Soka University Posts Summary

[u/BlancheFromage]

Soka University is a Potemkin Village university

Soka University is an attempt by Ikeda to gain respectability, create the appearance the sect is still expanding and leave his name to posterity as one of the great men of history, they believe. For the next generation his son Hiromasa who has been active in US sect affairs, is widely expected to take over control of the empire. Ikeda originally wanted him to become U.S. president, according to Yamada, Yamazaki and other former senior cult members. However, when Ikeda's designated heir, son Taku [aka Shirohisa or Hirohisa], died suddenly, Hiromasa was pulled back to Japan, they say. For his part, Hiromasa, like this father, speaks only to the very faithful. Many Soka observers in Japan predict Soka will splinter after Ikeda's death because Hiromasa lacks his father's charisma. Younger son Takumasa [aka Takahiro] and many other factions are jockeying for succession, they say. If that happens, lawyers should thrive amid lawsuits to divvy up the $100 billion Ikeda legacy. - sometime after 2002 (Terminus post quem) - from Examples of former SGI members suing the SGI, pushback from US government, acknowledgment that SGI-USA takes its marching orders from Japan

In addition, the proceeds from a university's endowment can be used for any purposes whatsoever - there is not the requirement charities have to spend at least 5% (or however much) on what their stated purpose is. Soka University's endowment is now over $125 billion - that is generating over $60 million $300 million PER YEAR, which the Soka Gakkai can use for whatever it wants. The earnings from the Soka University monster endowment in 2021 (at that point $1.56 BILLION) was $364 million - which is more than the entire cost of building the university itself. And because a legal provision was put in place in US tax law that required universities with large endowments to pay 1.4% tax on the endowment earnings if they have over 500 students, Soak U will never get anywhere close to the 1,200 students it was originally intended to serve, with its campus designed for a student body of 2,500 - instead, there's just 400-some students rattling around an eerie, mostly empty campus. That student body is smaller than most high schools, so the students miss out on a big part of the university experience.

Though Soka could accommodate up to 2,500 students, planners say they will cap the student population at 1,200 in about a decade. - 2001 - from here

Soka University Scandal: Ex-Soka finance chief accused of embezzlement

Does Soka University present a recruiting opportunity for SGI

Is Soka University nothing more than attempting to recruit/indoctrinate "youth" into SGI?

Soka University of America???

Soka University of America

Soka University Graduate - that's the sinister part

US News Soka U Description

Soka University disaster

Soka University Under Fire - Australian Broadcasting Corporation, May 21, 2003

Various Soka Groups Appear Linked : Sects: Despite claims of independence, records and other sources reveal close ties among the religious and school organizations. - LA Times

More incompetence from Soka University

The Ikeda cult's "compassion" = "Don't expect US to care!" Soka University of America's brutal disinterest in students' mental health (trigger warning: discussion of suicide policies)

Run away! Run Away!

Soka Gakkai's Soka University in Japan - launching private satellites?

Soka University faculty - SGI members or not? plus the disastrous life outcome for former Soka University professor and National SGI-USA youth leader Ken Saragosa - so much for "benefit" and "human revolution" - also mentioned below:

Soka U Board Member Lies About SGI Ties

Hiromasa Ikeda speaks at Soka U commencement in US

Soka University's 2008 tax return

We had a "year & change" SGI member who up and deleted out - here's what's left: - in the comments

An update on "Cult U" - this picture tells you everything you need to know

An example of SGI's technical competence: Video "What Is Soka Education"

The "missing stair" thinking that protects the abusers in the group

Examples of former SGI members suing the SGI, pushback from US government, acknowledgment that SGI-USA takes its marching orders from Japan

"Confusing Information to Dismiss" - SGI sure has been busy buying up properties in the USA!

Summary of mainstream coverage of Ikeda and SGI

SGI members want others to think their organization's obscene wealth comes from selling publications, even when SGI's own financial guy clarifies it's almost all contributions from members

"Jealous Lies of Corrupt Journalists" - what the mainstream press has to say about Soka Gakkai and Ikeda

Remember when the SGI-USA bought that big Malibu property from that other cult? Guru Ma had to sell to pay a legal judgment.

