Deluded Perceptions of a Former Soka Cult Member

Deluded Perceptions of a Former Soka Member

These hateful rantings were posted on the Internet in March 2004 by someone who betrayed the family of Soka. As you read, you will see how angry and emotional this person is, thus disqualifying her opinion from reasonable consideration. She failed to become happy and blames Soka for her faults. How pitiful.

SGI is a Cult | Nobody Joins a Cult | The SGI Cult BITEs

SGI is a Cult

Authoritarian leadership, deception and destructive mind control are the main ingredients in a cult, and SGI fits the bill. That may strike some as an unkind or unfair assertion, but I plan to back it up with examples and explanation. SGI is a cult.

Am I saying that SGI members are bunch of brainwashed zombies? No, I'm not. If mind control were so cartoonish and obvious, it wouldn't be a problem. Internalized beliefs and phobias aren't usually obvious, yet they nonetheless have an enormous influence on a person's behavior and emotions.

Am I saying that SGI members are horrible, stupid or consciously manipulative people? No, not at all. Some of the most wonderful, smart, sincere people I have ever met are SGI members. It's because of our sincerity and idealism, perhaps,that we uncritically accepted "training" that made us dependent on the SGI, and we faithfully passed this training on to others.

I don't think that most SGI members are deliberately trying to hurt anyone. It's more like we're passing along a virus because we have no clue that we have been "infected."

You'll notice that I'm saying "we." I include myself. I joined SGI almost 14 years ago. I've worked for the SGI as a paid propagandist — as a staff writer for the World Tribune. SGI is on my professional résumé. I've defended the SGI in print. I've tried to explain away charges from friends, family and strangers that SGI is a cult. I've tried to convince myself that SGI might one day change.

But cults like SGI change only in the sense that they become more sophisticated or perhaps more subtle in their workings. They may take Ikeda's photo down from the wall in the Gohonzon room, and stop making members wear white uniforms — they may look less cartoonishly cult-like. But the goal remains the same: to make members believe that they will suffer without the group, and whatever happiness and success they have is attributable to the group, and they owe everything to the group. This is *not* Nichiren Buddhism — this is SGI-ism, and it's precisely what makes SGI a cult.

SGI members proudly state, "I am the SGI," despite the fact that members have no voting rights, no control over the SGI's policies or finances, no grievance procedure for resolving disputes, etc. "I am the SGI" means that SGI members have assumed total personal responsibility for an organization in which they have zero control. So when I criticize the SGI, I know that many SGI members will feel that I am attacking them personally and they will respond with personal attacks on me.

But this isn't about personalities. It's about becoming aware of the methods and content of SGI cult indoctrination.

There are many SGI members who will refuse to read what I have to say. That's fine with me. Many will dismiss my views as "negativity" or "complaining." So it goes. But there are probably a few people who are ready to read this. It took me a long time to get to the place where I could even write it. If what I say resonates with you — if you say, "Yes, exactly! That's true for me!" — then that's cool. If you think I'm full of crap, that's cool too.

For many years I have been a member of a cult. I have contributed my money, time and talent to the perpetuation of a cult. I have been a cult apologist, leading other people into the cult.

No more.

Nobody Joins a Cult

"SGI is a cult? No, certainly not,” I would tell my concerned friends and family members. “Do I seem like the kind of person who would be in a cult?”

No, certainly not, they had to concede. I was fairly smart and educated, fairly well off, and from a loving, stable family. I had a job, a mortgage and friends. "I know it may seem like a cult in some ways,” I would tell people. “But it’s not. Trust me.”

No one had kidnapped me and forced me to join SGI. Rather, I was willingly persuaded. I heard the chanting of the Nichiren Buddhist mantra at a meeting in Los Angeles. I loved the sound and was intrigued by the practice. I wanted to know more about the philosophy. SGI members were quick to inform me that the mantra and practice were under their stewardship, and they alone were charged with the duty of telling all humanity about Buddhism to bring peace to the world. I didn’t really care about proselytizing or world peace. I just wanted to chant.

My new friends told me that there was no true Buddhism outside of SGI. I believed them. I didn’t know any better. I knew nothing about Nichiren’s teachings. Besides, the members were completely sincere, friendly and knowledgeable. They spoke a language that I wanted to learn — “doing human revolution” and “shakubuku.”

