Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisarburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan

J apanese

religion / history

Unlike many studies of Japanese religion during this period, Prophet Motive works to dispel the notion that prewar Shinto was monolithically supportive of state initiatives and ideology. It is a highly insightful and accessible contribution to the study of history and religion in modern Japan, new religious movements, anthropology, and visual culture.

PROPHET MOTIVE

In telling the story of Onisaburò and Oomoto, Nancy Stalker not only gives us the first full account in English of the rise of a heterodox movement in imperial Japan but also provides new perspectives on the importance of “charismatic entrepreneurship” in the success of new religions around the world. She makes the case that these religions often respond to global developments and tensions (imperialism, urbanization, consumerism, the diffusion of mass media) in similar ways. They require entrepreneurial marketing and management skills alongside their spiritual authority if their groups are to survive encroachments by the state and achieve national/international stature. Their drive to realize and extend their religious view of the world ideally stems from a “prophet” rather than “profit” motive, but their activity nevertheless relies on success in the modern capitalist, commercial world.

Stalker

From the 1910s to the mid-1930s, the flamboyant and gifted spiritualist Deguchi Onisaburò (1871–1948) transformed his mother-in-law’s small, rural religious following into a massive movement, eclectic in content and international in scope. Through a potent blend of traditional folk beliefs and practices like divination, exorcism, and millenarianism, an ambitious political agenda, and skillful use of new forms of visual and mass media, he attracted millions to Oomoto, his Shintoist new religion. Despite its condemnation as a heterodox sect by state authorities and the mainstream media, Oomoto quickly became the fastest-growing religion in Japan of the time.

PROPHET MOTIVE Deguchi Onisaburo¯, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan

Nancy K. Stalker is assistant professor in the departments of Asian studies and history at the University of Texas at Austin.

Cover art: Deguchi Onisaburò. Photo courtesy of Oomoto headquarters. Cover design by Santos Barbasa Jr.

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

covmech.indd 1

Nancy K. Stalker 11/8/07 3:00:49 PM

Prophet Motive Ü

Prophet Motive

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deguchi onisaburò, oomoto, and the rise of new religions in imperial japan

Nancy K. Stalker

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2008 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 13  12  11  10  09  08     6  5  4  3  2  1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stalker, Nancy K.   Prophet motive : Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the rise of new    religions in Imperial Japan / Nancy K. Stalker.      p.  cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-8248-3172-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)—   ISBN 978-0-8248-3226-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)   1.  Deguchi, Onisaburo, 1871–1948.  2.  Omoto (Religious organization)— History.  3.  Religion and state—Japan.  I.  Title.   BL2222.O6592D43373  2007   299.5’6—dc22                       2007022046

Portions of Chapter 4 appeared earlier in Nancy Stalker, “Art and the New Religions: From Deguchi Onisaburò to the Miho Museum,” Japanese Religions 28, no. 2 (2003). An early version of Chapter 5 entitled “Religious Inter-nationalism in Imperial Japan,” can be found in Asian Futures, Asian Traditions, ed. Edwina Palmer (Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental Publishers, 2005). University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by Paul Herr of the University of Hawai‘i Press Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

For my parents, Lee and Chisako Stalker





Contents



acknowledgements   |  ix



Introduction  |  1

Chapter 1

Deguchi Onisaburò: Early Life to Oomoto Leadership  |  20

Chapter 2

Neo-Nativism: Oomoto Views on Mythology, Governance, and Agrarianism  |  45

Chapter 3

Taishò Spiritualism  |  76

Chapter 4

Exhibitionist Tendencies: Visual Technologies of Proselytization  |  108

Chapter 5

Paradoxical Internationalism? Oomoto in the World  |  142

Chapter 6

A Patriotic Turn and the Second Suppression  |  170



conclusion: State, Religion, and Tradition in Imperial Japan  |  191



notes   |  197



selected bibliography   |  235



index   |  257

vii





Acknowledgements

During the long process of producing this book I have received help and encouragement from countless individuals and institutions. I am indebted to Peter Duus for his guidance and good humor throughout this project. The faculty and graduate students at Stanford University, where I completed my dissertation (upon which this work is based), provided early inspiration and assistance. Jim Ketelaar, Harumi Befu, Jeffrey Mass, Hal Kahn, Ellen Neskar, Gordon Chang, Carl Bielefeldt, and Bernard Faure were all instrumental in guiding my understanding of history and religion in Japan and East Asia. My colleagues in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, especially Susan Napier, Patti Maclachlan, and Martha Selby, have provided invaluable advice and support. At the University of Hawai‘i Press, I am grateful to Patricia Crosby for taking on this project and shepherding it through to completion. Ian Reader and Sarah Thal, who acted as “anonymous” reviewers, provided thoughtful and detailed suggestions for improving the manuscript. A number of other individuals, including Kay Munns, Conrad Totman, John Breen, Judith Snodgrass, Thomas Dubois, Martha Newman, and Mark Metzler provided helpful comments on portions of the manuscript. In Japan, my initial research was facilitated by Inoue Nobutaka of the Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics at Kokugakuin University. Shimazono Susumu generously shared his expertise and encouragement. Yumiyama Tatsuya, Richard Young, Umesao Tadao, and Kamata Tòji provided a variety of research leads and insights into Oomoto and Japanese new religions. Hotta Tomoko and Kushida Kiyomi assisted with interpretation of Japanese materials. Members of the NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions, the Waseda Modern History Workshop, and the

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Acknowledgements

Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien Humanities Study Group provided forums for stimulating intellectual exchange. Sayuri Oyama, Bruce Suttmeier, Dan O’Neill, Rusti Icenogle, and Brent Mori helped sustain me in various ways during research sojourns in Tokyo. I am particularly grateful to the people at Oomoto headquarters in Kameoka; their unfailing generosity made this research possible. They have kindly granted their permission to reproduce the original photographs in this book. Tanaka Masamichi was ever thoughtful and gracious in meeting my requests and arranging my visits. Deguchi Kyòtaro shared his time and warm hospitality and provided many helpful leads. Special thanks to Hazama Hirotomi and the staff at the Oomoto library. I am also grateful to Deguchi Yasuaki of Aizen-en and to Alex Kerr for sharing their personal stories about Oomoto and Onisaburò. Financial support for researching and writing this book has been provided by numerous sources, including the Japan Foundation; the University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Fellowship, Summer Research Assignment and University Co-Operative Society Subvention Grant; Yale University’s Council on East Asian Studies; the Dartmouth Humanities Institute; the Institute for International Studies at Stanford; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. While I wish to share the credit for this project, I bear full responsibility for any factual and interpretive errors.



Introduction

It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference . . .  whether one accept the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.    —william james

The Tsukinamisai ritual of the Japanese new religion Oomoto (the Great Source) is a monthly rite offering the fruits of earth and sea to the gods and providing purification and affirmation of the religious community. To open the ritual, several women in pure white kimonos play a simple tune on their yakumo koto, a two-stringed instrument based on a design used in the courts of the early emperors. The slow, repetitive music creates a hypnotic, otherworldly atmosphere as a large group of men, dressed in the traditional garb of Shinto priests—white kimonos, sky-blue hakama trousers, and small black eboshi hats—enter majestically from the rear of the shrine and arrange themselves in front of the altar. The head priest rises and performs the traditional Shinto ritual of purification (haraishiki) by waving a large wand with paper streamers over the ritual performers and the congregation, cleansing all of impurities so that they are ready to make offerings to the gods (kensen). Next, to the ethereal strains of the music, the lay priests transport tray upon tray of artfully arranged offerings to the altar in a rhythmic ballet, passing the items reverently overhead from hand to hand. The offerings encompass the breathtaking bounty of nature: rice, barley and soybeans, sake, seaweed, salt, and fish, tied up tastefully to suggest they had leapt from the sea onto the offering tables. Dozens of varieties of fruits and vegetables follow, from giant, snow-white daikon radishes to ruby red strawberries, each group of perfect specimens sculpted into careful pyramids. It is a resplendent, moving liturgy, a reminder of humanity’s relationship with and dependence on the gifts of the gods. The presiding priest reads a brief prayer asking Oomoto’s god, Ushitora no Konjin, for blessings and protection. The prayer beseeches the deity to 1

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let us “live free from the harm of evil spirits,” to “brighten our nature as children of God,” and to “cause our families and our posterity to flourish.”1 After the invocation, pine branches, symbolizing construction of a shrine on earth to implement heaven’s will, are offered to the altar by a variety of individuals, including descendants of the founders, leaders of sub-organizations within Oomoto, and special guests such as visiting leaders of other religious groups. Finally, the entire congregation chants long ritual prayers (norito) of gratitude and purification composed by the co-founder, Deguchi Onisaburò (1871–1948), based on his studies of ancient imperial court practices. The Tsukinamisai ritual as practiced today encapsulates a number of features (elaborated below in this introduction) central to Oomoto belief and practice during its rapid popularization from the early 1900s to its suppression by the state in 1935. Deguchi Nao (1837–1918), the pious founder of Oomoto, passed away in 1918, leaving the reins of power in the hands of her flamboyant son-in-law, Deguchi Onisaburò. It was under Onisaburò’s guidance that the small, local sect soon achieved a national following and within five years developed an international presence, sending missionaries to four continents. This book examines the dynamics behind Oomoto’s explosive growth from the 1910s to the early 1930s, when it became the third largest and most rapidly growing new religion in Japan.2 Although government authorities and the mainstream press viewed it as a heretical sect and although it suffered state suppressions in 1921 and 1935, the number of Oomoto members and supporters reached into the millions.3 Today Oomoto is relatively small, claiming roughly 180,000 members (a fraction of whom are active), but it remains important as the parent of a lineage of Shinto-related new religions with total membership reaching several million.4 Oomoto’s meteoric rise occurred in the Taishò (1912–1926) and early Shòwa (1926–1989), periods characterized by rapid urbanization and the flowering of democratic institutions such as political parties, labor movements, and other forms of popular mobilization expressing disaffection with the status quo and calling for social welfare and economic justice. From a cultural perspective, the Taishò and early Shòwa witnessed an explosion in mass media and popular entertainments, including the proliferation of new forms, such as radio, recordings, and the movies, and the extension of the older print culture to new producers and new audiences representing specialized interests and segmented markets. From the perspective of international relations, it was an era in which Japan attained the status of a world power, becoming an imperialist and colonialist power in its own right. It was simultaneously becoming increasingly disenchanted with the West and its refusal to grant Japan equal status, as seen in the rejection of a

Introduction

3

racial equality clause at Versailles and the passage of a U.S. law that barred further Japanese immigration.5 All of these turbulent currents were reflected in and reinforced by Oomoto activity. Its religious mission was carried out in a series of rapidly evolving campaigns that addressed popular demands for social and economic reform, dissatisfaction with Japan’s international identity, and assertion of a patriotic, Nativist (kokugaku) identity grounded in agrarianism and traditional forms of culture. It used the new technologies of popular culture to broadly disseminate its mission domestically and abroad, to Japan’s colonies and spheres of influence and to the cultural capitals of the West. The aim of this book is not, however, to portray Oomoto as a microcosm of modern Japanese history, as that burden is too heavy for a single heterodox and officially marginalized sect. Instead, my main objectives are to analyze how Oomoto successfully adapted to these new conditions and rapidly emerged as a national force and to assess Onisaburò’s role in creating that success. Historical accounts in English of religious activity during this time are relatively few, although this era is widely recognized as one of spiritual ferment. Oomoto provides an interesting example for a case study because it demonstrates an antagonistic relationship between religion and the modern state and indicates an alternative, religious conception of the nation in imperial Japan.6 Most Western studies of modern Shinto before 1945 are overly focused on the notion that Shinto was monolithic and wholly associated with the state and its ideology.7 Oomoto clearly embodied a strong Shinto identity, but its leaders refused to conform to the modern state’s definitions of Shinto or religion and they repeatedly came into conflict with authorities. As a group that remained outside the orbit of state management, Oomoto organized cultural, social, and political activities that sometimes conflicted with the policies and aims of state authorities. Onisaburò and his followers justified their beliefs and actions from both moral and universal perspectives that transcended the state and its narrow definition of Shinto. A case study of Oomoto thus broadens the view of Shinto in existing Western scholarship. In explaining Oomoto success, I argue that in its heyday, Oomoto became the most conspicuous and fastest growing new religious movement for three primary reasons: charismatic leadership, innovative use of technology and the mass media, and flexible accommodation of social concerns and cultural interests not addressed by the state or mainstream religions. These three elements constitute what I call “charismatic entrepreneurship,” a term that suggests a combination of spiritual authority, an intuitive grasp of the religious marketplace, savvy management skills, and a propensity for risk taking. Charismatic entrepreneurship, which I will discuss in more detail

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below, is a critical concept for understanding the rise and growth of new religious movements, not only in Japan, but throughout the world. A third objective of the book is to demonstrate that Onisaburò provided an important model and legacy for new religions that followed in postwar and contemporary Japan. The postwar Japanese constitution may have established radically different circumstances for the freedom of new religions, but there were also important continuities between the prewar and postwar periods. By noting the continued importance of charismatic personalities and entrepreneurial leadership, we gain a different understanding of new religions across the World War II divide. Whether in intentional imitation of Onisaburò or not, flamboyant, attention-seeking individuals are at the center of Japan’s most successful new religious movements. In the immediate postwar years former Oomoto followers, like Okada Mòkichi and Taniguchi Masaharu, liberally appropriated Onisaburò’s ideas and techniques in their own new religions, Sekai Kyûseikyò (known in English as the Church of World Messianity) and Seichò no Ie (Truth of Life Movement). Kitamura Sayo, the cross-dressing founder of Tenshò Kòtai Jingukyò (Religion of the Shrine of the Heavenly Goddess, popularly known as odori shûkyò, the dancing religion), captured public attention for her scathing critique of the Occupation and her promotion of ecstatic dance as religious practice.8 Jikòson, founder of Jiukyò, claimed she was possessed by the sun goddess Amaterasu and famously recruited celebrities for a fictive government cabinet she hoped to lead.9 And since the 1960s, Japanese religious leaders representing themselves as multitalented supermen abound; they include Sòka Gakkai’s Ikeda Daisaku, Kòfuku no Kagaku’s Okawa Ryûhò, Kiriyama Seiyû of Agonshû, and even the notorious leader of Aum Shinrikyò, Asahara Shoko. Each of these leaders embodies a critical tension between religious idealism and business acumen, between the call of the divine and the call of fame. This tension is a defining feature of charismatic entrepreneurs. While deeply committed to personal religious visions, they believe these are best actualized through aggressive growth, made possible through entrepreneurial, self-aggrandizing actions. This tension characterizes charismatic religious entrepreneurs throughout the world. By examining similarities between Onisaburò and leaders of other new sects both in Japan and abroad, we can begin to question notions of Japanese exceptionalism, at least with respect to new religions. Scholars of Japanese religion sometimes help reify notions of difference, presenting Japanese religiosity as a phenomenon difficult to understand from the Judeo-Christian or Islamic perspectives about worship and the divine. They present Japanese beliefs about kami, sacred space, and permeability between the human and spirit worlds as valid, if alternative, religious worldviews,

Introduction

5

and they present the pervasive emphasis on practice and ritual, including the pursuit of practical benefits (genze riyaku), as an equal alternative to emphasis on sacred texts or individual relationships with God. While such an approach has been extremely valuable in opening new directions for research, I take a slightly different tack. Rather than highlighting exceptionality and difference, I prefer to point out commonality—namely, how global economic, social, and technological forces shape cultural phenomena in disparate regions in similar ways. Many Japanese religious beliefs and practices are indeed culturally specific, but religious actors in Japan respond to many of the same developments encountered in other modern nations. In the first half of the twentieth century these included urbanization and agrarian distress in the face of rapid industrialization; the emergence of consumerism, popular entertainment, and the mass media as religion’s competitors for public attention; and the public’s heightened desire for world peace and for easing the suffering of the unfortunate following World War I and worldwide depression. My approach to meeting the objectives described above is to place Oomoto’s rise within the larger historical context of developments in Japan and in the wider world during the first half of the twentieth century. I pursue a historical, rather than religious, understanding of Oomoto growth, emphasizing how its beliefs and proselytization activity shifted with prevailing conditions and attitudes. Oomoto’s evolving strategies for growth reflected domestic opportunities and constraints, areas of interest that transcended national borders via new transportation and communication technologies, and inexorable historical forces, such as those mentioned above. Under Onisaburò’s leadership, Oomoto responded to dynamic intellectual and cultural currents. In its formative years, it drew on Nativist rhetoric and residual disappointment that the Meiji Restoration had not resulted in a more equitable society. In the 1910s and ’20s, it highlighted spiritualism and internationalism, worldwide trends that the Japanese public had also enthusiastically embraced. In the 1930s, it was swept up in the national mood of heightened patriotism. Mapping Oomoto’s rise against historical developments enlarges the narrative of modern Japanese history by uncovering an “alternative” history suppressed by the teleology of Japan’s rapid rise as an industrial and military power. It helps to tie the heterodox and “alternative” to the mainstream developments of standard historical narratives. Identifying such counter-hegemonic traces remains important as a means to challenge neat, evolutionary models of national history. In short, this study questions the standard portrayal of the Japanese during this period as monolithically dominated by emperor-centered and state-defined nationalism, rather than deeply embedded in affective ties to nonstate organizations,

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whether a religious sect, local community, ethnic nation, or even family.10 Oomoto provides a window into popular consciousness that upsets received notions that imperial Japan was homogeneously nationalistic and unquestioningly enthusiastic about imperialism. This study does not minimize the intentions or actions of the state, but rather reminds readers that the possibilities for social participation and creative change exist even in the face of intensifying state authority. There is, however, usually a price to pay for defying or ignoring authority. Charismatic entrepreneurs who aim to survive in authoritarian societies are also adept at defensive strategies, casting controversial beliefs and actions in ways that are least likely to result in official repercussions. Throughout his career, Onisaburò attempted to manage the risks of propagating his fundamentally subversive views, cultivating establishment contacts and religious alliances, writing allusively and in code, and engaging in public patriotic activity. Such creative techniques allowed Oomoto to flourish for several decades despite advancing authoritarianism in imperial Japan.

New Religions in Japan Oomoto is considered a “new religion” (shin shûkyò). In Japan the term denotes religious movements that were founded after the mid-nineteenth century, distinguishing them from older, established religions legally recognized prior to that period. As “new religion” is a chronological category, greater specificity in defining new religions is difficult because they are a very diverse set, rooted in different traditions and engaging in a wide variety of practices. They are often said to share certain characteristics, such as charismatic founders and a combinatory approach, fusing elements from Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism, folk religion, and other aspects of the larger religious environment. It is important to note, however, that such syncretic tendencies are also strong among Japan’s established religious traditions. Conventional periodization arranges the emergence of new religions into waves or phases in modern Japanese history, reflecting periods of intense socioeconomic insecurity, including rapid modernization, overwhelming defeat in World War II, and the bursting of the economic bubble in the 1980s. Current scholarship identifies five distinct phases: the latter half of the nineteenth century, the prewar period (1920s and ’30s), the postwar period (1950s and ’60s), the post oil-shock period (late 1970s and ’80s), and the current post-Aum Shinrikyò period following the heinous subway gassing incident by a new religion in 1995.11 New religions are considered the most dynamic element in Japan’s cur-

Introduction

7

rent religious environment, reportedly involving as much as one-fifth, onethird, or even half of the Japanese population at their peak in the 1960s.12 For this reason, studies of Japan’s new religious movements constitute a major field in both Japanese and Western scholarship.13 Nevertheless, Western scholarship has been dominated by a social-scientific approach, categorizing sects and their characteristics or providing ethnographic accounts of single sects. Historians of Japanese religion to date have not fully investigated the context and key historical factors that help account for the rise of new religions in each of the phases described above.

Oomoto’s Tsukinamisai Ritual In order to understand why Oomoto was widely embraced by the Japanese public in the early twentieth century and why it was considered a threat by the state, this study describes and analyzes the beliefs, practices, and methods of proselytization it employed. The Tsukinamisai, the ritual described at the beginning of this introduction, highlights several elements that help account for Oomoto’s earlier popularity. The ritual demonstrates first and foremost that Oomoto is strongly rooted in material and mythological Shinto traditions that predate the creation of what is known as State Shinto (see below).

figure I.1  Onisaburò with young women playing the yakumo koto.

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Tsukinamisai is a variant of the age-old autumn festival, held at many levels in society, from local communities to the emperor himself, to express thanks to the gods for an abundant harvest.14 The use of forms traced back to ancient Shinto practices, such as the special koto (figure I.1) and norito prayer, claim a religious authenticity and spiritual authority that predate the modern state’s attempt to monopolize control of Shinto. The ritual provides an affirmation of communal cultural identity—a primordial attachment separate from, albeit related to, allegiance to the modern nation-state. The Meiji Restoration and the state’s subsequent policies for religious management provide an important backdrop for Oomoto’s emergence as a national force. The 1868 Restoration united the nation into a single political entity under centralized governance, providing the basis for rapid modernization of institutions and infrastructure in order to avoid domination by the West. Since the Restoration ostensibly returned power to the emperor, the oligarchs who controlled the Meiji state experimented with ways to enhance his sacred authority and promote the concept of an “unbroken” imperial line as the essence of the modern Japanese state.15 In the realm of religion, one potent program was the establishment of a system of officially recognized shrines, often called State Shinto.16 At least four major initiatives stand out in early Meiji attempts to cultivate State Shinto: the separation of Buddhism from Shinto (shinbutsu bunri) from 1868 to approximately 1872, intended to “purify” and raise the status of the latter as the ideological basis of the state; the Great Promulgation Campaign (1870–1884), designed to educate the populace in a moralistic, emperor-centered state religion; the systematization of shrine management and support (also known as Shrine Shinto) from the 1870s to the 1910s; and the creation of Sect Shinto, discussed below. Other scholars have extensively discussed each of these topics, but certain aspects of Shinto bureaucratization bear repeating in connection to Oomoto.17 Shortly after the Restoration, the newly established Department of Divinity (Jingikan) created a ranked hierarchy of Shinto shrines, placing Ise, the ancestral shrine of the imperial family, at the apex. Other shrines were designated as imperial, national, prefectural, district, village, or unranked. The state initially provided support for the first two categories, which were charged with performing state and imperial rituals. The hereditary privilege of serving as shrine priest was abolished, and the state reserved the right to appoint priests. The result was the creation of a professionalized, bureaucratized Shinto priesthood, often alien and insensitive to local customs and concerns. Before the Meiji reforms, local shrine guilds, kin groups, and occupational groups (among others) were responsible for conducting rites and festivals. Locally prominent community members in villages and urban ar-

Introduction

9

eas prepared for ritual duties through ascetic exercises, and local rites were sponsored through communal donations. The newly imposed calendar for celebrating imperial rites, in combination with the official adoption in 1873 of the Gregorian calendar, led to a decline in traditional celebrations and rites. Spring and autumn festivals, rites for rice planting, groundbreaking ceremonies and rites pacifying local kami angered by planned construction, individual purifications and coming-of-age rites—all slowly fell by the wayside as shrines became outlets for generating a sense of nationhood rather than sites for communal gatherings. The Great Promulgation Campaign was a dismal failure. Its lofty, moralistic creed, as well as its official rejection of the magical practices and miraculous tales that were pervasive aspects of traditional Japanese popular or “lived” religion, generated little popular enthusiasm.18 Furthermore, by the late 1870s, Mori Arinori, the first minister of education, and other Meiji leaders recognized that freedom of religion and the separation of church and state were necessary to renegotiate the unequal trade treaties imposed on Japan by the United States and other Western powers. They adopted a view of “religion” based on a Protestant perspective emphasizing ethics, the supremacy of texts over practice, and exclusive devotion to a single deity. As they observed the failure of the campaign, they urged abandonment of state efforts to monopolize religious teachings and beliefs and to focus instead on creating a unified, nationwide system of rituals. Rites conducted at the sixty-nine imperial and national shrines that received state funding would be considered “civic,” not “religious,” ceremonies. Shinto “religious” matters like belief, doctrine, and missionary work would be the province of Sect Shinto (Kyòha or Shûha Shintò), a collection of diverse religious groups, including mountain worship sects, groups affiliated with Nativist teachings, and some new religions that were given official government recognition. The number of official sects eventually reached thirteen. Gaining approval was an arduous process requiring police surveillance and conformance to state creed on the worship of the emperor and Sun Goddess, not to mention contacts at key state agencies. The Bureau of Religion within the Ministry of Education monitored and managed official sects, assuring they supported state religious policy, including an agreement to refrain from politics. New religious groups had to affiliate as a subsect of an official group; otherwise they would be labeled heretical or false religions (inshi jakkyò, ruiji shûkyò) and harassed by the police and Home Ministry. Oomoto opposed these policies of religious control and the artificial separation they erected among ritual, private belief, and public action. Its teachings, rituals, and political stances represented attempts to reintegrate belief and action into an organic whole rooted in the ceremonies and prac-

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tices of “lived” religion. Oomoto called this reintegration saisei itchi, the unification of rites and governance, a slogan championed by the nineteenthcentury Nativists, who called for the restoration of the emperor. Many followers joined Oomoto despite its heterodoxy because it embraced elements of popular Shinto—such as faith healing and spirit belief—that had been consciously abandoned in the creation of modern, emperor-centered State Shinto. The state’s religious policy, influenced by Western Protestant views, tended to devalue elements that traditionally formed the very core of religious life in Japan—rituals, festivals, pilgrimages, and spiritualist practices.19 Oomoto capitalized on the state’s sterile view of Shinto by offering a richer, more traditional alternative. Oomoto’s Shinto rituals, like the Tsukinamisai, were vibrant, performative, and deeply infused with a sense of art and traditional aesthetics. Furthermore, they were enacted not by a specialized, professional class of priests but, like traditional community rituals, by lay members of the congregation who volunteered to participate. Many followers, past and present, were also attracted to Oomoto for its sponsorship of study in traditional arts such as calligraphy, tea ceremony, Noh theatre, and martial arts. In the 1910s, Oomoto offered opportunities to participate in cultural activities limited to elites in earlier eras. Followers could participate in ritual, publish their poetry and artwork in Oomoto journals, give public speeches, or perform in Oomoto stage productions and films. Such active participation in traditional arts helped foster cultural and religious identity among non-elites in remote and rural areas of Japan where missionaries ventured. A second aspect of the Tsukinamisai that illuminates Oomoto’s success was its invocation of spirits. Oomoto’s fundamental belief system envisaged a spirit world with a permeable boundary that allowed interactions with the human world, a notion denied by the modernizing state.20 After its first suppression in 1921, Oomoto spiritualism was muted and remains so in contemporary practice, but the belief is a pillar of its teachings. Indeed, spiritualism was a primary reason for Oomoto’s initial rapid rise to national prominence and is a key factor in the success of many contemporary new religions. Onisaburò was trained in mystical aspects of the Shinto tradition, such as spirit possession, exorcism, and kotodama, the belief in the magical and prophetic power of Japanese words and syllables. These magical methods were suppressed by the modernizing, rationalist state and condemned by mainstream media. Elite efforts to “disenchant” religious practices in Japan stemmed in part from anxiety about appearing superstitious in Western eyes. The “civilized” countries of Europe and the United States held that “religion” in modern nations should be characterized by an individual, intellectualized faith rather than magical practices and spirit

Introduction

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belief. Onisaburò not only embraced these practices but he also popularized them. Elite and official attitudes assumed a fundamental incompatibility between magic and modernity. Modernity meant rationalization, secularization, and a scientific worldview. Earlier scholars of Japanese religion continued to reflect this view in their negative appraisal of new religions, criticizing them as devoid of true doctrine and genuine faith. The new religions were seen as pursuing only this-worldly benefits (genze riyaku) through magical means. The devaluation of magical practices and ritual was amplified by the establishment of an academic division of labor. Scripture was examined by religious studies specialists, while the study of magic and ritual was undertaken by social sciences such as anthropology and sociology, which focused on understanding “primitive” cultures and deviancy. Recent scholarship, however, has come to recognize that even in highly modernized and rationalized societies, belief in magic and the supernatural exercises a critical function and continues to hold tremendous appeal for many. Far from being incompatible with modernity and morality, magic thrives in relation to both. Magical practices and rituals provide individuals with “concrete, accessible means to embody, explain, and deal with problems of modern society” and offer “the immediate eradication of injustice and imperfection through acts aimed at bringing the world into conformity with a cosmic order.”21 They “promise to bring individual moral conduct into a framework of universal significance on a scale surpassing the ideals of a political system.”22 Belief in spirits and the supernatural was a constitutive element of Japanese modernity present across the entire social spectrum.23 Oomoto’s promotion of spiritualist and magical practices, prohibited by the mainstream establishment, resisted the disenchanting power of “Westernization” and offered solace for those who sought the comfort of beliefs and practices grounded in the popular religious worldview. A third aspect of the Tsukinamisai, the offering of pine branches by individuals representing diverse organizations and interests within Oomoto, illustrates how the sect created new groups to meet emerging needs and popular interests. Oomoto acted as a parent organization to a wide variety of religious and secular groups that pursued independent interests, including the Jinrui Aizenkai (known in English as the Universal Love and Brotherhood Association or ULBA), focused on international exchange and humanitarian relief; the Meikòsha (Bright Light Society) for the practice and promotion of art; Esperanto societies; and the secular patriotic organization known as Shòwa Shinseikai (Shòwa Sacred Association). The colorful, everchanging fragments of the Oomoto system formed a menu of sociocultural and religious activities from which followers could pick and choose accord-

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ing to their affinities. The range of organizations represented the scope of Onisaburò’s interests, his eye for emerging fields of popular taste, and his enthusiasm for gaining new experiences. His flexibility and readiness to commit resources to new fields represent an early example of charismatic entrepreneurship, a marketing and consumer-oriented approach to proselytization that characterizes the most successful new religions in modern Japan and elsewhere.

Charisma and Entrepreneurship From the late 1910s to the early 1930s, Onisaburò skillfully navigated emerging trends in popular culture and consumerism, employing multiple forms of mass media and entertainment to advertise Oomoto’s multilayered promises of personal, national, and universal salvation. New print and visual technologies like exhibitions and films helped spread the sect’s message to far-flung audiences, creating imagined communities of faith. Onisaburò’s ability to direct sect interests adroitly according to economic, social, and cultural developments allowed Oomoto to emerge as the champion of popular causes that lacked adequate institutional structure or opportunities for participation, from lingering support for Nativism to spiritualist experimentation and international exchange. His willingness to adopt expensive new technologies, like recordings and films, for the purposes of proselytization demonstrates his enterprising nature. Taken in sum, Onisaburò’s tenacity and creative risk-taking for the sake of mission provide a definitive example of the charismatic entrepreneur. While charismatic leadership and entrepreneurialism were both necessary for Oomoto’s national expansion, it is the former that is initially crucial to the success of any start-up religion, while the latter is needed after a base of support has been established. Charismatic leadership in the new religions involves several elements. The first is the ability to command loyalty from followers and foster a willingness to believe through the display of exceptional talent at prophecy or healing and/or through spiritual authority derived from revelation, sometimes in combination with spirit possession. The second is the ability to empathize and establish rapport with a large following. Many founders of Japan’s new religions, including Onisaburò, came from humble origins and experienced severe hardships, challenges often magnified in the hagiographical accounts of their lives. H. Neill McFarland notes that a charismatic founder could effectively relate to the masses because he understood their “ways of thinking, the peculiarities of their speech and their perennial grievances. . . . Having lived as they live, suffered as they suffer, he can more convincingly cite his own experience of deliverance

Introduction

13

as evidence of the validity of his promises.”24 The final element is a radical attitude challenging traditional, rational, or religious norms. Theorists from Max Weber to Jean Comaroff have discussed the revolutionary component of religious charisma, describing how true charismatics exist in tension with temporal power and secular authority.25 Comaroff claims that “prophets are oppositional by their very nature,” since they create a basis for judging and acting upon the world in transcendental terms beyond immediate political, economic, and social conditions.26 Charismatic leaders often champion the sentiments of the politically powerless populace while proposing religious solutions for individual betterment or for reducing social and economic gaps in society. Their revolutionary religious attitude holds the potential for reform at multiple levels, from the personal to the universal. By providing followers an opportunity to align themselves with a strong group outside of and opposed to “the system,” charismatic leaders offer them an increased sense of agency and a chance to engage in reform to make the world a more livable place. Onisaburò’s revolutionary attitude was encapsulated in Oomoto’s key tenet, tatekae tatenaoshi (demolition and reconstruction), which expressed the view that society was dominated and governed by greed and malfeasance and that economic and political institutions had to be destroyed and rebuilt in order to create a just and moral society. The two co-founders of Oomoto—Deguchi Nao and Deguchi Onisaburò—each embodied all three elements of charisma. One of the reasons Oomoto achieved such rapid growth may be that its co-founders were both gifted charismatics.27 Nevertheless, each required the skills and support of the other to create a successful new religion. Deguchi Nao’s millenarian perspective, social criticism, and fiery predictions of apocalypse were made comprehensible and propagated through the communicative and managerial talents of Deguchi Onisaburò. Without Onisaburò’s help, Nao’s following would no doubt have remained a small local cult centered on the teachings of an illiterate old peasant woman. Onisaburò possessed his own spiritual authority and charismatic gifts, gained in his studies of and experiences with the spirit world, but he would have remained an itinerant preacher and exorcist without the initial support of Nao’s organization. While both leaders exercised important functions in founding and developing Oomoto, this book focuses on Onisaburò’s role in forging a national and international following during the rapid expansion that distinguishes Oomoto from other new religions of the period. This growth occurred under the direction of Onisaburò after Nao’s retirement from active involvement with the sect, especially after her death in 1918. Entrepreneurship, a key element in the expansion of a newly established religious group, can be defined as the ability to recognize growth

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opportunities, mobilize human and material resources to take advantage of them, and manage risks in a manner appropriate to the potential level of gain or loss.28 The study of entrepreneurship is dominated by economists like Joseph Schumpeter and I. M. Kirzner, who see the basic motivation for entrepreneurial activity in the maximization of one’s economic gain. They focus on the function, role, and characteristics of entrepreneurs in generating economic activity in profit-oriented firms, examining variables like the availability of capital and access to markets and labor supply.29 Schumpeter believed that innovation was a primary role of the entrepreneur, not just via the invention of new products and/or techniques, but also through the rearrangement of old ones. This notion nicely suits the concept of the religious bricoleur, who pieces together religious concepts and practices at hand to create a new faith. Nevertheless, the concept of entrepreneurship is new to the study of nonprofit enterprises like religions and has not been used to investigate the growth of Japan’s new religions.30 But in fact religions and profit-oriented businesses share the same goals of growth, expansion, and reaching new consumers.31 There are three critical components of entrepreneurship: the individual, the task, and the environment. The first of these involves the entrepreneur’s personal motives and drives; styles of social interaction; and skills, including leadership, analytical ability, and creativity. Responsiveness to change requires creativity in evaluating the environment, developing new products and services, and establishing new methods of operation. The entrepreneur must also be a leader, able to define a vision of what is possible and to attract people to rally around the vision and transform it into reality. In one observer’s words, the entrepreneur must be “a dreamer who does.”32 The task component of entrepreneurship involves defining the types of business activities to undertake, identifying technologies and resources to support those activities, and developing organizations to administer them. Entrepreneurs excel in their ability to recognize opportunities arising from a variety of sources, including technological change, demographic shifts, changes in industry or market structure, and even the unexpected. Finally, factors in the environment such as state regulation and political structures, availability of resources, media attention, and the cultural environment help to support or inhibit the emergence of entrepreneurs. It is easy to see that, profit motive aside, charismatic leaders of new religions require entrepreneurial drive and skills if their sects are to achieve national or international status. Their motive, the “prophet motive,” is to attract a following to realize and extend their religious view of the world. This necessarily entails economic activity and participation in the money economy, but ideally the economic transactions are secondary to the mis-

Introduction

15

sion. Some earlier scholars, such as Max Weber, believed that charisma and commerce were fundamentally incompatible. It was his view that “in its pure form charisma is never a source of private gain.”33 He defined charismatic leaders as ascetics standing outside this-worldly ties, occupational employment, and the routine obligations of family life, supported through voluntary gifts rather than through pecuniary activity. This model of a disengaged charismatic, however, would never survive the modern, competitive marketplace of religions that arises in the twentieth century. Successful modern religious entrepreneurs are rarely removed from the practicalities and exigencies of daily life. While they may receive large donations from wealthy followers, they also rely on payment for religious goods and services, catering to mundane needs and desires and promising practical benefits, whether easy childbirth or business prosperity. Nor are they necessarily ascetic. Religious entrepreneurs often exhibit a lavish lifestyle that followers not only sanction but encourage. Indeed the followers’ faith is further confirmed by an impressively attired, awe-inspiring leader. For example, Rajneeshi leader Osho owned more than ninety Rolls Royces, which were reportedly meant to lampoon material wealth and teach the infinite nature of spiritual wealth. Established religions often automatically acquire members through births among a large follower base and often possess historically accumulated financial reserves to support their clergy and fund necessary projects. They have little need to engage in entrepreneurial activity, though they may resort to it when sources of financing, like state support, are withdrawn.34 New religions, however, especially at the outset, must particularly demonstrate charismatic entrepreneurship to attract new followers and acquire the resources necessary for growth. In the United States, charismatic entrepreneurship has been the motor of growth for groups as diverse as the Latter Day Saints, the Nation of Islam, Christian Scientists, and Scientology. Evangelicals, the most rapidly growing segment of American Christianity, have largely achieved rapid growth through entrepreneurial endeavors like Billy Graham’s well-advertised crusades; televangelism; and Christian mega-ministries, like Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral and Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, housed in the sixteen-thousand-seat arena formerly used by the Houston Rockets basketball team. China’s Falun Gong is another prime example of charismatic entrepreneurship. Its innovative use of the Internet to disseminate teachings and its addressing of the needs neglected by Chinese authorities, like health care and spiritual development, have helped recruit a large, dispersed following. The Unification Church, led by Sun Myung Moon, has been the target of controversy because of its attention-getting entrepreneurial activities, from mass marriage ceremonies to the acquisition of

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major media outlets (the Washington Times and UPI newswire). Intellectuals and the mainstream media usually criticize charismatic entrepreneurship, but positive and negative responses from society and government agencies depend on several factors, including the degree of congruence between the new religion and prevailing religious affiliations and the degree of support the religion provides for state goals and initiatives.

Organization of the Book This study discusses selected areas of Oomoto activity that differentiated the sect from competing religious groups and that continue to exert significant influence on Japanese new religions, particularly among the many sects in the Oomoto lineage.35 New religions that attract a large following in a short span of time are generally engaged in multiple, overlapping spheres of missionary, religious, and social activity. The chapters that follow focus thematically on spheres of activity. In some cases, there is chronological overlap between chapters, as Oomoto was engaged in multiple forums simultaneously. The focus here is on Oomoto practices and methods of propagation rather than its theology or teachings, though there is clearly a relationship between the two. Pinning down doctrine in a syncretic new religion during a stage of rapid development is a slippery task. From the 1910s to 1935 Oomoto sacred texts were not stable. They were living and evolving entities, subject to frequent revision. Indeed Oomoto teachings centered around the competing religious views of two very different, and often inconsistent, charismatic leaders. The overall belief structure, however, can be characterized as polytheistic monotheism, or henotheism. That is, Oomoto was at this time a salvific movement that envisaged one true god as the creator of the universe and the source of absolute authority who existed in a world of multiple lesser deities and spirits. In Oomoto this primary god has different names. The Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Matters, the oldest surviving text of Japanese history and mythology, produced in the seventh century, calls it Ame no Minakanushi; some Shintoists call it Òkuninushi; and Deguchi Nao named it Ushitora no Konjin. Other important strands of thought that informed Oomoto belief and are further explored in the chapters that follow include utopian folk millenarianism that called for world renewal (yonaoshi); popular Nativism (kokugaku), characterized by a mythical worldview grounded in classics like the Kojiki; and occultic belief in the spirit world. Chapter 1 provides a narrative account of the life of Deguchi Onisaburò from childhood to his ascent to the leadership of Oomoto. The story of his

Introduction

17

youth illustrates the broad range of his interests and activities, many of which later shaped the directions of Oomoto expansion. This biographical account relies largely on Onisaburò’s own voluminous writings and memoirs. As such, it acts as a kind of self-representation rather than objective, verifiable biography. Nevertheless, his writings reveal his complex, multifaceted nature and provide intimate glimpses into his frustrations and personal idiosyncrasies. They also provide a window into popular consciousness, the worldview of early-twentieth-century rural inhabitants buffeted by the winds of Meiji modernization. Sect-published biographies and autobiographies also emphasize key themes found in religious hagiography in general and so help us relate Japanese practice to the larger field of religious studies. Chapter 2 argues that the Oomoto belief system exhibited clear continuities with the teachings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Nativist scholars such as Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) and Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843). Western scholarship has explored the genealogy of the Nativist movement, its ideological structure, and the breadth of grassroots Nativist networks through the mid- to late nineteenth century, but it has tended to ignore popular Nativism in the Meiji and Taishò periods.36 The prevailing interpretation is that the Nativist movement was foreclosed by the Meiji Restoration, which partially met the aspirations of Nativist adherents by making the emperor the highest national authority. The utopian, agrarian ideals of the Nativist program, rejected by the modernizing and Westernizing state bureaucracy, are assumed to have withered or at least to have been submerged until the resurgence of fundamental agrarianism in the 1930s. Yet from the 1910s to the 1930s, Oomoto’s promotion of a Nativist program provided an institutional home for beliefs still held by a large, grassroots following. As noted above, faith in the unseen world of the spirits was a key aspect of the traditional religious worldview. In premodern Japan, divination, magical spells, and spirit possession were pervasive practices found across the spectrum of religious institutions, from state-supported Buddhist sects to folk pilgrimage associations, but they were increasingly discouraged by the modern state. In Meiji Japan, as in Republican China and other developing nation-states, authorities often attacked religious practices they viewed as superstitious, antimodern, or an impediment to modern medical practice.37 Chapter 3 discusses Oomoto’s promotion of spiritualist activity alleged by Onisaburò to be rooted in ancient Shinto. His chinkon kishin spirit possession technique was a primary reason for Oomoto’s initial rise to national prominence. Chinkon kishin was advertised in Oomoto’s first national publication, Shin reikai (The World of God and Spirits), and it drew a diverse

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crowd of intellectuals, students, farmers, and urban laborers, who sought evidence of the reality of the spirit world and the dark thrill of engaging it. This Japanese public appetite for spiritualism in the Taishò era also reflected the global emergence of spiritualist new religions. Chapter 4 describes how Oomoto employed the power of the visual image to represent itself as an exciting new breed of religion, embracing international and technological trends while remaining firmly grounded in Japanese cultural traditions. Oomoto’s employment of visual technologies of proselytization, such as art and museum-style exhibitions, photographs, documentaries, and feature films, was a groundbreaking method for reaching nonaffiliated audiences who sought entertainment and visual spectacle. Riding an emerging wave of consumerism and mass media, Oomoto effectively employed visual media for self-representation and advertisement. Onisaburò’s philosophy of art and his own artistic productions were the foundation for Oomoto’s use of visual culture. Proclaiming that “art is the mother of religion,” he encouraged followers to engage in all manner of arts and crafts, and he developed participatory forums within Oomoto for the production and exhibition of works. Scholars of Japanese new religions have noted that in the postwar period an emphasis on world peace, antinuclear campaigns, and ecumenical activity is common to many sects.38 These areas of concern, however, were not born on the heels of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Chapter 5 argues that international and ecumenical activity were major fields of endeavor for Oomoto during and immediately after World War I. Onisaburò was a pioneer among the new religions in his antiwar views, first pronounced during the Russo-Japanese War, and in his articulation of bankyò dòkon (ten thousand creeds, one root), the ecumenical idea that all religions share the same source. It is Oomoto’s early advocacy of such universalist, humanitarian ideals, in tension with its continued Nativist belief in Japanese exceptionalism, that forms the foundation for the activities of many postwar new religions. Onisaburò committed Oomoto to a variety of innovative programs to help realize his vision of world peace and international spiritual unification. He fostered ecumenical ties abroad, created a secular humanitarian wing, and promoted the universal language Esperanto. Finally, Chapter 6 demonstrates a shift away from internationally oriented activity and toward patriotic activity in the early 1930s, in keeping with the national mood. In early 1931, Onisaburò prophesied the coming of war and the initiation of a period of demolition and reconstruction (tatekae, tatenaoshi). Following the 1931 incident that provided Japan with a pretext for occupying Manchuria and the subsequent winds of popular interest in patriotism, he created the Shòwa Shinseikai. The organization was closely

Introduction

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associated with the radical right wing and engaged in a variety of activities that challenged bureaucratic authority, but despite its political activity the Shinseikai’s orientation remained religious. It fit Oomoto’s larger vision of ushering in a new spiritual age, and its swift growth was made possible only through utilizing the religious framework of existing Oomoto branches. The Shinseikai’s rapid expansion posed a potentially revolutionary threat to the state, and as a result, Oomoto, the parent organization, was suppressed and completely devastated in 1935. The Oomoto suppressions were highly influential in subsequent state policy toward religion, contributing to the passage of the 1940 Religious Organizations Law, imposing even stricter controls on religious groups in wartime Japan. In the postwar period, fear of the repetition of unjustified, Oomoto-like suppressions led in the opposite direction. With the passage of the Religious Corporations Law in 1947, the state tended to adopt a hands-off attitude toward legally recognized religious groups. This protected groups like Oomoto, but some took advantage of the law’s tax-free provisions for nonreligious purposes. The postwar government’s reluctance to interfere with religion, for example, was a significant factor in Aum Shinrikyò’s ability to repeatedly engage in criminal actions, including the 1995 gassing of the Tokyo subway. If we focus solely on Oomoto’s suppressions and their legacy, we see a familiar picture of an all-powerful authoritarian state in imperial Japan followed by a democratic and liberal postwar society ushered in by the U.S. Occupation. By focusing instead on the process of Oomoto’s growth—on its attractions and the ways in which they were publicized—we can discern continuities in religious activity over the World War II divide and ascertain the ability of groups and individuals to creatively imagine their own identities, affirm or invent their own traditions, and construct their own visions of Japanese modernity in the face of state authority.



Chapter One



Deguchi Onisaburo¯



Early Life to Oomoto Leadership

In a 1993 special edition of the popular journal Rekishi tokuhon (History Reader) entitled Two Hundred People Who Overcame Japanese History (Nihonshi o koeta jinbutsu 200 nin), Deguchi Onisaburò joined an exclusive list of Japanese luminaries from the legendary Princess Himiko to notable emperors, warlords, and artists from prehistoric times through the Shòwa period.1 Many religious figures from premodern Japan, such as Kûkai, Saigyò, and Nichiren, are noted, but in the modern era only Onisaburò and Òtani Kòzui (1876–1948), chief abbot of Nishi Honganji Temple, commended by the Emperor Meiji for his support during the Russo-Japanese War, are listed, while Òtani himself once identified Onisaburò as the giant among the religious leaders of his day.2 Reviled by mainstream society during his day, Deguchi Onisaburò has been ignored in most national histories and forgotten by many Japanese today, though his flamboyance and the larger-than-life scope of his activities made him one of the most interesting figures of his time.3 He stands out conspicuously as a colorful, melodramatic character in the often bleak pages of the history of imperial Japan, like a peacock among sparrows. Murakami Shigeyoshi, one of Onisaburò’s first biographers, called him an “incomparable, multifaceted genius” who spent his life giving full expression to his many talents.4 And many critics of prewar Japan have found in Onisaburò a character resolutely and consistently engaged in battling economic and social injustice and striving for world peace.5 There is no doubt that Onisaburò aspired to stardom—it is rarely the case that those who achieve fame do not actively seek it. He was no pious ascetic but rather playful, worldly, and hedonistic, fond of dressing up in opulent costumes and making bad puns. Like many charismatic religious leaders, from Joseph Smith to Jim Bakker, it was rumored that he had multiple romantic liaisons with followers. Nevertheless, he was deeply committed to 20

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his religious faith and engaged in extraordinary activity to expand and promote his mission. Some of his contemporaries and later scholars viewed his showmanship and eccentricities as unseemly behavior for a religious leader. Such puritanical judgment tends to mask the genius of popular leaders of new religions and their ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands and forge new religious communities, often because of their entertaining personas. Instead of identifying individuals like Onisaburò as highly effective spiritual leaders or as examples of “crazy wisdom” (e.g., renegade Zen or Tibetan teachers who flaunt religious conventionality, like the fifteenth-century Zen monk Ikkyu Sòjun and the Tibetan sage Milarepa), critics, based on their own religious beliefs or the level of threat such individuals pose to the status quo, label them megalomaniacs, demagogues, or frauds.6 They sometimes point to commercial success as an indication that the religion itself is suspect. This judgment fails to recognize the permeability of boundaries between commerce and religion and fails to credit masses of religious consumers with the ability to discern genuine spiritual passion from chicanery. The seeming tensions between Onisaburò’s religious and entertaining aspects were, in fact, a key to his tremendous success in building a new spiritual community. Murakami describes Onisaburò as neither a systematic theoretician nor philosopher, but rather an “intuitionist” (chokkan no hito), able to discern the needs and desires of the religious public and to channel his organization to meet the demands. In an era of increasing state control of religion and increasing consumerism, Onisaburò creatively redirected Oomoto resources and energy to assure the survival and growth of his heterodox sect. Relying on his own interests, artistic sensibilities and talents, he shaped practices, beliefs, and methods of proselytization that would appeal to a large cross-section of Japanese society seeking spiritual alternatives in an authoritarian modern state that increasingly attempted to monopolize control over religious life. To increase his appeal and religious credentials further, Onisaburò, through prolific writings and memoirs that embellished his own mythic qualities, presented himself as a gifted spiritual leader. Like most hagiography, Onisaburò’s autobiographical writings and Oomoto-produced stories of his life justify his position as a great religious leader. They are selective accounts that sift through the chaos of his individual experiences to burnish those that suit the narrative’s intent—that is, to explain and further enhance an extraordinary reputation. They utilize existing hagiographic traditions to construct a coherent narrative conforming to patterns and categories expected of Japanese charismatic religious leaders. Since founders of new religions lack the legitimacy of an established religious lineage, their “official” life stories tend to mimic those of earlier renowned religious leaders.

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Two paradigmatic models for Japanese hagiography are Kûkai (774– 835), the founder of esoteric Shingon Buddhism, and En no Gyòja, the seventh-century ascetic and mystic credited with founding the Shugendò order of “mountain wizards” (yamabushi). Legends involving both abound. They can be recounted here only to the extent that they indicate patterns in early hagiographies that continue to influence the self-representation of religious leaders today. Kûkai, posthumously known as Kòbò Daishi, not only imported Shingon from China, but has also become a primary object of worship himself. Known for his expertise in calligraphy, painting, and sculpture and for his purported invention of the kana syllabary, he is sometimes called the “mother of Japanese culture.” The image of an artistically inclined, multitalented cosmopolitan is a mainstay among the founders of modern new religions, including Onisaburò (see chapter 4). Kûkai is further known for his ability to divine hot springs, wells, and other sources of water and for his practical educational work, instructing people how to build roads and dams. Divinatory skills in combination with a down-to-earth ability to communicate with ordinary people also figure prominently in many new religion founders’ lives. En no Gyòja conducted austerities in the mountains to gain magical and superhuman powers and eclectically combined Taoist, Buddhist, and popular magical practices and rituals to enhance his efficacy. Like other earlier and later founders of popular religious sects, including Fujikò’s Hasegawa Kakugyò and Agonshû’s Kiriyama Seiyû, Onisaburò claimed heightened spiritual abilities based on brief mountain austerities.7 Onisaburò’s life story includes other elements common to the hagiographies of founders of Japanese new religions: subjection to illness, poverty, and adverse conditions as preparation for religious leadership; study of nonorthodox methods of divination and healing; the death or serious illness of a loved one as impetus to a deeper spiritual commitment; and a period of seclusion and religious austerities before ascending to the status of religious leader. What makes Onisaburò’s story distinctive is the availability of his writings and autobiographical reflections. Onisaburò was a prolific writer throughout his lifetime, especially producing copious amounts of poetry. Oomoto estimates that he wrote eighty thousand verses over the course of his lifetime, a number that may seem outrageous but reflects his habit of speaking in verse, captured and recorded by others.8 He gained a special reputation for his iroha poetry, a popular rhythmic form using each kana syllable reportedly invented by the paradigmatic Kûkai. Though many of Onisaburò’s personal recollections are in poetic form, he also produced dozens of books, hundreds of essays, commentaries, and articles for Oomoto journals that help reveal his life and circumstances. Of course hagiography, whether autobiographical or otherwise, is not

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unique to Japan. In her work on the fifteenth-century unschooled preacher Margery Kempe, Ellen Ross identifies general characteristics found in many autobiographies of charismatic religious leaders: a sense of being personally chosen by God for a mission, identification of themselves as prophets or within a tradition of holy individuals, a view of themselves as true representatives of laypeople, a critical attitude toward the beliefs and practices of established religions, and persecution for their eccentricities or for their heterodox faith.9 Many of these characteristics can be found in the life stories of the founders of Japan’s new religions. Autobiographies are not, however, based solely on archetypes and previous models. They exist in a bounded time and space. To paraphrase James Olney, autobiography is history, and history is autobiography.10 Onisaburò’s reflections, while undoubtedly intended to amplify his personal myth and spiritual authority, contain a wealth of detail that helps us understand a Japanese worldview distinctive to the early twentieth century. In short, Onisaburò was a man of his time. One finds in the story of his youth the yearnings and restraints of many in late Meiji society, the promise of new opportunities tempered by old status distinctions and growing central authority. We see Onisaburò’s ambition from an early stage to raise himself above his humble peasant origins through business ventures and educational and artistic activities that provided him a degree of polish and respectability. These aspirations reflected the new Meiji spirit of striving for individual success (risshin shusse). Another aspect of Onisaburò’s worldview that reflected his time was his early indoctrination into Nativist modes of education, which remained widely popular among rural dwellers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite his peasant status, Onisaburò’s familiarity with the myths of the Kojiki provided the basis for Oomoto teachings grounded in characters, events, and concepts of the Japanese classics. Popular folk beliefs and practices that Onisaburò learned as a young man, such as kotodama and spirit possession (see chapters 2 and 3), further provided dominant themes for understanding and expressing his religious belief. The story of Onisaburò’s youth reveals much about the world of lived religion in his time. Through his religious experiences, we see the important roles of healing, spiritualist practices, and pilgrimage; the relative ease with which charismatics established a circle of followers; and the flexibility of religious membership. Rather than experiencing any dramatic moment of conversion to a single sect, Onisaburò was often serially and sometimes simultaneously affiliated with multiple religious entities based on locality, networks of family and friends, personal experience of religious efficacy, and other factors. His religious worldview, like his contemporaries’, was a

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conglomeration of beliefs and practices. These historical observations underline both the combinatory nature of most new religions and the puzzle of contemporary Japanese religiosity, in which 70–80 percent of the population claim to be nonreligious (i.e., not committed to a single sect) but regularly engage in annual Shinto rituals, Buddhist funerals, and Christian weddings. Onisaburò’s accounts of early Oomoto illustrate the challenges imposed on lived religion by the evolving system of Sect Shinto. The thirteen officially approved sects were allowed to conduct missionary and religious activity without state interference. They encompassed a broad array of groups. Some were “classical” Shinto groups centered on certain shrines, like Jingûkyò, based on devotion to Ise Shrine, or Izumo Òyashirokyò, devoted to Izumo Shrine. Some were healing-oriented new religions, like Tenrikyò and Kurozumikyò. Other sects centered on mountain worship, like Ontakekyò and Jikkokyò. Inoue Nobutaka describes two categories within Sect Shinto, table-style (takatsuki) and tree-style (jumoku) sects.11 Tree-style sects like Tenrikyò, Konkòkyò, and Kurozumikyò branched out from a single founder’s teaching, with beliefs and practices extending coherently from root to stem. Table-style sects like Taiseikyò and Shinto Taikyò were composed of clusters of unrelated popular groups with a Shintoist base gathered into one officially approved organization. They were unable to gain recognition on their own because of a lack of contacts and political influence among shrine administrators.12 Subsects under table sects affiliated purely from necessity and paid hefty fees to the parent organization for the privilege. By 1912 Taisekyò sponsored over one hundred such group affiliations.13 Early Oomoto, a rural group lacking elite connections in Tokyo, struggled to find and maintain such affiliations without sacrificing its religious mission and identity. It, too, had a brief affiliation with Taiseikyò. Later, after spurning the idea of official recognition (see chapter 2), Oomoto became a tree-style sect, its distinctive teachings and texts branching out widely across the nation and empire. While the particulars of the Sect Shinto system were unique to Japan, many of the characteristics of the successful new religions and their leaders are common across different time periods and different world regions. Religious volatility in the early stages of new religions (i.e., serial and/or simultaneous adhesion to multiple, seemingly disparate, religious traditions) is characteristic of emerging sects in many areas, from Pentecostals in Latin America and indigenous Christian churches in sub-Saharan Africa to experimental forms of new-age spirituality in contemporary North America. Charismatic entrepreneurship, including showmanship, ambition, and

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a combinatory approach to teachings, is another characteristic common to many leaders of Western new religions, past and present. George Whitefield, an eighteenth-century preacher and father of modern evangelism, was perhaps the first modern charismatic entrepreneur in Anglo-America. He staged mass revivals that drew enormous interdenominational crowds in the United States and Great Britain, successfully integrating religion with the emerging consumerist logic of the market by the dramatic performance of a “passion-based ministry” that competed successfully with a growing range of popular entertainments. Harry Stout calls Whitefield a “self-promoter with sure business instincts.”14 Like Onisaburò, Whitefield quickly learned to exploit the evolving world of print media, marketing his tours through newspaper announcements, letter-writing networks, and the publication of his own journal. Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, tied spiritualist practices to a theological system blending Eastern and Western philosophy and used prophetic gifts and personal charisma to attract a large, international audience that crossed class, gender, and religious lines. Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam melded esoteric mysticism and Black nationalism with the Bible and Koran in a flashy and fundamentalist doctrine. His anti-authoritarian views, seeking economic and political justice for Black Americans, earned the fervent loyalty of followers and the fear and loathing of mainstream society and the media establishment.15 In discussing Onisaburò’s life from childhood through his ascension to Oomoto leadership in the early 1900s, I do not intend to provide a comprehensive biographical account but rather wish to examine selective episodes that illustrate his early interests and the articulations between his own life experiences and the society in which he lived. His youthful interests in the Japanese classics, art, and spiritualism foreshadow the main contours of later Oomoto activity, as detailed in the following chapters. One note of caution: I often refer to Onisaburò as Kisaburò, his given name until he is adopted into the Deguchi family, but I also use the name Onisaburò when discussing his memoirs, written under his adopted name.

Childhood: Education and Early Promise Onisaburò was born Ueda Kisaburò in 1871, the first son of a family of poor farmers in the village of Anao in the Tamba region, near Kyoto. According to Oomoto accounts, the Ueda family had once been prosperous, but Kichimatsu, Kisaburò’s grandfather, had lost large sums of money to gambling so that by the birth of his grandson, the family fortune had dwindled to a shack with two three-mat rooms and less than four hundred square feet (less than one one-hundredth of an acre) of productive fields.16 On his deathbed,

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soon after his grandson’s birth, Kichimatsu claimed that the family had a history of producing a great man every seventh generation. The most recent, he said, had been the painter Maruyama Òkyo (1733–1795), born Ueda Monda. Kisaburò, born into the seventh generation after Maruyama, was therefore destined for fame. This lineage cannot be confirmed, although Maruyama, the founder of a naturalistic school of painting, is known to have been born to a poor farming family in the Tamba region. After the birth of a younger brother, Kisaburò was put into the care of his grandmother Uno, a woman educated in poetry and Japanese classics to an unusual degree. She was the great-granddaughter of Nakamura Kòdò, a scholar of kotodama, the belief that words and sounds contained mysterious powers. Uno taught Kisaburò to read, write, and memorize the poems of the Hyakunin isshû, a collection of one hundred Heian-period classical poems that served as the basis of a popular card game, and also taught him the principles of kotodama.17 Even as a child, Kisaburò showed a strong interest in the esoteric system, practicing his lessons by shouting out the five root sounds, A–O–U–E–I, in abandoned fields.18 Villagers considered the boy a bit strange, perhaps owing to this quirky exercise, but he gained a positive reputation for locating wells through divination. Onisaburò’s memories of his early childhood reflected the combination of labor and play that informed the life of children in the countryside. After school, he was expected to gather firewood from pine trees in the mountains. He and his friends often laid aside their tasks and played at sumo wrestling or reenacted famous Kabuki plays. They floated washbasin boats on ponds, collected helmet beetles, and built bonfires.19 Kisaburò was especially fond of drawing pictures, but he was scolded by his father and had to do it in secret.20 At the age of six, when his friends were entering primary school, Kisaburò developed a serious skin condition. The sap of a poisonous tree was used as a moxibustion treatment on him, and the poison spread throughout his body, leaving him covered with sores and unable to move.21 As a result of the illness, he entered primary school three years late, at the age of nine, but quickly caught up with his peers. These episodes of Onisaburò’s boyhood, while specific to him, reflect a number of hagiographical tropes. He was identified with an illustrious lineage, and his potential greatness was indicated at birth. It is interesting that his identification with Maruyama, rather than with a religious lineage, and his childhood love of drawing reveal the importance of an artistic identity in his self-representation as a Kûkai-style Renaissance man. Furthermore, they establish that he exhibited signs of being gifted from an early age and that he suffered from serious illness.

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The Nativist education initiated by his grandmother was continued in both terakoya, private schools for Japanese commoners held in Buddhist temples, and more formal schools established under Meiji state initiatives. In memoirs, Onisaburò recalls attending night school taught by a priest at a local Buddhist temple. The class recited Chinese classics and Buddhist sutras without comprehension, a traditional pedagogical technique. When the priest was away, Kisaburò and his friends mischievously drew mustaches on the statues of Amida Buddha, demonstrating an irreverent attitude toward institutionalized religion from an early age.22 He reports that the priest was eventually replaced by a teacher who made the boys study the eighth-century Nihon shoki every night.23 Between his grandmother’s training and the night school program, Kisaburò was steeped in Japanese classical literature and Shinto mythology from an early age. One well-known but unverifiable account in his biography further emphasizes Onisaburò’s exceptional intellect. In 1882, when he was eleven, Kisaburò’s teacher misread the name of an Edo city commissioner and magistrate, Òoka Tadanosuke.24 Kisaburò corrected the mistake. The teacher flew into a fury at this audacity, but the school principal confirmed that the boy was correct. The humiliated teacher then took every opportunity to harass Kisaburò, making him kneel painfully on a large abacus for hours and ridiculing his family’s poverty in front of his peers. When he could no longer stand the abuse, Kisaburò hid along the path to school one day and hit the teacher with a bamboo stick covered with excrement when he passed by. The incident led to his expulsion and the dismissal of the teacher, who was held partly responsible. In an unusual twist, the principal hired Kisaburò as the teacher’s replacement, at a salary of two yen per month.25 He was reportedly unpretentious and easy-going as a teacher and was well liked by the students, but he was forced to resign after a year over a quarrel about unspecified Shinto-related issues with a more senior teacher who was a Buddhist monk.26 Onisaburò’s memories of his school-age experiences reflect early Meiji educational policy, including the establishment of compulsory education and the difficulty of staffing schools with qualified individuals. Following the Meiji Restoration, the new government instituted universal compulsory education, modeled after American elementary education, to create a citizenry armed with practical knowledge and able to assist in Japan’s modernization efforts. In 1872, the year after Onisaburò’s birth, new educational regulations mandated four years of compulsory education and designed a three-tiered system that included elementary schools, middle schools, and universities. A new teacher-training institute, the Tokyo Normal School, was launched to train a new corps of professional teachers in Western edu-

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cational theory and pedagogical techniques, but the number of graduates lagged far behind demand for new teachers.27 As the government was still financially weak, local communities were left to pay the costs of school construction and teachers’ salaries. The lack of qualified teachers remained a vexing issue; it helps to explain the Òoka Tadanosuke episode and Onisaburò’s subsequent employment as teacher at age eleven. Onisaburò’s later accounts of his school years built on his personal myth, not only by highlighting his intellectual exceptionality, but also by reiterating the themes of suffering and persecution and presenting the first inklings of his audacity and courage in attacking authority in the quest for justice.

