter just to the leaders, she really didn't understand what was going on. Her English isn't very good, and I often have to explain things to her in a simpler way, and when I did, I made it clear that I wanted no sgi-related contact. Surprisingly, she seemed very respectful of that and expressed a desire to stay friends (maybe a ploy, but I give her the benefit of the doubt for now). I received an email from her last night that really amused me; she was at a meeting this past weekend, and apparently my departure is quite the conversation-starter these days. Another member, of whom I have absolutely no recollection of meeting EVER and have never heard of before, wanted to call me to apologize. Not to encourage me to come back, of course, but to apologize. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it kind of hard for someone that you've never heard of in your life to have done something that they need to apologize for? I hadn't copied this leader on the res letter that I sent to HQ, because it was kind of complicated and I didn't want to have to explain what everything meant; I gave her as simple an explanation of it as I could in my response to her and told her that since the other member had nothing to apologize for, there was no need for her to contact me. I can only imagine the chanting that's going on right now . . . it would piss me off if it wasn't so lame. The audacity of these people is just amazing - I mean a total stranger thinking that somehow a completely meaningless apology would influence me? Seriously? This is a special-reserved-for-cult-members-only kinda stupid.

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meh
That confirmation bias is powerful stuff, and is a linchpin for the success of the org. I was trying to explain this whole mess to my son over the weekend, and I used a metaphor of a baseball player who wears his cap backwards during one game and his team wins. They play another game, he has his cap on properly, and the team loses. An association is made. He starts wearing his cap backwards all the time; if the team loses, he's dishonoring the magic of the cap . . . he practices harder, spends more time in the gym . . . the team's win ratio goes up. It's the magic of the cap, and it has nothing to do with him making stronger efforts to improve his performance. It's the cap, and he can take no credit for his own hard work, and can only blame himself for not honoring the cap if the game doesn't go well. To complicate it further, his fans and the media talk about his magic cap and encourage him further to believe in its power. That is some cap.

Excellent example.

I've taken to calling the $GI "The Lucky Charms Cult."

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meh
. . . when I sent my original resignation letter just to the leaders, she really didn't understand what was going on. Her English isn't very good, and I often have to explain things to her in a simpler way, . . . . .

You've just pretty much described almost every Japanese pioneering WD "leader" that I've ever known.

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meh
I received an email from her last night that really amused me; she was at a meeting this past weekend, and apparently my departure is quite the conversation-starter these days.

Boy oh boy, I can imagine. I think it's because of the decisive, firm and complete manner in which you quickly rejected them, FIRST. It's kind of a rarity for them.

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meh
Another member, of whom I have absolutely no recollection of meeting EVER and have never heard of before, wanted to call me to apologize. Not to encourage me to come back, of course, but to apologize. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it kind of hard for someone that you've never heard of in your life to have done something that they need to apologize for?

The audacity of these people is just amazing - I mean a total stranger thinking that somehow a completely meaningless apology would influence me? Seriously? This is a special-reserved-for-cult-members-only kinda stupid.

HAHA!! I LOVE that part! So true.

I had the same reaction to a somewhat similar situation that happened to me, when I walked and stayed away.

There was one salaried YMD "leader", who never knew me, he didn't even know my face (!), but I of course "knew" him, because he was one of those semi-big-wig Japanese leaders who was always up front, dictating and controlling things.

One day, completely out of the blue, YEARS later, I got a letter from him. It said: "Hitch" (my "friendly" nickname, not my full name nor the common courtesy of even using "Mr." with my surname) - "Hi Hitchy! How ya doin'? We miss you. Such and such a campaign is going on now. Let's respond to "Sensei" by doing x-y-&-z and not let him down. My phone number is - - - -, call me, let's meet, talk and have lunch. Been worried about you."

I thought, "Jeeze, the audacity of this idiot. They must think I'm hard up or stupid or something." I literally laughed out loud and straight to the garbage it went. I couldn't believe the gall and lack of common sense that that letter revealed. Someone who never gave a sh*t about me, or even gave me the time of day, for the whole time I was in the YMD (which was YEARS, btw), suddenly popping up, uninvited, and pretending to care, be worried and wanting to be my long long lost buddy, . . . . and expecting me to respond!

There were, of course, other postcards, letters, phone calls, notes and messages passed my way, but that one has particularly stuck with me, because of sheer idiocy and lack of ordinary common sense of it.

"A special-reserved-for-cult-members-only kinda stupid", indeed.


- Hitch

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Another member, of whom I have absolutely no recollection of meeting EVER and have never heard of before, wanted to call me to apologize. Not to encourage me to come back, of course, but to apologize. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it kind of hard for someone that you've never heard of in your life to have done something that they need to apologize for?

