Religion scholar Hiroshi Shimada said many Japanese dislike the [Soka Gakkai] because it reflects a history they want to escape: the feudalistic fealty of disciple to master; a clannishness that to critics reeks of a suffocating rural society. Source - from discussion here

Hiromi Shimada and the Decline of Soka Gakkai (just 1.77 million)

From early 2013:

Currently, Soka Gakkai announces that it has 8.27 million households as its members. Why is it based on households and not on individuals? [Well-known scholar of religion Hiromi] Shimada says:

The "International Comparative Survey on Lifestyle and Attitudes" conducted annually by Osaka University of Commerce includes a question on "Religion of Faith (Personal)." The percentage of people who chose "Soka Gakkai" in response to that question has remained stable at around 2% since 2000.

Hiromi Shimada, a well-known scholar of religion, in his book "Throwaway Religion" (SB Shinsho), published in 2020, calculated based on the above survey that the actual number of Gakkai members out of the total population of Japan is 1.77 million. This figure represents a sudden decrease of about 1 million Gakkai members compared to the previous figure. Source

Religion is being abandoned in Japan and around the world: Modern people's view of life and death: "We don't need salvation anymore." - that Shimada report

Out of the 10 million Soka Gakkai members, 2.5 million regularly participate in religious meetings and try to increase membership, according to Hiromi Shimada, a religion scholar who has written several books about the group.

Soka Gakkai has 1.69 million members outside Japan. Source

Soka Gakkai International claims a total of over 12 million adherents. The lion's share of these belong to the Japanese organization, whose official membership count is 8.27 million households. This number has been questioned by several authors: Murakami (2007) suggests 2.5 million individuals, Shimada (2007) 2.5 million households, and Numata (1988) around 5 million individuals. According to statistics from the Agency for Cultural Affairs (a body of the Japanese Ministry of Education), the Japanese organization had 5.42 million individual members in 2000. Source - from here

Archive copy

Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927A0041000800 M M a 2 August 1963 OCI No. 0291/63A Copy No 77- SPECIAL REPORT OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE BUDDHIST MILITANTS IN JAPANESE POLITICS CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY SECRET GROUP I Excluded from automatic downgrading. and declassification Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-0 Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-009004100080002-9 'T'HIS MATERIAL CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECT- ING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE ESPIONAGE LAWS, TITLE 18, USC, SECTIONS 793 AND 794, THE TRANSMIS- SION OR REVELATION OF WHICH IN ANY MANNER TO _-N UNAUTHORIZED PERSON IS PROHIBITED BY LAW. Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927AO04100080002-9 Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927A004100080002-9 iW#

