WHY are SGI-USA members so much more likely to be into woo?
I know of 3 or 4 SGI members who are into Reiki (or at least were while they were still in the SGI). I know of one "certified" Rolfer SGI member (she's at least certifiable). Yet after almost 12 years in the real world outside the SGI organization and its Ikeda orbit, I have not met a single person who is into any of these things!
Here's a report from the 1960s from Japan:
This is from James Allen Dator's 1969 book, "Soka Gakkai: Builders of the Third Civilization", which is a study of the Soka Gakkai based on interviews and statistics. Here's the rest of the passage, about the low-class "bar girl" Soka Gakkai members who haunted American military bases to profit off the GIs (and maybe even marry them):
The personal lives of these women were very unstable. Generally they had only a middle-school education or less. They came from low-income and broken families, and many had been married and divorced several times. Many had had abortions or illegitimate children; often they were prostitutes or were living with American servicemen. A high percentage were members of the Soka Gakkai.
Since the Soka Gakkai had its best success recruiting the dregs of society, this comes as no surprise that such women were Gakkai members.
They told us that they had tried one thing after another in an effort to find something that would alleviate their miseries and worries. Even after joining the Soka Gakkai, they continued to try other remedies. Their overwhelming interest in the Soka Gakkai was that it would cure them of their various illnesses and anxieties.
There are plenty of testimonies that chanting cures all one's problems, but I'm sure you've seen, as I have, that plenty of SGI members are not just dabbling, but deep into woo, despite the whole adamant "never mix practices" attitude of the SGI. I knew members, devout members, who were nonetheless into Rolfing. Reiki. Astrology! You name it, if it's woo, they're adding that to their supposedly all-providing practice. Source
At the same time, SGI leaders and members will tell anyone who will listen that the Gohonzon will provide absolutely anything and everything a person could possibly need to attain "a diamond-like state of indestructible happiness"!
Add this to the extremely firm Nichiren doctrine that people are NOT to mix practices, as this is "like mixing dung with one's rice":
So the next step is to point out to the seeking member the dangers of "mixing practices". Remember, early on, the new members were told this wasn't a problem - they could be Jewish, they could be Christian, they could be Muslim, no problem. But NOW the reality of SGI's intolerance starts coming out, once the member is sufficiently indoctrinated to see "seeking guidance from a senior leader" as a plausible approach to problem-solving.
Here's step 2: The SGI senior leader will probably draw forth a passage from the Gosho such as THIS one:
Again, although we may have a certain amount of faith, we may encounter evil influences and find our faith weakening. Then we will deliberately abandon our faith, or, even though we maintain our faith for a day, we will set it aside for a month. In such cases, we are like vessels that let the water leak out.
Or we may be the kind of practitioners of the Lotus Sutra whose mouths are reciting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo one moment, but Namu-Amida-butsu [the chant of the Nembutsu sect that Nichiren started out as a priest in and whose practice he copied for his "new" sect] the next. This is like mixing filth with one’s rice, or putting sand or pebbles in it. This is what the Lotus Sutra is warning against when it says, “Desiring only to accept and embrace the sutra of the great vehicle and not accepting a single verse of the other sutras.”
The learned authorities in the world today suppose that there is no harm in mixing extraneous practices with the practice of the Lotus Sutra, and I, Nichiren, was once of that opinion myself. But the passage from the sutra [that I have just quoted] does not permit such a view. - Nichiren, Letter to Akimoto
So who's enough of an authority to trump NICHIREN HIMSELF?? IKEDA??
Certainly not 2nd President Toda!
Toda made it clear how he and the members of Soka Gakkai felt about matters of faith. "I must tell you," he said, "that we are thoroughly prejudiced in favor of our religion. We have to fight all other religions. And for this reason, we are likely to go on making enemies. We deny all other religions." Source
Interfaith SHMINTERFAITH!
Posted Oct 30, 2018, 2:31 AM UTC