So now we come to look at the Soka Gakkai as an organisation. Is it a cult? Excerpts edited for readability from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soka_Gakkai Soka Gakkai is a Japanese lay Nichiren Buddhist movement with, by its own account, 12 million members in 192 countries and territories around the world. As a lay group associated with Nichiren Buddism, the Soka Gakkai reveres the Lotus Sutra and places the chanting of the name of the Sutra at the center of devotional practice, though it occasionally breaks with Nichiren tradition, especially on issues of priesthood. Soka Gakkai has, together with its international offshoot Soka Gakkai International (SGI) been described as the worlds largest Buddhist lay group and Americas most diverse. While the organization has received recognition for its peace activism, it has also been characterized as being quasi-fascist, fascist, militant, overzealous, manipulationist and authoritarian, especially in the first few decades following World War II. Some anticult authors have included the Soka Gakkai on their lists of cults. ... The Soka Gakkai officially traces it foundation to November 1930, when educators Tsunesaburō Makiguchi and his colleague Jōsei Toda published the first volume of Makiguchis magnum opus on educational reform, Sōka Kyōikugaku Taikei (The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy). ... The first general meeting of the organisation, then under the name Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai (Value Creating Educational Society), did not take place until 1937. The group was a hokkeko (lay organization) affiliated with the Nichiren Shoshu, by that time a small and obscure Nichiren Buddhist sect. Makiguchi, who had turned to religion in mid-life, found much in Nichirens teachings that lent support to his educational theories, though it has been argued that the sects doctrines and rituals went against the grain of Makiguchis modernist spirit. From the very first meeting, however, the main activity of the group seems to have been missionary work for Nichiren Shōshū, rather than propagating educational reform. The membership eventually came to change from teachers interested in educational reform to people from all walks of life, drawn by the religious elements of Makiguchis beliefs in Nichiren Buddhism. ... *Repression during the War* The organization soon attracted the attention of the authorities. Makiguchi, as did Nichiren, interpreted the political troubles Japan was experiencing as a result of the propagation of false religious doctrines. ... [In 1943] one zealous Tokyo member told a non-member that his daughter had died as punishment for not converting to Nichiren Shōshū. This prompted a government investigation of the group, which perhaps precipitated the subsequent arrest of its leadership. The government believed that because Soka Gakkai members insulted the religious beliefs of others and destroyed religious implements, the group posed a threat to Japans policy of religious freedom. ... Josei Toda was released from prison in 1945 and immediately set out to rebuild what had been lost during the war. In February 1946, the organization was officially re-established, now under the shortened moniker Sōka Gakkai (lit. Value-creation society). ... In 1951 - the same year that Toda formally assumed presidency. During his acceptance speech, he placed a formidable challenge to the congregated members: to convert 750,000 families before his death. Toda added: If this goal is not realized while I am still alive, do not hold a funeral for me. Simply dump my remains in the bay at Shinagawa. Toda adopted an aggressive and controversial method of proselytizing, based on Nichiren teachings on shakubuku, often translated character for character as break and subdue, sometimes as forced conversion. Shakubuku, essentially, is the more assertive of two different methods of proselytizing traditionally employed by Nichiren adherents, in which the proselytizer aggressively confronts a non-adherent about the falsity of their beliefs. Todas brand of shakubuku was of an unusually aggressive nature and would come to give Soka Gakkai a reputation of militancy. It also resulted in widespread criticism in the popular press and, remarkably, also by other Buddhist sects. A 1955 report tells of a typical shakubuku session. Three or four young members called on the house of a young women for several days in succession, each time warning her that she had one week to join the Gakkai, or some terrible calamity would befall her home. On the last day they threatened to not move until she gave in - at two oclock in the morning, she finally allowed them to sign her name. In eyewitness reports of a similar session in 1964, Gakkai members surrounded a home, yelled and made noise for hours until the residents relented and agreed to join. Threats of divine vengeance and bodily harm were frequent, and a childs illness or death could be attributed to not having already joined the Gakkai. Local leadership would often destroy the household Shinto altars of new members. There was infrequent violence, but also violent actions taken against Soka Gakkai members: ... veteran adherents from the Toda era speak of being driven away from houses by residents who doused them with water and pelted them with stones. ... While shakubuku was a controversial practice, it was certainly successful: during Todas presidency, the Gakkais official ledgers count an increase from 3,000 households to the 750,000 that Toda had demanded at the outset of his presidency - thereby smoothly avoiding the need to meet Todas request that his body should be dumped in Shinagawa bay. While the use of violence and intimidation as a part of the shakubuku in modern times has been dismissed as excessive zeal on the part of uneducated members by the organization itself, the evidence shows that much of it was actually organized by its high-ranking leaders. Whether or not the 750,000 number was strictly true or not, the Gakkais membership had certainly grown. ... In October 1954, Toda made a speech to over 10,000 Gakkai members while mounted on a white horse, proclaiming: We must consider all religions our enemies, and we must destroy them. The Gakkais teachings at this point became more restrictive and lower ranking members were no longer allowed access to more difficult books.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 13:51:55 +0000