Labor and Entrepreneurialism In memoirs written decades later, Onisaburò identified the youthful work experiences that shaped his consciousness of social and economic injustice. In need of work in his early teens, he became a laborer and servant in the household of a wealthy local farmer named Saitò Genji. Onisaburò later reflected that it was in Saitò’s employ that he first realized inequalities within his village and the extent of his own family’s poverty. His recollections in poetic form complained that landowners like Saitò indulged their every desire and arrogantly looked down on others, while miserable, hard-working tenants and small farmers toiled silently from morning until night.28 Saitò was so prosperous he ate in restaurants and drank sake every night, while the “proletarian small farmers” (puro no ie)29 ate rice mixed with seven parts barley, a few salted sardines, and bamboo shoots gathered from the wild.30 According to Onisaburò, poor farmers of the time raised daikon radishes for sale in the city but could not afford to keep any for themselves.31 In summer they gathered loaches, carp, and eel from the river as important sources of scarce protein. Onisaburò’s description of the sad circumstances of small farmers reflected the results of Meiji tax reform. The tax system instituted in the 1870s was less flexible and more impersonal than the Tokugawa system, assessing taxes at a rate of 3 percent of land value, rather than according to the size of the harvest, and collecting them in cash, rather than in kind. These changes tended to benefit middle- and upper-class rural landowners but pushed small farmers into tenancy and tenant farmers further into destitution. In 1888, an incident often recounted in Oomoto lore led to Kisaburò’s departure from the Saitò household.32 The Kyûbei pond was located on Ueda family land and had been used for irrigation when the family owned more fields. Over the years, it became a source of tragedy as several family members drowned there. Kisaburò’s father decided to fill in the pond after

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one of his sons nearly drowned, but village landowners opposed the plan since they used the pond to irrigate their own fields. When they reportedly met at Saitò’s house to plot against the Uedas, Kisaburò overheard their scheming. He quit his job and took up the fight against the wealthy farmers, researching land and legal documents and arguing the case for the family. In the end, the landowners agreed to pay the Ueda family fifty pounds of unhulled rice per year for use of the pond. The episode is often invoked as evidence of Onisaburò’s dedication to justice and also indicates his ability to get results. Unemployed once again after the pond episode, Onisaburò recounts how he took up the laborious task of hauling carts of firewood to Kyoto.33 He describes the grueling work of crossing snowy mountain passes in the dark of night, relying on the light of the moon to avoid falling into ravines. He was sometimes robbed by bandits. As the wheels of his cart rattled through the streets of Kameoka, he admired the ruins of Kameyama Castle, built by Akechi Mitsuhide, the traitorous warrior who had killed Oda Nobunaga, the sixteenth-century warlord who began the process of Japan’s national reunification after a century of warfare. According to his memoirs, Kisaburò vowed to one day restore the castle, a promise that would be partially fulfilled in the 1920s, when Oomoto acquired the castle grounds.34 Onisaburò’s acquisition of the property would lend credence to later media accusations that he was a traitor who admired Akechi. At twenty-one Kisaburò was invited by his cousin Inoue Naokichi, a dairy farmer, to move to nearby Sonobe to work on his farm and apprentice as a veterinarian.35 The dairy business, introduced during the late Meiji, was a promising industry in a period when the Japanese were modifying their traditional diet in response to Western imports. One gò of milk (.384 pints) sold for 3 zeni, equivalent to the cost of eight gò of rice.36 The work, however, turned out to be more hard labor—milking cows, tending herds, and delivering the milk. Onisaburò claims that when there was time to spare, he studied pharmaceuticals and chemistry with a local druggist. He also studied animal physiology by luring weasels, mice, and stray cats and dogs with milk, then killing them for dissection. Conscious of not squandering life, he would eat the animals after his experiments, sharing the meat with local children. He reportedly once remarked, “The only thing on four legs I can’t eat is a table.”37 Onisaburò’s interest in these matters reflects the diffusion of knowledge of the natural sciences to the general population by the 1890s. Popular works like Fukuzawa Yûkichi’s Illustration of Natural Science (Kunmò kyûri zukai) and Nishi Amane’s Links of All Sciences (Hyakugaku renkan) disseminated Western scientific knowledge to early Meiji audiences. Fur-

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thermore, under the new educational regulations, many natural sciences, including chemistry, botany, and zoology, became compulsory subjects at middle and higher schools.38 The first veterinary college was established in 1891 at the Imperial University in Tokyo, and the new occupation offered the dream of an upwardly mobile path for rural youth. After a few years in Sonobe, Kisaburò decided against becoming a veterinarian. After he returned home, he took qualifying exams for jobs like policeman, prison guard, and even blacksmith—all occupations that were perhaps more open to the rural poor than the sciences, which were dominated by former samurai.39 Onisaburò claims that he passed them all, but he chose not to pursue any of these careers for reasons that are unclear but may have included poor health. At loose ends but filled with the Meiji (risshin shusse) spirit that drove young men to strive for personal success, Kisaburò next embarked on a number of entrepreneurial ventures. Translated works like Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help (Saikoku risshi hen) popularized the ideals of individual self-advancement through energetic initiative, strenuous work, frugality, and perseverance. These virtues had also been a part of the conventional morality (tsûzoku dòtoku) of Tokugawa peasants, but in the Meiji era, they would allow an individual to climb to a higher status, rather than remaining resigned to a static position in society. Self-Help was a best seller, continuously reprinted and translated for several decades and described as one of the “holy books” of the Meiji era.40 While its main audience was former samurai who aspired to government or corporate positions, its ideals were also internalized by ambitious young men with few prospects, like Kisaburò. Kisaburò’s enterprises varied widely. After an unsuccessful stint as a prospector for manganese ore, he employed his study of chemicals in the manufacture of Ramune, a newly popular carbonated soft drink that contained tartaric and sulphuric acids. The business quickly folded after selling just thirty yen of product on an initial investment of two hundred yen.41 Kisaburò also invented labor-saving devices for farmers, such as a rice husker that could be used in a sitting position to rest legs weary with the day’s labor. His businesses inevitably went awry. The rice husker, along with his other efforts, earned him disdainful nicknames, like “Mr. Rice Man” and “Mr. I’ll-Do-Anything.”42 Desperate to make money, he even entered a soy sauce drinking contest in hopes of winning a prize of one yen.43 Despite these numerous setbacks, his memoirs and biographies portray him as dauntless and optimistic. His willingness to undertake risks with new enterprises would later serve him well in directing Oomoto’s rapid expansion. In 1896, Kisaburò finally achieved a modicum of success when he opened his own dairy near Anao with borrowed funds.44 It was a one-man

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enterprise; he milked and tended the cows, delivered the milk, and managed the business. At twenty-five, he self-reportedly fell in love with the daughter of a wealthy local farmer he met while delivering milk but abandoned pursuit when the father insisted he give up the dairy and enter the family as an adopted son.45 In sum, accounts of Onisaburò’s young working life underline his qualities as a creative and energetic individual, willing to make personal sacrifices to achieve success. They also reflect the conditions of late Meiji society, in which, despite the promise of opportunity and education, those at the bottom struggled to improve their circumstances and were rarely successful.

Cultural and Spiritual Awakening In the early 1890s, Onisaburò began studying with the Nativist scholar Okada Korehira (1822–1909). Under Okada, Kisaburò studied the meaning of Shinto rituals and festivals described in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. He learned that poetry, dance, and music were central to rituals in order to pacify the gods and pray for world peace.46 While his studies with Okada lasted only a year, they made a deep impression, leading Kisaburò to immerse himself in the study and practice of a variety of arts. At the age of twenty-five, he began studying Kabuki and joruri (storytelling to the accompaniment of a shamisen stringed instrument), commuting to a teahouse nearly ten miles away to study chanting, singing, and dance.47 He also began to produce large quantities of poetry. In keeping with his sense of humor, he often wrote comic haiku and tanka poems, some of which were published in a local monthly magazine, Ahorashi.48 Encouraged by this success, he joined several local literary circles and established his own haiku club, which held poetry gatherings in a small shack. There, he adopted the pen name “Ankambo Kiraku,” or “Free and Easy Fellow.”49 His artistic activities, along with his patronage of local tea and geisha houses, began to earn Kisaburò a reputation as a local man-about-town. Onisaburò’s recollections of his youthful artistic engagement serve to demonstrate how, through talent and energetic application, he transcended his poor peasant status by engaging in the polite activities of his betters, thereby gaining social capital and legitimacy. His interests in Nativism and poetry evoke comparison with Matsuo Taseko (1811–1894), the remarkable peasant woman who supported Nativist activists during the years before the Meiji Restoration.50 Taseko was a member of the wealthy peasant class (gònò) during an era in which literary and performing arts were spreading from urban settings to the countryside and writers and actors found patrons and students in provincial towns and hamlets. She composed poetry

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throughout her lifetime, as Onisaburò did, but had access to much greater resources and moved in more elite circles. Onisaburò’s artistic aspirations reflect the further dissemination of cultural and social ideals to rural middle and lower classes. He later parlayed these ideals into dramatic Oomoto ceremonies and festivals that allowed ordinary followers to increase their own cultural cachet through participation in literary, musical, and dramatic endeavors. Kisaburò’s first exposure to a “new religion” came through his uncle, Sano Seiroku, a preacher in a spiritualist sect known as Myòreikyò. The sect was established in 1861 by Yamauchi Rihei in Hyogo prefecture, and in 1878 it affiliated with the state-sanctioned Ontakekyò, a sect centered on mountain worship.51 Kisaburò entered Myòreikyò at age twenty-four, after being healed of a terrible toothache.52 When a Myòreikyò preacher exorcised an evil being that had possessed his cousin Inoue, his entire family joined and became ardent believers.53 Onisaburò recounts that he soon grew weary of the sect, as its primary practice was to repetitively chant the syllable “myò,” meaning miraculous or mysterious, while a preacher beat a taiko drum.54 He later complained: “Whether there was a flood or parents died or children died, it was just ‘myò, myò, myò.’ When the neighbor’s house burned, ‘myò, myò, myò.’ . . . Even the god who cured my toothache must be sick of all that ‘myò, myò.’”55 Onisaburò’s boredom with this simplistic practice helps account for the opulent, performative Oomoto rituals he later established. The differences in emphasis between Ontakekyò’s mountain- and pilgrimage-oriented sect and Myòreikyò healing- and chanting-oriented practice illustrate how table-style affiliation in the Sect Shinto system was utilitarian rather than religious. Kisaburò did not become a serious spiritualist for several years. According to Oomoto sources, the death of his father in 1897 acted as a catalyst, turning him first toward self-destructive behavior before he experienced a spiritual awakening. Devastated and depressed by the loss of his father, Kisaburò abandoned his dairy business. He began to drink up to a half gallon of sake a day and got into brawls with the thuggish creditors who demanded a settlement of his father’s debts.56 On February 28, 1898, a gang of ruffians burst into his joruri performance, dragged him from the stage, and beat him severely. Kisaburò managed to crawl to the small shed where his haiku club met before he lost consciousness.57 According to his memoirs, Kisaburò floated in and out of consciousness before he noticed a man dressed in Western clothing sitting beside him. The man led Kisaburò out of the shed, and the following morning he found himself on Mount Takakuma, a nearby mountain to the southwest of Anao, sitting on a rock in a small cave. He remained there for a week, fasting,

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meditating, praying, and undergoing a life-changing spiritual experience he later described in his opus, Reikai monogatari (Tales of the Spirit World; see chapter 3). The physical conditions were severe. Biting February winds cut through his single cotton undergarment, and he suffered from extreme hunger and thirst. He later claimed that through this experience, he realized his mission as a savior and learned the truth of the universe. He further claimed that in the course of his austerities, he traveled through different dimensions and gained psychic abilities, knowledge of the workings of karma, and the ability to communicate with the spirit world. He made rapid progress, declaring in his memoirs that “my spiritual research progressed faster than a train, an airplane, even faster than a flash. It was as if a kindergartner had graduated from college and attained a position as professor in a single instant.”58 Here Onisaburò clearly adopts the hagiographical pattern established with En no Gyòja, alleging superhuman powers based on mountain austerities. The interesting twist of a spirit guide in Western clothing suggests that unlike most early Oomoto believers, Kisaburò was open to Western influences and viewed these positively. After his spiritual awakening on Mount Takakuma, Kisaburò returned home but soon fell gravely ill, unable to move his body or to speak or open his eyes. Despite his family’s primary membership in Myòreikyò, they consulted a wide variety of healers from diverse religious traditions. An exorcist noisily struck wooden clappers above his head; a priest chanted “Namyòhòrengeikyò,” the mantra central to all forms of Nichiren practice, and struck Kisaburò’s head, hips, hands, and feet with his rosary; others circled him while beating a taiko drum. His family believed he was possessed by a fox or badger spirit. They burned red pepper and pine needles under his nose to drive out the spirit.59 He claims he was suddenly cured when his mother’s tears touched his body.60 Based on his Mount Takakuma experience, Kisaburò decided to renounce worldly preoccupations and devote his life to unveiling the mysteries of the spirit. He began to practice meditation and study any spiritualist teachings he could find. In a month’s time he began to establish a reputation and a small following, though his family ridiculed his efforts and told villagers he was practicing witchcraft.61 The most common route to gain a religious following at the time was via healing. The young spiritualist’s first patient was a woman with a toothache.62 He reports that he purified himself, said prayers, and lightly stroked the woman’s cheek; to his surprise, her pain subsided. He began to give lectures at Myòreikyò churches, and his reputation spread rapidly. In April 1898, Kisaburò received a visitor from the Shizuoka headquarters of the Shintoist sect Inari Kòsha; the visitor invited him to meet the

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figure 1.1.  Young Onisaburò, holding the scroll given to him by Nagasawa Katsutate.

founder, Nagasawa Katsutate (1858–1940). In the folk mind, the cult of Inari was related to the veneration of foxes, considered tricksters with the power to possess or bring harm to individuals.63 Kisaburò accepted nevertheless and accompanied the visitor to Shizuoka, walking first to Kyoto, then taking his first train ride. Nagasawa was a pupil of Honda Chikaatsu (1823–1889), a scholar of Nativist spiritualism (see chapter 3). Nagasawa’s mother reportedly told Kisaburò about Honda’s prophecy that a young man from Tamba would be Nagasawa’s successor. She and her son believed Kisaburò was that individual and gave him Honda’s secret scrolls, as well as a flute and stone that he used in the chinkon kishin spirit possession practice he developed (figure 1.1).64 Nagasawa further tutored Kisaburò in esoteric Shintoist practices and identified his guardian deity as Komatsubayashi no Mikoto, a powerful spirit that was a manifestation or divided fragment (bunrei) of Susanoo no Mikoto, the brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the ancestor of the Japanese imperial line. Perhaps because of this revelation, Susanoo assumed a more important position than Amaterasu in later Oomoto doctrine, a stance that would put it in an antagonistic ideological position with the state.

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Entry into Oomoto Kisaburò’s encounter with Deguchi Nao, the founder of Oomoto, provided another life-changing experience that placed the young man firmly on the road to a spiritual career (figure 1.2). The meeting between the two is legendary, adding to the impression of Kisaburò’s eccentricity and thus exceptionality. Oomoto accounts claim that in July 1898, Kisaburò received a divine message that he was to go to Sonobe, where someone was waiting for him. He left Anao without delay, dressed peculiarly in an old cape and haori jacket and carrying a basket and a child’s parasol, with his teeth blackened in the traditional fashion of married women. His attire reflected the popular notion that spiritualists affected an idiosyncratic appearance. Taking the San-in road west, he reached Yagi, where he rested at a tea shop. A young woman there inquired about his line of business. When Kisaburò replied that he was “an investigator of the gods,” the woman urged him to visit her mother, Deguchi Nao, who had been possessed by a deity for several years. The deity told Nao that a man who would help her would come from the east, and she sent her daughter Hisa to find him. Hisa showed Kisaburò some writings her illiterate mother had produced in a state of divine possession, and he agreed to visit her. Deguchi Nao, a poor, elderly peasant woman from Ayabe, a rural area in Kyoto prefecture, began receiving divine revelations in 1892. She recorded them in kana syllabary in a document called the Ofudesaki, or the tip of the brush.65 The divinely inspired writings continued throughout her life and eventually reached nearly two hundred thousand pages, though she allegedly could not read a single word.66 Nao’s life, like Onisaburò’s, conforms to hagiographical models, emphasizing the extreme suffering she experienced before achieving spiritual realizations. Oomoto biographies describe Nao’s life as one of misery and hardship. Her husband Masagorò, a carpenter, drank heavily and mismanaged family finances, causing the family to lose their home and incur debts. Between the ages of nineteen and forty-five, Nao bore eleven children; three died in infancy, two daughters went insane, her eldest son repeatedly attempted suicide, and her favorite son, Sekichi, was drafted into the army and soon killed in Taiwan. Nao peddled homemade rice cakes to supplement the family income. In 1885, when she was forty-eight, her husband became permanently paralyzed after he fell from the roof of a house he was repairing. He died two years later. In order to make ends meet Nao became a ragpicker, the lowliest of occupations at the time, traveling from village to village, collecting bits of cloth and wastepaper. On February 3, 1892, at age fifty-five, Nao was first possessed by a

figure 1.2. Deguchi Nao.

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spirit known as Ushitora no Konjin, the original and true god who had been silent for three thousand years and was feared as an evil god. Konjin was not an invention by Nao but a well-known cultic deity who resided in the northeast (ushitora), a direction associated with metals and directional taboos. He was generally believed to be a vengeful and evil force. Kawate Bunjirò (1814–1883), founder of the new religion Konkòkyò, established in 1859 and officially approved as a Shinto sect in 1885, identified Konjin as a long misunderstood but benevolent deity. Konkòkyò had a strong following in Western Japan. Nao likely had some exposure to these ideas prior to her possession experience. Initially reluctant to succumb to Konjin’s wishes, she was soon convinced that she was possessed by the one true god and that all of her suffering had been a trial to prepare her for use in a divine plan. For thirteen days after her initial possession, she went without food, and for seventy-five days the deity would not allow her to sleep. She wandered through town in a possessed state, crying out that people must reform. The townspeople regarded her as insane, and the police jailed her on a suspected arson charge. During her detention, the unschooled Nao picked up a nail and began to scratch out the first letters of the Ofudesaki: “The Greater World shall burst into bloom as plum blossoms at winter’s end. I, Ushitora no Konjin, have come to reign at last. . . . Know ye, this present world is a world of beasts, the stronger preying upon the weaker, the work of the devil.”67 After her release, Nao began to make prophetic predictions, including the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. Her pronouncements were heir to a yonaoshi-style religious worldview that foretold of the destruction of the existing, unjust world and the promise of a new millennium. Folk belief in yonaoshi, or world renewal, informed a wide range of social protests in the Tokugawa period, from peasant uprisings (hyakkushò ikki) and urban smashings (uchikowashi) expressing outrage at economic inequalities to the carnivalesque eijanaika movement, an outpouring of chaotic dance and debauchery on the eve of the Meiji Restoration. Yonaoshi belief was often vague and diffuse. It was generally characterized by a sense that people were living in a time of crisis that would be overcome by divine intervention, bringing a utopian world with greater economic and social equality, often called the miroku no yo, or the world of the future Buddha. Such divine intervention, however, would occur only if individuals held faith in the power to transform the world and acted according to this faith via sincerity, hard work, and conventional morality (tsûzoku dòtoku)—that is, if they engaged in self-cultivation.68 Yasumaru Yoshio identifies Fujikò and Maruyamakyò as two new religions featuring yonaoshi belief that emerged in the late Tokugawa period.69 Oomoto’s early teachings under Deguchi

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Nao were a particularly zealous variant of yonaoshi belief. She made concrete predictions of the destruction and resurrection of the evil world under the catchphrase tatekae, tatenaoshi (demolition and reconstruction). Nao’s teachings contained both criticisms of society and warnings of an apocalypse. She voiced anger at social inequity and moral corruption and roundly rejected the legitimacy of a social order in which the strong exploited the weak and money, not moral virtue, was valued and rewarded.70 Soon after Nao gained a small following, the head priest of the Konkòkyò branch in Kameoka asked her to act as the sect’s agent in Ayabe. Lacking alternatives for establishing an independent religious group but wishing to avoid police harassment and interference, Nao agreed to do so. This affiliation lasted for several years, until Nao grew impatient with subordinating her teachings to Konkòkyò beliefs and broke the connection in 1897. When Kisaburò first called on Nao in 1898, she was highly suspicious of his ties to Inari Kòsha because of its association with fox and badger spirits.71 Kisaburò returned home after a brief visit and continued his work as an itinerant healer and exorcist, establishing a spiritual studies society called the Reigakukai (Association for the Study of Spirit). He contacted Nao again in February 1899, proposing their cooperation in a religious mission.72 She invited Kisaburò to help her set up an independent group, and he arrived in Ayabe for the second time on July 3, 1899. Upon his arrival, Nao’s Ofudesaki writings declared, “The one who came to Ayabe will do God’s work. He will become Nao’s true strength.”73 Kisaburò created a new organization, the Kinmei Reigakukai (the Bright Metal Association for the Study of Spirit, the first character of the name paralleling the first character of Konjin), with headquarters located on the second floor of a believer’s house.74 (See figure 1.3.) Although Kisaburò planned for the new group to eventually act as a branch of Inari Kòsha, associated with the officially recognized Yamanashi prefectural shrine, Nao later rejected this plan. Kisaburò set to work busily organizing doctrines, practices, festivals, and rituals while studying and interpreting Nao’s Ofudesaki. The combination of female mystic and male manager at the head of new religions was not uncommon. It reflected older folk practices using female mediums and male shamans/interpreters; these in turn derived from an ancient ideal of rulership by a “dual-gender pair,” with women controlling the sacred realm and men supervising the secular. The postwar new religions Reiyûkai and Risshò Koseikai had similar arrangements. Other traditional and new religious movements across South and Southeast Asia also share this male/female division of labor. Onisaburò married Nao’s youngest daughter and heir, Sumiko, on

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January 1, 1900. He was adopted into the family, a common practice in both premodern and modern Japan, thus solidifying his leadership position within the organization.75 In her memoirs, Sumiko admits she was put off by Kisaburò’s idiosyncratic clothing styles and unusual behaviors and was less than enthusiastic about the match. At one point, she planned to run away and work as a servant in Kyoto or Osaka.76 Nao repeatedly emphasized that the marriage was god’s will, and in the end Sumiko acquiesced.77 Marriage and fatherhood were not priorities for Onisaburò, however. He and his wife often lived apart for years at a time and maintained a rather formal relationship. She called him sensei, or teacher, throughout their lives. His religious partnership with Nao, however rocky, was far more important. It was around this time that Kisaburò adopted the name Onisaburò, chosen for its allusion to Wani, described in the Kojiki as a legendary scholar who first brought Chinese characters to Japan from the ancient Korean kingdom of Kudara and whose name was written with the same characters.78 Like Wani, Kisaburò brought these characters to Nao’s syllabary script to translate her Ofudesaki into standard Japanese. The result was a new text, known as the Shinnyû.79 Onisaburò was, no doubt, also conscious of ancient imperial naming practices that used the second character of his new name—for example, the emperors Suinin (reign dates 29 B.C.E–70 C.E.),

figure 1.3.  The Kinmei Reigakukai, 1899. Sumi, Nao, and Onisaburò are seated in the front row, third, fourth, and fifth from the left respectively.

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Nintoku (313–399 C.E.), and Ninken (488–498 C.E.). Combined with the first character, which signified kingship, the name clearly emanated a grandiose, imperial aura. It had the bonus value of association with both demons (oni) and crocodiles (wani), lending a fearsome aspect to his new identity. The spiritualist practices Onisaburò learned from Nagasawa attracted many to the sect. As his reputation in Ayabe grew, Nao began to feel a sense of rivalry with him, and her Ofudesaki began to warn against spiritualist activity and affiliation with Inari Kòsha. She attempted to offset Onisaburò’s popularity in 1900 by instituting a new Oomoto practice: difficult pilgrimages (shusshu) to sacred sites revealed in her divinations. In 1901 the Ofudesaki began to criticize Onisaburò’s lifestyle and character. Reflecting widespread anti-foreignism, associated with rural Nativism, Nao’s text contained warnings against Western clothing and shoes, the eating of meat, and other foreign practices. Her followers obeyed her commands reverently, but Onisaburò, whose Nativist tendencies were focused more on an interpretation of the classics than on a xenophobic rejection of material goods, violated them at will. He and Nao began to have vehement arguments over organizational and doctrinal matters while both were reportedly in states of spirit possession.80 Differences of opinion were unsurprising, as Nao and Kisaburò were complete opposites in personality. The differences in their physical characteristics underscored their disparate temperaments. Nao was gaunt, angular, and fragile, with intense eyes; long, narrow fingers; and a pessimistic outlook. She was respected among her followers for her extreme asceticism. She refused to use a futon for sleeping or a hibachi brazier for heat.81 Her cold-water ablutions were never neglected, even in the bitter cold of winter. Kisaburò, by contrast, was round and soft and radiated a happy optimism. He believed a nice, hot bath worked as well as cold-water austerities to clean and purify the body.82 Nao’s religious worldview was an antimodern, eschatological millenarianism rooted in xenophobic nationalism, while Onisaburò’s view of the coming world renewal was much vaguer and demonstrated a cosmopolitanism that embraced modern civilization and international cooperation. This difference in worldview reflected not only a personality difference but a deep generation gap between a more traditional social ideology that idealized closed borders and conventional morality and a Meiji mindset of development, expansion, and engagement with the world. The contrasts between the two leaders were highlighted in Oomoto doctrine in the idea that they represented the warp and weft of a single divine cloth and that both would preside over the coming millennium. Perhaps the most interesting doctrinal use of their opposing characteristics is

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the inversion of gender roles: Nao was the henjonanshi, the transformed male or male in the guise of a female, while Onisaburò was her opposite, a henjonyòshi, the female in the guise of a male.83 (The word henjonanshi itself was a pun on the misogynist Buddhist concept that women must be reborn as men before entering Amida’s paradise.) Ushitora no Konjin’s divine realm would be established on earth through the parallel efforts of these two transformed beings to acquire and manifest the positive qualities of the opposite gender.84 Nao used the concept to establish and legitimate her religious authority. On one hand, being physically female, she was able to endure the profound suffering that was a necessary preparation for her role. On the other, being male in nature, she was able to articulate a harsh message of yonaoshi world renewal that was uncompromising in its demands for moral reform and the eradication of evil.85 Onisaburò played up the physical aspects of his role, stating, “I am a man with a female nature, but my hair is long and thick, my beard thin, my body soft, and my breasts large, so I even resemble a woman physically.”86 At times, he affected a feminine aura, dressing in brightly colored kimonos and posing as a female deity for publicity photographs (figure 1.4). Gender inversion also applied to other deities associated with each of the two leaders. Nao was the vessel of Ushitora no Konjin, Onisaburò that of his wife, Hitsujisaru no Konjin;87 Nao was the Izu spirit (Izu mitama), a fatherly figure, while Onisaburò was the Mizu spirit, a motherly entity that Nao acknowledged was more tolerant, nurturing, and forgiving than she was.88 Although Nao desperately needed Onisaburò’s verbal and organizational skills to propagate her message, she expected him to act appropriately as “a passive, but articulate mouthpiece for her will,” while she remained the final authority in all matters.89 In their struggle for control, Nao’s Ofudesaki warned: “The Transformed Female had better be careful. . . . [She] wants to assert herself too much....She must achieve resolution and calm.”90 Onisaburò’s memoirs report how he was persecuted by groups of early followers loyal to Nao, led by two young men who had hoped to marry Sumiko and gain a position of power in the organization. They claimed Onisaburò impeded Nao’s holy work. They wanted to expel him from the sect, accusing him of all manner of malfeasance and blasphemy, from embezzlement to possession by demons. During the group’s Autumn Festival in 1902 he was physically attacked in a melee that resulted in a riot, injuring several believers. Onisaburò escaped uninjured, but his enemies promptly accused him of cowardice and ordered him to commit ritual suicide (seppuku). Nao interceded, reminding her followers that god had a special role for him.91 Onisaburò claims that for a six-month period his detractors imprisoned him in a six-mat room, guarding him night and day to prevent his escape or un-

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figure 1.4. Onisaburò dressed as Benzaiten, the Japanese name of the goddess Sarasvati. She is the patroness of music, poetry, and art, popularly associated with financial good fortune, and the sole female among Japan’s Seven Lucky Gods.

desirable behavior.92 In keeping with Nao’s condemnation of Chinese characters as foreign, they refused to allow him to read the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. Onisaburò secretly conducted his studies at night with a pocket lamp, hurriedly putting out the light when footsteps approached.93 At one point, he escaped. His captors punished him by burning all of the writings he had left behind in Ayabe.94 These reminiscences by Onisaburò serve to demonstrate his perseverance in supporting the Oomoto mission. They underline the challenges he overcame to gain leadership, which he won not simply through marrying Nao’s heir, Sumiko, but also through patience and dedication to his mission. They also present Onisaburò as a relatively rational force within Oomoto leadership. Having spurned both Konkòkyò and Inari Kòsha affiliation, the group lacked a legal identity and was constantly harassed by the police. Nao increased this hostile official attention by flouting police and legal restrictions. In his efforts to manage the organization Onisaburò faced both internal resistance from those who questioned his role and external pressures from authorities that denied the sect’s validity.

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Onisaburò was finally saved from internal persecution by the failure of Nao’s prophecies. She had predicted that world renewal would commence in 1905, with Japan’s utter defeat in the Russo-Japanese War as the initial sign of the millennium. When Japan celebrated victory instead, disillusioned followers left the fold and Onisaburò’s enemies slowly faded away. During 1905, he traveled throughout the Kansai region as an itinerant missionary, staying in followers’ homes in Sonobe, Kameoka, Kyoto, and Osaka. In 1906, in order to gain a qualification that might help Oomoto establish a legal identity, he entered the Kòten Kokyûsho Academy, an institution recently established by the Home Ministry in Kyoto to train Shinto priests for official appointments.95 There he studied Japanese history and classical literature and reportedly graduated on an accelerated schedule in six months’ time.96 Reflecting his continued interests in poetry, he also joined the academy’s literary club, which produced a monthly magazine entitled Konomichi.97 Learning the use of a printing press would prove to be a skill that would figure largely in later Oomoto missionary activity. After his graduation in March 1907, Onisaburò passed the examination for Shinto priesthood and was awarded an appointment at Kenkun Shrine in northern Kyoto at an annual salary of thirty yen. He was soon dismissed from this post for unspecified flamboyant activity.98 A representative of Ontakekyò, an officially approved sect, offered him a position as director of the main shrine in Osaka.99 Onisaburò’s efforts to find legitimate methods for conducting an independent Oomoto mission kept him away from Ayabe for long periods. Since Nao’s followers had largely abandoned her, she and her family had fallen into dire financial straits. They could no longer afford three meals per day, and it was difficult to find the funds for ink and paper for Nao’s incessant production of the Ofudesaki.100 In March 1908 Yuasa Saijiro, a wealthy Ontakekyò follower who had married Onisaburò’s younger sister, donated a large amount to the struggling sect.101 The funds allowed Onisaburò to return to Ayabe and devote himself more fully to Oomoto development. He began large-scale proselytization centered on his own beliefs and interpretations of the Ofudesaki, resulting in entry onto the national stage. Onisaburò’s autobiographical accounts of his youthful interests and early religious activity foreshadow many areas of Oomoto’s later developments. Art, Nativism, and spiritualist activity become central components of Oomoto proselytization, attracting a high degree of public interest. The patterns of his life story fit within earlier Japanese traditions of hagiography and provide a model for later leaders of new religions. Like Konkòkyò’s Kawate Bunjirò and Tenrikyò’s Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) (among oth-

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ers), Onisaburò demonstrated early aptitude and interest in religious matters, suffered serious illness, and was chosen by God as a prophet to deliver a message of salvation and to criticize established religious traditions.102 His multifaceted artistic inclinations are reflected in the later activities of Sòka Gakkai’s leader Ikeda Daisaku, Sekai Kyûseikyò’s Okada Mòkichi, and Kofuku no Kagaku’s Okawa Ryûhò (among others). But Onisaburò’s life story is not simply a mirror of and model for other Japanese new religions. It also reflects the rise of nationalistic religions advocating for improved rights and socioeconomic conditions for the oppressed around the world. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries global historical forces affected local religious conditions and gave rise to a generation of religious leaders cum social activists around the world; such leaders often earned larger-than-life reputations for divine gifts and miraculous powers. Those forces included imperialism and colonialism and the related expansion of Christian missionary activity, the rise of a nationalist consciousness among populations subject to those forces, the weakening of established churches in response to the advance of science and the strengthening of state authorities, and the proliferation of mass media outside of the control of government authorities. Such conditions were factors in fostering mass followings for individuals like Simon Kimbangu (1887–1951), the Christian healer and miracle worker whose Church of Jesus Christ on Earth in the Belgian Congo became an influential anticolonialist movement, and Teresita Urrea (1873–1906), the “Mexican Joan of Arc,” a popular herbalist, prophet, and hypnotist who championed the rights of Yaqui Indians and was exiled by the Diaz government.103 In India, beloved national heroes like Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) and Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) were spiritual leaders who employed the pulpit to call for equal rights for lower castes and independence from the British empire.104 Late Meiji Japan, while not colonized by the West, was bound by unfair trade treaties and was undergoing rapid Westernization from above, a kind of colonization from within imposed by oligarchic leaders, to the discomfort of many below. As detailed in chapter 2, Oomoto’s main teachings and practices in its first national platform can be described as Neo-Nativism, a melding of resistance to Westernization and reassertion of traditional Japanese cultural values containing elements of Nativist interpretations of the Japanese classics and yonaoshi-style folk demands for social and economic reform. Oomoto aimed to reintegrate ritual, belief, and action into an organic whole that might be labeled saisei itchi, the unification of religion and governance, a slogan that had been championed by nineteenth-century Nativists, who called for the restoration of the emperor.



C h a p t e r Two



Neo-Nativism



Oomoto Views on Mythology, Governance, and Agrarianism

According to an apocryphal tale circulated by Onisaburò’s grandson, Deguchi Yasuaki, in the summer of 1864, when imperial loyalist forces led by troops from Chòshû domain stormed the emperor’s palace in Kyoto in efforts to restore imperial power, a sumo wrestler by the name of Asahigata Kametarò saved the life of Emperor Kòmei.1 As bullets flew into the interior of the palace, chaos reigned, and effete courtiers dashed around in confusion. Following traditional proscriptions against touching the emperor’s body, none were willing to physically lead his royal majesty to safety. Asahigata decided to violate the taboo. Cradling Kòmei respectfully in his arms, he escorted him to a safe haven. Asahigata remained a loyal follower of Kòmei. He attempted to dedicate a shrine to his memory after the emperor’s mysterious death, but the new government would not allowed him to do so. The Meiji oligarchs were reluctant to call attention to the imperial predecessor because, this story goes, the Emperor Kòmei’s son, Mutsuhito, had been secretly murdered by Chòshû forces and replaced with a boy named Òmuro Toranosuke, a descendant of the southern line of emperors. The murder occurred during the transferal of the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo. It was Toranosuke who reigned as the Emperor Meiji. The evidence for the switch was plain to see. Mutsuhito had been a weak and effeminate boy and his parents often worried about his ability to rule, whereas the Emperor Meiji was clearly a strong, masculine, and martial leader. Yasuaki possessed a handwritten copy of this unpublished account, reportedly written in 1944 by a follower of Asahigata. What is the significance of this fantastic story in understanding Oomoto’s appeal from the 1910s through the 1930s? Why did individuals repeat and record such a tale nearly a century after the Restoration? One possible answer lies in lingering support and nostalgia for Nativism. Even during the Shòwa period, many 45

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individuals remained disappointed that the dream of imperial restoration had failed to achieve the ideal society envisioned by the grassroots Nativist movement (sòmò no kokugaku), which spread throughout Japan’s rural areas in the late nineteenth century. In the mid- to late Meiji period, frustrated Nativists joined secular liberals and radicals of the Freedom and Popular Rights movement in their dissatisfaction toward the results of the Restoration.2 Some may have accepted and repeated the story of the murdered Mutsuhito as a means to explain why the Restoration had not resulted in a return to the Way of the Gods: the “true” emperor had never really been restored. Nativism, or kokugaku (also known as National Learning) initially developed in reaction to the strong influence of Chinese learning (kangaku), including Confucianism and Buddhism. In contrast to the formalism, rationality, and logic found in Chinese learning, Nativism celebrated emotion, beauty, and indigenous Japanese tradition. It asserted the superiority and divinity of Japanese culture. Early Nativist scholars, like Kada no Azumamaro (1669–1736) and Motoori Norinaga, engaged in the study of ancient poetry and texts, such as the Manyòshû and the Kojiki, attempting to retrieve their original meanings through philology. By the nineteenth century, Nativism had acquired a Shintoist cast exalting the Japanese imperial tradition, largely owing to the influence of Hirata Atsutane, whose followers proselytized among peasant farmers in rural Japan. Hirata missionaries dispensed practical advice for increasing farm productivity through hard work and self-reliance alongside instruction in ancient prayer and ritual. In their views on governance, Hirata Nativists revered the emperor and the ancient ideal of the unity of rites and governance (matsurigoto or saisei itchi). They preached the restoration of this ancient ideal and taught followers that diligence and hard work would usher in a utopian world. Like their earlier counterparts, nineteenth-century Nativists were generally anti-foreign, but the target of their hostility had shifted from China to the encroaching West. The cry of “Revere the emperor; expel the barbarians” (Sonnò jòi), taken up by imperial Restoration activists, neatly expressed Nativist hopes and political sentiment. Following the Restoration, leaders of the Hirata school became key officials of the Meiji government. They actively promoted the revival and purification of Shinto practices. In the turmoil and experimentation that accompanied the construction of the early Meiji state, their influence was short-lived. They fell from power with the closing of the Office of Rites in 1872.3 With the contemporary pressures to separate state and religion in accordance with Western norms, saisei itchi disappeared as a goal for the modern Japanese nation.

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As Meiji oligarchs crafted a bureaucratic state with little imperial input and no plans for rural utopia, Nativist supporters of the Restoration felt betrayed. Their disappointment was poignantly described in Shimazaki Tòson’s novel Before the Dawn, serialized in the magazine Chûò kòron between April 1929 and October 1935.4 The novel spans the Meiji divide, set between 1853 and 1886. It centers on Aoyama Hanzò, a character based on the author’s father, an ardent supporter of the Hirata school. Hanzò is a “romantic young rural idealist full of noble but naïve dreams” who sacrifices all for Nativist principles.5 He and his fellow Nativists are elated by the promise of the Restoration, believing that it will bring about a just and moral state based on ancient principles and traditional Japanese culture. They become increasingly disillusioned by the Meiji state’s embrace of the West and its suppression of the popular rights movement in the 1880s. In the end, Hanzò dies alone, disappointed and humiliated, feeling that his faith in the Nativist movement had been “simple-minded.”6 Shimazaki’s novel simultaneously pronounced the death of Nativism by the mid-Meiji period and resurrected interest in the topic in the Shòwa period. Western scholarship generally concurs with this timing of Nativism’s demise. H. D. Harootunian argues that the popular movement was “ultimately . . . intercepted by the state” and that its “essentially utopian communitarian vision was neutralized politically and assimilated to a larger cultural ideology.”7 Some scholars have linked the views of Motoori and Hirata to the swelling of popular nationalism in the 1930s, but few trace the fate of Nativism between these points. Despite a wealth of Western scholarship on intellectual and social aspects of the movement during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the question of popular Nativism in the early twentieth century has been largely ignored.8 Oomoto’s beliefs and activities from the early 1900s to the 1930s reflect clear continuities with the teachings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Nativists, though canonical Nativists were rarely mentioned by name. Like Motoori, Onisaburò believed in the existence of an indigenous Ancient Way that could be discerned through the interpretation of the Japanese classics. He was similarly interested in language and its manipulation, and he sought in the Kojiki the source for principles of the Ancient Way. Like Hirata, Onisaburò emphasized the religiosity of Nativist thought and idealized a communal, agricultural lifestyle centering on work and worship.9 Not surprisingly, he too found early supporters among a rural constituency and promoted a theology that embraced the popular beliefs and practices of folk and the quotidian routines of rural life. Just as nineteenth-century Nativists had demanded the Meiji Restoration, Oomoto Neo-Nativism joined the call for a Taishò restoration, especially evident after the political crisis

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of 1912. Oomoto efforts were intended to remind the people that the state had failed to put into effect the original ideals many Nativists had held for the Meiji Restoration. There had been a restoration of imperial sovereignty (òsei fukko), but the ideal imperial government, envisioned by Oomoto as a leveling of social, political, and economic power, had never occurred. This chapter will trace Nativist themes in Oomoto doctrine and activity in the early twentieth century. Oomoto’s new version of Nativism testified to the historical changes Japan had faced in the tumultuous decades of the Meiji period. It reflected dissatisfaction with state policies designed to encourage industrial development and manage ideology, such as the new taxation system and the establishment of State Shinto. It further reflected increasing popular alarm over the state’s engagement with the West and its handling of international affairs. It valorized Japanese cultural identity and asserted a special mission for the Japanese nation. Yet, while promoting ethnic nationalism, it also provided a basis for a radical critique of the imperialistic nationalism promoted by the bureaucratic state. Onisaburò artfully responded to popular dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions and lingering Nativist attitudes as he shaped Oomoto’s first national platform, a Neo-Nativism that retained utopian and agrarian aspects of earlier teachings but located Japan in a global context. While the Neo-Nativist message was only one aspect of Oomoto’s appeal to potential converts, it was the foundation of its doctrinal teachings and a significant factor in Oomoto’s first spurt of rapid expansion from around 1908 to 1918.

The Establishment of Kòdò Oomoto When Onisaburò returned to Ayabe in August 1908, he established a new group, the Dai Nihon Shussaikai (Association for the Purification of Japan; hereafter DNS). Its stated purpose was research into Shinto. Had it been established as a religious group, it would have attracted unwanted police attention.10 The DNS’s first monthly publication, Òmoto kòshû (Training Course in Oomoto), provided detailed instructions on how to conduct Shinto rituals. It was a step toward reappropriating community ritual from the control of professional, state-appointed priests.11 The DNS established a missionary corps to begin national proselytization activity. Initially it attracted about one hundred members, who contributed to the construction of a shrine hall dedicated in November 1909.12 Public interest in the group grew with the opening of a train line between Kyoto and Ayabe in 1911. The town was now within easy access from Kyoto, Osaka, and even Tokyo.13 Convenient mainland rail routes allowed pilgrims, tourists, and potential converts to make simple day trips to Oomoto’s rapidly growing

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facilities. Indeed accessibility was a significant factor in the group’s growth and introduction to urban audiences. The timing of the DNS was excellent. The Russo-Japanese War (1904– 1905) had heightened public demand for shrine rituals and amulets promising victory and individual protection.14 In 1906, however, the Home Ministry initiated the consolidation of Shinto shrines, eventually eliminating over eighty thousand local sites. The following year it instituted uniform control over shrine rituals, establishing a calendar of new national holidays for conducting imperial rituals, incorporating deities with national associations, and adopting new symbols of the state, like the flag and anthem. Rural residents reluctant to travel to neighboring villages for communal rituals or those who wanted more traditional forms of ritual activity without state interference could learn from Oomoto how to conduct their own ceremonies. Furthermore, unlike official Shinto shrines, Oomoto did not require that the performers of ritual be certified priests of a specific ancestry or status. The training course created the possibility of an imagined Oomoto spiritual community extending beyond Ayabe. Although the DNS claimed it was not a religious organization, its fundamental principles, expressed in its founding charter, were decidedly spiritual. The charter set forth the Three Great Teachings: Observing the phenomena of heaven and earth, we should think of the body of the true god. Seeing unerring activity in all things, we should think of the power of the true god. Perceiving the nature of living beings, we should think of the spirit of the true god.15

Moreover, the charter commented negatively on government management of religious groups, and it criticized the officially approved Shinto sects for their capitulation to the state. Onisaburò derided the thirteen sects, his primary competitors, as “resigned to being tax collectors for income from spells, prayers and divination.”16 By contrast, the charter proclaimed the DNS would promote a “pure” Shinto that included not just religion and ritual but the “four imperial paths of governance, education, tradition, and creation.”17 Such a broad purview was forbidden to officially approved sects, who agreed to limit their activities strictly to religion as narrowly defined by the state. The new organization grew rapidly. By 1912 it numbered 150 branches

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with twenty thousand believers.18 The most ardent converts moved to Ayabe, where they lived in communal style, housed separately but sharing meals.19 In April 1916 the group was renamed once again: Kòdò Oomoto (Oomoto of the Ancient Imperial Way; hereafter Kòdò).20 With the establishment of Kòdò, Onisaburò attempted to further differentiate his sect from the mainstream Shinto establishment, which, in his view, had abandoned the Way of the Gods. Like earlier Nativists, he felt that the teachings of the ancestors had been degraded by incorporating “man-made” doctrines like Confucianism and Buddhism, which were the religions of China, “a ruined nation” defeated by Japan in 1895 and overrun with Western imperialism.21 Onisaburò still remained affiliated with Ontakekyò, but its officials began to chastise him for engaging in activities at variance with their doctrine. When they refused to allow him to turn the Ayabe group into a branch of their sect, Onisaburò resigned his post and initiated discussions with Taiseikyò, another officially approved sect, for affiliation.22 In her recent work, Janine Sawada describes Taiseikyò as a loosely administered group with a vague religious identity that served as an umbrella for a “smorgasbord” of subsects with widely differing practices, from Tòkyûjutsu (centered on divination and breathing exercises) to Shingaku (a Neo-Confucian morality society).23 Affiliation with such a flexible, table-style sect might allow Oomoto to disseminate its own beliefs and practices with relative freedom. The new Ayabe branch of Taiseikyò, known as Chokureikai (the Association of the Direct Spirit), existed separately alongside the DNS, and it circulated fifteen hundred copies of a new publication that contained prophetic excerpts from the Shinnyû, Onisaburò’s edition of Nao’s Ofudesaki.24 Onisaburò’s entrepreneurial skills are apparent in the organizational structure he created for the Chokureikai, including nine different divisions, which reflected both religious and business concerns: rituals, research, propagation, accounting, business promotion, construction, internal affairs, general affairs, and relief work. The organization’s missionary work centered around Kyoto, Osaka, Chiba, and Wakayama.25 By 1910 there were nine branches in Kyoto alone and ten thousand members. For reasons unknown, problems developed with the Taiseikyò parent organization, and the Chokureikai branch was expelled. Obtaining a stable, legal basis for missionary activity was a vexing, ongoing problem. In January 1911 Onisaburò negotiated affiliation with Izumo Òyashirokyò, the Shinto sect associated with the Grand Shrine of Izumo; like Taiseikyò, it was a loose organization that would give free rein to Oomoto’s missionary activities.26 The following year, Onisaburò expanded the group’s executive leadership from eleven to eighty-one to facilitate more rapid expansion across a wider geographic area.27

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One of Onisaburò’s most striking organizational innovations was his 1915 creation of ten peripatetic squads of young missionaries to distribute Oomoto publications throughout the country. This group, known as the Chokureigun (Army of the Direct Spirit), was likely modeled after the Salvation Army, imported successfully to Japan in 1895 by Yamamuro Gunpei and known in Japan as the Kyûseigun (see figure 2.1). As in the West, the Salvation Army focused on the spiritual welfare of urban underclasses. It provided charitable relief for the urban poor and publicized its activities through streetside preaching and singing campaigns.28 At the time, Protestant Christianity in Japan was largely associated with the elite former samurai class. Yamamuro not only brought the gospel to ordinary commoners, but he also led campaigns to liberate prostitutes and collect charitable contributions in the army’s distinctive kettles. When the Emperor Meiji met with the army’s founder, William Booth, in 1907, he pledged financial support for its welfare activities, giving the organization a popular boost. Like the Kyûseigun, Oomoto’s Chokureigun squads included both young men and women, organized in a ten-rank system. Members had long hair because of their belief that hair (kami) provided a bridge to God (kami).29 They wore sashes, sedge hats, and straw sandals and marched through the streets carrying banners and flags and beating drums. While the Kyûseigun gave direct relief to the poor, Oomoto’s Chokureigun was oriented toward

figure 2.1.  Members of the Chokureigun prepared for a street campaign.

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raising yonaoshi-style popular demand for sociopolitical and economic reform, as one of its songs went: Flutter, flutter, flutter. It’s the Flag of God’s Army! Flutter, flutter, flutter. It’s the Flag of Reform! Rise up and fight! Battle the troops of the devils! Until we reach victory for all We give our lives without regret.30



The Chokureigun manifesto, printed in Oomoto’s Shin reikai, declared We, the Army of the Direct Spirit, are sincerely motivated by concern for public welfare and love of the nation. We undergo arduous activity, ceaselessly and without rest, for the sake of imperial ancestors and for the sake of the world. Even if our group is small, even if only one person or one household takes notice of us, even if we are slandered by society and called fools or lunatics, we shall face this persecution and fight. We have firmly resolved that until we reach victory, we will not retreat, even if we die.31

Religious groups were prohibited from engaging in political activity, but authorities tolerated Chokureigun activities probably because the group did not address electoral matters and it closely resembled the state-sanctioned Kyûseigun. The radical young long-hairs appeared eccentric, but their earnestness attracted much support and interest among urban audiences. A few years later, in 1920, in response to media reports that Oomoto sought status as an official Shinto sect and had contributed a million yen to the powerful Seiyûkai political party for its help in these efforts, Onisaburò published an essay that summarized his views on the relationship between state and religion and condemned Sect Shinto.32 He sharply outlined the differences between the official sects, meticulously supervised by the Ministry of Education’s Bureau of Religions, and the nonofficial sects, which did not require approval but loosely fell under the purview of the Home Ministry.33 Onisaburò claimed it was “absolutely backwards” to call religions under the Education Ministry “independent” (dokuritsu) and those under the Home Ministry “nonindependent” (hidokuritsu). The “independent” sects were subject to strict state control, and their leaders had to be confirmed through official approval and imperial appointment.34 The thirteen officially approved groups of Sect Shinto, including the largest new religions of the time—Tenrikyò, Konkòkyò, and Kurozumikyò—could no longer freely promulgate their doctrine and were subject to many legal restraints. These

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sects, along with leaders of official shrines, were forced to accommodate State Shinto ideology and prohibited from engaging in or discussing politics and from criticizing other officially established religions. For example, in 1895, following a meeting convened to assess the future of Shinto in the new Japanese empire, the head priests of major shrines in four prefectures were informed that it was “against their duty to . . . discuss politics” and were summarily fired by the Home Ministry.35 Onisaburò claimed that it was only Oomoto that was truly independent in its activities, “without restrictions on anything between heaven and earth,” and it desired to remain free of the interference and control of “petty officials.”36 The primary reason Oomoto wished to avoid official status was the restriction against engaging in politics. Onisaburò stressed that “the teachings of the kami should not be something supervised or dependent on man-made laws created by men.”37 In order to serve God, who was absolutely unlimited, Oomoto needed to remain unrestricted in promoting its philosophy of Kòdò, the Ancient Imperial Way that encompassed not just religion but all aspects of society, including education, business, science, medicine, and, most important, politics and issues of governance. Although Oomoto might face criticism from and repression by the state, officially approved status would restrict the very essence of Oomoto’s belief in the unity of governance and religion.

Kotodama: The Spirit of the Word Kòdò based its assertions and principles on Onisaburò’s interpretations of ancient mythology and the Japanese classics. Onisaburò used kotodama, the belief in the magical power of sounds and words—literally, “the spirit of the word”—to elucidate the Ancient Way of the Gods as contained in the Kojiki, just as Motoori Norinaga had employed philological techniques on the same text for the same goal. There were, however, important differences in their techniques and their ultimate aims. Over the course of three decades, Motoori produced the Kojiki-den, a phonetic transcription of the entire text of the Kojiki, which was originally written using Chinese characters for both phonetic and logographic purposes.38 He intended to strip away the superficial Chinese layer in order to reach the true meaning of the text, which could only be rendered in the indigenous spoken language. His ultimate goal was to reveal the Way of the Gods, and thus understanding the text was an end in itself. Unlike Confucian scholars, such as Hayashi Razan and Arai Hakuseki, who attempted to rationally explain the founding myths, Motoori believed in the literal existence of ancient deities. His view of the Kojiki was thus fundamentalist, and he

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believed his exoteric approach would clearly reveal the literal truth contained in the myths. In contrast, Onisaburò’s investigations of the text were not based on academic studies of the pronunciation and ancient usage of words, but rather on the magical power of kotodama.39 The Kojiki served not as an end but as a means for Kòdò and Onisaburò, who used the text as a device for legitimizing demands for radical economic and social change. Onisaburò’s view of the Kojiki was not fundamentalist. He believed that the text contained “a myriad of truths” that required esoteric decoding to understand their signficance for a given age. Using the power of kotodama, one could reinterpret the classics for contemporary perspectives on “history or philosophy, religion, politics, literature, medicine, economics, astronomy, calendrical studies, anthropology, metallurgy and minerology, geography, physics, and science.”40 Combining kotodama interpretations of the Kojiki with the prophecies of Oomoto’s foundress, Nao, and his own spiritual experience, Onisaburò drew upon multiple sources of religious authority to validate a wide, if uneven, program of ideas and proposals subversive to state ideology. Kotodama was a major aspect of Oomoto and particularly Onisaburò’s spiritualist practices, and he used it to reinterpret not only the classics but Nao’s prophecies themselves. Through the use of kotodama, Onisaburò could inject secret meanings into his own works, available to adepts but lost to most of us today. Before we further describe Onisaburò’s reinterpretations of mythology or the Kòdò program, it is necessary to provide some additional explanation on kotodama, a little understood topic in Western studies of Japan because of its esoteric and slippery nature. The belief that words have special powers—particularly in prayers, curses, and incantations—and that ancient texts can be decoded to yield hidden truths can be found the world over. The overwhelming popularity of “Bible code” and Kabbalah studies today attests to the lasting power of this belief. In Japanese practice, however, kotodama is viewed as a unique cultural tradition with a foundation in folk belief. Some scholars consider kotodama belief an extension of animism, reaching beyond belief in the soul or spirit of plants and animals to inanimate objects such as words.41 The origins of kotodama belief are traditionally ascribed to the confusion around the word koto in the Manyòshû, the earliest extant collection of Japanese poetry, composed from the early fifth to mid-eighth centuries. Koto could indicate either a word or a thing, and the ancient poets were therefore thought to believe in a special relationship between name and thing.42 The introduction and spread of esoteric Buddhism (mikkyò) in Japan, in its use of chanted magical formulas—that is, mantras and dharanis—undoubt-

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edly contributed to furthering kotodama belief. Buddhist leaders such as Saichò, Kûkai, and Gyòki claimed that they could enrich and protect the state through the power of special incantations. In the popular mind, kotodama is often associated with rhyming games and wordplay, widespread phenomena deeply embedded in Japanese popular culture from at least the Edo period forward that occupy an important role in both serious and parodic literature and drama.43 Owing to the number of homophones in the Japanese language, the possibilities for wordplay using a mixture of kanji characters and kana alphabet are endless. Popular kotodama, rooted in esoteric Buddhist practice, also has a magico-religious aspect, the idea that words or sounds chanted by mouth can affect occurrences in reality. Such beliefs and the use of wordplay are part of the standard rhetoric of new religions. Early scholars of Japan’s new religions considered this a vulgar aspect of their teachings or practices, ignoring the fact that established religions had long used magical formulas and playful linguistic devices, such as parables and Zen riddles (koans). The followers of new religions were often attracted by the ingenious use of rhyming games and wordplay to explain teachings, as these techniques allowed them to enjoy themselves at familiar cultural activities while absorbing doctrine.44 Nativist scholars interested in kotodama studies in the nineteenth century privileged the Japanese spoken language over difficult Chinese characters. They believed that every sound of the Japanese syllabary had meaning and that there was a mystical relationship between sound and meaning. Power did not inhere in all sounds and words but was present in norito prayers, incantations for purification (haraekotoba), ancient imperial proclamations (semmyò), and ritual words intoned at key junctures in the lives of the people, such as when fishermen set off to sea, when rice was harvested, or when fields were burned.45 The development of esoteric kotodama studies is difficult to trace. They failed to achieve much of an academic following in part because of the influx of Western scientific thought in the late nineteenth century. In addition, proponents differed on many points, such as the number of root sounds in the Japanese language and the meanings of individual sounds.46 Central figures in nineteenth-century kotodama studies, like Yamaguchi Shidò and Nakamura Kòdò, Onisaburò’s great-grandfather, published widely circulated texts, but the transmission of their esoteric knowledge was reportedly often oral and haphazard.47 Kotodama belief thus became diffuse and popular, more a part of grassroots Nativism than any formal academy, a cultic undercurrent that remained a familiar aspect of the folk Shinto worldview. Among Nativist

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scholars, it had been employed as a means to reinterpret and reveal the “true meaning” of the myths of the Kojiki and to reestablish the Ancient Way. In the popular mind and among the new religions, it served more often as a tool of divination and prophecy—that is, a future, rather than past, orientation—and as a basis for healing and the manipulation of spirits.48 Nonetheless, both scholarly and popular views were united in their fundamental beliefs that the essence of kotodama was to bring forth all of creation, that the root form for each sound was found in the voice, and that there was a magical correspondence between the great universe of the gods and the small universe of people that was achieved via kotodama.49 To those who subscribed to kotodama precepts, the expression of sound and voice were embodied aspects of a distinct Japanese cultural identity, seemingly unvaried over time. Onisaburò studied the works of nineteenth-century scholars, including those of Yamaguchi and his great-grandfather. His primary teacher, however, was Oishigori Masuumi (1832–1911), whose main contribution to the field was the discovery of mizuguki moji, archaic characters said to mysteriously appear on the surface of water.50 Oishigori, a native of Shiga Province, studied esoteric Shingon at Mount Koya and Tendai at Mount Hiei. In 1853, alarmed by the arrival of Perry’s black ships, he joined the imperial loyalist faction in Kyoto. In 1866, he studied with Wakizaka Naizò, a pupil of Onisaburò’s great-grandfather. Later, he traveled to Mino to study shugendò, the magical practices of mountain wizards, and worked at a clinic for spiritual healing while pursuing his studies.51 Sometime during the 1870s, Oishigori was returning home from a stint as a gold prospector, traveling by boat along Lake Biwa. At that time, he discovered mysterious, persistent ripples floating on the water. After landing, he climbed a hill by the shore and fixed his gaze on the surface of the lake. There he saw that the ripples formed characters that were consistent with his studies of kotodama phonemes. He determined that there were seventy-five different signs reflected on the water’s surface, expressing the voiced sounds of kotodama. He believed that recording and interpreting the appearance of water characters would provide a powerful tool for prophecy. This belief was shared by some esoteric Buddhist traditions.52 Oishigori was a radical Nativist who rejected mainstream Restoration Shinto as overly conformist. He practiced Honda Chikaatsu’s chinkon kishin spirit possession technique (see chapter 3) and claimed to be possessed by Takenouchi no Sukune, a legendary figure described in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki who faithfully served several early Japanese emperors. In 1891, he published a pamphlet making dire predictions about the destruction of Ise Shrine because officials had neglected to perform some of the

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proper traditional rituals while the shrine was being rebuilt. His prophecy came true when Ise Shrine went up in flames several years later, and he was arrested as the perpetrator but was soon cleared of charges. He later claimed that the assassination of the elder statesman who served four times as prime minister and as the first resident-general of Korea, Itò Hirobumi, was divine punishment for neglect of the proper rituals.53 Oishigori took Onisaburò to view his water characters in 1900, and Onisaburò, in turn, taught Oomoto executives about the phenomenon in 1916, after he had firmly ascended to leadership of the group.54 Oishigori’s characters, which somewhat resembled the Korean Hangul alphabet, were featured as part of the cover design of Oomoto’s first widely distributed journal, Shin reikai. Onisaburò entertained a wider and more flexible view of kotodama than his teachers, embracing its prophetic, pragmatic, and playful aspects alike. He incorporated traditional Shinto haraekotoba into Oomoto ritual and used scholarly styles of kotodama in his interpretation of Nao’s Ofudesaki scriptures. On the playful side, Onisaburò had written puns since his youth, once publishing the Òwarai jiten (Dictionary of Big Laughs), filled with plays on words and rhyming games. Using homophone puns, he defined religious professionals (shûkyòka) as ugly lunatic mosquitoes; aristocracy (kizokuin) as the secret family of devils; Diet members (daigishi) as big, deceitful masters; and Christian teachings (yasokyò) as a painful resurrection.55 He often employed another form of worldplay: the popular iroha uta, rhythmic verses in which each phrase began with a different letter of the syllabary. One of his most famous iroha poems from 1904 expressed opposition to war with Russia and described the advent of the millennium, all to a catchy traditional beat.56 Onisaburò, who knew and enjoyed the power of the word, engaged relentlessly in creative wordplay. In the preface to one of the volumes of his opus, the Reikai monogatari, he expressed a commonsensical view of the esoteric practice: If we carry the weapon of kotodama, of virtuous and clever words, we will be resolved not to turn to false teachings. Although your enemies may be many, you will never be caught off guard. With one skillful word, that is, relying on the good use of kotodama, your enemies will instantly become your allies. And though you may have many friends, with a single explosive word, they will turn into your sworn enemy. This is the essence of this book, the Reikai monogatari, to indicate the need for discretion and caution in using kotodama.57

Onisaburò used the homophone substitution technique while editing and reformulating Nao’s Ofudesaki. Unlike the Ofudesaki of Tenri

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kyò, which preserved exactly the original words written by Nakayama Miki as a messenger of God, Onisaburò’s version of Nao’s text freely deleted, appended, and manipulated God’s words when they were at variance with his own beliefs. He invoked the imprimatur of kotodama as rationale for these changes. Such selective, eclectic techniques had also been employed by Motoori and other canonical scholars of kokugaku. 58 After 1917, the primary text of Oomoto was not Nao’s Ofudesaki but Shinnyû, Onisaburò’s representation of the former text, which was first published in installments in Shin reikai beginning in February of that year.59 Nao and her early followers were hostile toward academic learning, especially toward “foreign” Chinese characters. Kanji were called “square characters,” overly difficult and incomprehensible in comparison to the simple kana alphabet that even an old, uneducated country woman could use to write the words of God. Nao’s opposition to kanji was related to her yonaoshi-style millenarian view. She saw them as a part of the corrupt world of the educated elite, who would be overthrown by the coming of a new, simpler spiritual realm. In 1893, her Ofudesaki announced, “Compare the strength of God and learning. The world of learning has already passed. God has won.”60 Her sentiment likely reflected a popular stratum that believed education and Meiji civilization had little to offer poor rural inhabitants. Boys forced to remember Chinese characters under the new education system were also forcibly drafted into the army. Laws and contracts completely illegible to common folk were used to deceive and cheat the people, causing misery and hardship. Nao directly transmitted God’s voice into the forty-eight character syllabary, but Onisaburò “corrected” this text, using a standard mixture of kanji and kana. Although Nao remained opposed to academic learning and was ambivalent toward Onisaburò, a man of “square characters” inclined toward academic and spiritualist study, she had been ordered by her god, Ushitora no Konjin, to make use of him. When she entrusted him with the standardization of her Ofudesaki, she opened the door to significant deviations from her intended meanings. For example, in translating Nao’s simple “this world” (kono yo), Onisaburò glossed it with characters meaning “phenomenal world and spirit world.” He wrote Nao’s “evil” (aku) with characters meaning “body over spirit” (taishu reijû)—in other words, materialism—and her “land of the rising sun” (hinomoto), associated with goodness, with characters meaning “spirit over body” (reishu taijû).61 He did not simply regurgitate the word of God as revealed to Nao in a form easy for followers to understand. His versions of the work were sometimes unrecognizable from the original.

