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II The System of the defendant's Donation Solicitation A. Based on the above findings, the following is concluded concerning the system of the Defendant's donation solicitation: (1) That nationally and in each district in Japan, the goal amount of donations was determined and that donations were solicited so as to achieve that goal; (2) That the methods of missionary work consisted of methods adopted nationally which were similar and which followed the descriptions in the various types of manuals. (3) That missionary work methods consisted of finding out the anxieties of prospective believers, telling them stories of the spiritual world and ill fate which revealed various bad phenomena deriving from the fate of their ancestors; (4) That much importance was placed in learning the financial situation of prospective believers prior to seeking their donations; (5) That acts of solicitation continued without revealing the names or relationships of the Defendant and Sun Sen Moon until just prior to when a donation was made; and (6) That donations were solicited relentlessly. B. The Defendant's teaching of "Ban Butsu Fukki" 1. According to the Defendant's educational material titled "Fukki Setsuri to Ban Butsu" (Providence of Eternal Return and All things under Creation). Theconcept of "Ban Butsu Fukki" means that since human beings have become corrupt and have become inferior beings to all other forms of creation, human beings must return all created things to god. Only by going through all created things, can each human being redeem humanity. Therefore, according to the said material, conceptually, Ban Butsu Fukki is supposed tostrive for the ideology that human beings live, prosper and be righteous together. 2. Assertions of the Defendant Regarding the concrete methods of practice of "Ban Butsu Fukki", in the Defendant's publication "Shinko Seikatsu to Kenkin" (Life of faith and Donations), by following in the footsteps of the prototype founding church, believers are encouraged to posses a spirituality from which they offer all things to god, to live their lives with only the bare necessities which theyreceive from god and to offer everything they have from themselves without any feelings of regret. As to the extent of such offerings, while a biblicalway of thinking indicates "one tenth of one's income" (to be appropriate), the Defendant considers that various standards exist from the traditional standard of making offerings which amount to one tenth of one's income to giving up everything to god and living one's life anew on only those necessities received from god. A specific amount is not specified for Donations as the amount of money given as a donation is considered not absolute and should be given from each person according to his or her personal faith and economic situation. Also, Mr. Nobuo Okamura believes that Ban Butsu Fukki entails serving faith and purity in spirit in order to offer all things to god. In this way,the relationship between the people of god and all things on earth will be restored. He stated that the teaching also prescribes that to express the inner spirit and as a concrete practice, people shall serve whole heartedly when offering donations to god, serve god with all their sincerity, faith and love, and as an expression of that sincerity, give away all things. Mr. EijiTokuya and Mr. Horii made statements similar to the above. 3. However, even if the methods and practice in the teachings of the Defendant's "Ban Butsu Fukki" are as described ideally in above section 2, in the actual scheme of things - as concluded in Section I, it is admitted that believers of the Defendant were made to pursue financial activities such as selling products and collecting money. C. The Relationship between the Defendant and Spiritual Sales Spiritual Sales (the so-called practice of making customers feel mentally insecure and selling to them products such as signature seals and vases at prices ranging from market values to exorbitant costs) have been carried out by believers of the Defendant from - at the latest - the early 1950s. However, in 1987, damages suffered by individuals from such practices became apparent. In July of that year and in March 1988, the Japan Federationof Bar Associations published a report of numerous cases describing such damages in an opinion paper titled "The Situation of and Counter Measures to Damages Resulting from Spiritual Sales." The Defendant conducted spiritual sales vis-a-vis a profit-making corporation run by the believers of the Defendant. However, the Defendant has asserted that it was not involved in any profit-making activities of this sort.Both Mr. Nobuo Okamura and the Defendant received instructions from the Tokyo General Affairs and Administration Guidance Office to guide believers regarding the spiritual sales issue. On 12 March 1987, the Defendant requestedHappy World, Ltd. to restrain itself from consignment sales. In its statement of 1 May of that same year, Happy World said that 1) it issued strict warningsto affiliate business persons to stop sales which were mistaken for spiritual sales at the end of March; 2) Since May 1987, it has ceased to handle certain merchandise such as vases and jeweled icons; and 3) the Ministry of Health andWelfare, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the National Peoples Living Center already reported Happy World's intent to impose self restrictions from that point onward. This statement is in line with the above assertions made by the Defendant. However, as stated in Section I, the methods involved in spiritual sales activities are similar to those employed in the process of soliciting memberships and donations for the Defendant - the issue of this case. Accordingly, when the company of the Defendant's believers stated its intent to and actually did impose restrictions on spiritual sales (as mentioned above),it negated the relationship to the Defendant's spiritual sales and sought to evade outside criticism.
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