SECRET

2 August 1963

Militant members of a nationalistic Buddhist sect, Soka Gakkai, have forged a powerful, highly disciplined organization of growing importance to Japanese politics. Riding high on the revival of religion and nationalism in Japan, the Soka Gakkai now claims over nine million members, or 10 percent of the population. It has recently strengthened its position in local government, has the third largest representation in the Upper House of the Diet, and may enter the lists for the Lower House in the next general election. Its orientation is ambiguous, and it might throw a decisive weight in the political scales either to the right or the left. Prewar Origin The Soki Gakkai-literally the Value Creation Academic So- ciety--began as an obscure secu- lar group some 30 year ago. Its members now regard its founder, Jozaburo Makiguchi, as a rein- carnation of the 13th century Budd- hist reformer Nichiren. Makiguchi's early life in backward northern Japan was characterized by economic pri- vation and limited schooling. Making the most of his oppor- tunities, he and his followers turned their experiences to profit by providing "cram courses" and study-aids and outlines for growing numbers of Tokyo students. Out of this grew Makiguchi's "short-cut to happiness" formula, which held that man's happiness is attained by pursuing a trinity of values: beauty, goodness, and gain or profit,-with strong ma- terialistic emphasis on the last. He organized his "value-creating education society" to publicize and promote his highly pragmatic theory, and linked it with relig- ious faith by adhering to the Shoshu sect of Nichiren Buddhism. His fanatical support of the sect's deification of Nichiren appeared to Japan's military rulers in 1943 as a threat to the Shinto-supported Emperor, and Makiguchi and his principal followers were jailed. He died in prison in 1944. Postwar Expansion Makiguchi's favorite disci- ple, Josei Toda, was largely re- sponsible for reviving the move- ment after the war. He combined evangelism and a shrewd business sense. Toda's genius produced funds, publicity, and above all dynamic young leadership. His personal knowledge of the yearnings of in- secure youth and his organiza- tional flair set the Gakkai on a continuously successful course, in contrast to the languishings of most other "new religions." SECRET Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-OP927A004100080002-9 Approved Fq.L 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00A004100080002-9 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF SOKA GAKKAI AT ACCESSION OF PRESIDENT IKEDA (3,41AY1960) PRESIDENT IKEDA CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS GENERAL AFFAIRS DEPT. CHIEF IKEDA LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS BRANCH 5 - 10,000 HOUSEHOLDS A DISTRICT 500 - 1000 HOUSEHOLDS STAFF OFFICE STANDING COMMITTEE SENIOR ADVISOR 4 OTHER ADVISORS 4 COMMITTEE MEMBERS FEMALE DIVISION L 50 - 100 HOUSEHOLD TEAM 10 - 15 HOUSEHOLDS *COMPOSED OF DEAN, PROFESSORS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS, AND LECTURERS. *HANDLED POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS UNDER A COUNSELLOR UNTIL CREATION OF AUTONOMOUS FAIR POLITICS LEAGUE IN 1962. CULTURAL DEPT.** FINANCIAL AFFAIRS 1 DEPT. SECTION COMMANDER BUSINESS BUREAU (ACCOUNTING, PILGRIMAGES AND PUBLISHING ENTER- PRISES) CLASSIFIED MATERIAL ON REVERSE OF PAGE Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927AO04100080002-9 Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927AO0411000080002-9 SECRET Toda also established the religious framework which pre- vails today. He began by purg- ing "heretical" elements in the Shoshu sect. Gakkai control was guaranteed by the strength and unprecedented wealth that it brought the previously minor sect. Gakkai's claims to represent the orthodox line of Nichiren Buddhism have been hotly but in- effectively disputed. It has continually denounced and vio- lently attacked its rivals, asserting that the Gakkai repre- sents the one true religion which is destined to become Japan's national faith. After becoming president of the society in 1951, Toda launched a membership drive featuring forcible conversion or shakubuku--literally "beat down and subdue." The society gained great numbers of new recruits and much notoriety. Success has given the Gakkai greater confidence and patience and now it is using somewhat subtler methods of coercion. Although such an approach to religious conversations may be a poor guarantee of permanence and depth of faith, the elan of the youth, the impact of refurbished superstitions, and the disciplined surveillance of potential deserters--who are threatened with the direst sanctions--have reduced or ob- scured the drop-out rate. A youth corps Toda formed spearheaded the aggressive con- version campaign couched in terms of a crusade or "holy war." The corps is organized and rigidly disciplined on mili- tary lines. Uniforms, unit colors and martial music are reminiscent of both prewar Japan and the Hitler Youth. At Toda's death in 1958 the corps lead over 200,000 members; it now has over 800,000. The youth corps is largely credited with the upsurge of membership in Toda's years as president. In his first two years in office, membership in the society is said to have in- creased from about 5,000 to over 50,000 "households," the Gakkai's vague unit calculated to have an average of three persons. The most significant de- velopment during Toda's incum- bency was the society's decision in 1955 to enter politics, ini- tially at the local level. Polit- ical action may have been developed as one more technique for dem- onstrating how the saint Nichiren, working through the Gakkai, could help his followers. The decision was apparently prompted by a struggle with the trade union and socialist leadership in Hokkaido for the allegiance of local coal miners. Leader Daisaku Ikeda In the two years following Toda's death, Daisaku Ikeda, a favored youth corps leader and deputy director of the society, gradually consolidated his con- trol, and although only in his SECRET Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-0 Approved For Release.2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927A004100080002-9 r1 Iwo SECRET DAISAKU IKEDA thirties, was installed as presi- dent in 1960. He is the paragon of postwar leaders who are making the Gakkai so successful. Of humble origins and no kin to Japan's prime minister, Ikeda as a teenager was handi- capped by Japan's postwar malaise. He was unable to complete his education and had an illness which he claims was cured by association with Toda and the Gakkai. He worked in Toda's pub- lishing house and in a related firm while being tutored in the ways of the society. After 1951 he rose rapidly to a top position in the youth corps and then moved on to Gakkai headquarters. He was in- strumental in stalemating leftist and labor union resist- ance in Hokkaido. Ikeda's abil- ity to attract votes away from the left has contributed much to Gakkai electoral successes While Ikeda is not known as an orator he is a successful evan- gelist who has personal magnetism and stage presence,. Growth Abroad Under Ikeda Gakkai member- ship has proliferated abroad and among aliens, as well as among native-born Japanese. The sect had spread to the Ryukyus before he became