SGI members seemed convinced that they had a special mission in life. They were also very hard on themselves, talking about how they needed to overcome their arrogance, or saying that they were too stupid to understand some crucial Buddhist lesson, so they had to “substitute faith for wisdom.” They deferred to the wisdom of their “seniors in faith” as they called their leaders. And they all spoke glowingly of “Sensei,” SGI President Daisaku Ikeda, even though most had never met him.

I liked almost everyone I met in SGI, and still do. I had no reason to doubt what they told me. They were relaying what they had been told by other people who were equally earnest and sincere. I trusted them, just as they had trusted their seniors in faith. So it hurt my feelings when people called SGI a cult, even in jest.

“SGI used to be a cult, maybe, back when members wore uniforms and aggressively recruited people,” I would explain. “But that has all changed. We don’t worship President Ikeda. We learn from him and try to emulate him. Besides, my life has improved since I joined SGI. President Ikeda always talks about freedom and the importance of the individual. I’ve learned a lot from him about standing up and speaking out. You’d never learn that in a cult.”

In SGI, cult allegations are usually dismissed as amusing paranoid fantasies manufactured by people who are jealous of SGI or intolerant of religious plurality, or who “just don’t get it.” I have heard SGI members proudly say that being called a “cultie” by an outsider is a badge of honor, and makes them feel even more committed to the group.

But it really bothered me. My brother and I got into a loud argument about it one time, which really upset me. We deliberately avoided the topic at future family gatherings. Still, I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t more supportive of me. My SGI leaders encouraged me to “chant for him.” As if he was the one who needed to get a clue.

In retrospect, I think I was upset because I was afraid. Not just afraid that my brother might be right and I might be wrong, but afraid of something more fundamental and threatening that I could not articulate. I knew that something felt very wrong, but I didn’t know what or why. I felt I was in danger somehow.

SGI members are programmed to believe (whether we are aware of it or not) that we will suffer if we get crosswise of the SGI or part with it voluntarily. Only cowards, weaklings and corrupters leave the SGI voluntarily, we are told. We are convinced that the correctness of our Buddhist practice is dependent on our SGI affiliation, even if that affiliation is loose or sporadic. Being an absentee member for a few months is fine, but leaving SGI will invite the wrath of all the Buddhist gods and our lives will become nothing but misery.

During my years as an SGI member and as the editor of BuddhaJones.com, I have observed the extreme fear and superstition that SGI members feel toward their own organization. Many write to tell me about some crappy thing that happened to them in the SGI, but they beg me not to publish their letter, or to post it under an assumed name — and some ask me not to tell anyone that they were even reading my web site. They are afraid of being in trouble with SGI, of being shunned, of having misfortune rain down upon them because they dared to displease "the org."

One of the reasons why I say SGI is a cult is because it instills in members this irrational fear that harm will come to them unless they remain members in good standing. It’s not as if some leader says: “OK, now we’re going to indoctrinate you with fear and irrational beliefs.”

Instead, we are indoctrinated with what it means to be a noble soldier of Soka:

...You are the SGI. If you are not happy with SGI, you must work harder to make it better. Leaving the SGI is the same as trying to escape your karma, which can’t be done. The people who quit are deluded traitors. Those who betray the SGI are betraying Nichiren. They will experience retribution. Those who leave come crawling back to SGI begging for forgiveness....

There is nothing in Nichiren’s teachings to support the notion that correct practice is dependent upon compliance with or commitment to a particular religious corporation. It’s utter nonsense…unless a group of people you trust tells you repeatedly that it’s absolutely true, and you chant with all your heart to internalize the lesson.

It didn’t start to dawn on me that SGI is a cult until I tried to leave. I felt overwhelming anxiety and uncertainty. I would talk with friends who were also trying to leave (and a few who had already left) and we would talk for hours at a time. We spent months trying to come up with excuses and explanations for why we should stay in SGI, even knowing what we knew about the organization’s finances, fibs and noxious fundamentalism. We weren't interested in quitting our practice or joining any other Nichiren group, we just wanted to stop giving our tacit approval to SGI.

There are many in SGI who scoff at the notion of mind control. They shrug and say that every religion instills some measure of fear in its practitioners. Even Nichiren had his fire-and-brimstone moments. Yeah, to an extent. But I’m talking about indoctrinating people with a fear that serves to benefit the religious corporation rather than the practitioner -- a fear that is not instructive or helpful, but is destructive and manipulative.

