Haha - nope! I gave my response on the previous page! I'm saying that some of us responded with our feelings about the organization, not the individuals still in das org. I see that as two separate issues. I completely agree that a lot of members of the millennial generation are self-involved little twerps. I think, like any generation, we tend to focus on the obvious few. Did everyone i
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I think that paying the tuition for college students is a pretty brilliant way to recruit people in that highly-desired age group. Any low-income kid who is exploring scholarships/grants is taking a desire to better him- or herself pretty seriously. Isn't that what sgi purports to be all about? College is notoriously about peer-pressure. If 80% of the kids are living on campus, they a
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I think we've all been straying from freeyourmind's original question: "Just wondering...how do other former members feel about those who remain in the org and insist that it benefits them? Do you have a to each his own mindset or something else?" This certainly seems like a valid question.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

And, as you say, corboy, it doesn't just happen in the confines of a religious venue. It happens in relationships - both amorous and platonic. Every one has had a bad romantic relationship, but what about those toxic friends that we just can't get our heads around evicting from our lives? There were employees at companies where I've worked who exhibited the same slavish veneration
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

And, as you say, corboy, it doesn't just happen in the confines of a religious venue. It happens in relationships - both amorous and platonic. Every one has had a bad romantic relationship, but what about those toxic friends that we just can't get our heads around evicting from our lives? There were employees at companies where I've worked who exhibited the same slavish veneration
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

All of Spartacus' comments are spot-on, but this particular one is most salient in my feelings about current members of sgi: ""The problem with cultism is that it is a Catch-22 situation - people outside the organization can almost always see quite clearly the workings of a cult but for the members within, no amount of convincing and rationale can ever make them realize that the
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

When I still had a couple of close friends in the org, it often got complicated. It was generally okay as long as we stayed away from the topic of sgi, but very uncomfortable (for me, anyway) if they started talking about benefits they had received as a result of their practice, for instance. There was a lot of tongue-biting on my part, because plenty of good things happen to people who don'
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Found the link: As you read through, you'll find the big reveal as to how s-u draws in non-member students; anyone whose family has a less-than $50k annual income gets free tuition. Brilliant! Let's bring in all those low-income kids, encourage them to believe that their fortune lies in chanting, and that sgi is the only thing that loves you!
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I found a site last week that went into a pretty deep discussion of what was wrong with suck-a u; I'm still digging for it and will post when I find it. The comment "Half the classes at Soka will WASTE your time" is one of the most ominous and telling . . . In my experience, the children I was around when I was in das org were some of the most obnoxious kids I've met; they
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

You're right, both sides get pretty equal treatment; that's one of the reasons I find the whole thing fairly credible.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Wow, rothaus - that's a lot of background information that I didn't have before. The only thing I take issue with is the condition of the shohondo when it was pulled down; from what I've read, it was doomed to fail because of the location and materials selected. This link is blatantly anti-sgi (and may not be completely accurate, but: it's an interesting read, and it su
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

By the by, rothaus, I sent my gohonzons to my local community center with no further identification other than a return address on the package. I got rid of every publication and book the day I decided to leave; I don't throw away books (sort of a problem, space-wise), but I had no problem giving the sgi ones the old heave-ho. Every once in awhile I'll come across something - an article
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

The sad part is that these insights only come from experience. Hindsight is always 20/20, so they say. I hope rothaus is right, and that sgi is in decline and disappears like a festering boil on the arse of humanity. Speaking of festering boils, I think that senseless' death is going to be pretty cataclysmic. Fat-boy was a pretty well-known charismatic figure when toda died, so there
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Well, we can agree to disagree on that; I think it goes much deeper than the simple love-bombing. While Soka U may not try to teach Buddhism (as you point, there is an astonishing lack of knowledge in that area), the complaints against them for discriminating against non-sgi staff have been pretty frequent. Apparently, chanting groups are all over the campus, and any one who isn't a membe
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Yeah . . . sgi will never be famous for its outstanding musical taste. Not so much a party pooper, but I guess some of us strongly believe that das org will do anything it deems necessary to keep the flock in line. They are so good at the psychological manipulation, and I see peer-pressure as only a part of it. Among the posts that were lost was a discussion (at least one) about how much of th
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Haha! One of the first things I did when I decided to leave das org was to get rid of all the books and publications. My life smelled so much better after that!
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Would it be stalk-ery to reach out to nichijew, hitch and a few others as well, via private messages? I've thought about it, but then again thought that if they wanted to stay connected here, they would have done so.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