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Contested Mythology In addition to bending and transforming Nao’s words, Onisaburò also reinterpreted Japan’s sacred classics. In 1917 he presented an alternate view of national mythology that challenged the official view of State Shinto. In an essay entitled “Taiko no kami no innen” (The Fate of the Ancient Gods), first published in Shin reikai in January 1917, Onisaburò staged a “showdown” with State Shinto doctrine. Such challenges to sacred authority provided the state with a rationale for ostracizing and later suppressing Oomoto as a heretical sect.62 In this essay, Onisaburò presented an account of the gods that explains the origins of Oomoto’s primary god, Ushitora no Konjin. This account differed radically from State Shinto’s explanation of the relative positions of the gods. It contained the blasphemous suggestion that Amaterasu, the ancestral god of the reigning line of emperors and highest god of State Shinto, had “fallen to earth” and was subordinate to Kunitokotachi no Mikoto, the true god and rightful ruler of the earth, who was called Ushitora no Konjin by Oomoto. In the introduction, Onisaburò claimed his version of the myth represented the direct words of the gods. His guardian spirit, Komatsubayashi no Mikoto, an avatar of the god Susanoo, and Mizu no Mitama, an Oomoto name for Ame no Minakanushi, one of the main creator deities of Shinto mythology, “enter the palace of flesh and borrow those hands to accurately (tell) of the fate of the ancient gods.”63 In other words, divine spirits possessed Onisaburò while he was writing this work. He delineates the responsibilities and spheres of influence associated with the different gods, noting that Amaterasu was a deity of heaven who gave her descendant Kunitokotachi no Mikoto, the national ancestor, the right and responsibility of ruling the earth. Kunitokotachi, however, proved to be a very harsh ruler and incurred the disapproval of other gods, who shunned him and pressured Amaterasu into ordering him into seclusion. He withdrew to the northeast, the geomantic direction of bad luck, and had been wrongly labeled an evil god for thousands of years. Upon Kunitokotachi’s seclusion the earth was overrun with wicked deities. It degenerated from a world of good, where the spirit triumphed over the body (reishu taijû) into a world of evil, where the body triumphed over the spirit (taishu reijû).64 The rule of the evil gods was a time that emphasized victory and defeat (yûshò reppai) in a world where the strong devoured the weak.65 In more contemporary terms, the degenerate world was one in which materialism prevailed over religiosity and the struggle for survival was defined by Social Darwinism. Amaterasu had grown impatient with this state of affairs and decided to allow Kunitokotachi to return so that he could set the world aright. His

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reappearance and ascension to heaven were announced through his possession of Deguchi Nao beginning in 1892.66 To permit Kunitokotachi to reappear, however, Amaterasu had to sacrifice her heavenly position. She had fallen to earth, where she would be Kunitokotachi’s assistant. Together they would “repair the chaotic world.”67 When a state of divine governance had been fully achieved, the gods could return to their original positions as rulers of heaven and earth. Kunitokotachi would reclaim rulership of the earth, and Amaterasu would be restored to heaven.68 Through this representation of classical myth, Onisaburò claimed that Oomoto had the authority to speak for the gods on multiple levels. He himself acted as the vessel to express the divine will of multiple deities, while Nao had expressed the will of Kunitokotachi, the true ruler of the earth. State Shinto and the established religions rejected the use of spirit possession as a vehicle for conveying divine authority. That authority was reserved for the emperor alone. Yet the emperor was merely a semi-divine figure, a distant descendant of Amaterasu. By contrast, Onisaburò and Nao claimed a direct transmission of the divine will of the gods and national ancestors. Such usurpation of divine authority was, in fact, a tactic that had been used by religious individuals and establishments in Japan for hundreds of years to enhance their respective positions. In the thirteenth century the Watarai family priests, who controlled the Outer Shrine at Ise, asserted that “secret books” produced in the fifth and sixth centuries identified the god of their shrine, Toyouke, as a manifestation of the gods Ame no Minakanushi and Kunitokotachi no Mikoto. As such, their god was a co-founder of the imperial line and the “universal Great God of Origin of all existence.”69 The priests of the Ise Inner Shrine counterclaimed that Amaterasu was the sole ancestor of the imperial line. The unorthodox Outer Shrine version nevertheless resonated with popular belief, as Toyouke was considered a god of fertility and the harvest, closer to people’s daily lives than the distant Amaterasu. By the eighteenth century, the Outer Shrine enjoyed a much higher degree of popularity and support than the Inner. It was the main destination of massive Tokugawa-period pilgrimages to Ise in 1705, 1771, and 1851, when pilgrims sought Toyouke amulets from the Outer Shrine to place in their rice paddies in hopes of abundant harvests.70 Similarly, the Meiji state’s assertion that Amaterasu was the principal imperial ancestor was but one interpretation of ancient mythology. It was not without opponents. Hara Takeshi describes the “erasure” of the Grand Shrine of Izumo, recounting the fate of its supporters in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.71 Izumo, which enshrined Òkuninushi no Kami and Susanoo no Mikoto, both associated with Kunitokotachi no Mikoto, represented a strong oppositional force to Ise Shrine. Earlier Nativ-

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ists Hirata and Motoori both placed Òkuninushi, rather than Amaterasu, at the top of a hierarchy of native kami, considering him the greatest of gods.72 The hereditary head priest of the Izumo, known as the kokuzò, was said to be a living god descended from the deity Amenohohi no Mikoto and thus held a level of divine authority that rivaled the emperor’s.73 The Izumo faith was especially strong in Western Japan. During the early Meiji period the Izumo head priest, Senge Takatomi (1845–1917), led a group in this area that opposed the Meiji state’s official pantheon, which omitted Òkuninushi and elevated Amaterasu to unquestioned supremacy among the gods. He was incensed at Izumo’s official rank as an “Imperial Grand Shrine,” subordinated to Ise and equal in status to twenty-eight other lesser shrines.74 Senge’s followers championed the popular belief that Òkuninushi should be revered over Amaterasu, as he was the ruler of the land and the underworld, as well as guardian kami of clothing, food, and housing. The campaign to add Òkuninushi to the state pantheon of deities erupted into a bitter dispute that divided Shinto priests across the nation.75 In the 1870s Izumo proponents “flooded the government with petitions” demanding that Òkuninushi be elevated to a status equal to Amaterasu.76 Such demands posed a problem for the Meiji state’s attempts to impose a hegemonic religious ideology centered on Amaterasu and the imperial line. Other competing ideologies, such as Christianity and socialism, could be discredited or dismissed as elite doctrines imported from the West and unknown to most ordinary people. The counterhegemonic Izumo belief was indigenous and widely popular. The state would appear inconsistent if it suppressed or prohibited Izumo proselytization when it was trying to promote faith in Shinto. A central point of contention was whether Òkuninushi had ceded control of the land to Amaterasu and the gods of Heaven. According to a brief account in the Kojiki, Òkuninushi simply hands the land over to the Sun Goddess.77 In contrast, the Nihon shoki contains a more detailed account, whereby Òkuninushi, the possessor of the land, joins forces with the god Sukunabikono to turn the land into an abundant place where people can prosper. The two gods teach the people ways to cure disease and magical methods for preventing crop damage from birds, animals, and insects. In this account, Òkuninushi takes credit for subduing the land and making it productive and proclaims, “It is I, and I alone, who now govern this land.”78 The controversy pointed to a fundamental question of the legitimacy and scope of imperial rule. While many earlier scholars regarded the gods as equals, Meiji scholars of the classics, such as Takayama Chògyu (1871–1902), later known for his prediction of a war between the Aryan (i.e., white) and Turanian (yellow)

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races, and Takaki Toshikatsu (1878–1922), the first Japanese scholar of comparative mythology, followed Motoori Norinaga’s assignment of good and evil qualities to the deities, portraying Amaterasu as good and Susanoo as bad.79 These scholars thus bolstered the state’s emphasis on the centrality of Amaterasu, Heaven, and the imperial line over Susanoo/Òkuninushi and the land.80 They portrayed Amaterasu’s brother, Susanoo, as an enemy of and a traitor to the Heavens, a violent god of storms, in contrast with the nurturing sun of Amaterasu. Contrary to widely held popular belief, they stressed that Izumo and Ise were not equal. Amaterasu and the gods of the High Plain of Heaven were superior to Susanoo and the deities of the Central Reed Plain. Ultimately, the state silenced Senge and his movement by refusing to allow the participation of sympathetic Shinto priests in its Great Promulgation Campaign. Senge’s group was eventually recognized as an independent Shinto sect in 1882 despite continued belief that Amaterasu was subordinate to its deity. But under the umbrella of state supervision, the oppositional power of Izumo waned. This did not mean, however, that popular belief in Òkuninushi was stifled or eradicated. Oomoto’s reassertion of the primacy of Òkuninushi/Kunitokotachi provided an avenue for the resurgence of interest in Izumo belief. Before its 1911 affiliation with the Grand Shrine of Izumo, Oomoto explicitly linked itself to the shrine in June 1901, when Deguchi Nao, her daughter Sumiko, Onisaburò, and twelve followers made a pilgrimage there. Four months earlier, Nao had prophesied, “If we go to Izumo . . . heaven and earth and the world will become one. . . . The leveling of the world will come about through the safeguarding of the water and of the fire.”81 The group traveled for eleven days on foot and by boat from Ayabe to Izumo via Matsue. The objective of the journey was to receive three holy items: fire from the kokuzò, pure water from the well used for sacrificial offerings, and earth from the floor of the main shrine. The holy fire was an important symbol of Izumo Shrine’s religious authority. It was supposedly granted to the original kokuzò from his ancestral god, Amenohohi no Mikoto.82 The Oomoto delegation kept the fire lit for one hundred days, sprinkled the earth around sites associated with Nao’s bouts of spirit possession, and mingled the water with water received from Moto Ise and poured it into the Oomoto well.83 Moto Ise, the “original” Ise, predated the building of the Grand Shrine of Ise in the seventh century and was believed to be the site where Amaterasu had hidden herself in the rock cave. By appropriating and intermingling the sacred essences of Japan’s two holiest shrines, Oomoto symbolically declared itself the most qualified proponent of the Ancient Way of the Gods.

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Taishò Restoration: The Political, Economic, and Social Principles of Kòdò Oomoto also employed Nativist rhetoric to proclaim its role as the true champion of the Ancient Way with its announcement of the Kòdò movement in 1916.84 The major framing principle of the Kòdò program was Onisaburò’s call for the restoration of divine rule (shinsei fukko), also expressed as the unity of rites or religion and governance (saisei itchi).85 In calling for saisei itchi, Kòdò appropriated the terminology and ideals of both the nineteenth-century Nativists and the early Meiji state. Kòdò’s call for saisei itchi denied the separability of religion and the state. It held that divine laws of governance, as expressed in the ancient classics, must be respected and accommodated by political governance on earth. Its call for divine governance, however, was not simply a nostalgic desire to return to the exact conditions of the ancient state. Onisaburò claimed that the meaning of saisei itchi had progressed. It was necessary to “shift the interpretation of the Age of the Gods,” just as he had creatively shifted the interpretations of mythology and Nao’s prophecy.86 Kòdò declared that the Kojiki clearly demanded structural reformation of the economy and the national government, which had “misadministered society through its worship of almighty gold” (ògon bannò no heisei).87 It called for the complete reformation of the monetary and tax systems and national economic self-sufficiency (tensan jikyû). Kodò’s demands for economic reforms under the banner of Taishò restoration were neither clear nor comprehensive. Its program ranged from sweeping critiques of the monetary system to small proposals for improving public welfare, such as providing free transportation to all.88 Kòdò’s idealistic and inchoate proposals called for economic relief for the underclasses and glossed over numerous problems in pursuit of this goal. They were intended to express righteous outrage at economic injustice rather than provide concrete solutions to specific problems. In total, the Kòdò program, advocating revolutionary action to rid society of evil and inequitable structures of governance and replace them with justice and morality, represented Oomoto’s roots in yonaoshi belief. The Kodò proposals advocating economic leveling also resonated with Communist and Socialist philosophies widely circulating in Japan at this time. While Onisaburò sympathized with the egalitarian ideals they represented, he rejected both as foreign ideologies inappropriate for Japan and contrary to the wishes of the imperial ancestors. While advocating revolutionary ideas that opposed bureaucratic policies, Onisaburò often employed the state’s own rhetoric. Borrowing the idea

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of the family-state (kazoku kokka), he claimed that Kòdò’s objective was to establish a world family system (sekai daikazoku seidò). He argued that because Japan was blessed with an unbroken line of imperial rulers throughout the ages (bansei ikkei), it should be the first nation to enact an equitable social and economic system based on the restoration of divine governance. Japan could then teach the world the principles of divine governance, bringing about the foundation of world peace. In Kòdò’s view, the first priority for divine governance was financial relief for the people. Onisaburò identified the monetary system based on the gold standard as a main cause of people’s economic inequality and anxiety: Because the state adopted a monetary policy based on gold and silver, the fundamental doctrine of human life was lost, and wealth and ambition alone became the ideals. People are forced to lead a competitive existence as if they were wild beasts. The gold and silver system created distinctions between rich and poor, caused competition between nations, and made the lives of the people unpeaceful and unsettled.89

When Japan adopted the international gold standard in 1897, it stabilized foreign exchange but halved the gold value of the yen.90 Kòdò tied high inflation and economic fluctuations to the adoption of the standard. It claimed that the pursuit of international profits under the gold standard meant people could not be sincere and loyal patriots, hindering the true unity of the national community. People discarded or ignored their heavenordained occupations in pursuit of money, and they valued “cunningness and clever speech” over the hard work and conventional morality valorized by the Nativists.91 A major goal of the Kòdò program was the abolition of the tax system, which was “clearly against the will of the ancients and an evil system of the strong devouring the weak”; it had “squeezed sweat and blood from the masses and enslaved the people.”92 Kòdò’s critique of the tax system reflected the unfair tax burden borne by the agricultural sector under the Meiji state’s 1873 revision of agricultural and land tax laws. As noted in chapter 1, under the Tokugawa system taxes were paid in kind, as a percentage of the yield. There were possibilities for benevolent reductions in the tax during famine years. The new system was based on assessed land value, payable in cash, inflexible, and intentionally heavy to support developing trade and industry. Dramatic increases in taxes under the new system forced many marginal landowners to sell, and they were the primary reason for a major increase in the amount of land under tenant cultivation.93 Other new taxes,

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like the sales tax and income tax, further burdened the working classes. Onisaburò explained the inequity of the tax system, using the example of a single sweet dumpling taxed multiple times. To begin with, the candy store paid taxes on the sale of the dumpling. The flour used to make the dumpling was also taxed, as was the income generated from making the flour and the land used to grow the wheat in order to make that flour.94 Using such easy-to-follow, homespun examples, Onisaburò argued the need for radical economic reforms to provide financial relief for the people. Kòdò declared that taxes would not be necessary if all engaged communally in their heaven-ordained occupations and if all income from industry was turned over to the national treasury, from which workers would be paid according to need. Public works would be constructed communally, according to earlier corvée labor traditions, with each household donating the labor and materials it could afford. Public construction should eschew the use of expensive, manufactured building materials, such as cement, in favor of wood and rocks, which withstood earthquakes better than walls and gates constructed with cement.95 The self-sufficiency of farming communities—and by extension the nation—was another main theme of the Kòdò campaign. This too echoed the teachings of the Hirata school, advocating village autonomy and self-reliance. In the twentieth century, the idealization of the countryside and rural lifestyles proceeded in stride with Japan’s rapid industrialization. Agrarianism (nòhonshugi), the nostalgic appraisal of the economic and social merits of rural life, is a common theme among countries shifting from rural to industrial economies.96 It was especially strong in Japan from the 1900s to the 1930s. A myriad of organizations that regarded agriculture as the heart of Japanese culture and society sprang up across the social spectrum. Agrarianists drew not only from Hirata’s teachings but also from beliefs like Ninomiya Sontoku’s Hòtokukai philosophy, which advocated perseverance and hard work for rural dwellers, and from popular religions centered on peasant life, like Fujiko and Maruyamakyò, which valorized human endeavor, rice production, and daily morality over the religious authority of established Buddhism.97 In the early twentieth century, agrarian ideals issued from left, right, and center in an outpouring of nostalgic sentiment calling for strengthening the countryside in the face of modernization. Agriculture and Commerce Ministry officials, attempting to strengthen agriculture’s position as the financial basis for industrial growth and to forestall rural decay, promoted a variety of programs for rural revitalization, including credit unions, the application of scientific principles of farming and pest control, and moral exhortation.98 Kawakami Hajime, a Marxist economist who taught at Kyoto University, published influential essays in the early 1900s

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that staunchly insisted on the centrality of farming in the Japanese economy.99 Famous writers like Natsume Sòseki, Arishima Takeo, and Mushakòji Saneatsu mourned the loss of the rural communal spirit and called for the improvement of village life.100 Mushakòji and the members of the White Birch Society (Shirakabaha), a well-known group of Tokyo-based writers and artists, founded the New Village Movement (Atarashiki Mura), a farm enclave based on communalist ideals, in Kyûshu in 1918. As described in chapter 6, agrarian nationalism would even become a justification for the illegal activities of renegade military officers and right-wing terrorist groups in the 1930s. Onisaburò’s calls for a return to a self-sufficient, rural-centric lifestyle rode the wave of agrarian nostalgia emerging in the 1910s. Thomas Havens contrasts popular agrarianism, which he views as “antiprogressive . . . with little to offer legitimate revolutionaries” with bureaucratic agrarianism, which was oriented toward increased production.101 However impractical and inchoate Onisaburò’s proposals appeared, it is misleading to label him antiprogressive or reactionary if by these terms we mean resistant to change and development. He was clearly calling for radical change. Like the proposals of Nativists in Hirata’s school, his proposals emphasized thrift and hard work, but they also advocated the development of new crop strains, increased access to modern transportation facilities in rural areas, specialized education, and reform of the mass media—all in the interest of revolutionary economic and social leveling. In Onisaburò’s view, it was an “indisputable fact that humankind has warred and competed to fulfill desires for food, clothing, shelter, and land.”102 World peace could only be achieved if all nations became selfsufficient in these areas. To achieve independence from foreign trade, Japan needed to rely on domestic natural products endowed by heaven, and the people would have to forego Western goods, luxuries, and dissipating amusements. Onisaburò criticized farmers for their work and consumption habits. He believed they were focused too heavily on the monetary value of their labor and had accumulated debt to inappropriately emulate the lifestyles of city dwellers or landlords. If farmers returned to traditional lifestyles, the mounting farm debt crisis would be resolved. Waxing nostalgic, Onisaburò described how farmers of his youth gathered firewood from the mountains, brewed homemade soy sauce, and recycled straw into useful craft items for sale.103 They raised their own vegetables—eggplants, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, and beans—on scraps of available land as “small as a cat’s forehead.”104 Now vegetable gardens lay fallow and farmers sold their labor rather than working their own land. They now thought only of profit, using

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machinery and artificial fertilizers to reap larger harvests. He advocated that those desiring larger harvests over natural self-sufficiency be shipped out to places like Korea, Manchuria, or perhaps Hokkaido.105 More land was available in these areas, and it was better for the nation to send profit-seeking farmers to the colonies than allow them to harm Japan’s sacred land. Onisaburò claimed the use of expensive, store-bought fertilizers was particularly harmful to the land. Rice seedlings preferred human waste over chemical fertilizer. It was their “parent” in a natural cycle, whereby rice entered human bodies, became waste, and, as fertilizer, became rice once again.106 Relying on chemicals rather than on the regenerative power of the land was a vicious cycle that demanded more and more fertilizer. In the past, he explained, farmers rose early, cut grass, and buried it in the fields to act as a natural fertilizer. They carefully considered wind and sun when planting rice, since proper conditions produced more fertilizer in the paddies. Chemical fertilizers sapped the heartiness and shelf life of crops; contemporary rice could be stored for only about a year before spoiling, unlike the more durable rice of old. Onisaburò’s teachings on natural farming methods reflected Oomoto’s fundamental beliefs, which equated God or the divine with nature—an unlimited spiritual power, without beginning and without end.107 Onisaburò taught that God had created the mountains, rivers, grasses, and plants, but humans were charged with the divine task of stewardship over nature. Through human ingenuity and hard work, the earth was productive, but humans must not forget that they worked in concert with God. They must not rely on faith alone but must also work hard and respect God’s creation.108 Self-sufficiency would require discipline and self-sacrifice. Onisaburò reminded his audiences that “good medicine is painful to the mouth, and criticism is offensive to the ears.”109 Efforts at thrift would be assisted through Kòdò’s proposed innovations in food, shelter, and clothing. Food was, of course, a basic source of all human life, supplied by the land in accord with the law of heaven.110 The Kòdò program initially gave few specifics in terms of food reforms, but beginning in the late 1920s, Oomoto sponsored experimental farms to develop and grow new strains of rice that would produce multiple annual harvests (see figures 2.2 and 2.3).111 Renovation and standardization of housing styles was also a necessary component of self-sufficiency. All housing should be constructed in accord with the size of each family and designed for that family’s work tasks and duties.112 Natural and native products should be prominent in construction—the glass used in Western houses was not appropriate and “not as warm as a single sheet of Japanese paper.”113

figure 2.2.  Oomoto priests preside over a rice-planting ceremony.

figure 2.3.  Onisaburò plowing in Kameoka.

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Reformation of clothing was also an “urgent matter” to Kòdò, as traditional clothing styles, derived from court dress and priestly robes originally imported from China, were too complicated and uneconomical for daily work and wear. Expensive Western clothing was equally inappropriate— wearing hats, shoes, and other items constructed from the wool, feathers, and leather hide of animals was identified as a “barbaric custom” that made for a “beastly countenance.”114 In sum, Kòdò agrarianism reflected the earlier Nativist ideals of hard work and self-reliance but extended these ideals to encompass not just the village but the nation. In the nineteenth century, Hirata school proponents sought to reassert the economic and social structure, stressing local leadership’s responsibility for village administration and economic relief and villager responsibility for mutual assistance and thrift. Through such local diligence, there would be no need to rely on outside authorities. In contrast, Kòdò envisioned a Japan with no need to rely on other nations. It promoted the possibility of national autonomy similarly achieved through the diligence and thrift of the Japanese people. Kòdò also advocated fundamental reform of the education system, including the need to establish a national curriculum based on the Ancient Imperial Way. In Kòdò’s view the Great Promulgation Campaign of the 1870s and ’80s should have accomplished this task, but since it was under the control of the Ise Shrine, the unpopular campaign had failed to achieve its proper function—that is, to correctly teach the meaning of the unity of rites/religion and governance. Instead, the Home Ministry appointed “storytellers [naniwabushi] and streetfighters [kyòkaku]” as advocates for Ise.115 In Onisaburò’s view, entrusting the guidance of public morality to this unsavory crew was an insult toward all true religious teachers and demonstrated the state’s cynical attitude toward religion.116 The compulsory education system was also judged a failure. Too many subjects were taught in a shallow manner such that students could not develop true expertise in anything. Kòdò advocated specialized education, allowing students to tailor their subjects according to their interests and to develop specialized skills in areas from farming to aviation—it was more appropriate for farmers to learn topics directly applicable to farming than to learn general facts about world civilizations.117 Wider opportunities for self-education could also be created through changes in the mass media. If newspapers improved their quality by hiring scholars to write informative articles, people could study at their convenience, such as during work breaks.118 These views on education closely paralleled those of Motoori Norinaga, who recommended that students decide their own subjects of study and methods of learning. Motoori adopted an egalitarian attitude

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toward education, encouraging learning among all, whether “late starters, people without much leisure for study, [or] those who were not particularly gifted.”119 The education system, said Onisaburò, was like raising persimmons. In some years the persimmons grew fat and tasty but contained only one or two seeds. In other years, seeds were many but the fruit was skimpy and bitter. To get both seeds and fruit one had to persevere through years where there was nothing to eat.120 In other words, the compulsory education system did not allow people both fruit, or the ability to make a living in the present, and the seeds, or the training for a more prosperous future. Reforms allowing both were necessary for the true development of the entire nation.

Neo-Nativism and Anti-Foreignism Whereas Tokugawa Nativism arose in a period of limited foreign contact, Oomoto Neo-Nativism flourished in a period characterized by increased interaction with the world, yet the sect retained some of the earlier disdain for the foreign. Under Nao’s leadership, hatred and fear of the foreign were strong. Early followers not only rejected kanji but also refused vaccinations as foreign intrusions into the Japanese body and threw salt on foreigners to purify them or exorcise their demons.121 Nao’s vision of utopia was of a simple, frugal world where people grew their own food and relied on natural products for clothing and housing. There would be neither luxury nor vice; no silk, tobacco, fancy sweets, or gambling. Onisaburò’s vision, on the other hand, was more cosmopolitan in scope. It envisioned world peace, economic justice, universal brotherhood, and world communication via Esperanto (see chapter 4). It was not xenophobic in the sense of narrow-minded hatred of the Other. Rather it elevated the Japanese Self, proclaiming parity or superiority with Western norms of civility and accomplishment. Onisaburò was sometimes critical of the practices of foreigners, claiming that the strong nations of the West committed “atrocities” such as “recklessly slaughtering birds and beasts . . . smacking their lips over the meat.”122 Foreigners were barbarous because they were ignorant of Japan’s ancient classics, which explained that animals were of two varieties, those that assisted human labor—the animals of the land—and those whose flesh should be eaten—the animals of the water.123 Westerners violated this distinction, and their customs were not acceptable as the practices of a civilized society. Yet proud of being well fed and well clad, Western nations believed they alone were civilized. The brutal practices of the West were “corroding and swallowing up” the nations of the world. For Japan to mimic the West

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and “slaughter animals without good reason” was “demonic behavior that violates heaven’s laws.”124 Onisaburò’s attitude toward the foreign was more ambivalent than Nao’s. He criticized barbaric Western practices, but he also criticized racists who claimed Japan’s innate superiority over the world. In 1905, during the height of Russo-Japanese War patriotism, he castigated Shinto ideologues and affirmed the essential equality of humankind in his teachings: Among Shintoists, there are bigots who say Japan is a land inhabited by the gods and foreign countries are bestial lands where there are no gods. These words should not be spoken by Shintoists. There is no country in the world that does not have God. God exists wherever there are rays of sunlight. Japanese and Europeans have different colored hair and different colored skin, but they are both parts of the same Creator. They are both children of God, ruled by the same Divine Authority. When the Creator distributed human races through the world, there was no difference in the love bestowed on yellow races, white races, black races, and copper red races. Since all are children of the same God, it makes no sense that some races would be treasured while others were detested.125

Onisaburò redefined yamato damashii, the “Japanese spirit,” a term usually interpreted as a racially based notion of innate Japanese superiority, and associated it instead with activism and humanitarianism: “Yamato damashii is a spirit that will fight any who harm peace, civilization, freedom, independence, and human rights until the bitter end. It is a spirit that topples the strong devils of tyranny and protects the rights of the weak.”126 This spirit was not necessarily a quality limited only to the Japanese people. It was manifest in all who followed the path of God, refused material desires, and held justice at the center of their hearts: “Follow the tempo of Heaven and submit to the will of God. Do activity for the public realm. If you do not flinch or slacken your efforts, all obstacles to doing good will be overcome. That is yamato damashii.”127 Despite these universalistic assertions, Onisaburò still held the Nativistic belief that Japan had a special mission in the world. Like Hirata, who reconciled the Bible with the Japanese classics by equating Japan’s mythological progenitors, Izanagi and Izanami, with Adam and Eve, Onisaburò turned to the Bible to reconcile Japan’s status as a divine nation with Western notions of race and associated privilege. According to his account of the Great Flood, there were three races of people in ancient times: the Semu, Hamu, and Yahetto.128 These three races represented the offspring of Noah— Shem, Ham, and Japeth—whose descendants would repopulate the earth.

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Onisaburò claimed that the Semu were associated with the lineage of the god Susanoo and were the chosen people of God. They included Japanese, Koreans, Manchurians, Mongolians, the people of Kòkasu (i.e., Caucasians), and the Jews. The family of Hamu included the Chinese, the Indians, and peoples of other parts of Europe and Asia. The Yahetto were the black people of Africa. Onisaburò’s ideas drew upon and reflected larger discourses on race theory circulating at multiple levels throughout Japanese society.129 His classificatory racial scheme placed Japan at the same level of privilege as wealthy white Westerners and Jews. Notably, he gave the nations under Japanese colonial influence a status equal to Japan’s. He also acknowledged that over time, each of the races had been thoroughly mixed, owing in part to the Jewish diaspora. There were Japanese with the blood of Hamu and Americans with Hamu and Yahetto lineages.130 Thus, while creating a basis for racial difference, he denied the validity of discrimination based purely on race. The reinterpretation of Biblical myth allowed Oomoto to maintain an ambivalent position, continuing both Nativist claims of Japanese divinity and calls for egalitarian brotherhood among nations. Kòdò Oomoto’s Neo-Nativist beliefs and practices manifested continuities and discontinuities with its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century predecessors. Areas of persistence with the earlier tradition included reliance on linguistic techniques and mythology to uncover ancient truths in the Japanese classics and advocacy of communal agrarianism. Critical differences reflected the historical changes Japan had faced in the tumultuous decades of the Meiji period, including greater exposure to and knowledge of the West and implementation of modern state policies designed to dominate ideology and to encourage industrial development, often at the expense of the rural poor, who were denied an enfranchised political voice. With the creation of Kòdò, Onisaburò launched a new ideological product blending religion and politics in defiance of the state’s determination to keep these realms separate. As a charismatic entrepreneur, Onisaburò discerned deep dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions alongside nostalgic longing for the agrarian utopia advocated by earlier Nativists. Since contemporary religious groups were unable to address these needs, Onisaburò created Kòdò to provide broad-ranging yet homespun proposals to rectify social conditions and affirm the value of traditional Japanese material culture over foreign imports. Three aspects of Oomoto’s entrepreneurial Neo-Nativism remain particularly relevant in contemporary society and among Japan’s new religions: the political potential of religion (which will be discussed in detail in chapter 6), ethnocentrism, and modern agrarianism.

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Oomoto’s prewar blend of religion and politics anticipates the political orientation of many new religions in the postwar period. Freedom of religion in the postwar constitution meant religions could begin to participate more directly in political and social activism. The most notable religious participation in politics was from Sòka Gakkai, currently Japan’s largest and most powerful new religion, which began its political activity in order to help realize a world that featured the unity of government and Buddhism, a goal that resonated with the ideal of saisei itchi.131 While Oomoto Neo-Nativism advocated radical economic and social reform and a return to traditional cultural values, in the end, Onisaburò’s Kòdò program had little political influence. His primary mission, however, was spiritual and not political leadership, and he espoused political ideas, broadly defined, only insofar as they were related to religious belief in the coming tatekae, tatenaoshi (demolition and reconstruction). Although his proposals did not display the rationalism and systematic logic of bureaucratic policy, they were grounded in folk morals and attracted many who felt economically oppressed. In this sense, Oomoto growth and support can be viewed as a form of popular political resistance in the Taishò and early Shòwa periods. Denied forums to express the sense of betrayal to their utopian and Nativist ideals, many turned to Oomoto to champion their hopes and announce their frustrations. Oomoto was frankly political, not in the narrow sense of campaigns or elections, but in its advocacy of social and economic justice. Oomoto’s assertion of a Neo-Nativist ethnocentric and cultural identity opposed the imperialistic, statist nationalism represented by the modern bureaucratic state. In other words, popular ethnocentrism did not equate with loyalty to the state and could even act as the basis for critiquing and opposing the modern state. For many members of society, “Japaneseness” was not measured in terms of the modern nation-state, which sought equality and identification with Western nations, but by the continuity of idealized cultural practices that differentiated Japan from the West. Proponents of popular ethnocentrism identified practices and beliefs, from language to divine ancestry, that made the Japanese population special in comparison to other nations. It is this sense of cultural, rather than statist, nationalism that remains the more potent today. Finally, the Nativist and Neo-Nativist concepts of communal agrarianism and self-sufficiency continue to gain supporters and activists in Japan and around the world. The twentieth century brought unprecedented levels of environmental destruction, the expansion of global markets, and the increased use of chemicals and additives in the food supply. Today, there are new catchphrases—such as “sustainable agriculture,” “bioregional-

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ism,” and “environmental ethics”—that express the same basic sentiment expressed by earlier advocates of communal self-sufficiency. The fundamental concept is of an ecological, holistic, and local paradigm of production and consumption that is in direct opposition to the goals of global capitalism, although adherents to these views may not recognize this basic conflict. Oomoto’s early advocacy of a local, organic paradigm was seen in the establishment of communal farms in the 1920s and the establishment in 1949 of Aizen Mizuhòkai, a group dedicated to the ideal of self-sufficiency based on natural, local products. Such initiatives were quickly taken up by postwar new religions, especially those within the Oomoto lineage. According to Shimazono Susumu, prior to the 1970s, new religions were in the forefront of “alternative agriculture” activities. The influential microbiological agricultural movement founded by Shimamoto Kakuya, a disciple of Onisaburò and his wife Sumiko, deeply reflected Oomoto doctrine in its stress upon the need to venerate the soil as the source of all life.132 In the 1940s, Okada Mòkichi (1882–1955) founder of Sekai Kyûseikyò, acquired fields to practice “nature farming,” which eschewed all fertilizers, chemical or organic, in order to produce safe, healthy food.133 Okada’s 1951 Shizen nòhò kaisetsu (Explanation of Natural Methods of Farming) systematized Sekai Kyûseikyò’s approach to farming, and in 1953 the sect established societies to disseminate information about organic farming.134 New religions continue to act as advocates of Neo-Nativist agrarianism, but in today’s consumer-oriented age, food, rather than farming, is the focus. Contemporary agrarianism calls for a safe, healthy, and fresh food supply via methods such as organic farming and local produce cooperatives. The movement has received a boost in recent years in Japan from the numerous scandals involving tainted and mislabeled foods.135 Oomoto and other new religions promote organic food products as part of a healthful lifestyle. In Kameoka, Oomoto operates Domo, a health food store featuring local products, including organic pickled plums (umeboshi) made from the orchards on the adjacent campus. At Sekai Kyûseikyò headquarters in Atami, the souvenir shop features a selection of health foods and natural products. Sukyò Mahikari advocates a “spiritual approach” to agriculture, recognizing it as a collaboration among God, humans, and nature. Members are encouraged to work in organic gardens located at Mahikari and to buy the produce generated.136 In conclusion, Nativism is sometimes oversimplified as a negative social force, an ethnocentric or fundamentalist movement hostile to Western modernity and to the creation of international community. Nevertheless, many of the ideas that comprise the Nativist viewpoint have proved remark-

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ably resilient in the modern age, capable of expanding to accommodate universalist ideas and the march of scientific progress and globalization. The accommodating and flexible nature of Nativistic ideas should not necessarily be dismissed as parochial ethnocentrism but be viewed as important attempts to protect local identity and practices in danger of being lost in an increasingly homogeneous modern world.



C h a p t e r Th r e e



Taisho¯ Spiritualism

In May 1921, the journal Abnormal Psychology (Hentai shinri) devoted an entire issue to discrediting Oomoto and its spiritualist practices, particularly the spirit possession technique known as chinkon kishin (pacifying the soul and returning to the divine), described below in this chapter. The special issue was edited by Nakamura Kokyò, a psychologist whose personal mission was to debunk spiritualist phenomena through psychological and medical explanations. His preface literally labeled Oomoto a “nail that sticks up,” justifying the hammer of the state suppression earlier that year.1 Nakamura’s perspective did not necessarily reflect popular opinion. He was hired by the police and commissioned to provide a rationalization for state actions against Oomoto and testimony for the subsequent prosecutions.2 In contrast, the public was often intrigued about Oomoto’s spiritualist activities. Three years earlier, in March 1918, the intellectual monthly journal Kaizò had devoted a special issue to religious revival. It featured Oomoto as the main subject. The issue also included pieces on the resurgence of the Nichiren movement, social activism spearheaded by religious groups, and an article entitled “Buddha, Christ, and Marx.” Kaizò’s approach to Oomoto was exploratory rather than condemnatory. Journalists visited Ayabe, participated in spiritualist exercises, and reported their findings in detail to a curious public.3 Around 1916 Oomoto began to champion occult spiritualist practices at a time when public interest was at a peak. Earlier new religions tended to emphasize moral reformation rather than belief in and manipulation of the spirit world, but in the 1910s and 1920s, a new emphasis on the power of spirits (rei) to affect individuals’ lives and health became noticeable among new religions and individual healers.4 Earlier, the word rei was seldom, if ever, mentioned in the writings of leaders of new religions.5 Some scholars have emphasized the impact of modernization in the 76

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emergence of Japan’s occult new religions. Shimazono Susumu attributes their rise to factors related to industrialization and urbanization: the diffusion of a technological consciousness that viewed the world as manipulable; the psychological comfort of belief in spirits in an increasingly complex and uncertain modern urban setting; and the spread of literacy and mass media, amplifying the power of the masses to advocate their own traditional popular culture, including spirit belief.6 Nishiyama Shigeru argues that during periods of rapid development in Japan—such as the Meiji period and the 1950s–1970s—“religions of belief,” placing emphasis on founders’ teachings, prevail, while during periods of relative economic stagnation—such as the Taishò and early Shòwa periods and the oil-shock period of the early 1970s—there is a “rehabilitation of the irrational” (higòrisei no fukken), and religions that focus on magical practices prevail.7 Alex Owen’s recent work on British occultism from the 1890s to the 1910s argues that heterodox spiritualism is part of a “quintessentially modern” moment, when individuals attempt to rationalize and control mysterious forces in order to gain self-knowledge and experience spirituality outside of religious orthodoxy.8 He argues convincingly that occultism is not simply irrational but also contains a complex and dynamic relationship between the rational and irrational.9 These interpretations tend to emphasize external and domestic factors rather than internal group agency or international currents of interest. Oomoto’s promotion of spiritualism was part of a global surge in movements that sought to demonstrate the reality of the spirit in the face of scientific materialism. While the backdrop of modernity is important in the Japanese case, so too is Onisaburò’s role as charismatic entrepreneur. Having learned secret, esoteric techniques from Nagasawa and others, he saw their potential for generating popular interest, expanded their scope to include healing and practical benefits, and publicized them to attract followers. In effect, Onisaburò generated both demand for and supply of Taishò spiritualism, creating interest via Shin reikai and training others to perform the practice. Chinkon kishin and Oomoto mutually reinforced interest in each other: the practice became widely known through its promotion by Oomoto, and Oomoto itself grew larger as a result of the popularity of the practice. This new visibility attracted negative attention from authorities and led to the 1921 suppression described below in this chapter. In response, Onisabûro flexibly retooled Oomoto’s healing rituals to resemble more conventional forms, but they nevertheless retained underlying beliefs about the spirit world. Oomoto success in promoting chinkon kishin during the Taishò period can be explained by three different factors: the public’s passionate interest

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in spiritualism, resonance with traditional healing and spiritualist practices, and the use of mass media to inform the public about Oomoto’s spiritualist beliefs and practices. The advent of its first nationwide publication, Shin reikai, permitted Oomoto to promote its brand of spiritualism to audiences throughout the country, allowing it to capitalize on the public appetite for religious and occult experimentation. Taken together, these factors reflect Onisaburò’s astute analysis of the spiritual marketplace and his creation and promotion of new services to meet unfulfilled needs and desires. Supernatural belief and practices, including spirit possession, continue to be central features of many Japanese new religions today. Such beliefs are particularly strong among the so-called new-new religions (shin shinshûkyò) that emerged after the mid-1970s, like Mahikari and Agonshû.10 Oomoto’s promotion of spiritualist practices is the most notable instance of this trend in imperial Japan and served as an important model for later new religions.

The Worldwide Boom in Spiritualism Popular interest in spiritualism during this period was not limited to Japan; fascination for spiritual phenomena spread rapidly among many of the industrialized and colonized nations of the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some scholars attribute the U.S. origins of spiritualism to Native American influences, such as shamanism and belief in guardian spirits,11 but the birth of modern spiritualism is usually said to have occurred in 1848, when the Fox sisters, Margaret and Kate, first heard spirits “rapping” in upstate New York. Spiritualist beliefs and practices became common knowledge in the United States and England by the 1860s. The spirits soon developed a variety of means to make their presence known to other mediums, such as automatic writing, the movement of furniture or rustling of fabric, cold drafts, or ectoplasmic manifestation. Spiritualist phenomena and belief quickly became fixtures of the American and European popular cultural landscapes, described in novels by widely read authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott.12 For some individuals, spiritualist experimentation was part of a religious or philosophical quest. It provided evidence of the afterlife and the immortality of the soul, comfort for the bereaved, or an alternative to established religions. For others, it provided a plank in a radical social platform that supported women’s rights, abolitionism, or organized labor.13 For still others it was simply a matter of curiosity or entertainment. Each of these motivations was similarly present among the Japanese. The spiritualist movement in the West gave rise to both overtly religious and staunchly secularist organizations. Many famous figures ardently pro-

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fessed their spiritualist beliefs, like Arthur Conan Doyle, the physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, Mary Todd Lincoln, and Thomas Edison, lending credibility and glamour to the phenomenon and furthering public curiosity. It was even rumored that Queen Victoria sought to contact her dead Albert through séance.14 In Europe, and particularly England, in the mid- to late nineteenth century, activity often centered on charismatic psychics and mediums, such as Emma Hardinge Britten and Daniel Dunglas Home, a cosmopolitan Scottish emigrant who conducted séances with Napoleon III, Queen Sophia of Holland, and Tsar Alexander. Modern spiritualism spread from the powerful, imperialist nations of the West to their colonies and spheres of influence, carried by new transportation technologies like steamships and new forms of media and communications. In many areas under Western influence, spiritualist ideas blended with folk beliefs and with local practices for communicating with ancestors and for healing. The “mystical wisdom” of the East infiltrated the “scientific spiritualism” of the West and vice versa. Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, and Hindu concepts intermingled and generated new faiths that traveled religious circuits, criss-crossing the globe. In short, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, combinatory new religions with strong spiritualist tenets burgeoned on every continent. South America and Oceania embraced Kardecism, also known as Espiritismo.15 Allan Kardec, the pseudonym of Frenchman Léon Denizard Rivail (1804–1869), taught belief in the spirit world, explaining that good and evil spirits caused physical as well as mental illness. Every person was born with a protective guiding spirit, and communication with all spirits was possible through intermediaries. As we will see, these ideas mirror Oomoto’s teachings on the subject. Kardecism also espoused reincarnation, reflecting the diffusion of Asian religious thought into new religions originating in Europe. Middle-class students who had studied abroad in Europe introduced Kardecism to South America and Oceania after returning home. It initially attracted local intellectuals and academics, but over time new followers from the lower classes, who called the faith Espiritismo in Brazil, became interested in its healing aspects. They combined Kardec’s ideas with popular Catholicism, herbal medicine, and other healing practices from Arawak and African heritages. In the Middle East, Mírzá Husayn-‘Alí, known as Baha’u’llah, founded the mystical Baha’i faith in Persia in 1863. Baha’u’llah received a series of revelations from God that identified Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, and Christ as past messengers of God and revealed that he too was such a messenger.16 He created a popular, mystical faith characterized by magical practices involving diagrammatic talismans and tattoos.

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Baha’u’llah and his followers were brutally persecuted by Ottoman imperial authorities, but in the 1910s, after his death, his designated spiritual heir, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, began proselytizing in the Western hemisphere, traveling to France, England, and America and gaining many converts. In Asia, China’s Tao Yuan, Vietnam’s Cao Dai, and Korea’s Tonghak (also known as Chondogyò) emerged in this period.17 All combined spiritualist practices and beliefs with an agenda for social change and often with resistance to Western imperialism or the further infiltration of Western culture into their homelands. Japan, too, participated in this international spiritualist awakening. There was a high degree of interest in spiritualist sciences from the West, like hypnotism and clairvoyance, and a resurgence of popular religiosity. Anesaki Masaharu, founder of the field of religious studies in Japan, describes this period as an age of “spiritual unrest” or religious flux, where “an extreme sceptic [sic] was often transformed into sentimental pietist, a rationalist into a mystic.”18 The awakening can be seen not only through the rise of new religions but through the establishment of Uchimura Kanzò’s Christian Second Advent movement and through the revitalization of Zen through the work of Suzuki Daisetz. Suzuki himself was deeply interested in spiritualism and penned works on the seventeenth-century mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg and on Christian and Buddhist mysticism.19 Oomoto was the first and most prominent new religion to successfully promote mystical, spiritualist practices on a national scale during this period. Public interest in the chinkon kishin technique largely propelled the sect from near obscurity in the 1910s to the position of the third largest new religion, with three hundred thousand followers, by 1921, when the first suppression incident occurred.20

Western Spiritualism in Japan Fascination with spiritual experimentation in the late Meiji period provides an important backdrop for the popularity of Oomoto’s “Ancient Shinto” (Koshintò) spiritualist practices in the Taishò period. The Meiji enlightenment project was designed to drag the superstitious populace into the modern century, but the government’s efforts to discourage “irrational beliefs” were unsuccessful. The dangerous allure of magic and the supernatural continued (and continues) to be a source of fascination among the people. Some Meiji-period ideologues, like Inoue Enryò, founder of both Tòyò University and the field of “monsterology” (yòkaigaku), were indefatigable researchers of the supernatural. Monsters and supernatural phenomena were targeted for extermination by such influential Meiji elites through edu-

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cation, modern medicine, and state legislation. Gerald Figal has described how Inoue and other Meiji leaders hoped to “redirect the spiritual sentiments of the masses away from heterogeneous complexes of local beliefs in the supernatural and toward a homogenized belief in a unique kokutai” (national essence).21 Like Oomoto critic Nakamura Kokyò, Inoue was a medical materialist, dedicated to debunking spiritualist claims through scientific explanations. Nevertheless, spiritualist practices increasingly gained both popular and academic audiences from the 1890s forward, as a spiritualist parlor game called Kokkurisan, hypnotism, and clairvoyance (senrigan) captured the public imagination. Kokkurisan was a variant of table-turning, a séance parlor game hugely popular in America and Europe in which participants placed their hands around a table and waited for it to move and indicate the presence of spirits. American sailors reportedly introduced the game to Japan in 1885 at the treaty port of Shimoda, where it was adapted by using a bowl atop a bamboo tripod.22 The name Kokkurisan contained the Chinese characters for foxes, tengu (mountain goblins), and badgers, the entities most commonly associated with supernatural activity, but it was also a clever play on words, meaning “to tilt,” the action of the apparatus involved.23 The combination of its simplicity, its resonance with folk supernatural beliefs, and the titillation of participating in a new Western fad quickly made Kokkurisan a ubiquitous activity in entertainment quarters and private residences alike. Hypnotism, a field of Western spiritualist “science,” also found a large following in Japan. Majima Tòhoku opened the first Japanese hypnosis clinic in 1891, and by the mid-1890s, hypnotism had infiltrated the popular consciousness.24 Hypnotists were in high demand to provide popular entertainment at public pleasure halls, in the tradition of Edo-period misemono sorcery shows.25 Canonic novelists Natsume Sòseki and Mori Ògai wove hypnotism, mesmerism, and somnambulism into the plots of their novels.26 Hypnotism attracted not only popular audiences but also Japanese intellectuals and academics, who, like their Western counterparts, sought evidence of the existence of the human spirit through scientific experiments. A rash of publications on hypnosis by Tokyo University graduate Takeuchi Kusugawa in 1904 spurred further academic interest. In May 1905 an entire issue of the Journal of the National Medical Society (Kokka igakukai zasshi) was devoted to essays on hypnotism.27 Some Japanese academics and researchers became deeply involved in experiments to test clairvoyance and other supernatural abilities. Tokyo Imperial University professor Fukurai Tomokichi conducted experiments with a series of gifted female psychics—Mifune Chizuko, Nagao Ikuko, and Takahashi Sadako. The findings were enthusiastically reported in the

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media, and the result was a “clairvoyance boom” from around 1910 to 1913.28 As with the earlier enthusiasm for hypnotism, experiments with clairvoyance had both the sheen of respectability through association with Western science and a healthy portion of entertainment value. Eminent academics, like philosopher Inoue Tetsujirò, and religious studies scholar Anesaki Masaharu, along with a dozen other Ph.Ds, participated in Fukurai’s experiments.29 Fukurai’s enthusiasm for supernatural sciences, however, fell increasingly out of favor with the academic establishment and led ultimately to his dismissal from Tokyo University in 1913.30 The growing disenchantment with the supernatural among Japanese establishment researchers reflected a larger global realignment in elite attitudes toward the marriage of spiritualism and science. In the West, spiritualism was being increasingly discredited on two fronts. First, debunkers of séance room phenomena, including escape artist Harry Houdini, exposed dishonest mediums who tricked the guileless public.31 Second, academics and researchers increasingly offered medical explanations to rationalize psychic abilities, invoking conditions such as multiple personality disorder or neurological defects to account for seemingly supernatural phenomena.32 Such explanations were soon echoed in Japan by rationalist elites like Inoue and Nakamura. Advocates of spiritualism found it increasingly difficult to attempt to prove a spirit world via scientific explanation. Scientific spiritualism was a bastard child of religion and science, incongruously proclaiming both faith in spirits and devotion to rational, empirical analysis. In response to the inexorable advance of scientific thought, spiritualist experimentation in the name of science waned, while new forms of occultism emerged throughout the world. The rise of mystical new religions in the twentieth century gave spiritualist beliefs a home exempt from the gaze and judgment of science. In the wake of scientific spiritualism’s decline, new philosophical societies and religious sects rejected the dogmatic positivism of science and its henchman, materialism. They sought new means for attaining unity with the cosmos and developing individual spirituality, often through esoteric teachings suppposedly rooted in antiquity. Groups such as the Theosophists and the Rosicrucians turned east, to India and Egypt, for spiritual ideas that might act as antidotes to Western materialism.33 Other groups, such as the Christian Scientists and Anthroposophists, remained more firmly grounded in the West, resurrecting the ideals of earlier mystical Christian traditions, such as the Swedenborgians and Transcendentalists.34 According to some scholars, occultism and supernatural belief gained their largest momentum in Europe after World War I, in part because of the desire to maintain contact with the war dead.35 The post–World War

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I period coincided with Oomoto’s promotion of the chinkon kishin spirit possession practice. When Deguchi Nao controlled the sect, she limited Onisaburò’s propagation of chinkon kishin. She feared it might outshine her own teachings. Upon gaining control of the organization, Onisaburò seized the opportunity to make spiritualist activity a cornerstone of Oomoto proselytization efforts.

Faith Healing and the New Religions Despite the new popularity of spiritualist practices in the late Meiji and early Taishò eras older forms of faith-based healing and divination—including the laying on of hands (teate) and the use of amulets, holy water, and magical incantations (among others)—continued to play a large role in popular medical treatment. One aspect of Meiji modernization, however, was the separation of medicine and religion. In the eyes of authorities, Western medicine soon came to be seen as legitimate healing, while other practices were relegated to folk status. Traditional cures rooted in faith were branded undesirable by the state and elite society, yet public demand for such services and their practitioners did not abate. The Meiji civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika) project, with its charter to eradicate superstitious and backward practices, included the suppression of folk and faith-based remedies. In 1874 and 1875, the Ministry of Religious Education prohibited magical practices such as catalpabow divination and fox-spirit exorcisms in all prefectures.36 The Ministry of Education simultaneously issued a report warning commoners that they risked their “precious lives” with faith-based healing that “hinder[ed] medicine” and even “obstruct[ed] politics.”37 Similar sentiments were repeated in Home Ministry reports in 1881, 1904, and 1909, suggesting that such practices had not noticeably decreased.38 Government reports in 1927 and 1937 on hundreds of “false religious groups” that propagated magical healing further demonstrate the persistence of folk medicine despite state efforts to curb such practices.39 The earlier new religions, such as Tenrikyò and Kurozumikyò, achieved much of their growth through their healing practices. Tenrikyò’s founder, Nakayama Miki, first gained fame as a healer who could grant safe and painless childbearing (obiya yurushi). Two of the rituals she employed for healing were iki and teodori. The iki no sazuke, or granting of breath, referred to the Tenrikyò creation myth in which God breathed on every human creature as it came into existence. In this practice, garments from the afflicted were brought before Miki, who breathed upon them. When the sick person put on the garment, miraculous recovery followed. The teodori

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no sazuke, a dance consisting of choreographed hand gestures, is still widely practiced by Tenri today.40 In the 1880s and 1890s, authorities became particularly concerned about the surging popularity of Tenrikyò, which was not yet under the restrictive Sect Shinto system. By 1899, the sect had nearly fifteen hundred branches and 2 million believers across Japan and Korea. In the late 1890s, the Home Ministry issued secret directives against Tenrikyò, ordering heightened police surveillance and urging police to intervene in meetings and to coerce members to cease activities.41 The mainstream media joined the attack. In 1896, the Chûò shinbun published a 150-installment series entitled the “The Immoral, Heretical Tenrikyò” (Inshi jakkyò Tenrikyò). Over a ten-year period, from 1893 to 1902, over thirty different newspapers condemned Tenrikyò.42 In fact, the media often played a greater role than the state in condemnation of the healing practices of new religions.43 Police enforced the ordinances against faith healing, but the media, which self-importantly claimed the task of enlightening the ignorant masses, prodded them on. Newspaper reports on medical fraud or interference with modern medical treatment inevitably contained calls to prosecute and repress all manner of traditional healers, including prophets, mediums, faith healers, diviners, and ascetics. Severely attacked by both the authorities and the press, Tenrikyò’s expansion stalled. By 1897, the number of its facilities was beginning to decline.44 In order to regain a degree of viability and respectability, Tenrikyò eventually lobbied to join the official system of Sect Shinto, becoming the thirteenth and final sect to join in 1904.45 Tenrikyò’s cures were miraculous or magical in nature, but its religious focus was on the transformation of people’s kokoro (hearts and minds). In Nakayama Miki’s teachings, all diseases arose from the kokoro and were a manifestation of God the Parent’s guidance or admonition toward the afflicted that could be cured only if the patient surrendered his kokoro to the will of God.46 But Tenrikyò’s true mission was the encouraging of selfreform; healing was a proselytizing activity intended to draw people to Tenrikyò. The mission of self-reform was shared by all three of the successful large new religions that emerged in the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods: Kurozumikyò, Tenrikyò, and Konkòkyò. Kurozumi Munetada achieved fame for curing stomach ailments by placing his hand on the afflicted area and blowing.47 Later, he used a rice scoop, dubbed a miteshiro, or replacement for the hand, as a healing implement. Whenever people came for his cures, however, Kurozumi forced them to listen to moralizing sermons before providing his treatment.48 In Konkòkyò, a more pious atmosphere

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prevailed. Ritualistic ceremonies were completely forbidden, along with all forms of popular magic and incantations.49 Healing in Konkòkyò was achieved through mediation (toritsugi), prayer, and the dispensation of specially cleansed rice and holy water from the sacred grounds of Konkòkyò headquarters. When believers gathered for sermons, a mediator simply reported people’s afflictions and requests to God. The congregation said prayers, and the afflicted were given the holy rice and water.50 The emphasis on moral reform reflects what Yasumaru Yoshio has identified as the prevailing conventional morality or popular ethics (tsuzoku dotoku) when these three sects were formed in the mid- to late nineteenth century. This moral code idealized self-denial, frugality, diligence, and honesty.51 Kurozumikyò, Tenrikyò, and Konkòkyò sermons urged the internalization of these virtues as a means to reform the kokoro. Deguchi Nao’s early teachings and worldview also clearly reflect these ascetic and reformist aspirations. While she practiced traditional healing techniques, such as the laying on of hands, she stressed that it was necessary to “make hearts crystal clear and fear God” in order to achieve healing.52 By the early twentieth century, many were weary of the diligence and self-denial that had failed to release them from the cycle of poverty. The rate of expansion for the older new religions, the continued advocates of traditional ethics, began to decline.53 At the same time, a shift from healing methods centered on reforming the kokoro to methods based on the manipulation of spirits (rei) became apparent among new religions and individual healers.54 Rising interest in and demand for spiritualist phenomena, demonstrated by the hypnotism and clairvoyance crazes, was accompanied by a surge in spiritualist healing practices by itinerant practitioners, including psychics, breath control gurus, clairvoyants, and others. With Deguchi Nao’s death in 1918 there was a similar shift in Oomoto’s healing orientation, from Nao’s emphasis on moral reform of the kokoro to Onisaburò’s view that human health was determined by a variety of factors, from climatic and geographic conditions to conditions imposed by family, state, and society and to the individual’s own self-care.55 More important, influences from the spirit world were deeply intertwined with environmental and genetic factors in determining individual health; malevolent spirits and deities were often the cause of illness and personal misfortune.56

Asano Wasaburò and Oomoto’s First National Publication Oomoto’s growing spiritualist appeal among the middle class was marked by the entry of Asano Wasaburò (1874–1934), an intellectual who became a leading force in Oomoto’s first national expansion.57 After Asano graduated

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from the elite Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied English literature under Lafcadio Hearn, he worked as an instructor at the naval academy at Yokosuka. In 1915, his son developed a mysterious fever that confounded physicians but was healed by a folk spiritualist who introduced Asano to a member of Oomoto’s Chokureigun. He visited Ayabe in early 1916 and was deeply impressed with Nao’s millenarian prophecies. In turn, Nao and Onisaburò were excited by the possibility of adding an influential intellectual who could draw middle- and upper-class urbanites to their ranks. Asano proved to be an adept at the chinkon kishin techniques he learned from Onisaburò. Later that year, he resigned his post, sold all of his possessions, and moved his family to Ayabe. He was appointed editor of Shin reikai, a journal targeted toward the growing spiritualist community, and worked closely with Onisaburò in publicizing Oomoto’s promotion of Kòdò and the Taishò restoration. Despite a market demand for occult practices, Oomoto’s success as a spiritualist sect would not have been possible without Shin reikai, which enabled the sect to begin nationwide proselytization on a large scale for the first time. In keeping with the Kòdò platform, the first issue of Shin reikai, published in January 1917, declared that the journal would not be limited to spiritual matters—it would discuss political and environmental issues, world conditions, and recommendations for Japanese education, religion, and business policy. Its main focus, nevertheless, was a Nativistic interpretation of spiritualism, with articles on kotodama and other so-called Ancient Shinto studies. Shin reikai promised to “give instruction and initiation into the miraculous method for uniting people with gods from the spirit world and would teach ancient methods for curing all ailments”—that is, chinkon kishin.58 The 30–40 page journal was initially distributed monthly, but by the following year, it was distributed twice as often and had doubled in length.59 The number of copies printed rose from one thousand in 1917 to eleven thousand by 1921, when it ceased publication following Oomoto’s suppression.60 As noted in chapter 2, Shin reikai provided the first national platform for Shinnyû, Onisaburò’s reinterpretation of Nao’s Ofudesaki prophecies; it was published in sections from February 1917 to September 1920 and occupied from one-fifth to one-third of each issue.61 Shin reikai proved successful in attracting new converts of a spiritualist bent. Ogata Tarò, a founder of the Oomoto Kumamoto branch, first heard of the sect’s existence through two local publications, a magazine from Shimane prefecture, also called Shin reikai (New World of Spirits, written with different characters), and a spiritualist periodical from Matsue City called Suisei (Comet).62 The latter was published by an Inari-related organization in Matsue City in the Izumo region. As noted above, Onisaburò had ties to

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both Inari and Izumo. Suisei often featured articles favorable to Oomoto, elaborating its principles and practices. It carried a wide range of anti-establishment and “new-age”-style articles, such as pieces critical of war, capitalism, and materialism, or articles on new state policies toward food and sanitation. Suisei also reviewed the works of Hirata Atsutane, discussed Chinese medicines, and explained Western spiritualist theories. The cover featured an illustration of two small figures kowtowing to Mount Fuji. In sum, the diffusion of print technology to regional and/or specialized users, along with the wide dissemination of literacy skills, allowed numerous interest groups to connect like-minded individuals. Ogata confirms that many Japanese at the time were intensely interested in spiritualist concerns such as the afterlife.63 Because they felt that the established religions in Japan failed to address their interests and concerns, they formed research societies that followed Western developments in spiritualism. During this period, Oomoto had a strong missionary presence in Shimane prefecture and promoted chinkon kishin as a means to prove the existence of the spirit and to explore the relationship between the gods and humans, goals that dovetailed nicely with the interests of spiritualists. The supervising editor of the Shimane Shin reikai, who was also the head of the local Spiritual Philosophy Association, became an Oomoto convert. Ogata himself departed for the sect headquarters in Ayabe soon after purchasing his first copy of Oomoto’s Shin reikai.64 The new journal provided Oomoto not only with a positive platform to publicize and defend its views and to connect the spiritualist community but also a national pulpit to critique other religions, an activity expressly prohibited among state-approved sects. Christianity had been adopted by many influential elites since the early Meiji period, sometimes as part of a quest to learn the secrets of Western strength. Western treaty nations insisted upon Christianity’s right to freely conduct missions in Japan, an important factor in the Meiji constitution’s limited freedom of religion clause. Freedom of religious practice, however, was not extended to those who engaged in traditional or magical healing and rituals that might seem backward or superstitious to Western Christian observers or their Meiji elite counterparts. While many Japanese remained privately critical of the influx of Christianity after two centuries of its strict prohibition under the Tokugawa regime, Shin reikai gave national voice to their feelings. One article pointed out the hypocrisy of elite Japanese Christians, who denounced chinkon kishin as a heretical, superstitious practice while accepting a Bible rife with miracles. The anonymous author chided “high and mighty Christians” with “impressive academic credentials” who sanctimoniously rejected unscientific phenomena in their civilized world. He pointed

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out that Jesus Christ himself healed leprosy, paralysis, and blindness through the laying on of hands and had even raised the dead. He suggested that the holy power of chinkon kishin and kotodama to heal the sick and exorcise demons was the same power exercised by Christ. He also implied that Onisaburò was the Second Coming of Christ, with Asano and other executives as his disciples. Their own remarkable healing powers came from direct contact with Onisaburò.65 Oomoto’s use of the print media for proselytization continued to grow. Between 1918 and 1920, in addition to Shin reikai, Oomoto published around thirty different journals, newspapers, and magazines for different audiences.66 These included two newspapers aimed at explaining the sect to the general public: Òmoto jihò and Òmoto shimbun. In August 1920 Oomoto bought the Taishò nichinichi shimbun, a major Osaka daily with a circulation of 480,000, for 500,000 yen.67 Several new religions have established or acquired major newspapers as a forum to express their opinions. The Christian Science Monitor, established by Mary Baker Eddy in 1908, has become a highly respected, Pulitzer-prize-winning newspaper. The Unification Church acquired the Washington Times and UPI newswire in the 1980s, following the Reverend Moon’s failed attempt to launch a newspaper in New York. Sòka Gakkai’s Seikyò shimbun, established in 1951, has a circulation of over 5 million. The Taishò nichinichi was established by writers and editors dismissed from the Osaka asahi shimbun for articles critical of the Terauchi administration. It was funded by capital from large Osaka-based merchant houses.68 Competition among dailies was fierce, however, and the new paper was put up for sale less than a year after its birth. Oomoto intended to use the daily as a mouthpiece to critique politics and to publicize its platform of radical social reform. Its first edition, issued September 25, 1920, proclaimed that the paper had “a great mission from heaven to resolutely carry out the reconstruction of the corrupt newspaper world,” which was composed of “the mouthpiece[s] or slave[s] of one political party or of the capitalists . . . and offer[ed] no comfort or support to the people.”69 The media establishment was outraged that a heterodox religious group could take control of a major newspaper. Taishò nichinichi reporters were shunned and denied access to official news sources. The paper lost two hundred thousand subscriptions in a three-month period.70 Nevertheless, it garnered a great deal of public attention for Oomoto. The paper advertised Oomoto lecture programs, held at the paper’s head offices in the Umeda district and at universities, theatres, and public meeting halls throughout the country. The curious public poured in, eager to learn about chinkon kishin and about Asano Wasaburò’s controversial Reconstruction Theory,

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the prediction that the apocalypse would commence in the tenth year of the Taishò era (1921). After Nao’s death, there had been a growing sense of rivalry between Asano and Onisaburò. Asano was close to Nao during her final years and became a strong proponent of concrete interpretations of her millenarian prophecies.71 He was the leader of a faction of intellectuals in Oomoto intent on widely publicizing the Reconstruction Theory and Nao’s prophecies of war between Japan and the world. Oomoto’s rapid growth had resulted in the emergence of several competing factions, including the group led by Asano; some factions focused on the chinkon kishin practice. Another faction of ultra-imperialists was led by Kishi Ishitarò, a medical doctor drawn to Oomoto by its call for a Taishò restoration.72 Onisaburò’s influence remained with the majority of the congregation, but intellectuals like Asano and Tomokiyo Yoshisane, later founder of Shinto Tenkòkyò, freely exercised their views in the numerous Oomoto publications and lectures, drumming up public excitement over their declarations of impending war and apocalypse.73 This approach, a perennial crowd-pleaser for religious sects throughout the world throughout the ages, along with popularization of the chinkon kishin practice, drew between two and three hundred thousand supporters for Oomoto by 1921.74

Chinkon kishin: The Engine of Early Oomoto Growth By mid-1918, the average number of visitors to Ayabe headquarters climbed from the single digits to fifty to sixty per day. By mid-1920, after the completion of a huge new hall, there were over two hundred visitors per day, drawn to Ayabe primarily to experience chinkon kishin.75 The Oomoto jihò reported a precipitous leap in the number of conversions, from 700–800 per month in early 1920 to an average of 6,000 per month for May, June, and July of the same year.76 As noted above, the availability of direct train routes between Kyoto and Ayabe greatly facilitated the sudden influx of visitors. The term chinkon kishin contained two elements: chinkon, or pacifying the spirit, and kishin, or returning to the divine. The practice was first created and systematized in the 1880s by Honda Chikaatsu as an esoteric technique for gaining knowledge by interacting and communicating with spirits and deities.77 Through chinkon, one invited the spirit of a deity to a receptacle, human or otherwise, while kishin involved communications with the deity. The combination of these two elements in a single practice, first popularized by Onisaburò, began with a meditative process (chinkon) aimed toward reaching a state of separation between the physical self and

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the spirit. When that state was attained, it would be possible to proceed to kishin, spirit possession.78 Chinkon kishin was a central pillar of Ancient Shinto, a nineteenthcentury school of thought promoted by Honda, a mysterious and obscure figure.79 Since he was considered a heretic and stood outside of the Shinto establishment, it is difficult to find traces of him or his teachings in official works on late Tokugawa and Meiji Shinto.80 The primary reason Honda is remembered today is for his influence on Onisaburò and, through Oomoto, on subsequent sects. Born in Satsuma, at age eighteen Honda reportedly sought out the radical Mito scholar Aizawa Seishisai. Around this time, he also became a disciple of Hirata Atsutane’s school of Nativism and Restoration Shinto. Hirata, too, had deep interest in the workings of the spiritual world and published several texts on the existence of spirits and on life after death.81 At age twenty-one, Honda saw a performance by a young girl who recited poetry in an erudite manner belying her age and status. She was supposedly possessed by a fox, and it was the fox spirit that animated the girl. This was a transformative moment in Honda’s life, and he spent the next ten years wandering around the Shizuoka region, learning spiritualist techniques from various teachers and performing ascetic exercises in caves.82 After this period of experimentation, at age thirty-four, Honda announced his new classification for spirit possession: the Thirty-Six Forms of kamigakari (spirit possession). Honda’s system for “mapping the spirits” was an original contribution to Shinto studies, found in neither established sects nor earlier Nativist texts. According to Honda, there were three modes of possession: self-induced, kami-induced, or other-induced (jikanho, shinkanho, takanho). The first of these held the danger of possession by evil spirits for those who were not adequately prepared. Kami-induced possession was a special case, in which the gods selected their human mouthpieces. Founders of new religions who experienced kamigakari, including Deguchi Nao, fell into this category. The final category introduced Honda’s revolutionary new conception of the saniwa, a spirit channeler who had the power to induce possession, determine the rank and character of the possessing spirit, and exert a degree of control over the spirit.83 Honda believed most possessing spirits were “false” or “low-ranking” deities that could offer no valuable information.84 The saniwa required a high degree of integrity and deep scholarship in the Japanese classics in order to question the spirit in possession properly and evaluate the truth and validity of its responses. As with many invented traditions, Honda claimed archaic origins for his practice. The first known instance of spirit possession in Japan is often said to be found in the myth of Amaterasu’s seclusion in the rock cave,

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when the goddess Ame no Uzume became possessed and performed a lewd dance to help entice the Sun Goddess out of the cave.85 Honda also claimed that his methods were related to an episode recorded in the Nihon shoki, in which the Empress Jingu, seeking advice from the deceased Emperor Chuai, ordered two ministers to play the koto and act as saniwa. When the kami descended, she questioned the spirit to determine the former emperor’s divine will.86 Honda studied and systematized fragmentary classical references to create the blend of chinkon and kishin. In tandem, these techniques constituted a secret method for specialists to unite humans with the spirit world in order to acquire divine knowledge. Under Onisaburò, the benefits were expanded to include healing and practical benefits, and the pool of potential participants was enlarged to the general public. Through dialogue with the spirits, Oomoto-trained saniwa could ascertain the cause of sickness or misfortune and provide relief through the exorcism of malevolent spirits.87 While Honda reportedly had several hundred disciples, few were initiated deeply enough into his secret doctrines to become teachers themselves. Onisaburò’s teacher, Nagasawa Katsutate, was regarded as one of Honda’s best students (figure 3.1).88 He carried on the tradition of Honda’s reigaku (spirit studies) at Shizuoka’s Miho and Yamanashi Shrines, where he was chief priest. In 1892 he received approval from prefectural authorities to establish Inari Kòsha, a religious confraternity for teaching chinkon kishin,

figure 3.1.  Onisaburò with Nagasawa Katsutate and Deguchi Hidemaru, Onisaburò’s son-in-law.