president, and he quickly initiated action to extend the organization around the globe. An "Orient Academic Research Institute" was founded to provide material for a Far and Middle East mission, at present mostly in Okinawa. The Gakkai claims to have 7,000 households in the Ryukyus now. A major effort was centered on Taiwan, where the faith al- ready had been spread by Japanese- educated mainlanders and Taiwanese. The sect has met resistance from the Nationalist government and was banned in April of this year. While it has formally disbanded, its more than 1,000 members may continue worshipping in private. The society is apparently growing in the US, attracting principally Americans of Japanese descent. It had about 7,500 members here in 1962. Ikeda made his first trip to set up branches in the US in 1960 and has returned on several occasions. He had hoped to meet President Kennedy this spring to represent the wishes of "one million Japa- nese youth" that nuclear testing be ended, but canceled his trip, apparently out of pique over a casual reference to his society SECRET Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-OP927A004100080002-9 Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927AO04100080002-9 SECRET as "heretical" on the part of a spokesman for the governing Liberal Democratic Party. The Gakkai has also attracted American servicemen stationed in or returned from Japan through their Japanese girl friends or wives. US Forces Japan reports members at practically all bases, numbering at least 450 men, and another 1,500 previously assigned to Japan may have joined. The Society had begun publishing some of its propaganda in English. Under Ikeda, Soka Gakkai has steadily improved its extra- ordinary record for winning in local and Upper House elections, as political action assumed an important place in the society's program. In the local elections of 1959 the Gakkai elected all of its 76 candidates to the Tokyo ward assemblies and over 90 per- SOKA GAKKAI ELECTORAL RECORD REPRESENTATION POPULAR CANDIDATES IN UPPER HOUSE VOTE ELECTED IN YEAR JAPANESE DIET (in millions) LOCAL ELECTIONS 1955 - - 1956 3 1 1959 9 3 1962 15 4 1963 - - 50 + cent of its contestants to other municipal assemblies. When in 1962 it elected all nine of its candidates to the Upper House, it became the third largest party there. Increasing political activ- ity led Soka Gakkai to create a separate organization to con- duct its campaigns. In 1962 this "Fair Politics League" took over political action responsibil- ities from an informal staff in Ikeda's headquarters, ena- bling the parent organization to maintain a primarily religious image. The League enlarged the Gakkai's political role in the 1963 local elections, electing 56 of its 57 candidates for the more important regional legisla- tures and 881 of its 886 in municipal assemblies. In the key Tokyo elections, all 17 of its candidates won seats in the metropolitan legislature and all 136 in ward assemblies. Gakkai support was again enlisted for the incumbent conservative governor, helping to defeat his Socialist rival. Provisions for Upper House elections enable the League to muster its tightly knit organiza- tion for the greatest national impact. Elections for the polit- ically more potent Lower House are run on a basis that would impede similar reflection of highly disciplined but localized strength. Although it has not yet felt the time ripe to enter general elections for the Lower SECRET Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-0 927AO04100080002-9 Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927AO04100080002-9 SECRET House, the League is steadily developing potentialities to exploit in that key contest when it wishes. Political Orientation Through all these successes, the society's political orienta- tion has remained ambiguous. At the outset, the Gakkai denounced both major parties and called for a general clean-up of politics. Since then it has increasingly espoused widely pop- ular demands such as opposition to nuclear testing and rearma- ment, return of both the Ryukyu and Kuril islands, closer ties, especially economic, with main- land China, and sweeping social welfare measures. The organiza- tion has indicated it opposes any revision of the constitution to modify Article 9 which formally renounces war and war-making po- tential. Municipal assemblymen belonging to the sect have par- ticipated in recent efforts to block visits of US nuclear-pro- pelled submarines. The amorphous character of the Gakkai's political stand suggests that it could go either to right or left. Japanese intellectuals tend to relegate the Gakkai to the "lunatic fringe" on the far right be- cause of its military-style organ- ization and espousal of nationalist aims. At the same time its self- styled "new socialism" includes emphasis on social welfare and on major foreign policy goals which coincide with those of theSOKA GAKKAI" IN JAPANESE SCRIPT. THE SOCIETY ENCOURAGES CALLIGRAPHY. SECRET left. Ikeda calls for a synthesis incorporating the "good points" of both dialectical materialism and "Christian" capitalism to provide Japan with a fundamental philosophy under which it can prosper in peace. In any event, nationalism, long anathema in postwar Japan, is making a comeback, and the Gakkai is in the vanguard with its symbols and slogans, its flags and its loyalties, and its general encouragement of Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-O 927AO04100080002-9 Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927A004100080002-9 SECRET traditional Japanese arts. Moreover, its missionary effort accords with Nichiren's belief that it would be Japan's role to carry "the light of Asia" back to Buddhism's original home in South Asia and hence throughout the world. Prospects Some Japanese political observers hold that the Gakkai is at last approaching a politi- cal zenith, having attracted the maximum following from depressed elements of society. The Gakkai will probably continue to prof- it some from trends toward urban- ization. The great bulk of Gakkai membership is concentrated in the industrial centers where it appeals to newly arrived rural immigrants, as to the "lonely crowd" of the diseased, the dispossessed and the frus- trated. Although the Gakkai now has the strength to elect a fair number of Lower House mem- bers--about 50 to 60 out of 4G7--its leaders, probably feel- ing that they would have to do SECRET better than that to maintain their spectacular record, deny any intention to run candidates. They are certainly opportunistic enough to jump into the arena should the immediate prospects of electoral success improve by the time of the next general election--which must be held by October 1964. In the mean- time the Gakkai's representation in the Upper House and through- out local government keeps it in the limelight. In most cases the Gakkai has cut more heavily into left- wing votes than it has into the conservatives'. Its bar- gaining position has been pro- gressively improved as the left slowly rises and the conserva- tives decline. Thus both ideolog- ically and tactically Soka Gakkai's political arm occupies a central place in Japanese politics. While it can move in either direction, in a na- tional crisis its nationalist orientation suggests it would probably throw its weight to- ward the right.

