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8 yr. ago
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BlancheFromage
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This study dates from the fall of 1962 when a young man and a young woman came to my house on the campus of Rikkyo University in Tokyo, Japan, and asked if they could speak with me. They came into my study and sat together in front of my. Without any explanation of who they were or what they wanted, they directly asked me, in Japanese, "What is the purpose of religion?" My questioners, I soon discovered, were members of the Soka Gakkai, and the purpose of their visit was to effect my conversion to Nichiren Shoshu, the religion of which Soka Gakkai is a lay organization.
How typical O_O
Why they decided to come to me, a foreigner, teaching political science in the College of Law and Politics of a university whose chairman of the board of trustees is the archbishop of the Japanese Episcopal Church (Nippon Seikokai), I never found out, but through my association with them, I was for several months able to attend meetings, engage in discussions with various leaders and ordinary members, and receive considerable printed matter as a potential convert. When it finally became evident that I was not going to convert, they eventually gave up and departed with the words: "That's all right. You don't have to join now, although you will miss many divine benefits and suffer much hardship becase you are resisting. But you will convert sometime. Nichiren Daishonin will win!"
No, he won't, and no, he won't! Is there any lingering doubt about how OBNOXIOUS this sort of "plant the seed" talk is??
Since we've got numerous (appreciated) excerpts from an author sympathetic to the Soka Gakkai (for whatever reason), which will only reflect favorably, if not glowingly, on the cult, I thought it would be a good idea to get some perspective from someone who never found any reason to be Ikeda's little lap dog so sympathetic.
As a result of this experience, for the remaining four of my six years in Japan I engaged in systematic research into the Soka Gakkai. My interests have been primarily sociological and political, not theological or philosophical. I have sought answers to such questions as: What is the social function of the Soka Gakkai? What kinds of people become members of the Soka Gakkai, and why do they join? How are Soka Gakkai members different from persons who are not members? What are the political and social principles, aims, and methods of the Soka Gakkai?
In targeting this guy for conversion (Mr. Williams likewise targeted universities and colleges), they inadvertently awoke a dragon.
In order to answer these questions, I have used five types of research:
Participant observation...accumulated nearly 20 hours of taped recordings of both American and Japanese Soka Gakkai meetings...
2. Analysis of material published by the Soka Gakkai. I have subscribed to, accumulated, and analyzed most major publications of the Soka Gakkai since 1960, and selected materials before that date. These are cited in the Bibliography.
That's gold, Jerry! GOLD!! Look - it's the he-Blanche!!
3, 4, and 5. Blah blah.
So. Let's begin, shall we?
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wisetaiten
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8 yr. ago
Let's start with the obvious:
"That's all right. You don't have to join now, although you will miss many divine benefits and suffer much hardship becase you are resisting. But you will convert sometime. Nichiren Daishonin will win!"
Threatening with woo; oh, you're going to be sorry that you didn't sign up when you had the chance! Like vodun, it only works if you believe in it. Walk under enough ladders and chances are, eventually something will fall on you. They count on you only being conscious of that one, isolated incident. Oh, man . . . I got a speeding ticket only two days after showing those guys the gate! It had nothing to do with me doing 70 mph through a school zone.
And we're talking about winning again. I'm positive that was said with a smug, self-satisfied on their pawky little faces, because that's how you have to say it. Despite the fact that the Buddha himself (remember him?) admonished that winning and losing were futile and only brought misery, one of their first arguments is about somebody winning. And, of course, Nichiren was the biggest winner of all!
Why did they approach this particular individual? In part, he answers his own question - they assumed that since he was a long way from home that he was probably lonely and vulnerable Apparently, he wasn't enough of either.
Eddie Izzard advises us all to never poke a badger with a spoon. Sage wisdom.
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BlancheFromage
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8 yr. ago
And, of course, Nichiren was the biggest winner of all!
That's right! He starved to death in the freezing cold of an unheated mountain shack, wracked by diarrhea. THAT's "enlightenment!"
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BlancheFromage
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8 yr. ago
Why did they approach this particular individual? In part, he answers his own question - they assumed that since he was a long way from home that he was probably lonely and vulnerable Apparently, he wasn't enough of either.