The audacity of these people is just amazing - I mean a total stranger thinking that somehow a completely meaningless apology would influence me? Seriously? This is a special-reserved-for-cult-members-only kinda stupid.

HAHA!! I LOVE that part! So true.

That reminds me - a nearby church sends out junk mail that I find in my mailbox >:( One of them, though, was hilarious - I still shake my head at it. It said, "We're sorry!" on the front, and on the back, it said:

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SORRY! we were jerks!

People go to church to confess their sins but maybe we have it backwards.

Maybe the church needs to confess to you.

There are a lot of people that have been hurt by either the church or Christians.

Please give us the opportunity to truly say WE'RE SORRY.

Jan. 29-30: Sorry for being hypocritical and non relevant.

Feb. 5-6: Sorry for being judgemental [[i]sic[/i]] and just trying to convert you.

And then, of course, the address, phone number, times, calendar etc.

It's already a head-shaker, but on the front, behind the "We're sorry!" was an image of the Parker Bros. board game "Sorry!"

[encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com]

OMG!!! It's like a complete JOKE!! Pardon me, the fauxness of your "sincerity" is showing *eye roll*

The leader with the terrible English is a real example to me for the utter I-don't-know-whatness of this organization. She met her husband years ago (maybe the early 80's?); he was an American attending school in Japan and they met through their attendance with the nichirens. They were married for maybe 10-15 years when the split occurred; he stayed with the temple and she went with sgi - they wound up divorcing. They are still good friends, though - he's always over at her place doing little things for her, putting up curtains, installing shelves for her ever-growing hello kitty collection, helping her out with honey-do stuff. Neither has remarried and have cordial relationships with their two children (neither of whom practice, btw - wonder why?). That these two people, who obviously care about each other, remain apart because of this crazy BS is sad and ridiculous. Family harmony, in-freaking-deed.

TaP, I don't even know what to say about the mail coming from the lunatic church. It's just bizarre.

Isn't it sad when religion causes divorce? It's interesting that the most devout Christians, the "born-agains", the Evanglicals, have the highest divorce rates of any faith-type group - way higher than the "lukewarm" (liberal) Christians and atheists and agnostics, even!

Whereas the SGI has required people to marry - such as gay leaders, who have been coerced to marry (in St. Paul, the MD Hq leader was a flaming gaymo, and his exwife was quite the butch dyke - by the time I came on board in 1987, they had been *allowed* to divorce, but they had been compelled to marry just a few years before) - this is an example of where the SGI requires people to divorce. No SGI member can be allowed to remain married to a danto member - perish the thought!

Anyone who thinks there are benefits to religion should think long and hard on this situation - is *anything* in religion so valuable that breaking families apart for the sake of it is merited?

TaP, another friend of mine was also required to get married to another member. He was closeted-gay, but I guess he didn't keep the door tightly closed all the time. I'm not sure if the divorce was sanctioned or not.

Yes sad, but what's sadder is that someone would go along with it. I think that would've been the wtf-moment for me. Maybe. Who knows? I didn't even accept that I was in a cult until several short weeks ago.

Taitan and Proud wrote:

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Isn't it sad when religion causes divorce? It's interesting that the most devout Christians, the "born-agains", the Evanglicals, have the highest divorce rates of any faith-type group - way higher than the "lukewarm" (liberal) Christians and atheists and agnostics, even!

Hmm. I wonder if high divorce rates go with two scenarios:

One spouse becomes a convert and the other spouse does not. Discord. The non believing spouse is dumped.

Two believers marry and they belong to a church or group that prizes positive feelings and this same group teaches people either overly or by unspoken group norm to avoid and deny 'negative' feelings.

So two people in such a groups marry, they will be ill equipped to deal with the normal disillusionment and friction that occur after marriage.

If they go on to have children, they will have all the normal tensions that go with marriage and the added normal tensions that go with having children--but the group will not have given them any support or assistance on how to acknowlege painful and angry feelings and how to maintain a heartfelt connection that can contain and acknowledge these painful feelings, as well as the warm fuzzies.

Am not just thinking of evangelical Christians. There are other groups that focus on being positive all the time - emotional orthodoxy as it were.

The dark feelings and dark side of life are the heretical, forbidden material.

What I and others would term 'happy clappy' groups -- the Prabhupada Hare Krishnas, Sokka Gakki, Amma the Hugging Guru, the various New Age groups where its all smiles, smiles, smiles -- until someone dares to disagree.

Then the smiles disappear.

Am just wondering.