By contrast, I had been a confirmed Catholic for more than ten years before I decided to join SGI, but I never gave the Pope a second thought. I just moved on to a religion that I felt was better for me. Leaving the SGI, on the other hand, was difficult and terrifying. It took me years of chanting, months of talking, and a day of reading Steven Hassan’s books to understand why.

In Combatting Cult Mind Control, Hassan cites an anonymous quote that says it all: “Nobody joins a cult. They just postpone the decision to leave.”

The SGI Cult BITEs

Some may take issue with my using the word “cult” to describe SGI because they see it as unnecessarily pejorative. They’re comfortable saying that SGI has “cult-like aspects,” but calling it a cult is going too far. That's sort of like saying, "It looks like a duck and quacks like a duck but it is not a duck."

Many of these members are the same ones who express dismay about SGI’s seeming refusal to become less cult-like. They don’t understand why SGI’s leaders and members “deliberately” allow the organization to maintain financial secrecy, adulate Daisaku Ikeda and obsessively demonize the priests of Nichiren Shoshu, to name three common complaints. In my opinion, acknowledging that SGI is a cult helps to explain a lot.

Cults characteristically exert control over members’ behavior and the information members receive about the cult, as well as members’ thoughts and emotions. This is referred to as the “BITE” model of cult influence: Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotion.

Until around 1990, SGI leaders made no secret about telling members who to marry. They used to tell gays to chant to be straight. Men were told to shave their beards and mustaches if they wanted to be good members. Members wore uniforms. In other words, behavior was overtly controlled in SGI. But the organization is no longer so obvious in its influence on member behavior.

Members still receive “personal guidance” from leaders and are taught to behave cheerfully, subscribe to the publications, recruit new members and participate in as many SGI activities as possible to “create good fortune.” And, of course, SGI gets people to sit down and chant twice a day. But if this is behavior control, some may argue that it’s ultimately benign because chanting is unquestionably always a good thing. Plus, what’s wrong with being cheerful?

Instead of making members follow strict rules of behavior, SGI influences members’ thoughts and emotions, which in turn influences behavior. For example, many SGI members are afraid to visit a Nichiren Shoshu or Nichiren Shu temple because they have been told that temples are infested with demons and slanderers. This serves to keep members from shopping for an alternative to SGI or discovering first-hand information about other sects. So with just this one phobia, SGI can control both behavior and information.

In cults, there’s a common phenomenon known as “thought stopping,” a learned response to information and ideas that threaten or contradict the group’s teachings.

In SGI, all criticism is dismissed as negativity. The moment we hear criticism, we label it “negativity” or “anger” and immediately discount it and stop listening. If a member cannot maintain a cheerful, grateful attitude toward SGI, that person is having a “karma attack,” an obstacle to their happiness that they must overcome so they can be positive and cheerful once again. One must be positive and cheerful to “get benefits” from chanting — or so goes the conventional SGI wisdom.

Is our training to “put on a happy face” an example of thought stopping? I guess it’s debatable, but that’s how I’ve seen it used: to get members to squelch their own critical faculties.

Alternatively, when someone has a problem with something in SGI, we say: “Chant about it.” Instead of fully discussing criticism and thinking things through, we are advised to chant. Chanting is a wonderful practice, certainly. But when chanting is employed as a “remedy” for free thought and inquiry — or is used to rationalize the group’s deceptions (or make us forget about them for the time being), chanting becomes nothing more than a thought-stopping technique.

The BITEness in SGI is pretty obvious, I think. This is how it goes: You start to chant and you like it. Members, leaders and publications keep telling you that SGI is the only legitimate venue for your Buddhist practice, the best and only sangha sanctioned by Nichiren.

You are "encouraged" to read the SGI publications, which continue to reinforce the group’s messages. (In SGI, "encouragement" and "guidance" are often ephemisms for peer pressure and reinforcement of cult-approved views.) You are discouraged from seeking out "unauthorized” information or putting credence in anything that you read on the Internet. Uncomplimentary views of Daisaku Ikeda and SGI are explained away in advance by telling members that SGI has many enemies who are all jealous of the organization’s vast wealth, success and millions of members.

