I* • 414,4444; Militant reii ip-political Soto Gaidrai gaining power in Japan at terrific.r. rate By LESTER KINSOLVING the international headquarters Toda as president. Mt. Fujiyama, Japan—At the of a ferociously militant reli- Under Ikeda, the organiza- Soot of this historically sacred gio-political organization called tion has: mountain are six unpainted Soka Gakkai ("Value-creating —Created its ,own political concrete three-storied, mod- Academic Society"). In just party, • Komeito, which has ernistic, barracks-like buildings two decades this organization since 1964 won 71 seats in Ja- which look like - has grown from 5,000 to more pan's Parliament (Diet) and is a peni tentiary than 11 million members. presently the third largest par- designed by(. Sake Gakkai is technically a ty in Japan. Frank Lloyds; Buddhist layman's organiza- —Built up a publications em- Wright. tion. But it thoroughly domiz pire including the daily Seikyo Each of these nates its parent religion, a Shimbun, which has a circula- buildings has a / Buddhist sect called Nichiren tion (3.5 Million) which is larg- large y e 1 1 o Shoshu. er than any newspaper in the number. And the Nicheren was a 13th century U.S. (This and other publica- bleak a t m o Buddhist . priest who fancied tions bring in "about $100 mil- phere of this himself greater than the origi- lion annually, so that only a building corn- nal Buddha, Gautama Siddar- few of our well-to-do members 'pound is further Kinsolving tha; severely denounced exist- are asked to contribute," ac- chilled by the sound of rapid ing Buddhist sects as traitors cording to Tomiya Akiyama, and frenzied chantings which and devils; was exiled after chief of the organization's For- reverberate from within each warning the government that eign Relations Bureau.) of the buildings. "I am the ridgepole of Japan— .Expanded to 11 million "NAM-MYOHO RENG E- to lose me would mean felling members; through the extreme- KYO! NAM-MYOHO RENGE- the pillar of the country," in ly aggressive conversion tech- KYO! . ." spite of rumored power to pre- nique known as Shakabuku Inside each building, 300 to dict the future and to effect ("Break and subdue") in which 400 teen and college-age boys miracles. died at age 60—of potential converts are hounded, in. white shirts and trousers chronic diarrhea.. threatened and brainwashed kneel in front of an altar, roll His following persisted how, in what the Japanese Ministry prayer beads in their hands ever, until in 1946 it was tak- of Justice has described as "a a and shout this chant—at least en over by an appropriately semi-gangster manner. using 3,000 times per day. intolerant thug named Josef military organization." • This chant (meaning "de- Toda. ."We must consider all If Soka Gakkai is ever able, votion to the wondrous law religions our enemy and we thorough its awesome eta! of life: cause and effect") is must destroy them," said nomic power and highly dis- hardly meditative in the tra- Toda, leading the sect's ciplined religio-political struc- ditional sense—although the younger followers into wide- ture, to win a majority of boys are assured that such spread attacks upon other seats in the Diet, the conse- chantings will ensure perfect Buddhist sects, Christian quences to the Orient, as well health and a firm bank ac- churches and many of the as to the world, could be count. To witness the volume, more than 100 new religions great. rapidity and frenzied, self- which have sprung up in Ja- And the organization by no hypnotic delivery in thii pan since the end of World means confines its conversion chanting and to see the coun- War II. objectives to Japan. It points tenances of the young chant- On April 27. 1952, Toda and out that Soka Gakkai among ers, inevitably recalls the ec- 4.000 young Sokas took over the other things "is the fastest static countenances of other principal Nicheren temple at growing religion in America." rge groups of young peopie Fujivama, by assaulting the On March 8, The New York 'o once shouted 4anzaii." Times reported that the num- aged priest Jimon Ogawarara. ber of Soka Gokkei members -t Heil!" or "1) u c ei In the vanguard of thc:;-_,. "11., 11, hist storm troopers was Dia- in the United States amounted buildings are part of to more than 200.000. suke Ikeda. who has s,:ccee-d ;471 C4,ronic!? .