This board has been hijacked by an SGI apologist, if you have not visited in a while you will not recognize it. One insufferable and overbearing new poster is dominating the thread. This thread really needs to get back on track, there has been a chilling effect due to this poster's relentless aggressiveness in attacking those she does not agree with. SGI members desiring support in getting o
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudI am hardly intolerant and you really should not be so quick to label people you do not know. - Freeheartandmind Yes, well, that's all well and good, but hilarious coming from someone who presumes to label and scold people SHE doesn't know via PM - might as well keep the bad behavior private, I suppose, so as not to alarm the members. The lessons of SGI remain...
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

(snip T&P): "In case you're wondering, Freeheartandmind, I am posting this because *I* wish to, because *I* think it's important, and because *I* post on my own terms. Have a nice day." Let me just lay it out there for everybody else. The nasty reference to me is because I pm'd T&P to privately inform her that I thought it was inappropriate to lecture Wakatta1
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Somewhat OT, but the best book IMO about the problem of drugs in Americas is "Drug Crazy". My older brother was a heroin addict for his entire adult life (he died in 2001 at the age of 49), so I have up close and personal experience with the impact of Americas's inane social policy regarding drugs that Congress has decided are bad, for racist and economic reasons.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

(snip T&P)...Sure, the fact that it's profiting off the membership is despicable, but that is the story of ALL religious groups, you know. Every single one. Are you willing to issue the same blanket condemnation for Christianity and call for all those churches to start paying their fair share of taxes, at the very least, which would mean that every family in the US would pay about $1,000
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudQuoteTo each his own...except SGI is a deceptive cult masquerading as a religion and whose followers likely do not know that both Ikea and the org are BILLIONAIRES, while they scrub toilets for free. I roundly condemn SGI, it is a despicable organization. I do not condemn the people who feel they benefit from it (illicit drug users feel that they benefit from their addictio
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

To each his own...except SGI is a deceptive cult masquerading as a religion and whose followers likely do not know that both Ikea and the org are BILLIONAIRES, while they scrub toilets for free. I roundly condemn SGI, it is a despicable organization. I do not condemn the people who feel they benefit from it (illicit drug users feel that they benefit from their addiction too, so feeling that y
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudQuoteBtw, in Japan, amongst non-gakkai ordinary citizens, it is often shared as to whether or not other people (strangers who one has just met) are "gakkai" or not. If somebody *is*, they generally go out of their way to try to avoid them and have any unnecessary interactions with them in everyday life. Let us not forget, Japan is also the land where Cousin Rufus has
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudYou know, in reading Spartacus's analysis, I think perhaps one of the things that kept me from being drowned in the SGI was that I don't have father issues. Thus, Mr. Williams and Pres. Ikeda never appealed to me. I didn't need a father figure - I had a good relationship with my father; I was his favorite! What I had were MOTHER issues, and thus I ended up tak
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitchQuoteleeduffield Hitch-those songs would be hilarious if not for the fact they were really sung. SGI USA is like something out of Monty Python from this forum. Over here we had songs written and performed by members but no group songs as such. It sure as hell felt like I was watching Monty Python when they were singing it too. (I love Monty Python, but what I was seeing was very rea
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProud"t was also part of the program to defend borders. I once had asked for a permission to go to a world peace gongyo at the kaikan in switzerland cause it's only a 1,5 hours drive instead of a 7 hours drive, the answere had been "NO". You have to stay in your country, the Sgcult cake is accuratley cut into perfect pieces, how dare you and bite from your neighb
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Reading, reading, and more reading...I am discovering and exploring an entire universe of religious and philosophical thought, including real Buddhism, various forms of Christianity, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, freethought (atheism and agnosticism), Scientology and other cults, and open theism, among others. I have my very own self-developed world religions course! It is all so very interesting
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudQuoteAt any large and up meeting and at most Chapter level meetings, in my experience, the higher level leaders always ask to see one's experience before it is given. I have had experiences edited with many deletions and additions. I went along with it because I trusted the wisdom of these leaders more than my own. In retrospect, I was indeed an idiot and a liar. - Nichi
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProudOne delusion my membership in the SGI helped me overcome was the idea that there can be a belief system/philosophy/religion that is so inherently *good* that everyone who practices it will demonstrate improved behavior. For example, a teaching can be all about love and compassion and fluffy bunnies, but if its devotees show a high rate of violence and seem driven to harm oth
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteThatsmeinthecornerWhere do I go from here? I spent WAY too much time on the wrong path so I am more skeptical and to be honest more cynical than I used to be. I ask the question but I don’t really want to know the answer or maybe I no longer believe there is an answer. I've been reading Richard Dawkins and I'm not sure how knowing that I am a speck of cosmic dust floating around in
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

