Participants on the Cult Education Forum are starting to look at SGI's vast, unaccountable wealth. Start here and scroll thru several pages of comments for the full story.
Its pretty much official, SGI is the richest sect/cult on earth. Why doesn't anyone know this?
...SGI globally could be over 100 billion, as has been reported.Just in the USA, SGI are worth well over 1 billion, that is $1,000,000,000.
And they are making much more than 100 million, $100,000,000 every year, in the USA alone!
That is what SGI-USA is about, making money. So please, no one ever again say that SGI-USA is a mess, as they are SMARTER than every other sect out there! They make far far more money than any of them.
BuddhaJones is namechecked in some of the posts, although I think they are referring to a previous incarnation of this site.
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That's a lot of info. Toward the end, they start talking about all the different spin-off groups like the Toda Institute. Check this post:
Yep. Deception and infantilization rolled into one.Charles Atkins has an intriguing post on Fraught With Peril about what he calls Sokanomics:
Check it out.Ah. Sounds like a narcissist's dream come true. Is world domination the goal of the Lotus Sutra? Is political, cultural and economic domination of the globe in any way necessary or advisable in upholding the Lotus Sutra? Certainly not.Brooke, I thought Charles was writing a send up or satire, but it is apparently meant in earnest. His vision accords perfectly with SGI's self-aggrandizing, materialistic propaganda. It is not, however, the dharma of the Lotus Sutra.
Are you sure it's not a joke? This line makes me think he's joking:
That's like saying, "My hope is that as time goes on people will see that what the McDonald's is really about is feeding the hungry, and not about running a multinational corporation for profit and shareholder returns."Like it or not, the SGI is a media savvy, financial powerhouse whose true intentions are not headlines in the World tribune or Seikyo Shinbun. The real goals of the SGI can only be the subject of semi-informed speculation. President Ikeda knows. Even his closest associates and advisors have only parts of the jigsaw puzzle, but rest assured, Mr. Ikeda has a master plan that will be carried out no matter what. If one thinks that Muslim extremists are dedicated to their cause, they would look like apathetic teenages compared with Mr. Ikeda's inner circle and his countless followers. This article was written with a satirical bent using speculation and facts. Wouldn't it be wonderful for the Buddhist community at large and especially the Nichirenites if the SGI wasn't so damn formidable and intent? But they have the eye of the tiger and the resources to do as they will.As a Lotus Sutra purist, a Nichiren devotee, and one who does not see eye-to-eye with the SGI, the brand of Buddhism that they propagte is most troubling to me. I don't believe that they can be stopped, even if we all got together and exposed every misdeed or doctrinal error. So the article was gallows humor and a word of warning to those who might try and take on the bully - watch your back and don't be surprised if the locomotive doesn't hit you head on if you try and get in the way. I don't like it, but that's what we're seemingly faced with.Gakkoren
Sounds like the basis for a good satirical novel, Gakkoren.