From www.fraughtwithperil.com, "Diary of a Chapter Leader" blog by Nancy Thomsen, "Presto Chango" essay Thomsen is writing about recent organizational changes in SGI: ----------------------------Beginning of quote----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For about a year, the top leaders in SGI-USA have been trying
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Anthony Elmore, on his website www.proudblackbuddhist.org/ has written a lot about Ghana and Joseph Asomani --some of this information has also been copied and is quoted on page 154 of this thread: -------------Beginning of Quote--------------------------------------------------------------------- (SGI and Ghana)In Ghana members were told that the Gosho was to difficult to read and m
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteNichijewThen, if you complain that you couldn't make the rent or the mortgage , they admonish you for failing to say no. Nichijew This made me think of Von, a former YMD who posted on page 54 of this thread. He was a young man, struggling to make ends meet in Los Angeles, and his leaders urged him to spend his last dollar on going to a big NSA convention. They told him that he
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

SGI is based on lies. If we all made a list of the lies that we have been told by SGI -- it would be long! Some of the biggest and most common: --Ikeda is a great man. --Your leaders are wise, and can give you good guidance for resolving any problem. --SGI cares about your happiness. --If you chant enough, you can get anything you want. (Except when you can't.) --You must acce
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I remember my SGI days as one road trip after another. Several times a year, we had to go to the kaikon, several hours away, to see simulcasts of President Ikeda speaking. Come on, people, this was a damn video. SGI could've made copies and just sent them to the smaller cities, but why make anything easy or convenient for members? They had to make us jump through hoops. It w
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteFindingmywaytoday I made a mistake today that I regret. Some women from the SGI called me and told me not to be a stranger. I reconnected, and I thought I am strong enough to deal with them. I even let someone come and home visit me today. It was her first time to my house. I could sense she became very judgemental about my Gohonzon, and where I put things. I actually had printed out a quote
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteFreeheartandmind Here in Chicago you never read much about SGI endorsing candidates or anything like that. I do not recall NSA being active politically active back in the seventies. That's why I thought perhaps politics was not part of the plan for the usa. On a smaller scale, it appears that it is. Scary for sure. SGI-USA SAYS that it is a nonprofit religious organization -- this is
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotejlynneda63 I feel nervous & fearful "WHAT IF"WHAT IF SAYING BAD THINGS WILL SEND ME TO HELL. WILL SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN. AM I SPENDING MT FORTUNE? How crazy is that? I actually know when they r chanting for me. Oh yeah, I forgot. I got a note from my district leader saying they should have a new meeting house soon! Lets be victorious! Which remibds me THE MEETINGS WERE HERE! WHA
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Indeed....how SGI describes itself depends on whatever suits its purposes at the time. Some links: First, from buddha.jones: ------------------------beginning of quote------------------------------------------- They're a "religion" when it suits them, a "peace organization" when they want school boards in the U.S. to approve Soka-based charter schools, and
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteHitch On that note - I know it's hard to listen to this kind of stuff once you've been in and are now out, but in this clip , there is a very telling portion if you skip to the approx. halfway portion ~ 4 min. mark, where George Williams is talking about the nature of Osaka people as being greedy: (Paraphrased) "In Osaka, people don't say 'Good Morning' to
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteNichijewhttp://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~shibuken/RINJI/gizo-chisai.htm#Eng Eventually the defamation case was overturned by the Supreme Court but the fact of the altered photos remained. Here is the SGI photo of the purported Kempon Hokke Gohonzon shop which is actually on the grounds of the Minobu sect: Mark Mark, thank you for posting this link! I copied it, and am printing it her
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteKR Nichijew, - Funny you should say that, I've always found SGI methods of distributing these videos ABOVE ALL ANYTHING ELSE suspicious. It will be some district meeting and one lowly SGI member will be assigned the DVD copy of the latest speech from Linda Johnson, Nakashima or whoever and will manage to make their rounds to every district meeting for everyone to see it. It's atypi
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Byrd's Eye View, from www.fraughtwithperil.com, April 6, 2008, written by Wendy Byrd Ehlmann (She also posts as "Byrd," and "Wazoh.") -----------------------Beginning of Quote-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- April 06, 2008 Apology to the Members...? Well, according to the staff member wh
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteNichijew"Try it anywhere else, and there is a good chance SGI-USA will try to get it shut-down with their internet monitoring." -- Anticult SGI finally shut down my Nichiren Buddhist and anti-SGI blog. The owner of the blog site is Nancy Thomsen, an SGI Chapter Leader. I had 1.3 million views over the last several years. Fortunately, I managed to save much of my work but lost a
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Ikeda's ancestry? If you do a search online, you will find sites like Benjamin Fulford's and gaijinpot.com that say yes -- and that his Korean name is Son Tae Chuk. See below: -----------------------------beginning of quote----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One sign of this is that new sources have appro
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