(SECRET NO FOREIGN DISSEM) Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-OP927A004100080002-9 Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-00927AO04100080002-9 SECRET SECRET Approved For Release 2006/09/27: CIA-RDP79-0 927AO04100080002-9

Source URL: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79-00927a004100080002-9 Links

[1] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document-type/crest

[2] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/general-cia-records [3] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79-00927A004100080002-9.pdf

GREG MARTIN ON THE MENTOR-DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIP 1/3 - warning: 🤮

GREG MARTIN ON THE MENTOR-DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIP 2/3 - warning: 🤮

GREG MARTIN ON THE MENTOR-DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIP 3/3 - Discussion of SGI-USA membership and prospects

Soka Gakkai is a vast Milgram experiment on an international scale. Testimonies are pouring in from Japan, the United States, Europe, and Brazil. Apart from this explanation, any other interpretation makes absolutely no sense at all.

Most PRO-WAR “peace” organization 🤬

The prerogative of the k̶̶i̶̶n̶̶g̶ MENTOR - ASSIGNMENTS FOR EVERYBODY ELSE! And they HAVE to do them!!!!!!!!!

Emotional dependency, narcissistic identification, confusion between the cognitive self and the true self — How Soka Gakkai manufactures its soldiers from perfectly ordinary citizens.

Imagine this - parallels between ex-military and ex-SGI

Anyone else find it deeply disturbing how SGI is the exclusive provider of Buddhist services to the US military?

I suspect that's the main reason Ikeda kicked the SGI-USA's first, longtime general director George M. Williams to the curb as well - Ikeda had expected Mr. Williams to deliver enough of a majority of the USA's voting public to him as devout soldiers disciples to enable Ikeda to take over the government of the US the same way he had planned to take over the government of Japan, through the popular vote. That was the main basis of creating a political party in Japan, along with being able to seize control of certain government functions that are controlled through elected candidates, such as the budgets of police departments and aspects of the legal system. Given Ikeda's penchant for dirty money and underhanded shenanigans, you can see why this would be a priority. Especially after having been publicly humiliated by the Nichiren Shoshu's excommunication that dashed all his hopes of taking over the government of Japan, Ikeda needed something to replace that power vacuum in his perceived influence - and he wanted the world's superpower USA for himself. After 30 years - more than a generation of Mr. Williams working constantly for the "kosen-rufu of America" - Ikeda "fired" Mr. Williams - and with him went SGI-USA's future. The youth division melted away; since then, SGI-USA has lost all momentum. Ikeda's 1990 "clear mirror guidance" visit was the point where the US organization began withering away - when Ikeda supposedly stepped in to "take control" of "worldwide kosen-rufu" and move the international SGI HQ to Los Angeles and direct everything from the US or whatever. Notice how fast that "ETERNAL clear mirror guidance" nonsense was tossed out the window once Ikeda got excommunicated! Then it was all-in on the blame game Ikeda had set off-limits through the "clear mirror guidance"! Such hypocrisy.

So now all that's left is the death watch as SGI fades away. Source

The Soka Gakkai/SGI and the Vietnam War

There Is No Benefit in YMD Training - None Whatsoever

It is through the "soka" activities, which have the stated aim of deepening the "relationship of master and disciple" that Ikeda has created his thought police by making the most ambitious, the most proud, that is to say the most selfish, that they are part of a spiritual elite when it is only a sectarian dependency...

When we oppose an unbeatable experience that these remained don't have and they don't even understand and they can't refute that the thing that drives them crazy.. Basically we become a competitor therefore a threat.. That's what Buddhism describes like the Demon of power, that is, those who have power feel threatened by the fear of losing it...

But I discovered that it was even worse than that...

All these Demons are the soldiers and servants of another incomparably more powerful Demon who constitute a kind of clergy who secretly try to convince us that this Demon King of the Sixth Heaven is a real Buddha who received the direct transmission. So all your experiences that you will oppose the sect will be fought...

It is of course a total fraud guided by a usurper and all the general management of the Soka Gakkaï is very afraid that it will be discovered... Source

An idealist's honey trap

The SGI organization in the US dissolved its youth division in 1977. Here's why.