Excellent insight! Also, he was at a university - the Gakkai have always targeted universities because there are so many impressionable young people there, young people with open minds who will be more likely to try something New and Different:
In 1960, Daisaku Ikeda became Soka Gakkai's new president. One of his first official actions was to establish a U.S. branch. Led by the Korean-born Masayasu Sadanaga, that organization would soon be named Nichiren Shoshu of America (NSA).
At first, that group attracted mostly Japanese Americans. In 1967, Sadanaga began an aggressive and successful proselytization effort (shakubuku) that brought in large numbers of non-Asians, especially blacks and Hispanics. Out of this campaign, Nichiren Shoshu of America emerged as a vital new religious movement. In the 1960s and 1970s, NSA grew rapidly, especially among the college-age population, by reaching out to non-Asian Americans through seminars and publications, including two periodicals, the World Tribune (established in 1964) and the NSA Quarterly (established in 1973). As the organization moved into Canada, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, it changed its name to Nichiren Shoshu Academy.
Although the NSA maintained close organizational ties to its mother movement in Japan, it supplanted Soka Gakkai's militant Japanese nationalism with its own brand of American civil religion. Ironically, the NSA was for a time the most aggressively and self-consciously Americanized Buddhist movement in the United States. In 1972, Masayasu Sadanaga took the "American" name of George M. Williams. In his lectures, Williams stressed the common aspirations of American patriots and NSA practitioners. Youth members marched in a fife and drum corps and brass bands, and the organization's "Junior Pioneers" participated in activities akin to those of the Boy Scouts. One NSA convention around the time of the American Bicentennial was organized around the theme "The Spirit of 1776."
We've noted how strenuously cults like to cultivate a "patriotic" image.
Now headquartered in Santa Monica, California, SGI-USA maintains nearly 90 community centers and claims 330,000 members, including celebrity adherents such as the musician Herbie Hancock and the actor Orlando Bloom. Informed sources, however, acknowledge only about 30,000 to 40,000 active members. SGI-USA members no longer proselytize aggressively, and the nationalism of the bicentennial celebrations of 1976 has given way to a more cosmopolitan emphasis on world peace and interreligious dialogue. The Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, a SGI-USA affiliate located near the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is now one of the leading venues in the United States for interreligious dialogue. Source
BTW, "The Boston Research Center for the 21st Century" has now been humbly, modestly, self-effacingly renamed "The Ikeda Center"
That site's sources could have been taken straight out of our "Obedient little lapdogs for Ikeda" thread :D
It says that the material is taken from the "Encyclopedia of American Religious History, Third Edition", which means they went and asked SGI leaders questions and then published their answers. I'm frankly surprised there's even that qualification about the grotesquely inflated membership numbers! But on the PLUS side, they're no longer citing Tina Turner as a member (which she never was).
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u/cultalert avatar
cultalert
•
8 yr. ago
Members of Cult Ikeda are not unlike a bratty child who plays a game but loses. When the immature child, who has been indoctrinated to believe that winning is ALL-important, can't accept having lost - they adamantly insist they have won despite the obvious, and will continue to desperately cling to their delusion of having won. Culties behave in just the same manner.
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u/cultalert avatar
cultalert
•
8 yr. ago
I engaged in systematic research into the Soka Gakkai. My interests have been primarily sociological and political, not theological or philosophical.
This is just the opposite of Lapdog Strand's approach in his book, "Waking the Buddha" . He admits avoiding sociological and political research in favor of theological and philosophical:
I had done the SGI's chanting practice very rigorously for some time in order to understand it more fully, trying to grasp its teachings from within the movement rather than judging them from a safe objective distance as most scholars and journalists chose to do. source
Yep, no "objective" approach for Strand, who seems to poo poo the value of objectivity - one of the most important tools of a true journalist. Its no surprise that he wrote a subjective based book inundated with self-serving SGI indoctrination and glowing praises, effectively rubberstamping the cult.org's central propaganda streams.
Chi Pham
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April 25, 2012
This book is a sociological survey about Soka Gakkai in the 1960s. It is very similar to a Wikipedia article in a sense, just adding all the statistical data and analysis. The book is very impressive, but not enough to make readers dumbfounded.