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at Yamanashi Shrine, dedicated to Ame no Uzume, the deity associated with spirit possession.89 It was here that Onisaburò came to visit and study in 1898. Two decades later, in 1917, Onisaburò taught a handful of highly placed Oomoto followers to act as saniwa for large gatherings. He himself rarely presided at public gatherings but would make an appearance and intervene if the possessing spirits were excessively violent or unruly.90 It is primarily owing to Oomoto’s popularization of Honda’s techniques that chinkon kishin spread widely and became known as the basis for the cult of Ancient Shinto.91 The practice itself had three main elements: a chinkon stone, a special posture and hand position (mudra), and music and recitation provided by the saniwa. The chinkon stone was a small, heavy rock, ideally received from the spirit world in a miraculous manner. Since that was a rare and unpredictable occurrence, an appropriate stone could also be sought out on the grounds of shrines, holy mountains, riverbeds, and seashores. Once a fitting specimen was located, it was washed carefully in water, purified with salt, placed in a brocade bag, and enshrined on a small altar.92

figure 3.2.  A young Onisaburò demonstrates the mudra (hand position) for practicing chinkon meditation.

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The receiver, or kannushi, took the proper posture, kneeling in seiza position and crossing his legs so that the big toe of the right foot rested on the big toe of the left foot. He or she made the chinkon mudra (also called the ama no nuhoko) by holding the hands at chest level, fingers interlaced and pointing toward the palm, index fingers pointed upwards (figure 3.2). The thumb of the left hand was placed on top of the thumb of the right hand.93 The kannushi sat with eyes closed for 20–30 minutes, concentrating so that thoughts and spirit gathered into the stone.94 The saniwa had to pay close attention to the state of the kannushi’s spirit in chinkon meditation. If the receiver reached an appropriate level of trance, he or she was ready for the descent or manifestation of the spirit. To achieve this, the saniwa clapped his hands and began to play a stone flute or ocarina (iwabue) to create a mysterious occultic atmosphere (yûgen).95 He recited the Amatsu Norito prayer and the Ama no Kazuuta, or Heavenly Number Song.96 After the possessing spirit manifested itself, the saniwa had to determine the variety of spirit—that is, whether it was good or evil and its rank and lineage—through a question and answer dialogue. As there were 181 ranks each of good and evil spirits in Honda’s classification, the saniwa needed to be well schooled in classics naming and describing Shinto deities in order to identify the spirit appropriately.97 Oomoto taught that four types of spirits could take possession or manifest themselves: high-ranking deities, protective and vice protective deities, animal spirits, and ancestral spirits.98 High-ranking deities would possess people only during the course of chinkon kishin, then leave after they had delivered their message. Only advanced religious practitioners would be chosen for possession by high-ranking deities. The main protective spirit was a spiritual fragment (bunrei) of a deity. It resided in each human’s abdominal region (tanden) and acted as a spiritual guide. Onisaburò described the importance of the belly, thought to be the center of life force in many East Asian traditions, in the following poems: Kono hara wa This belly is the belly of heaven, takaamahara no hara ni shite the place where the gods of life inochi no kami no are assembled. tsudoimasu hara Ukareyuku tama o manekite tanden ni osameikaisu o tamashizume to iu

Calling the scattered spirit to the tanden and there bringing it to life; this is called pacifying the spirit.99

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Vice protective deities controlled a person’s physical functions and often competed with the main protective deity for overall control of the person.100 Balance between these two types of spirits was critical. If vice deities dominated, the person would have a poor or unsavory character. Low-ranking animal and ancestral spirits could also take possession of a body and reside there for long periods, causing sickness or misfortune. As in folk belief, the most common animals to possess humans were foxes and badgers. Unhappy ancestors often took possession of their descendants to call attention to some family matter. After the identification of the spirit, the key objective was to convert that spirit and the person it possessed to the “true path” of Oomoto belief and morality.101 Low ranking spirits were then forced to leave the body by the saniwa. Taniguchi Masaharu (1893–1985), later founder of the new religion Seichò no Ie, described the following session of chinkon kishin in 1918 at Oomoto headquarters in Ayabe in an article for Shin reikai: In a forty-eight-mat room in a hall called the Kinryûden the practitioners awaited the appointed hour, sitting quietly with hands fixed in the chinkon mudra. The leader, called a saniwa, suddenly cried, “waaaan,” bringing the spirit upon himself. In the crowd, about two in every ten persons became possessed by spirits, their pressed palms shuddering up and down violently and their bodies bouncing around strangely. The saniwa on this occasion was Asano Wasaburò, who sat facing the violently shuddering bodies of the practitioners. The following question and answer session ensued.    “I am not questioning the physical body. Since I’m talking to the possessing spirit, try not to answer using your own will. The spirit will respond by moving your throat and lips. Who are you?”    Voices began to call out at once. “I’m a badger”; “A badger”; “I’m a fox”; “A fox.” There were also those who gave no reply, remaining silent while their lips twitched.    “If it’s difficult to speak, I’ll help you. First try to say the name Ushitora no Konjin. Say it. Uuuu . . . ,” Asano intoned, drawing out the vowel sound and trying to induce the others to repeat it. “Uuuuuu,” he repeated insistently.    Finally a male practitioner’s voice was heard. “U . . . u.”    “If you can say ‘U,’ you can say ‘shi.’ shi. shi. shi.” Asano insisted.    “Shi,” the man repeated.    Going on in this manner, the man was finally forced to say u-shi-to-rano-kon-jin. After this, Asano took up questioning again, trying to determine whether the spirit was a fox or badger or tengu, asking where, how long, and for what reason the spirit had possessed the speaker.102

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Taniguchi was initially skeptical about the chinkon kishin practice but was converted by his own possession experience at age twenty-nine.103 As he recounted in subsequent articles, while being subjected to the same exercise of repeating the name of Ushitora no Konjin, he initially thought it was all nonsense. Then he suddenly felt something in his lower abdomen gradually move upward into his throat, as if to speak. His lips pursed and twitched, and he felt as if he had to stifle a sneeze. No longer able to endure the pain, he surprised himself by sharply crying out, “U,” and went on to repeat the deity’s entire name. The saniwa then demanded that he say his own name. Taniguchi’s conscious mind ran through the names he knew for God—Jehovah, Heavenly Father, etc.—but a calm voice issuing from his abdomen uttered, “Mikuru Mihiko no Mikoto.” Taniguchi had never heard this name and had no idea whether such a kami existed. The saniwa questioned the spirit about the types of offerings it desired, and Taniguchi, who despised tempura and other fried things, was shocked to hear the spirit answer, “I like deep-fried tofu [aburage] the most.”104 This response was a clear indication that he was possessed by a fox spirit, as aburage was well-known as the favorite food of such a spirit. When the saniwa asked the spirit how long and for what reason it had possessed Taniguchi, it replied that it had taken possession at his birth and claimed, “I don’t have a grudge against this physical body. I thought I’d like to kill the father of this body. The father trapped and killed me. How pitiful, how pitiful!”105 While the spirit chattered on, Taniguchi gritted his teeth and tears flowed from his eyes. After the experience, he felt as if “all of the mechanisms of human life had been made clear.”106 He understood why he had been drawn to a certain woman who had given him venereal disease. The fox spirit that possessed him had confessed that the woman was herself possessed by one of his mates. Taniguchi realized that his love interests and his hostility toward his father were no more than the impulses of an evil fox.107 Taniguchi, drawn further into Oomoto, became qualified to practice chinkon kishin on his own. He reported that one day, in front of his altar, he was suddenly violently possessed and made to swallow a mysterious white lump that appeared in his hands out of thin air. He asked, “What have I received?” and heard a voice answer clearly in his spiritual ear, “The spirit of rice. Kami eat the spirits of food.”108 Taniguchi next felt his mouth opening automatically and something warm flowing down his throat. He could even hear the “glug, glug” of the pouring liquid in his spiritual ear. It was a richly aromatic wine with a slightly charred taste that warmed him to the bottom of his belly. When he asked again what he had received, the voice replied, “That was the spirit of wine. You’ve had enough.” Taniguchi came out of the trance and felt wide awake, yet noticed the heavy aroma of alcohol

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on his skin. When he stood, he found himself staggering about and entering the next room, and he was admonished by his wife for drinking in the morning.109 Another practitioner of chinkon kishin, Iketsu Genjirò, recounted his induction into and experiences with Oomoto in a 1920 book. Genjirò, a relative newcomer to Oomoto, had lost his son and believed this was punishment for his neglect of spiritual matters. He had flirted with many new religions, including Kurozumikyò, Tenrikyò, and Konkòkyò.110 Genjirò had tried hypnosis and was curious about how the sensations encountered under chinkon kishin would compare. In his initial foray, he reported a slight, pleasant, and curious movement in his hands, pressed in mudra.111 He went back the next day, and this time, as soon as he heard the sound of the ocarina, he slipped deeply into concentration and felt a sense of pure abandonment. Like the previous day, his hands began to move. He reported, “I didn’t know whether this was medicine or poison, but I wanted to taste this new feast.”112 He continued to attend, experiencing greater degrees of movement on each occasion. Intrigued, he began to undertake a deeper study of Oomoto practices and doctrine. The material and bodily experience of spirit possession led him to seek a deeper identification with Oomoto teachings, just as sect leaders had hoped. Genjirò confirms that chinkon kishin was Oomoto’s biggest attraction during this period. It offered “an abolition of the borders between kami and humans and a way to enter the ‘wonderful realm’ of the spirit world.”113 He contrasted Oomoto with Buddhism, which required detachment from the pleasures of the senses in order to reach nirvana, and with Christianity, which posited that heaven existed above the earth and could not be reached until death.114 He noted how other competing groups, like a spiritualist sect known as Taireidò, taught similar exercises, but none could match Oomoto’s practices for efficacy.115 For Genjirò, only Oomoto’s chinkon kishin offered a means to enter a state of union with the kami and reach the spirit world in this life.116 The spirit possession experience undoubtedly exerted a powerful attraction that enabled Oomoto to distinguish itself among the new religions in the Taishò period. Nevertheless, the push to openly promote chinkon kishin was surprisingly short-lived. As early as May 1919, there were signs that the practice was beginning to spin out of control. Oomoto had intended that chinkon kishin be used to demonstrate the actual existence of the spiritual world and to serve as an enticement to deeper studies of its teachings, yet many of its new visitors and followers were interested only in the thrill of the possession. Furthermore, spirit possession by nature posed a constant potential threat to the legitimacy and supremacy of the founders. If a pos-

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sessed individual claimed to be a high-ranking deity and uttered prophecies that challenged Oomoto teachings or leadership, he would undermine their authority.117 To avoid this potential problem, saniwa trained by headquarters could cast doubt on possessing deities’ credibility in the question-andanswer session or denounce as fake any revelations that challenged Oomoto teachings.118 Yet powerful saniwa themselves could also pose a threat to Onisaburò’s authority. This was the case with Asano and with Tomokiyo Yoshisane, who wrote scathing critiques of Oomoto after leaving in 1919 to start his own group. To stem potential challenges to his authority, Onisaburò declared himself the only fully qualified saniwa. In May 1919 Asano Wasaburò issued a “warning on chinkon kishin” in Shin reikai. He insisted that the practice was intended to “polish the polluted spirit” as an entrée to the spiritual life and was not an end in itself; he strongly denounced the trend of untrained persons acting as saniwa, noting that extensive preparation was required, so that only a small number of Oomoto executives were permitted to act in this capacity. He further stressed that saniwa must be sound in mind and body, steady, reliable, and well balanced. Afflicting spirits had to be soothed in a low voice and should not be approached recklessly in a manner that might provoke them even further.119 Despite such warnings the number of unqualified individual saniwa mounted and unsanctioned practices flourished. But the primary reason Oomoto wished to abolish the popular ritual, its most effective draw to date, was the negative attention it drew from the authorities. Oomoto’s critics in the establishment and media raised questions about the practice, and the police advised the sect to discontinue chinkon kishin.120 In numerous articles and books, such as Òmoto no kaibò (The Dissection of Oomoto), Nakamura Kokyò, the psychologist mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, dismissed spirit possession as nothing more than a hypnotic condition.121 Onisaburò vehemently denied this charge and retorted that the authorities, ignorant about spiritual matters, simply refused to accept that the practice was effective in healing and demonstrating the reality of the spirit world.122 Despite continued criticism by Nakamura and Oomoto’s attempts to scale back, the curious public continued pouring in to Ayabe in 1920 to experience the phenomenon, touted not only in Shin reikai but also in a rash of books and publications by individual believers.123

The First Suppression The police, under the direction of the Home and Justice Ministries, continued to closely monitor the booming sect’s activities. A lengthy police report

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presented to these ministries in March 1919 scrutinized multiple areas of Oomoto activity. It explained that Oomoto exceeded the boundaries of religion as defined by the state; described prophecies predicting apocalypse in 1921 and predicting that the imperial capital would move to Ayabe when reconstruction commenced; explained the practice of chinkon kishin spirit possession; and outlined the current organizational structure, noting growing rifts among factions.124 As a result of the report, Onisaburò and Asano were brought in to Kyoto Police Headquarters for questioning and warned against propagating inflammatory doctrine.125 During this period, mainstream newspapers were filled with accounts of Oomoto as a heretical religion (jakkyò); they included lurid accusations of murders and perverted sexual practices at Oomoto described by disgruntled ex-followers.126 The police and Home Ministry, lacking more accurate intelligence, often relied on the media’s biased and often unsubstantiated accounts for their reports. Police began to take piecemeal actions against Oomoto. In August 1920, Ofudesaki/Shinnyû was banned from publication for disrespect toward the imperial family, and Nao’s tomb was ordered dismantled because of its resemblance to the grave of the Meiji emperor. In September, the Home and Justice Ministries ordered further investigations to establish grounds for prosecution. Warrants for the arrest of Oomoto leaders were issued January 10, 1921. On February 12 police officers cut off Oomoto’s postal, telephone, and telegraph communications and encircled its grounds at Ayabe. They rounded up and arrested sect leaders on charges of lèse-majesté and violation of the 1909 Newspaper Law for printing disrespectful articles in the Taishò nichinichi. Police ransacked the headquarters and Onisaburò’s residence, searching for evidence of sedition and revolution. They found no incriminating evidence but confiscated Onisaburò’s diaries, letters, and writings and twenty-six thousand yen that they claimed were funds for an armed revolution. In total, around eighty members of the sect were detained and interrogated. In the end only Onisaburò, Asano, and Yoshida Sukesada, a publisher, were indicted by the Kyoto district court in May. They were released on bail in June while the case was under appeal.127 Meanwhile, the mainstream press exploded with sensationalistic articles about Oomoto, disclosing treasonous plots of armed uprising and demonic conspiracies. The Japan Chronicle, an English language newspaper, took note of the exaggerations: “Oomoto’s offense to the scruples of the authorities is due to the fact that in its scriptures Oomoto repeatedly condemns upper class Japanese society. . . . This is its so-called dangerous ideology.”128 Although Onisaburò was released on bail in June 1921, authorities continued to harass and deter the sect. In October, police ordered the demoli-

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tion of a large group of buildings said to resemble the Grand Shrine of Ise. As this resemblance was not strictly illegal, the demolition was ordered under an obscure and unenforced 1872 law that prohibited the construction of temples and shrines without permission.129 The week-long demolition work mobilized 3,500 army reservists in addition to the police.130 The appeal process dragged on. In July 1924 the Osaka Court of Appeal upheld the verdict of guilty for Onisaburò. The case was brought before the Supreme Court, but before its final resolution, on May 17, 1927, a general amnesty was issued following the death of the Emperor Taishò. Onisaburò was cleared of all charges, an anticlimactic conclusion to a dramatic episode.

Rebirth: A New Approach to the Spiritual World From his release on bail in June 1921, Onisaburò immediately set out to to rebuild momentum and generate interest in Oomoto. During the 1920s, he traveled to nearly every corner of the Japanese empire, visiting branches throughout the mainland, Okinawa, Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. In formal kimono, with his long hair piled up on his head under a hair net, he cut a striking figure. He was welcomed everywhere by hordes of believers, who treated him like a living god (ikigami).131 During these travels, he inscribed several of his verses on massive stone monuments, ten feet high and between seven and eleven tons each, located in over fifty sites throughout the country.132 More important, he initiated new projects to distance the organization from the doctrines and practices that had created the most controversy. He created a new prophetic text to replace the troublesome Ofudesaki/Shinnyû, with its alarmist prophecies of Armageddon and war; replaced the popular chinkon kishin practice with a milder form of healing; and abandoned certain publications, including Shin reikai and Taisho nichinichi, which went bankrupt in September 1922.133 The changes did not signal abandonment of the spiritualist and Nativist philosophies that underlay these enterprises. Rather, Onisaburò gave them a new and more publicly palatable exterior in order to resume unencumbered missionary activity. Even before the suppression, Onisaburò had planned to override the controversial teachings proliferating among Oomoto factions with a single, authoritative voice. Such a move would be a further shift from a Nao-centric to an Onisaburò-centric doctrine. The Reikai monogatari (Tales of the Spirit World), an eclectic mix of essays, parables, poems, and social commentary that eventually reached an incredible eighty-one volumes, was the product of his decision. The new text purported to reveal the truth of the spirit world, as it had been imparted to Onisaburò during his week-long ascetic practices on Mount Takakuma. It covered a diverse range of topics,

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including cosmology, ethics, philosophy, and Onisaburò’s views on society, education, art, politics, and economics. While Nao’s text had been expressed in the rough and straightforward language of an uneducated peasant, the parables and fables of the Reikai monogatari were abstract and allusive. Following the experience of the suppression, this style could more readily obscure meaning and veil controversial prophecies. In order to proceed efficiently, Onisaburò recited the text to a group of scribes who recorded his words (figure 3.3).134 On average, it took three days to complete the recitation of a volume.135 One hundred twenty volumes were planned. They were published as they were completed, with the first issued in December 1921. The troop of scribes accompanied Onisaburò as he traveled throughout the country, trying to rebuild interest in Oomoto. By the end of 1922, Onisaburò had completed forty-six volumes.136 Many other Oomoto faction leaders, such as Asano and Tomokiyo, were opposed to this undertaking. They viewed the new text as vulgar, and they were angry that it denied the validity of the doctrinal interpretations they had been propagating. The publication of the Reikai monogatari as

figure 3.3.  Onisaburò reclines while reciting text for the Reikai monogatari to a scribe.

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Oomoto’s new primary doctrine was a significant reason for the departure of many of these intellectuals, who formed their own religious and spiritualist organizations. With their departure Onisaburò regained control of the sprawling organization. In the future, he would entrust positions of leadership primarily to family members, particularly to Deguchi Hidemaru (1897–1991), who married his eldest daughter and spiritual heir, Naohi, in 1928.137 Hidemaru and his brother-in-law, Deguchi Uchimaru, were Onisaburò’s right-hand men, Hidemaru as a charismatic religionist and Uchimaru as a business manager. Onisaburò moved strategically to solidify the central role of the Reikai monogatari among the remaining sect members, transforming episodes from the work into theatrical pieces to be performed at major festivals and recording his own readings of the text. Listening to these records and reading the emerging text soon became an important group activity for congregations throughout the country, a practice adopted by many postwar new religions.138 Onisaburò also dealt handily with official disapproval of chinkon kishin, formally abolishing the practice by a declaration on May 25, 1923.139 Henceforth, limited forms of spirit possession would be allowed strictly for the purposes of meditation and healing. Following the suppression, Onisaburò was anxious to avoid further state interference and censure. Yet healing continued to be one of the most productive avenues for attracting new followers. For Oomoto to regain its footing and remain viable, he would have to find less controversial alternatives to maintain this effective avenue of recruitment. Oomoto deemphasized hands-on healing, which had come under fire for excessive touching of the subjects’ bodies, and began to reemphasize folk methods, such as acupuncture and moxibustion and the application of purified mud (otsuchi), nativistically believed to have special healing powers, as soil was a basic substance necessary for the growth of many living things. The most important task, however, was to renovate chinkon kishin into a more acceptable format. To accomplish this, Onisaburò borrowed the terminology for forms of healing used by Kurozumikyò and Konkòkyò, which were among the respectable ranks of the state-approved Shinto sects. The new method of healing, used extensively by Oomoto missionaries in the field, was known as miteshiro otoritsugi (mediation through a substitute for the hand). The idea was born in September 1923 while Onisaburò was staying at the Tsuetate Onsen spa in Kumamoto in Kyushu. When he learned of the Great Kanto Earthquake, a tragedy of immense scale that killed over 130,000 people and destroyed over 600,000 homes in the Tokyo area, he hurried back to headquarters, bringing along 160 rice scoops (shakushi),

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which he had initially intended to give away as souvenirs (figure 3.4). He sealed each implement with his thumbprint and inscribed short poems on them, such as the following: Ban’yu no inochi wo sukû kono shakushi kokoro no mama ni yobito sukue yo

This rice scoop, which saves the life of the whole of creation: Follow your heart and save the people of the world.140

The choice of implement suited Onisaburò’s sense of kotodama wordplay. The verbs for “scoop” and “save” were both pronounced sukû. The implements were distributed among missionaries dispatched to aid people in districts stricken by the quake.141 The scoops were dubbed miteshiro, or substitute for the hand, just as in Kurozumikyò. The method of treatment, however, reflected Oomoto’s continued belief in communication with the spirit world. Furthermore, the selection of a rice utensil reflected Oomoto’s

figure 3.4.  Rice scoop (shakushi) inscribed with a poem by Onisaburò, to be used as a healing implement after the great Kanto earthquake.

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Nativist orientation, as valorization of rice was an important component of the agrarian philosophy. The miteshiro otoritsugi procedure employed chinkon meditation and recitation of prayers and incantations. In order to become a channel of divine healing power, the healer/mediator (toritsuginin) had to achieve a union with the spiritual world through chinkon before administering treatment. The mediator held the miteshiro at arm’s length, with the curved surface pointed toward the afflicted area of the supplicant. Prayers were recited, such as the Amatsu Norito and the Ama no Kazuuta—the very same employed in chinkon kishin.142 The prayers invited a healing heat and light from the spirit world through the miteshiro rice scoop to the afflicted area.143 Throughout the process, the otoritsuginin channeled spiritual energy from the abdominal region, the dwelling place of the protective deity. Oomoto’s new style of healing became the fundamental form used by several later sects descended from it. Okada Mòkichi, the founder of Sekai Kyûseikyò, began his spiritual career as a healer for Oomoto. His new sect achieved prominence in the postwar period through the promotion of jòrei, or spiritual purification, an energy-channeling healing technique whereby a “white light tinged with gold” was channeled through the hand.144 Sekai Kyûseikyò in turn spawned dozens of other healing-based sects, such as Mahikari and Shinji Shûmeikai. Taniguchi Masaharu’s Seichò no Ie, established in 1930, employs a meditative procedure called shinsòkan, based on chinkon kishin, to help individuals perceive divine reality. The revised healing practice was part of the major rehabilitation of Oomoto policies and practices in reaction to the first suppression. On August 31, 1925, Onisaburò announced that henceforth Ayabe, associated with Nao, would be the center of “celestial activities,” while Kameoka, his own turf, would be responsible for all earthly missionary and spiritual activities. A new type of missionary was trained to teach Onisaburò’s Reikai monogatari rather than Nao’s Ofudesaki. The missionaries received a snazzy new uniform, consisting of a wide-sleeved silk robe printed with patterns of blue, yellow, and violet and hemmed with bands of rainbow colors. The ensemble was topped by a dark brown fez with a black tassel.145 The costume gave the missionaries an eclectic spiritual air, invoking opulent rituals and the exoticism of far-off lands. The fez was a rich symbol for Oomoto in the 1920s. Although outlawed in Turkey by the modernist government promoting Westernization, it became an internationally recognized icon of stubborn pride in cultural identity.146 At the same time, it was widely recognized as the headgear of the Shriners, a philanthropic and spiritualist spinoff of the Masonic order that was very popular in 1920s America. Oomoto’s adoption of the fez denoted its Nativist pride, spiritualist activity, and iden-

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tification with new (semi)religious orders in the industrialized West in one fell swoop. From 1925 forward, missionaries were to maintain regular occupations, as henceforth no one would be allowed to earn a living solely from Oomoto except for a few specially appointed persons at the Ayabe and Kameoka headquarters. Local branches were also forbidden from turning Oomoto teachings into a profitable business.147 These measures were intended to combat criticism during the first suppression. Onisaburò acted in a pragmatic, businesslike fashion to retool the organization in order to avoid external hindrances to the mission and internal challenges to central authority. While forbidden from profiteering from healing, missionaries and local branches employed the miteshiro otoritsugi practice as a primary means for attracting new followers. Consider, for example, the following 1926 testimonial from a member of the Hiroshima branch: Missionaries visited my humble home on the twelfth day of the fifth month and passed three days here. They gave a fine talk to all of the villagers and granted miteshiro otoritsugi to the sick. My only son suffered for a long time from chronic bronchitis, but with one miteshiro treatment, he has been cured so that now he doesn’t even cough once. We are all pleased and grateful for this miraculous blessing of God.148

In July 1926, Kondo Teiji, a member of the Numazu branch, asked Onisaburò for permission to initiate a mission in Brazil. Onisaburò predicted that otoritsugi would be the means by which the mission would succeed. He granted Kondo a rice scoop, along with specially made tea bowls of raku-ware, handmade, low-fired pottery, each with a unique shape. When the sick drank water from these bowls, they would be cured of diseases. Small illnesses like colds would be treated by drinking water from smaller raku cups. He also gave Kondo a magical stone that could cure eye infections.149 When Kondo arrived in Brazil, he found that many Japanese immigrants were prejudiced against Oomoto because of the first suppression incident. It made mission work among his own countrymen difficult. He directed his efforts instead toward native Brazilians. He was so successful that he required additional support. Ishido Tsuguò, a more experienced missionary, was appointed director for Brazilian operations in May 1929. He had established four branches by 1931, built a temple in the suburbs of Sao Miguel, and sold one thousand subscriptions to Oomoto publications.150 The primary reason for success among locals was Oomoto’s reputation for healing. Ishido had

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initially limited his administration of otoritsugi treatments to Sundays, but so many visitors thronged his house that he had to conduct more frequent sessions. By September 1931, he was reportedly treating 450 patients per week. Brazilian physicians and pharmacists, who also competed with local Espiritismo healers, began to complain to the authorities, and eventually the police arrested Ishido and three other Oomoto members in November, confiscating the magical articles of healing. They were released but ordered not to conduct their treatments in public assemblies. Otoritsugi treatments continued to be administered privately in individual homes.151 Oomoto’s healing and spiritualist practices were malleable and were recalibrated in response to external conditions and shifting fields of popular interest and belief. Deguchi Nao’s early faith-healing practices reflected late-nineteenth-century conventional morality and required patients to reform their kokoro. Under Onisaburò’s mantle, esoteric and secret practices learned from advocates of Ancient Shinto Nativism were popularized to satisfy the Taishò-period public appetite for spiritualist experimentation, mysticism, and religious revival. Onisaburò’s promotion of chinkon kishin, publicized in the new, nationally distributed Shin reikai, found a ready audience and catapulted Oomoto to national attention. Under its newfound celebrity, the sect increasingly drew the scrutiny and criticism of rationalist authorities and the mainstream media, leading eventually to the 1921 suppression. Recognizing the need to camouflage beliefs and practices not condoned by the Westernized elite, Onisaburò modified the face of the practice to resemble more acceptable forms of traditional healing, although the spiritualist beliefs underlying treatment remained intact and even proliferated among the postwar new religions in the Oomoto lineage. While interest in Western psychic sciences piqued the popular boom in hypnotism and clairvoyance in the Meiji period, it was primarily native beliefs and practices that informed Oomoto’s spiritualism in the Taishò period. One study of Asano Wasaburò claims that Japanese spiritualism in this era demonstrated that “popular religious pursuits [were] severed from folk culture, local communal organization, and historical religious tradition.”152 The popularity of chinkon kishin, the engine that drove Oomoto’s initial explosive expansion, challenges this view. Chinkon kishin was a technique rooted in mythology and Shinto tradition. It represented a decidedly indigenous approach to spiritualism. The spirit possession technique that attracted the crowds to Oomoto was “discovered” in the late nineteenth century by Honda, a Nativist and nationalist who claimed that it was handed down from ancient Japanese chronicles. In practice, chinkon kishin assumed postures and mudras that resonated with those required by Zen and other

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esoteric Buddhist meditation methods. A qualified saniwa required competence in the Japanese classics. Furthermore, the evil spirits who possessed practitioners came straight from the traditional realm of the supernatural, including foxes, badgers, and tengu. Onisaburò’s promotion of a Nativistic spiritualism might be interpreted as another aspect of the “revolt against the West” after World War I.153 Following the wave of enthusiasm over Western spiritualist trends like hypnotism and clairvoyance, Oomoto introduced a more familiar form of spiritualism to indigenous audiences, who were at that moment seeking ways to return to Japanese traditional culture. Omoto’s rejection of both materialism, embodied by Western science and medicine, and the “civilization and enlightenment” (bunmei kaika) worldview that animated Meiji-period development also fitted neatly into the rationale of this revolt. The civilizing worldview rested on positivist, empiricist, and rationalist values that many ordinary Japanese, like many proponents of spiritualism in the West, were not willing to embrace. Onisaburò’s promotion of spiritualist practices that looked and felt like timeworn tradition was a timely endeavor that appealed to a large cross-section of Japanese society seeking new cultural and spiritual activities of national provenance. From another vantage point, Onisaburò’s introduction of chinkon kishin in the Taishò period also reflected the prevailing spirit of Taishò democracy. It was an era with the appearance, if not reality, of increased popular sovereignty, characterized by public demands for expansion of voter enfranchisement, increased labor rights, and the expansion of women’s roles in politics and government. By popularizing secret, esoteric techniques, Onisaburò democratized religion. He gave ordinary people greater access to previously limited forms of power, albeit spiritual and not secular. Like Oomoto’s earlier instruction of Shinto ritual, limited by law to state-appointed professionals, chinkon kishin was a form of religious empowerment not offered by official sects. Oomoto’s advocacy of spiritualist beliefs and practices was not retrogressive irrationalism but a thoroughly modern phenomenon seen in industrializing societies throughout the world. Alex Owen argues that the “search for spiritual meaning can renew itself and adapt to the changing climate of a secularizing culture.” He finds that emerging forms of British spiritualism represented “new ways of perceiving and experiencing the world that were intrinsic to advanced capitalist culture” and deeply reflected an Enlightenment view asserting human control of the natural world.154 Like Oomoto’s chinkon kishin, British occult practice drew intellectuals and ordinary people alike. Many of the former were interested in pressing intellectual issues of the day, such as individual subjectivity, the problem of consciousness, and

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the contradictions of modernity. They wanted to achieve self-knowledge and self-fulfillment with the help of occult practice.155 Viewing Japanese religious developments in light of such universal problems of modernity helps to place Japanese religious history in a wider field of academic discourse. Onisaburò’s initiatives to redirect activity away from chinkon kishin and apocalyptic prophecy after the 1921 suppression were intended to appease authorities, not deny the sect’s fundamental beliefs in the spirit world and in its abilities to manipulate that world. By the mid-1920s, through Onisaburò’s efforts to retool controversial practices, Oomoto had largely recovered from its first suppression, even though the establishment and media still considered the sect heretical. In order to reach new audiences of potential converts, Onisaburò directed the expansion of Oomoto media usage, branching out from the print media, and began to incorporate new forms of visual and mass media in its proselytizing efforts. As described in the following chapter, Oomoto created an attractive public persona via museum-style exhibitions and movies.



Chapter Four



Exhibitionist Tendencies



Visual Technologies of Proselytization

In the early 1990s, the world famous architect I. M. Pei began designing a private art museum in the Shiga Mountains near Kyoto. Pei drew upon a classic Chinese tale he remembered from boyhood about a fisherman wandering into a hidden paradise. The Miho Museum, an architectural masterpiece blending Eastern and Western motifs and rivaling the beauty of the rare and precious objects within, was commissioned by Shinji Shûmeikai, a new religion established in 1970. At least four Japanese new religions own and operate private art museums; three of these, including the Miho, are within the Oomoto lineage.1 Although it never opened its own museum, Oomoto was a pioneer in deploying modern visual technologies, including art and museum exhibitions, photos, and films for the purpose of proselytization and publicity. Art has, of course, long been an avenue for the religions of the world to represent the divine. In Japan, as in the West, religion was the main subject of fine art until the eighteenth century. Before then, art was usually commissioned by the Japanese aristocracy and the warrior and clerical elite. Artworks were explicitly or implicitly religious in character, from Buddhist statuary and mandalas to illustrated narrative scrolls depicting tales infused with Buddhist morality. Some sacred images made their way into popular culture through the tradition of etoki, the explanation of illustrated scrolls and mandalas by itinerant religionists such as hijiri (wandering medicants) or the nuns of Kumano, who entertained crowds through songs and stories explaining mandala iconography.2 In the Edo period, the production and consumption of religious art by non-elite classes expanded considerably. In addition, the worlds of secular art and religion became increasingly intertwined as a “culture of prayer and play” developed around large religious institutions such as Tokyo’s Sensòji Temple in Asakusa and Konpira, a popular pilgrimage site in Shikoku.3 The 108

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commercialization and popularization of religious art coincided with a rise in pilgrimages to famous temples and shrines.4 Religious art was no longer limited to unique, expensive objects produced for elites. It expanded to include artifacts that could be produced in quantity for larger audiences. Paintings of festivals, amulets, and other sacred images that would provide the owner with practical benefits served as souvenirs and charms for travelers, pious or otherwise.5 Popular religio-commercial activity in the Edo period was often colored by a playful hue. The unveiling of secret, sacred images (kaichò and degaichò) in exchange for donations occurred on temple grounds with festive, carnivalesque atmospheres.6 Parodies of religious art subverted longestablished standards of iconography. Edo-period versions of the Buddha’s paranirvana substituted popular and literary figures, such as Kabuki actors and poet Matsuo Bashò, for Shakyamuni Buddha, lying on his side and surrounded by disciples. One painting by Itò Jakuchu even portrayed the scene with the Buddha as a giant daikon radish surrounded by mushrooms, gourds, eggplants, and other vegetables.7 A new breed of Zen artist-monks, such as Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1769) and Kòkai Jikka (1800–1874), created playful, humorous calligraphy and ink paintings that rejected formal artistic technique and subverted the norms of “religious” art. Following the Meiji Restoration, the playful commercialization of religion seems to have disappeared under centralizing national authority. As described in the preceding chapters, the state enacted numerous measures to control religious institutions, boost the emperor’s religious authority, and make Japan appear “civilized.” It was not only the state that attempted to make religion appear more dignified in the Meiji period. Established Buddhist denominations attempted to reinvent themselves and appear “eminently social, practical and compatible with scientific principles and evolutionary laws” at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893.8 The legalization of Christianity in the mid-nineteenth century prompted many urban elites to convert to the pietistic religion of the powerful West as a means to embrace modernity and benefit the nation. As Japan moved into the twentieth century, however, the rapid growth of literacy and extension of mass media technology to specialized subcultures facilitated the proliferation of popular religious beliefs and practices. New forms of mass media enabled ordinary people to reject the austerity of elite-imposed, nation-centric religious culture and advocate their own faiths, often rooted in folk beliefs discouraged by modernizing state authorities.9 The ascetic Protestant ethos endorsed in the Meiji state’s view of religion was countered by the ascent of consumerist culture, which affirmed human sentimentality and indulgence.

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Increased access to mass media combined with the rising consumerist ethos provided religious organizations in the early twentieth century with new marketing opportunities. A significant factor in the effectiveness of their campaigns was the power of the image. New technologies for the mechanical reproduction of images, such as photography and lithography, created a perceptual revolution in the presentation of knowledge and provided religious groups with a potent and inexpensive means of disseminating visual images to diverse and far-flung audiences.10 While photographs and lithographs could be consumed on an individual basis, other visual forms of commercial entertainment, including exhibitions, films, and street theatre, provided a forum for gathering large, urban audiences. The speed at which movies permeated and dominated popular entertainment in urban centers throughout the world in the early twentieth century keenly demonstrates the powerful attraction of the visual image in popular culture. New image and media technologies and new forums for public exhibition allowed religious groups to craft and promote a desirable self-image in the public eye—that is, to advertise. Religions could begin to “brand” the charisma of their leaders through representing their talents in visual images and exhibitions. Mass media and religious charisma reinforced one another: images of multitalented religious leaders enhanced their charisma, and as recognition of this charisma gained new audiences, religions employed even more media and presentation outlets to further their mission. Innovative marketing techniques tend to be adopted by new religious groups or those with a heavy missionary or evangelical orientation. Such groups, seeking to spread their mission as quickly and broadly as possible, are often simultaneously the objects of popular acclaim and elite disapprobation. Nineteenth-century American evangelicals were among the first to entrepreneurially employ the visual image in their proselytizing activity. Laurence Moore has chronicled the transformation of religion into a cultural commodity in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as religious leaders sought ways to increase consumer appeal by adopting the advertising, management, and publicity methods used by other purveyors of popular culture.11 Competing with other cultural commodities for the time and money of modern consumers, church leaders skillfully adopted techniques for promotion and growth, including the publication of sensationalistic “morality” tracts, theatrical sermons and performances on commercial stages, the marketing of mesmeric and other forms of healing, religious advertising in the mass media, and business techniques reflecting scientific management principles advocated by Frederick Taylor in the 1910s. The marketing techniques and commercial entertain-

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ments adopted by American evangelicals anticipate Oomoto activities in the early twentieth century. Independent evangelist William Booth established the Salvation Army, a likely model for Oomoto’s Chokureigun, in 1865. The Army paraded down urban streets in distinctive blue uniforms, accompanied by brass bands and colorful flags, singing hymns to well-known tunes like “Swanee River.”12 Its visual displays grew more elaborate over time and included pageants and presentations that incorporated photographic slides and living tableaux. Billy Sunday, a professional baseball-player-turned-preacher, advocated a muscular and jingoistic Christianity in revival meetings that attracted millions of enthusiastic followers in the early 1910s. Sunday gained celebrity status and fostered a cult of personality through the sales of postcards and photographs of himself preaching in dramatic and athletic poses, a kind of “evangelical baseball card.”13 His postcards, books, and illustrated tracts circulated among Christian communities, creating brand recognition and consumerist desire to attend a Billy Sunday revival. Prohibition crusader Carry Nation demonstrated a commercial savvy that belied her appearance as a grandmotherly rural Kansan, shabbily clothed in black and clutching a Bible. She used vaudeville, burlesque halls, and street theatres as stages for her entertaining sermons on the evils of alcohol. Nation sold souvenirs commemorating attendance at one of her popular lectures—photos of herself (hatchet in hand), signed copies of her autobiographies, highly prized hatchet lapel pins, and even shards of glass from saloons she had destroyed.14 In explaining Nation’s appeal, Fran Grace notes that in the early twentieth century, temperance activists needed strategies for urban audiences, who were increasingly less supportive of effete Protestant religious and moral values. They reinvented the prohibition crusade to reinvigorate temperance’s appeal for a “religiously diverse, commercially competitive and consumer-oriented market.” Nation’s attraction lay in part in her “religious primitivism,” a rowdy, “old-time religion” style, replete with unpolished prairie homilies, that satisfied the urban crowd’s desire for emotional and spiritual intensity.15 America’s consumer-oriented religious innovations heralded changes in Japan and around the world. Onisaburò shared the charismatic entrepreneurship of William Booth, Billy Sunday, and Carry Nation. He exuded the same aura of homespun magnetism. He led Oomoto in adopting modern technologies of display and mechanical reproduction to reach and entertain large audiences. Onisaburò quickly grasped that the promise of recreation and spectatorship might lure crowds otherwise uninterested in a religious message. His ability to identify new technologies as effective marketing tools and to undertake financial risk to employ these new tools is one of the

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clearest manifestations of Onisaburò’s charismatic entrepreneurship. The sect’s skillful use of visual technologies in the late 1920s and early 1930s largely accounted for its second “golden period,” when membership in its various organizations exceeded 1 million. Its successful experiments in mass culture were cut short, however, by the brutal state suppression of 1935 (see chapter 6). From its inception, Oomoto employed various forms of media to reach audiences. In preceding chapters I have described the publication of newspapers and journals targeted toward different audiences. Beginning in the 1920s, Onisaburò also released at least nine phonograph albums on Japan Columbia Records that ranged widely in style and content. He read norito prayers and poetry and performed waltzes, tangos, and folkish bon-odori-style songs. He sang anthems written for the youth corps and women’s groups.16 Columbia’s conviction that Onisaburò’s records would sell enough copies to turn a profit demonstrates its faith in the extent of Oomoto popularity. Such recordings, however, were generally purchased by existing followers; visual media, on the other hand, held the most promise for attracting new audiences. This chapter discusses three different aspects of Oomoto’s use of visual technologies of proselytization. First, it introduces Onisaburò’s philosophy and practice of art, the basis for Oomoto’s forays into visual culture. Next, it describes how Oomoto used exhibitions and expositions to create and convey a public image as a vibrant, “modern” religion, international in scope and humanitarian in orientation. Third, it relates how Oomoto used film to gain new audiences, enhance Onisaburò’s charismatic aura, and associate itself with traditional forms of Japanese religious and material culture. In sum, I argue that visual arts and images were a key factor in Oomoto expansion from the late 1920s, when Onisaburò recognized the entrepreneurial opportunities afforded by new technologies and the spread of commercial entertainment to new audiences and venues.

The Art of Onisaburò Onisaburò, a prolific and multitalented artist, advanced a spiritual philosophy on the relationship between art and religion. In a 1924 essay entitled “Art Is the Mother of Religion” he wrote the following: Art and religion are like brother and sister, parent and child, husband and wife. Together they strengthen the foundation of our humanity, fulfill our most profound spiritual needs, and fill us with God’s warm spirit. They are great guides for life. . . . 

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   Art and religion are similar from the standpoint of providing guidance for human life. Art, however, leads people to heaven through the gate of beauty. Religion helps people reach God through the gates of truth and goodness. These are somewhat different positions. Art helps us contemplate the beauty of heaven through the mediation of natural beauty in things like form, color, sound, and aroma. Religion is a bit different. It allows people to directly feel God’s vitality through mystical insights of a divine nature. . . . The role of true religion is to capture these truths of the spiritual world, which remains unseen by the eye, unheard by the ear, and inconceivable to the human mind. . . .     Art, which makes beauty its sole objective, can allow us to view the figure of God but cannot . . . alone allow us to know and feel God’s spirit. Through art, you can touch the hem of God’s raiment but utterly cannot hope to feel God’s warm embrace and pulsating vitality. . . .     The apogee of art is to rid the self of the bonds of the actual world via the appreciation and enjoyment of natural beauty. That enjoyment is truly temporary. . . . It is but a dreamworld, where one is completely absorbed, as if gloriously drunk, and separated from the world of hardship and desperate struggle. This is the true nature of the appreciation of beauty.    The apogee of religion is far more transcendent. The object of longing is not beauty of form, but beauty of character through embodying the truth and goodness of God. The true religious life is progress in spiritual activity.17

As this passage suggests, Onisaburò believed that art and religion served separate but complementary roles in the human search for union with the divine. Unlike his contemporary, the Tamil art critic and Indian nationalist Ananda Coomaraswamy, he did not equate art with religion, nor did he really emphasize art in the service of religion.18 Rather, he viewed art as a pleasurable activity that incidentally provided a route to God, though this route was alternate and inferior to the true practice of religion. For Onisaburò, art was a path mediated by the senses, culminating in a mere transitory state of bliss, whereas religion sought eternal beauty of character and spirit. As an artist, Onisaburò might be judged an enthusiastic amateur, yet he was no ordinary amateur. Artist Frederick Franck has called Ònisaburò “the very prototype of the artist” with a “life-long compulsion to give form, shape and substance to his every impulse and thought.”19 His creative range and output were vast. They included calligraphy, ink paintings, sculpture, ceramics, poetry, and drama (see figures 4.1 and 4.2). Publicly eschewing adherence to any single school of painting, he drew manga caricatures alongside portraits of the gods, as well as Chinese-style landscapes and pictures of

figure 4.1.  Onisaburò engaging in calligraphy with oversized brushes.

figure 4.2.  Onisaburò with paintbrush, decorating handmade ceramics.

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figure 4.3.  Onisaburò painting fusuma screen doors.

daily life.20 Like the irreverent Zen master Hakuin, he did not take himself too seriously as an artist, and he shared his art freely with all, distributing small works (tanzaku) by the thousands and painting landscapes on the fusuma screen doors of followers during his peregrinations to local branches (see figure 4.3). His work brims with creativity, verve, and humor. Onisaburò claimed his artistic gifts were bestowed by divine guidance. When painting, he wrote, he felt as if something had descended from above and pushed his hands.21 He did not consciously try to paint “skillfully” but rather abandoned himself to the gods. Speed was critical. If one painted too slowly, he claimed, the picture might be pretty, but it would be lifeless.22 In paintings of living things, like cats, after one had sketched the outline, it was important to draw in the nose, for if one did not quickly give the painting breath, it would die.23 He had tricks, too, for infusing energy in his calligraphic works: he wrote a character with a single breath, so its spirit could not escape.24 No matter how finely a character was executed, without spirit, it was a dead letter. Through his speed and divine inspiration, he was reportedly able to complete one hundred small works in an hour.25 The year 1926 was critical for the expansion of Onisaburò’s artistic in-

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terests. Although he had practiced calligraphy and ink painting since childhood, he created his first oil painting in January of that year. It was a scene of wild horses on the Mongolian plain. The next month, he undertook pottery for the first time. By April, he had finished a diary written completely in traditional poetry styles (waka).26 Hoping to foster greater interest in the arts among Oomoto constituents, he established a society for the promotion of art in August 1926, eventually known as the Meikòsha. This group sponsored a monthly journal, Meikò, that published poetry submitted by its members. Onisaburò initially acted as editor and judge, selecting 1,350 verses for the first issue and giving away his own works of art as prizes to the chosen poets.27 In 1928, Oomoto constructed a building dedicated to housing the Meikòsha, and by 1930, fifty branches had been established throughout the country, providing forums for the practice and diffusion of art among local believers.28 In his later years, after his release from prison following the 1935 suppression, Onisaburò created a series of brilliantly colored raku tea bowls, which art critic Katò Giichirò dubbed “yòwan” (twinkling or scintillating bowls). Onisaburò reportedly produced around three thousand yòwan in thirty-six firings over a fifteen-month period.29 These bowls have been described as combining “a sun-drenched impressionist palette with a lyrical evocation of nature in bloom.”30 They offer a stark contrast with the somber blacks and browns of traditional wabi-style teawares. Yet their colorful, naïve quality was produced through a difficult-to-replicate technique, considered “miraculous” by some followers. The bowls were glazed with precious Kutani mineral pigments requiring a firing temperature of 1,200– 1,300 degrees Celsius to bring out their brilliant colors, but they were fired at raku-ware temperatures of 800–850 degrees Celsius, an experiment that would normally yield disastrous results.31 Onisaburò is said to have spent much time during his imprisonment following the 1935 suppression pondering how to represent the vivid colors of the celestial world with low-fired raku wares.32 Oomoto sources report that he lengthened or shortened the usual firing times according to whim and his own calculations of the combined effects of temperature and humidity.33 He constantly offered prayers during production, while kneading the clay and with each pinprick hole that dapples the surface of the bowls. As a final touch, Onisaburò smoothed each rim with his own lips, rather than the standard deerskin dipped in water, to impart an intimate feeling to each bowl.34 For Onisaburò, striving for beauty through art was primarily a spiritual discipline, a meditative practice through which humanity could approach and offer tribute to the gods, rather than a means for immortalizing the self.

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The objectives were to infuse works with sincerity and to create spontaneously, without self-consciousness or artifice. Art was not a cornerstone of Oomoto doctrine, but rather a practice for personal development available to all. Nevertheless, as a consummate promoter of self and sect, Onisaburò saw that he might employ his art to draw an audience of potential supporters and converts. Major exhibitions of his works were first held in 1929 in Kanazawa and Nagoya and in early 1930 in Osaka and Tokyo, at the Fine Arts Museum in Ueno Park, where nearly seventeen thousand spectators viewed his works over a four-day period.35 Such exhibitions followed the Edo-period tradition of the shogakai, calligraphy and painting gatherings for a paying public, but, in a new twist, they also provided an opportunity for Oomoto to proselytize and visually demonstrate Onisaburò’s charisma.36 These initial exhibitions were likely the genesis of the use of expositions and art museums by Japan’s new religions today. Oomoto’s belief in art as a device for salvation simultaneously reflected the discourse of contemporary intellectuals who believed art provided a promising avenue for “overcoming the modern”—that is, finding a stable cultural identity and spiritual values in the face of endlessly shifting material modern culture imported from the West.37 In the 1920s and ’30s, Japanese intellectuals like Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke, Tosaka Jun, Gonda Yasunosuke, and Kon Wajirò, disturbed by the social and economic inequalities that had emerged under capitalist modernization, valorized material and popular culture as spheres independent of politics and economics that could be erected as bulwarks against further deterioration of the social order.38 These “culturalists” often identified art and culture as pure, aesthetic experiences that stood outside of modernity. The mingei folk art movement, established in the 1920s by art critic Yanagi Sòetsu and potters Hamada Shòji and Kawai Kanjirò, also valorized traditional Japanese aesthetics. It rejected mass-produced goods, associated with Western industrialization, in favor of the anonymous products of Japan’s traditional craftsmen, who did not sign their work but nevertheless imparted an artistic warmth and integrity lacking in manufactured goods.39 Albeit at a remove from these intellectual circles, Onisaburò nonetheless reflected the broader discourse on art as an important means to enhance and embody Japanese spiritual identity. The religious and personal salvation he envisioned via participation in art differed from the utopian national salvation pursued by the intellectuals. Onisaburò’s promotion of art participated in the modern consumer culture, and his activities provided the culturalists’ intellectual abstractions with flesh and bone, creating campaigns to draw ordinary people into creating, performing, or appreciating art in forums and exhibitions throughout the nation.

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Oomoto at the Exhibition Encouraged by the positive response at the exhibitions of Onisaburò’s art works, Oomoto agreed to participate in the Great Religions Exposition (Dai Shûkyò Hakurankai), held in Kyoto at Okazaki Park from March 8 to May 6, 1930. The exposition was cosponsored by the Japan Historical Society (Nihon Rekishikai), the city of Kyoto, and Chion-in, the main temple of the Jòdò Buddhist sect. The stated aim of the exposition was to involve each and every religion in Japan and to display religious goods from around the world.40 The affair fell far short of this consumeristic objective. It hosted only twelve religious groups, heavily weighted toward institutional Buddhism. Participating groups included Tendai and Shingon; Jòdò and Shinshû; Soto, Rinzai and Obaku Zen; Protestant and Catholic Christians; Nichirenshû, Risshû (a Buddhist sect originating in the Nara period), and Oomoto.41 Not only was Oomoto the sole new religion in the collective, but it was also the only Shintoist group represented. The official ideological stance that State Shinto was aligned with civic duty and exempt from the state’s definition of religious organizations explains the absence of Shinto shrine organizations.42 The absence of all thirteen official Shinto sects, however, suggests that they were prohibited from participating by the state, failed to see what would be gained by this opportunity, or simply were not invited. Beyond the simple display of Onisaburò’s artworks the exposition enabled Oomoto to craft an image of itself as a vibrant, multifaceted religion, an international cosmopolitan sect that nonetheless protected and disseminated Japanese aesthetic traditions. Through exhibition Oomoto could create selective displays of objects, photographs, and artworks that would make a positive impression on the general public, helping to dispel its reputation as a heretical sect. Onisaburò and Oomoto leaders also understood the need to create an entertaining experience for consumers; popular approval would be most readily gained through amusement, spectacle, and panache. Each participating group was offered a nine-mat exhibition space (around 160 square feet). The established religions objected to Oomoto’s heterodox presence among them and forced the group to house its exhibit in a separate building of its own construction.43 This proved to be a blessing: Oomoto poured vast amounts of energy and capital into designing a unique, noteworthy exhibit. Construction, supervised by Onisaburò’s son-in-law Uchimaru, continued around the clock to meet the opening day deadline. Oomoto ignored the prevailing Western-style architecture in the compound, opting for an ornate, Shinto shrine-like edifice of approximately 2,300 square feet—much larger than the standard allotment (figure 4.4). Youth corps and women’s groups from throughout the country were recruited to

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figure 4.4.  Entrance to the Oomoto exhibit at the Great Religion Exposition (Dai Shûkyò Hakurankai) in Kyoto in 1930.

act as docents. Onisaburò maintained an active hand in the preparations, constantly creating new artworks for exhibition and making remodeling suggestions. The cost of the building alone was 70,000 yen (approximately $35,000), and labor involved 3,500 enthusiastic Oomoto volunteers.44 Visitors entered through a dramatic front gate, topped by a giant crescent moon, and passed through a flower garden sparkling with lights. The first major exhibit advertised Oomoto overseas missionary activity. Here viewers saw photos of converts in Europe, Asia, and the South Seas and a panoply of publications in English, French, German, Chinese, and Esperanto. Perhaps the most striking object was a large map of the world indicating cities and countries with an Oomoto presence.45 With a single glance, the visitor could feel Oomoto’s burgeoning strength; the map provided the visual suggestion that Oomoto had transcended its rejection by the Japanese state and mainstream society and achieved the international presence craved by those very elements. This suggestion was exaggerated, as Oomoto’s presence was minor outside of Japan-controlled territories, but it was apparently persuasive, for the exposition’s official catalogue, published by the city of Kyoto, announced, “Oomoto’s progress overseas is difficult to imagine for

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the ordinary person, but if you take one step into this pavilion . . . , you’ll know that this religion has already achieved international stature. Exhibited before your own eyes are the activities of missionaries and the state of cooperation with religious groups distributed throughout the world.”46 Next came an exhibit on Oomoto history featuring implements used by the foundress, Deguchi Nao, such as her inkstone, umbrella, and bamboo waterpipe; forty-eight panels painted by Onisaburò relating the history of the sect; and dozens of photographs of Onisaburò in all manner of dress and locale.47 Onisaburò, who had long ago recognized the power of photography, had posed for countless portraits since the 1890s. The wide variety of situations and poses depicted created multiple platforms from which viewers could directly relate to Onisaburò’s personality, interests, and activities. The Chûgai nippo, an interdenominational Buddhist newspaper that remains one of Japan’s leading religious journals, marveled at the contrast with the public personae of other religious leaders: In comparison to the chief abbots of other religions, who sit on high and whose brilliance must be revered from a distance, Oomoto’s Mr. Onisaburò breaks the mold. He shows himself in photographs dressed as a member of a fire brigade and performing joruri ballad dramas. He gives us a close look at his soft human side. . . . He even shows himself dressed as and working among laborers. He is a completely unexpected kind of person. He stealthily escapes from our conceptions of religiosity, showing himself as one of the laboring masses.48

From this display, one entered a section with life-sized statues of Shinto deities carved by Onisaburò. Scale models of the campus complexes at Oomoto’s two holy centers in Kameoka and Ayabe rested in front of the gods, lending the centers an air of divine protection. The models embodied both historical and emerging ideas about sacred space. They reproduced sacred mountains and architectural conventions for temples and shrines and gardens. At the same time, the striking hodgepodge of buildings at Kameoka, including the castle stronghold of the traitorous Akechi Mitsuhide, had become its own tourist attraction, drawing weekend crowds from Kyoto for a pleasant country outing.49 The statuary was adjacent to the art exhibition, where over a hundred of Onisaburò’s works of painting, calligraphy, and pottery were displayed. Oomoto journals reported the favorable impressions of selected spectators.50 The assortment of subject matter was dizzying. It demonstrated that Onisaburò was talented in a number of artistic fields and able to fuse multiple traditions in new and unique ways. His humorous renditions of the first Zen

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patriarch, Bodhidharma, in unusual situations—frolicking with women, drying his loincloth, applying ointments to his buttocks (presumably sore from sitting in meditation all day)—reportedly drew special interest from Buddhist clergy.51 The playfulness and directness of the pieces suggested that Onisaburò had replicated the artistic irreverence of Zen masters. Spectators were invited to try their own creative hand at a booth festooned with blinking lights sponsored by the Meikòsha art society. In keeping with the materiality inherent in the exposition’s theme of “religious goods,” visitors could paint their own souvenir tea bowls (figure 4.5). This proved to be the most popular exhibit, frequented even by Imperial Prince Naonorihiko and other imperial family members. On a particularly hectic day, a young volunteer, dripping with sweat, complained about the pushy, demanding crowds: “This area is so crowded that no one can move. Oomoto believers from across the country . . . are coming to the expo in throngs. In addition to the two regular girls manning the booth, three other volunteers have been called upon to help, but they can’t keep up. We’ve had to refuse

figure 4.5.  Exhibit sponsored by Oomoto’s Meikòsha art society allowing visitors to decorate their own tea bowls at the Great Religion Exposition.

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nonbelievers. People push and shout, ‘Hey, there’s no brown paint left!’ or ‘Give me a brush!’”52 The tea bowl exhibit deftly tied together multiple strands of Oomoto’s approach to art and modern consumer culture. By providing an open, participatory forum for creating art, it highlighted Meikòsha’s advocacy of art for the people and by the people. At the same time, it invoked the long tradition of obtaining souvenirs on pilgrimages and on visits to famous temples and shrines. Visitors walked away with tangible goods obtained in a frenzied atmosphere that signaled the excitement generated by this new religion. The last section of the exhibit featured the activities and publications of Oomoto’s secular humanitarian arm, the Jinrui Aizenkai (known in English as the ULBA; see chapter 5). Anticipating the “It’s a Small World” exhibit at Disneyland, this area featured a display of rotating dolls dressed in international costumes. There was also a large mural entitled “Aizen no Hana” (the Flower of Human Love), depicting the different races and nationalities, dressed in both modern and traditional garb, gathered around a map of

figure 4.6.  Aizen no Hana (the Flower of Human Love) mural, sponsored by Oomoto’s international humanitarian society, Jinrui Aizenkai, at the Great Religion Exposition.

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the world (figure 4.6). Great religious figures, including Jesus, Mohammed, and the Buddha, were arranged in tiers floating above the world, with three Shinto deities at the apex. A large sign alongside proclaimed, “The people of the world are all children of God. Since we’re all brothers, let’s quit our sibling squabbles and all get along.”53 The painting epitomized Oomoto’s paradoxical position as both Nativist and universalist by portraying the people of the world as equals yet giving Japan’s native gods the most privileged position in the heavens. Oomoto’s publishing house, Tenseisha, awaited exiting visitors at a kiosk with a wide assortment of books, magazines, and pamphlets, displayed as beams of light emanating from a portrait of Onisaburò (figure 4.7). Sales were brisk, and booth volunteers reported a surprisingly large number of Buddhist monks snapping up copies of Onisaburò’s works, especially the Reikai monogatari.54 The Tenseisha booth conveyed the idea that Oomoto was a valid religion possessing a large textual base. It added to the impression of Onisaburò as a superhuman holy man capable of producing a copious oeuvre of prophecies, poems, and parables. The booth identified

figure 4.7.  Kiosk sponsored by Tenseisha, Oomoto’s publishing house, at the Great Religion Exposition.