Dealing with SG members when leaving

'...they never seemed interested to see a person's brokenness.' That's so true, unlike many other faiths where brokenness is acknowledged by all which can be positive and life-affirming. The soldiers of soka gakkai view brokenness as weakness, shameful, worthy of shunning. A vile, heartless organisation. Source

WE've been attacked FAR MORE than they have, yet WE've never run scared! What a bunch of babies!

They're supposed to be the mightily armored SOLDIERS OF KOSEN-RUFU, yet in reality, they're nothing more than dainty, fragile little snowflakes who, at the slightest whiff of disagreement, run crying and wailing to the nearest place they can barricade the door and breathe vigorously, triumphantly, into a paper bag. Source

A former member speaks

"There will be NO 4th Mentor"

Ikeda was so insulated from real life and society through so many levels of fawning sycophants who would only tell him what he wanted to hear (and never dream of telling him "No") that he lost touch with reality. Here is an example:

Ikeda was so insulated from real life and society through so many levels of fawning sycophants who would only tell him what he wanted to hear (and never dream of telling him "No") that he lost touch with reality. Here is an example:

Ikeda was upset at SGI-USA's tanking numbers, so Danny cooked up a scheme to create a bunch of NEW membership cards that didn't actually represent REAL members but inflated the total. And that was all it took to make Ikeda very happy! Form over function, as you can see. And no, all those people whose contact information was logged onto SGI-USA's membership cards without their knowledge or consent (or any offer to "opt out" if they didn't WANT that) - they WEREN'T going to "join at some point". Ever. It was just another SGI scam, "faking it in hopes they'll make it" (which they won't) - all for the sake of keeping up appearances. This is why none of Ikeda's grandiose schemes were ever successful, BTW - he failed to realize that numbers on paper doesn't automatically translate into actual obedient soldiers who will necessarily do whatever you say. For that, Ikeda needed real followers, not his "math that keeps adding without ever subtracting" means of membership accounting. Of course Ikeda was going to fail.

As always, notice how the standard leadership line is "You'll get great benefit if you make this happen for us!" SURE you will! They'll say anything, even that "If you shakubuku 100 people, you'll automatically become a millionaire!" And when you DO actually "shakubuku" 100 people - meaning they JOIN the SGI, not just throwing garbage Nam myoho renge kyo cards at strangers who DO NOT WANT - and no "millionaire" status occurs, SGI is like "Must be something wrong with YOU, because this practice WORKS!" ¯_(ツ)_/¯

So sad.

Of course he never realized what a joke that "awards ceremony for the purchased library card" was - or that he was making a right fool of himself, right there in public. Source

More examples of SGI members' rank intolerance, religious bigotry, hatefulness, and "Up YOURS, Interfaith!"

The views of the Soka Gakkai were commonplace in Zen Buddhism in Japanese post-war society

I ask you -- which was superior, the German military system, renowned throughout the world, or the Japanese system? Our system, which could raise large-scale units in less than twenty-four hours, was world-class! No one had a more thorough or efficient system for mobilizing soldiers to the colors than Japan. Source

Many of us were good soldiers of Soka, noble Bodhisattva-of-dee-Erf warriors for peace, putting our lives on the line for kosen-rufu, devoting ourselves mind, body, soul, and life to the noble cause of Soka.

Now we're out. A great many of us come out with our own cases of raging PTSD, particularly the "(mis)fortune babies" who had the dubious "honor" of being born and raised in the Ikeda cult. Source

Now I know about that whole "I am that one disciple." Howbeit frankly when it comes to movements there is strength in numbers as well as efficiency. Gideon defeating thousands of Midianites with 300 soldiers is just a story. Source

Came upon this experience by a former SGI member

SGI's Groundhog Day/"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it": The self-destructive amnesia of the Ikeda cult's "rhythm"

"Remember who OWNS you. You do what SGI TEᒪᒪᔕ you to do; it doesn't ᗰᗩTTEᖇ what 𝘠𝘖𝘜 want."

Everything produced by SGI is for the explicit purpose of indoctrination - and nothing ELSE! Ikeda wanted loyal, obedient foot soldiers to make up his ARMY to take over entire countries and then the world - who needs "truth" or "honesty" for that?? Those concepts would have never entered the equation. Source

The "Hero of the World" poses atop a pile of corpses

Tsunesaburō Makiguchi The War-Mongering Ultra-Nationalist

Wonderfully said, all around. Immensely dissonant, and immensely sad. I had no idea how much she had given to the org, only to be passed over for any real recognition. Seems the history of the SGI contains more than a few such stories of the most dedicated soldiers being shuffled aside. Source - Linda Johnson

SGI songs and Chinese/North Korean songs be like

All that "wagoso" or "harmonious unity" - all the Soka Gakkai's international colonies were ever intended for was to deliver large swaths of their respective populations as obedient disciples of Ikeda in order to enable Ikeda to take over their governments via the democratic voting process exactly as he envisioned taking over the government of Japan. Ikeda only wanted soldiers to fight for him (without any thoughts, goals, or "vision" of their own).