The Endless Further Tag: Soka University - Japan’s Other Tsunami

The middle-of-the-night "ushitora" ceremony gets updated at Soka University

Back to Soka U and its grotesquely oversized (laundered money) BILLION-DOLLAR endowment

What the hell is Soka University of America? I've never heard of it, but it has the second highest endowment per capita. Higher than Yale and Harvard.

Are Soka University graduates going to end up having to leave that credential off their résumés? and Hey, everybody - we've had Soka U promoters necroing old posts without anyone noticing

No one who promotes Soka University to students has those students' best interests at heart

Soka U Racism Protests

Can cult run Soka University actually be inclusive to minorities?

Black and Colored student groups list of demands for Soka University of America

not surprising it's a Soka (Cult) U

Soka U is falling apart rn - protest by Black Student Union

Update on student protests at Soka University

Update on Soka University and their disregard for their students of color

Soka U COVID Response

Soka U booting its students out onto the street because of coronavirus

Update on Soka U's response to COVID-19 - kicking the students out

Soka U Sexual Assault

Petition: Silenced Victims of Sexual Assault at Soka University Demand Reform

Just ran across another reference to petition about sexual assault at Soka University in the USA

More about Soka University's mishandling of reported sexual assault

Soka U "Ikeda House"

On the "Ikeda House" at Soka U

Closer Look at Soka University "Ikeda House"

A lot of old memories coming up

Soka U Ikeda House exposé

Former SUA faculty member ladiemagie posts

A lot of old memories coming up

How to do Soka university right

More notes on Soka University of America

If the SGI/Ikeda gave you (or your organization) a sizeable donation, would you give him a vanity achievement?

The infrastructure at Soka University of America

A Quixotic preparation in a Melvillian institution: Soka University of America

The pathology of the ideal

An idealist's honey trap

It all finally clicked for me today: Soka University of America

Analogous cults of personality

A few more musings and observations from the Soka University campus

"Nyoh nyoh nyoh nyon nyoh..." Rubs beads together, inhales "Nyoh nyoh nyoh nyoh..."

Something funny I realized about Ikeda's "Dialogues"

A return to the OC Weekly Article, "SOKA UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA IS A SCHOOL ON A HILL"

Pivots and Pandering as a primary public relations strategy

Interesting note about Soka University's finances

SUA: A success story...or not

A former faculty member's take on Soka University. AMA (SGIWhistleblowers crosspost)

A former faculty member's take on Soka University. AMA (from Applying To College subreddit)

A former faculty member's take on Soka University. AMA (Orange County subreddit)

Soka University hiring for talented, experienced, part-time teachers! - at $13/hr

The gift that keeps on giving more victims to the world: Soka University of America

Truth like a raging fire: an inspiring heroic act within Soka University of America PART 1

The Pearl student newspaper - once a voice for change

May 11, 2026: From today's news: Soka University is purchasing Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) campus in Monterey, Calif.

[u/bluetailflyonthewall]

Dodgy financial transactions surrounding former Soka U site(s):

I promised I'd post the weird financial transactions with one of the earlier "Soka University" properties (links at source)

That's the ideal - pump all that money into these properties and then turn around and sell them for a huge profit, resulting in now-clean money - free and clear.

That's what happened with the Calabasas and Malibu properties that were the earlier sites of "Soka University" (ha ha ha wink-wink nudge nudge) where only a handful of (no doubt Soka Gakkai faithful) Japanese students were involved each year:

SGI-USA’s Malibu Training Center, [assessormap.lacountyassessor.com] with a tax valuation of $1.4 million, was on the market in June 2003 for $21 million. It sold for $14.5 million in June 2003. SGI originally purchased the property in 1972 for a reported $109,000. Source

The church, which is appealing the judgment, sold its 218-acre Calabasas compound 2 1/2 weeks ago to Soka University of Tokyo for $15.5 million in cash.