If some group talks about love, love, love, all the time, everyone seems to be smiling all the time and they have a reputation of being 'incredibly nice' all the time -- time to start wondering.

What comes up must go down.

If everyone is happy all the time (in public) what goes on internally, in their own bodies and in private?

Ecstacy/joy are generated by neurotransmitters, especially dopamine and the internal opiods. Eventually those get depleted and one feels the blahs.

A group or relationship that demands that you run 'hot' all the time is putting you in a set up where you'll become like an orange squeezed dry.

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TaP, another friend of mine was also required to get married to another member. He was closeted-gay, but I guess he didn't keep the door tightly closed all the time. I'm not sure if the divorce was sanctioned or not.

Yes sad, but what's sadder is that someone would go along with it. I think that would've been the wtf-moment for me. Maybe.

There was a time when, in order to advance to a certain level of adult-division leadership, you had to be married. Just one more way the organization structured your life for you. The YMD had to be clean-shaven and have their hair neatly trimmed above the collar, they had to wear white to be sokahan.

Where I first practiced, the St. Paul men's division leader was clearly gay; he had been given an ultimatum years before - if he wanted to progress up the leadership ladder, he had to get married. He married this nice butch dyke lesbian. By the time I came onto the scene, they were divorced and he was still the hq md leader, but that's why someone would go along with it. He *needed* that validation, approval, and status. THAT's why.

I'm sure it can also be justified in terms of the many benefits accorded to married couples that singletons aren't eligible for, as this was back in the early 1980s, before any gay marriage legislation.

I don't know if you saw - I think it was on that other big-ass thread - but I heard a national leader speak once - he was gay, and so he was coerced into marrying in order to be promote-able. He, too, married a nice lesbian. That wasn't enough for the SGI, though. He told of a top-level Japanese leader getting right in his face and yelling, "YOU HAVE TO SLEEP WITH YOUR WIFE! YOU HAVE TO MAKE BABIES FOR COUSIN RUFUS!!" So he divorced her.

He told another story, which to this day I don't quite understand. Ikeda Senseless was visiting, and at a dinner, this leader was at the same table. There were, like, 10 people sitting around the table, all upper-level leaders. He said that Ikeda went around the table, had something to say to every person - except him. Skipped RIGHT over him. "Oh, boy, here we go again," this guy thought - he was accustomed to being treated badly by the SGI (which makes you wonder what it was they were selling that he needed badly enough to put up with that despicable maltreatment). Then Ikeda Senseless came back to him.

"So - you married?"

No.

"Any prospects?"

No.

"You know, there are a lot of people in Japan just like you. You have an important mission for kosen rufu."

Or something - I'm not exactly sure the comment after the "people in Japan just like you", but this guy said that these comments made him understand that Ikeda really understood him. I, at the time and from then on, thought it sounded like Ikeda was singling him out, publicly, for what was "different" about him, making a point to emphasize it in front of everyone else. So it always looked to me like he was just being ostracized. I guess confirmation bias can lead you to conclude that something isn't what it obviously is if that's what you need to believe. He was a national-level leader at that time and at the time he was speaking, too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2013 03:11AM by TaitenAndProud.

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I wonder if high divorce rates go with two scenarios:

One spouse becomes a convert and the other spouse does not. Discord. The non believing spouse is dumped.

I suspect that's the case - this study found that the divorces happened *after* they acceptedjesusastheirpersonalsavior. Whether the marriage happened after that point as well, I can't be sure, but let's face it - NOBODY wants to live with an Evangelical! No matter what religion it is!! :D

[www.religioustolerance.org]

It says that 90% of the Evanglical divorces happen after THE COUPLE is "saved."

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the group will not have given them any support or assistance on how to acknowlege painful and angry feelings and how to maintain a heartfelt connection that can contain and acknowledge these painful feelings, as well as the warm fuzzies.

The above article addresses this - how both members of a divorcing couple often feel the need to find new churches for themselves, as their former "friends" treat them like lepers because of the divorce.

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What I and others would term 'happy clappy' groups -- the Prabhupada Hare Krishnas, Sokka Gakki, Amma the Hugging Guru, the various New Age groups where its all smiles, smiles, smiles -- until someone dares to disagree.

Then the smiles disappear.

Am just wondering.

If some group talks about love, love, love, all the time, everyone seems to be smiling all the time and they have a reputation of being 'incredibly nice' all the time -- time to start wondering.

Time to start looking up "ex-(groupname)" or "former (groupname)", you mean.