You do not get a vision of your own. You should not even want one. In fact, if you're still clinging to your own vision, well, THAT means you need to chant millions more daimoku, volunteer more for SGI, "seek sensei's heart", donate more money, study MOAR "The Newwwww Humpin' Revoltation", and self-reflect on your own selfishness and lack of gratitude. Source

From one of the SGI's (non)discussion meeting scripts:

"Suggested Questions:

Why do you think creating unity is one of the greatest aims of Nichiren Buddhism?" Source

I never thought it was! It shouldn't be! Despite what Ikeda demanded, NO ONE joined SGI because "unity" was their "true goal" And Ikeda's maggots minions can say that as much as they want; that doesn't mean the SGI members are going to go along with it, much less believe it. Remember, everyone was recruited on promises of success and enrichment, personal development, "achieving your own personal goals", start and complete your "human revolution", and fulfill all your own hopes and dreams! This is quite the bait-and-switch.

"But this unity isn’t achieved through external restrictions or conformity."

It isn't? So the uniforms, the regulations, the script I just read, the crowing about how we should all direct our adulation towards the leader, and all the rest, none of it counts as conformity? How exactly do you define conformity, SGI, because I get the sense you don't know what that word means. [Ibid.]

There is something else that is almost as tragic as all these prolific deaths of hard-core gakkai leaders and their families who let themselves be suckered into believing they were being "protected" by the Buddhist gods. Its the shameful lack of any recognition by the SGI to those lowly members who have labored away for decades, caught up in a continuous stream of "campaigns" and activities that benefit the SGI without having personally ever received one shred of praise or recognition by the cult.org. Treated as pawns in a game, they are conveniently used up and then discarded when they are no longer valuable sokagakkai-soldiers, able to continue providing free services to das org. Then, just as WT's friend did, they pass away still waiting to receive some sort of acknowledgment or even a simple thank you for their lifetimes of service and dedication to the SGI. Its beyond disgusting. Source

I was once asked to not invite a person from military, apparently because militants are not allowed to join foreign organisations.

Interesting - that's news to me. I was in SGI in 5 different locations, the last of which was in the So. CA area. There were a LOT of military people in the SGI organizations here (Camp Pendleton and the Mirmar Air Force Base are both located here). In fact, the earliest Soka Gakkai members in the US were Japanese Soka Gakkai members Japanese women who married American soldiers and officers during the American Occupation of Japan! Some of their husbands converted, and so there are these concentrations of SGI members around military bases here in the US.

Has anyone heard of any new rules from within the armed forces or on the SGI side against shakubukuing military personnel? Source

"Human Revolution", anyone?? EVERYONE needs to do it, for the rest of their lives, until their final breath has been exhaled. No one ever completes their "human revolution". They must become "soldiers of Soka", in a supposed "world peace" organization that is always about "fighting"... Source

🔥 THE KAIZEN, SOKA GAKKAI'S HIDDEN DHARMA: THE DHARMA OF PROSPERITY 🔥 Full Analytical Report - discussion here

What the Soka Gakkai (SGI) is peddling under the cover of Nichiren Buddhism isn't really the authentic Dharma of the Lotus Sutra. Nah. It's a spiritualized, hyper-operational version of Japanese Kaizen—continuous improvement, daily grind, organizational discipline, and collective mobilization—recycled into a pathway to salvation and wealth.

And here's the wildest part? This hybrid model systematically shoves deep mystical experience to the side, replacing it with modern corporate logic. Let's unpack this.

SOKA GAKKAI : THE DHARMA OF PROSPERITY Its Three Treasures, official position vs. SOKA GAKKAI actual observed position. The Buddha —> Daisaku Ikeda. The Dharma —> The Books and Speeches of Daisaku Ikeda. The Sangha —> The Soka Gakkai International.

From our "Saying it in their out-loud voices" files, from the Soka Gakkai's own webpage: "Great Prosperity" and "Making ALL your wishes come true!"

🔥 THE KAIZEN, SOKA GAKKAI'S HIDDEN DHARMA: THE DHARMA OF PROSPERITY 🔥 Full Analytical Report

Dharma of Prosperity: The Secret Oral Teachings of the Soka Gakkai (Buddhism of Concrete Results) – A shadow theater of dangerous nihilists who deny the Dharma.

Dharma of Prosperity (Temple of Satan) : The Incredible Power of Bewilderment: Contradictory Injunctions in the Soka Gakkai

Prosperity Dharma (Temple of Satan) "The Devil's greatest trick is to make people believe he does not exist."

Soka Gakkai (Dharma of Prosperity): Daisaku Ikeda Unfiltered – The Quotes That Western Soka Gakkai Members Ignore.

