@spartacus Feelings mutual - kinda missed this little corner of the world :) Wakatta1
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I'm thankful for caller ID. I've written the number down and will remember it in the future. What is a little worrisome is that it's been a lot of years since any of those folks have called, so I'm wondering if there is some sort of data mining campaign going on in Gakkai-land. Preparations for the big handoff to the heir? 'better out than in' -- Shrek Wakat
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

@nichijew Good to see you here in the happy hunting grounds, looks like I missed a lot in the last 6 months... Wakatta1
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Moderator Sorry to have put up a new topic. How do I move this over to the SGI topic? Wakatta1
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Got a call from someone who apparently was given my phone number or has tracked me down <shudder>. They wanted to "ask" why I quit and I made the error of saying *anything*. A half hour later I just shut it down. Classic shakubuku tactics, 'keep em talking' and slowly try to turn the conversation to how great the practice is. Now I'm just annoyed that after all
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

@Nichijew (Hi Mark) I didn't put any attributions into my points for just exactly that reason. No sense in pushing things towards finger pointing, flame warring and all that nastiness. I just posed the question. Essentially, everyone here is here because of a common cause, and I just wanted to suggest that the discussions here could have/might have trended towards an endpoint that co
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I'm sure it will ruffle some feathers here and I'll get accused as being "soft on the SGI" but I'm going to say this anyhow. Sometimes it is useful to do a little self-inspection to ensure what you are doing is really accomplishing what you've hoped for, or if it is accomplishing the opposite. Since the start of this thread many, many-moons ago, various posters h
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProud Say, one of the standard Buddhist statues that I bought toward the end of my SGI tenure was of the "Weeping Buddha." Here is what it looks like, for anyone who isn't familiar with this concept: Or else he is crying because he realized how much hard-earned money he's sunk into a rosewood box that now is only good for keeping a door propped open <grin&g
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenandproudIn such cases, sometimes leaders would trot out that "must never try to make money off the membership" canard, supposedly one of Makiguchi's strict guidelines, but isn't the whole organization built around making money off the membership? *WINK* I agree with you - I recall Toda operated a credit union among other things, and I recall he had a lot of member
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudI, too, am sorry that your parents were so clueless, wakatta1. I'm sorry you were raised in a physically abusive environment. Heh! Actually my parents were very cluefull and the guidance they gave me as a child has done me good stead in life and in my career. (Even more so now that I've done a Gakkai-ectomy). In addition to providing me with the necessary and use
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudThe other aspect of child development is that the more rules and coercion imposed upon children, the more they will rebel later. It's so sad for a child to be compelled to rebel in typically self-destructive ways simply because his human rights have been violated! Place: My Home Event: District Meeting in 1980-something Background: One of the headquarter leaders
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