The Bah'ai are one of these groups, and when you look up the sites with the apostates' opinions, you find it's just as nasty a management style, just as coercive, just as unpleasant, as the SGI:

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When I received a letter from a Baha'i Continental Counsellor indicating that I was under threat of being declared a Covenant-breaker, the impact on me personally was less than on my family. My wife is a Baha'i as are many of her family members, . . . The very real threat of being declared a Covenant breaker meant my wife had to face the decision of joining me as a heretic or divorcing me so that she could maintain her relationships with her family and other lifelong friends. Since [my wife] had no intention of divorcing me, the choices then extended out to her family. Her sister would not refuse to socialize with us so she would automatically be declared a covenant breaker along with her husband and children. Many of my close Baha'i friends would also be faced with the decision of maintaining friendships or joining me as a heretic. The whole thing is absurd and quite medieval. But it does raise the issue which you point out so well; how anyone would want to belong to a group which is willing to act this way and be so cruel is beyond me. That is why I voluntarily left the religion. Not in order to escape punishment but because the Baha'i community had become such an unhealthy place spiritually. I was terribly saddened that my spiritual home of 25 years had turned into a prison and nightmare. [www.fglaysher.com]

"I think the documentation illustrates how the Baha'i administration secretly watches, reports on and records the activities and views of members it sees as a threat. This spying can go on for years without the member knowing and despite general assurances to the contrary. When it suits the administration to act, it can summarily disenroll the person at any time and without any notice. In such circumstances, 'counselling' will comprise any communication that member has had with the institutions, whatever its nature, purpose and timing. This action will be accompanied by a backbiting campaign designed to destroy the member's reputation in the community. I think members of the Baha'i community, and those contemplating joining it, have a right to know how the Baha'i administration behaves." [2002]
[www.fglaysher.com]

Professor Juan Cole, University of Michigan, June 12, 1998: "Let me ask you why in the world you think that I would risk my professional reputation by publicly stating falsehoods? ...The very technique of the more glaze-eyed among these people is to unbearably bully a Baha'i whom they don't like, use unjustified threats of declaring him or her a CB [Covenant Breaker (heretic)] to silence the individual, and if the person will not be silenced, then to depend upon the gullibility of the Baha'is in refusing to listen to any victim's story because, of course, the Baha'i institutions are infallible and divinely guided and could never do anything wrong. It is a perfect racket. Of course, this technique of making liberals go away has been enormously successful, and ex-Baha'i liberals have no credibility with the remaining Baha'is nor do most of them have any energy to continue to make a case, either to the Baha'is or the outside world, for the incredible abuses that go on inside this organization ostensibly committed to tolerance!"
[www.fglaysher.com]

Professor Juan Cole, February 23, 1999:
"There is nothing to be puzzled by. Right wing Baha'is only like to hear the sound of their own voices (which are the only voices they will admit to being "Baha'i" at all). Obviously, the world is so constructed that they cannot in fact only hear their own voices. They are forced to hear other voices that differ from theirs. This most disturbs them when the voices come from enrolled Baha'is or when the voices speak of the Baha'i faith. The way they sometimes deal with the enrolled Baha'is is to summon them to a heresy inquiry and threaten them with being shunned if they do not fall silent. With non-Baha'is or with ex-Baha'is, they deal with their speech about the faith by backbiting, slandering and libelling the speaker. You will note that since I've been on this list I have been accused of long-term heresy, of "claiming authority," of out and out lying (though that was retracted, twice), of misrepresentation, of 'playing
fast and loose with the facts,' and even of being 'delusional.' I have been accused of all these falsehoods by *Baha'is*, by prominent Baha'is. I have been backbitten by them. This shows that all the talk about the danger a sharp tongue can do, all the talk about the need for harmony, for returning poison with honey, for a sin-covering eye, is just *talk* among right wing Baha'is. No one fights dirtier than they when they discover a voice they cannot silence and cannot refute. Paul Johnson has seen all these things, as well, for the past five years. He can explain it to you."
[www.fglaysher.com]

More at [www.fglaysher.com]. Those stories give me a shiver of recognition :/

When I left, I knew I would be walking away alone. It wasn't as if I had any real friends within the SGI anyhow - my one friend ditched me like a smelly sock when her convicted felon jailbird husband returned from prison and didn't want her having any contact with me, after all - that's not how real friends behave. But I was okay with being used by her while he was in the slammer because I enjoyed her company. There weren't - and aren't - that many people whose company I really enjoy, you see. But I never was under any misconception that, after I left the SGI, I would remain in contact with any members. I expected them to call and invite me to activities (and a few did) but nothing more. And that's exactly what I got. I really feel sorry for those poor folks whose entire social circle is limited to the SGI (or any religious organization).

Now let's hear again about how the SGI is "the most ideal family-like organization in the world"!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2013 03:09AM by TaitenAndProud.