But think of the good causes those destitute students were making by spending their food money on sgi crap! Sgi doesn't give a rat's patoot about whether someone can afford their junk, including their loathsome publications. Sgi actually cut its own throat a bit a couple of years ago when they combined the WT and LB subscriptions and made e-versions available; the combined subscripti
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I came across this while puttering around on the internet this morning. It's a very interesting read, and seems to consolidate a lot of the ideas that have been presented on this thread, along with a couple of new ones. BTW, now this is what I call a wall of text! Maybe four walls and a ceiling . . .
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Can I just keep copying dvd's until I need glasses? Sorry ... that just made me think about a joke that was popular when I was younger about a boy whose mother caught him, um, taking liberties with himself and told him he'd go blind if he didn't stop ... Watchtower, to the best of my knowledge, actions that would get you banned would be being nasty to one of the members here or
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

If a little is good, isn't a lot better? I don't think there's a saturation point on that kind of mind-programming, and I'm quite sure that there's nothing das org wouldn't stoop to in order to keep control. All for the members' good, of course, gotta keep up that gung-ho spirit. Hind-sight is always 20/20, isn't it? If only I'd had the foresight to
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Rothaus, do you know that to be a fact? The reason I ask is that I posed a speculation, and you stated what sounds like a fact based on documentation that you're aware of. People can certainly make a pretty educated guess on the level of crazy in sgi just by spending some time on youtube, so it isn't like seeing one of the dvd's is going to give anyone a worse opinion.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I had no idea that the handing-it-over-to-the-youth was such aged claim! That puts in a completely different perspective. That makes me think about the "rock the era" (a more appropriate title would be "rook the era") efforts. We've often mentioned here and on reddit that there were good times. Obviously, I'm a little long in the tooth to have participated, but I
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

The only thing that makes me wonder if suck-u jr. is going to inherit the earth is that, to my recollection, he has never been front and center during any of the videos we were subjected to during krg meetings. I am really bad at id-ing any of those schmoes (other than senseless and his lovely wife), but it seems that the usual emcee was someone not related to him. Once again, I come from an Amer
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

You go to the heart of the matter there. While the org teaches more and more surrender and dependence to itself, when questioned it points to teachings that contradict their true actions and say, "no . . . look! See this is what we believe! Self-responsibility! Self-reliance!" The distance between the reality and how they perceive themselves produces a chasm of dissonance. When you'
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

One of the fundamentals of Buddhism is that all beings have Buddha-nature, and perhaps that is simply the essence of who we are. One of the leaders (one that actually came up with some pretty good guidance from time to time) once told me that if you allow someone to treat you badly in any way, it's not just you but your Buddha-nature that is being demeaned as well. She continued by saying th
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

That is the big reason why, even with lost postings and all of the other BS this site has been through over the past few months, we need to keep posting anyway. Despite sometimes having the cajones to do the right thing, like leaving das org under the circumstance I did, if I hadn't found the wisdom and stories here for validation (because, yes - I do need validation from time to time),
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Corboy - " I think I had the episodes to keep me from accessing the full dimensions of my rage when right at the scene of this abuse. I didnt have the courage to stand there and yell at them as they deserved. So it was a way to muzzle myself." I don't think it's a matter of having the courage at all. It's a matter of not having access to/knowledge of the emotional t
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

"Puss-filled sore" - exactly. I remember asking one of the local leaders about sucka-spirit - at the point, I was still a "good member," and I just wanted some clarity on how the hostility directed towards the temple aligned with Buddhism. She swelled up like a blowfish and said "there is no hostility! How can you even say that? We chant for them to practice properly!&
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Thanks for all of that back-story! Having joined in 2006, I missed all of that fun and, of course, it's never spoken of. I guess if you can't rewrite history, you just have to ignore it. I did hear generic anti-Williams whispers a couple of years ago, but since I didn't really have any idea who he was, they were of little significance. Typical sgi tactics, though, to wipe its arse
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families