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Oomoto as a producer and purveyor of modern mass culture, complete with its own independent press. Many founders of new religions, both in Japan and elsewhere, use the idea of prolific authorship to enhance their charisma, producing awe-inspiring numbers of books, often published by their own presses. Taniguchi Masaharu of Seichò no Ie and Kòfuku no Kagaku’s Okawa Ryûhò each claim to have written over four hundred books. There are thousands of editions of works by the Rajneeshi leader known as Osho, translated into over twenty different languages. On a more human scale, John Osteen, founder of the Houston mega-ministry Lakewood Church, wrote forty-five books, and Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard authored dozens of science fiction novels. Scientology members reportedly buy vast quantities of his book Dianetics in order to claim inflated sales figures and best-seller status. Oomoto’s exhibits at the Great Religions Exposition were never static. Enthusiastic volunteers constantly rearranged and redecorated, added and subtracted, for maximal effect, based on the reactions of its consumers. For example, a piano was added, kiosks remodeled, and flower arrangements replaced. Onisaburò created at least fifty new paintings expressly for the show. Returning customers, many of whom visited the exhibition six or seven times, were always greeted by something new and “fresh” (shinsen), the word most commonly used to describe the effect of the Oomoto pavilion.55 The other sects made substantially less effort and investment in their displays. The liveliest attractions at the fair besides Oomoto were the Heaven and Hell Pavilions, with heaven depicted in murals and hell enacted with paunchy costumed demons, complete with cloven hooves and small, protruding horns.56 On April 1, the opening day of Okazaki Park’s popular Flower Festival, expo promoters hung a large banner on the main gate reading “Hey, let’s go to the Religions Exposition and play with the devils from hell.” Onisaburò responded with his own banner, emblazoned “The devil [oni] from Tamba.”57 Exhibits by other religions included Shingon’s display of the implements and vestments of Kûkai (a.k.a. Kòbò Daishi) and a Catholic display of twenty-six giant portraits of Japanese Christian martyrs. Yet none of the other religions’ exhibitions displayed the breadth of the Oomoto pavilion. As noted by Chûgai nippo, “If you look at the other religions’ exhibitions, they seem forlorn and display only the articles of deceased persons. . . . These are carefully preserved items from people who lived long ago and burned brightly in the Buddhist tradition. But at Oomoto, it’s as if one is blinded by the increasingly bright, dancing lamp of religious tradition.”58 Kyoto’s Great Religions Exposition could by no means be considered a

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major event in Japanese religious history. Although sponsors had distributed hundreds of press packets, it was barely noted in Kyoto and Osaka newspapers. Promoters mounted an expensive publicity campaign that relied heavily on the most ephemeral of historical materials: posters, handbills, newspaper inserts, and signage. Posters were sent to the main headquarters of each religion and to other highly visible public spaces like popular restaurants, bars and inns, bathhouses, barber shops, and variety stores. They were mounted in trains throughout the city of Kyoto and affixed at stations on every line. In total, over a million such advertisements were circulated, managing to attract a half million spectators, many attending as members of organized religious groups.59 Nevertheless, the exposition finished in the red for organizers, and the city of Kyoto footed a deficit of nearly 150,000 yen (approximately $75,000).60 The methods and venues for advertising the expo mirrored those that would be adopted for any spectacle or amusement. The highly popular magazine Kingu was similarly promoted in 1925, with postcards, posters, signboards, and balloons.61 At the expo, religion was commodified as entertainment and neatly placed on display in supermarket-style exhibits designed to lure consumers through diversion rather than dogma. The atmosphere resonated with the “culture of prayer and play” seen in the pilgrimages and temple-amusement complexes of the Edo period. Yet it also reflected a modern consumer ethos: by inviting multiple sects to exhibit in a single forum, the expo reflected the emerging competitive marketplace of religions and presented a sense of consumer choice. It also highlighted how religions increasingly competed with other forms of culture and recreation for consumers’ time and money. Indeed, “spiritual recreation” (seishinteki goraku) was simply one category of popular urban amusements among many identified by social scientist Òbayashi Sòshi in 1922.62 Despite its financial losses, the Great Religions Exposition was undoubtedly a critical and popular success for Oomoto, drawing ever-increasing numbers as the reputation of its pavilion spread, in the end sometimes outstripping attendance for the main exhibit hall.63 Visitors represented a cross-section of Japanese society, from physiognomists to fishwives, historians to high school girls. Comments gathered by Oomoto volunteers and published in its journals were naturally skewed toward positive perceptions, but the observations demonstrated how Oomoto had skillfully utilized visual spectacle to overturn individual prejudices that reflected the views of state authorities and the mainstream press. A typical comment came from a monk from Himeiji: “Until now I’ve been mistaken about Oomoto. I thought it was bad and said terrible things about it. But I’ve come to this exhibit and realized how sorry I should be. I would like to

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apologize to Deguchi Sensei.”64 Other comments in this vein included the following: A Tokyo Imperial University student stated, “I hate religion, but I really like Mr. Deguchi. I’m happy that people like Mr. Deguchi have appeared recently.”65 That this teaching is coming from Japan should be celebrated, and that Mr. Deguchi is from Japan should be a source of great pride for us Japanese citizens.66 I thought Oomoto had been completely destroyed. Though I heard that Oomoto was flourishing at this expo, I thought it would just be exhibiting about the persecution it suffered in those days. I was totally surprised. It’s great.67 I used to be a believer but have been away from Oomoto for ten years, since that incident. Since coming to the exhibition, I feel like I’d like to renew my faith.68

The expo’s official publication also paid tribute to Oomoto’s success: “In the sixty days of the exposition, the activity of the Oomoto pavilion has been truly remarkable. Although a planet in the constellation of the religious world, that world had denied its existence as a religion; furthermore, general society had deemed it unorthodox and speculated that its believers were a group of heretics. These sixty days of effort have reaped a vast harvest and should become the source of the widening and deepening of the Oomoto way.”69 Onisaburò’s talents, heavily promoted throughout the exhibit, were finally receiving the kind of attention he craved. Chûgai nippo concluded that “Mr. Onisaburò is a person who can achieve great activity in any direction. . . . Once subject to religious persecution, his gaze has shifted and wandered to foreign lands. His ambition is running forward like a camel he is spurring on in a boundless desert.”70 The Great Religions Exposition lent strength and impetus to Oomoto’s traveling art exhibitions, which were substantially easier and less costly to sponsor. In September 1930, ten exhibits were sponsored in Taiwan, Okinawa, and Korea, each accompanied by a lecture tour. Oomoto publications reported favorable reviews and an attendance of twenty-six thousand in Taiwan alone.71 Local branch participation in the mounting of exhibitions had both internal and external positive effects on Oomoto proselytization. Externally, local exhibitions gathered people who did not

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ordinarily frequent Oomoto events and persuaded them to reconsider the sect and the notorious Onisaburò. Internally, branch members interacted directly with headquarters, becoming more deeply involved in their imagined religious community. Local exhibitions also provided training for future branch activities and opportunities for interchange among local chapters. Oomoto planned to capitalize on its newly acquired exhibition expertise in the fall of 1931 by mounting an exposition in Tokyo in celebration of its fortieth anniversary. This plan was hastily shelved after Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in September of that year. The resulting clamor for more knowledge about the region would provide Oomoto with its greatest opportunity yet for visual self-promotion. From early 1932 through spring of the following year, Oomoto poured its energies into Man-Mò (Manchuria-Mongolia) expositions.72 Its first modest effort, sponsored by the Osaka yukan newspaper, included accounts of Onisaburò’s 1924 expedition to Mongolia and ULBA relief activities (see chapter 5).73 Oomoto was then invited to participate in the Kyoto Man-Mò Dai Hakurankai from April to May. As at the religions expo, it was given a separate facility, and it constructed lavish displays to inform the Japanese public about Man-Mò social, cultural, and economic conditions. Exhibits included furnishings and utensils from Mongolian yurts, household effects and treasures from royal families, writings and paintings of lamas, reports on the coexistence of races and ethnic groups, and displays of Man-Mò products and economic activity (figures 4.8 and 4.9). Onisaburò’s personal experience in Mongolia was prominently announced throughout the exhibit, especially in a larger-thanlife depiction of the exhibition party (figure 4.10). Oomoto remounted this Man-Mò exhibit at the largest expo yet, the Manshûkoku Dai Hakurankai, from July to September 1932 in Tokyo at the National Sports Arena in Ryògoku. The high-powered backers of this event included the army, the navy, the “state of Manchukuo,” the Yomiuri shimbun, and Oomoto’s Jinrui aizen shimbun. The imprimatur of state agencies and mainstream media demonstrates that Oomoto had gained entry into high circles by virtue of its unique experiences in Mongolia and its earlier success as an exhibitionist. Attendance reached 1,800,000.74 The Chûgai nippo reported, “Other religious groups have not lifted a finger for this exhibition . . . yet Oomoto’s various activities . . . take up a quarter of the total exhibition. The customs of the Manshû people and all manners of trade carried on within Manshû’s vast barren plains are presented through every conceivable model and statistic. This is certainly very useful for the masses, but also for the intellectual class.”75 Smaller expositions followed in Kurashiki, Kobe, and other cities. In tandem with these efforts, the ULBA

figure 4.8.  Onisaburò and Mongolian yurt exhibit at a Man-Mò exposition.

figure 4.9.  Onisaburò surveys a diorama of village economic activity in the Man-Mò regions.

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figure 4.10.  Oomoto exhibit at a Man-Mò exposition with a muralized photograph of Onisaburò leading an expedition party on horseback during the 1924 Mongolian expedition.

mounted independent exhibitions of Onisaburò’s artworks in Mukden, Dairen, and nine other cities in the Manchurian region.76 In sum, art and museum-style exhibitions allowed Oomoto to promote a public persona that belied its reputation as a traitorous and heretical sect. Visual campaigns were oriented not only toward winning converts but also toward creating an image of the sect as a group loyal to the best interests of the Japanese nation and its spiritual development. Exhibitions portrayed the sect as a new kind of multifaceted religion that deftly combined tradition with modernity. While Oomoto’s origins were similar to those of other new religions—that is, regional groups organized around charismatic prophets and healers—its visual displays demonstrated how it had expanded its scope spatially and conceptually to accommodate the modern world. Exhibits intrinsically contrasted Oomoto with moribund established religions, demonstrating that it was more in tune with the people’s political, social, and cultural needs and interests. Scholars like Robert Rydell and Timothy Mitchell have argued that the exposition acts as a disciplinary, pedagogical space that instills certain attitudes about national identity and industrial progress—that is, it is an officially sanctioned narrative. In most cases, the operative agent is the state

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or colonial authorities, and the assumption is that expositions are subordinate to concerns of state.77 Angus Lockyer and others have questioned this interpretation, noting that such events are never subject to a singular national and ideological agenda.78 Local economic concerns and the competitive interests of individual sponsors have intersected with, and sometimes subverted, high-minded pedagogical goals, so that large exhibitions have always served multiple and often contradictory purposes.79 Lockyer further emphasizes the “persistent audience demand to be amused” and the competitive efforts of individual exhibitors to attract the attention of visitors through amusement and showmanship.80 Similarly, although the Man-Mò expositions were sponsored in part by state agencies and designed to promote public support of Japanese expansion in Manchuria and Mongolia, this was not the sole motivation for exhibitors. While Oomoto’s interests dovetailed with those of the establishment in this instance, its participation in these ventures, as well as in the Great Religions Exposition, was premised on the opportunity to promote itself and expand its mission. It took advantage of the respectable and subsidized structure of the exposition to seek followers and supporters. Oomoto also earned money from entrance fees and book sales, and it could anticipate future financial benefit from donations and the volunteer services of new supporters gained through the exposure. Despite official sponsorship, Oomoto’s exhibitions were subtly subversive, as they worked to undermine public confidence in state and state-condoned institutions. Its Man-Mò exhibits suggested that Oomoto experience and expertise in the region were broader and deeper than the state’s, encompassing the social, cultural, and religious lives of the people of that region. Through lively and diverse displays at the Great Religions Exposition, Oomoto offered a comparative critique of state-approved religions, which appeared passive and old-fashioned in contrast.

Oomoto at the Movies Exhibitions continued to serve as a major prong in Oomoto’s strategy of visual proselytization, and the sect mounted multiple, simultaneous exhibitions until its second, devastating suppression in December 1935. Alongside these exhibits, however, Oomoto adopted a new tool in its visual arsenal: the movies. In March 1932, Oomoto formed thirty-six traveling movie squads to roam the nation, showing documentary and narrative films while recruiting converts and supporters. Demand from grammar schools and youth and women’s groups in remote areas, with little opportunity or equipment to view films, was so high that twenty additional regional squads were soon established.81 While 1930s urban audiences had become sophisticated con-

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sumers of movies, particularly in Tokyo’s Asakusa district, rural areas had neither the proper facilities nor the access to film distribution networks to receive the latest fare. Initially, Oomoto youth groups created and manned the movie squads. After a squad decided on a locale, an advance party was sent ahead to decide on specific venues and inform the local police. Preparations included hiring electricians, procuring lodging, and producing and distributing posters and flyers. Squads complained of difficulties in obtaining proper equipment in some remote regions. Many rural areas lacked adequate electricity, and movie projectors had to be cranked by hand.82 Squads lamented that their audiences often consisted primarily of children, unable to understand their lectures.83 The missionaries tailored their presentations to their audiences, sometimes adding local talent, often simplifying lectures or replacing them with fairy tales if children dominated the audience.84 Admission fees for the films varied by locale. The shows were often free at elementary schools and ranged from two sen to three yen at public halls and theatres, depending on the local cost of electricity, hall rental, and fees for checking in footwear. The total program took three and a half hours, including an hour and a half of projection time and two hours of lecture and discussion. Oomoto enlisted prominent locals to give opening addresses, which were followed by a brief explanation of the program, invariably including photographs, cartoons, documentary newsreels on Oomoto, and an educational or patriotic feature film.85 After the movie program ended, a special envoy from Oomoto headquarters would rise to the platform and deliver a stirring sermon, during which film squad members would canvass the aisles, selling copies of sect newspapers and publications like the Jinrui aizen shimbun. One typical Oomoto newsreel contained footage of a pilgrimage to a holy island, a large outdoor Shinto ritual, a dramatic performance of a scene from Reikai monogatari with Onisaburò chanting the text, Oomoto’s annual poetry festival, and a demonstration of Ueshiba Morihei’s new martial art, aikido. Production of such newsreels used leading-edge technologies; Oomoto filmmakers incorporated new cinematic techniques like dissolves, fades, and superimpositions in their productions. The content of these films, however, tended to highlight traditional cultural elements of Oomoto activities, rather than its modern and internationalist features. Perhaps this was because rural audiences would better relate to familiar religious and cultural activities or because by the 1930s audiences were increasingly nostalgic about native cultural forms and aesthetics. As with the expositions, movies provided an effective means of gathering a crowd with no real interest in Oomoto itself. Recognizing the power

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of this new tool for proselytization, headquarters expanded and reorganized the film squads in November 1934, renaming the group the Patriotic Movie Corps (Aikoku Eigahan). Movies were no longer an activity of youth groups alone; they involved the entire organization. Oomoto movie squads happily supplied rural audiences with urban entertainments in exchange for a chance to proselytize. It was a mutually satisfactory arrangement. One squad member proclaimed, “As an advance guard . . . for the promulgation and diffusion of the spiritual movement, there is no more effective method than film propaganda.”86 Some intellectual contemporaries also advocated using movies for ideological purposes. Filmmaker Murayama Tomoyoshi and critic Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke welcomed the new technologies of mechanical reproduction as a means to wrestle art from bourgeois control and bring it to the masses. Hirabayashi lauded the movies’ ability to reach large public gatherings and contrasted this with literature, consumed in private, solitary acts.87 These individuals sought to emulate the radical film campaigns sponsored by labor organizations from the 1910s through the 1930s in Europe and the United States.88 They likely identified more with Western liberal agendas than with Nativist spiritual causes and would have been appalled at the use of film propaganda by a heterodox religious group that they viewed as stubbornly traditionalist and reactionary. Despite their rhetoric, few intellectuals actively led film movements for social causes, and Oomoto was one of the few organizations in Japan to actually bring movies to dispersed remote locales.89 By early 1935, Oomoto realized the potential power of tailoring the message in the main film, and it began to create its own dramatic feature movies. The production of documentary newsreels had been comparatively simple. From its inception, Oomoto had recorded important events and commemorative occasions on film, and these were then used as material for newsreels. The sect had established a photo printing facility in February 1931 in order to mass-produce photos and reproductions of artworks for followers, and this facility was used to print and distribute copies of newsreels.90 Feature films required a much larger, more creative effort. The sect opened its first movie studio in June 1935 in the Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa, where it produced a film entitled The Imperial Army and a Young Girl (Kògun to shòjo).91 This studio was quickly shut down for undisclosed reasons. A Sacred Film Division (Eiga Shingekibu) was established later that year in Kameoka. While the choice of locale may seem remote from the cinema industry, it was, in fact, close to Nikkatsu Studios in Saga, where Onisaburò had cultivated close ties with prominent actors and directors and established

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an Oomoto branch in 1930.92 As in the United States, with the advent of the talkies, large studios like Nikkatsu and Shòchiku dominated the production and distribution of Japanese movies.93 Nevertheless, small independent film companies proliferated in Japan until the early 1930s, mainly established by popular stars who wished to produce their own films.94 Onisaburò’s first opportunity to appear on film had occurred ten years earlier, in November 1920, when the avant garde playwright and film director Osanai Kaoru (1881–1928) made Ayabe in Tanba, a short film featuring Oomoto and Onisaburò that premiered at the Meiji-za Theatre in Tokyo.95 Osanai, a founder of the shingeki realist drama movement, made the much acclaimed film Souls on the Road (Ròjo no reikon) in 1921.96 The influential auteur became an admirer of the sect and its teachings. In the preface of a book on Oomoto by follower Hattori Shizuo, Osanai poetically captured his attraction to the group: “I am a traveler on a dark night. Night has fallen, and I am lost. My feet are tired, and I cannot move another step forward. Then I see a light in the distance. My heart dances with joy, but I am so exhausted that I cannot take a single step toward it. The light somehow seems to be welcoming me . . . As I gaze at the light, the burden on my shoulders seems to get gradually lighter. My tired feet seem to regain their strength. My present relationship with Oomoto is just at this stage.”97 After Oomoto established its own studios, Onisaburò, a natural ham, embraced the opportunity to appear in the movies. The first major production was entitled Reizan shûgyò (Ascetic Exercises on Spirit Mountain), a film version of his youthful spiritual journey on Mount Takakuma; it featured Onisaburò and a cast of ethereal maidens (figure 4.11).98 Not content with a simple starring role, however, Onisaburò also single-handedly wrote, directed, and starred in his own silent film production, The Seven Lucky Gods of the Shòwa Period (Shòwa no Shichifukujin).99 This curious film is difficult to classify, neither drama nor documentary, neither slapstick nor satire, but rather a series of semicomedic vignettes that feature Onisaburò dressed in elaborate costumes representing each of the Seven Lucky Gods (Shichifukujin). In typical fashion, he juxtaposed puns with allusions to classical literature and mythology. Perhaps one comparison is the Soganoya Brothers’ comedic productions in the early 1900s of episodes from the Kojiki set in the modern period. In the view of Satò Tadao, those comedies served as a “springboard for social criticism,” as they were “bent on the destruction of idols built by society.”100 In Onisaburò’s film, however, the intent was not the destruction of idols but rather the visual transferral of their gifts to his own person to suggest that he embodied both tradition and good fortune in the modern era. Thus, although amateurish and light-hearted, the film contained a powerful message at its core, associ-

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figure 4.11.  On the set of Reizan shûgyò, Oomoto’s first major film production.

ating universally held popular conceptions of Japanese sacrality with Onisaburò and Oomoto on temporal, spatial, and individual levels. It visually asserted that in the modern era, it was Onisaburò who represented creative, transformative, and divine power incarnate—a subversive statement given that divinity was reserved for the emperor alone. This comedic film was powerful in part because of the ubiquity of the Shichifukujin in Japanese popular religion. They were and are universally beloved deities, associated with wealth and commerce since the Muromachi period (1333–1573). As patron saints of traditional occupations, they were much closer to the lives of the people than the imperial ancestor Amaterasu. Each figure has multiple layers of associations with deities and/or holy individuals, but their primary identities include three Buddhist deities of Indian origin, a legendary Chinese monk, two Taoist immortals, and one Japanese tutelary deity. Even today, sales of Shichifukujin pictures, talismans, and statuary are brisk, especially at the New Year, when it is popularly believed that a picture inscribed with a special palindrome, placed under the pillow on the second night of the New Year, will bring lucky dreams.101

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The completed film was both shown by the movie squads and offered for sale in advertisements in Oomoto journals and newspapers. Hyperbolic copy proclaimed the work “fantastic beyond imagination” and claimed it held “auspicious” powers, such as the ability to “alleviate the three great calamities [fire, flood, and storm].”102 The ad campaign even offered early buyers a special discount. By touting the film as a magico-religious talisman, Oomoto entrepreneurially extended the definition of the traditional religious amulet, a product purchased to help procure practical benefit or ward off bad luck, to a product of modern technology. The film opens with a small model of the takarabune, the treasure boat that conveys the gods, floating into view. Following are shots of Onisaburò and his wife Sumiko, interspersed with footage of cranes flying overhead and turtles crawling about their feet; both animals are well-known symbols of longevity. The title screens in the silent film were written by Onisaburò in classical meter in a beautiful calligraphic hand. The first title screens enigmatically proclaim the following: Kameyama no The ten-thousand-year-old turtle tòwa no hòcho wo comes dancing in kotohogite to the everlasting jewel, mannen no kame Kameyama. odorikomitari. Yorozuyo no ishizue kataki Kameyama ni chitose no tsuru wa mai asobunari.

The thousand-year-old crane frolics in Kameyama, founded for eternity, solid as a rock.

Through the turtle, crane, and mountain imagery the film establishes an ancient pedigree and an infinite future for Oomoto, suggesting that despite state efforts to suppress the sect, it would prevail and flourish. Ebisu, one of the most popular and highly venerated of the Seven Lucky Gods, a tutelary deity of farming, commerce, and especially fishing, is the first to appear. In Shinto terms, Ebisu is identified alternatively as Kotoshironushi no Kami, a son of Òkuninushi no Kami, or as Hiruko, the abandoned leech child of the mythical national progenitors Izanami and Izanagi. The equally popular Daikoku follows Ebisu (see figure 4.12). Daikoku was originally the Buddhist protector Mahakala, who also became the Kitchen God in China and is also considered an avatar of Òkuninushi, the Great Land Possessor enshrined at Izumo. Onisaburò-as-Daikoku shakes

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coins out of his magical wish-granting mallet and uses a hoe to clear forest land: Kono kuwa wa sanchi tahata no waka chi naku kuni no inochi o horidasu takara

This hoe doesn’t discriminate between mountainous land and field, a treasure digging out the life of the land.

This poem refers to Oomoto’s beliefs about agrarian fundamentalism, described in chapter 2, and would likely appeal to a rural constituency still largely comprised of farmers.

figure 4.12.  Onisaburò dressed as Daikoku, one of Japan’s Seven Lucky Gods, associated with agriculture and rice.

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The first two vignettes are followed by scenes of the warrior-like Bishamonten, originally Vaisravana, one of the four guardian kings of Buddhism, and the long-headed Taoist immortal Fukurokuju, sometimes known as Jûròjin, who drinks tea and smokes cigarettes under a gingko tree in the film. This deity is said to embody the ideals of luck (fuku), verdancy (roku), and longevity (ju). The titles urge viewers to forsake materialism for religion: Mei o chi i furuki mo mono no kazu narazu. Oshie ni ikuru sachi hai wa nashi.

You can’t count on social position or the number of things you own. Make teachings the center of your life. There is no other happiness.

Fifth is the beautiful, biwa-strumming Benzaiten, originally the Indian goddess Sarasvati and the patroness of Japanese artists and gamblers. She is the only female in the group and is portrayed by Onisaburò in drag (see figure 1.4). The sixth deity is Satejiroji, another Taoist immortal, and the final one is Hotei, a Chinese monk known for carrying his possessions in a large treasure bag. Rotund and jovial like Onisaburò himself, Hotei is popularly considered a manifestation of Miroku Bosatsu, also known as Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, with whom Onisaburò also frequently associated himself. Each deity is identified with Oomoto in multiple ways. Some of the costumes feature the sect’s logo. All seven vignettes are filmed in different Oomoto locales, giving viewers a look at Oomoto’s flourishing fortunes in the form of land and sacred architecture. For example, Ebisu emerges from Ònisaburò’s memorialized birthplace in Anao, Bishamonten patrols the ramparts of Kameyama castle, and Benzaiten graces the opulent Gekkyuden (Palace of the Moon). In sum, Onisaburò used moving pictures, the first truly “mass” popular medium, to impart materiality to heretofore imagined sacred personalities, to augment cherished two-dimensional images, and to actualize archetypal patterns. He cleverly associated all this with himself and his sect. Thus, despite Walter Benjamin’s hope that film and other technologies of mechanical reproduction would make the ritual and cult value of art “recede into the background,” movies seemed a natural partner for religion, particularly in the first few decades of the twentieth century, when they remained something of a mystery and novelty for many.103 Benjamin had simply ignored the possibility that the filmmaker might also be the very purveyor of cult values.

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Oomoto was not the first evangelistic organization to recognize the potential power of film. In 1892, the Australian branch of the Salvation Army established the Limelight Department, which produced about three hundred films between 1891 and 1910 to reach new audiences and raise money to support Army social and charitable activities.104 It is often credited with producing the world’s first feature film, Soldiers of the Cross, a 22.5-minute film about the lives of early Christian martyrs that premiered in Melbourne in 1900. The film was shown as part of a two-hour program that included film strips, lantern slides, and live action.105 Western evangelical groups have continued to capitalize on visual media technology—for example, via the rapid expansion of televangelism in the 1970s and the contemporary production of feature films such as John Travolta’s Battlefield Earth, based on the work of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which presents the views of a small splinter group of traditionalist Catholics. Beyond movies and television, Christian cultural products, including music, novels, video games, and dedicated cable channels, are growing exponentially and increasingly influencing more mainstream pop cultural offerings. In Japan, Oomoto’s success in employing visual technologies of proselytization was not forgotten by the new religions that proliferated in the postwar and contemporary periods. While many extensively employ print media and audio cassettes in their missions, it is the visual spectacle or image—whether art museums, elaborately staged rituals and events, big-budget animation, or elaborate Web sites—that remains the most notable instrument for attracting attention. The majority of Japan’s successful new religions deploy mass media and visual spectacle to gain public notice and reinforce the charismatic aura of leaders. Sòka Gakkai hosts a myriad of highly publicized cultural activities and institutions, including the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum and the annual World Peace Festival (Sekai Heiwa Bunkasai), featuring musical revues and mass games performed by tens of thousands of youths in orchestral performances throughout Japan.106 Leader Ikeda Daisaku’s interests in music, art, and photography are prominently featured in sect publications and exhibitions throughout the world. PL Kyòdan, a new religion founded in 1946 based on the Hitonomichi sect suppressed by the state in 1937, stages an annual fireworks display that draws enormous crowds during the Obon holidays.107 Kiriyama Seiyû’s Agonshû advertises its annual massive fire festival (hoshi matsuri) on television, broadcasts it live via satellite across the country, and purchases airtime for commercial television broadcasts.108 Agonshû makes extensive use of video, film, and mass leafleting in promoting its mission and activities.

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Kòfuku no Kagaku also engages a broad range of media and spectacle. Leader Òkawa Ryûhò celebrates his annual Birthday Festival with an extravaganza in the Tokyo Dome, attended by up to fifty thousand followers. He advertises his many books in nationwide campaigns using television, mobile phone billboards, and blimps alongside more traditional print media, resulting in reported sales of over 60 million.109 The sect also produces animated films based on its religious teachings, including Hermes: Winds of Love (Hermes: Ai wa Kaze no Gotoku, 1997) and The Golden Laws (Ougon no Ho: El Kantare no Rekishika, 2003). A major Japanese studio, Toei, distributes these films, both high-grossing, top box-office attractions that have been translated into English for distribution on DVD. World Mate’s Fukami Tòshu uses visuality and new media to reinforce and publicize his own charisma. Nicknamed the “Genius of Ten Thousand Talents” (banno no tensai), Fukami touts his artistic and performative accomplishments in sixteen areas on his Web site; they include Western arts such as opera and ballet, conducting, and even fashion design, along with traditional Japanese arts such as Noh, poetry, calligraphy, pottery, tea ceremony, and flower arranging.110 Fukami’s mother was an Oomoto follower, and perhaps this explains World Mate’s emphasis on the staging of elaborate, Shinto-derived rituals that are known for their entertainment value.111 Onisaburò foresightedly recognized the power of visual images and the increasingly influential role they would play in modern religious life. Oomoto used visual technologies and images to engage in market differentiation, tailoring its message according to audience: art exhibitions emphasized the versatility, spirit, and genius of its charismatic leader and the promise of art for everyman; expositions stressed the sect’s modern and international character, its status as an educational, humanitarian body that transcended the Japanese state; newsreels and movies featured Shintoist rituals and traditional arts during an era in which many Japanese sought a return to traditional Japanese culture as a stable form of national identity. Oomoto promoted itself using new technologies of image reproduction and merchandising tactics such as advertising, display, and multiple branding, associated with the emergence of mass consumer society. Just as consumers in the Shòwa period could choose among various brands of goods, potential followers could peruse Oomoto’s multiple religious and secular offerings to craft a composite belief that best met their needs and desires. This turn toward modern marketing techniques and consumer entertainment in the 1920s and ’30s is not a symptom of religious decline, as earlier, puritanically minded scholars and church leaders judged, but rather a creative religious adaptation to emerging social and cultural conditions—that

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is, charismatic entrepreneurship. By the early Shòwa period, Japanese modern life had become so thoroughly permeated with images and with the mass consumption of goods and services that consumerism was a mentality that could apply not only to goods but also to one’s religious affiliations. This consumerism is so deeply interwoven with the visual that John Brewer and Roy Porter have argued that “the modern world of goods is predicated upon information and visibility.” When publicity and advertising are removed, the “itch to consume” subsides.112 As in the cases of Nativism, spiritualism, and internationalism, Oomoto’s use of visual technologies of proselytization provided connections between older, popular traditions and the modern world. There are clear continuities between Oomoto’s exhibitions and Edo-period conventions of popular cultural display, such as private shogakai art and calligraphy exhibitions, unveilings of religious treasures at home and on tour in the provinces, and carnivals of assorted freakish spectacles held at temples, shrines, and other public spaces.113 Nevertheless, it was new technology, new media formats, and new forums for exhibition that significantly enhanced Oomoto’s abilities to attract large, new audiences of potential converts. Statistics for Oomoto missionary activities from March to December 1935 demonstrate that attendance for movie programs in every province invariably reached several hundred and often over a thousand viewers per presentation. Attendance at regional art exhibitions, which did not require sitting through two hours of sermonizing, was even higher. Given the army of zealous missionaries distributed in the movie and exhibition squads throughout Japan, Oomoto’s message often reached several thousand sets of eyes and ears per day. In the last week of April 1935 alone, movie programs reached over eight thousand individuals in eleven towns in five provinces. Exhibitions over the same period racked up another twenty thousand spectators in five different provinces. By contrast, Oomoto’s more traditional lecture and seminar activities, a format other new and established religions continued to rely upon for drawing converts at the time, drew a scant two thousand over the same period, with attendance rarely breaking one hundred per meeting.114 Greater public awareness of the sect through increased visibility resulted in greater acceptance of the sect and its subsidiary groups, as evidenced by climbing membership statistics and rising sales of Oomoto books, newspapers, and magazines. Given the opportunity to judge for themselves, members of the buying public did not necessarily agree with the organs of state ideology and mainstream media that demonized and ostracized the sect. The excitement generated by negative publicity may have even enhanced Oomoto’s appeal.

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Audiences in the early Shòwa period were demanding consumers of multiple forms of information and entertainment. The organizations that best knew how to satisfy consumer desires were best able to sell their product, whether doctrine or detergent. Oomoto’s spiritual and secular “products,” attractively displayed, were appealing religious commodities that had been neglected by state and established religions. Its success in employing new visual technologies of proselytization formed an important pattern of charismatic entrepreneurship that has been successfully employed by Japan’s new religions ever since. The entrepreneurial use of new visual media facilitated Oomoto’s rapid expansion in Japan. The scope of Onisaburò’s ambition, however, was not simply domestic. Seeking new markets for Oomoto’s message, Onisaburò increasingly embraced the idea of expansion abroad, as described in the following chapter. Oomoto’s new orientation was not simply international but internationalist, embracing humanitarian and ecumenical aims that reflected global trends but existed in tension with Oomoto’s original Nativist underpinnings.



Chapter Five



Paradoxical Internationalism?



Oomoto in the World

In June 1924 Onisaburò stood facing a Chinese firing squad on the Mongolian border. Accompanied by a band of his followers, including Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of the martial art aikido, Onisaburò was leading a “spiritual army” into Mongolia to begin the spiritual unification of the world under the auspices of the powerful warlord Chang Tso-lin. It was a project that he envisioned would take him, like the great Genghis Khan, across the central Asia plains to Jerusalem.1 He carried with him a set of Noh costumes that he intended to use in a performance of The Queen Mother of the West once he reached that holy land.2 The expedition ended disastrously, but Onisaburò and company were spared at the last minute by the intervention of the Japanese consul. This perplexing, if minor, episode captures the tensions between Onisaburò’s idealism and his expansionist entrepreneurial drive, between Oomoto’s Nativist view of Japan as the savior of Asia and its emerging efforts to promote an international identity that advocated universal love and racial equality. Onisaburò’s overseas experiences in Mongolia became the impetus for a new focus on international missionary activity within Oomoto. Throughout history missionaries have usually accompanied the merchants and soldiers of imperialism. Over the last several decades, scholarship on Christian proselytization in the non-Western world has evolved from a focus on missionary benevolence in bringing God and civilization to benighted heathendom to a postcolonial perspective emphasizing the power differentials and racist assumptions that lay beneath Christianity’s role as cultural imperialist. Recently a more a multivalent view between these two extremes has emerged, highlighting the complex and dynamic relationships between missionaries and locals—that is, how religions interact with and are changed by local religious beliefs, how locals are drawn into a consensus with the values of the dominant power, and how missionary resources are diverted away from 142

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intended goals toward local community use and individual enrichment. Scholars also now acknowledge the nonmonolithic nature of Christian missions abroad, the presence of a wide variety of organizations with different political beliefs and different levels of home government support. In imperial Japan, it was not just the abacus that followed the sword but also the characteristic Shinto torii gate, as colonial populations were forced to accept State Shinto. Nevertheless, scholarship on the complicity between Japanese religion and imperialist interests has not adopted a multivalent view and remains overwhelmingly shrill. State Shinto was undoubtedly a central institution for the dissemination of imperial ideology, promoting the notion of the Japanese state as a single family benevolently ruled by a divine emperor and uniquely superior to other cultures. Buddhists, in particular the Zen sects, have been excoriated for acting as mouthpieces for militarist propaganda, supporting Russo-Japanese War efforts, sending missionaries to Korea, and employing the Buddhist doctrine of no-self as rationalization for self-sacrifice among soldiers and the tragic kamikaze pilots.3 Yet like the Christian missions in the non-Western world, overseas religious activity under imperial Japan can be viewed from multiple perspectives. From one perspective “Buddhist missionary warriors” were “loyal vanguard agents of Japanese military imperialism,” and sects with official status in the colonies enthusiastically worked toward molding cooperative colonial subjects.4 From another—likely the view of Japanese missionaries themselves—sectarians in the colonies not only provided a path for salvation but they also created schools and hospitals and initiated beneficial social activities. Influenced by Christian missions, they felt a nationalistic pride in bringing less fortunate and less advanced peoples the opportunity to civilize themselves through association with the religious values of the dominant nation. Onisaburò’s grand new plan for Oomoto abroad was grounded in such idealism. His vision simultaneously encompassed the national, international, transnational, and universal. It envisioned world peace and global justice through universal spiritual bonds; it transcended national borders through activities and communications among like-minded groups and individuals around the world, yet it contained a fervent view of Japan’s special mission to guide other nations. Onisaburò’s foray into Mongolia and Oomoto’s array of new international activities provide an interesting case for examining the complex motivations of individuals and groups who profess both patriotism and universalistic values. To approach the relationship between these two in imperial Japan, we must reject a polarized complicity/resistance paradigm that correlates “nationalism” with support for imperialist aggression and “internationalism” with opposition to imperialism.5 We must at-

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tempt to examine how individuals and groups held multilayered conceptions of Japan’s role in the world. Onisaburò’s views constituted both obstacles and opportunities in the Japanese imperial project of creating a culturally cohesive political community of nations in East Asia. Oomoto activity increased the overall level of Japan’s presence and influence in China and elsewhere, but its missionaries were primarily committed to spiritual and humanitarian activity and its message was critical of militaristic expansion. Oomoto international activity thus served multiple, sometimes contradictory, aims that help illustrate the complex relationship between nationalism and internationalism. To many Japanese, Oomoto’s shift to an international agenda was surprising. Under Deguchi Nao’s leadership and in keeping with nineteenthcentury Nativist values, the sect had been xenophobic and reluctant to increase Japan’s interaction with the world. Under Onisaburò, however, Oomoto promoted an idealistic vision of world peace and equality among peoples, an egalitarian brotherhood that transcended national interests. Such a vision was the precursor to the pacifism and ecumenicalism advocated by many postwar new religions. Sòka Gakkai, the largest and most influential new religion in Japan, has made promotion of world peace and inter-religious activity cornerstones of its public message. The idea of inter-religious unity has been widely adopted by an array of new religions in the postwar period, including Sukyò Mahikari and Risshò Kòseikai. Robert Kisala describes this tendency as a “civilizational concept of peace” stressing moral cultivation over formal agreements among nations and containing elements of “ethnic or cultural superiority.”6 Oomoto’s prewar combination of Neo-Nativism and universalist ideals anticipates these trends. This chapter explores the ways through which Oomoto sought to gain an international reputation and achieve its universalist ideals. First, Oomoto promoted and taught the “universal language,” Esperanto, as an avenue for world peace and for expanding its own mission abroad. Onisaburò coined the Esperanto phrase “Uno Dio, uno mondo, uno interlingvo” (One God, one world, one language) to express his idea of global unity.7 After World War I, Esperanto was the most promising candidate for an international auxiliary language. Though Eurocentric in structure and vocabulary, it had no specific national roots, so persons of all nations might communicate as equals. Second, Oomoto actively sought contact with a variety of nonmainstream religious groups around the world, including Chinese morality associations such as the Tao Yuan, Baha’i, and European spiritualist groups. Third, Oomoto established the Jinrui Aizenkai (Universal Love and Brotherhood Association; hereafter ULBA), an ostensibly secular group, allow-

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ing it to recruit among both Japanese and foreign nationals who supported humanitarian activity but had no wish to adopt a new religion. Oomoto’s new initiatives were born in the early 1920s, when internationalist ideals became popular throughout the world. After the “war to end all wars,” internationalist idealism swept the world, including Japan. In a few short years great empires, including Ottoman Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and imperial China, had come crashing down, and there reigned a pervasive sense that the world had entered a new, Wilsonian age that would be characterized by international peace, ethnic self-determination, and popular participation. Prewar rivalries for colonial possessions and secret bilateral treaties would be replaced by multilateral agreements and collective security initiatives. The new spirit of international cooperation was particularly symbolized by the establishment in 1919 of the League of Nations, which Japan joined in 1920. Imperialist nations also signed the NinePower Treaty to protect Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity while recognizing the commercial equality of nations with interests in China. The 1922 Washington Conference resulted in a naval arms agreement among Japan, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy that would prevent an arms race in the Pacific. In the wake of World War I, not only nations, but also private organizations and individuals struggled to understand the causes of conflict and to devise methods and organizations to foster better communications among humankind. Nudism/Naturism, Esperanto, Pan-Asianism, Pan-Arabism, and Pan-Native Americanism were movements born of the urge to improve human dialogue across national and ethnic borders. In Japan as elsewhere, however, many individuals who held such humanitarian ideals did not have a ready means for becoming actively involved. Multiple official institutions existed to help instill a sense of national identity—for example, schools, State Shinto, and the draft—but where did one go to foster a transnational, humanitarian consciousness that might oppose official views and policies on international relations? Recognizing the prevailing mood of international optimism and its missionary potential, Onisaburò embarked on transnational ecumenical and charitable activity and on the utopian project of universal communication via Esperanto. The new fields reflected his entrepreneurial savvy in identifying popular demand to support humanitarian activity outside Japan’s borders and to communicate with the larger world. He organized the ULBA, an innovative religious product tied to Oomoto’s social ideals but superficially separated from its creed and ritual. Furthermore, the development of an international Oomoto presence would provide greater legitimacy at home following the 1921 suppression. To foster a greater presence abroad Oomoto

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published journals, newspapers, and propaganda pamphlets in many languages, including English, Chinese, French, and Esperanto, ensuring that its own self-representation, rather than official condemnatory views of the sect, would reach international audiences.

Early Antiwar Sentiment Onisaburò’s pacificism was an important foundation for Oomoto’s later international activity. The first traces of his antiwar sentiment appeared during the Russo-Japanese War, the moment at which many believe modern Japanese militaristic nationalism was born. Over a million young men were mobilized for the conflict, and a wide spectrum of state and social institutions, such as schools and neighborhood associations, supported the war effort. Popular support for the war was visible through the wide array of cultural artifacts that celebrated key battles and war heroes in woodblock prints, serialized novels, songs, and drama. A jingoistic press urged military conquest and reported the active involvement of the emperor and empress in war efforts. The new mood of popular imperialism was confirmed in September 1905, when riots that condemned the Portsmouth Treaty as an inadequate settlement for wartime sacrifice erupted in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park.8 Yet individuals who opposed the war did exist. Official religious sects were prohibited from publicly expressing political opinions, including opposition to war, violence, or militaristic expansion. The few dissenting voices noted in historical literature are overwhelmingly those of urban intellectuals influenced by Western ideologies, such as Socialists Kòtoku Shûsui and Sakai Toshihiko and maverick Christian leaders Uchimura Kanzò and Yanaihara Tadao.9 Nevertheless, there were also dissenting voices among ordinary Japanese living in rural areas. This was the group that sacrificed its sons and bore the tax burden necessary to support victory, and it was Oomoto’s main constituency at that time. Onisaburò’s antiwar sentiment was first published in May 1905 in Michi no shiori (Signposts along the Way), a compilation of his teachings. He condemned the Russo-Japanese War as an evil product of human greed, and he believed that the very existence of national armies created the motive for war.10 The beneficiaries of war were the wealthy and the elite, while the poor, whose tax burden had increased precipitously since the Meiji Restoration, paid a heavy price. Military preparation for war benefits the landlords and capitalists. It becomes the basis for unlimited suffering for the poor. The people should not have to bear the duty of conscription. We must not throw away our

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bodies, creating a river of blood or mountain of bones. We must not pay heavy taxes to the government [to support this]. . . . There is nothing in the world more evil than war. . . . Tens of millions of young men in this world are forced into the uniform of the soldier and trained only in deliberate murder. Most of them have already suffered a life of hardship, yet they must undergo this heinous training. For any nation, there is nothing more useless than military preparation.11

Onisaburò did not often speak so forthrightly about his antiwar position. After the 1921 suppression, he attempted to avoid controversy and state censure. Yet throughout his career, he steadfastly denied the ability of the modern state to foster peace and universal love. As the state was unwilling to work toward world peace, he believed it was incumbent upon religious organizations to join hands and work toward universal brotherhood.

The Mongolian Mission Onisaburò took up this challenge in the Mongolian expedition mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Branded a subversive and criminal in the first Oomoto suppression and under close surveillance in Japan, Onisaburò planned a grandiose, awe-inspiring adventure in order to generate positive public attention. The mission would meet a number of needs: he would repair his own sullied reputation while patriotically promoting Japanese interests and providing aid and spiritual leadership to an “uncivilized” but highly spiritual people in a war-torn region.12 These motives aptly illustrate the tensions between Oomoto’s promotion of universalistic values and its earlier, Nativist conception of Japan as a specially blessed nation destined to lead the world. In the Japanese imagination at the time, Mongolia had a romantic, “wild West” quality, fostered by widely read memoirs of Japanese sojourners and adventurers there, like Kawahara Misako’s Mòko miyage, first published in 1909.13 Through such works readers acquired the notion that Japanese and Mongolian peoples “shared common roots and worldviews.”14 Onisaburò’s interest in Mongolia was piqued by his acquaintance with Colonel Tsuyoshi Hino, a Russo-Japanese War veteran, explorer, and Oomoto follower who published an account of his seven-thousand-mile trek across China and over the Himalayas into India.15 When Onisaburò met Hino in 1919, he was smitten by the latter’s tales of rapacious desert sandstorms that rained sheep and buried towns in a single day.16 In February 1924, while on bail awaiting trial for the first Oomoto suppression, Onisaburò fled the country with a small band of followers

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to Mongolia to begin the spiritual and religious unification of the world. The adventure entangled them with Chinese warlord politics and Kwantung Army clandestine activities in a region where Russia, England, China, and Japan all vied for control. Preparations for the journey began secretly in November 1923. Without notifying Oomoto executives of his plan, he made arrangements for his son-in-law Uchimaru to take over business matters, entrusting him with a document entitled “Nishiki no miyage,” perhaps inspired by Kawahara’s popular work; it announced the purpose for undertaking the effort: My intent is to spiritually unify the realm of East Asia And then to unify the world. Whatever happens is God’s will, there is no need for fear or worry. Oni’s dream of thirty years is about to awaken.17

Onisaburò’s vision of world spiritual unification ultimately called for traversing Central Asia, Iran, and Turkey to Jerusalem. In “Nishiki no miyage,” he stated that he sought to ease the sense of international restlessness and bring about world peace. He believed that the first step for realizing these aims was to promote amicable relations between Japan and China, but he thought that the Japanese government, which oppressed religion and engaged in militaristic expansion, was incapable of generating unity and amity among Asian nations. This could be accomplished only by religions, but not the moribund established groups: “All Japanese people must work for world peace and happiness. Japan is not built for conquest. . . . We need to guide all people toward God’s teaching. Military arms and intelligence alone are not enough to govern the people; we need to rely on the power of new religions unfettered by old traditions.”18 Mongolia was part of China’s extensive border regions, a vast frontier zone and transcultural space occupied by non-Chinese ethnic groups.19 The Mongols sought independence from the Republic of China in 1911; the strife resulted in a division between Inner and Outer Mongolia, the former under Chinese control and the latter an autonomous, theocratic state under the leadership of “the Living Buddha of Urga,” Jebtsun Damba Khutukhtu, with the support of the Russian tsar. After the 1917 Bolshevik revolution abrogated the treaty between Outer Mongolia and tsarist Russia, China pressured Outer Mongolia to abandon its autonomy. In 1920 White Russian anti-Communist forces, led by Baron Nikolaus von Ungern-Sternberg, a Russian-Hungarian determined to restore the tsar and create a Buddhist empire that included Mongolia and Tibet, marched into Outer Mongolia

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and launched a “bloody reign of terror” in the name of the Urga lama.20 The “mad baron’s” regime was driven out in 1921 by the Mongolian revolutionary army assisted by the powerful Chinese warlord Chang Tso-lin, who controlled the northeast Chinese provinces where China, Russia, and Japan were wrestling for dominance.21 In short, when Onisaburò arrived in Mongolia in February 1924, he entered a hornet’s nest of revolutionary, counterrevolutionary, and clandestine activities by several nations. He hoped to turn the chaotic situation to Oomoto advantage. His ambition for the spiritual unification of Mongolia under his guidance was the first step in his campaign for the religious conquest of East Asia and then the world.22 These stated goals were simultaneously universalist and spiritually imperialistic, oriented toward fostering world peace and happiness yet within the framework of an expansionist, Japan-led endeavor. The question remains, however, whether Onisaburò really believed in the possibility of success or, given his fun-loving nature, he just wanted to have an excellent adventure. Onisaburò set out from Ayabe on February 13, 1924, accompanied by three followers: Matsumura Masumi, an Oomoto priest who would assist Onisaburò with religious rituals, chinkon kishin, and healing; Ueshiba Morihei; and a barber named Nada Otokichi, probably included to shear Onisaburò’s long locks.23 Ueshiba had military experience on the continent, having served in the army in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. Although he stood only five-foot-two, Ueshiba was built like a barrel. He was renowned for his mastery of jujitsu and kendò. An adventurer at heart, Ueshiba settled in rugged northern Hokkaido in 1910, where he earned the sobriquet “King of Shirataki” for his efforts to develop schools and railroads in that area. In 1919, upon news of his father’s illness, Ueshiba left Hokkaido for his hometown of Tanabe. On the train home he met an Oomoto follower who spoke of miraculous cures and a charismatic leader. Ueshiba changed course for Ayabe, where he met Onisaburò for the first time, a turning point in his life. After his father passed away, Ueshiba moved his entire family to Ayabe and, under Onisaburò’s encouragement, trained followers in his new martial arts techniques.24 Onisaburò and party arrived in Mukden via the Korean Peninsula on February 15, where they met their main contact, Lu Chan-k’uei. Lu was one of Chang Tso-lin’s lieutenants, an ex-brigand and Qing loyalist who had raised military forces to support Japan in the Russo-Japanese War.25 According to Oomoto sources, Chang entrusted Lu with a secret mission to acquire arms, march to Outer Mongolia, and recruit an army of his former bandit followers.26 Onisaburò and Lu agreed to form a “spiritual army” with a tenbrigade corps in keeping with this mission.

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The Chinese were probably willing to help the eccentric Japanese spiritual leader because of the current religious situation in Outer Mongolia. The death of the Urga lama earlier in 1924 had left a spiritual vacuum, which presented an opportunity to rally the population behind another charismatic religious leader. To ensure they were backing the right candidate, the Chinese reportedly consulted fortunetellers and phrenologists, who confirmed Onisaburò’s exceptional spiritual capacity. For his part, Onisaburò attempted to emanate the highest possible degree of religious authority, brazenly dubbing himself the Dalai Lama and appointing Matsumura the Panchen Lama.27 The new spiritual army set out for eastern Mongolia, where Lu began to recruit local men, enlisting nearly a thousand for his corps. Onisaburò, unconcerned with the more military aspects of the endeavor, settled into the town of Kunyyehfu.28 According to his memoirs of the adventure, during his two month sojourn in the town he received thousands of visitors, who had heard he was a Great Living Buddha through the efforts of Tao Yuan, a Chinese new religion with ties to Oomoto (see below). He practiced chinkon kishin daily and used spiritual healing to cure eye diseases, skin diseases, and syphilis for large crowds.29 Such activities were frowned upon in modern Japanese society and downplayed by Oomoto after the first suppression, but they could be openly promoted as a basis of religious authority in “less civilized” Mongolian society. He also began to compile a Japanese-Mongolian dictionary of songs and to attempt sermons in Mongolian.30 The attention Onisaburò attracted alarmed Chang Tso-lin, who reportedly ordered Lu to keep the matter of the spiritual army secret in a letter of March 31, 1924.31 Nevertheless, defying the scope of Chang’s original order, Lu and Onisaburò vowed to enlarge their mission to achieve the unification and independence of all Mongolia. Angered by this insubordination, Chang Tso-lin charged Lu’s forces with banditry, dispatched punitive troops, and petitioned the Japanese consulate for the arrest of Onisaburò and his entourage. In his letter to the consulate, Chang accused Onisaburò of providing the financial backing for the acquisition of arms and of using religion to “deceive and manipulate the ignorant Mongolian people.”32 As the walls closed in on the ragtag spiritual army, hundreds deserted the mission. On June 20, 1924, the remaining troops found themselves surrounded by Chang’s army at Pai-yin-t’ai-lai, a town on the Inner Mongolian frontier.33 Lu and his subordinates were shot. The Japanese party was taken to a nearby inn. That night, soldiers roused them from their sleep. They lined them up in shackles before a machine gun (see figure 5.1). Onisaburò recited a hastily composed death poem that reflected a mixture of patriotism, universalist sentiment, and demagoguery:

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Even if my dead body lies in Mongolian fields, As a Japanese man I will feel no shame. At this moment I ascend to heaven. I will protect Japan and the world. Far away from Japan, I am now about to become a god in the skies of Mongolia.34

At the last moment, the Japanese consul suddenly intervened, informing Chinese officials that Onisaburò was currently awaiting trial in Japan and asking that the prisoners be remanded to Japanese custody. Onisaburò and crew were handed over to the Japanese consulate general on July 5, and Onisaburò was prohibited from entering China for a period of three years.35 The Osaka miyako newspaper reported on the incident on June 24. The following day newspapers throughout Japan reported Onisaburò’s adventure and arrest on the continent.36 Though his plan for Mongolia’s spiritual unification was an utter failure, Onisaburò was greeted by cheering crowds upon his return to Japan. Enthusiastic supporters mobbed Osaka station when he was being transferred to a jail in Hyògo prefecture in July. He regaled them with dramatic accounts of surviving on wild fruits and nuts after being repeatedly robbed.37

figure 5.1.  Onisaburò (second from left), Ueshiba Morihei (third from left), and party in shackles and under arrest in Mongolia.

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As news of the escapade spread, it created a sensation in the mass media. The middle-class monthly journal Taiyò printed the story in a fourpart series entitled “Dreams of a Mongolian Kingdom,” which claimed the following: This story is as interesting as a detective novel, but it is strictly a factual account. Japanese people boldly attempted to establish an ideal new kingdom on the continent. . . . Empty-handed, by his efforts alone, [Onisaburò] surpassed greatness, and while he is criticized for his grandstanding, at any rate this was an unprecedented plot to pioneer a new heavenly kingdom in the interior of Mongolia, where Chinese state power was not thoroughly established. It was a romantic, dreamlike vision.38

Radio broadcasts, reported how Onisaburò “had escaped from the mouth of the tiger . . . only to be imprisoned again.”39 A newspaper from Niigata prefecture urged readers to view Onisaburò’s efforts in Mongolia as those of “a king in a fairy tale.” It applauded his “poignant attempt in a modern Japan lacking in dreams.”40 In sum, Onisaburò’s exploits both capitalized and built upon the common notion of the romantic Mongolian frontier, ripe for Japanese civilizational guidance.

Transnational Ecumenical Alliances The Mongolian expedition resulted in the intensification of Oomoto efforts abroad, but the doctrinal foundation for international ecumenical activity had been expressed earlier in the idea of bankyò dòkon (ten thousand creeds, one root), first articulated in Reikai monogatari in January 1922: “Assuredly religions differ in various ways, but according to Oomoto . . . those differences reflect the diversity of epoch, of climate, of culture, of racial characteristics. . . . But no religion need view another religion as inferior or false because of the differences between them. They are all siblings, sprung from the one creator, and forever linked by their common origins.”41 Although bankyò dòkon implicitly asserted that Oomoto was the root or head religion, with all others subordinate, the concept nevertheless justified the sect’s new effort to create transnational alliances with spiritual groups from other countries.42 Oomoto successfully built relationships with other new religions, with which it shared a number of characteristics. Both were usually considered heterodox by mainstream society and often suffered from suppression by the state. Like Oomoto, allied groups often promoted an eclectic blend of doctrines and practices gleaned from both folk and established religious traditions. Most did not employ a professional

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priesthood. Rather, their missionaries were converts with a dedication and zeal often unmatched by the older sects. They often displayed the ability to better relate to the concerns of the lay population than professional clergy. Oomoto was the first large new religion in Japan to promote international ecumenical activity. The most prominent and longest-lasting of its alliances was with China’s Tao Yuan and its secular philanthropic arm, the Red Swastika Society (Japanese: Kòmanjikai), a parallel to Oomoto’s ULBA. Tao Yuan emerged in 1921 in Tsinan, China. Tao Yuan taught that Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism sprang from the same source. It used the fu-chi oracle, a large Ouji-board-like sand table sometimes known as the planchette, as a medium for divine communication. Oomoto and Tao Yuan thus shared beliefs in the divine and revelatory nature of automatic writing—that is, Nao’s Ofudesaki and the fu-chi.43 Tao Yuan enjoyed its strongest support on the Shantung Peninsula, then occupied by Japan, especially among merchants, who reportedly welcomed Japanese influence as a stabilizing force that would enable them to conduct commercial activity. Tao Yuan claimed a following of six hundred thousand in 1922, and membership had reportedly ballooned to 7–10 million by 1937.44 The initial encounter between Oomoto and Tao Yuan occurred during their joint relief efforts after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. According to Oomoto sources, the fu-chi oracle ordered Tao Yuan believers to aid earthquake survivors and indicated that there was a religious group in Japan with whom Tao Yuan should unite in efforts to achieve world peace.45 In November 1923 Tao Yuan delegates visited Ayabe, where they met Onisaburò and Sumiko. They came with an introduction from the Japanese consul to Nanking, Hayashide Kenjirò, who later became the official interpreter for Manchukuo’s puppet emperor Pu Yi.46 Onisaburò helped Tao Yuan establish its first Japanese branch in Kobe in 1924, and Oomoto branches were granted status as Tao Yuan shrines.47 The stated objective for their relationship was world peace and the “prosperous unification of humankind.”48 During the 1920s, Oomoto also cultivated a relationship with Futenkyò, a Korean new religion. Japan had occupied Korea since 1905 and had governed it as a colony since 1910. During this period, colonial officials replicated the home administration’s policies toward religion. They refused to recognize syncretic, indigenous sects as legitimate religions and prohibited religious leaders from political involvement. They saw linkages between Korean religion and politics as a threat to colonial order, just as Japanese officials feared religio-political activity as a threat to the imperial order at home.49 Their fears proved justified. Chondogyò, a new religion, was the

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primary force behind Korea’s March First Movement in 1919, a nationwide uprising expressing opposition to Japanese rule and desire for Korean independence.50 Like most Korean new religions at this time, Futenkyò was known as a supporter of the Korean independence movement. It was closely watched by Japanese colonial authorities. Futenkyò leaders first visited Oomoto headquarters in September 1924, when they agreed to form a joint organization called Jikyoku Daidòdan (Group for Great Equality in Current Affairs), adopting the slogans “one spirit growing together” (isshin aioi) and “eliminate sickness, resolve hatred” (kobyò kaien)—the latter perhaps indicating shared attitudes toward healing practices. Both sides understood that Koreans wished to be rid of their colonial masters but stressed that people must learn to exist and prosper together and that religion provided the best avenue to achieve mutual understanding. While they worked toward conciliation between the peoples of Japan and Korea, their ultimate goal was conciliation among all peoples of the world via religious interchange.51 Despite its humanistic aims, Futenkyò’s tie to Oomoto produced a backlash in Korea. In March 1925, at a Futen youth group meeting in Pusan, a crowd of eight thousand gathered to protest the group’s ties to Japan.52 The crowd destroyed a building and shrine and threw stones at believers, injuring fifty-eight. Contrary to the beliefs of the mob, Futenkyò’s relationship with a heterodox Japanese religion did nothing to garner favor in the eyes of the governor-general. In fact, it exacerbated the group’s harassment by colonial authorities. In 1926, after repeated instances of suppression, Futenkyò leaders decided that its relationship with Oomoto was a liability and requested that Oomoto refrain from mentioning the sect in any of its publications.53 From 1925 to 1935 Oomoto forged ties with other religious organizations, such as the Vietnamese new religion Cao Dai, an influential South Vietnamese spiritualist sect established in 1926.54 It also created alliances with the Chinese groups Tsaili Hui, Puching Hui, Anching Hui, and the Siberian Association of Mohammedans.55 In Europe, it established ties with Germany’s Weisse Fahne, Bulgaria’s White Brotherhood, and London’s Greater World Spiritualist Association.56 It is, however, difficult to gauge the depth of these relationships. Oomoto engaged in ecumenical activities in order to actualize its belief in bankyò dòkon through interchange with like-minded religious organizations. Just as ecumenicalism provided a mechanism for international exchange on an institutional level, Esperanto activity similarly provided an embodied activity for promoting equality on an individual level.

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Esperanto Activities Oomoto’s Esperanto-related activities provide one of the clearest areas of its commitment to universalist values. The history of universal languages is steeped in idealism. The concept of an artificially constructed language that would facilitate international communication reaches back to the twelfth century, when the Benedictine mystic and musical composer Hildegard von Bingen created the earliest such language on record. Other early advocates of a universal constructed language include philosopher René Descartes; the inventor of calculus, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; and telephony pioneer Jean Sudre, who proposed a language derived from the seven notes of the musical scale.57 Esperanto was the creation of Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof (1859–1917), a Polish Jew born in the tsarist Russian empire who wished to create a simple and logical language that anyone could learn and use.58 In 1887, at the age of nineteen, he published his first book, International Language, under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto.59 His primary motivation was humanitarian, to stimulate a sense of “universal brotherhood” among all peoples.60 Zamenhof’s efforts were received enthusiastically in Germany, Sweden, and France, and by 1905, the movement was strong enough to support its first world congress.61 Zamenhof, a deeply spiritual idealist with a millenarian bent, was a stirring and passionate speaker who encouraged his following to write utopian poetry in Esperanto. Although originally a Zionist, by 1914, he had rejected all forms of nationalism and proposed the construction of a single world religion.62 While he served as the charismatic figurehead of Esperantists, the burgeoning movement’s leaders adopted a more pragmatic approach, promoting Esperanto as an instrument to facilitate trade and improve communication among public institutions. The Esperanto movement increasingly avoided any hint of the religious or political implications that had originally motivated Zamenhof.63 In Japan the movement was sometimes associated with radicalism. The anarchist Osugi Sakae helped form the Japan Esperanto Association in 1906, and Kita Ikki, the revolutionary thinker whose work inspired political terrorism in the 1930s, called for the adoption of Esperanto as a second language, along with the abolition of English in order to decrease Anglo-American influence in Japan. A larger, more mainstream movement to adopt Esperanto as an international language began in 1908,64 and the first Japanese Esperanto institute was founded in 1919.65 The new language proved to be extremely popular, particularly in the Kansai region. By 1926, there were 181 registered Esperanto groups in Japan with over 6,000 of-

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ficially registered Esperantists, the second largest population of Esperantists in the world, following Germany.66 Oomoto’s efforts in promoting Esperanto were undoubtedly a large factor in this success, as its missionaries helped to create Esperanto societies among followers in all regions of Japan. Onisaburò’s interest in Esperanto may have been stimulated by his deep interest in words, sounds, and language, as evidenced by his promotion of kotodama. He may have theorized that the efforts to transform Oomoto into a universal religion would require a universal medium of communication. Regardless of the reason for its adoption, Esperanto served several purposes for the Oomoto organization. Internally, it provided an activity and focus for creating an internationalist identity among practitioners. Studying and speaking Esperanto provided a concrete, embodied experience of the international humanitarianism preached by Onisaburò. Externally, it served as a major medium through which Oomoto doctrines and activities were promoted outside of Japan and provided the sect with a means to enhance its reputation in domestic society. Many Japanese Esperantists developed a favorable opinion of Oomoto, often overturning previously held prejudices, owing to its sponsorship of Esperanto classes and large conferences. From Oomoto’s initial promotion of Esperanto in 1922 to the sect’s second suppression in 1935, Esperanto remained a major area of activity, urged upon followers and allocated significant resources. The Oomoto engagement with Esperanto was surprising to many. As noted, the climate at Oomoto was strongly xenophobic under Nao’s leadership, when foreigners were viewed as devils or beasts and foreign languages were thought to be evil. Although Onisaburò had been intrigued by Esperanto since 1913, he was unable to pursue his interest because of the antiforeign feeling that prevailed at Oomoto.67 Nao’s death and the departure of Asano Wasaburò and other oppositional factions removed the obstacles to his investigation of the universal language. After the 1921 suppression, Oomoto required a positive, new public image based on socially approved activities, rather than on spiritualism and millennial predictions. Esperanto seemed to provide an ideal fit. In May 1922, Onisaburò ordered his aide, Katò Haruko, to lead the effort in disseminating the language among followers. She promptly enrolled in a twelve-day course to be held at Kyoto’s Doshisha University.68 Two weeks after Katò returned, Oomoto held its first Esperanto classes, taught by Doshisha student Kamematsu Takizò. Onisaburò attended the morning sessions along with fourteen other students, but a larger, more diverse group of over one hundred, including white-haired old men and teenage women with babies strapped to their backs, gathered in the Mirokuden hall in the evenings, when classes were signaled by the beating of a big taiko drum.

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On the first evening, Onisaburò gave a brief speech extolling the use of Esperanto. He encouraged followers by emphasizing its simplicity and its utility. He highlighted the power of words and language for expanding the mission: The Ofudesaki of Oomoto’s founder attempted to unite the world with the forty-eight letters of the Japanese syllabary. These forty-eight letters were simple and easy to learn . . . These days Oomoto’s mission has multiplied and the gospel of the Land of the Gods will be widely broadcasted. Although it’s extremely difficult because each country of the world has a separate language, since this common world language can traverse the globe with just twenty-eight letters, it is God’s will that we study this language . . . earnestly.69

Onisaburò too applied himself earnestly, setting an example for followers. After the first lesson, he placed stickers with Esperanto vocabulary throughout his own house—on the desk, chairs and walls, soup bowls, tansu chests, and even the door to the toilet. Family members complained, but Onisaburò energetically pushed Esperanto on his closest associates.70 All of the employees of Oomoto headquarters were required to enroll in classes and soon became the largest Esperanto study group in the Kyoto area, the center of Esperanto studies in Japan. Onisaburò also wrote waka poetry mixing Japanese and Esperanto; it glorified the language’s potential to help universalize Oomoto: Bearing deep within it An echo of the Divine Word It is Esperanto That will be the power Behind the highest religion. The sacred religion Of love and brotherhood According to the will of God Will be spread everywhere By Esperanto.71

Onisaburò became more firmly convinced that Esperanto was critical for world unity through an acquaintance with Aida Finch, a sixty-six-yearold Baha’i missionary living in Shizuoka. Mrs. Finch had read about Oomoto and had met Onisaburò’s wife Sumiko on a streetcar in July 1922. She

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visited Oomoto headquarters in September and gave lectures on the origins and teachings of the Baha’i faith.72 Baha’i was a new religion established in Iran in the mid-nineteenth century. Like many other new religions emerging throughout the world at this time, the sect believed in the “unification of humanity into one global family.”73 Like Tao Yuan, it accepted the validity of other faiths, regarding Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, the Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed as equally legitimate messengers of one God.74 Like Onisaburò, Baha’i’s founder Baha’u’llah also aimed to improve international relations. His visions had revealed a plan for a more equitable global world order, and while in prison, he wrote to Queen Victoria, Pope Pius IX, and other world leaders to enlist their cooperation in bringing about world justice. One of Baha’i’s central tenets was the adoption of a universal auxiliary language in order to facilitate world peace. Baha’u’llah believed that the multiplicity of languages restricted the free exchange of information and obstructed individuals from obtaining a universal perspective on world events. Furthermore, he believed that the “linguistic chauvinism” of nations was a key element in attitudes of cultural superiority that led to conflict and to the repression of minority languages and cultures.75 Onisaburò was much impressed with Baha’i ideas on universal language and with its doctrine of humanitarianism, which demanded that everyone should regard and love people of all countries as brothers. Although there does not appear to be a sustained interchange between Baha’i and Oomoto, concepts from the former strongly influenced the latter’s internationalist beliefs and practices. Onisaburò made Baha’u’llah a prominent character in episodes of the Reikai monogatari, including him in a prophetic dialogue entitled “Grand Sumo Tournament,” in which Baha’u’llah condemns war and warns of a coming world war between two great forces in the world.76 The year 1923, especially the latter half, was filled with Esperanto activity for Oomoto. In August 1923, Oomoto enlisted a more experienced and prominent instructor, Yuri Tadakatsu, editor of the Esperanto publication Rebuo Orienta. Yuri taught an advanced five-day course in August. In a report on the experience in Rebuo, he noted his surprise at the degree of passion and seriousness among Oomoto students. Yuri admitted that the preconceptions he had held about the sect because of the first suppression were “completely false.” The atmosphere there was “very free and easy and modern.” He praised the sect generously, saying “truly in current society, they are progressive in all areas. Love for humanity is manifested there.”77 In short, Esperanto helped Oomoto to foster a positive image among Japanese intellectuals. In mid-August, Onisaburò and his entourage visited a hot spring resort

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town in Kumamoto prefecture, where he urged followers to undertake Esperanto study. He announced his intent to write a book of short poems that would serve as a memorization aid. In four short days, allegedly while resting from the recitation of the Reikai monogatari, he finished a preliminary version; it contained 3,600 verses that explained Esperanto grammar and defined common vocabulary words using homonyms, meter, and verse.78 For example, in an entry for the Esperanto word nigra, meaning black, he wrote: Keiro kuroki ushi no senaka ni nigura nosete nòfu ga maki hakobu ka na 79

The farmer puts a packsaddle [nigura] On the back of a black ox And carries firewood.

