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 its 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 didnt 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 didnt know any better. I knew nothing about Nichirens teachings.

Besides, the members were completely sincere, friendly and knowledgeable. They spoke a language that I wanted to learn doing human revolution and actively closing the gap. They all 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, President 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 dont 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. Ive learned a lot from him about standing up and speaking out. Youd 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 dont 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 couldnt understand why he wasnt 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 didnt 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 seriously 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. Its not as if some leader says: OK, now were going to indoctrinate you with fear and irrational beliefs. 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 cant 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 Nichirens teachings to support the notion that correct practice is dependent upon compliance with or commitment to a particular religious corporation. Its utter nonsenseunless a group of people you trust tells you repeatedly that its absolutely true, and you chant with all your heart to internalize the lesson.

It didnt 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 organizations finances, fibs and noxious fundamentalism. We weren't interested in quitting our practice or joining any other Nichiren group (I'm still not), 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 Im 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 Hassans 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.

Thanks for reading. I'll post another installment in a few days.

XX,
Lisa J.