QuoteSolemnly, amid unbearable tension, the fellow got the words out. "Its time for us to talk...about...Shaklee". Ho ho - that reminds me of my first husband's step-grandparents. They were all about the Shaklee, too. They'd tell us about how, when they had diarrhea, they'd use the Shaklee "Herbees" (not sure how it's really spelled - don't care), w
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Fascinating! No wonder you are such a wealth of sources and information! Thanks for that :)
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So you were never an SGI member, corboy? How did you end up here on THIS board, then? Do you just travel around to ALL the boards chatting up the exculties?
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From the article above, this paragraph was garbled, but I didn't see how it should be until just now. Here is the corrected paragraph: Quote"Since I joined, the total amount I paid out for the Gakkai exceeds $100,000. However, that is a trifle compared to the total of donations the Gakkai takes in, and they have never made public how that money is spent. I demanded to know how the mo
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QuoteFormer SGI-USA Leader Denounces Money Collecting Style TAWDRY FORMER SGI-USA LEADER DENOUNCES MONEY COLLECTING STYLE OF AMERICAN SOKA GAKKAI Shukan Shincho, 8/4/94 "The Soka Gakkai is the world's largest cult." Scathing flames of denunciation blaze up from a former leader who engaged in activities in the U.S. for 20 years. Until three years ago, Mr. Frank Ross (46), who
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QuoteSoka Gakai (SGI) Criticism Thread Postby illarraza » Sun Sep 23, 2012 6:57 pm The SGI is a Destructive Cult by Definition 1). "Destructive cults actively recruit new members, often through deceptive “front” organizations." The SGI has the Boston Research Center, the Institute for Oriental Philosophy, Victory Over Violence, Institute for Human Rights Equality, the Japanese
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QuoteMark Rogow8 September 2013 18:52 You can kill the messenger but not the message. Not one point I made about the SGI personality cult has been overturned. The reason I left the Soka Gakkai, the straw that broke the Bodhisattvas back, was a regional meeting I attended in New York: Daisaku Ikeda was mentioned more than 100 times, Shakyamuni Buddha and the Lotus Sutra never, and Nichiren Daish
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Hey! Where's Hitch? Does anyone have the links to that 1993 California national meeting video, the one where Ikeda is banging on the table randomly like a monkey and then goes on a rant about President Clinton because Clinton wisely refused to meet with Ikeda? I realize we can't post the address on the board here, but if you have the link, please PM me!! I promise I'll keep it
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QuoteWe chant the right way, so join us and chant NYRGK I remember hearing some version of that early on in my practice. Can't remember any specific commentary, but the implication was that everyone who chants improves. I saw it in my own life, because the various doctrines encouraged me to take responsibility for my own life. Granted, this was a bit of a double-edged sword and it didn�
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Guess what? This latest shoot-em-up mass killer was...wait for it...a CHANTING BUDDHIST!! Headline: Aaron Alexis: An adept Buddhist chanter and an angry man with a gun Oh, of course it was THAI Buddhism, but you can bet the SGI leadership is squirming!
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Since so many posts disappeared, I am going to post this information for the record: Winning gives birth to hostility. Losing, one lies down in pain. The calmed lie down with ease, having set winning and losing aside. - from the Dhammapada From the SGI's website: QuoteNichiren Daishonin: "Buddhism primarily concerns itself with victory or defeat, while secular authority is base
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I, too, have found Mormon sources to provide excellent information about cults in general. It is ex-Mormon sites that give the best instructions about how to formally, officially, legally demand that your personal information be removed from the organization's membership rolls, for example. I took my son to buy a recurve bow last night (don't ask) and we were in this nice guy's
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You know how targets are often encouraged to chant for 90 or 100 days "to see if it works"? This is actually more time than it typically takes for a habit to form: QuoteHabits (or wonts) are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously. In the American Journal of Psychology it is defined in this way: "A habit, from the standpoint of psychol
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I guess the only thing that surprises me about the SGI's resident pedophile/sexual predator is that the SGI typically has so few programs for children! I would expect it more in a group such as Boy Scouts, who routinely separate the kids from their parents, and the Catholic Church, which does likewise and runs its own schools and daycares. But my experience in the SGI is that the adults wa
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Bach, look back through the thread for Nichijew. I believe he has an independent website - it's a lot of fun and good information.