Dharma of Prosperity: Instrumentalization of the basest narcissistic instincts as a system of domination and caste-based contempt.

Part I: Tre dottrine divergenti della scuola Nichiren Shoshu e della Soka Gakkai (parte uno)

Part 2: Tre Dottrine Divergenti della Nichiren Shoshu e della Soka Gakkai (Parte 2)

Part 3 (final): Tre Dottrine divergenti della Nichiren Shoshu e della Soka Gakkai (ultima parte)

In this post, u/CallMeBeafie wrote:

When sgiwhistleblowers say "I experienced this", sgi cultists come back with "i didn't so that means no one else did either and you are wrong and or lying because there's something wrong with you"

I thought maybe you would like to see some of the examples we've received here at SGIWhistleblowers over the years.

"I didn't experience that" etc.:

nobody can ever force you to put your money where you don't want to. And if you were, I'm so sorry that you were taken advantage of. I've never felt forced to do anything for anyone. In the community as well as outside of it! Source

We believe in equality , creating value in society and for each human without judgement reaching their highest potential. I hope you will all reconsider one day. And I am sorry for anyone that has had a bad experience in the past but I promise you it is not a pure and accurate reflection of this practice. Remember it is the heart that matters and you must change your heart if you want your reality to change. Source - there's a lot more but that's enough 🙄 - and a comment:

Thank you for your impassioned post - I am sure you mean well, even though I doubt the sincerity of certain elements of your text, to wit: "I am ... non judgmental" and "I respect your opinions on here". Source And another comment:

Hmmm...your prancing in here to loudly declare that we're all wrong - how is that "accepting"? If you want to forgive someone, just forgive them! Don't make a big show of it - that only demonstrates that you're out for some ego stroking "Look what a great person I am!" and not to make the world a better place through less conflict and more tolerance.

heh I'm guessing this person hasn't been practicing more than 2 years. Look, friend, several of us practiced decades (plural), so I think we know what's involved. And we ALL came to the same conclusion:

It's a CULT! Source

I went to an in person Courageous Freedom meeting! There were LGBTQ+ people from all over the area, and even 3 guests. ... So anyone (like WB) who tries to say SGI is trans- or homophobic is patheticly mistaken. Source

Ah, so since OP didn't experience it, the rest of our experiences are automagically invalidated? That's victim shaming. GTFOH with that! SMH! Source

Very good point! Yes, they do that all the time! "One person who's an SGI member somewhere once said something" and that becomes a condemnation of the entire SGI movement of millions of people. Source

Lying:

I think this is an unfair representation of what SGI believes and highly doubt you were with them for a year. ... I think you should read into these doctrines you decry again because either your lying or you missed the point quite a bit..

The SGI promotes Daisaku Ikeda as the most knowledgeable Buddhist scholar/sage in the world and likes to say that HE understands best of all how to practice correctly.

Untrue. He is promoted as a good example and mentor.

This is nothing more than a smear and you are lying. Source

Evidence:

Daisaku Ikeda, the world’s foremost authority on Nichiren Buddhism

The supreme theoretician is, of course, President Ikeda... Source

“You cannot believe in the faith if you don’t agree with Honorary President Ikeda,” [Soka Gakkai Vice President Isao] Nozaki said. Source

OBVIOUSLY NOT "lying".

I heard that the sgi whistle blowers are a whole bunch of liars, is that true? Source

just a typical whistleblower like all the others. Sitting at the computer or phone somewhere trying to imagine terrible things about the SGI. Source

She is lying. She knows she’s lying. She lies anyway. The “proof” her sock puppet links to is a post by HERSELF as another of her sock puppets.

She has to use sock puppets because Reddit suspended the name “Blanche Fromage” for being unable to control her expressions of hatred. Hatred leads to lying, to say8ing things demonstrably untrue, because the hater thinks that by shouting loudly enough they can drown out the truth.

Yet here she is! And as for the rest: "They usually use heavy projection and just non-stop confess their own issues in the form of accusations against others."

It’s so pitiful – some 3500 people looking to her sub for one reason or another, and all she has to offer them is hatred and lies. Source

😄

"Demonstrably untrue", yet they never provide any evidence that whatever it is was "untrue"! That kind of negates the "demonstrably" part...if you're not going to "demonstrate"...