(snip Taiten and Proud)" It's hard-core capitalism to insist that everyone needs to somehow attend to his own needs, and it's bad for society. There are some people who simply *can't* help themselves. " I could not agree more.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuotesixtysevenHahaha, I got that sms yesterday at 7 PM: "Today WD toso at my house 8 PM + adress". What the hell do they think ( if they think at all), that I grovel back on my bended knees full of sorrow? Eventually jump into the car in rueful excitement and leave my little children behind or lodge them in their pajamas on the rear seats? Stupid ignorant people. I hope that the ange
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuotecorboyQuote"I was a kumicho, a unit chief in NSA. On the first day I was appointed, I was given a list of 30 members who had left NSA and told I was to get them back. "Start calling. Don't forget to get their World Tribune subscription money. Don't forget your target."" "Calls at 7AM Saturday morning: "Where are you? We're doing a 5 hour daimo
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I was a member of a Christian church (flavor: Baptist) for 12 years that had a very active "benevolence" function, it was called. Members were encouraged to come for help before they got in too deep (one month behind in their mortgage instead of six, for example), people walked in off the street for help and were assisted. These practices were beneficial to the congregation and the comm
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteTaitenAndProud (snip) Say, I was just at the Catholic thrift store today (I don't typically patronize Christian stores - that religion is likewise a blight on society) I think this is painting with a pretty broad brush, TaitenandProud. Not to go OT, we are not here to discuss Christianity or our personal opinions about anything other than NSA/SGI, but whenever I receive health car
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Welcome That's Me in the Corner...Branch Ikedian, love it! Humor helps a lot with recovery, hence Cousin Rufus.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteShavoyQuoteTaitenAndProudWelcome to all board newcomers! Congratulations on opening your eyes and getting out of the cult that is SGI. Thank you! Never been happier! Crazy pot smokers, abusive behavior, so-called "fortune babies", I won't restate it all here, but at various points in the thread I have described my experience with all of these things as an unfortunate &
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Comment to the Malibu Training Center WMD pic posted by Hitch stated: "I remember Bob. He disappeared in a skiing accident up a Mammoth Lakes on the backside of the cornice run. Evidently his body was found the next spring. A real tragedy. He was a very nice gentlemen from what I recall of my contact." So much for the magical protection afforded by chanting. Accidents happen to EVERY
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Welcome to all board newcomers! Congratulations on opening your eyes and getting out of the cult that is SGI. Crazy pot smokers, abusive behavior, so-called "fortune babies", I won't restate it all here, but at various points in the thread I have described my experience with all of these things as an unfortunate "Youth!" member of what was in the 1970's, NSA. T
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

(snip) "Bill Aiken, Washington, D.C.-based spokesman for SGI-USA, the group's United States division, was familiar with Ross' website and wasn't surprised Ross condemned the movement as a destructive cult. "Cult is a very loaded word," Aiken says. "We don't separate people from their families. We don't make people send their money. We don't make p
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I hadn't seen this before today, sorry if it has already been posted:
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoterrmoderatorThe SGI Gohonzon might also be simply mailed to SGI without a return address. This might be the easiest and most reasonable way to go without any potential for confrontation. That's what I did, except I mailed mine to NSA. Seemed plenty respectful to me, considering I no longer believed. To each his own on this one.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitchFacebook Tribute page for George M. Williams (Sadanga) . (Former N$A Cult Org. U.S.A. Boss, who went down in smoke because of Cult Politics & in-fighting.) Take a look at this bizzare post on it from Nov. 8th - --- "I remember Mr. Williams from 1973 when I attended a lecture he gave at the Seattle Center. At the time I had already joined Nichiren Shoshu and received r
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitchFrom the perspective of the $GI cult org., once you join and receive a gohonzon (scroll / mandala), you are a "member" forever - period. To them, there are different kinds of "members": 1. Active Members (believers, participating, the whole nine-yards) 2. Inactive Members (quasi-believers, no longer participating, also referred to as "sleeping" membe
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitchI've imagined myself happening across this $GI "buddhist" "organization" as a full thinking adult, in this present day and age ... If I encountered this type of individual and this type of "activity" as part of someone I met at an event that I was invited to, I'm pretty sure my "cult" alarm bells would be sounding off. Quintessen
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families