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QuoteHeh. Once you are out from under your parents' thumb/s, one may make some quite interesting choices. My parents made a big deal out of having been Beatnik rebels. I lived like a monk, studied my brains out, stayed drug and alcohol free and didnt even smoke. My parents, especially my mother, hated organized religion and ranted against the Roman Catholic Church. I converte
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QuoteI know that you're never supposed to say "never," but I feel pretty safe in saying that I will never, ever go back. Don't be silly. Do you think there's any chance at all that you could go back to believing in Santa Claus with the sincerity and conviction you had as a 6-yr-old? When you've outgrown something, you've outgrown it. Yeah, you will never, eve
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QuoteWithin those first two weeks, I had a windfall which allowed me to replace my tires, and I received an offer for a much better job. Timing is everything, isn't it? Weren't you working to the best of your ability on accomplishing those things anyhow? I mean, sure, you chanted - too - but you were already doing everything you could think of to attain those goals. People attain th
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QuoteI don't confuse ND Buddhism and SGI. I don't think they are one and the same? They *were* the same, but then those horrid, awful priests excommunicated the SG. THAT was a BIG problem for Ikeda and the Ikedabots, because, under Japanese law, if a religious organization excommunicates its lay organization, that lay organization can no longer claim a religion tax exemption by riding
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If anyone is interested, a journalist began covering the Harold Camping end-of-the-world movement before the end of the world failed to materialize (both times). A year later, he revisited the people he'd come to know (those who would still talk to him), and here are his results: It's a shocking and terribly sad tale in most cases, but the article identifies how these crazy-cakes
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I just ran across this post on a closed thread and found it interesting enough to want to share :} QuoteI was a district leader in Eastern France when I decided to cut all connections with SGI. It had taken me nearly 6 months of investigation of all the available evidence concerning the split to come to a point where my doubts were answered - and they definitely answered. Senior leaders asked to
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QuoteAt one point, he took up chanting, "Because Tina Turner did it". According to him, he was asked what he wanted to chant for. "I just want to be happy". "But what do you want?" "I want to be happy." "But dont you want a car, job or partner?" Our informant replied, "I have all those things. But I am not happy. I don
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Awww! We were just starting to have fun with him! Did he post something deliciously inflammatory? Can we see???
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Questions_2, I don't know if you're still around, and, if you are, I'll bet you've resolved all these difficulties (of course we'd all like to hear about how it turned out!). What is clear from these few exchanges is that you are obsessed with your ex. THAT is the issue here, not anything cult or not. Every person's first responsibility - first and foremost - is t
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Don't get me wrong - I *LOVED* the Shin Man! That doesn't change the fact that, despite being the SGI-USA's Study Department Chief - no mean achievement - and having written the book that validated the "Soka Spirit" hate campaign against teh eeeeevil priesthood (and justified SGI's turning itself into a completely new religion in order to keep its tax-exempt classif
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QuoteAt least Shin didn't spend his last days chronicling the misfortunes of others. He DID spend months, if not years, chronicling the misfortunes of the Nichiren Shoshu priests, though. When the members are assured that proper, devoted practice brings protection from all corners of the universe and health, prosperity, and happiness - and they most certainly ARE told this - it is certain
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Quotea guy who was a member of NKT (now at least they're pretty open about being a cult of personality) quickly discovered that he was a raging culero. What's "NKT"?? What's a "culero"??
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QuoteI guess I was kind of naïve or altruistic or something - it never occurred to me to do anything in order to increase my own benefits I don't think I was quite clear. The whole goal of more benefits was to have more to use to help others with! That's why I wanted to become HQ YWD leader - I would be in a position to influence and create great opportunities for so many more YWD tha
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That's right. When I was an up-and-coming YWD, it was made very clear to me that the higher your leadership position, the more benefits you would get. So, naturally, I went for as many leadership positions as I could! Problem is, it doesn't seem to really work that way. Cases in point: - David Aoyama, killed when one of the hijacked airliners slammed into the World Trade Cent
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Quote I remember thinking that they shouldn't be pushing 'this Buddhism' on someone so young as they don't have the mental capacity to understand or chose whether they believe or not. That is, unfortunately, the norm in intolerant religions. I was raised Evangelical Christian, heavily and forcefully indoctrinated since birth into that, so it seemed quite normal to me. I never
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