Some followers and staff members were critical of efforts to spearhead Esperanto in Japan and its colonies. Many believed that it would be better to teach the Japanese language abroad. Onisaburò rejected their arguments and reiterated his belief that Esperanto would help expand the mission worldwide: “First we will expand the Roman alphabet and the Esperanto language among all the Japanese people. We resolve to soon after expand this movement to each country of the world. This is a year of preparation, but still we must export [our philosophy] as far as the Korean Peninsula, China, Europe, and America.”80 Onisaburò’s Esperanto activities were interrupted in February 1924, when he left for Mongolia, but while he was away and during his incarceration after his return, Oomoto Esperanto associations continued to flourish. In 1925, the sect initiated Verda Monda, an instructional journal aimed at beginning Esperantists in Japan, and also began to produce works aimed at audiences abroad. Yagi Hideo, later president of the Universal Esperanto Association, first introduced Oomoto to the European community in a March 1924 article entitled “The New Spiritual Movement in Japan” in the Swiss magazine Esperanto. As a result of this article Oomoto began to receive letters from throughout Europe praising its activities and ideals. Many of the letters spoke of disaffection with Western civilization and materialism and praised the mysticism of the East. Echoing works like Oswald Spengler’s monumental 1922 work, The Decline of the West, and Okakura Kakuzo’s earlier The Book of Tea and The Ideals of the East, they expressed doubt about Western faith in rationalism and science alongside admiration for the East and for the virtues of Japan. Onisaburò and his staff were soon

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overwhelmed. They decided to establish a separate department to handle correspondence. On September 1, 1924, the Department of Overseas Missions was established under Deguchi Uchimaru with sections in Esperanto, English, and Chinese. The department’s first publication was a pamphlet entitled Oomoto, La Nova Spirita Movado. Three thousand copies were delivered to Esperantist groups in forty-eight countries.81 Pleased with the results of its first endeavor, in 1925 it launched Oomoto, a monthly journal for audiences abroad reporting on Oomoto doctrines and its Esperanto activities. These initiatives coincided with the decision to dispatch Nishimura Kògetsu as Oomoto’s first representative in Europe. On June 11, 1925, Nishimura left Kobe on a mail boat to attend the Seventeenth World Congress of Esperanto in Geneva, where he delivered lectures on Oomoto in a dapper ensemble of crested haori jacket, white flax kimono, and straw hat. He remained in Geneva for over a month but later decided to make Paris his home base. In 1926 with the help of an editorial staff from throughout Europe, he began to publish two more journals targeted toward international audiences. The first was Oomoto Internacia, an Esperanto journal that featured articles on exotic “Oriental” topics such as Japan’s cherry blossoms and geisha girls, and the second was Nippon Zin, a journal in romanized Japanese aimed at both students of Japanese language and Japanese residents of Europe.82 Meanwhile, back in Japan, after his release from prison, Onisaburò resumed his promotion of the universal language. Asked to deliver a lecture at the Thirteenth Japan Esperanto Conference in Kyoto in October 1925, he combined two topics dear to his heart in a talk entitled “The Mongolians and Esperanto.” In this humorous address, Onisaburò relayed the history of his involvement with Esperanto from the pasting of Esperanto phrases throughout his house to the composition of his poem dictionary. He elicited laughs when he admitted that since he still could not speak Esperanto very well, he would have to address the audience in Japanese. He explained that while in Mongolia, he felt frustrated because he understood neither Mongolian nor Chinese and was forced to make do with gestures and hand signals, leading to many misunderstandings. Yet, strangely, he could understand his horse, which seemed to whinny in Japanese. The cows also mooed and the roosters crowed in Japanese. He understood cats meowing and dogs barking. After reflecting on this phenomenon, Onisaburò realized that it was not Japanese at all but common world languages among the animals. He concluded, “Although even the birds and beasts knew a common language, we human beings, said to be the leaders of all creation, knew only Japanese words. We were inferior to the birds and the beasts, the insects and the

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fish.”83 Onisaburò went on to recount his adventures in Mongolia, stressing the need for Esperanto at key points. Following the conference, Onisaburò invited the participants to a tour of Oomoto facilities and a precious matsutake mushroom-hunting expedition.84 Through such humor and hospitality, Onisaburò cultivated the positive appraisals of non-Oomoto-aligned Esperantists. Onisaburò was not alone in championing Esperanto at Oomoto. His son-in-law and heir apparent, Deguchi Hidemaru, had long been an enthusiast, taking an interest in Esperanto while at Kyoto University. In the July 1926 edition of the Oomoto journal Kami no kuni, Hidemaru wrote a passionate article calling for Esperanto programs in middle schools. He rapturously described the experience of speaking and the soteriological necessity of Esperanto: “My friends, quietly close your eyes and try mouthing a phrase of this world language. Doesn’t its pleasant, peaceful melody somehow resound? The Esperanto language is the word of God.”85 Throughout the period prior to the second suppression, Oomoto continued to encourage Esperanto among its various subgroups, especially youth groups. As the sect continued to internationalize, Onisaburò stressed that Oomoto’s role would be to champion the Esperanto movement along with the Meikò arts movement (see chapter 4) because these areas would “shoulder the responsibility of our mission.”86 After the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, as Japanese influence spread rapidly over the continent and throughout the Pacific, some Oomoto branches abroad began to offer Japanese language classes, but the mission of Esperanto was never abandoned. In February 1932, Onisaburò reportedly flew into a rage when he learned that packages issued to overseas missionaries had omitted Esperanto materials. He angrily insisted these materials, including his own poem dictionary, be reinserted.87 Esperanto activity was halted with the suppression of all Oomoto activities in 1935, but it reemerged, along with the peace movement, as a primary focus of activity in the postwar period. Even today Oomoto remains one of the most active proponents of the language in Japan, a quaintly anachronistic notion in a country where English conversation chain schools can be found in front of nearly every train station in the country.

Establishment of the ULBA After Onisaburò was released from prison in November 1924, following his return from Mongolia, he busied himself with projects to rebuild Oomoto’s reputation and popularity. The failure of the Mongolian mission confirmed for him that the world could never be united with weapons and force. The

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effort had to be led from spiritual, moral, and ethical quarters. Although each religion had different teachings, all would have to learn to respect and cooperate with one another to achieve world peace. In January 1925 Onisaburò dispatched Matsumura, his comrade in Mongolia, to Peking to begin arranging an international religious federation with the assistance of Tao Yuan leaders. Three months later the World Religious Federation held its first small conference in Peking, with members representing seven new religions from around the world. Onisaburò simultaneously planned a Japanese interfaith group, holding initial dialogues with Jòdò Shinshû, Shingon, Zen, and Tenrikyò at Tao Yuan’s Kobe headquarters. These attempts to unite disparate sects domestically and abroad were unsuccessful. Although all agreed to proclamations of “mutual friendship and cooperation” and to the objective of “bringing about the coexistence and co-prosperity of all of the races of the world,” organizational and sectarian differences prevailed and the projects quickly sputtered out.88 Onisaburò concluded that he needed to establish a secular organization to promote peace and humanitarian aims on a worldwide scale. By creating a nonreligious group, Oomoto could tap new markets, attracting the support of Japanese who believed in humanitarian activity but had no wish to convert, especially not to a new religion condemned by the authorities. An additional potential market lay in overseas branches—supporters abroad could join while maintaining local religious beliefs and practices. The Jinrui Aizenkai, or ULBA, was born, and Deguchi Uchimaru was named its head. Typical of Onisaburò’s love of wordplay, he chose characters for jinrui aizen that could also be read “Oo-ho-mo-to” if one used kotodama principles.89 The ULBA aimed to create between 1,200 and 1,300 branches in Japan.90 Its main principles included that “the world is one, and mankind are naturally brethren” and “war and violence must be rendered impossible.”91 The founding principles also stressed that members should “respect all indigenous cultures” and “resolve to realize the ideal of world peace, based on a comprehension of the common origin of religions and on universal love and brotherhood.”92 In August 1925 the ULBA launched its official organ, the Jinrui aizen shimbun, originally a four-page tabloid that doubled in size by February of the next year.93 Although the ULBA was nominally nonsectarian, the paper reflected the full range of issues and activities that Oomoto promoted. Its main message was that world peace could not be achieved via the system of nation-states and had to be cultivated through the power of the spirit. The paper contained a wide array of articles that made international and political analysis accessible to the masses. Reflecting widespread popular dissatisfaction over Japan’s international status, it offered frank criticism

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of Japan’s diplomatic efforts, including its participation at the League of Nations and in disarmament talks.94 Criticism of the rising tide of Marxism in Japan, especially in the universities, appeared frequently, as did unwaveringly hostile articles toward materialism and Social Darwinism.95 The paper also reported on spiritualist developments around the world, and it included light-hearted columns offering jokes, cartoons, rakugo comic monologues, Esperanto lessons, letters from missionaries posted abroad, and even tips for economical household management. A dedicated corps of followers throughout the country peddled copies of the newspaper door-to-door for donations, encouraging their neighbors to support the ULBA (figure 5.2). By 1935, the paper was distributed in twenty-two countries and circulation reached 1 million.96 A primary area of activity for the ULBA was providing charitable relief in Manchuria. Together with the Kòmanjikai, Tao Yuan’s secular wing, it dispensed rice and free medical care to refugees in the war-torn region.97 ULBA women’s associations joined with Kòmanjikai’s to perform nursing and to pay condolence calls to local families.98 Onisaburò’s son-in-law Hidemaru acted as Oomoto’s main emissary to Manchuria, since Onisaburò was prohibited from returning for several years following the Mongolian inci-

figure 5.2.  Street promotion campaign for Jinrui aizen shimbun.

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dent. Hidemaru gave lectures and sermons, performed chinkon healings, and distributed calligraphies by the tens of thousands. His brother-in-law Uchimaru lobbied powerful Japanese railroad executives in Manchuria to gain permission to obtain land, build a headquarters in the region, and distribute the Jinrui aizen shimbun. The ULBA quickly established chapters in Mukden and Dairen, followed by others in Fushun, Shenyang, Chanchun, Harbin, and Dalian, all large urban areas where the ULBA could reach new audiences of both locals and Japanese settlers and officials. Throughout Korea, China, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, and South America, Oomoto missionary efforts were reoriented from the religio-centric Oomoto to the more broadly based humanitarianism of the ULBA. This shift did not entail fundamental differences in message, organization, or missionary activities. In both guises, Oomoto promoted the formation of youth groups, women’s groups, and arts movements. As in the case of Brazil (described in chapter 3), many ULBA missionaries practiced healing and spiritualist rituals in their new locales. Many ULBA branches, including those in Thailand, Brazil, and Ponape Island in the South Pacific, constructed Shinto-inspired shrines and celebrated Oomoto holidays commemorating Nao’s first kamigakari possession and Onisaburò’s birthday.99 Unlike the State Shinto enforced in the colonies, the ULBA did not require supporters to adopt Japanese subjectivity or repudiate their traditional religious beliefs. Furthermore, the ULBA provided pragmatic information in keeping with Oomoto’s views on agrarianism, such as new farming methods, techniques for environmental protection, and nutritional counseling. The ULBA rapidly gained support abroad. Prior to its 1935 suppression, Oomoto opened 219 branches of the ULBA in Manchuria, compared to 28 “religious” branches. Headmen of a fifty-five village district in Inner Mongolia joined en masse, declaring themselves an “Aizen district” in honor of the Aizenkai.100 In August 1932, the president of the Manchurian Red Cross, Li Zhenbang, joined the ULBA and promised the support of 200,000 members for relief activities.101 Even anti-Japanese local army cliques were reportedly sympathetic to ULBA aims and aware of its ties to the Tao Yuan. ULBA members, identified by a special armband, were allowed to move freely in battle-torn areas to conduct their relief efforts (see figure 5.3).102 In comparison with the ULBA’s rapid ascent in Manchuria, other Japanese new religions fared less well. Tenrikyò began proselytizing in Manchuria as early as 1896, establishing 124 total branches by 1945.103 Konkòkyò arrived in Manchuria in 1908 but had a mere 22 branches.104 Most of the missionaries of new religions provided ministering and assistance to Japanese settlers and did not attempt to make any real connection to nonJapanese, with the exception of establishing Japanese language schools.105

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figure 5.3.  The ULBA (identified by the star armband), and its Tao Yuan associates, the Kòmanjikai (identified by the swastika), distributing food and aid in northern China.

The ULBA’s willingness to embrace local communities was one of the key factors in its success abroad. The ULBA also achieved rapid growth at home. Within ten years, the group established nearly a thousand branches in Japan, for a total of 1,241 by 1935—962 domestic and 279 abroad.106 Overseas offices were not limited to areas of Japanese imperialist expansion; branches were established in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Iran, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, and Yugoslavia.107 In a speech delivered in August 1935 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the ULBA, Onisaburò reiterated his hope for peace and unity among peoples of the world, repudiating political and military solutions for meeting this goal:    As individuals, we can treat the people of other countries of the world as brethren. In the realm of international relations, however, problems occur, and the spirit advocating one world disappears, while the spirit that benefits one’s own country arises. This is selfish love and not true love.

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   Though [our country] professes love, it’s a mixed-up love, like loving someone else’s property or someone else’s wife for one’s own sake. This is a very evil type of love. In society today, we face cutthroat competition but are told over and over to accept this “for the sake of the nation, for the sake of the nation.” If this does not become “for the sake of the people of the world,” we cannot achieve true peace in the world. The cold-blooded sentiment that Japanese talents and abilities should work only for the sake of the Japanese people has been expressed. People think it would be good for the peoples of China and Manchuria to develop their own abilities, but it’s never said to be for the sake of the world—we haven’t progressed at all! England for England, Italian talents for Italy—these are all examples of selfish love. . . . When I went to Mongolia, I touched Mongolians. I touched Chinese. I faced death by shooting and was covered with oil to be burned to death—but even so, as individuals, the officials, the guards, the police, whether Mongolian or whatever, were very kind. . . . If we truly carry the spirit of the love of humankind, people of all countries could join hands and like brothers and sisters, begin a great peace in the world. I firmly believe this.108

In this way, Onisaburò melodramatically expressed his belief that world peace and unity could be achieved at the individual level, a notion subversive to the sovereignty of the nation-state in international relations. Indeed, the speech leaves a universalist and strongly antistatist impression, demonstrating Onisaburò’s continued opposition to war and to official imperialist policy. Oomoto’s turn toward international activity reveals a number of insights on the relationship between nationalism and internationalism. First, we must be cautious about simplistically correlating nationalism with imperialist complicity and internationalism with opposition to imperialism. Western scholarship on imperial Japan often focuses on society’s support for expansion in this period, emphasizing widespread complicity with state goals; homogeneous, state-oriented nationalism; and, implicitly, enthusiasm for militaristic expansion.109 This approach tends to ignore the fissures, factions, and complexities under the surface of imperial Japan and tends to represent nationalism and internationalism as opposite poles. Shifts between particularism and universalism have been a central theme of modern Japanese history, but received historiography often views these as serial, rather than simultaneous, trends, positing a peaceful, internationalist 1920s, marked by liberalism and cosmopolitanism, against a violent and nationalist 1930s of totalitarianism and insularity.110 Recently, however,

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scholars of Japan are recognizing that nationalism and internationalism are not “contradictory value systems” but “mutually reinforcing entities.”111 Each represents values and goals that often “overlap with . . . each other and . . . are so intertwined that it may be impossible to completely disentangle them.”112 Oomoto’s new international initiatives provide an example of such intertwined values. Its efforts represented a form of opposition to the state’s aggressively militarist policy, but it was conducting its own aggressive expansion of religious mission. Oomoto’s actions in Asia were indeed multivalent and reflected a conflicting variety of goals and motivations. The ULBA was not simply engaged in a selfless search for moral community transcending national borders. The ULBA and its Chinese partner, Kòmanjikai, took Western religio-charitable institutions as their model and sought to participate in the same kind of benevolent cultural superiority they observed emanating from Western imperialists. Their humanitarian impulses existed in a tangled web of motives that also included patriotism and the desire for personal glory, as clearly seen in Onisaburò’s Mongolian mission. On their part, Tao Yuan/Kòmanjikai leaders were heirs to the long tradition of local gentry participation in charitable works, such as famine and disaster relief, as a means of consolidating status in their local arenas.113 Furthermore, they viewed collaboration with “Japan” as the route to best ensure stability in their local regions and did not necessarily differentiate between official and unofficial Japanese organizations. Both Oomoto and the Tao Yuan illustrate that internationalism, while transcending the nation, arises out of local and historically specific circumstances.114 Because of this double perspective Oomoto could conceive of the international only through local and national concerns. Japan’s initial experience of modern nationalism in the Meiji period was underpinned by Social Darwinism and notions of national and racial hierarchies propagated by the West. Thus, despite genuine humanitarian sentiment and assertion of racial and religious equality, Oomoto’s vision of the international could not help but contain a hierarchical, taxonomic view of the world that reflected prevailing ideologies and global realities. It tailored its activities accordingly, treating Asian nations as weaker brethren that required spiritual leadership and material assistance while treating European countries as respected elder brothers whose approval was sought through cosmopolitan initiatives like Esperanto and through the promotion of exoticized aspects of Japanese culture that Europeans found desirable. Like the West, Oomoto participated in the objectification of weaker nations as an exotic Other. In this case, Mongolia represented an untouched frontier, a vast space of fantasy and infinite possibility. Like Christian missionaries who viewed uncivilized Asians and

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Africans as souls ripe for harvest, Onisaburò viewed Mongolians as religiously immature and ready for domination. Second, in our attempts to understand popular Japanese nationalism in the 1920s and ’30s, we should not assume that the jingoistic sentiment expressed by the mainstream media and emphasized by Western historians was wholeheartedly shared by all Japanese. There is no doubt that Japanese expansion abroad was generally cheered by the masses for the economic opportunities it provided, for the romantic sense of a new frontier, and for emulating the “civilizing” actions of the West. It is likely, however, that most ordinary Japanese would prefer to be viewed as compassionate benefactors rather than as militarist aggressors, as would most governments and individuals worldwide. The ULBA’s rapid growth demonstrates that hundreds of thousands of individuals supported an organization that opposed war and violence as the means to increase national power, preferring humanitarian activity for enhancing Japan’s international influence. Oomoto’s internationalist activity, including its ecumenical initiatives, promotion of Esperanto, and creation of the ULBA, reflected Onisaburò’s astute assessment that larger pools of support could be tapped domestically and abroad by emphasizing the universalistic and humanistic sentiments that flourished in the 1920s after World War I. During the interwar years many religious organizations around the world, including both institutionalized and new religions, championed ecumenicalism and global peace as a component of their utopian vision. Ecumenical organizations established in the 1920s and ’30s included influential religious theorist Rudolph Otto’s Inter-Religious League and British explorer Sir Francis Younghusband’s World Congress of Faiths. During the same period, advocacy of world peace and teachings focused on individual efforts to support the realization of peace were key doctrines for numerous new religious movements as diverse as Baha’i, Jamaica’s Rastafari movement, and Father Divine’s Universal Peace Mission Movement, headquartered in Harlem but with branches in France, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia. Father Divine (1880–1965, née George Baker) was a radical charismatic entrepreneur very much in the Onisaburò mold. Considered controversial by many in mainstream society, he acquired wealth through real estate, restaurants, and other businesses and used his assets to establish economic cooperatives for the poor, host banquets for thousands during the Depression, and lead anti-lynching and anti-discrimination political initiatives. Like Kòdo, his Universal Peace Mission advocated a radical program of economic and political reform for the state. His stance on world peace declared that nations must return all territory taken by force. Just as Onisaburò’s view of the international order was informed by Nativism, Father Divine’s notions of nationalism and internationalism

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stressed the superiority of American values, embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.115 With the ULBA, Onisaburò superficially modified Oomoto religiosity in order to attract new consumers, including urbanites and intellectuals, who kept abreast of international developments and were deeply concerned with Japan’s status abroad, and colonials and Chinese who desired sources of affiliation with Japan. Oomoto’s international awareness and its physical presence abroad helped it gain greater legitimacy in the eyes of many at home. In the 1930s, the focus of Oomoto activity shifted once again, from the international to the domestic, as a new mood of nationalistic patriotism seized Japanese society. As described in the following chapter, Onisaburò responded to this trend by creating even more organizations and fields of activity.



Chapter Six



A Patriotic Turn and the Second Suppression



In February 1931 during the Oomoto Setsubun Festival, an annual rite that both commemorated the initiation of Nao’s Ofudesaki and reflected an older tradition of banishing demons at winter’s end in preparation for the spring planting, Onisaburò prophesied that the year would bring war. The prediction was based on his reading of the numbers 1931 as ikusa no hajime, or the beginning of war. A different calendrical calculation, based on the reign of the mythical Emperor Jimmu, placed the year at 2591, which Onisaburò read jigoku no hajime, or the beginning of hell.1 Onisaburò interpreted these kotodama-derived omens as the beginning of the long-awaited “demolition and reconstruction” (tatekae, tatenaoshi), which would wipe away corruption and exploitation and usher in a new world of social and economic justice under the governance of the kami. The 1921 suppression had taught Onisaburò to temper his apocalyptic tone. Rather than proclaiming impending doom, he linked prophecy with current international and domestic affairs and capitalized on the swelling patriotic and nationalistic mood in the early 1930s as yet another means of propagating Oomoto beliefs by tying them to larger trends in society. The 1929 New York stock market crash plunged Japan, too, into economic depression. Preceded by the Shòwa panic in March 1927, which closed the doors of many medium-sized banks, and exacerbated by Japan’s untimely return to the gold standard in 1930, which raised the price of exports, and by government deflationary policies and budgetary cutbacks, the failure of the stock market sent the national economy into a nosedive. Between 1929 and 1931, exports fell by 50 percent, and unemployment soared as many small and medium-sized businesses laid off workers or closed their doors permanently. With the scarcity of urban jobs, many workers returned to their rural villages to seek work but found that desperate economic conditions were even worse in the countryside. A decline in international consumer demand 170

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for silk owing to the Depression hurt the 2 million rural families engaged in sericulture and countless other families supported by income from girls employed in textile mills.2 The years between 1929 and 1931 witnessed particularly low prices for rice and other farm products. Because of a record harvest in 1930, rice sold at half the cost of the previous year, and the average prices of farm products fell by 45 percent in the same period.3 The decline in farm income was matched by precipitous levels of farm debt. By 1932 many families owed two to three times their annual incomes, and total farm debt was estimated at twice the value of all farm production.4 Hardships were exacerbated by crop failures in 1931 in northeastern Japan, where food shortages reduced starving residents to collecting grubs and wild plants for survival. The government responded to the pervasive rural crisis with short-term aid in the form of small public works projects and payments to creditors to cover defaulted loans, but these were rightly judged by many as measures that benefited rural elites rather than those in greatest need.5 Organizations and individuals at all levels of society laid blame on the government for pandering to the interests of big business and landlords while failing to relieve the economic distress of workers and farmers. The masses of unemployed and hungry were especially receptive to revolutionary rhetoric from both right and left. The military also expressed rising discontent with the bureaucracy and political parties. Radical factions within the military despised Tokyo for its incompetence in alleviating domestic suffering.6 Idealistic young officers in the Kwantung Army believed that taking invasive action to save the Manchurian “lifeline” (seimeisen)—that is, rich natural resources and vast tracts of land—would help save the villages of rural Japan. They were aided and abetted by civilian organizations like the Gen’yòsha and Kokuryûkai, secret societies that promoted the Japanese domination of Asia. When Kwantung Army members orchestrated the Manchurian Incident in September 1931 as a rationale for occupying Manchuria, many politicians, the mass media, and a variety of patriotic groups viewed them as heroes whose brave actions could save Japan from its domestic economic woes.7 Support for international expansionism dovetailed with domestic discontent and desire to ease the suffering of the dispossessed. These two factors helped to create a wave of activity in the early 1930s among new and existing patriotic associations sometimes labeled the radical right wing. A wide variety of such groups emerged in response to the twin crises of the Depression and the Manchurian Incident, often known as the “period of national emergency.” As noted by Peter Duus, membership in patriotic associations doubled between 1932 and 1936, reaching six hundred thousand, and the composition of the radical right was “enormously complex,

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fragmented into many small groups.”8 Nevertheless, the history of the right wing in this period has tended to focus on intellectuals like Kita Ikki, Gondò Seikei, and Òkawa Shûmei and on violent radical groups who were inspired to commit “direct action” by the work of these theorists.9 Examples of such groups include the Blood Pledge Corps (Ketsumeidan), a pseudoBuddhist civilian organization that attempted to assassinate financial and industrial leaders in 1932 and gained a large degree of public sympathy during the trial process, and the Cherry Blossom Society (Sakurakai), a secret association of army officers who plotted to establish a military dictatorship.10 Yet considering the spike in membership in patriotic associations, there is no doubt that large numbers of ordinary Japanese were similarly outraged by the pervasive structure of privilege in society. Whether violent assassins or pacifist pamphleteers, those on the radical right shared a set of Nativistic values, rejecting the materialism and individualism associated with the West and calling for a revival of “Japanese spirit.” Some groups advocated agrarianism while others admired National Socialism, but all were united by an alternative view of the nation that was stridently antiestablishment and antistatist. Many retained an emperor-centered view of national identity, usually seeing the emperor as a proponent of the people who should be free of bureaucratic meddling, but contested orthodox state nationalism, which stressed loyalty, obedience, and sacrifice in the name of the state, instead favoring communitarian visions of social and economic justice. Such views were familiar ground for Oomoto. From 1931 to 1935 Onisaburò marshaled resources and supporters and threw himself and his organization wholeheartedly into right-wing patriotic activity that he believed would help usher in an era of divine governance. His religious vision of demolition and reconstruction resonated with popular demands for a Shòwa restoration—that is, a restoration of direct imperial rule to foster traditional values and communitarian society and to save Japan from domestic corruption and external threats.11 Yet, as noted by Hirose Kojirò, Oomoto’s call for the restoration of divine rule (shinsei fukko) differed markedly from the call for the restoration of imperial rule (òsei fukko) that motivated advocates of Shòwa restoration. The first was a spiritual initiative based on reverence for the true god, while the second was characterized by reverence for the imperial system, binding the populace, its ancestors, and ujigami clan gods to the emperor and Amaterasu through national shrines like Ise and Yasukuni.12 Onisaburò’s view of kokutai (national essence) also differed from official views. State authorities believed that kokutai was fostered by creating national subjects through education, military service, and other or-

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gans of state. Onisaburò believed that cultivating kokutai meant returning to god and creating a society where politics, economics, and education were based on God.13 Despite these differences in interpretation, Onisaburò recognized that burgeoning patriotism and widespread popular support for Japan’s initiatives in Manchuria could further Oomoto’s mission, and like most savvy entrepreneurs, he quickly committed resources to a hot opportunity. Dedicating enormous amounts of time and money to a new project that both supported his religious vision and his desire for organizational growth, he again demonstrated key measures of charismatic entrepreneurship. Of course, Onisaburò was not the only individual of the prewar era to interpret politics through a religious prism. Stephen Large describes the case of Akamatsu Katsumaro, a Diet member and leader of the National Socialist movement, who drew his core political values from his True Pure Land (Jòdò Shin) faith. Akamatsu, like Onisaburò, believed that “reality was mainly the product of spiritual, not material, forces” and that the goal of political activity should be the liberation of mankind. Unlike Onisaburò, he was himself a member of the elite and worked within the system to realize his religio-political aims.14 Nor was Oomoto the only nonofficial sect to appeal to supporters through a religious critique of state policy. Hommichi, founded in 1913, criticized its parent sect, Tenrikyò, for acquiescing to the emperor system in return for official status, denied the divinity of the emperor, warned of a coming world war, and advocated an agrarian-based pacifism. Like Oomoto, it was twice suppressed by the state, in 1927 and again in 1938. New religions based on the Lotus Sutra, such as Reiyûkai (established in 1925), often repeated Nichiren’s claim that the state must adopt the Lotus Sutra as the basis for national policy or face ruin.15 Under growing state authoritarianism, however, by the mid-1930s Reiyûkai and other emerging Lotus Sutra-based religions, such as Risshò Koseikai and Sòka Gakkai, tempered their message, avoiding criticism of national policy and usually conforming to State Shinto dogma. Oomoto’s heightened level of patriotic activity in the early 1930s paradoxically brought the negative attention of state agencies. Its new initiatives were more unambiguously political than past proselytizing activities, and authorities feared that the combination of heterodox religion and the radical right wing held the potential to organize fragmented patriotic groups into a formidable political foe demanding government reform and popular relief. Such fears led the authorities to initiate the second, fierce suppression of Oomoto in 1935.

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Oomoto Patriotic Activity Just as in the cases of Nativist initiatives and the establishment of the ULBA, Onisaburò’s engagement in 1930s patriotic political activity was motivated by religious belief. He responded to the “period of national emergency”—in his view, the commencement of the demolition and reconstruction—by leaping into action. Claiming that that Manchurian Incident clearly confirmed his prophecy of war, he immediately wired the Manchurian branches of the ULBA and its Chinese affiliate Kòmanjikai to provide relief operations for refugees, and he dispatched Hidemaru to oversee the enterprise. The ULBA, which had seventy-five branches in Manchuria, especially concentrated in the Mukden area, enlisted Buddhist and Confucian groups and Russian refugees in population resettlement efforts.16 Oomoto publications proclaimed that Japan had received a mission from heaven to guide the development of Manchuria and Mongolia but warned that its efforts would be misunderstood by other nations. Such statements upheld the Nativist view of Japan’s special role in the world but also retained the notion that the surest route to success in the region was through nonviolent cooperation with China. Oomoto publications like the Jinrui aizen shimbun advocated caution: “Do not occupy China. . . . Do not make the Chinese people the enemy. . . . occupied lands should be jointly governed through Chinese and Japanese cooperation.”17 Like the idealistic young officers of the Kwantung Army, Onisaburò believed that if handled correctly, Japanese influence in China could help level privilege and power at home, protect the nation, and advance national interests abroad. Oomoto thus rationalized army actions in Manchuria by linking these with the prophesied reconstruction, ignoring the potential disparity between its continued calls for international brotherhood and the brutal reality of expansionary tactics abroad. Oomoto enlisted the help of supporters from many corners of society in its patriotic efforts. Visitors of all ideological persuasions had flocked to Oomoto in the late 1920s and early 1930s, seeking an audience with the famed religious leader. Rightist supporters were more numerous than liberals, in part because of the strong antireligion movements on the left.18 According to his daughter Naohi, Onisaburò never refused to meet anyone who asked, and no matter what position visitors held in society, they received the same frank treatment.19 As a result of such magnanimous behavior, the chief of the Kameoka secret police later recalled, “Owing to Onisaburò’s all-embracing nature, there were . . . extreme right-wing elements, extreme left-wing elements, Fascist elements, and others all jumbled together, and it was a situation in which one expected bombs to go off at any moment. . . . Something had to be done about it.”20

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Toyama Mitsuru (1855–1947) and Uchida Ryòhei (1874–1937), leaders of two of the most notorious right-wing associations, the Genyòsha and Kokuryûkai, were frequent visitors to Kameoka. Oomoto allowed Uchida to publish essays in its journals. It is also clear that Onisaburò had followers and high connections in the army, including Itagaki Seishirò, Ishiwara Kanji, and Tatekawa Yoshitsugo—all at the center of the Manchurian Incident plot—as well as Shimazu Tsukasa, the head of the women’s household in the Imperial Palace.21 Oomoto’s web of political contacts reflects how both orthodox and oppositional groups in society sought alliance with dynamic religious movements. Yet, as noted by Jean Comaroff, “because they march to a different drummer” (that is, they are primarily spiritually rather than politically oriented), religious movements are “never reducible to the rhythm of temporal politics; inspirations remain out of step, their loyalties to worldly powers suspect.”22 Oomoto naturally mobilized its own organizations in its new patriotic initiative. The ULBA continued working actively in Manchuria, conducting proselytization and relief efforts and widely distributing its newspaper to Japanese civilians and military men. Political leaders in Tokyo, including Prince Saionji, worried that the Jinrui aizen shimbun, which attacked the government for failing to support troops and exposed corruption among the big business conglomerates (zaibatsu), might find a sympathetic ear among young army radicals.23 Oomoto’s network of youth groups, the Shòwa Seinenkai, established in 1929, conducted intensive membership drives and often led local patriotic activities, such as collecting funds for the financial relief of returning soldiers. They mounted a traveling exhibit on domestic national defense and conducted uniformed drill exercises throughout the country. Oomoto’s new women’s corps, the Shòwa Konseikai, formed in November 1932, also performed defense drills and made care packages for soldiers at the front (see figure 6.1).24 At this juncture, Oomoto renewed its earlier call for spiritual reform and the realization of divine governance under the banner of the Imperial Way (Kòdò). In 1933 the sect readopted the name Kòdò Oomoto. The term kòdò was in common usage well before this time but gained notoriety for its association with right-wing causes in the 1930s. During the nineteenth century, kòdògaku, or study of the Imperial Way, designated a Shintoist curriculum, as distinct from Confucian studies or Western forms of knowledge.25 Oomoto’s earlier adoption of the term indicated its Nativist orientation, including advocacy of an egalitarian, utopian society ostensibly based on ancient Japanese models described in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki but updated to reflect contemporary conditions. In the 1930s the term was increasingly employed by a variety of groups claiming a special relationship

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with the emperor, rather than with an idealized Ancient Imperial Way. The Kòdò-ha, or Imperial Way Faction, within the Kwantung Army was popular with radical young officers for its romantic advocacy of spiritual mobilization and traditional fighting tactics over modern warfare.26 Kòdò Bukkyò, or Imperial Way Buddhism, first established in 1938, advocated the worship of the emperor and the unity of Buddhism and the state. Kòdò Oomoto reissued the programs and ideas it had advocated over a decade earlier, calling for radical economic reforms and social leveling, in widely distributed pamphlets and publications. Reflecting the Kòdò-ha’s military values, Oomoto and its related groups also propagated the belief that the state’s program for national resuscitation during the national emergency relied on materialistic and technological means, rather than the spiritual resuscitation that was truly necessary for national advancement.27 Like other elements of the radical right, Kòdò Oomoto simultaneously expressed deep patriotism alongside strident criticism of the state, bureaucratic policies, and big business, which perpetuated injustice and inequality. Throughout the early 1930s there was a remarkable amount of activity across a wide variety of interest groups within Oomoto, including the youth and women’s corps, the internationalist ULBA, the Meikòsha arts societies, and the Esperanto societies. Publications poured forth from each Oomoto affiliate. Undeterred by its experiences with the Taishò nichinichi, the sect bought several large, local newspapers, including the Kitaguni shimbun, the Tanshu jihò, and Tokyo’s Mayû shimbun.28 Onisaburò acted as either proprietor or president for each new acquisition, and all were mouthpieces to proclaim the need for kòdò. Publishing activities included not just these dailies, but also around two hundred different books, pamphlets, and collections of photographs and artworks by Oomoto’s in-house publishing company, Tenseisha. Circulation for the religious journal Kami no kuni reached 20,000 per month.29 In July 1934, the Jinrui aizen shimbun reached a reported circulation of 1 million. As a comparison, at this time the Yomiuri shimbun, a leading national daily, had a circulation of 529,000, and the Osaka Asahi shimbun, the largest paper in the Kansai area, reached 635,000 readers.30 Onisaburò himself was remarkably prolific in the early 1930s. In October 1933 he resumed the recitation of the Reikai monogatari, dormant since 1926. By August of the following year he had composed nine additional installments, many in waka verse, for a final total of eighty-one volumes.31 In 1934, Onisaburò’s collected works (zenshû), eight volumes of around six hundred pages each, were published by Banyûsha and widely advertised in major metropolitan newspapers.32 The repackaged Kòdò struck a popular chord during the so-called “na-

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tional emergency.” By 1935 there were 1,990 local Oomoto branches and over 9,000 trained missionaries.33 The properties at Kameoka and Ayabe had developed into impressive campuses. According to the Home Ministry’s Special Police periodical, Tokkò geppò, Onisaburò, in his name alone, held 5 million yen worth of property and goods, mostly donated by supporters.34 Because of the proliferation of interest groups within Oomoto and overlapping memberships within these organizations, it is difficult to accurately estimate the number of Oomoto believers and supporters during this period. Home Ministry and Special Police reports estimated 400,000 Oomoto followers and 250,000 ULBA followers, with some overlap between these two groups.35 Murakami Shigeyoshi places the number at 1–3 million. Oomoto drew a surprising percentage of well-educated and prominent members of society. The Asahi newspaper estimated that 30 percent of Oomoto believers at the time were university graduates, a remarkably high ratio that challenged the received notion that new religions appealed primarily to the rural uneducated. Another 40 percent were graduates of high schools or specialized schools.36 Yet in contrast with the intellectuals who entered Oomoto during its Taishò period expansion, these new educated members did not form cliques or factions against Onisaburò. He had effectively consolidated leadership and maintained managerial control over Oomoto enterprises with his sons-in-law. Despite Oomoto’s prosperity, Onisaburò, assessing the strength of patriotic sentiment, decided to create yet another group that would propagate its ideals but not be bound to its doctrine—that is, a domestically oriented version of the superficially secular ULBA. He drew upon his network of contacts among politicians, bureaucrats, and patriotic associations to launch a massive new organization, the Shòwa Shinseikai. The establishment and growth of the Shinseikai is a complex subject that can provide many avenues of future research. Here I limit my analysis to a brief sketch of its most visible activities in the period preceding Oomoto’s second suppression in 1935. On July 22, 1934, at Tokyo’s Kudan Army Hall, three thousand leading members of society, politics, and business gathered to inaugurate the Shinseikai, a new patriotic association that would help Japan weather its national emergency. The new group, approved by a wide spectrum of conservative opinion makers, provided the potential to unite the fragmented patriotic associations and right-wing movements under a single umbrella. Its inauguration at Kudan Hall, adjacent to Yasukuni, the shrine of the war dead that continues to be a source of controversy over Japan’s war responsibility, was symbolic of its patriotic orientation. Those present at the ceremony included Home Minister Gotò Fumio; the ministers of education,

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agriculture, and forestry; fourteen members of the Diet; the speaker of the House of Representatives and eleven other members of that body; fifteen senior officials of the armed forces, including two major generals and six admirals; seven university professors; and dozens of other important leaders in Japanese society.37 Fifteen hundred congratulatory telegrams poured in from others who could not attend. At the ceremony, Onisaburò was named “commander” of the new group, with his son-in-law Uchimaru and Uchida Ryòhei as vice-commanders. The Shinseikai was avowedly neither religious nor political, though its ultimate objective, to build an ideal society where there would be no need for war, seemed a bit of both.38 At its inaugural meeting, the Shinseikai announced its six founding principles: We hope to establish the unity of religion and governance [saisei itchi] based on the core meaning of the Ancient Imperial Way [Kòdò].    We reverently accept the oracles of our heavenly ancestors and the imperial commands and hope to accomplish the great mission of the divine nation Japan.    We affirm our incomparable national essence and hope to establish systems of economics and international relations based on the Ancient Imperial Way.    We have faith in the Ancient Imperial Way as a national teaching and hope to establish this as the source of the people’s education and the spirit of leadership.    We aim to establish a substantial national defense and prosperous farming as the basis of the national essence.    We proclaim and exalt the sacred Ancient Imperial Way and resolve to practice universal love [jinrui aizen].39

These vague, lofty proclamations seemed to differ very little from the aims of the religious organization, though their valence would depend on the listener’s interpretation of the meaning of kòdò. The prevalence of Oomoto beliefs in the founding principles indicates that the organization had a religio-political orientation at odds with state boundaries between religion and politics and also indicates Onisaburò’s guiding hand in establishing and directing the new group. The new group was structured into eight divisions: shrines (jingi), politics and economics, foreign relations, philosophy and education, national defense, oratorical campaigns, regulation (tòsei), and accounting.40 It was headquartered in the Yotsuya district of Tokyo. Onisaburò moved there from Kameoka to take up organizational leadership on a full-time basis,

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leaving the religious business of Oomoto in the hands of his son-in-law Hidemaru. The religious heir-apparent, who had developed a strong reputation as a healer and spiritualist, took up the primary task of traveling to Oomoto branches for inspirational visits. The new group relied on the support of existing Oomoto organizations, such as the youth and women’s groups, as the basis for establishing Shinseikai branches. This strategy, first successfully deployed with the ULBA, made for incredibly rapid growth. Within one year, there were 104 branches and 25 local headquarters offices, and the group claimed 8 million supporters, though this figure included signatories to Shinseikai petitions and so did not represent active supporters.41 Within that same year, the Shinseikai had delivered 2,889 lectures, attended by over a million individuals.42 As the commander of Shinseikai, Onisaburò traveled extensively across the nation, making speeches, meeting regional leaders, attending ceremonies, and distributing artworks. In short, he engaged in the same activities he conducted in his capacity as a religious leader. One of the Shòwa Shinseikai’s primary activities was the circulation of petitions expressing opposition to government policies and advocating a variety of patriotic causes. Occasionally, petitions were directed toward international policy. One such petition expressed popular opposition to the 1922 Washington Conference Treaty, a nine-country pact limiting Japanese naval arms; it called for early abrogation of the treaty, which was due to expire in 1936.43 The Shinseikai’s primary focus, however, was domestic affairs. Rural relief was a natural forum for Shinseikai activity. Oomoto had espoused popular agrarianism since its inception, advocating the spiritual and economic revitalization of the countryside (see chapter 2). It had recruited large numbers of supporters in farming regions like Hokkaido and Tòhoku, hard hit by crop failures. By the 1930s agrarianism was a philosophy shared by a variety of groups and individuals at all levels of society. The Shinseikai joined intellectuals, rural advocates, and other lobbyists in widely publicized campaigns for farm relief. Their efforts were targeted toward alleviating suffering from the poor harvests that plagued the nation from 1932 to 1935, especially in the northeastern Tòhoku region, which faced famine conditions. Shinseikai activists circulated petitions condemning the government’s failure to act, demanding the deferment of farm debts for five years, and calling for government aid to heavily afflicted regions.44 Oomoto and the Shinseikai jointly distributed rice and other relief in hard-hit regions (see figures 6.1 and 6.2) and made appeals for contributions in many major publications, further increasing public pressure on the state to take action.45 In December 1931 the group organized a parade of nine hundred mem-

figure 6.1.  Oomoto’s women’s corps, the Shòwa Kenseikai, assembles care packages for military troops.

figure 6.2.  Famine relief rice for the Tòhoku region donated by the Shòwa Shinseikai and youth group.

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bers, who marched from Tokyo station to the imperial palace, where they conducted military-style drills.46 Shinseikai “troops” also conducted uniformed drill exercises, often supervised by Onisaburò mounted on a white horse. Since Emperor Hirohito rode a white horse, Onisaburò’s appropriation of this prerogative was later described by the media as a source of lèsemajesté charges. The Shinseikai was also active in the well-known campaign to condemn the “Emperor as Organ Theory” (tennò kikan setsu). This political theory, formulated by Tokyo Imperial University law professor Minobe Tatsukichi (1878–1948), held that national sovereign power rested with the state and not with the emperor, who exercised power only in his capacity as the highest organ of the state under a constitutional structure.47 This theory was first circulated and widely supported during the Taishò period, but given the rightward shift in politics and society, it was publicly attacked in the Diet in February 1934 as contrary to the national essence (kokutai). The theory was condemned by a diverse group of academics, bureaucrats, politicians, the military, the media, and ordinary citizens.48 The Shinseikai was crucial in organizing popular opposition and sponsoring speech programs that denounced the theory because it denied the basis of Kòdò and the possibility of a true Shòwa restoration in favor of a modern and materialistic view of the monarchy.49 In January 1935, the Shinseikai also began gathering signatures to directly petition the emperor to create an imperial cabinet with an imperial family member as prime minister. Onisaburò believed that if this situation were enacted, it would represent the unity of rites and governance and would be one step forward in the reconstruction.50 This petition campaign seems to be one of the crucial factors in the government’s view of Shinseikai as a dangerous radical group. By spearheading the Shinseikai, Onisaburò made a public shift from religion to politics, and this change alarmed many in the establishment. The group was unmistakably associated with the radical right, a fervently patriotic, anti-establishment association, yet nonetheless was supported by key members of the ruling political party, bureaucracy, and military. Because of its potential capability to unite the numerous, fragmented patriotic associations using Oomoto branches around the country and to thus mobilize millions, authorities feared the Shinseikai’s ability to foment mass revolutionary activity. Shinseikai supporters, in contrast, viewed themselves much as their Nativist counterparts in the nineteenth century had—that is, as true patriots acting according to their own sense of right and wrong in the best interests of the nation in the face of government ineptitude in both international and domestic affairs. For much of the general public, however,

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the spectre of a heterodox religious leader amassing uniformed cadres and conducting martial parades was unnerving and intolerable. The mainstream press viewed Onisaburò as a dangerous monster (kaibutsu), well financed and well organized with an extensive network of zealous supporters.51 Police worried about the volatile mixture of people drawn to Oomoto by Onisaburò’s expansive character and charisma. By September 1934, just two months after the Shinseikai was launched, the Home Ministry identified it as one of the fourteen most powerful groups among over four hundred active right-wing associations in the country.52 The parent organization, Oomoto, provided funds, organizational skills, and publication support. From a legal and political standpoint a heterodox religion could be more easily suppressed than a patriotic association supported by many political and military elites. Onisaburò probably expected some hostility from the police or Home Ministry for his political activity, but he likely assumed it would be on the scale of the 1921 incident and that his organizations would be able to resume business in due course. No doubt the generally optimistic Onisaburò did not expect the utter destruction of every organizational body affiliated with Oomoto. As noted by his biographer, Murakami Shigeyoshi, Onisaburò failed to fully realize the extent of the changes that had taken place over his lifetime. In his youth, Japan was a newly developing state. Activists for a variety of social justice and reform programs found space in society for their initiatives. Forty years later, Japan had evolved into a strongly centralized imperialist power, tightly controlled by political and militaryindustrial interests.53 By the 1930s, there was little real opportunity for the people to save the nation through petitions and protests, and for this reason, other radical rightists turned to violent direct action. Onisaburò’s faith in the coming demolition and reconstruction failed to factor in the increasingly authoritarian system of State Shinto and national control of religions, under which his heterodox sect and all of its manifestations would never be tolerated, especially not when they crossed the boundary into political activism. Rumors of suppression were widespread by January 1935, but Onisaburò ignored them. He encouraged the Shinseikai and Oomoto to continue their activities, stating, “If we grumble and hesitate, it’ll be too late. If we plant the seeds, the flowers will eventually bloom.”54 He believed that he was fulfilling his mission to act as a servant of God in the establishment of a divine government. Despite the political tinge of the Shinseikai, his orientation remained religious, and, like Akamatsu Katsumarò, he stressed over and over that a national revolution would be incomplete and meaningless without spiritual revolution.55

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The Second Suppression In early 1935 the Home Ministry ordered Kyoto police to prepare to suppress the sect. Police completed their investigations of high-ranking Oomoto executives by March, and by mid-September they had reviewed all of Oomoto’s vast publications for evidence of sedition. Among other charges, they planned to accuse the sect of violation of the Peace Preservation Law (chian ijihò), passed in 1925 as a mechanism to regulate and suppress the left wing by criminalizing any acts against the national essence (kokutai).56 Under this law, the Special Higher Police (Tokkò) had monitored and regulated the media and political meetings and campaigns and arrested over fifty thousand Communists and Socialists. Oomoto’s second suppression was the first application of the law to a religious organization. In October 1935, concrete plans were laid for a large-scale invasion of Oomoto with no advance warning; it was to be conducted simultaneously in Kyoto, Tokyo, and in branches throughout the country. On December 8 police and authorities launched their operation. Five hundred police mobilized in Kyoto and split into teams for expeditions to Kameoka and Ayabe. It was rumored that Oomoto had a large weapons stash. To avoid alerting potentially armed guards the police extinguished the lights of their transport buses and removed their shoes to muffle their footsteps as they silently crept up to the sect’s buildings.57 Many religious pilgrims and workers were in residence, and over five hundred people were detained for questioning. Onisaburò and Sumiko, who were in Matsue attending a religious festival, were arrested by a force of two hundred police who surrounded their lodgings. As in 1921, police ransacked Kameoka and Ayabe, seeking evidence of lèse-majesté. They seized over fifty thousand items, including writings, letters, diaries, memos, photos, and household possessions.58 One hundred nine regional facilities were also raided, and eighty-eight local leaders were arrested and brought to Kyoto.59 As in the first suppression, authorities were unable to find concealed weapons or evidence of revolution. They justified their actions through questionable evidence that was eagerly passed on to the public by the unsympathetic mass media. For example, family swords confiscated from individual believers’ homes were presented as evidence of hidden weapons; silver and copper coins from donation boxes at the Kameoka and Ayabe campuses were described as funds for armed rebellion; and an old mirror and sword, placed near an altar, brought an accusation of lèse-majesté for the mockery of Japan’s Three Sacred Treasures (the mirror, sword, and jewel).60 A Home Ministry pamphlet exposing the “truth of the Oomoto incident” was distributed widely throughout the country, and sales and

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distribution of any Oomoto publications denying the state’s allegations were banned.61 No one came to Oomoto’s immediate defense. The mainstream mass media, longtime critics of the sect and of popular religion in general, publicized the state’s unproven accusations because the sensationalism made for great copy. The media were responsible for circulating the claim—still prevalent today—that the suppression occurred because Onisaburò dared to ride a white horse and to travel in a motorcade.62 Established religions, firmly under state control, were reluctant to press the issue of religious persecution. They were probably relieved to be rid of the competition presented by Oomoto popularity. Right-wing supporters of the Shinseikai had happily used Oomoto’s extensive organization and funds to advance patriotic causes, but they abandoned Oomoto in its hour of need. The duplicitous Uchida Ryòhei accused Onisaburò of planning “to usurp the government,” adding that “using religious power for political ends will create trouble.”63 Military men on the radical right offered no support. Many were embroiled in the planning and aftermath of the February 26, 1936, insurrection, in which fifteen hundred rebel troops seized government offices in central Tokyo, planning to assassinate key officials and to initiate a Shòwa restoration under a military dictatorship. The emperor himself ordered military action against the rebellion, which was quickly quashed. Leaders were executed, along with Kita Ikki, whose work had inspired the rebels. Kita had reportedly approached Onisaburò to help finance the rebellion, but Onisaburò, generally known to be a soft touch for rightist causes, allegedly responded, “God says it is wrong to give money for murder.”64 The destruction of Oomoto facilities commenced in May 1936, when the case was barely under way in court. In one month’s time, the authorities had mobilized 9,934 persons to completely destroy Oomoto buildings.65 Authorities took action under the same obscure 1872 ordinance that had been used to justify the demolitions following the 1921 suppression. Yet on this occasion, the extent of destruction was absolute. It included not only religious sanctuaries but also office buildings and the individual homes of leaders and followers. Tomb markers in the Oomoto cemetery were defaced, heads were lopped off of statues, and the large Tenseisha printing factory was completely destroyed, along with eight hundred thousand books and journals in its inventory.66 Wooden buildings were torched. Those made of concrete, such as the Palace of the Moon, designed by Onisaburò himself, were dynamited. The police used fifteen hundred sticks for that building alone.67 All items associated with Oomoto were gathered into bonfires so huge that it was said the ash and dust from demolitions hung in the skies of Kameoka for days.

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Saleable goods, such as artworks, pianos, furniture, and household items, were sold off for a fraction of their value (if not stolen by the police). Approximately forty acres of land—fifty thousand tsubo—in Kameoka and Ayabe were sold at eight sen per tsubo, or the going rate for a pack of cigarettes.68 As further humiliation, Onisaburò was made to bear the costs of demolition himself. Like the campaigns against popular religions in Republican China described by Prasenjit Duara, the crusade against Oomoto seemed greatly out of proportion with the actual threat it posed.69 The destruction continued at Oomoto sites around the country. Alongside the wrecking of local shrines and offices, police defaced the fifty-odd massive stone monuments Onisaburò had inscribed with his poetry and installed at locations throughout the country. They threw small Oomoto pilgrimage shrines located on uninhabited islands into the sea. In Taiwan, Korea, and even the islands of the South Seas, meetings were prohibited and facilities destroyed. Over a thousand followers were subjected to police interrogations, often involving violence and torture. Oomoto believers throughout the country were harassed and persecuted, ostracized in their neighborhoods and villages, and fired from their jobs.70 Surprisingly, the majority refused to renounce their faith. Anthropologist Umesao Tadao estimates that 90 percent of Oomoto followers remained stalwart supporters; if so, the sect had the lowest rate of defection among religious movements suppressed by the authorities in the prewar period.71 Perhaps this was because followers believed the suppression had been prophesied by Onisaburò. In any case, underground Oomoto movements soon developed in every region of Japan, enabling Oomoto to reemerge rapidly in the immediate postwar era as a leader in the international peace movement.72 On March 13, 1936, Onisaburò, Sumiko, and sixty-one Oomoto executives faced their first arraignment. All were charged with lèse-majesté. Twelve persons, including Onisaburò, were further charged with violating the Peace Preservation Law. The charges against Oomoto under this law set a precedent for suppression of any religious group that seemed to threaten the national polity. It was used in the brutal, subsequent suppressions of Hitonomichi Kyòdan in 1937 and Tenri Kenkyûkai in 1938.73 In 1940, the state enacted the Religious Organizations Law (Shûkyò Dantai Ho), which obviated the need to use the Peace Preservation Law against unruly religious sects. Under the new law, the state could immediately dissolve any religious group whose doctrine or actions were judged incompatible with the abstract kokutai.74 During the preliminary hearings, held from December 1937 to October 1938, the state presented over thirteen thousand pages of evidence.75 Some

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of the state’s main evidence consisted of allegations and interpretations difficult to substantiate. For example, during a ritual at the Miroku Festival in 1928, Onisaburò handed apples, daikon radishes, and taro roots from the altar to his wife, family, and Oomoto executives as symbolic representations of the descent of Miroku, the future Buddha, and of his own role as the savior Miroku. The state claimed this action designated the establishment of a secret society that was aimed at revolution and determined to “abolish the sovereign system of the great Japanese empire.”76 A poem composed by Onisaburò on the death of the Taishò Emperor describing how “black clouds cover the Imperial Palace” was presented as proof of his disrespectful intentions—that is, lèse-majesté.77 Despite such hollow evidence, the judgment handed down in February 1940 found forty-five of the accused guilty of lèse-majesté and nine guilty of violation of the Peace Preservation Law as well. Onisaburò was sentenced to life imprisonment. His son-in-law Uchimaru received fifteen years, and other sentences ranged from two to twelve years.78 Despite growing authoritarianism in the society the Japanese court system continued to operate in a legal and constitutional manner. In July 1942, during a second trial at the Osaka court of appeals, the judge overturned the guilty verdicts for violation of the Peace Preservation Law because of a lack of proof. He also dismissed the majority of the lèse-majesté cases. Between the two trials the defense had repeatedly charged the police and prosecutor’s office with coercion in obtaining statements from the defendants. In 1939, the defense charged that the prosecutors had fabricated statements attributed to Hidemaru, who became and remained mentally ill after suffering a nervous breakdown in 1936 as a result of torture.79 Throughout the long trial and appeal Oomoto followers traveled by train to the courthouse, crowding the hallways to express their support.80 During the drawn-out legal process, Onisaburò remained characteristically cheerful and optimistic. He frequently behaved mischievously in court, sticking out his tongue when the life sentence was passed, telling dirty jokes and puns, and loudly feigning illness when he was bored with the proceedings.81 At other times, especially when questioned on interpretations of Oomoto doctrine and whether it called for armed revolution, a more serious Onisaburò would calmly and lucidly explain the meanings of intricate textual passages and prophecies.82 In August 1942, the appeals court released the remaining prisoners, and Onisaburò and Sumiko were set free, just as the tide began to turn against Japan in the Pacific War. The couple returned to a small experimental Oomoto farm on the outskirts of Kameoka, where Onisaburò lived out his days quietly, surrounded by family and loyal followers. Japan, however, was still at war and in a state

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of emergency. Among the streams of visitors to Kameoka were many soldiers leaving for the front. According to his grandson Kyòtarò, Onisaburò advised them to fire their guns in the air to avoid killing and gave them secret amulets that could be read “victory for the enemy” using kotodama techniques, pronouncing his prophecy of Japan’s defeat.83 He also refused to cooperate with military and naval officers who sought his prophetic and psychic gifts to help determine war strategy.84 With Japan’s defeat in August 1945 and the promulgation of freedom of religion under the new constitution came the opportunity to reconstruct Oomoto. Onisaburò renamed the organization Aizen-en, the Garden of Love and Goodness, and immediately set about planning publications, missionary work, and the reconstruction of buildings.85 On December 8, 1945, a solemn special service marked the ten-year anniversary of the second Oomoto suppression. In August of the following year, while supervising construction, Onisaburò suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and never fully regained his strength. He celebrated his seventy-seventh birthday with a festival in the restored Ten-onkyo sanctuary and died peacefully in January 1947. In the postwar period, the U.S. Occupation forces ordered the Japanese government to cease all support of State Shinto and to guarantee freedom of religion, a right enshrined in Article 20 of the postwar constitution. They overturned the Religious Organizations Law of 1940, designed to impose strict controls on religions, replacing it with the Religious Corporations Law (Shûkyò Hòjin Rei), which allowed religious groups to become nonprofit corporations by registering with the government. The lifting of restrictions on religion resulted in the “rush hour of the gods,” an immediate, widespread flowering of new religious movements. The new religions formerly approved under the state system of Sect Shinto (Tenrikyò, Konkokyò, and Kurozumikyò) prospered and were joined by hundreds of other new religious movements that rapidly drew hundreds of thousands of followers. Dozens of sects emerged from under the organizational umbrellas required by Sect Shinto, declaring independence. In 1947, under the new Religious Corporations Law there were 207 recognized new religions of national scale. By 1951, there were 720.86 During the same time, established Buddhist sects and Shrine Shinto lost support and influence, perhaps because of their association with the wartime regime. Christianity, encouraged by occupation authorities, gained ground as Protestant and Catholic missionaries from the United States brought money and relief supplies to the war-weary Japanese, but it failed to ever achieve impressive rates of conversion. Intellectuals, the mainstream media, and established religions continued to hold suspicious and contemptuous at-

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titudes toward the new religions for their magical and shamanistic elements and their populist orientation, biases that remain strong today. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the new movements soon became the primary religious forums for individuals with a spiritual orientation. Many of the most successful new religious movements combined endemic religious traditions, including an emphasis on practical benefits and a belief in the spirit world, with charismatic entrepreneurship. With the recently established constitutional freedoms, new religions could carry out missionary activities of their choice with little fear of government interference. Many pursued beliefs and practices that accounted for earlier Oomoto growth but were prohibited or suppressed under the earlier system of state religious management—for example, spirit possession, faith healing, internationalist activity, and millennialist political engagement. Several large new movements combined these threads and promoted new practices or methods of propagation suited to the social, cultural, and economic conditions of postwar Japan. The presence of a strong, charismatic entrepreneur to spearhead growth and to capture public attention in an increasingly crowded religious marketplace was a key factor in gaining supporters. Examples of groups that flourished through showy charismatic entrepreneurship combined with open promotion of previously suppressed folk beliefs and practices include Kitamura Sayo’s “dancing religion” Tenshò Kòtai Jingukyò, Nagaoka Nagako’s Jiukyò, Naganuma Myòkò’s Risshò Kòseikai, and Okada Mòkichi’s Sekai Kyûseikyò.87 In the postwar period, public critique of the government based on religious belief became a hallmark of many of the new religions, which, like Oomoto had done in the past, began to openly interpret state policy through religious prisms and engage in political activity without fear of official reprisal. Reborn in the postwar period, Oomoto became a leader in several protest movements in the 1950s and early 1960s. Following the death of a Japanese fisherman as a result of fallout from U.S. hydrogen bomb testing at Bikini Atoll in 1954, Oomoto spearheaded a campaign to ban atomic and hydrogen bombs, gathering over 1.5 million signatures.88 In 1960, Oomoto gathered over 7.5 million signatures in a campaign that opposed the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and called on the government to defend the postwar Peace Constitution. It was supported by a handful of other new religions, including Nipponzan Myòhòji. Robert Kisala has described this group alongside other new religions that advocate world peace and international exchange yet retain the underlying “rhetoric of cultural superiority” visible in Oomoto’s Neo-Nativism.89 Despite the radical, populist nature of Oomoto initiatives in the 1950s and ’60s, the more common position of politically active postwar new religions was in support of conservative, anti-

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Communist causes.90 Oomoto itself eventually adopted a more conservative posture following organizational schisms in the 1970s. Sòka Gakkai, which held a more centrist position, has undeniably been the most successful of the new religions in terms of postwar political clout because of its ability to influence its large membership base, reportedly reaching 10 million in the early 1960s. It began to sponsor candidates for election in 1955 on an anti-corruption platform that resonated, on some levels, with the 1930s critiques of party government. In 1964 it launched a full-fledged political party, the Kòmeitò (Clean Government Party), currently the third largest party in Japan and part of the ruling coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Sòka Gakkai’s initial motive for political activity was clearly religious—to establish a state-sponsored national platform for ordination (kokuritsu kaidan) at its sacred headquarters.91 It believed this could occur only when there was unity of government and Buddhism and Japan was fully converted to the Nichiren faith, so it engaged in aggressive proselytization to this end. Although Kòmeitò severed formal ties with the parent religion in 1970 to stem criticism by its opponents, it retains the underlying beliefs of Sòka Gakkai, evoking the relationship between Oomoto and the Shinseikai. Unlike the Shinseikai, the new Kòmeitò carefully avoids religious language and has separated the leadership and finances of the two groups. Nevertheless, its platform reflects Sòka Gakkai religio-political ideals, including ethical government, social safety nets, and “global peace” via an insistence on a nuclear-free Japan, a reduced U.S. military presence, and limits on Japan’s role in international peace-keeping operations. Party language is often semireligious in tone, calling for “an end to politics without ideals or philosophy” or pledging “a new dawn . . . that will promise the bright light of a new era.”92 Furthermore, it is clear that Ikeda Daisaku, Sòka Gakkai’s charismatic leader, retains heavy influence among the Kòmeitò leadership. In reaction to Sòka Gakkai’s rising power, other large new religions began to participate more actively in the political process. Risshò Kòseikai and Reiyûkai, two large new religions also derived from Nichiren, have long-standing ties to the LDP and often finance candidates and initiatives that oppose Kòmeitò. In contemporary Japan, as in the United States and many other areas of the world, it is increasingly difficult to clearly disentangle religion and politics. Politically active Japanese new religions resemble America’s “values evangelicals,” a term coined by Noah Feldman that indicates groups who believe religious values should be integral to the political process.93 Onisaburò was clearly neither the first nor the last to tie religion to politics in modern Japan, but he remains an important figure for understand-

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ing connections among older, Nativist conceptions of proper governance, yonaoshi-related utopian ideals, and contemporary Kòmeitò politics that are flavored, at least rhetorically, by these earlier conceptions and ideals. Oomoto was one of the only religious groups in imperial Japan to openly step into the political arena and create a groundswell. Groups under the system of state management were prohibited from political activity, and the vast majority of nonofficial groups lacked the resources to have any significant effect. As such, Oomoto provides an important link for examining continuities in popular religio-political aspirations. Continuities in Nativist thinking and yonaoshi-style utopianism based on radical social reform can be observed over Oomoto activity from the late Meiji period to the 1960s and, in a larger frame, from premodern religious belief to contemporary religious politics. Sarah Thal’s recent work on Shikoku’s Konpira Shrine has made a significant contribution in bridging the divide between premodern and modern religion in Japan by analyzing how shrine administration malleably conformed with the dictates of regime changes over three and a half centuries to ensure shrine survival.94 Oomoto demonstrates a different form of continuity: the survival of popular, anti-establishment religio-political ideals in the face of multiple regime changes.





