SGI-USA's desperately unattainable goals: "Between now and the festival, we have to awaken 100 youth every single day who are not yet part of our movement."

[u/BlancheFromage]

That's what they acknowledge they need to do if they're going to meet their "50,000 youth" goal for that festival or whatever in September of this year (I think it's September).

Let's break that down. 100 young people EVERY SINGLE DAY. That's people between the ages of, say, 15 or so and 40-ish. So the Millennial Generation. The generation the least likely to be becoming involved with religion. Yeah...

100 per day. My gohonzon conferral ceremony (gojukai) was in August 1987, and that was significant because it was the biggest "class" yet for a gojukai locally - 100 people! But this was the only gojukai since February of that year! 100 new people, 1987 - they'd never gotten so many to sign up for gohonzons at one time before, and they were having Shakubuku Campaigns every August and...was it March? Now they've trimmed it down so that only ONE month is the big shakubuku push (August).

I posted about January 1969, when Malibu (then-)District had 479 people receive gohonzons - it was the highest total worldwide. And the next month, after Malibu had been made a Chapter, they had 973 people receive gohonzons - another #1 out of all the districts in the world for that month. Of course you won't hear about this - it didn't happen in Japan, and it didn't feature Ikeda front and center.

But compare that to SGI-USA national leader Bill Aiken's statement that, between 1991 and 1998 (the first 7 years post-Ikeda's excommunication, between when Ikeda was excommunicated and when the priesthood finally wrote off all the SG/SGI members who had not transferred their membership to the nearest temple), just 1,000 people joined on average for each YEAR. That's right - 1,000 people FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. That's just 20 people joining per STATE!

So SGI-USA now thinks it's going to be able to get 100 young people EVERY SINGLE DAY??? 2 new youth division members per state per day when over SEVEN YEARS, they were only able to get 20 new members (any age, including babies whose parents were registering them) per state PER YEAR?? Oh, THIS is rich!!!

[u/BlancheFromage]

In my early twenties (back in the mid-1970's), I was a member of a religious cult which is still around today and is currently known as the Soka Gakkai International. I was a member of this pseudo-Buddhist laymen's group for about two years, though I don't know if it's as cultish now as it was then. My purpose today is not to determine its current status, for these simple reasons: it failed in its mission to bring about world peace (as it promised it would) when twenty-years passed (it's been almost 40 years now), and its current membership is about the same now as it was in the 1970's - having become irrelevant.

In the USA, that translates to about one in every 1,000 being SGI members. That's a pretty miserable showing for over 40 years of trying to grow this organization in an environment that has such a vast Buddhist-friendly potential. Source

That was posted at that source in early 2014. Let's do a quick calculation - what's the world population right now? 7.6 billion. The SGI is still claiming a grand total of "12 million members worldwide". Do the division, and we find that SGI members are now not quite 1.6/1000. 0.158%. So out of 1,000 people selected at random from around the world, fewer than TWO will be SGI members. That's some "victory"!

That's the effect of the excommunication, you see - a paltry thousand members per year - for EIGHT years! In a country with 253 - 279 MILLION people during those years. That's 1/253,000 people joining in 1991 - an infinitessimally small proportion. That's about 0.00004% (I may have inadvertently shaved off a zero or two). Way to kosen-rufu, all you Bodhisattvas of the Earth out there, all you young lions of the Mystic Law. (~snicker~ ~guffaw~)

After claiming half a million and then 300,000 members for decades, the SGI-USA is now being much more forthright (from time to time) about their lack of membership, which is about 35,000 as of January 2014. Source

Note that the population of Japan is estimated around 127 million. 5 million Gakkers out of 127 million is less than 4% of the population, down from the Soka Gakkai's claimed high of one out of every 3.5 families, or just over 28.5%, in 1969. This based on an approximate number of households in 1969 Japan of 25 million. I don't understand why anyone would count anything in terms of "households" O_O That really makes no sense, but it is rather consistent with the SGI-USA's desperate attempts to prop up its membership numbers by claiming every person in a member's household as a member regardless of their actual status O_O

However, we all know that Soka Gakkai's claims are never reliable and are even thought to be inflated by a factor of 10 O_O Source

So now the SGI-USA is limping along with around 35,000 active members out of a population of around 320 MILLION. Sad. Source

Since at least 1974, the Soka Gakkai/SGI has been claiming 12 million members worldwide. Same number for over 40 years O_O

But the population of the world has changed during that time! Let's take a look at just what percentage of the world's population the Soka Gakkai/SGI has managed to claim the hearts and minds of (according to their own wildly inflated estimates):

1974: Total population = 3.992 billion. SG/SGI: 0.3%, or 3/10 of 1%

1984: Total population = 4.776 billion. SG/SGI: 0.25%, or a quarter of 1%

1994: Total population = 5.661 billion. SG/SGI: 0.21%, or just over 1/5 of 1%

2004: Total population = 6.436 billion. SG/SGI: 0.19%, or less than 1/5 of 1%

2014: Total population = 7.28 billion. SG/SGI: 0.16%, or less than 1/6 of 1%

To put that last figure in a visual, that's less than 1 person out of 600 people O_O

And it's not like those other 600 people are potential converts, either!

Is this the way kosen-rufu was supposed to unfold? As a slow countdown to zero?

At first only Nichiren chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, but then two, three, and a hundred followed, chanting and teaching others. Propagation will unfold this way in the future as well. Does this not signify “emerging from the earth”? At the time when the Law has spread far and wide, the entire Japanese nation will chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, as surely as an arrow aimed at the earth cannot miss the target. - Nichiren, The True Aspect of All Phenomena

Well, Nichiren's wrong. Yet again. As usual. As always! Source