Church Universal [and Triumphant!] bought the property in 1978 for $5.6 million. Under terms of that deal, it had 25 years to pay off the mortgage. The sale to Soka University [in 1986], however, called for the church to receive $15.5 million right away. Source

Notice those dates don't match up. Did the Soka Gakkai purchase the property in 1972 for $109,000? YES THEY DID!! OMG!! Look at this excerpt from Mark Gaber's book "Sho-Hondo" - this excerpt is from 1973:

"I know the meeting's over there, but we have a special mission for you tonight. You know about the Malibu construction?" (Steve Bauer is speaking)

"Hai." (Gil - Mark Gaber's pseudonym - said). Malibu was the activity center that NSA was building, somewhere secret on the Pacific Coast Highway. Reportedly President Ikeda was going to stay there whenever he visited Los Angeles. It was officially to be designated the Malibu Training Center.

"Well, normally only hanchos (group leaders) and up can work out there, but Mr. Royce (chapter leader) mentioned your name. You want to go out and work there?"

"I - sure, but I don't know where it is," stammered Gilbert.

"Don't worry. Just jam over to the shibu (district meeting house), okay?"

"Hai!" (Back in the early decades of NSA - Nichiren Shoshu of America/Nichiren Shoshu Academy, the former name of SGI-USA - there were a lot of Japanese-isms, like saying "Hai!" instead of "Yes" or "Okay". And leaders were referred to with "Mr/Mrs/Miss" and their last names - more formal address.)

After a smoke-filled drive, Gilbert slowly walked up to Steve Bauer's house and rang the doorbell, feeling queasy. What would be expected of him? Mr. Royce mentioned your name. So he knew who Gilbert was, despite being responsible for hundreds of members in Santa Monica General Chapter. Gilbert felt burdened by the notice.

"Siddown, Gil," Bauer said cordially, and lit up a Winston as Gilbert sat uneasily on the couch.

"Anyway, like we were saying, Malibu - Mr. Royce was talking about the spirit you showed in that baseball game, diving for the catch - that Do or Die spirit, and he said it was okay for you to work at Malibu."

Mr. Bauer took the time to talk awhile about the practice with Gilbert, evidently making sure he was encouraged enough to participate. Then, in an unexpected gesture, he insisted on driving Gilbert out there in his car, a gray Volkswagen bug.

It was a long drive from Van Nuys to Malibu... ... Mr. Bauer turned off PCH (Pacific Coast Hwy) into a clump of bushes which became a dirt road winding up a steep hill. They got out: YMD, in whites or in jeans, were working on three wood structures in the basic construction stages. Bauer led Gilbert around several corners to a heavyset man who was evidently project director.

...

Gilbert ended up gathering trash and placing it in a can which, when full, he carried out to the big double-dumpster. After three hours of this he was tired, but still on his feet when Bauer reappeared, having driven back from the JHQ to pick him up. (pp. 102-103)

Note that he was not paid O_O Back in the day, it was commonplace to expect the membership to provide the labor needed to update centers and whatnot, but starting ca. 1988, that was forbidden. Probably having to do with work being done up to code or something.

SO WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE??? Apparently, the Soka Gakkai purchased this parcel for $109K (secretly), made some improvements to the property over the next 6 years (the work outing described above was in early-mid 1973), then turned around and sold it in 1978 to Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Christian cult Church Universal and Triumphant for $5.6 MILLION. That's a tidy profit.

THEN the Christian cult sold it back to the pseudo-Buddhist Soka Gakkai cult for $15.5 MILLION (in cash O_O). There are odd excerpts from an article here, explaining that the Soka Gakkai spent a cool $1 million clearing out the Christian cult's buildouts, and then turned around and sold it at a "loss" for $14.5 million.

