The "auspicious" beginnings of the Soka Gakkai

Testimony of Ms. Tomiko Terada

The following is the personal account of Ms. Tomiko Terada. 
She testified against Daisaku Ikeda May 23, 1984. Her
testimony was published in the Weekly Shincho, July 12, 
1984. Ms. Terada was a senior leader of Soka Gakkai from early
on and witnessed numerous incidents involving Daisaku Ikeda.

 Ms. Terada:

I entered the faith of Nichiren Shoshu in 1953. My mother was
a member of Daijoji Temple. One day when we went to the
temple a person suggested to her and me that we join a group
started by Josei Toda. My mother joined the Gakkai first, then
my family and I joined. In Shikoku Island we were the first group
of Gakkai members. In 1959, I became the women's
division leader of Kochi (city) Chapter. That was exactly one
year before Daisaku Ikeda became president of the Soka
Gakkai. We were crazily doing shakubuku and promoting election
campaigns for members of the L.D.P. (Liberal Democratic
Party). (Ikeda's guidance was that Soka Gakkai and the L.D.P.
would work together for their future.)

Impoverished Members

On average, members of the Gakkai were from the lower
classes of society and didn't have any money to speak of. After
they joined the Gakkai, they were promised material "benefits."
The Gakkai then took advantage of them and tried to sell
them all sorts of things. Of course, multiple copies of the
newspaper were forced on them, but then books such as
"Shakubuku Bible" and "Human Revolution" -- five or ten
copies each!

The Gakkai coerced them to buy more than was reasonable.
Expenditures of five or six hundred dollars were not uncommon.
These were people with no money to begin with. My family
was a little better off as we operated a publishing business so we
could pay for others when they didn't have the money. Members
were reduced to cutting their diet and expenditures in half to
get the money needed for buying all the books and things. It was
truly a case of "one person one candle" at night. But, how
do you think the Gakkai would explain these "fund drives"?
They would say it was for the "Toda Memorial Community
Center" or a "community center for the headquarters." We were
told "President Ikeda was building these by himself and we
had the opportunity to request that we be allowed to make an
offering." I thought these explanations were a bit peculiar.

Jump-in-Shakubuku

Here, I would like to talk a little about the activities of women
in the Gakkai. On average, the women's division chief in each
chapter handles the accounting of money collected. In the
Gakkai, the women do just about everything from shakubuku to
activities. There is one activity called "jump-in shakubuku"
where we suddenly push our way into someone's home and
attempt to convert the person. We often do this to an acquaintance
of someone. The individual is caught off guard and
surprised. We continue to visit the individual for three or four
days. Meanwhile, a member of our group who took off work to
participate ends up getting fired. There are many people like this.
Then, someone from the headquarters comes and tells the
person that "because of her weak faith she got fired," or some
such nonsense.

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