Word: sects
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...assortment of religion seekers. Some were first attracted to Oriental thought by an exposure to Zen; others have worked their way through a number of religions without finding spiritual satisfaction. The most notable seeker to date is a onetime Mormon elder who tried 30 different religions before joining the sect. Negroes who join the movement claim to be impressed by the absence of racial prejudice. Whatever their motives for joining, converts generally admire the warmth and zeal of the sect's prayer meetings. "I felt like I wasn't really alone any more," says Linda Chernov...
...cult, the American version of Japan's Soka Gakkai, or "Value Creation Society." An odd blend of militant Buddhism, the power of positive thinking and showbiz uplift, Soka Gakkai in the U.S. has grown from some 30,000 members in 1965 to more than 170,000 today. The sect, which is known in the U.S. as Nichiren Shoshu of America (The True Church of Nichiren), claims to be gaining at least 2,000 converts a month. In the New York general chapter alone, there were 552 converts during October. Moreover, more than 95% of the new converts...
Clean Government. Soka Gakkai was founded in Japan in the early 1930s by an evangelizing Japanese schoolteacher named Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who blended the theology of a militant 13th century Buddhist monk named Nichiren with a philosophy of this-worldly benefit that stressed personal success. The sect now claims a membership of at least 16 million in Japan, and its Clean Government Party is the third largest political group within the Diet. In the U.S., Soka Gakkai at first concentrated on winning converts among Japanese-Americans or G.I.s who had married Japanese girls. About 1967, because the movement had virtually exhausted...
...sect promotes its cause-as it does in Japan-with a revivalist fervor that suggests an Oriental version of Moral Re-Armament. Its Youth Division has a flashy fife-and-drum corps replete with majorettes. Its thrice-weekly newspaper, the World Tribune, is filled with ardent testimonials of what conversion has meant. Every member is expected to help expand the rolls by the practice of shakubuku*-proselytizing -wherever he goes. Those who can afford it are urged to make one of the chartered-jet pilgrimages to the head temple of Taisekiji in Japan, which more than 10,000 members visit...
...time, and the newer ones often concentrate on material wants: a better apartment, a new job, a new car. Members even testify to such minor miracles as praying a traffic cop out of a ticket, or a professor into a passing grade. One San Francisco hippie who joined the sect prayed for-and got -"a pocketful of drugs," then tried for something harder: a girl named Sue. "That week," he disclosed in an English-language monthly published by the sect, "I met five girls named...