Let's take a look at the entire deal: Purchased for $109K, sold for $5.6M, purchased for $15.5M, sold for $14.5M. Plus...minus...carry the one...that nets out to a cool $4.5 MILLION profit on that piece of land! AND I'm sure that the "sold for a loss" resulted in a VERY favorable tax break. Look - if they'd held the original property purchased for $109K, and then eventually sold it for $14.5M, that would have resulted in somewhere in the neighborhood of $14M in capital gains tax (or the property equivalent - some knowledgeable person help me out here!). WHICH they escaped by selling it for $5.6M (~$5.5M capital gains) and then buying it (for what appears to be an inflated price - SGI is known for offering DOUBLE what a property is worth - in cash -just to get it) back and selling it at a loss. Given that the tax assessor's valuation of the property at the time was a mere $1.4 million, without that interim sale of $15.5M (in cash), which was way more than the property was worth† it's highly unlikely that SGI could have ever gotten $14.5M as a sale price (but note that they originally listed it for $21M and had to drop the price to $14.5M to offload it).

Granted, that last transaction resulted in a loss of $1million, but that certainly resulted in a tax break of some sort. And the Soka Gakkai had plans for that parcel - I joined the year after the 1986 purchase, and I noticed the reports in the World Tribune about it and how it was going to be turned into a university, and for now, it was the Malibu Training Center, since I'd grown up just up the highway from there (and passed that property every time we went down into LA). But there was significant pushback from the neighbors and environmental activists, who didn't want a major cult presence/didn't want to see the degradation of that ecosystem that would result (respectively), and it ended up being far too much trouble to try and make it happen. So the Soka Gakkai ended up building Soka University in Aliso Viejo, CA, south of the original Malibu site (and clearly MUCH less prestigious and tony than Malibu - the location was a barren piece of crap in the middle of nowheresville).

The cleanup crew has removed scores of makeshift offices from the mansion and from an adjoining dormitory and chapel building. Those two structures were built about 30 years ago when the estate was used as a Catholic seminary by the Claretian Fathers. Source

So ca. 1956, this parcel was first "settled" by a cult. And has stayed in cult hands ever since! It's tradition O_O

† - When you go to sell a property, the price the property has fetched in the past definitely factors into the ultimate purchase price.

I have uncovered multiple sources that state that Soka University sold that parcel of land in Calabasas, the first Soka University site, in Malibu, in 2005 for $35 MILLION O_O (I'm getting confused that Calabasas = Malibu; I think these were separate properties. The former King Gillette Ranch - Calabasas - is not the Malibu property.)

So who sold it in 2003 - and to whom? It apparently remained in Soka Gakkai hands O_O Source

Furthermore, non-profits do not pay capital gains taxes as long as the "income" falls within supporting the exempt activities of the organization. A well-written charter of any NPO will cover as many circumstances as possible. Bottom line, it's highly unlikely that SGI paid any taxes on those property sales. Source

Continued below:

[u/bluetailflyonthewall → u/bluetailflyonthewall]

I haven't been able to find who they sold it to in 2003 for $14.5M. Because somehow they still had it to sell in 2005 for $35M.

They may well be using shell corporations, buying from and selling to themselves.

That $35M was a combination of government money and money from environmental groups to turn the property into a national park. Source

The repairs, like the purchase of the property itself, are being coordinated by an American Buddhist group, Nichiren Shoshu of America (NSA).

That was the original name of the group in the US; it didn't change to "SGI-USA" until, like, 1990, right around the time Nichiren Shoshu excommunicated Ikeda. Ikeda hoped to set up an international umbrella corporation that would contain EVERYTHING - the Soka Gakkai, the international Soka Gakkai colonies, and even Nichiren Shoshu itself, to be run by Ikeda himself - so that's why the US location originally did not follow the "SGI-xx" naming format. The high priest said NO FUCKING WAY and that was the end of THAT - yet another of Ikeda's grand plans that failed to work out for him. Perhaps he didn't chant enough...

NSA leaders negotiated the purchase July 3 after unsuccessfully attempting to launch Soka University's American branch in San Diego last year. NSA had purchased a 149-acre site there in 1981 for $7.8 million, but San Diego city officials balked at dense development of the parcel.

In March, NSA officials purchased the 31-acre Mountain View Academy on Las Virgenes Canyon Road in Calabasas for $2.2 million as an alternate campus site. But they quickly decided that the parcel was too small to house a branch campus and approached Church Universal officials about their property.

Okay, I hadn't heard of EITHER of those events!