Members may have persistent questions about doctrine, organizational policy or how to apply Buddhism in daily life. They may find that their questions are not adequately answered. Even so, many do not search for a more fulfilling sangha because they have been conditioned to make excuses for the SGI’s failings. From the very beginning of our membership, it is impressed upon us that we must protect the SGI, preserve the unity of the members above all, and “be the change we wish to see” in the organization. If there is a problem with the SGI, the fault is with the person who recognizes the fault, or with common human failings, or with the “low life-condition” of the group. The organization itself, at its core, is not to blame and should not be scrutinized or criticized.

Even if we allow ourselves to admit that there are fundamental, systemic problems with the SGI, we most likely believe that these problems are remediable. We honestly believe that the SGI’s stated aims are it’s true aims. We assume that everyone is working in good faith toward the same goal of helping people to practice Nichiren Buddhism. The last thing we think is that SGI is a cult and is therefore not playing by the same rules as an open, progressive organization.

Some members say, “So what if it’s a cult? SGI has helped me, given me structure and a sense of purpose. Besides, I don’t care about organizational stuff. I just care about practicing Buddhism correctly.”

This is the most insidious thing about SGI, in my opinion: the organization distorts Nichiren Buddhism to undermine members’ autonomy and increase their dependence on SGI, and promotes this as “correct practice.”

For example, consider the fact that members do not own the SGI-issued Gohonzon enshrined in their homes — "your" Gohonzon is the property of SGI. For a one-time fee, SGI will loan you a Nichikan Gohonzon, the “banner” of SGI. Leaders and members spread rumors that other Gohonzon are “demon infested” or “don’t work.”

Some members think, “Great! We have more unity in SGI because we all embrace the same ‘edition’ of Gohonzon.” Conformity is often praised as unity in SGI. But what’s more insidious is that SGI inserts itself into the most sacred and central aspect of Nichiren Buddhism: the relationship between the practitioner and the Gohonzon.

If SGI owns your Gohonzon, it’s not such a leap to say that they own your practice. And if they own your practice, it’s not such a leap to say that they own a large share of your mind and heart. After all, the Gohonzon is not just a paper scroll, Nichiren teaches, but the very essence of our life itself.

To be a good SGI member, you must have a Gohonzon that is approved by SGI. Leaders may rationalize this as “protecting the members,” but even Gohonzon inscribed by Nichiren himself are not approved by SGI. Perhaps many members are relieved that they do not have to choose from the dozens of Nichiren-inscribed Gohonzon available for free. But my point is that SGI pays lip service to freedom of choice and diversity, yet there is no choice with regard to the most essential and personal aspect of Buddhist practice.

Granted, most SGI members do not believe that the teachings of Nichiren have been manipulated to serve the self-enriching interests of a cult. We have been told for so long that SGI serves all humanity. Serving SGI is wonderful, we are told, because SGI alone is fulfilling the Buddha’s decree. In other words, the group itself perpetuates a belief in the unquestionable greatness of the group.

Most destructive of all, SGI members are indoctrinated to "never give up.” In Buddhism, “never give up” means never give up on your own life and practice, and to be persistent in your quest for liberation for yourself and all living beings. This is a great Buddhist attitude.

But in SGI, “never give up” is often invoked to mean never give up on the organization. No matter if participation in SGI requires you to compromise your personal integrity, never give up. No matter how you have to rationalize and make excuses, never give up. No matter that leaders and members consistently insult or ignore you, never give up. Keep begging, keep pleading for change, keep smiling. Hold on to SGI, no matter how humiliating or intellectually dishonest it may be for you. After all, we are told, Nichiren never gave up.

To me, that’s the poison in SGI’s BITE: convincing members that an abject, cringing dependence on SGI is really something noble, brave and Buddhist. I think Nichiren would be appalled.

SGI is like a cage that members carry inside themselves. To my shame, I spent years helping SGI members build and reinforce this cage. I feel obligated to say unequivocally that this cage may feel safe but it's really no more than a trap.

The good news is that no BITE control is 100 percent effective or 100 percent permanent. There is a way to practice Nichiren Buddhism free from Soka cult programming. The hard part is figuring out for yourself what that means. ...Or, as Buddha might say, work out your own enlightenment.

Still not convinced? Read more.