Conclusion



State, Religion, and Tradition in Imperial Japan

The remarkable rise of Oomoto and the role Onisaburò played in promoting the sect provide us with new perspectives on modern Japanese history and religion. They require a reexamination of assumptions about the relationships among Shinto, religion, and national identity in prewar Japan, for it is clear that Oomoto represented a significant segment of the population, which rejected the bureaucratic state’s definitions of and limits on these concepts. By noting similarities between Oomoto’s development and the activities of other new religions abroad, we can insert the historical study of Japanese new religions into larger discourses about religion and modernity, rather than marginalizing them as unique. Studies of nationalism in emerging states, including Meiji Japan and Republican China, tend to conflate the state and nation and assume that the state forms the strongest basis of social identity.1 Historical scholarship on prewar Japan often stresses the all-pervasive presence of the state in society, emphasizing how organizations and individuals—from famous literary figures to Zen priests, progressive intellectuals, and poor emigrants—were “complicit” in a state-sponsored project of militarist imperialism. Undoubtedly the majority in Japanese society before and during World War II hoped for victory and for increased Japanese influence abroad, but Western historians have underemphasized areas of divergence or conflict in this period. As Carol Gluck has pointed out in her analysis of Meiji ideology, imperial rhetoric and symbolism could be “manipulated and communicated in many partial and mutually conflicting ways” by a variety of individuals and groups to legitimize programs and goals of self-interest that were often opposed to the aims of the modern nation-state.2 Highlighting complicity obscures the “plural ideological universe” and the complex motivations and agendas of social movements, whether religious, nationalist, artistic, or of other origin.3 Attempting to understand Oomoto’s complex agenda and the 191

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interplay among the multiple subjectivities it embodied, from particularistic ethnic nationalism to universalistic humanitarianism, requires a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the state and society in Japan from the 1910s to the 1930s. Popular, or lived, religion is an important resource for uncovering alternative visions of national and cultural identity that are obscured by modernizing elites.4 In Japan, Oomoto’s conception of a religio-national community questioned state policies and challenged state authority. Using the same Shinto language that the state employed to justify its authority, Oomoto offered a subaltern view of modern identity that opposed the bureaucratic nation-state and its promotion of capitalist and imperialist development through militarist means. Despite the state’s possession of destructive capacity, its ability to impose acceptance and internalization of its goals was always limited. Alternate (that is, nonstate) forms of authority, such as religious authority and the authority of tradition, and alternate forms of power, such as the power of magic and the power of the consumer, animated individuals and groups who joined organizations that fundamentally challenged state orthodoxy. State authority was never absolute, or even primary, in the area of religion, an enchanted realm that answered to a higher, transcendent authority. Modern State Shinto was created by a bureaucracy highly sensitive to the Western gaze. It was envisioned as a civil and “civilized” creed, emphasizing morality and imperial ritual and stripped of the magical and irrational elements that characterized popular belief and practice. The officials who designed State Shinto accepted the teleological assumption that the narratives of modernization and disenchantment were inextricably intertwined. State policies toward religion were shaped by both its goals for development and modernization and the need to unify the populace in support of these goals. The state version of the Way of the Gods was to be compatible with Western science and technology and to guide the populace in understanding the proper duties of a good citizen, including obedience to the imperial government and reverence toward the gods. In this way, the state creed emphasized vertical ties to the emperor and his ancestors rather than lateral ties to the community. While Oomoto supported the principle of imperial rule, Onisaburò repeatedly claimed that placing the imperial line above ordinary people did not meet ancient ideals of rulership.5 He stressed egalitarian bonds of community within and among nations. Official State Shinto was not designated a “religion,” as that would violate the Western demand for separation of church and state. In its reformulation as a civil religion, State Shinto was emptied of many of the sensual, performative, and celebratory elements associated with popular religious

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behavior. The state dictated that Shinto “religion” would be the province of the thirteen state-controlled Shinto sects, which still engaged in some traditional religious practices such as healing, pilgrimage, and mountain worship. The activities and growth of these sects, however, were supervised by the state, which circumscribed behaviors viewed as “irrational and superstitious” and prevented unlimited expansion, diversification, or political activity. Oomoto sought to reinfuse Shinto belief and practice with popular religious elements and political ideals denied to state-approved groups. As a result, it was the first nonofficial religion to achieve a large, nationwide following in the modern era. Despite the state’s attempt to restrain the emergence and growth of heterodox groups, “quasi-religions” (ruiji shûkyò), no doubt encouraged by Oomoto’s success, surfaced in increasing numbers during the interwar period. In 1924, the state identified 98 such heretical groups, practicing divination, healing, fortune telling, and other traditional religious activities.6 By 1930, the number had increased to 414, and by 1935, the year of Oomoto’s second suppression, there were over 1,000 groups—a tenfold increase in a ten-year period.7 While these figures may reflect a growth of the state’s monitoring apparatus, it is clear that the populace continued to support and patronize sects that engaged in heterodox beliefs and practices, despite official disapproval. During World War II, the activities of such groups are less clear, but their rapid growth and proliferation in the immediate postwar period suggest that they continued to operate and multiply despite (or perhaps because of) the exigencies of war and an increasingly authoritarian state. Oomoto arose outside of the state’s control mechanisms because Onisaburò recognized the opportunity to develop religious products that could inspire wonder, encourage energetic participation, and reenchant contemporary life in the face of the sterile condition of official religion in imperial Japan. He was the most successful charismatic entrepreneur of his day, and he provided an important legacy for the new religions that followed. To be successful, religious entrepreneurs must identify contemporary spiritual needs and create accessible doctrines, practices, and organizations that meet those needs. Onisaburò recognized many unfulfilled demands in the spiritual marketplace from the late Meiji through the early Shòwa periods—including the popular worship of gods omitted from the official pantheon, the popular demand for spiritualist practices, and the desire for enhanced communication with the universe that lay outside Japan—and he capitalized on such demands to build a large, multifaceted religious conglomerate. His entrepreneurial approach was different from the charismatic religious leaders that preceded him; it was “modern” because it participated in the national

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and international circulation of goods, ideas, and services associated with industrial capitalism, and it innovatively adopted the modern mass media as a tool of proselytization. The diffusion of mass media techniques is a hallmark of modernity. It was crucial to Oomoto success. As the number of new media outlets reaches critical mass, control slips away from central authorities that may wish to monitor or censor heterodox views. Masses of consumers can then begin to selectively identify with controversial or nonorthodox ideologies or worldviews. This phenomenon continues today, in the increasing power of the Internet and bloggers of all ideological and religious stripes, who disseminate biting commentary and break news stories that challenge official rhetoric much more aggressively than major media outlets. While Oomoto adopted modern methods to circulate its ideas, the material forms of its goods and services often adopted a traditional appearance. Meiji modernization was premised on the idea that Westernization was an inevitable and even welcome consequence of modernity, and many elites quickly adopted this outlook. Yet others, like Onisaburò, believed that “traditional” Japanese values and culture provided a surer basis for a Japanese nation situated in a competitive global context. His writings, teachings, and activities worked toward reinvigorating and defending traditions—ancient, invented, or otherwise. Following World War I, as more groups and individuals began to reembrace tradition and nostalgically advocate a return to a Japanese culture untainted by Western materialism and individualism, Oomoto, firmly grounded in premodern Nativist ideals, traditional arts, and folk practices, found itself poised for rapid expansion. Defining and redefining “tradition” is another area where state authority is far from absolute. In Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, editor Stephen Vlastos defines tradition as the transmission of “discrete cultural practices of ‘the past’ that remain vital in the present.”8 He asks “How, by whom, under what circumstances, and to what social and political effect are certain practices and ideas formulated, institutionalized and propagated as tradition?”9 The essays in the book focus on “invented traditions,” Eric Hobsbawm’s celebrated term for the fabrication of cultural practices by modern state institutions for ideological purposes.10 The emphasis in Mirror of Modernity is on the relationship between invented traditions and power—that is, the ways in which artificial new traditions serve hegemonic interests. As such, it deemphasizes the ways in which groups and individuals can mobilize tradition against the state. Japanese authorities chose the traditions they would promote from a vast store of cultural, religious, and social memories and practices according to their resonance with goals for national development and according to

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their ability to inculcate desirable qualities into an unruly populace. Social customs or traditions that posed obstacles to a modern, rationalized bureaucratic order were deemed undesirable and targeted for elimination. Yet undesirable customs were often integral aspects of daily life and culture that carried their own authority. Oomoto reclaimed and championed traditions inexpedient to state aims, asserting a cultural identity at variance with the official line. Its rapid growth demonstrates that the power to create/invent traditions was not monopolized by the state. Rather, the state needed to borrow the authority of existing popular traditions for the sake of its own legitimacy and had to compete with nonstate organizations over whose traditions would best capture popular support. The Japanese state’s desire to control religious and ritual tradition resulted in competing forms of Shinto (Shrine Shinto, Sect Shinto, and heterodox Shinto) that nevertheless shared many basic assumptions, symbols, forms of worship, and mythological elements. Oomoto formed a subversive threat to the state because it questioned both the meaning of those common elements and how they should be interpreted for the benefit of the nation, the world, and the universe. Oomoto did not directly challenge political authority on its own ground but rather threatened to denaturalize the ground on which the Japanese state had attempted to erect itself as a primordial structure.11 The state, in turn, sought to limit the proliferation of Shinto interpretations and meanings and denied the validity of the rituals and religious practices of heterodox groups. Yet it could not negate the power of religious ritual and practice, heterodox or not, to “create morally charged experience, to speak with and without words in diverse sensory registers and through ‘multiple channels.’”12 In contemporary Japanese society, conservatives continue to disseminate an ideological view of Shinto as Japan’s indigenous religion, continuing in an unbroken line from prehistoric times to the present day. This monolithic Shinto is said to be uniquely in harmony with nature and to constitute the basis of Japan’s special culture and its polity, centered on the imperial institution. Beginning in the early twentieth century, this self-Orientalizing stance found a ready audience among some Western idealists who looked to Eastern spirituality as an antidote for technological and material excess associated with Western science and rationalism. In reaction to this portrayal of a timeless faith, Kuroda Toshio argued that Shinto as a “distinct, autonomous and independent religion” was an invention of nineteenth-century ideologues and that there was no distinct Shinto tradition of thought during the premodern period.13 Subsequent studies in Japan and the West have both challenged and supported Kuroda’s position, resulting in a growing body of scholarship on premodern Shinto organizations and beliefs.14 Yet historical

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studies of Shinto in the modern period continue to center on state machinations and state-affiliated organizations rather than on competing visions of Shinto from marginalized groups and individuals. Shinto sects that emerged in the twentieth century are most often studied as new religions, lumped together with disparate Buddhist and Christian groups, emphasizing their shared marginality rather than their continuities with established religions. Edward Said once reminded us that we cannot speak about “Islam” but rather “Islams,” which represent “many histories, many peoples, many languages, traditions, schools of interpretation, proliferating developments, disputations, cultures and countries.”15 Said argued that attempts to reduce Islam to simple formulas are “locked up in questions of defense, war, the clash of civilizations . . . American values . . . and the crusade on behalf of the ‘West.’”16 Shinto in imperial Japan was limited to the Japanese empire, and it certainly did not encompass Islam’s diversity of peoples and cultures. Nevertheless, as a category, it covered a wide range of traditions, beliefs, and schools of interpretation—orthodox and heterodox, establishmentfriendly and radically oppositional. As with Islam, the study of Shinto and of Japanese religion, in both Japan and the United States, has often been driven by questions of national rather than humanistic interest. Said counseled, “In our encounters with other cultures and religions . . . the best way to proceed is not to think like governments or armies or corporations but rather to remember and act on the individual experiences that really shape our lives and those of others.”17 This book has attempted to describe how Deguchi Onisaburò and Oomoto influenced and shaped many Japanese lives. He and his followers rejected the modern, imperialistic identity adopted by the state, big business, and mainstream media and instead embraced a romantic, aesthetic, and humanitarian conception of the nation. Their preferred Nativist identity was represented through traditional forms of spirituality and art rather than through militarist expansion and materialism associated with Westernized identity. Oomoto’s alternative imagining of the Japanese nation fed the needs of the soul and the imagination for many in imperial Japan, helping individuals resolve their moral and spiritual consciousness with emerging national and geopolitical realities.



Notes



Introduction

1.  http://www.oomoto.or.jp/English/enArkivo/tsukinamisai.html. 2.  During this period, only Tenrikyò and Konkòkyò, officially sanctioned new religions that were established over fifty years earlier, were larger. 3.  Murakami Shigeyoshi, Hyòden Deguchi Onisaburò (Tokyo: Sanseidò, 1979), 197. Accurate numbers for membership are difficult to estimate because of overlapping memberships within multiple Oomoto organizations. Murakami estimates 1–3 million followers. 4.  Large groups within this lineage include Seichò no Ie, with over 870,000 members, and Sekai Kyûseikyò, with 840,000 members. See Inoue Nobutaka et al., eds., Shinshûkyò kyòdan, jinbutsu jiten (hereafter SSKJJ) (Tokyo: Kòbundò, 1996), 152, 158. Furthermore, there are around thirty splinter sects from Sekai Kyûseikyò. See Inoue Nobutaka et al., eds., Shinshûkyò jiten (hereafter SSJ) (Tokyo: Kòbundò, 1994), 86. 5.  On the racial equality clause, see Naoko Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 (London: Routledge, 1998). On the 1924 immigration law, see Izumi Hirobe, Japanese Pride, American Prejudice: Modifying the Exclusion Clause of the 1924 Immigration Act (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), and Nancy Stalker, “Suicide Boycotts and Embracing Tagore: The Japanese Popular Response to the 1924 U.S. Immigration Exclusion Law,” Japanese Studies 26, no. 2 (2006). 6.  There are a handful of English language studies on Oomoto, but most address a single aspect of the sect rather than the overall process of its growth. Key publications include Sheldon Garon, “State and Religion in Imperial Japan,” Journal of Japanese Studies 12, no. 2 (1986); Helen Hardacre, “Gender and the Millennium in Òmotokyò, a Japanese New Religion,” Senri Ethnological Studies 29 (1990); Emily Groszos Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest in Meiji Japan: Deguchi Nao and Òmotokyò (Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Series, 1993); and Peter Nadolski, “The Socio-Political Background of the 1921 and 1935 Òmoto Suppressions in Ja197

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Notes to Pages 3–7

pan,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1974). Other key works in Western languages include Ulrich Lins, Die Òmoto-Bewegung und der radikale Nationalismus in Japan (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1976); Jean-Pierre Berthon, Omoto Espérance millénariste d’une nouvelle religion japonaise (Paris: Atelier Alpha Bleue, 1985); Ronan Alves Pereira, Possessão por espírito e inovação cultural: A experiência religiosa das japonesas Miki Nakayama e Nao Deguchi (São Paulo: Aliança Cultural Brasil-Japão, 1992). Scholarship on Oomoto and Onisaburò in Japanese is extensive. Seminal works include Ikeda Akira, ed., Òmoto shiryò shûsei, 3 vols. (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobò, 1982–1985); Tokushige Takane et al., eds., Òmoto nanajunenshi, 2 vols. (Kameoka: Òmoto Nanajunenshi Hensankai, 1964–1967); Murakami Shigeyoshi and Yasumaru Yoshio, eds., Deguchi Onisaburò Chòsakushû, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1973–1974); Kano Masanao, Taishò Demokurashii no teiryû: dozokuteki seishin e no kaiki (Tokyo: Nihon Hòsò Shuppankyòkai, 1973); Murakami Shigeyoshi, Hyòden Deguchi Onisaburò (Tokyo: Sanseidò, 1979); and Kurihara Akira, Rekishi to aidenteti (Tokyo: Shinyòsha, 1982). 7.  Sarah Thal’s recent work, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site in Japan, 1573–1912 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), begins to dispel this notion for Kotohira, an important Shinto shrine in Shikoku, but her study still focuses on shrine-state relations and the main narrative ends in 1912. 8.  See Tensho Kotai Jingukyo, The Prophet of Tabuse (Tabuse, Yamaguchi: Tensho Kotai Jingukyo, 1954), and Tina Hamrin, “Illness and Salvation in TenshoKotai-Jingukyo,” in Clarke, Japanese New Religions. 9.  Benjamin Dorman, “SCAP’s Scapegoat? The Authorities, New Religions, and a Postwar Taboo,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 31, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 105–140. 10.  In the late 1980s and 1990s, Western historical studies of this period emphasized the ability of the Japanese state to dominate state-society relations. For example, see Andrew Barshay, State and Intellectual in Imperial Japan: The Public Man in Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Gregory J. Kasza, The State and the Mass Media in Japan, 1918–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Helen Hardacre, Shinto and the State 1868–1988 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); Sheldon Garon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); and Germaine A. Hoston, The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 11.  Trevor Astley, “New Religions,” in Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions, ed. Paul L. Swanson and Clark Chilson (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), 96. 12.  Ibid., 105. 13.  I regret that space limitations prohibit an adequate or comprehensive introduction to this field. Some of the important early Japanese scholars of new religions or the related categories of folk religion include Murakami Shigeyoshi, Yasumaru

Notes to Pages 8–11

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Yoshio, Hori Ichiro, Miyata Noboru, Sakurai Tokutarò, and Takagi Hiroo. More contemporary Japanese scholars of the field include Shimazono Susumu, Inoue Nobutaka, Ikeda Akira, Nishiyama Shigeru, Tsushima Michihito, Yumiyama Tatsuya, Nakamura Kyòko, and Kamata Tòji. Key western scholars from the 1950s to the 1970s include Harry Thomsen, Clark Offner and Henry van Straelen, H. Neill McFarland, Byron Earhart, and Carmen Blacker. From the mid-1970s forward, see Winston Davis, Helen Hardacre, Ian Reader, Robert Kisala, Mark Mullins, Peter Clarke, Brian McVeigh, and Stewart Guthrie. See the bibliography for details of publications from all of these authors. 14.  The annual imperial offering of the fruits of the land to the Sun Goddess is known as the Niinamesai and is held on November 23 and 24. For more on the annual cycle of rites conducted at Shinto shrines, see John Nelson, A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996). 15.  See, for example, Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 16.  The existence of a coherent entity that can be identified under this rubric is a matter of academic debate. See Sakamoto Koremaru, “The Structure of State Shinto: Its Creation, Development, and Demise,” in Breen and Teeuwen, Shinto in History. 17.  See especially Hardacre, Shinto and the State, and James Edward Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). 18.  Robert Orsi and others adopt the term “lived religion” as an alternative to “popular religion,” as it highlights devotional practices while avoiding a discriminatory distinction between elite and popular religion. See Orsi, “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion,” in Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice, ed. David D. Hall (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 19.  For more on how the Protestant perspective has informed the idea that scripture, rather than practice, represents “true religion,” see Ian Reader and George J. Tanabe, Jr., Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), 3–6. 20.  For a discussion of the Meiji state’s attempts to overcome spirit belief, see Gerald Figal, Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999). 21.  Ian Reader, “Recent Japanese Publications on the New Religions: The Work of Shimazono Susumu,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 20, nos. 2–3 (1992): 237. 22.  Charles Keyes, Laurel Kendall, and Helen Hardacre, eds., Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994), 10. 23.  See, for example, Figal, Civilization and Monsters, 7–8, and Marilyn Ivy, Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

200

Notes to Pages 13–17

24.  H. Neill McFarland, The Rush Hour of the Gods (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 74. 25.  Max Weber, “The Sociology of Charismatic Authority,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 248–250, and Jean Comaroff, “Defying Disenchantment: Reflections on Ritual, Power, and History,” in Keyes et. al., Asian Visions, 305– 307. 26.  Comaroff, “Defying Disenchantment,” 305–307. 27.  I am grateful to Ian Reader for this observation. 28.  John J. Kao, Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Organization (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), 91. 29.  Two classical texts on the definition and functions of the entrepreneur are J. M. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1942), and I. M. Kirzner, Perception, Opportunity and Profit: Studies in the Theory of Entrepreneurship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). 30.  Roger Finke and Laurence Iannaccone have briefly described the “rise of religious entrepreneurs” in their call for market-based approaches to understanding religious development: “Supply-Side Explanations for Religious Change,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 527 (May 1993): 27–39. 31.  James Q. Wilson uses the terms “entrepreneurial politics” and “policy entrepreneurs” to describe broadly based movements and leaders that aim to change industrial policies that affect large groups—for example, Ralph Nader and his consumer campaigns for auto safety. See Wilson’s Bureaucracy (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 77–78. 32.  Kao, Entrepreneurship, 96. 33.  Weber, “Charismatic Authority,” 248–250. 34.  See Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods, on how Konpira shrine was repeatedly forced to identify new means of income under changing local and national administrations. 35.  See Inoue Nobutaka et al., Shin shûkyò jiten, 74–80, for a chart illustrating over three dozen groups that emerged directly from Oomoto and for a discussion of Oomoto’s influence on subsequent sects and research societies. 36.  See, for example, Peter Nosco, Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth Century Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990); H. D. Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen: Discourse and Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Anne Walthall, The Weak Body of a Useless Woman: Matsuo Taseko and the Meiji Restoration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); “Nativism as a Social Movement: Katagiri Harukazu and Hongaku Reisha,” in Breen and Teeuwen, Shinto in History; and Jennifer Robertson, “Sexy Rice: Plant Gender, Farm Manuals and Grass-Roots Nativism,” Monumenta Nipponica 39, no. 3 (1984). Recent exceptions to the tendency to limit studies to the premodern period are Susan Burns’ recent work, Before the Nation: Kokugaku and the Imagining of Community in Early Modern Japan (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), which includes a chapter on intel-

Notes to Pages 17–24

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lectual discourse on kokugaku in the Meiji period, and Mark McNally, Proving the Way: Conflict and Practice in the History of Japanese Nativism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), which also discusses early Meiji kokugaku. 37.  Keyes et al., Asian Visions, 2–9. 38.  See Robert Kisala, Prophets of Peace: Pacifism and Cultural Identity in Japan’s New Religions (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999). On Sòka Gakkai, see Christina Naylor, “Nichiren, Imperialism and the Peace Movement,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 18, no. 1 (1991).

Chapter 1: Deguchi Onisaburò

1.  Rekishi tokuhon 38, no. 18 (Fall 1993). 2.  Òya Sòichi, “Deguchi Onisaburò to Òmoto danatsu jiken,” Chûò kòron, April 1965: 429–435. 3.  Although many Japanese do not recognize Onisaburò’s name, beginning in the mid-1980s, there was a flood of books on Onisaburò for popular audiences. For examples, see bibliography entries for Izumida Zuiken, Matsumoto Ken’ichi, Momose Meiji, Nakaya Shinichi, Nishimura Takanari, Saji Yoshihiko, Takeda Suigen, and Tsuchiya Shigenori. 4.  Murakami, Hyòden, preface. 5.  See, for example, Kurihara Akira, Rekishi to aidenteti (Tokyo: Shinyòsha, 1982), chapters 3 and 4; Ikeda Akira, ed., Òmoto shiryò shûsei (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobò, 1982–1985), 3:743–751; Hirose Kòjiro, Ningen kaihò no fukushiron: Deguchi Onisaburò to kindai Nihon (Tokyo: Kaihò Shuppansha, 2001). 6.  On crazy wisdom, see Sandra Bell, “Crazy Wisdom, Charisma and the Transmission of Buddhism in the United States,” Nova Religio 2, no. 1 (1998). 7.  Fujikò was devoted to the worship of Mount Fuji and was founded by Hasegawa in the sixteenth century, after he studied Shugendo and practiced austerities at mountains throughout Japan. On Agonshû’s Kiriyama Seiyû, see Ian Reader, Religion in Contemporary Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1991), 209–212. 8.  Murakami, Hyòden, 182–183, 216–217. In the early 1930s, Onisaburò joined a number of influential poetry circles, including Araragi, Shizensha, Tanka Gekkan, and Akebi, and contributed to poetry magazines throughout the country under a variety of pen names. 9.  Ellen Ross, “Spiritual Experience and Women’s Autobiography: The Rhetoric of Selfhood in ‘The Book of Margery Kempe,’” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 59, no. 3 (Autumn 1991): 527–546. 10.  James Olney, Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 36. 11.  Inoue Nobutaka, “The Modern Age: Shinto Confronts Modernity,” in Inoue Nobutaka, ed., Shinto: A Short History (London: Routledge Curzon, 1998), 176–177. 12.  Janine Anderson Sawada, Practical Pursuits: Religion, Politics, and Per-

202

Notes to Pages 24–29

sonal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), 192–198, 203. 13.  Ibid., 198. 14.  Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), xiii–xxiv. 15.  On Blavatsky, see, for example, Peter Washington, Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America (New York: Schocken Books, 1995). On Muhammed, see, for example, Claude Andrew Clegg III, An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elija Muhammad (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997). 16.  Itò Eizò, Shinshûkyò sòshishaden: Òmoto Deguchi Nao, Deguchi Onisaburò no shògai (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1984), 71. 17.  Tokushige Takane et al., eds., Òmoto nanajunenshi (hereafter ONS) (Kameoka: Òmoto Nanajunenshi Hensankai, 1964), 1:106–115. Onisaburò’s memoirs of his early childhood are found in Deguchi Onisaburò, Deguchi Onisaburò Zenshû (hereafter DOZ), vol. 8: Waga hansei no ki (Kameoka: Tenseisha, 1935; reprint 2000). 18.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 71. 19.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Deguchi Onisaburò Chosakushû (hereafter DOC), vol. 5: Ningen Onisaburò, ed. Murakami Shigeyoshi (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1971), 35; Deguchi Onisaburò, Deguchi Onisaburò jijo kaiko kashû (hereafter DOJKK) (Kameoka: Tenseisha, 1978), 5:7–9. 20.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 5:44. 21.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò (Kanagawa: Aiki News, 1998), 8; Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 72. 22.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK, 5:4; DOZ, 8:23–28. 23.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOZ, 8:23–28. 24.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:113–114; Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 72–74. 25.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 73. According to Ito, a regular teacher’s salary was three yen per month, and the principal earned five yen per month. 26.  Ibid. 27.  Mark E. Lincicome, Principle, Praxis, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1995), 1–3. 28.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK, 5:116. 29.  Onisaburò’s use of the word “proletarian,” despite his vehement opposition to Marxism, demonstrates the wide circulation of Marxist terms by the time the memoirs were written in the late 1920s and early 1930s. 30.  Ibid., 55. 31.  Ibid. 32.  This incident is often recounted as the moment of Kisaburò’s awakening social consciousness and is described in Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:117–121, and Murakami, Hyòden, 17–18. 33.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK, 5:30–32, 47; DOZ, 8:36–38. 34.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:121–123.

Notes to Pages 29–35

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35.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK, 5:133–136. 36.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:135–136. The dairy industry did not fully develop until the postwar period. 37.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 13. 38.  “How Botany Is Studied and Taught in Japan,” Science 13, no. 332 (May 1901): 734–738. 39.  See James Bartholomew, The Formation of Science in Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 40.  Earl H. Kinmonth, The Self-Made Man in Meiji Japanese Thought: From Samurai to Salary Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 10–11. 41.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK. 42.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 5:46; Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 77. 43.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 77. 44.  Murakami, Hyòden, 28–30. 45.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 5:51–52. 46.  Ito, Òmoto, 75–76; Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:129–130. 47.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK, 5:271. 48.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:127. Copies of this publication do not appear to be extant. 49.  Murakami, Hyòden, 21. 50.  See Walthall, Weak Body, 1998. 51.  Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 301; Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK, 5:103; DOZ, 8:59–61. 52.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOJKK, 5:103. 53.  Ibid., 189. 54.  Ibid. 55.  Ibid. 56.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 15–16. 57.  Ibid.; Murakami, Hyòden, 34–38. 58.  Quoted in Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 82–84. 59.  Ibid, 84. 60.  Ibid., 85. Also related in Murakami, Hyòden, 38–39. 61.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 20. 62.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 86. 63.  On Inari and beliefs surrounding foxes, see Karen A. Smyers, The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Inari Worship (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999). 64.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:158–163. 65.  For a biography of Nao in English, see Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest. Also see Charles Rowe and Yasuko Matsudaira, trans., Nao Deguchi: A Biography of the Foundress of Oomoto (Kameoka: Oomoto Foundation, 1982). Biographies in Japanese include Yasumaru Yoshio, Deguchi Nao (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1977).

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Notes to Pages 35–43

66.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 25. 67.  Rowe and Matsudaira, Nao Deguchi, 26. 68.  For a discussion of how the concept of personal cultivation permeated different religious traditions in Japan, see Sawada, Practical Pursuits. 69.  See Yasumaru Yoshio, Nihon no kindaika to minshû shisò (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1999), esp. chapters 3 and 5. 70.  Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest, 32. 71.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 67. 72.  Ibid., 92. 73.  Quoted in ibid., 95. 74.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:180–183. Note that such groups were called study groups to avoid legal restrictions against nonofficial religious groups. 75.  Ibid., 1:198. 76.  Deguchi Sumiko, Osanagatari (Kameoka: Tenseisha, 1955), 196–199. 77.  Ibid. 78.  See chapter 104 of Donald Philippi’s translation of the Kojiki (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968), 284–286. 79.  Kawamura Minato, Kotodama to takai (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1990), 212. 80.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 104. 81.  Ibid, 103. 82.  Ibid. The physical and personal contrasts are noted in Kurihara, Rekishi to aidenteti, 130–133. Kurihara identifies Nao as a religious leader of the Weberian ascetic type (kinyoku gata), while Onisaburò represented a type that emphasized fun and enjoyment (kyòjû gata). 83.  For a full discussion of the use of gender ideology in this concept, see Hardacre, “Gender and the Millennium.” 84.  Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest, 115. 85.  Ibid, 114. 86.  Quoted in Hardacre, “Gender and the Millennium,” 57. 87.  Like the name Ushitora, Hitsujisaru refers to a Chinese geomantic direction, in this case the southwest. 88.  Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest, 114–115. 89.  Ibid., 57. 90.  Hardacre, “Gender and the Millennium,” 53. 91.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 5:104. The accounts of Onisaburò’s persecution by early followers are drawn from “Meishin to no Tatakai,” DOC, vol. 5. They were first published in Shin reikai, beginning October 15, 1918. 92.  Deguchi Onisaburò, “Meishin to no Tatakai,” DOC, vol. 5. 93.  Ibid. 94.  Ibid. 95.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:277–280. Brief descriptions of the academy are found in Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 39, and Inoue Nobutaka, Shinto: A Short History, 167. 96.  Murakami, Hyòden, 87.

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97.  Ibid. 98.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 110. 99.  Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 41–42. 100.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 11; Murakami, Hyòden, 83. 101.  Murakami, Hyòden, 92. 102.  For example, on Konkòkyò’s Kawate Bunjirò, see Delwin B. Schneider, Konkòkyò: A Japanese Religion (Tokyo: ISR Press, 1962), 59–80; on Kurozumi Munetada, see Helen Hardacre, Kurozumikyò and the New Religions of Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); on Tenrikyò’s Nakayama Miki, see Tenrikyò Kyòkai Honbu, The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo (Nara: Tenrikyò Headquarters, 1996); and on Agonshû’s Kiriyama Seiyû, see Reader, Religion in Contemporary Japan, 209–212. 103.  While recent scholarship on Kimbangu tends to be in French, in English see Mary Louise Martin, Kimbangu: An African Prophet and His Church (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975), and Peter Manicom and Joseph Dianglenda, Out of Africa: Kimbanguism (London: Christian Education Movement, 1979). On Urrea, see Vicki Ruiz, Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography and Community (New York: Oxford, 2005), and Paul J. Vanderwood, The Power of God against the Guns of Government: Religious Upheaval in Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). Teresa Urrea’s life has also been fictionalized in Luis Urrea, The Hummingbird’s Daughter: A Novel (New York: Little, Brown, 2005). 104.  Gandhi’s contributions to Indian independence are well known. On Ambedkar, see Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), and Surendra Jondhole and Johannes Beltz, B. R. Ambedkar and Buddhism in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004).



Chapter 2: Neo-Nativism

1.  Deguchi Yasuaki, in discussion with the author, Kameoka, Japan, April 2, 2001. Yasuaki is the author of numerous books on Oomoto, including the twelvevolume novel Daichi no haha (Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1969–1971). He has also published extensively under the pseudonym Towada Ryû. Yasuaki founded an Oomoto splinter group called Aizen-en, named after the postwar group resurrected by Onisaburò in 1948, after an internal political battle in 1980. That group readopted the name Oomoto after Onisaburò’s death. His organization views Onisaburò as its founder and the Reikai monogatari as its primary text, considering Nao and her Ofudesaki as predecessors. Deguchi passed away in 2002. 2.  For examples of disillusioned liberals, see Peter Duus, “Whig History, Japanese Style: The Min’yusha Historians and the Meiji Restoration,” Journal of Asian Studies 33, no. 3 (1974). 3.  See, for example, Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 17–18, and Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs, chapter 3, on the shifting of the state’s political priorities from the Ministry of Rites to the Ministry of Doctrine.

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Notes to Pages 47–50

4. Shimazaki Tòson, Before the Dawn, trans. William Naff (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press 1987). 5.  Ibid., xxxii. 6.  Ibid., xxxi. 7.  Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen, 409–410. 8.  As noted in the introduction, key scholarship on premodern Nativism includes McNally, Proving the Way; Walthall, Weak Body; Nosco, Remembering Paradise; Harootunian, Things Seen and Unseen; and Robertson, “Sexy Rice.” On linking Nativism to the 1930s, see Nosco, Remembering Paradise, 245–246. One exception to the lack of Western scholarship on post-Meiji Restoration Nativism is Susan Burns’ recent analysis of canonical and noncanonical kokugaku discourse in Before the Nation, which investigates the ways each was deployed to articulate visions of community and “Japanese” identity that supported or contested the political regime. Michael Wachutka’s ongoing research also examines Hirata school shin-kokugaku in the Meiji period. 9.  Robertson, “Sexy Rice,” 257. 10.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:93. 11.  Ibid., 291. 12.  Ibid. 13.  Ian Reader has discussed how the advent of mass transportation in the early twentieth century facilitated pilgrimage to Shikoku for both religious and touristic purposes. See Making Pilgrimages: Meaning and Practice in Shikoku (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005), 141–143. 14.  Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods, 265–266. 15.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:291. 16.  Ibid., 293. See chapter 1 for more on the establishment of Sect Shinto. 17.  Ibid., 294 18.  Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 61. 19.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:339. In 1916, there were eighty-nine members in residence at Ayabe. 20.  The same characters for Kòdò were often used in the 1930s by a wide variety of nationalistic groups, most notably a radical faction of the Kwantung Army that favored samurai spirit over modern military techniques and that believed Japan had a mission to unite and rule Asia. See chapter 6 for further discussion of the use of this term in the 1930s. 21.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:364. 22.  Taiseikyò was established in 1879 by Hirayama Seisai, a former member of Ontakekyò and another new religion called Misogikyò. See Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 127. 23.  Sawada, Practical Pursuits, 192–198, 203. 24.  Murakami, Hyòden, 93–97. 25.  Ibid. 26.  This sect was founded in 1873 by Senge Takatomi. See Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 17, 477–479, for more information.

Notes to Pages 50–56

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27.  Murakami, Hyòden, 98. 28.  R. David Rightmire, Salvationist Samurai: Gunpei Yamamuro and the Rise of the Salvation Army in Japan (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997). The concept was also borrowed by a Buddhist group that established the Bukkyò Kyûseigun in 1915. 29.  Murakami, Hyòden, 107–109. Note that growing one’s hair long was also a practice of Nativists of the Atsutane school. 30.  Quoted in ibid., 108–109. 31.  Quoted in Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:351–353. 32.  Deguchi Onisaburò, “Kòninkyò to hikòninkyò ni tsuite,” in DOC, 1:313– 316. The essay was reissued widely among Oomoto’s different publications. 33.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 1:490–491. 34.  Ibid., 313–316. 35.  Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods, 239. 36.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 1:490–491. 37.  Ibid. 38.  Anne Wehmeyer has annotated and translated Book 1 of this work. See Motoori Norinaga, Kojiki-den, trans. Anne Wehmeyer (Ithaca: Cornell East Asia Series, 1997). 39.  For a scathingly critical view of kotodama and other components of the Japanese linguistic worldview as aspects of cultural nationalism, see Roy Andrew Miller, Japan’s Modern Myth: The Language and Beyond (New York: Weatherhill, 1982). 40.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:366. 41.  Toyoda Kunio, Nihonjin no kotodama shisò (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1980), 11–12. 42.  Ibid. 43.  On the importance of witty wordplay in the Edo period, see Howard Hibbett, The Chrysanthemum and the Fish: Japanese Humor since the Age of the Shogun (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 2002), 11–42. 44.  Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSJ, 297. 45.  Toyoda, Nihonjin no kotodama shisò, 162. 46.  Many Nativists of the Hirata school, including Suzuki Shigetane, Itò Nobuhiro, and Mutobe Yoshika, developed their own theories of kotodama but failed to establish their own followings. Ibid., 191–202. 47.  Koshintò no hon, vol. 10, Books Esoterica (Tokyo: Gakken, 1994), 109. Nakamura had systematized seventy-five sounds used by the ancient imperial court and arranged the syllables into a mandala-like diagram used by many kotodama adherents. 48.  Ibid., 108. 49.  Ibid. In addition to Kawamura, Kotodama, and Toyoda, Nihonjin no kotodama shisò, see Kamata Tòji, Kigò to kotodama (Tokyo: Seikyûsha, 1990); Nomoto Kanichi, Kotodama no minzoku (Kyoto: Jinbun Shòin, 1993). 50.  Kawamura, Kotodama, 219. Oishigori’s theories first received public at-

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Notes to Pages 56–60

tention when published in Oomoto’s Shin reikai after his death. Beginning in April 1919, Shin reikai published Oishigori’s Miroku shutsugen jòjûkyò (Sutra for the Realization of the Appearance of Miroku) as a multipart series. In addition, it sporadically published other Oishigori writings on kotodama. Aspects of Oomoto belief, particularly in relation to Miroku, are heavily indebted to Oishigori’s work Busetsu Miroku gesshokyò (Sutra for Fulfilling the Manifestation of Miroku). His collected works, Zenshû, were published in 1981 (Fujisawa: Oishigori Masuumi zenshû kankòkai). 51.  Koshintò no hon, 36–38. 52.  In his autobiography, the fourteenth Dalai Lama discusses how in the search to find the reincarnation of the thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1935, Buddhist priests interpreted letters that appeared on the surface of lakes. See Dalai Lama of Tibet, My Land and My People (New York: Warner Books, 1997), 8. 53.  Koshintò no hon, 36–38. 54.  Kawamura, Kotodama, 219. 55.  Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSJ, 297. 56.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 1:25–34. Iroha uta are derived from a tenthcentury Buddhist poem that used each letter of the syllabary once. They are perhaps best known through the popular card game karuta. 57.  Quoted in Kawamura, Kotodama, 223. 58.  Burns, Before the Nation, 37, 82. 59.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:355. Nao’s original text had not been published prior to this. 60.  Quoted in Kawamura, Kotodama, 208. 61.  Ibid., 205. 62.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 1:481–484. The essay was subsequently republished in multiple books and pamphlets. Religious studies scholar Murakami Shigeyoshi notes that this widely read and influential piece contained the root of Onisaburò’s religious thought and served as a doctrinal base for Oomoto that was independent of Nao’s influence. 63.  Ibid., 249. 64.  These are important concepts, often repeated in Oomoto doctrine; they form the basis for the first several volumes of Onisaburò’s Reikai monogatari. See Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSJ, 278. 65.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 1:481–484 66.  Ibid. 67.  Ibid. 68.  Ibid. 69.  Mark Teeuwen, “Attaining Union with the Gods: The Secret Books of Watarai Shinto,” Monumenta Nipponica 48, no. 2 (1993): 231–232. 70.  Winston Davis, Japanese Religion and Society: Paradigms of Structure and Change (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 77. 71.  Hara Takeshi, Izumo to iu shiso: Kindai Nihon no massatsu sareta kamigami (Tokyo: Kòbunsha, 1996).

Notes to Pages 61–64

209

72.  Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods, 115. 73.  Hara, Izumo, v–x. Amenohohi no Mikoto was an offspring of Susanoo who emerged when Susanoo had chewed some jewels and placed them in the palm of his right hand. For this account see William George Aston, trans., Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1956), 51. 74.  Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods, 170. 75.  On the pantheon dispute, see Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 48–51, and Murakami Shigeyoshi, Japanese Religion in the Modern Century (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1980), 41–42. 76.  Harootunian, Seen and Unseen, 412. 77.  This episode is known as Kuni Yuzuri, or the Handing over of the Land, and can be found in chapters 35–37 of Philippi, Kojiki. Hara discusses the differences in interpretation in Izumo, 5–8. 78.  Aston, Nihongi, 60. 79.  Burns, Before the Nation, 88 80.  Hara, Izumo, 148. 81.  Quoted in ibid., 145. 82.  Ibid., 147. 83.  Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest, 105–106. 84.  The main principles of the movement were expressed in a widely circulated essay entitled “On the Taishò Restoration,” first published in Shin reikai in February 1917 and reprinted in Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:415. The essay was later published in several other books and pamphlets and was included in Onisaburò’s 1934 collected works (zenshû). Yasumaru Yoshio has called this a very influential and widely read piece that was representative of Oomoto’s economic and political thought in the period prior to the first suppression. The basic principles were reiterated in 1934 in Kòdò Keizai Waga Kan (reprinted in DOC, 2:225–233), which was initially issued as a pamphlet in July 1934 and subsequently serialized in Jinrui aizen shimbun from mid-August to early September of the same year. 85.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:371. 86.  Ibid., 369. 87.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, vol. 2: Henkaku to Heiwa, ed. Yasumaru Yoshio, 227–228. 88.  Deguchi Onisaburò, “Taishò ishin ni tsuite,” DOC, 2:178. 89.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:368. 90.  For more on the effects of the gold standard, see Mark Metzler, Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). 91.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:156–157. 92.  Ibid., 169. 93.  Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest, 37–38. Many studies discuss the relationship between increased taxes and tenancy. See, for example, Thomas C. Smith, Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan: Government Enterprise 1868–1880 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1955); William Jones Cham-

210

Notes to Pages 65–70

bliss, Chiaraijima Village: Land Tenure, Taxation, and Local Trade 1818–1884 (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1965); Roger Bowen, Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). 94.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:217. 95.  Ibid., 212. 96.  See Thomas Havens, Farm and Nation in Modern Japan: Agrarian Nationalism, 1870–1940 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 7. 97.  For more on Fujikò and Maruyamakyò, see Yasumaru Yoshio, Nihon no kindaika to minshû shisò (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1974), 157–221. 98.  Havens, Farm and Nation, 56–110. 99.  Ibid, 115–120. 100.  Ibid, 113. 101.  Ibid., 132. 102.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:163. 103.  Ibid., 198–201. 104.  Ibid., 204. 105.  Ibid., 199. 106.  Ibid, 210–211. 107.  Ibid., vol. 3: Ai to bi to inochi, 267–270. 108.  Ibid. 109.  Ibid., 2:161. 110.  Ibid., 163. 111.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Tama kagami (Kyoto: Tenseisha, 1935), 250. In 1928, Onisaburò dedicated a number of fields in Kameoka’s Nakayada district to agricultural experimentation and prominently plowed and cultivated these himself. After World War II, famine and poor harvests provoked wide-scale anxiety over Japan’s food supply. Responding to this sentiment in 1949, Oomoto established the Aizen Mizuhòkai, an organization dedicated to Onisaburò’s ideal of self-sufficiency based on natural products from local areas (tensanbutsu jikyû keizai). Following Onisaburò’s earlier teachings, the Mizuhòkai rejected the use of chemicals and artificial fertilizers in agriculture. 112.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:164. 113.  Ibid., 210. 114.  Ibid. 115.  Ibid., 1:313–316. 116.  Ibid. 117.  Ibid., 2:217–219. 118.  Ibid. 119.  Nishimura Sey, “First Steps into the Mountains: Motoori Norinaga’s Uiyamabumi,” Monumenta Nipponica 42, no. 4:449–452. 120.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:217–219. 121.  Ibid., 5:115. At the time, people were legally obligated to obtain smallpox vaccinations. When Onisaburò’s daughter Naohi was born, Nao refused to allow the baby’s body to be polluted by the foreign substance.

Notes to Pages 70–77

211

122.  Ibid., 2:161–162. 123.  Ibid. 124.  Ibid., 121. 125.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Michi no shiori (Kyoto: Tenseisha, 1925; reprint 1985), 62. This is a collection of teachings given from April to October 1905. 126.  Quoted in Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:273. 127.  Deguchi Onisaburò Tanjo Hyakunen Kinenkaihan, ed., Tatekae Tatenaoshi (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1971), 63. 128.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Tama kagami. 194. 129.  For more on the development of race theory in Japan, see Oguma Eiji, A Genealogy of “Japanese” Self-Images (Melbourne: TransPacific Press, 2002), esp. chapters 3–5. 130.  Ibid. It is possible that Onisaburò’s interpretation of the story may be based on readings circulating around Japan, rather than his own original thought, but the focus on Susanoo is likely an Onisaburò addition. 131.  Murakami, Japanese Religion, 147–156. 132.  Shimazono Susumu, From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements in Modern Japan (Melbourne: TransPacific Press, 2004). There were also many secular advocates of natural farming methods. See, for example, Fukuoka Masanobu, The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming (Goa, India: Other India Press, 1992). 133.  Okada Mòkichi, The Light from the East (Atami, Japan: MOA Productions, 1983), 278–280. 134.  Okada Mòkichi, Shizen nòhò kaisetsu (Tokyo: Eikòsha shuppansha, 1951). 135.  Two such incidents were the April 1997 outbreak of E. coli from improperly processed radish sprouts and the August 2000 Snow Brand milk scandal, which sickened over fourteen thousand individuals. 136.  Andris K. Tebecis, Is the Future in Our Hands? My Experiences with Sukyò Mahikari (Canberra: Sunrise Press, 2004).



Chapter 3: Taishò Spiritualism

1.  Hentai shinri, May 1921. 2.  See Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, vol. 3: Jiken hen, for Nakamura’s testimony; Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 132. 3.  Kaizò, March 1918. 4.  Yumiyama Tatsuya, “Rei: Òmoto to chinkon kishin,” in Tanabe, Shimazono, and Yumiyama, Iyashi o ikita hitobito, 91–98. 5.  Ibid. 6.  Shimazono, From Salvation to Spirituality, 164–177, and “Spirit-Belief in New Religious Movements and Popular Culture: The Case of Japan’s New Religions,” Journal of Oriental Studies 26, no. 1 (1987): 90–100. 7.  Nishiyama Shigeru, “Gendai no shûkyò undò: ‘Rei jutsu’ kei shinshûkyò no

212

Notes to Pages 77–81

ryûkò to ‘futatsu no kindaika,’” in Gendaijin no shûkyò, ed. Nishiyama Shigeru and Òmura Eishò (Tokyo: Yûhikaku, 1988), 169–210. 8.  Alex Owen, The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 6–11. 9.  Ibid, 13. 10.  Reader, Religion in Contemporary Japan, 194–233. 11.  Logie Barrow, Independent Spirits: Spiritualism and English Plebeians 1850–1910 (London: Routledge, 1986), 2. 12.  For more on the rise of spiritualism in the United States and Europe, see, for example, Jenny Hazelgrove, Spiritualism and British Society between the Wars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England 1850–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and Bret E. Carroll, Spiritualism in Antebellum America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997). 13.  See Barrow, Independent Spirits, and Ann Braude, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth Century America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989). 14.  Oppenheim, The Other World, 29. 15.  For more on Espiritismo, see David J. Hess, Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991). 16.  On Baha’i, see, for example, William S. Hatcher, The Bahá’í Faith: The Emerging Global Religion (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984). 17.  On Tao Yuan, see chapter 5. On Cao Dai, see Shawn Frederick McHale, Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism, and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), 157–160; and Victor Oliver, Caodai Spiritism: A Study of Religion in Vietnamese Society (Leiden: Brill, 1976). On Tonghak, see Susan Shin, “Tonghak Thought: The Roots of Revolution,” Korea Journal 19, no. 9 (1979), and Benjamin Weems, Reform, Rebellion and the Heavenly Way (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1964). 18.  Anesaki Masaharu, History of Japanese Religion (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1928), 376. 19.  Daisetz Teitarò Suzuki: Swedenborg: Buddha of the North, trans. Andrew Bernstein (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 1996), and Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (New York: Harper, 1957). 20.  Numajiri Masayuki, “Kindai Nihon ni okeru okaruto bûmu to shinshûkyò,” in Aoki et al., Shûkyò to seikatsu, 195. 21.  Figal, Civilization and Monsters, 199. 22.  Ichiyanagi Hirotaka, Kokkurisan to senrigan: Nihon kindai to shinreigaku (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1994), 19. 23.  Michael Dylan Foster, “Strange Games and Enchanted Science: The Mystery of Kokkuri,” Journal of Asian Studies 65, no. 2 (2006): 256. 24.  Ichiyanagi, Kokkurisan, 63–64. 25.  Ibid., 73–75.

Notes to Pages 81–84

213

26.  Sòseki’s works, I Am a Cat, Nightingale and his unfinished masterpiece Meian, and Ògai’s novel Subaru all contain elements of hypnotism, Kokkurisan, and other spiritualist phenomena. See Ichiyanagi, Kokkurisan, 61–66. 27.  Ibid., 74, 91. 28.  Numajiri, “Kindai Nihon,” 198–199. In English, see Helen Hardacre, “Asano Wasaburò and Japanese Spiritualism in Early Twentieth Century Japan,” in Minichiello, Japan’s Competing Modernities, 135–136. Note that the recent blockbuster horror films in Japan known as The Ring series are loosely based on Fukurai’s senrigan experiments. 29.  Numajiri, “Kindai Nihon,” 198–199. 30.  Ichiyanagi, Kokkurisan, 165–174. 31.  Ibid., 4. 32.  Oppenheim, The Other World, 122–125. 33.  Theosophy was established in the 1870s but did not reach its largest membership until the 1920s. The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucia, a group that associated itself with the secret Rosicrucian order established in the fifteenth century, was founded in 1915 by Harvey Spencer Lewis. It fused Christianity with Egyptian mysteries. For works on the development of Theosophy, see J. Gordon Melton, ed., The Origins of Theosophy (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990); Peter Washington, Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon; and Jocelyn Goodwyn, The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). 34. Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science in 1879, but it began to take off nationally after 1908, with the publication of the Christian Science Monitor. Rudolph Steiner founded Anthroposophy in 1912 after defecting from Theosophy. 35.  Hazelgrove, Spiritualism. 2–4, 26, and Oppenheim, The Other World, 160. 36.  Ikegami, Yoshimasa, “Local Newspaper Coverage of Folk Shamans in Aomori Prefecture,” in Folk Beliefs in Modern Japan, ed. Inoue Nobutaka (Tokyo: Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics, 1994), 17. 37.  Ibid. 38.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 93, and Numajiri, “Kindai Nihon,” 191. 39.  Numajiri, “Kindai Nihon,” 196. The government reports investigating “false religious groups” (shûkyò ruiji dantai) that promoted magical healing named nearly one hundred groups in 1927 and over seven hundred in 1937. 40.  In addition to these two forms of healing rituals, Tenrikyò also conducted ògi no sazuke, in which the patient’s chances for recovery were ascertained by use of a fan held in the lap of a mediator in a state of trance. If the fan moved upward, it indicated that the patient would recover. Jikimotsu no sazuke and mizu no sazuke were the dispensation of specially blessed food and holy water respectively. 41.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 93–99. The Home Ministry’s directives listed three main points of objection against Tenrikyò: the free intermingling of men and women, considered detrimental to public morality; the coercive collection of donations; and the rejection of modern medicine in favor of faith-based cures like holy water and amulets.

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Notes to Pages 84–88

42.  Ibid. There was also a concerted media campaign against the new religion Renmonkyò in 1894 that ultimately led to the sect’s demise. Misogikyò and Ontakekyò were also frequent objects of media criticism at this time. See Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSJ, 27, and Numajiri, “Kindai Nihon,” 192. 43.  Ikegami, “Local Newspaper Coverage,” 15–16. 44.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 94–95. 45.  Hori Ichirò, ed., Japanese Religion: A Survey by the Agency for Cultural Affairs (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1972), 225. Tenrikyò withdrew from the Association of Shinto Sects in April 1970 and asked that it be reclassified from “Shinto” to “Other Religions.” 46.  Yamamoto Toshio, “Tenrikyò and Medicine,” Tenri Journal of Religion 7 (1965): 28–33. 47.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 92. 48.  Ibid., 95. 49.  Clark B. Offner and Henry van Straelen, Modern Japanese Religions: With Special Emphasis upon Their Doctrines of Healing (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1963), 95–96. 50.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 95–96. 51.  This moral code has been a main theme in Yasumaru’s writing. See, for example, Nihon no kindaika to minshû shisò. In English see Ooms, Women and Millenarian Protest, 33–44. 52.  Shin reikai, October 17, 1919, 9. 53.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 97. Note that Kurozumikyò had already reached its peak by the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868. 54.  Ibid., 91–98. 55.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, “Oomoto’s View of Health and Healing,” trans. Charles Rowe. English version unpublished. Originally published in Shisò no kagaku 7, no. 121 (1989): 1–4. 56.  Ibid. 57.  Hardacre, “Asano Wasaburò,” 133–153. For a full-length biography of Asano in Japanese, see Matsumoto Ken’ichi, Kami no wana: Asano Wasaburò, kindai chisei no higeki (Tokyo: Shinchòsha, 1989). For more on Oomoto’s expansion among intellectuals and navy personnel, see Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:359–363. 58.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:351–353. 59.  Ibid., 355. 60.  Ibid., 476. 61.  Ibid., 355. 62.  Òmoto Kumamoto Shûkai Nanajunenshi Hensaniinkai, ed., Òmoto Kumamoto shûkai nanajunenshi (Kumamoto: Òmoto Kumamoto Shûkai, 1996), 15–18. 63.  Ibid. 64.  Ibid. 65.  Shin reikai, March 1921. 66.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:471. 67.  Ibid., 494.

Notes to Pages 88–91

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68.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 57–58. 69.  Quoted in ibid., 55. 70.  Hardacre, “Asano Wasaburò,” 145. 71.  For more on the relationship between Asano and Nao, see Kamata Tòji, Shinkai no fiirudo waaku: Reigaku to minzo-kugaku no seisei (Tokyo: Seikyusha, 1987), 362–374. 72.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:476–478. 73.  Tomokiyo left Oomoto after Nao’s death and founded a study group that became the Shinto Tenkòkyò in 1927. See Inone Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 128–129, 517. 74.  Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 91. 75.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:426–443. 76.  Ibid. 77.  Note that the term chinkon is currently used to describe a wide array of practices, from offerings at shrines to the pacification of angry spirits to zazen-like seated meditation. See, for example, Kuroda Toshio, “The World of Spirit Pacification,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23, nos. 3–4 (1996), which discusses ritual pacification of vengeful spirits in the medieval era and ties this to the contemporary political problem of spirit pacification at Yasukuni Shrine. For discussion of the etymology of the terms, see Birgit Staemmler, Chinkon Kishin: Mediated Spirit Possession in Japanese New Religions (Hamburg: Lit Verlag, forthcoming). 78.  Staemmler provides details on Onisaburò’s distinction between these two phases. See ibid., 307 (manuscript page). 79.  Other primary elements of Ancient Shinto include belief in kotodama, numerous methods of divination, and a cosmological discourse that asserted that humans were a microcosm of the universe and that Japan was a microcosm of the world. Kotodama-derived interpretation of the Kojiki was a central activity among Ancient Shintoists. 80.  Tsushiro Hirofumi, Chinkon Gyòhòron (Tokyo: Shunshûsha, 1990), 32. Honda’s writings were first published as excerpts in Oomoto’s Shin reikai. There was a resurgence of interest in Honda spiritualism beginning in the 1980s, perhaps connected to a growing interest in the occult. On Honda, see Suzuki Shigemichi, ed., Honda Chikaatsu zenshû (Tokyo: Hachiman Shoten, 1983), and Honda Chikaatsu kenkyû (Kawaguchi: Sangabò, 1977). 81.  McNally, Proving the Way, 189–197, and Walthall, Weak Body, 130–132. 82.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 104. Also see Tsushiro, Chinkon, 31–34. For more on Honda in English, see Staemmler, Chinkon, 136–175 (manuscript pages). 83.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 125. I consciously use the pronoun “he” here as the saniwa role seems to be reserved for men. See Staemmler, Chinkon, 358–362 (manuscript pages), on the etymology of the term saniwa. 84.  Staemmler, Chinkon, 124 (manuscript page). 85.  Yumiyama “Rei,” 104. 86.  Ibid. For a description of Shinto divination using the koto, see Kato Gen’ichi, A Historical Study of the Religious Development of Shinto (New York:

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Notes to Pages 87–95

Greenwood Press, 1988), 154–155. See Aston, Nihongi, 224–226, for an English translation of this episode. 87.  Tsushiro, Chinkon, 166–167; Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:102. 88.  Some other notable Honda students were Soejima Tawaomi, introduced to Honda by Saigo Takamori; Miwa Takeshi, head of Shizuoka’s Miwa Shrine; and Suzuki Hiromichi. See Staemmler, Chinkon, 188–191 (manuscript pages). 89.  Ibid., 176–187, for more on Nagasawa. 90.  Oomoto 14, nos. 9–10 (September 1969): 4; Tsushiro, Chinkon, 166–168. Unfortunately Onisaburò did not leave a comprehensive text or commentary on the practice. As reported by Tsushiro, some of the episodes in Onisaburò’s Reikai monogatari address the composition of the spirit world and touch on the chinkon kishin practice; others provide fragmentary quotes from Honda. See for example, “Seigon,” in Deguchi Onisaburò, Reikai monogatari (Kyoto: Tenseisha, 1921–1934; reprint Kyoto: Tenseisha, 1987), vol. 48. It is possible that Onisaburò was honoring the “secret” nature of the transmission, as it was primarily his subordinates, especially Asanò and Taniguchi, who chose to write about the practice in Oomoto journals. 91.  Tsushiro, Chinkon, 35–37. 92.  Koshintò no hon, 119–120. 93.  Yumiyama, “Rei,” 102. 94.  Koshintò no hon, 119–120. The degree of success obtained reportedly could be measured by the weight of the chinkon stone, which became lighter or heavier as a result of the practice. 95.  Honda had switched the koto, used in the “ancient” version recorded in the Nihongi, with the iwabue, a simpler instrument. 96.  The song goes, “Hito, futa, mi, yo, itsu, muyu, nana, ya, kokono, tari-ya!” (two times); “Hito, futa, mi, yo, itsu, muyu, nana, ya, kokono, tari, momo, chi, yorozu!” As reported by Iwao Hino in Oomoto 14, nos. 9–10 (September 1969): 3–5. 97.  Koshintò no hon, 124–125. 98.  Staemmler, Chinkon, 319–320 (manuscript pages). 99.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 6. Note that here tanden is glossed by Onisaburò to read kuninaka, or center of the realm. 100.  Staemmler, Chinkon, 312–315 (manuscript pages). 101.  Ibid., 126, 335, 340. 102.  Taniguchi Masaharu, Kòdò reigaku kòwa (Tokyo: Shinkòsha, 1920), 10–18. Also recounted in slightly different form as a series of three articles entitled “Tsukareta hito” in Shin reikai, July–September 1918. Also noted in Yumiyama, “Rei,” 102–104. Staemmler, Chinkon, provides several additional eyewitness descriptions of the ritual, 230–242 (manuscript pages). Seichò no Ie was founded in 1930 and melded Oomoto doctrine with the philosophies of the New Thought and Mental Science movements from the West. See Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 152, 494. For more on Taniguchi’s activities after leaving Oomoto, see Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:682–690. In English see Roy Eugene Davis, Miracle Man of Japan: The Life and Work of Masahara Taniguchi (Lakemont, GA: CSA Press, 1970). 103.  Shin reikai, July 1918, 26–29.

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104.  Ibid. 105.  Ibid. 106.  Ibid. 107.  Ibid. 108.  Ibid. 109.  Ibid. 110.  Iketsu Genjirò, Nazo no Òmotokyò (Tokyo: Shinkòsha, 1920), 7–10. 111.  Ibid.,13. 112.  Ibid. 113.  Ibid., 155. 114.  Ibid. 115.  Ibid. Iketsu mentions three exercises: the seizaho, taireido, and ki-ai judo. On Taireidò, a large spiritualist sect that was perhaps Oomoto’s closest competitor, see Nishiyama, “Gendai no shûkyò undò,” 178–181. With the burning of its headquarters in 1926 and sudden death of its founder, Tanaka Morihei, in 1928, it quickly fell into obscurity and has left few remaining records. 116.  Ibid., 154–155. 117.  Such was the case with China’s massive Taiping Rebellion (1845–1864), the largest uprising in human history. The Taiping religious leader Hong Xiuquan, who claimed he was the son of God and Jesus’ younger brother, was repeatedly forced to defer to the proclamations of his underlings, who claimed to be possessed by God or Jesus themselves. A fascinating account of the Taiping Rebellion is available in Jonathan Spence, God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996). 118.  Staemmler, Chinkon, 325, 380 (manuscript pages). 119.  Shin reikai, May, 1919, 26–28. 120.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:537. 121.  Nakamura Kokyò, Omoto no kaibò (Tokyo: Nihon Seishin Igakukai, 1920). Also reported in Numajiri, “Kindai Nihon,” 197. 122.  Ibid. 123.  Book-length publications promoting Oomoto practices released in this period include the following: Taniguchi Masaharu, Kòdò reigaku kòwa; Tomokiyo Yoshisane, Sekai to hito to no sekai kaizo undo (December 1918), and Kòdò Òmoto no kenkyu (May 1919); Asano Wasaburò, Kojiki to gendai; Hattori Shizuo, Òmotokyò no hihan; and Iketsu Genjirò, Nazo no Òmotokyò (August 1920). 124.  Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, 3:9–15. 125.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:528–538. See Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, 3:16– 31, for the police interviews with Onisaburò and Asano. 126.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:538–540. For example, Katò Kakuji, an ex-follower who left Oomoto in 1920, received a great deal of media attention with his accusation that Oomoto had accumulated large stores of weapons and was planning a revolution. 127.  Documents related to the court cases can be found in Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, 3:72–198.

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Notes to Pages 98–108

128.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 96. 129.  Murakami, Hyòden, 141. 130.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:630–635. 131.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 203–205. 132.  Ibid., 214. 133.  Ibid., 95. 134.  There were initially four scribes, including Taniguchi Masaharu, but their number eventually climbed to thirty-five. 135.  Murakami, Hyòden, 144–145. 136.  Ibid. 137.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 157. Hidemaru was born Takami Motò and was an Oomoto member from Okayama who had studied literature at Kyoto University. As happened when Onisaburò married Sumiko, Hidemaru was adopted into the Deguchi clan as a young man with spiritual promise to act as a partner to the female spiritual heir. 138.  Murakami, Hyòden, 147. 139.  Staemmler notes several interim prohibitions issued by Onisaburò and Oomoto executives from 1919 forward; see Chinkon, 221 (manuscript page). 140.  Quoted in Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 6. 141.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:709–711. 142.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 4–6. 143.  Offner and van Straelen, Modern Japanese Religions, 214–215. 144.  Ibid., 215–216. 145.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:795–805. 146.  For a light-hearted account of the history of the fez in Turkey, see Jeremy Seal, A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat (New York: Harcourt, 1996). 147.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:795–805. 148.  Shinnyò no hikari, May 1926; reported in Òmoto Hiroshima Hònen Nanajunenshi Hensaniinkai, ed., Òmoto Hiroshima hònen nanajunenshi (Hiroshima: Hibaihin, 1995), 96. 149.  Oomoto 15, nos. 3–4 (May–April 1970): 3–4. 150.  Ibid. 151.  Ibid. 152.  Hardacre, “Asano Wasaburò,” 134. 153.  Tetsuo Najita and H. D. Harootunian “Japan’s Revolt against the West,” in Modern Japanese Thought, ed. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 207–272. 154.  Owen, The Place of Enchantment, 9–11. 155.  Ibid, 13.



Chapter 4: Exhibitionist Tendencies

1.  Shinji Shûmeikai was established in 1970 by Koyama Mihoko. The sect spun off from Sekai Kyûseikyò, an Oomoto splinter group established by Okada Mòkichi

Notes to Pages 108–113

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that operates its own world-class art museum, the MOA in Atami. On Shinji Shûmeikai, see Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 113–114, 142–143. On Okada’s attitudes toward art, see Okada Mòkichi, Tengoku no ishizue: Geijutsu (Atami: Sekai Kyûseikyò, 1992). Sûkyò Mahikari, another very large, Oomoto-related healing sect, operates the Hikaru Memorial Museum in Hida Takayama in the Japan Alps. A fourth new religion operating a major art museum is Sòka Gakkai, which opened the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum in 1983. 2.  For more on the activities of Kumano nuns, see Barbara Ruch, ed. Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002). 3.  This expression was coined in Nam Lin Hur, Prayer and Play in Late Tokugawa Japan: Asakusa Sensòji and Edo Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). On Konpira, see Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods. 4.  On the historical development of the Shikoku pilgrimage, see Reader, Making Pilgrimages, 107–149. 5.  On how practical benefits (genze riyaku) are a normative and central theme in the structure and framework of Japanese religion, see Reader and Tanabe, Practically Religious. 6.  Hur, Prayer and Play, 217–220; Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods, 241–244. 7.  Robert Singer, ed., Edo: Art in Japan 1615–1868 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1998), 205–215. 8.  Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs, 164. For more on Buddhism’s reforms to meet Western religious norms, see Judith Snodgrass, Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West: Orientalism, Occidentalism, and the Columbian Exposition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 9.  Shimazono, “Spirit-Belief,” 90–100. 10.  David Morgan, “Protestant Visual Culture and the Challenges of Urban America during the Progressive Era,” in Giggie and Winston, Faith in the Market. 11.  Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 12.  Diane Winston, “Living in the Material World: Salvation Army Lassies and Urban Commercial Culture, 1880–1918,” in Giggie and Winston, Faith in the Market, 15. 13.  Morgan, “Protestant Visual Culture,” 37–56. 14.  Fran Grace, “The Best Show in Town: Carry Nation and the Selling of Temperance in the Urban Northeast,” in Giggie and Winston, Faith in the Market, 62–65. 15.  Ibid., 69. 16.  Shinnyò no hikari advertisement, September 17, 1935. Japan (Nippon) Columbia Records was established when American Columbia and British Columbia invested in an existing Japanese recording company in 1907. For more on the recording industry at this time, see Christine Yano, “Defining the Modern Nation in Japanese Popular Song,” in Minichiello, Japan’s Competing Modernities, 247–251. 17.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Reikai monogatari, 65:9–14.

