STAP, just a suggestion, but maybe contact one of the leaders and say that you never got your membership card back despite your request to HQ to recover all of your personal information? Of course, HQ would've never let them know, but you don't need to acknowledge that you know that. That would avoid implicating your friend. You probably should send the follow up to your original reques
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

STAP, if you know for a fact that they are keeping your membership card then that's a place to start. I don't know if you ever set up an account on their website, but if you did see if it will let you on; if it does, then they still have personal info on you. I don't know if they still have my card; I suppose the best way to find out is to simply contact a leader (I always go th
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

STAP, I went online and looked at PA legislation on use and possession of personal information; to paraphrase, it said that that maintaining personal information, obtained in ANY manner (which I interpreted as meaning even if you handed it over to them) without authorization (which I further interpreted as "once I've told you not to use it any more") is illegal. Even if your card i
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Those letters are great, but you still have to check. I followed up with sgi maybe six weeks after tendering my resignation since they still had me subscribed to Weird Tribune and Living BS-ism. I threatened them with claiming misuse of private information (under PA statute) and they snapped to it quickly enough, even refunding the "unused" portion of my subscription payment. Few things
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

That whole Ghandi/King thing was one of those issues that made me really look harder at my involvement with this psycho org. I turned 10 in 1961, so I was at an age to start being conscious of the world outside of lil ol' me at about the time King was becoming an active social force. I remember the hatred that was directed towards him (MD, and particular Baltimore, were ever southern-minded)
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I wish we could put together a handbook of all the documented evidence that absolutely blows the whole nichiren/sgi bullshitography out of the water. I would be happy to stalk the parking garage in downtown Philly on the first Sunday of every month and put them under windshield wipers. My former WD leader in Las Cruces and I have kept in touch since I moved from the area in 09; originally it
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

It looks like the dating function on the posts has gone a little skewiff . . . I got so confused! It feels like it's been ages since I've read any posts or posted anything myself (probably only a week or two), so much good stuff posted in my absence. I keep going back to Corboy's commuting analogy - what a long drive it is between the reality that sgi would have us buy into
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Private language is something else to set cult members aside as special - they have their very own esoteric tongue. One friend (who no longer speaks to me) was constantly inserting Japanese phrases into her conversations . . . I always found it annoying and pretentious. I appreciate that some ideas can be more concisely conveyed in another language (elegantly translate "schmuck" in less
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Corboy, I've always found your comments to be so insightful - doubly so, since your exposure hasn't come by being directly immersed in one of these swamps. One of the advantages I have in maintaining a friendship with a long-term member is that I can constantly hear the contradictions between what she thinks she believes and what she really believes. Despite her incessant babbling ab
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I wanted to thank everyone who's going back and recovering some of the lost info.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

STaP, I think that's really dependent upon where you practice. I've never practiced anywhere where kids were welcomed; in ABQ, they even had a room set aside for younger kids to play during krg and they were supervised by high-school or jr school aged kids. Depending on the population of the community, they have activities for Future Members, ESD, jr high-high school; the age ranges go
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

In all fairness, sexual predators are everywhere and will typically jockey themselves into a position where they can meet the maximum number of potential victims; it's only surprising that this is the first incident of such abuse that I've heard of. Like any org looking to protect itself, sgi has probably hushed up any number of occurrences. I doubt if there's any organization wher
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Fortunately, X's daughter actually is making friends outside of sgi; when she was living at home, while she wasn't actively discouraged from doing that, she just didn't have time to outside of school. She moved from Washington state to Hawaii, so her lifestyle is radically different - much more open and free. Paula Poundstone had an interesting anecdote about returning to a bad
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

X's daughter is actually working full time and going to school part time. As I reminded my friend in my email to her, her daughter is living her life in the independent and responsible way that her parents had raised her to; she's in her early 20's, though. People that age are inevitably going to make goofy choices, poor selections in who they're hanging with . . . it's a
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Of course I was doing everything I could (from a practical standpoint) to change jobs and get those new tires, but when you're in the throes of confirmation bias, you can only attribute that "good fortune" to chanting. That whole "making the impossible possible" thing always had those unspoken limitations that made me smirk - I did hear about one woman who chanted for
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I was in very difficult financial times when my friend finally brought me over to the dark side by giving me the old "if you chant for two weeks and things don't change, I'll drop my practice of 36 years." The things I was encouraged, specifically, to chant for were new tires for my car and a happier job situation. Within those first two weeks, I had a windfall which allowed
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Corboy - you made me laugh! Cuelo del Muerte, indeed . . . that reminded me of a very old, very bad movie in which Divine (of John Waters fame) made her debut, called "Lust in the Dust." Bad taste at it's finest. Culero is one of my favorite words that I picked up Las Cruces/El Paso, and I used in the sense of arse-hole. A friend (and former sgi-member) told me a story about one
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

I 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 just did what I thought was right for the other members. Screw the organization; I don't think I ever would've done something for that at the expense of a member's well-being. Years ago, I dated a guy who was a member of NKT (now at least they
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Bad poetry aside, the epitome of his self-aggrandizement was putting himself as an equal to King and Gandhi. This Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of King's "I had a dream" speech - a reminder that while Senseless talks a good game about working for world peace, human equality and all of the other buzz-phrases that got a lot of us in the door, he never did more than that . . . tal
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Yup, I know all about Middleway Press - that was where my comment/facetious question was coming from. It's kind of impossible to be a member for any length of time or have gone to krg more than once or twice to not notice the publisher's brand on everything. That drivel he spews couldn't get published anywhere else, and I'd venture to say that other than the shite poetry, he&#
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Senseless really is self-published after all, though, isn't he? I can't see any legitimate publishers being anxious to publish his drivel. Once again, I thought it was just me not getting the mentor/disciple relationship that gave me such contempt for his writing. Or, like STaP, I was thinking that it had to sound better in Japanese. I'm glad to realize that the reason for my lack
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

It am what it am; obviously somebody screwed up. It sucks rocks, if everything can be retrieved (The Anticult has some good ideas) that's great . . . let's cross our fingers! If it can't, that's too bad, but it's not the end of the world - no use crying over spilled content.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

It is a shame that so much valuable information has been lost, but it is what it is. I'm just glad everything is back up and running - I thought my computer was verklempt. I never did get to the part where Tsukimoto's dog received that award; I had no idea that Oxford had canine obedience courses ;-) ! Strangely, everything at the new job is great, even without chanting. I haven'
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families