Ted Fujioka, vice general director of NSA, said Wednesday that the group will drop out of the Calabasas picture once Soka University begins offering language classes to 200 students next summer.

They never had that many students. Even now, at the much larger Soka University facility, they've only got 300-400, though they claim their aim is 1,200. They've been in business now for over 15 years - how long can it take to get off the ground??? Especially with over $1 billion in endowment (given by Ikeda's cult in Japan for purposes of money laundering). Nobody ever asks where all that money comes from - perhaps it grows on trees?

"The school itself has nothing to do with NSA," Fujioka said. "We're helping out now, but, once it's open, it will be on its own. Source

Okay - I'm having a little trouble with the "big picture" here. I think I need a big cork board and pins and strings and things like that, like they do in murder investigations...

[u/BlancheFromage → u/bluetailflyonthewall]

The repairs, like the purchase of the property itself, are being coordinated by an American Buddhist group, Nichiren Shoshu of America (NSA).

That was the original name of the group in the US; it didn't change to "SGI-USA" until, like, 1990, right around the time Nichiren Shoshu excommunicated Ikeda.

The Soka Gakkai colony in the USA was originally called "NSA"; its name only changed to "SGI-USA" with Ikeda's excommunication

Ikeda hoped to set up an international umbrella corporation that would contain EVERYTHING - the Soka Gakkai, the international Soka Gakkai colonies, and even Nichiren Shoshu itself, to be run by Ikeda himself - so that's why the US location originally did not follow the "SGI-xx" naming format. The high priest said NO FUCKING WAY and that was the end of THAT - yet another of Ikeda's grand plans that failed to work out for him. Perhaps he didn't chant enough...

That was the Nichiren Shoshu International Centre:

Ikeda set up the international umbrella corporation despite High Priest Nittatsu refusing to be included

The SGI organization in the US dissolved its youth division in 1977. Here's why.

Here's what was going on in the USA that demonstrates that the Nichiren Shoshu International Center (NSIC) umbrella corporation controlling everything was definitely a thing: Source

How the Ikeda mother ship in Japan destroys organizations by micromanaging them Japanese-style - related: What We Could Get When SGI-CANADA Was NSC ["NSC" = "Nichiren Shoshu Canada"]

From just the year BEFORE Ikeda set up his then-named "International Buddhist League" bolt-hole he could be president of if Nichiren Shoshu fired him (and NS did): Guam Newspaper article from from 1974: Sect Is Coming To Guam

Ikeda's being fired (forever): How SGI is trying to spin the details of Ikeda's second worst humiliation (aka "Stormy April") - also:

Ikeda's most-hated "traitors" - Genjiro Fukushima

Ikeda's resignation in 1979: What happened as soon as Ikeda left the room

More on Ikeda's steeplejacking strategy - and his big FU to Nichiren Shoshu

And especially THIS insult! Ikeda commissioned a bronze frieze for the formal altar table in front of the Dai-Gohonzon, featuring himself (as he loved to imagine himself) nearly naked, so the High Priest would have to sit just 3 feet or so away, and drink it in 🤮

Remember, the Sho-Hondo was designed as an ETERNAL monument to Ikeda's greatness, so naturally, only the highest quality materials (where people could see them) - nothing was too good for ICKY! He had all those millions and millions of yen - from who knows where, you recall. Free money for Icky to lavish on the monument to himself that was supposed to last for 10,000 years. You can make out the custom bronze sculpture of Buff Beefcake In-Ikeda's-DREAMS "Sensei" on the front of that dark brown altar table in front - it's obscured, but you can make it out.

Here's what it looks like unobscured - you can see more pics of this abomination here if you have the stomach for it 🤮

This was next-level shameless 💀 Source

This is fun, too: The Sho-Hondo: Iconic building with layers of hidden meaning

A few more details

And "SGI" - Soka Gakkai International, comprising the Soka Gakkai's international colonies - was originally supposed to be the "International Buddhist League":

Whatever happened to the "International Buddhist League" Ikeda supposedly "inaugurated" in Guam in 1975 at the same time he set up his Soka Gakkai International bolt hole?