At some point I reached saturation with the cult.org and decided the time had come to end the twenty five year relationship. Firstly, I had a big butsudan which I gave away to one of the members in the area. Second - I had one of the big Gohonzons, but I just rolled it up, drove over to the temple (in the western suburbs of Chicago) Knocked on the door at the priests residence, and when he
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteshavoyBut there is a new sense of happiness brewing---the peace of knowing that I have listened to the voice inside and am living true to myself. Consider this: We all have had the "value creation power" within us. Ours to focus and use however we choose. Getting sidetracked by the Gakkai is like the person who doesn't trust the accelerator pedal and brake pedal in their
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteFindingmywaytodayAlso, has anyone's life improved from leaving the Soka Gakkai? Has anyone become happier from leaving the SGI? Yes, my life has become a wellspring of non-gakkai activities. My heartfelt happiness springs forward each great moment that I am not worshipping Ikea and the great DaiEgo. Tears of joy stream from my eyes knowing that my eternal future is based on the myri
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteWaywardBuddhistWoman Thoughts, anyone? Just say no! It is the toughest thing to do initially but it gets easier and easier as you go. Remember, you are now a fish in the big shakubuku sea again, and their nets and snares are out again to haul you back in again. If you find yourself wavering just ask yourself, after all the time you've invested in cult.org, what specifically
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitchThere were also a number of others who couldn't function normally in everyday life, if they missed their morning (especially) or evening gongyo; they'd have fits of anxiety attacks until they performed their daily ritual to release the tension and just be able to cope. That raises an interesting question. Consider a craftsman whose only tool is a hammer, to him everything
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteAnticultThere is no question, it is a hard FACT, that SGI in fact uses their "SGI-Chanting" as a technique of thought-control of their members. If I heard it once I heard it a hundred times, the guidance about linking worries to chanting: "When I begin to worry about something I begin to chant and if I've chanted enough, the worries go away and I know I've chang
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteGoodgirlIts sad to think that the ywd who i had lucnch with would just want to meet with me to spy. come to think of it i hadnt heard from her for a while and her call was quite unexpected. i should call her to f**k with her... but i wont ..Its so crazy to think that i was actually in a cult... and boy oh boy are they manipulative but thats on her if she discussed my personal business.. i ki
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitchI never once felt any genuine warmth from his actual presence. In fact, it's just the opposite in real life: I felt a strange coldness, arrogance, sense of privilege, and most of all, those in the closest orbits surrounding and serving him, were always rushing, yet careful as if stepping on eggshells and I'd even go so far as to say that I could smell a whiff of "fear&quo
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteFreeheartandmind If anyone thinks this is Japan bashing, that is not the case... (snip) As one of those Gaijin who spent a lot of time working with some very obnoxious Japanese "leaders" I say "here here"! Speaking the language and understanding the customs just puts you in a position of being distrusted at a higher level. Being married to a Japanese wife opens you u
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteFreeheartandmindIf we could post those clapping smiley face thingies, I would post three or four. Your comment about the beads is right-on. I read recently that the "proper" thing to do is hold them quietly while chanting, but that's not how it was done while I was in. The louder the better! I personally used them to stay awake. Rubbing the beads very loud and making the so
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitchOne of my friends from back in college mentioned to me that he was approached by some oriental ladies who tried to get him to come to some buddhist meeting. So I'm sitting on a plane flying to San Diego a year ago. The woman on the window seat was a mid-forties, professional-looking person, and I was on the aisle seat. As the last people boarded the plan a very old oriental wom
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteRothaus ... messages even form the national SGI leader on my answering machine saying he welcomes critical minds ... Oh yeah, that tactic is called "Keep em talking, as long as you can keep talking to them you can eventually persuade them." Cult.org dressed up in the "reasonable person" costume. They freeze over pretty quick when you ask them "wrong" questi
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTibbsI must have stumbled onto the wrong forum. I thought we were here to take about the SGI. Not to make catty remarks about "atheists" and their "dogmas". I can only speak for my posts. Getting free from SGI is more about moving on - However wise or unwise a person was to ultimately find themselves in cult.org in the first place boils down to a personal set of
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteUpgrayedAs a system, it's not standing on a fixed line, espousing on a nihilistic position towards religion, but is a visceral system that is used through every encounter, frankly, its not so much an answer to religion but a way of thinking which is grounded in the scientific method, or the world of proof. <soapbox mode on> As someone who has spent more than a few nights at
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quote@RothausAnyhow its okay if somebody says he or she is atheist or agnostic, but in this discussion there are those who still believe in religious traditions and practices never the less they have strong views on SGI based on their own individual experiences. It is this our purpose to voice those views and experiences in relationship to SGI not to ridicule our beliefs though. My post previou
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

All, I am reminded that in the spirit of a glass being half full or half empty, even the "church of no church" has its own set of problems, and atheism is no more perfect than any other belief system. Principally because it also employs frail humans to fill its ranks. In my short sixty or so years of life, I have run the gamut of beliefs, idealistically as a child to Christianity
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteRattyboy And, secondly, the voices I hear in my head, the imagined responses from leaders about these 'negative' inquiries and conclusions and discussions with ex-members are all going to bear the stamp of disapproval from SGI members. In some of the literature associated with developing or recovering personal self-esteem, there is mention about what is referred to as the "
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

@Hitch Quoteand had to sit through a completely unsolicited Williams diatribe against christians and the virgin mother Mary once You reminded me of a speaker at a Headquarters meeting in the dim and distant past. In the middle of a riff about how singularly important NSA was, he made the comment that every great religious leader was killed by the people around them except for Nichiren. I h
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

@Freeheartandmind Quote You said: "One thing I have been wondering about is Mel Wright." Yes, I did know Mel. You've described him to a Tee, and I agree - he didn't get sucked along by the leaderships sometimes idiotic tendencies. Last I heard of him he was still married to the Japanese lady, but as I said before, this was a very long time ago. Once you move out of
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families