www.buddhajones.com has some excellent commentary about SGI: ------------------------------------------------------------------Beginning of Quote------------------------------------------------------------- Leaving aside the cult question -- because everyone already knows what I think (it's a cult)-- I want to raise a point about the way that organization burns people out. I�
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteShavoy. It is all, ALL, for the worship of Daisaku Ikeda. Why promote M/D so heavily, especially in the last decade? Because he is old now, if he is dead or alive, we might not know that, but does it matter? Just as he once said in one of his speeches that I quoted in an earlier post, a statement that still blows my mind---"Mrs. Ikeda and I talk incessantly about our mentor, Josei T
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Spartacus and Anticult-India -- glad to have you aboard. I am grateful to have this forum, and thread. Back when I was still involved with SGI, I felt like I was the only one who had doubts and concerns about SGI. Most of the people I knew seemed to love it -- and wondered why I didn't. It's been great to share experiences and thoughts with other members and ex-members, and
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Simplify -- Thanks for saving these files and posting them on yousendit.com! I downloaded both. I found many scenes that I remembered -- but I seem to remember a scene where the pounding went on for much longer, and I didn't see that one on either part one or two. But still, some memorable parts: Part I 00:42: Ikeda is walking into the auditorium. A woman appears to be
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotesimplify Excellent link, Tsukimoto, thank you. By the way is your dog an Honourable Friend of the Bodleian Library yet? ;-) Yes, and she's been impossible ever since. She turns up her nose at her regular dog food, which she didn't used to do. I guess she feels, as an Honourable Friend of the Bodleian, she is entitled to the more expensive stuff. Next thing you know,
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Exactly -- nothing is what it seems. As mroakes on www.buddhajones.com put it: "In a previous thread, I said that one of the hallmarks of a cult is reliance on deception. Cults deceive potential recruits, members and the general public about the group's true aims and core beliefs." To me, the important thing is not whether Ikeda is or isn't in a coma -- it's t
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

If you Google, you'll find that Benjamin Fulford has his own website, and is quoted on other people's websites. Lots of conspiracy theories like the Illuminati scientists have been triggering earthquakes in Japan recently. Come on! Japan has had frequent, and powerful earthquakes for all of recorded history. It's because of plate techtonics and fault zones -- not con
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

MORE SGI CLICHES, TRANSLATED: "Maintain a high life condition." " Act as if you are delighted with everything SGI, even if you're not." "Be the change you wish to see (in SGI): " Don't ask us to change -- if you don't love SGI, you have a bad attitude and you need to do something about it." Or, more succinctly: "Just shut up
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

For those who are interested in SGI, there is a 347 page thread on the Soka Gakkai in the "Former Cult Members and Affected Families" Forum. Myownwill, you will find discussion of many of the issues you've mentioned on that thread.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Shavoy, KR, Anticult, These posts make me think of a discussion that I had with a friend over the Christmas holidays. She and I had been SGI members together in our hometown, some years ago. She moved to another state a few years ago, and is still involved in an SGI group there. We talked about SGI...and this thread. I asked her, "Do you really believe all the hype about Ikeda
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

KR, regarding the destruction of the Shohondo -- you can google and read for hours. It boils down to, pro-SGI writers say that High Priest Nikken destroyed a beautiful, structurally-sound building out of hatred for President Ikeda, and pro-Nichiren Shoshu writers say that the building was poorly constructed and in danger of collapsing. www.toride.org, the "Victims of the Soka Gakkai&quo
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

SGI's view of morality? Leaders will say whatever they think will further their cause. I have been told that Buddhism does not have any rules equivalent to the Ten Commandments; you can do anything that you decide is right. Some leaders will add that the law of karma, cause and effect, will get you in the end if you are acting in an unwise and hurtful way. Leaders say, or at leas
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

In the "Cults, Sects, and New Religions" Forum, there's a link to an excellent article on cult methods. I'm only quoting the main points here, as it's a bit long -- but it's really worth reading the whole article. -------------Beginning of Quote------------------------------------------ People have an overwhelming desire to believe in some- thing. Becom
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

There were many articles in the Irish press about this case. Some are very painful to read...her children screaming and pleading with their father to stop stabbing their mother. -------------------------------beginning of links and quotes------------------------------------------------- The Gilbert family have cared for the children since the killing and Robert said the stress
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteShavoy Nichijew, did this happen recently? What a sad, sad story.... it goes to show that Gakkai members are not protected from tragedies, despite chanting, activities, all-out devotion to Sensei, etc. They may have felt that, that they would have protection and that they were making the right causes, based on their faith in the SGI and P. Ikeda. And the poor husband. Was probably
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families