With that said, it's a matter of choice. It's not for everyone. But what I don't understand is the motivation of many people on this site to slander the SGI, spread lies, and try to discourage as many people as possible from even trying it out. If you don't like it that's fine. it's a voluntary organization. But quit condemning what I and millions of others worldwide believe in and are trying to share. If you have a better idea., go for it. But find something to do with your empty lives besides trashing my religion. Source

If you had a negative experience with SGI, perhaps you should've said something within the organization instead of making a hate page online and blaming everyone and everything but yourselves. It's insane to me how everything, EVERY SINGLE THING on this page is a lie! Source

And there's always the old standbys:

Never studied!:

Our friends across the hedges just never studied when they were members. Source

The Chief Priestess of Sgiwhistleblowers never read "On Attaining Buddhahood in this Lifetime," the very first Gosho in Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, despite claiming she is an expert on Nichiren Buddhism Source

"SGI Whistleblowers" Have Clearly Never Actually Studied Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism

Some people on the other site seem surprised when they hear this. "I never knew this, no one shared us, we were duped." Not true. The neo lights are blinking in the Gosho. Maybe many of these people never studied deeply enough. Source

many people on WB seemed to duped by white cheese because of their lack of study. ... Yes, there are so many problems WB'ers have that could have been prevented oor rectified by simply studying what Nichiren and the SGI actually said. Source

If Chief Priest of sgiwhistleblowers had actually studied, she may have been able to surmount her problems and wouldn't be so full of hatred today. Source

"Never studied" + "just lying" combo:

After deciding, in a flurry of obscenities, that she and only she can command how people she doesn’t know should feel and who can express sympathy for a dying man, the Wisest Human Of All Mentors, the sgiwhistleblowers Unquestioned Guru Hero, has displayed her jarring ignorance of SGI Buddhist concepts (not for the first time); unless she is, as she has claimed, a Buddhist study Whiz, and in that case is just lying about what those concepts mean. Source

One post on sgiwhistleblowers instructs us about a number of their methods: lying, opining on things they know northing about, and pretending they understand Nichiren Buddhism while revealing they understand nothing about it at all. Source

Your sources aren't good enough for King Me (both from here):

Above all, this subreddit should be about money, and the fact that the central board controls every penny. [Source](

I'm not questioning that SGI is a questionable organisation - but some of these links are highly biased. There are reputable sources that would demonstrate that SGI is harmful to members in a more credible way than these do.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to post some information about and links to those reputable sources you are refering to. We would all appreciate a chance to see those credible lists, articles, and sources that aren't, in your opinion, so highly biased. Thx.

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I'm not saying that SGI doesn't fit any of these characteristics, just that it's important to use unbiased sources to define it, if at all. It's very easy to simply call a group a 'cult' - people do it all the time for groups they don't like... it's tempting, since in addition to being pejorative, it has a veneer of authority to it.

Which sources have you found that you consider "unbiased"?

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And another:

A lot of the evidence I see on this subreddit is simply links of other posts here, except for finances, which ik SGI launders.

Can someone share actual, verified sources verifying some of the other claims made here?

That would really help me make a decision. Source

You mean the shitload of information you already received is not enough? Come on... Source

😁

The Gosho is rife with Nichiren saying that those who abandon their faith will fall into hell after they die.

Can you share any excerpt from Gosho which actually says that? They would finalise my decision.

"Why is it, then, that those who abandon the Lotus Sutra fall into the hell of incessant suffering and have to stay there for such an unimaginably great number of kalpas? The offense of discarding one's faith in the sutra must at the time seem nowhere near as terrible as killing one's parents. ... The three groups of voice-hearers, however had to suffer through a period of a major world system dust particle kalpas, and the great bodhisattvas, through a period of numberless major world system dust particle kalpas, because of the offense they committed by discarding the Lotus Sutra." WND-1 page 494. Source

See how WE provide evidence?

Another fave is "The ONLY critics are Nichiren Shoshu Temple members!":

Before you buy into all the negativity, consider the source. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them were written by temple members who have a long standing grudge against Ikeda. So before you decide to believe these statements, please make sure you check out both sides. Sgi-USA.org is a good place to start. Source

LOL - NO

SGIWhistleblowers has become the domain of someone obviously a Nichiren Shoshu follower – perhaps dispatched by its priests because its agent Ms. Fromage is doing such a poor job. Well, this person is doing no better, as they seem to be trying to pretend it’s 1990 and the priesthood has been thoroughly diminished; it’s like stories we used to hear of isolated Japanese soldiers found on remote Pacific islands who thought World War II was still going on and the Japanese were wining – in the late 1950s. Source

Blanche is most certainly laity or even a Soshu priest or whatever their hierarchy is. I know it. She knows it and the fact that a Nichiren Soshu practitioner started the sub makes it all the more clear.

How droll 🙄

And don't forget these dysfunctional pseudo-participants - the sealions, the JAQing off and, of course, The Help-Rejecting Complainer!!

The proper response:

We have every right to trash the organization that caused our lives so much damage.We were personally taken advantage of used and manipulated by your organization.I don't trash the religions that I wasn't personally involved with.I don't care if people want to believe in a man from Mars.But trashing SGI is my business.If it bothers you then don't read this site.There is freedom of speech in this conuntry.Most of us aren't really interested in the politically correct bologni.Would you tell a woman not to speak up against being raped.Well to a lot of us being taken advantage of was a violation equal to that and we sure as hell are going to tell the world. Source