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Notes to Pages 113–119

18.  See, for example, Ananda Coomaraswamy: The Arts and Crafts of India (London: T. N. Foulis, 1913); Asiatic Art (Chicago: New Orient Society of America, 1938); and Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art (New York: Dover, 1956). 19.  Frederick Franck, An Encounter with Oomoto “The Great Origin”: A Faith Rooted in the Ancient Mysticism and the Traditional Arts of Japan (West Nyack, NY: Cross Currents, 1975), 37. 20.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 3:183. For a catalogue of some of Onisaburò’s ink paintings, see Deguchi Onisaburò, Deguchi Onisaburò shogashû (Kyoto: Tenseisha, 1935; reprint Aizen Shuppan, 1999). 21.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 3:183–186. 22.  Ibid. 23.  Ibid. This statement was perhaps intended as a contrast to the ancient Indian and Buddhist practice of painting in the eyes of a statue or artwork last. 24.  Ibid., 3:189. 25.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 161. 26.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:59–61. 27.  Ibid. 28.  Ibid. 29.  Asahi Graph, January 3, 1975. Reprinted in Oomoto 20, nos. 1–4 (January–April 1975): 14. 30.  Alexandra Munroe, ed., Japanese Art after 1945: Scream against the Sky (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), 133. 31.  Asahi Graph, January 3, 1975. For catalogues that feature these ceramics, see Cahiers de la Céramique du Verre et des Arts du Feu 57 (Paris: Revue Trimestruelle, 1975), and Oomoto Foundation, The Art of Onisaburò Deguchi (1871–1948) and His School (Brussels: Oomoto Foundation, 1975). 32.  Oomoto 20, nos. 1–4 (January–April 1975): 13. 33.  Ibid., 5. 34.  Ibid., 14. 35.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:62–67. 36.  Andrew Markus, “Shogakai: Celebrity Banquets of the Late Edo Period,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 53, no. 1:135–167. 37.  H. D. Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), esp. chapter 3. 38.  Ibid. 39.  For more on Yanagi’s views, see Yanagi Sòetsu, The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty, trans. Bernard Leach (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1972). 40.  Nihon Rekishikai, Shûkyò hakurankaishi (Kyoto: Shûkyò Dai Hakurankai, 1931), 1. 41.  Ibid., 23. 42.  On this point, see Hardacre, Shinto and the State, esp. chapter 6. 43.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:64. 44.  Nihon Rekishikai, Shûkyò hakurankaishi, 16–17. Considering that the total admission fees earned for the entire exposition amounted to only 203,000 yen (at

Notes to Pages 119–125

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50 sen per person), this was indeed a substantial investment. Total Oomoto facilities at Kameoka were valued at approximately 600,000 yen. 45.  Ibid., 120–135. 46.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:65. 47.  Ibid. 48.  Chûgai nippo, March 25, 1930. 49.  Umesao Tadao, interviewed by author, Osaka, March 18, 2000. 50.  Shinnyò no hikari, March 21, 1930. Comments from the public were captured in a series of columns by Matsumura Nobuko entitled “Shûkyò daihakurankai Oomoto tokubetsukan yori,” which reported on exhibition activities and attendance in Oomoto’s Shinnyò no hikari from March 15 to May 5, 1930. In total, there were several hundred quotes from visitors. 51.  For reproductions of the Bodhidharma paintings and hundreds of other works, see Deguchi Onisaburò, Deguchi Onisaburò Shogashû. 52.  Shinnyò no hikari, April 4, 1930. Other imperial family members who visited the exhibition reportedly included Kuninomiya Takao, Douhi, Oji, Iehiko, and Norihiko. 53.  Quoted in ibid., March 11, 1930. 54.  Ibid., April 5, 1930. 55.  Ibid., April 11, 1930. 56.  Nihon Rekishikai, Shûkyò hakurankaishi, preface. 57.  Shinnyò no hikari, April 1, 1930. Tamba is an old name for the region of Japan where Kameoka and Ayabe are located. 58.  Aoi Itsuko, “Shûkyòhaku de hane o hirogeru Oomotokyò,” Chûgai nippo, March 25, 1930, 1. 59.  Nihon Rekishikai, Shûkyò hakurankaishi, 144–149, 172–177. Promoters distributed 710,000 posters and 482,000 handbills and newspaper inserts. Standing signboards were erected at thirty prominent locations throughout Kyoto, such as the main gate of Kyoto station, beginning two months before the official opening. According to the official count, total attendance for the exposition was 894,411, but 335,217 entries were attributed to persons related to the exposition. According to the Shinnyò no hikari columns, which noted daily attendance, the Oomoto exhibit drew a total of 311,000 unrelated persons. 60.  Ibid., 17. 61.  Darrell William Davis, Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental Style, National Identity, Japanese Film (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 50; Satò Takumi, “Kingu” no jidai: Kokumin taishu zasshi no kokyosei (Tokyo: Iwananami Shoten, 2002). 62.  Jeffrey E. Hanes, “Media Culture in Taishò Osaka,” in Minichiello, Japan’s Competing Modernities, 275. 63.  A comparison of attendance statistics collected by Oomoto for its own exhibit and by Nihon Rekishikai for the main hall demonstrates that in the first two weeks of the expo, attendance at Oomoto was generally one-third to one-half of the attendance at the main hall. In the last few weeks, however, there were eight days on

222

Notes to Pages 126–132

which entries to Oomoto exceeded those to the main hall. The number of visitors to Oomoto ranged from 1,680 to 18,378 (on April 6) per day, averaging over 5,000 per day and exceeding 10,000 on six days. 64.  Shinnyò, no hikari, April 5, 1930. 65.  Ibid., April 25, 1930. 66.  Ibid. 67.  Ibid., April 4, 1930. 68.  Ibid., April 15, 1930. 69.  Nihon Rekishikai, Shûkyò hakurankaishi, 65. 70.  Chûgai nippo, March 25, 1930. 71.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:66. 72.  Note that Man-Mò was the most commonly used term to designate this area in the 1920s and early 1930s. With the establishment of the Manchukuo puppet state, the “Mo” was often excised and the area commonly referred to as Manshû or Manchukuo. 73.  Ibid., 2:127–129. See chapter 5 for more on this expedition. 74.  Ibid. 75.  Ibid. 76.  Ibid. 77.  Robert Rydell, World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), and Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 78.  Angus Lockyer, “Japan at the Exhibition, 1867–1970” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2000), 195. 79.  Ibid., 26. 80.  Ibid., 13, 20. 81.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:246; Deguchi Kyòtaro, Kyòjin Deguchi Onisaburò (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1967), 353–354. 82.  Peter B. High, The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years’ War, 1931–1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 14. 83.  Shinnyò, no hikari, April 15, 1932, 46–47. 84.  See ibid., vols. 49–52 (1932–1935), for irregular columns and contributions on the activities of the film squads, especially a column entitled “Eiga senden han tayori.” 85.  The production of patriotic feature films began as early as the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and continued as a major genre throughout the 1940s. Sophisticated urban audiences often disdained poor quality patriotic films, but according to Peter High, rural audiences found these acceptable (The Imperial Screen, 5). 86.  Quoted in “Tenrankai to eiga” Shinnyò, no hikari, February 10, 1935. 87.  Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity, 78, 102–103, 113–114. 88.  See, for example, Steven J. Ross, “Struggles for the Screen: Workers, Radicals and the Political Uses of Silent Film,” American Historical Review 96, no. 2 (1991): 333–367. 89.  Another example of a traveling film company is that of Socialist story-

Notes to Pages 132–135

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teller Takamatsu Toyojirò, who toured the country in 1900 with projector and films, combining performance with promotion of the labor movement. See Komatsu Hiroshi, “Some Characteristics of Japanese Cinema before World War I,” in Nolletti and Desser, Reframing Japanese Cinema, 240–242. The Japan Proletarian Motion Picture League, or Pro Kino, formed in 1929 to film May Day demonstrations, living conditions in the slums, and other material related to the Japanese Communist movement, but its focus was on urban workers. See Makino Mamoru, “Rethinking the Emergence of the Proletarian Film League of Japan,” in In Praise of Film Studies: Essays in Honor to Makino Mamoru, ed. Mark Nornes Abé and Aaron Gerow (Victoria: Trafford/Kinema Club, 2001), 15–45; Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 69. 90.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:249. 91.  According to the current Oomoto film and video division, there are no surviving copies of this film. 92.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:246–247. 93.  See J. Anderson and Richie, The Japanese Film, for more detail on the rise of the Japanese movie studios. 94.  See Lisa Spalding, “Period Films in the Prewar Era,” in Nolletti and Desser, Reframing Japanese Cinema, 139. 95.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, Kyòjin, 142–143. 96.  J. Anderson and Richie, The Japanese Film, 35–43. 97.  In Hattori Shizuo, Omotokyò no hihan: Mondai no shinshûkyò (Tokyo: Shinkòsha, 1920), preface. 98.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:246–247. This film was not available for viewing; it is unclear whether copies are still extant. 99.  Jinrui aizen shimbun, October 1, 1935; Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:246–247. A video version of this film is marketed by Aizen-en, a group that split from Oomoto for political reasons in the 1980s. In this video, Onisaburò’s grandson, Deguchi Yasuaki, head of Aizen-en, provides a running voiceover commentary. 100.  Quoted in Gregory Barrett, “Comic Targets and Comic Styles: An Introduction to Japanese Film Comedy,” in Nolletti and Desser, Reframing Japanese Cinema, 216. 101.  Murakami Shigeyoshi, Nihon shûkyò jiten (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1988), 238–239. The palindrome is “Nakaki yo no toho no nemuri no mina mesame nami nori fune no oto no yoki ka na,” or roughly, “All awaken from the sleep of faraway nights, riding the waves, the fine sound of the boat.” For more on the Shichifukujin in English, see Reader and Tanabe, Practically Religious, 156–163, and Chiba Reiko, The Seven Lucky Gods of Japan (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1966). In Japanese, see Miyata Noboru, Shichifukujin shinkò jiten (Tokyo: Ebisu Kòshò Shuppan, 1990). 102.  Shinnyò no hikari, October 1, 1935. The advertisement appeared as the back cover of three consecutive issues. Advertisements and articles also appeared in Jinrui aizen shimbun and many other Oomoto publications.

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Notes to Pages 137–143

103.  Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1968), 242. 104.  Salvation Army in Australia, “Limelight Department Established,” http:// www.salvationarmy.org.au/museum/SoldiersOfTheCross/page4.htm. 105.  Ibid. 106.  Inoue Nobutaka et al.: SSJ, 369, 170–173. 107.  Inoue Nobutaka et al.: SSJ, 370. 108.  Reader, Religion in Contemporary Japan, 194–233; Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 7–8. 109.  Trevor Astley, “The Transformation of a Recent Japanese New Religion: Òkawa Ryûhò and Kòfuku no Kagaku,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22 (1995): 343–380. 110.  Fukami Tòshu, “Geijutsu Ongaku Katsudo no Rekishi,” http://www .fukami.com/. 111.  Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSKJJ, 323, 559. 112.  John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds. Consumption and the World of Goods (London: Routledge, 1993), 6. 113.  See P. F. Kornicki, “Public Display and Changing Values: Early Meiji Exhibitions and Their Precursors,” Monumenta Nipponica 49, no. 2 (1994): 171–181. 114.  “Shûkaibetsu kaku undò hòkoku,” column appearing in Shinnyò no hikari from May to December 1935. Statistics were available only for this period, which ends at the point of the second, devastating suppression by state authorities.



Chapter 5: Paradoxical Internationalism?

1.  Accounts of the Mongolian expedition in Japanese include Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:716–766; Murakami, Hyòden, 160–179; and Deguchi Kyòtaro, Kyòjin, 256–290. Also see Deguchi Yasuaki, Deguchi Onisaburò nyûmo hiwa (Kameoka: Izutomizu, 1965). Onisaburò’s own account of the affair is available in “Nyû Mò ki,” in Deguchi Onisaburò, DOZ, vol. 6. A partial account in English can also be found in Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 123–136. 2.  Oomoto International, April–June 1982, 34. 3.  See, for example, Brian Victoria, Zen at War (New York: Weatherhill, 1997); James W. Heisig and John C. Maraldo, eds., Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of Nationalism (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1995); Nam Lin Hur, “The Sòtò Sect and Japanese Military Imperialism in Korea,” and Christopher Ives, “The Mobilization of Doctrine: Buddhist Contributions to Imperial Ideology in Modern Japan,”—both in Japanese Journal of Religions Studies 26, nos. 1–2 (2000): 107–134 and 83–106. 4.  Hur, “Sòtò Sect,” 119, 126. 5.  I adopt the broad definition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for the word “internationalism” here and elsewhere in this chapter, meaning simply “international character or spirit” rather than adherence to any principles associated with specific organizations. I also follow the OED definition of “nationalism”

Notes to Pages 144–150

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to mean “advocacy of or support for the interests of one’s own nation, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.” 6.  Kisala, Prophets of Peace, 11–12. 7.  This phrase may have been derived from the well-known phrase “One lord, one faith, one baptism” associated with Christianity in Japan. 8.  On this riot see Okamoto Shumpei, “The Emperor and the Crowd: The Historical Significance of the Hibiya Riots,” in Najita and Koschmann, Conflict in Modern Japanese History. 9.  See, for example, Nobuya Bamba, Pacifism in Japan: The Christian and Socialist Tradition (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1978), and Irwin Scheiner, Christian Converts and Social Protest in Meiji Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970). 10.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:273. 11.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Michi no shiori, 172–173. This work is also available in Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, 1:663–700. 12.  Murakami, Hyòden, 161. 13.  James Boyd, “A Forgotten ‘Hero’: Kawahara Misako and Japan’s Informal Imperialism in Mongolia during the Meiji Period,” Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context 11 (August 2005): 6. Kawahara’s book was reprinted in 1943 and 1970. 14.  Li Narangoa, “Japanese Imperialism and Mongolian Buddhism, 1932– 1945,” Critical Asian Studies 35, no. 4 (2003): 508. 15.  Hino Tsuyoshi, Iri kiko (Tokyo: Hakubunnkan, 1909). 16.  Oomoto 13, nos. 7–8 (1968): 3. Hino died in Ayabe in 1920. 17.  Quoted in Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:716. 18.  Quoted in ibid., 720. 19.  Prasenjit Duara, “Transnationalism and the Predicament of Sovereignty: China 1900–1945,” American Historical Review, October 1997, 1030. 20.  Gavan McCormack, Chang Tso-Lin in Northeast China, 1911–1928 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), 55. 21.  In the early 1920s Chang received direct and indirect aid from the Hara cabinet to help him establish firm control of the region. See ibid., 56–58. He was assassinated by Kwantung Army conspirators in a plot to blame the Chinese Guomindang and thus provoke the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in June 1928. 22.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:728. 23.  Ibid. 24.  Ueshiba Kishomaru, Aikido (Tokyo: Hozansha, 1974), 146–152. On Ueshiba’s return to Ayabe from Mongolia, he developed the aikido philosophy and techniques. 25.  McCormack, Chang Tso-Lin, 118–119. 26.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:732. 27.  Ibid., 733. Note that in Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is the highest spiritual and temporal authority, the Panchen Lama second. 28.  Ibid., 734.

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Notes to Pages 150–154

29.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOZ, 6:122–128. 30.  Ibid. 31.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:735–736. 32.  Quoted in ibid., 743. 33.  The town is known in Chinese as T’ung-liao. McCormack, Chang Tso-Lin, 229. 34.  Quoted in Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:749. 35.  Ibid., 750. 36.  Short notices about Onisaburò’s plans and his journey to Mongolia had appeared in the Kobe shimbun, Osaka asahi, and Japan Weekly Chronicle, Kobe’s English language newspaper, in March and May 1924. James Boyd, e-mail message to author, August 15, 2005. 37.  Edamatsu Shigeyuki et al., eds., Taishò nyûsu jiten (Tokyo: Mainichi Komyunikêshonzu, 1986–1989), 60–61. 38.  Taiyò, December 1925; quoted in Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:756. 39.  Quoted in Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:767. 40.  Quoted in ibid., 756. 41.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Reikai monogatari, vol. 6, ch. 23; translation from “Oomoto and Other Religions,” Oomoto International, April–June 1982, 31–32. 42.  Richard Fox Young, “From Gokyò-dogen to Bankyò-dokon: A Study in the Self Universalization of Òmoto,” Japanese Journal of Religions Studies 15, no. 4 (1988): 275–277. Young notes that bankyò dòkon was similar to the Shinto concept of shinpon butsujaku, asserting that all gods and Buddhas are avatars of primary and original Japanese kami. 43.  Ibid., 274. 44.  The first figure is from Oomoto 13, nos. 5–6 (May–June 1968): 4, and the second from Duara, “Transnationalism,” 1033. 45.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:702. 46.  Ibid. Hayashide’s connections to Oomoto are unclear in the Oomoto sources, but his records and papers are available in microform from UMI. 47.  Ibid., 703. 48.  Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, 2:320–321. 49.  Wi Jo Kang, Religion and Politics in Korea under the Japanese Rule (Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1987), 69–72. 50.  On Chondogyò (a.k.a. Tonghak), see Weems, Reform. 51.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:762–765. Information on Futenkyò comes from Oomoto sources, and I have been unable to find corroborating sources on the group. It was likely a numerically small and evanescent organization. 52.  Ibid. 53.  Ibid. 54.  On Cao Dai, see McHale, Print and Power, 157–160, and Oliver, Caodai Spiritism. For a fictionalized description of Cao Dai spiritualists and communities in the United States, see Lan Cao, Monkey Bridge (New York: Penguin, 1997). 55.  Oomoto 16, nos. 1–2 (January 1971): 4.

Notes to Pages 154–162

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56.  Oomoto 14, nos. 5–6 (May 1969): 4, and 15, nos. 5–6 (May 1970): 3. 57.  Peter J. Forster, The Esperanto Movement (The Hague: Mouton, 1982), 41–46. 58.  For more on the life of Zamenhof, see Marjorie Boulton, Zamehnof, Creator of Esperanto (London: Routledge, 1960). 59.  Pierre Janton, Esperanto Language, Literature and Community (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 23–28. 60.  Ibid. 61.  Ibid., 81. The congress was held in Boulogne, France, and attended by 668 participants from twenty countries. 62.  Ibid., 52. 63.  See Forster, Esperanto Movement, chapter 3. 64.  Murakami, Hyòden, 149. 65.  Oomoto 7, nos. 2–3 (April 1962): 13. 66.  Forster, Esperanto Movement, 22–26. 67.  Òmoto Esuperanto Tomo no Kai, Òmoto esuperantoshi (hereafter OES) (Kameoka: Tenseisha, 1987), 5–7. 68.  Kami no kuni, September 1923, 11–16. 69.  Quoted in Òmoto Esuperanto Tomo no Kai, OES, 17. 70.  Ibid., 19. 71.  Quoted in Oomoto International, January 1997, 17. 72.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:691–694. 73.  Hatcher, The Bahá’í Faith, xiii. 74.  Ibid., 1–2. 75.  Ibid., 95–96. 76.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Reikai monogatari, vol. 64, ch. 15; also published in three consecutive issues of Oomoto Gazetto Esperanta as “Grand Match: The Two New Forces in the World” (January 1925). 77.  Quoted in Òmoto Esuperanto Tomo no Kai, OES, 9. 78.  Deguchi Onisaburò, Kioku benpo esu-wa sakka jiten (Kameoka: Tenseisha, 1924; reprint 1972). This dictionary is currently in its fourth edition. Also see Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:695–698. 79.  Quoted in Deguchi Kyòtarò, Kyòjin, 213. 80.  Quoted in Kami no kuni, January 1924, 35. 81.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:781–783. 82.  Ibid. 83.  Quoted in Òmoto Esuperanto Tomo no Kai, OES, 42–43. 84.  Ibid. 85.  Kami no kuni, July 1926, 3–12. 86.  Oomoto, May 1974. 87.  Òmoto Esuperanto Tomo no Kai, OES, 51. 88.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:770. 89.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:236. 90.  Ibid., 237.

228

Notes to Pages 162–169

91.  Mitsuno Masaburò, Jinrui aizen (Kameoka: Jinrui Aizenkai, 1985), 9. 92.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:770–771. The documents and procedures used in establishing the ULBA are collected in Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, vol. 2: Undò hen, 311–320. 93.  Ibid., 776. 94.  Jinrui aizen shimbun, December 11, 1926. 95.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 1:776. 96.  Ibid., 49. 97.  Inoue Nobutaka et al., SSJ, 614. 98.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:274. 99.  Ibid., 277–278. 100.  Deguchi Kyòtarò, Kyòjin, 198. 101.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:274. 102.  Ibid., 97–99, 273–274. 103.  Ibid., 609, 613. In 1934, Tenrikyò constructed an entire village in the suburbs of Harbin and sent a group of believers to found a community known as Tenri-mura. See “The Early Stage of Overseas Mission in Tenrikyo,” Tenri Journal of Religion 21 (December 1987): 49–58. 104.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:614. 105.  Ibid., 608. For a memoir of a Tenrikyò missionary in Korea and China that confirms the orientation toward Japanese settlers, see Takano Tomoji, The Missionary (Tenri: Tenri Jihòsha, 1981). 106.  Mitsuno, Jinrui aizen, 49. 107.  Ibid. 108.  Deguchi Onisaburò, DOC, 2:234–235. 109.  See, for example, Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 110.  Dick Stegewerns, “The Dilemma of Nationalism and Internationalism in Modern Japan,” in Stegewerns, Nationalism and Internationalism, 3–16. 111.  Kevin Doak, “Liberal Nationalism in Imperial Japan: The Dilemma of Nationalism and Internationalism,” in Stegewerns, Nationalism and Internationalism, 19. 112.  Ibid. 113.  See, for example, Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late Ming China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), and Pierre-Etienne Will, Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). 114.  Liisa Malkki, “Citizens and Humanity: Internationalism and the Imagined Community of Nations,” Diaspora 3, no. 1 (1994): 61. 115.  On Father Divine, see Jill Watts, God, Harlem USA: The Father Divine Story (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), and Robert Weisbrot, Father Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983).

Notes to Pages 170–173



229

Chapter 6: A Patriotic Turn and the Second Suppression

1.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:115–117. The pronouncement was widely reported in popular magazines like Hito no Uwasa (June 1932, 132–137) as evidence of Onisaburò’s prophetic abilities. According to the Nihon shoki, Jimmu ascended to the throne in 660 B.C. The new calendar, along with the system of naming years according to reigning emperor, was instituted in the Meiji period. February 11, Jimmu’s purported date of enthronement, was celebrated as Empire Day (Kigensetsu) and was considered a major religious holiday until 1948. This holiday was abolished in 1948 but reinstituted as the secular National Foundation Day (Kenkoku Kinen no Hi) in 1967. 2.  Ann Waswo, “The Transformation of Rural Society, 1900–1950,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 6: The Twentieth Century, ed. Peter Duus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 3.  Kerry Smith, “Building the Model Village: Rural Revitalization and the Great Depression,” in Waswo and Nishida, Farm and Village Life, 131. 4.  Ibid., 135. 5.  Waswo, “Transformation of Rural Society,” 598; K. Smith, “Building the Model Village,” 133. 6.  Radical military factions were disgruntled by the cabinet’s approval of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928 and by new naval arms limitations in 1930. The pact, signed in Paris by fifteen nations, renounced war as a means of resolving international conflict, declaring that all controversies should be resolved through peaceful means. The 1930 naval arms limitations declared a 10:10:6 ratio of naval strength among Great Britain, the United States, and Japan and was accepted by the cabinet against the advice of navy general staff. 7.  In the Manchurian Incident, members of the Kwantung Army planted a bomb on the South Manchurian Railway, accused the Chinese, and used the incident as rationale for invading and occupying Manchuria. 8.  Peter Duus, Modern Japan, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 216. The Home Ministry records a climb from 19 nationalistic associations in 1930 to 110 in 1932. See Naimusho, Shakai undò no jòkyò (Tokyo: Keihòkyoku, 1942), 6:321–325. 9.  For summaries on the lives and philosophies of these individuals, see Najita and Harootunian, “Japanese Revolt against the West.” 10.  On the Ketsumeidan trials, see Stephen S. Large, “Substantiating the Nation: Terrorist Trials as Nationalist Theatre in Early Shòwa Japan,” in Wilson, Nation and Nationalism in Japan. 11.  Stephen S. Large, ed., Emperor Hirohito and Shòwa Japan: A Political Biography (London: Routledge, 1992), 56–75. 12.  Hirose Kojirò, “Jinrui aizen undo no shiteki igi,” Kokuritsu minzoku hakubutsukan kenkyû hòkoku, 27, no. 1 (2002): 13. 13.  Ibid., 14. 14.  Stephen Large, “Buddhism and Political Renovation in Prewar Japan: The

230

Notes to Pages 173–178

Case of Akamatsu Katsumaro,” Journal of Japanese Studies 9, no. 1 (Winter, 1983): 32–66. 15.  Shimazono, From Salvation to Spirituality, 80–83. 16.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:97–99. 17.  Quoted in ibid., 103. 18.  Japan’s Antireligion Alliance (Nihon Hanshûkyò Domei) was established around 1926 as part of the Marxist proletarian cultural movement. It primarily attacked established Buddhism but viewed all religion as reactionary. See Murakami, Japanese Religion, 93–94. 19.  Deguchi Naohi, Kokoro no chò (Tokyo: Kòdansha, 1969), 138. 20.  Quoted in Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 237, from an untitled 1951 magazine article by former police chief Yûra Goichi. 21.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:112; Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 177, 193. 22.  Comaroff, “Defying Disenchantment,” 311. 23.  Harada Kumao, Saionji-ko to seikyoku (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1950– 1956), 76–77; cited in Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 177. 24.  Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 131–134. 25.  Sawada, Practical Pursuits, 91. Kòdògaku was taught at both Gakushuin, established in Kyoto in 1847 to educate nobility, and Daigaku Honko, the former Edo shogunal college established to educate formal shogunal retainers. 26.  For more on factional struggles in the Imperial Japanese Army between the Kòdò-ha and Tosei-ha (Control Faction), see Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan: The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936, Incident (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). 27.  Murakami, Hyòden, 188–189. 28.  Ibid., 193; Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:242–244. 29.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 213. 30.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:162–163. 31.  Murakami, Hyòden, 195. 32.  Ibid. 33.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:216. 34.  Naimusho, Tokkò geppò, December 1935, 79; cited in Nadolski, “SocioPolitical Background,” 195. For details on the location and values of the properties, see Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, vol. 3. 35.  Naimusho, Shakai undò no jòkyò, 61:378–379. 36.  Asahi Shimbunsha, Shòwashi no shunkan (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1974), 235; cited in Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 191. 37.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:170–173. 38.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 166. On the background and formation of the Shinseikai, see Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:165–176; on its organizational expansion and opposition from mainstream society, see 2:176–181. 39.  Murakami, Hyòden, 196. 40.  Ibid.

Notes to Pages 179–185

231

41.  Ibid., 197. 42.  Ibid. 43.  Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 234–239. 44.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:195–198. Also see K. Smith, “Building the Model Village,” 132–137, for a general discussion of farm relief activism in this period. 45.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 237. 46.  Ibid., 105–106, 123–127. Also see Murakami, Hyòden, 187–188. 47.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:195–198; Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 234–239. 48.  Large, Emperor Hirohito, 60–65. 49.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:174, 198. 50.  Nadolski, “Socio-Political Background,” 240. Several members of the imperial house, including Princes Higashikuni and Chichibu, were sympathetic to rightist causes. 51.  Murakami, Hyòden, 198–200. 52.  Naimusho, Shakai undò no jòkyò, 6:364–373. 53.  Murakami, Hyòden, 202. 54.  Quoted in ibid., 200. 55.  Ibid. On Akamatsu, see Large “Buddhism and Political Renovation,” 45–56. 56.  Kokutai can further be described as the immutable, “native” aspects of the Japanese polity based on a history and culture that focused on the imperial institution. It formed a contrast with seitai, or form of government, which was historically contingent. For a discussion of the evolution of the term, see John S. Brownlee, “Four Stages of the Japanese kokutai (National Essence),” http://www.iar.ubc.ca/ centres/cjr/jsac2000/brownlee.pdf. 57.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 241. 58.  Murakami, Hyòden, 206. 59.  Ibid. 60.  Ibid. 61.  Ibid., 207. 62.  Murakami Shigeyoshi, Deguchi Onisaburò (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu Òraisha, 1973), 206. Murakami notes that such actions could never serve as the basis for prosecution in the Japanese court system, which was operating under a rule of law and according to the constitution. 63.  Quoted in Miyaji Masato, “Òmoto fukei jiken: Shinkò shûkyò to tennosei ideorogii,” in Azuma, Nihon seiji saiban shiroku Taishò hen, 108. 64.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:353; Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 293. 65.  Murakami, Hyòden, 240. 66.  Ibid., 209–212. 67.  Ibid. 68.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 255. 69.  Prasenjit Duara, “Knowledge and Power in the Discourse of Modernity: The Campaigns against Popular Religion in Early Twentieth-Century China,” Journal of Asian Studies 50, no. 1 (1991).

232

Notes to Pages 185–190

70.  Murakami, Hyòden, 209–212. 71.  Umesao Tadao. “Nihon tanken: Òmotokyò to sekai renpò,” Chuo kòron, March 1960, 193. 72.  Ibid., 190–193. Umesao discusses the formation of Oomoto’s movement for world unification (Sekai Renpò Undò) in 1950. 73.  Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 76. 74.  Ibid., 61. 75.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 242. The full text of selected police and court documents relating to the second suppression can be found in Ikeda, Òmoto shiryò shûsei, 3:201–680. 76.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 223. 77.  Ibid., 244. 78.  Ibid., 242. 79.  Ibid., 281–282. 80.  Itò Eizò, Òmoto, 186. 81.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 267–277. 82.  Ibid. 83.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, interview with author, March 2001. 84.  Deguchi Kyòtaro, The Great Onisaburò, 288–290. 85.  Tokushige et al., ONS, 2:735–750. 86.  Murakami, Japanese Religion, 145. 87.  On Kitamura, see Tensho Kotai Jingukyo, The Prophet of Tabuse. On Nagaoka, see Dorman, “SCAP’s Scapegoat?” Naganuma was the charismatic half of Risshò Koseikai’s leadership, known for her skills in divination and the reading of omens, while Niwano Nikkyò provided the administrative and management skills. See Rissho Kosei-kai (Tokyo: Kosei, 1966). On Okada, see Okada Mokichi, Johrei: Divine Light of Salvation (Kyoto: Society of Johrei, 1984). For Okada’s biography in English, see Okada Mokichi, The Light from the East (Atami: MOA Productions, 1983). 88.  Murakami, Japanese Religion, 134. 89.  Kisala, Prophets of Peace, 159. 90.  On Nipponzan Myòhòji, see Murakami, Japanese Religion, 134–135; Kisala, Prophets of Peace, 45–57. Two representative examples of conservative political activity are Seichò no Ie, which favors the restoration of State Shinto and direct rule by the emperor, and Sekai Kyûseikyò and Busshò Gònenkai, which support state sponsorship of Yasukuni Shrine. 91.  Murakami, Japanese Religion, 147–156; Shimazono, From Salvation to Spirituality, 80–82. 92.  http://www.komei.or.jp/en/about/history.html. 93.  Noah Feldman, Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem—And What We Should Do about It (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005). Feldman calls the counterparts of values evangelicals “legal secularists,” intent on maintaining the separation of church and state. 94. Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods.

Notes to Pages 191–196



233

Conclusion

1.  For more discussion of this tendency in Japan, see Kevin Doak, “Ethnic Nationalism and Romanticism in Early Twentieth Century Japan,” in Shòwa Japan: Political, Economic, and Social History, vol. 1: 1926–1941, ed. Stephen Large (London: Routledge, 1988), 300–307. On Republican China, see Prasenjit Duara: Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), esp. chapter 3, and “Transnationalism.” 2.  Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 12. 3.  Ibid., 277. 4.  Duara: Rescuing History and “Transnationalism.” 5.  Murakami, Japanese Religion, 78. 6.  Joseph Kitagawa, Religion in Japanese History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 222. 7.  Ibid. 8.  Stephen Vlastos, ed., Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 2. 9.  Ibid., 5. 10.  Eric J. Hobsbawm and Terence O. Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Hobsbawm and Ranger contrasted invented tradition with “custom,” which they believed could be mobilized by nonelite groups, but as others have noted, the dichotomization of an elite/popular distinction between tradition and custom denies the possibility of the mobilization of authentic tradition by non-elites. See Vlastos, Mirror of Modernity, 4–6. 11.  Comaroff, “Defying Disenchantment,” 307–309. 12.  Ibid., 314. 13.  Breen and Teeuwen, Shinto in History, 4. The seminal article in which Kuroda first expressed this position is Kuroda Toshio, “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion,” trans. James C. Dobbins and Suzanne Gay, Journal of Japanese Studies 7, no. 1 (1981). 14.  See Breen and Teeuwen, Shinto in History, 4–8, and the individual essays in that volume. 15.  Edward W. Said, “Impossible Histories: Why the Many Islams Cannot Be Simplified,” Harper’s (July 2002): 70. 16.  Ibid., 71. 17.  Ibid., 74.



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Òmoto Esuperanto Tomo no Kai. Òmoto esuperantoshi. Kameoka: Tenseisha, 1987. Cited as OES. Òmoto Hiroshima Hònen Nanajunenshi Hensaniinkai, ed. Òmoto Hiroshima hònen nanajunenshi. Hiroshima: Hibaihin, 1995. Òmoto Hokkaido Gojunenshi Hensaniinkai, ed. Òmoto Hokkaido gojunenshi. Kameoka: Hòeisha, 1986. Òmoto Kanto Kyòku Nanajunenshi Shuppaniinkai, ed. Òmoto Kanto kyòku nana junenshi. Tokyo: Òmoto Kanto Kyòku Rengòkai, 1989. Òmoto Kumamoto Shûkai Nanajunenshi Hensaniinkai, ed. Òmoto Kumamoto shûkai nanajunenshi. Kumamoto: Òmoto Kumamoto Shûkai, 1996. Òmoto Nanajunenshi Hensankai, ed. Òmoto nanajunenshi. 2 vols. Kameoka: Òmoto, 1964–1967. Òmoto Osaka Hònenshi Hensaniinkai, ed. Òmoto Osaka hònen hachijunenshi. Osaka: Tenseisha, 1998. Òmotokyògaku Shiryò Hensanjò, ed. Reikai monogatari no hongi. Kameoka: Tenseisha, 1993. Ooms, Emily Groszos. Women and Millenarian Protest in Meiji Japan: Deguchi Nao and Òmotokyò. Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Series, 1993. Oppenheim, Janet. The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England 1850–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Orr, James J. The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001. Orsi, Robert. “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion.” In Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice, ed. David D. Hall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Owen, Alex. The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Òya Sòichi. Shinkò shûkyò. Tokyo: Jeepusha, 1950. Pereira, Ronan Alves. Possessão por espírito e inovação cultural : A experiência religiosa das japonesas Miki Nakayama e Nao Deguchi. São Paulo: Aliança Cultural Brasil-Japão, 1992. Philippi, Donald J., trans. Kojiki. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968. ———. Norito: A New Translation of Ancient Japanese Ritual Prayers. Tokyo: Kokugakuin University, 1959. Pilgrim, Richard B. “Foundations for a Religio-Aesthetic Tradition in Japan.” In Art, Creativity and the Sacred. Ed. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona. New York: Continuum, 1998. Prothero, Stephen R. The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. Pyle, Kenneth B. The New Generation in Meiji Japan: Problems of Cultural Identity, 1885–1895. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969. Reader, Ian. “Back to the Future: Images of Nostalgia and Renewal in a Japanese Religious Context.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 14, no. 4 (December 1987): 287–303.

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Yasumaru Yoshio. Deguchi Nao. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1977. ———. Folk Religion and Spiritual Belief in Modernizing Japan. Tokyo: United Nations University, 1979. ———, ed. Kindaika to dentò: Kinsei bukkyò o no henshitsu to tenkan. Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1986. ———, ed. Minshû undò no shisò. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1970. ———. Nihon nashonarizumu no zenya. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1977. ———. Nihon no kindaika to minshû shisò. Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1974, reprint 1999. Yasumaru Yoshio and Fukaya Katsumi. Minshû undò. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989. Yasumaru Yoshio and Miyachi Masato. Shûkyò to kokka. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1988. Yoshino Kosaku. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Inquiry. London: Routledge, 1992. Young, Louise. Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Impe rialism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Young, Richard Fox. “From Gokyò-dogen to Bankyò-dokon: A Study in the Self Universalization of Òmoto.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15, no. 4 (1988): 263–286. ———. “Jesus, the ‘Christ’ and Deguchi Onisaburò: A Study of Adversarial Syncre tism in a Japanese World-Renewal Religion.” Japanese Religions 15, no. 4 (1989): 26–49. ———. “The Little-Lad Deity and the Dragon Princess: Jesus in a New World Renewal Movement.” Monumenta Nipponica 44, no. 1 (Spring 1989). ———. “Magic and Morality in Modern Japanese Exorcistic Techniques: A Study of Mahikari.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17, no. 1 (1990): 29–46. Yumiyama Tatsuya. “Rei: Òmoto to chinkon kishin.” In Tanabe Shintaro et al., eds., Iyashi o ikita hitobito. ———. “Varieties of Healing in Present-Day Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22, nos. 3–4 (Fall 1995): 267–282.



Index

Page numbers in boldface refer to illustrations.

aesthetics, 10, 116–117, 131 Agonshû, 4, 22, 138 agrarianism (nòhonshugi), 3, 17, 65–67, 68, 73–75, 136; in 1930s, 179. See also Nativism aikido, 142. See also Ueshiba Morihei Aizawa Seishisai, 90 Aizen Mizuhòkai, 74, 210n.111 Aizen-en, x, 187 Akamatsu Katsumarò, 173, 182 Akechi Mitsuhide, 29, 120 Ama no Kazuuta, 93, 216n.96 Amaterasu, 34, 59–62, 90, 134, 172. See also Ise Amatsu Norito, 93, 103 Ambedkar, B. R., 44 Ame no Minakanushi, 16, 59–60 Amenohohi no Mikoto, 61–62, 209n.73 Amida, 27, 41 Ancient Shinto (Koshintò), 17, 47, 56, 80, 86, 90, 215n.79 Anesaki Masaharu, 80, 83 Anthroposophy, 82 anti-foreignism, 40, 46, 69–72 Arai Hakuseki, 53 art: as an aspect of culturalism, 117; commercialization of, 108–109; in Japanese new religions, 108, 117, 139; Onisaburò and Oomoto’s activities in, 112–117, 120–124, 140–141; relationship between religion and, 112–113 Asahara Shòkò (Matsumoto Chizuo), 4. See also Aum Shinrikyò

Asahigata Kametarò, 45 Asakusa (Sensòji), 108, 131 Asano Wasaburò, 85–86, 88, 97–98, 100, 105, 156 Atarashiki Mura, 66 Aum Shinrikyò, 4, 6, 19 autobiography, 17, 21–23, 43, 111 automatic writing: in Nao’s Ofudesaki, 37; in spiritualism, 78; in Tao Yuan, 153 Ayabe, 35, 38, 48, 86, 98, 103–104, 120, 133, 149, 183 Baha’i, 79, 144, 157–158 Baha’u’llah, 79, 158. See also Baha’i bankyò dòkon (ten thousand teachings, one root), 18, 152, 154. See also ecumenicalism Benjamin, Walter, 137 Benzaiten, 42. See also Shichifukujin Bishamonten, 137. See also Shichifukujin Blavatsky, Helena, 25. See also Theosophy Bodhidharma, 121 Booth, William, 51, 111, 121, 123. See also Salvation Army Brazil, Oomoto activity in, 79, 104–105 Buddhism: art of, 108–109; authority of, 65; contrast with Oomoto, 96; esoteric, 22, 54–56, 80, 84, 106; missionary activities of, 143, 148; Nativist view of, 46; reinvention of, 109; right wing lay organizations of, 172; state support for, 17, 55; unity of government and, 73, 176, 189 257

258

bunmei kaika (civilization and enlight enment), 80, 83, 106. See also Meiji Restoration Cao Dai, 80, 154 Chang Tso-lin, 142, 149 charisma, 12–13, 117 charismatic entrepreneur: characteristics of, 6, 12–16, 24–25; definitions of, 3–4; Onisaburò as, 72, 77, 99–101, 139–140, 145–146, 173, 193–194; other examples of, 25, 111–112, 168–169, 188 chian ijihò. See Peace Preservation Law China: imperialist activity in, 145, 148; Onisaburò’s views of, 50, 69, 148, 166, 174; Oomoto activity in, 144, 159, 164–165; political situation of, 148–149; popular religion in, 80, 135, 153; suppression of popular religions in, 17, 185 chinkon kishin, 17, 76–78, 83, 89–97, 105–106; chinkon element in, 215n.77; elements of, 92; in Mongo lia, 149–150; mudra, 92, 93; Oishi gori Masuumi’s practice of, 56; origins of, 90–91; procedure and practice of, 93–97; transformation of, 101. See also spirit possession Chion-in, 118 Chokureigun, 51–52, 86, 111 Chondogyò, 80, 153 Christian Science, 15, 82, 88 Christianity, 57, 61, 79, 96; American evangelicals of, 15, 111–112; association with Meiji elites, 51, 87, 109; contrast with Oomoto, 96; missionary activities of, 87, 142– 143, 167, 187–188; new religions of, 24, 44 Chûgai nippo newspaper, 120, 124, 126–127 Chûò kòron journal, 47 clairvoyance (senrigan), 80–83. See also hypnotism; spiritualism Communism, 63; anti-, 148, 189; suppression of, 183 Confucianism, 6, 153, 174, 175; Japanese

Index

scholars of, 53; Nativist associations with China, 46, 50, 53 Constitution: Meiji, 87, 181, 186; post war, 4, 73, 187–188 consumerism, 5, 12, 18, 25, 109; and religion, 110–112, 125, 139–140 costumes, 122, 144; of Oomoto mis sionaries, 103; of Oomoto priests, 1; Onisaburò’s fondness of, 20, 133, 142 culturalism, 117, 132 Dai Nihon Shussaikai, 48–49 Dai Shûkyò Hakurakai. See Great Religions Exhibition Daikoku, 136. See also Shichifukujin Deguchi Hidemaru, 91, 101, 186, 218n.137; as Esperantist, 161, 163–164, 163; as Oomoto leader, 174, 179 Deguchi Kyòtarò, x, 187 Deguchi Nao, 36, 39; biography of, 35– 38; as charismatic, 13; healing philosophy of, 85, 105; items in exhibitions, 120; physical charac teristics of, 40; pilgrimages of, 40, 62; prophecies of, 37, 62; relation ship with Onisaburò, 13, 35, 38, 83; spirit possession of, 60; tomb of, 98; xenophobia of, 40, 144, 156, 210n.121. See also Ofudesaki Deguchi Naohi, 101, 174 Deguchi Onisaburò: as artist, 112–117, 114, 115; biography of, 16–17; as charismatic entrepreneur, 72, 77, 99–101, 139–140, 145–146, 173, 193–194; childhood and early education of, 25–28; collected works of, 176; in costume, 42, 136; early business enterprises of, 30–31; early Oomoto views of, 38–43; Esperanto involvement of, 157–161; as film maker, 133–137; as living god, 88, 99; physical characteristics of, 40; poetry of, 22, 31, 93, 102, 135, 157, 201n.8; as prolific writer, 123; spiri tual awakening of, 31–33; studies of, 31, 34, 43, 91–92

Index

Deguchi Sumiko, 38–39, 39, 41–42, 62, 74, 135, 153, 157, 183 Deguchi Uchimaru, 101, 118, 148, 160, 162, 178, 186 Deguchi Yasuaki, 45, 205n.1 demolition and reconstruction. See tatekae, tatenaoshi Department of Divinity (Jingikan), 8 depression, Japan’s economic, 170–171 disenchantment of religion, 10–11, 82, 192 divination, methods and use of, 17, 22, 26, 40, 49, 56, 83, 193 Ebisu, 135, 137. See also Shichifukujin ecumenicalism, 18, 144, 152–154 Edo, 27, 81, 108–109, 117, 125, 140 education: Kòdò advocacy of, 49, 69–70; Meiji era policies on, 27–28, 30–31; Nao’s attitudes towards, 58 emperor: authority of, 17, 60–61, 109, 181; call for Restoration of, 8, 10, 44, 46–47, 60, 63, 86, 172, 181, 184; as center of national identity, 5, 8, 10, 172, 176, 192; Chûai, 91; divinity of, 134, 143, 173; Jimmu, 170; naming practices for, 39–40; reverence for, 9, 46, 172, 176; ritual roles of, 8. See also individual emperor names Emperor as Organ Theory (Tennò Kikan Setsu), 181 En no Gyòja, 22, 33 entrepreneurship, 13–16 Esperanto: creation of, 155; Onisaburò dictionary of, 159, 161; Oomoto activity in, 11, 70, 144, 155–161, 163; Oomoto publications in, 159– 160; popularity in Japan, 155–156 Espertismo, 79, 105 evangelicals: American, 15, 25, 110–112, 189. See also Father Divine; Osteen, Joel; Osteen, John; Salvation Army exhibitions, 110; of Onisaburò’s art, 117, 126–127; as pedagogical space, 129–130 faith healing, 10, 33, 79, 83–85, 188

259

Falun Gong, 15 farming: debt crisis, 66; natural methods of, 67, 74–75, 210n.111, 211n.132; Oomoto experimental, 67–68, 186; rural crisis in, 170–171. See also agrarianism Father Divine (George Baker), 168 festivals: Autumn, 8, 9, 41; communal nature of, 8–10; Miroku, 186–189; Oomoto use of, 31–32, 38, 101, 131, 186; other new religions’ use of, 138–139; in religious art, 109; Setsubun, 170, 183; Tsukinamisai, 1–2, 7, 10–11 films. See movies Finch, Aida, 157 fox spirit possession, 33–34, 83, 90, 94–95 freedom of religion, 9, 73, 187 fu-chi oracle. See automatic writing; Tao Yuan Fujikò, 22, 37, 65, 201n.7 Fukami Tòshu, 139 Fukurai Tomokichi, 81–82 Fukurokuju, 137. See also Shichifukujin fundamentalism, 53–54, 74 Futenkyò, 154 Gandhi, Mohandas, 44 gender, 25, 38, 41 Gen’yòsha, 171 genze riyaku (practical benefits), 5, 11, 15, 77, 91, 109, 135, 188 gold standard, international, 64, 170 Gonda Yasunosuke, 117 Gondò Seikei, 172 Gòtò Fumio, 177 Great Kantò Earthquake, 101, 153 Great Promulgation Campaign, 8–9, 62, 69 Great Religions Exposition (Dai Shûkyò Hakurankai), 118–127, 119, 121, 122, 123 hagiography, 17, 21–23, 35 haiku, 31–32 Hakuin Ekaku, 109, 113 Hamada Shòji, 117

260

haraekotoba, 55, 57 Hayashi Razan, 53 henjònanshi, 41 henjònyòshi, 41 Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke, 117, 132 Hirata Atsutane, 17; belief in Òkuninushi, 61; disciple of, 90; influence in rural Japan, 46–47, 65, 87; interpretation of Bible, 71. See also Nativism Hirohito (emperor), 181, 184 Hitonomichi Kyòdan, 138, 185 Hitsujisaru no Konjin, 41 Home Ministry, 9, 43, 49, 52–53, 69, 83, 97, 177; monitoring and suppression of Oomoto, 177, 182–184 Hommichi, 173 Honda Chikaatsu, 34, 56; biography of, 89–92; publications, 215n.80; students of, 216n.88, systematiza tion of kamigakari, 90 Hotei, 137. See also Miroku; Shichifukujin Hòtokukai. See agrarianism humanitarian activity, 18, 163–169 hypnotism, 80–83, 96. See also spiritualism Ikeda Daisaku, 4, 44, 138, 189. See also Sòka Gakkai immigration, 3, 104 imperial family, 8, 98, 121 Inari Kòsha, 33–34, 38, 42, 86, 91–92 Inoue Enryò, 80–82 Inoue Nobutaka, 24 internationalism, 5, 143–145, 166–168, 188 Internet, 15, 194 iroha uta, 22, 57 Ise: Grand Shrine of, 8, 24, 56–57, 99, 172; Moto, 62; pilgrimage to, 60 Islam, 4, 196 Itò Hirobumi, 57 Izanagi and Izanami, 71, 135 Izumo: Grand Shrine of, 24, 50, 60–62, 86–87, 135; Oomoto pilgrimage to, 62; Òyashirokyò, 24, 50, 206n.26 Jesus Christ, 44, 79, 88, 123, 158

Index

Jikòson (Nagaoka Nagako), 4. See also Jiûkyò Jinrui aizen shimbun, 127, 162–163, 163, 175 Jinrui Aizenkai, 11, 122–123, 122, 144, 162. See also ULBA Jiûkyò, 4, 188 jòrei. See faith healing Kada no Azumamarò, 46 Kameoka, 29, 38, 74, 103–104, 120, 132, 183 Kameyama castle, 29, 137 Kami no kuni journal, 161, 176 kamigakari. See spirit possession kanji, 39, 42, 55, 58, 70, 81 Kardec, Allan (Léon Denizard Rivail), 79. See also Espiritismo Kawakami Hajime, 65–66 Kawate Bunjirò, 43. See also Konkòkyò Kimbangu, Simon, 44 Kinmei Reigakukai, 38–39 Kiriyama Seiyû, 4, 22, 138 Kita Ikki, 155, 172, 184 Kitamura Sayo, 4, 188. See also Tenshò kòtai jingukyò Kòbò Daishi. See Kûkai kòdò, 175–176 Kòdò Oomoto, 50, 53, 63–70, 168, 175 Kòfuku no Kagaku, 4, 44, 124, 139 Kojiki: as basis of Oomoto belief, 23, 53–56, 63–65, 175; characters and deities in, 16, 39, 61; film version of, 133; Motoori translation of, 53; Onisaburò study of, 31, 42 Kokkurisan, 81. See also hypnotism; spiritualism kokoro, healing of, 84, 105 kokugaku. See Nativism Kokuryûkai, 171 kokutai (national essence), 172–173, 181, 185, 231n.56 kokuzò, 61–62. See also Izumo Komatsubayashi no Mikoto, 34, 59 Kòmei (emperor), 45 Kòmeitò political party, 189. See also Sòka Gakkai Kon Wajirò, 117

Index

Konjin, 37. See also Ushitora no Konjin Konkòkyò: branches in Manchuria, 164; healing practices of, 84–85; Oomoto relationships with, 38, 42, 101; as part of Sect Shinto, 52, 187; as tree style sect, 24. See also Kawate Bunjirò Konpira shrine, 108, 190 Korea: Hangul alphabet of, 57; Japan’s relationship with, 39, 57, 72, 143, 153–154; March First movement, 154; number of Tenrikyò believers in, 84; Oomoto activity in, 99, 126, 149, 153–154, 159, 164; religion in, 80, 153–154; suppression of Oomoto in, 185 Koshintò. See Ancient Shintò Kòten Kokyûsho Academy, 43 kotodama, 10, 26, 53–58, 86, 88; Onisaburò’s use of, 102, 156, 162, 170, 187 Kotohira. See Konpira shrine Kûkai, 20, 22, 26, 55, 124 Kunitokotachi no Mikoto, 59–62. See also Òkuninushi Kurozumi Munetada, 84. See also Kurozumikyò Kurozumikyò, 24, 83–84; healing practices of, 101–102; as part of Sect Shinto, 52, 187 Kwantung Army, 148, 171, 174, 176 Kyoto University, 65, 161 Kyûseigun. See Salvation Army Latter Day Saints, Church of, 15 League of Nations, 145, 163 lèse-majesté, 98, 181–183, 185, 188 lived religion, 9–10, 23–24, 199n.18. See also popular religion Lotus Sutra, new religions based on, 173. See also Nichiren Lu Chan-k’uei, 149–151 magic: as aspect of Japanese religiosity, 9–11, 22, 53–56, 61, 77, 188; methods and implements of; 79–80, 104–105, 135–136; as part of healing practices, 83–85, 79–80;

261

relationship to modernity, 11, 17, 135 Maitreya. See Miroku Manchuria: as Japan’s “lifeline,” 171; occupation by Japan, 18, 171, 173; Oomoto and ULBA activity in, 99, 163–164, 174; state of Manchukuo, 127, 153 Man-Mò expositions, 127–130, 128, 129 Manyòshu, 46, 54 Maruyamakyò, 37, 65 Marxism, 65, 76, 163 mass media: criticism toward Oomoto and new religions, 10, 11, 84, 98, 105, 183–184, 187; development of, 2, 5, 18, 44, 77, 109–112; Oomoto use and advocacy of, 18, 66, 69, 77–78; relationship between religion and, 110, 137–139; use of in charismatic entrepreneurship, 3, 12, 78, 110, 194 Matsumura Masumi, 149, 162 matsuri. See festivals Meiji (emperor), 20, 45, 51, 98 Meiji modernization efforts, 29, 80, 83, 109, 194. See also bunmei kaika Meiji Restoration, 5, 8, 17, 27, 47, 109, 146 Meikòsha art society, 11, 116, 121–122, 121, 161, 176 Miho Museum, 108 mikkyò. See Buddhism, esoteric millenarianism, 16, 40, 86 Ministry of Education (Monbushò), 9, 52, 83 Minobe Tatsukichi, 181 Miroku, 37, 137, 186, 208 miteshiro otoritsugi, 101–104. See also faith healing Mongolia: expositions of Manchuria and, 127–130; Onisaburò expedition to, 129, 142–143, 147–152; Onisaburò speech on Esperanto and, 160–161 Motoori Norinaga, 17, 46, 53, 58, 61, 69–70 Mount Fuji, 87 Mount Hiei, 56 Mount Takakuma, 32, 99, 133

262

mountain: austerities, 22; worship, 9, 32 movies: Oomoto production of, 131, 134; Oomoto use of, 130–136, 139–141; religion and, 138 Muhammad, Elijah, 25. See also Nation of Islam Murakami Shigeyoshi, 20–21, 177, 182 Mutsuhito. See Meiji (emperor) Myòreikyò, 32–33 mythology, 59–62 Nagasawa Katsutate, 34, 39–40, 77, 91 Nakamura Kòdò, 26, 55 Nakamura Kokyò, 76, 81, 82 Nakayama Miki, 43, 83. See also Tenrikyò Nation, Carrie, 111–112 Nation of Islam, 15, 25 National Learning. See Nativism nationalism, 5, 48, 73, 143–144, 166–168, 191–192 Nativism: canonical scholars of, 46–47; conceptions of governance, 10, 44, 63, 73, 190; continued influence of, 72–75; definition and characteris tics of, 46; grassroots, 46, 55; Matsuo Taseko and, 31; Oomoto Neo-Nativism as version of, 44, 47–48, 70–73; scholars of, 46–47, 58; Shòwa nostalgia for, 12, 45, 47; tensions between universalism and, 74–75, 123, 143–144, 166; values associated with, 46, 172, 174; Western scholarship on, 17, 200n.36, 206n.8. See also agrarianism; Ancient Shinto; Hirata Atsutane; Motoori Norinaga; Restoration Shinto new religions: and art, 108, 117; charac teristics of, 6–7, 15, 18, 24, 124, 152–153; expansion in postwar Japan, 4, 144, 187–190; founders’ characteristics in, 12, 21, 124; Japanese scholars of, 198n.13, and Neo-Nativism in Japan, 72–75; postwar political activity of, 188– 190; spirit belief among, 78; use of wordplay, 55–56

Index

Nichiren, 20, 33, 76, 173, 189. See also Sòka Gakkai Nihon shoki, 27, 31, 42, 56, 61, 91, 175 Ninomiya Sontoku. See agrarianism norito, 2, 8, 55, 103, 112 occultism, 77, 82–83, 106–107 Office of Rites (Jingikan), 46 Ofudesaki: banning by government of, 98; definition and production of, 25, 35, 43; of Nakayama Miki, 57–58; Onisaburò’s interpretation of, 39, 43, 57–58, 86, 157; passages and content from, 27, 37–38, 40–41, 58; replacement of, 99–100, 103 Oishigòri Masuumi, 56–57, 207n.50 Okada Korehira, 31 Okada Mòkichi, 4, 44, 103. See also Sekai Kyûseikyò Okawa Ryûhò, 4, 44, 124, 139 Okinawa, 99, 126 Òkuninushi, 16, 60–62, 135. See also Ushitora no Konjin Ontakekyò, 24, 32, 43, 50 Oomoto: beliefs and teachings of, 10, 16, 40–41, 49, 101; educational level of believers of, 177; healing practices of, 101–105, 104; lineage of, 16, 197n.4; missionary activity and overseas ex pansion of, 101, 119–120, 159– 166; organizational structures of, 50, 178; patriotic activities of, 174– 182; previous studies of, 197n.6; rituals of, 7–12; state suppression of, 2, 97–99, 105, 147, 182–187; suborganizations of, 11–12 Osanai Kaoru, 133 Osho, 15, 124 Osteen, Joel, 15 Osteen, John, 124 Òtani, Kòzui, 20 pacifism, 18, 144, 146–147, 168, 173, 188 Pan-Asianism, 145 patriotism, 18, 174–177 Peace Preservation Law (chian ijihò), 183, 185–186

Index

phonograph, Oomoto use of, 101, 112 photography, 18, 41, 108–111, 118–120, 131–132, 176 PL Kyòdan, 138 political parties: Kòmeitò, 189; LDP, 189; Seiyûkai, 52 popular religion, 65, 80, 105, 109, 134, 184–185, 192. See also lived religion print publications: Onisaburò early production of, 31, 43; Oomoto Esperanto related, 159–160; Oomoto sales of, 104, 140; Oomoto use of, 17, 48, 77, 85–88, 105, 135, 146, 176 prophecy, 12, 34, 56–57, 170, 187 protective deities, 79, 93 Protestantism: ethos of, 109; Fukurai’s experiments with, 81–82; Onisa burò’s claims of, 33; psychic abilities, debunking of, 82; samurai class’s association with, 51; values of, 9–10, 111 racial equality clause, 3, 197n.5 railroads, 48, 149, 164, 206n.13 raku ware, 104, 116 Reconstruction Theory, 88–89. See also tatekae, tatenaoshi Red Swastika Society (Kòmanjikai). See Tao Yuan reigaku. See Ancient Shinto; chinkon kishin; Honda Chikaatsu; kotodama Reikai monogatari: contents of, 57, 99, 152, 158, 33, 103; performance of, 101, 131; production of, 99–101, 100, 159, 176; as record of Onisa burò’s spiritual journeys, 33; sales of, 123 reishu taijû (spirit over body), 58–59 Reiyûkai, 38, 173, 189 Religious Corporations Law of 1947, 19, 187 Religious Organizations Law of 1940, 19, 185, 187 Restoration Shinto, 56, 90. See also Ancient Shinto right wing, 19, 171–173 risshin shusse, 23, 30

263

Risshò Kòseikai, 38, 144, 173, 188–189 rituals, 1, 7, 9, 31, 48, 55, 195. See also festivals; Tsukinamisai Rosicrucians, 82 Russo-Japanese War, 43, 49, 71, 143, 146, 149 Saichò, 55 Saigyò, 20 saisei itchi (unification of rites and governance), 10, 44, 46, 63, 73 Salvation Army, 51, 111, 138 saniwa, 90–92, 97, 106 Satejiroji. See Shichifukujin science: as a field of Kòdò, 44, 54; Meiji era diffusion of, 29–30; social sciences and religion, 11; of super natural, 81–83, 105; suspicion of, 106, 159 Scientology, Church of, 124, 138 Sect Shinto (Shûha Shinto): characteristics of, 24, 32; creation and composition of, 8–9, 23–24, 84, 193; Onisaburò’s critique of, 52–53; in postwar Japan, 187 Seichò no Ie, 4, 103, 124, 216n.102. See also Taniguchi Masaharu Sekai Kyûseikyò, 4, 74, 103. See also Okada Mòkichi self-sufficiency (tensan jikyû), 9, 63, 65–67, 210n.111 Senge Takatomi, 61–62 Sensòji temple, 108 Seven Lucky Gods. See Shichifukujin Shichifukujin, 42, 133–137 Shimazono Susumu, 74, 77 Shin reikai journal: articles in and contents of, 52, 58–59, 86–87, 94, 97; cessation of, 99 shin shûkyò. See new religions shinbutsu bunri, 8 Shingaku, 50 Shingon Buddhism, 22, 56, 118, 162 Shinji Shûmeikai, 103, 108, 218n.1 Shinnyû, 39, 50, 58, 86. See also Ofudesaki Shòwa Konseikai, 175, 180 Shòwa no shichifukujin, 133–137

264

Shòwa restoration, 172, 181, 184 Shòwa Seinenkai. See youth groups, Oomoto Shòwa Shinseikai, 11, 18–19, 177–182 Shrine Shinto, 8, 49, 187 shugendò, 22 Shûha Shinto. See Sect Shinto Sino-Japanese War, 37, 50 Social Darwinism, 59, 163, 167 socialism, 61, 63, 146, 183 Sòka Gakkai: cultural activities of, 138; leadership of, 4, 44, 189; pacifist activities of, 144; political activity of, 73, 189–190; print publications of, 88. See also Nichiren sonnò jòi, 46. See also anti-foreignism Sòseki Natsume, 66, 81, 213n.26 spirit possession, 10, 90–91, 105, 188. See also chinkon kishin spiritualism, 5, 78, 86–87, 106–107, 154 State Shinto: concept of, 7–8; as a con structed civil religion, 192–193; creation of, 48, 192; ideology of, 53, 59–60, 118, 143, 173; as instru ment of imperialism, 143, 164; as instrument of nationalism, 145, 182, 187 Sûkyò Mahikari, 74, 144, 219n.1 Sunday, Billy, 111 Susanoo no Mikoto, 34, 59–60, 62, 72 Suzuki Daisetz, 80 Taireidò, 96, 217n.115 Taiseikyò, 24, 50 Taishò (emperor), 99, 186 Taishò democracy, 106 Taishò nichinichi shimbun, 88–89, 98–99, 176 Taishò restoration, 47, 63, 86. See also Kòdò Oomoto taishû reijû (body over spirit), 58–59 Taiwan: Oomoto activity in, 25, 99, 126; suppression of Oomoto in, 185 Takenouchi no Sukune, 56 Tamba, 25, 34, 124, 133 tanden, 93, 95 Taniguchi Masaharu, 4, 94–96, 103, 124 Tao Yuan: humanitarian activities of,

Index

153, 163–164, 165; relationship with Oomoto, 144, 150, 153, 162–167; as spiritualist new religion, 80, 153 tatekae, tatenaoshi (demolition and reconstruction), 13, 18, 38, 73, 170 taxes: Meiji era reform of, 28; Kòdò’s critique of, 64–65 Tendai Buddhism, 56, 118 Tenrikyò: biographical tropes in, 43; branches in Manchuria, 164, 228n.103; healing practices, 83–84, 213n.40; lineage sects, 173, 185; as part of Sect Shinto, 24, 52, 84, 173, 187; persecution of, 84, 213n.41; relationship to Oomoto, 162; as tree-style sect, 24 Tenseisha publishing house, 123, 176, 184 Tenshò Kòtai Jingukyò, 4, 188, 198n.8 Theosophy, 82, 213n.33 Tokugawa: era morality, 30, 84; gover nance, 28, 64; protests, 37, 60 Tokyo Imperial University, 30, 81, 82, 86, 126, 181 Tòkyûjutsu, 50 Tomokiyo Yoshisane, 89, 100 Tonghak. See Chondògyò tourism, 48, 120 Towada Ryû. See Deguchi Yasuaki Toyama Mitsuru, 175 tradition: definitions of, 194; invention of, 194, 233n.10; Japanese authori ties use of, 194–195 Tsukinamisai, 1–2, 7, 10–11 tsûzoku dòtoku (conventional morality), 30, 37, 85 Uchida Ryòhei, 175, 178, 184 Uchimura Kanzò, 80, 146 Ueda Kisaburò. See Deguchi Onisaburò Ueno Park, 117 Ueshiba Morihei, 142, 149, 151 ULBA (Universal Love and Brotherhood Association): activities of, 127, 153, 163, 165, 174–175; exhibitions by, 122–123, 129; as Oomoto sub organization, 11, 144–145, 164,

Index

168, 176; publications of, 162–163; rapid expansion of, 161, 164, 166, 168, 177; relationship to Red Swas tika (Tao Yuan), 153, 163, 167. See also Jinrui Aizenkai unequal trade treaties, 9, 44 Unification Church, 15, 88 universalism: Oomoto expressions of, 18, 71, 155–157, 166, 168, 192; relationship to Nativism, 74–75, 123, 143–144, 166 urbanization, 2, 5, 77 Urrea, Teresita, 44 U.S. Occupation of Japan, 4, 19, 187 U.S. – Japan Security Treaty, 188 Ushitora no Konjin, 1, 16, 37, 41, 58–62, 95 vice protective deities, 93–94 Victoria (queen), 79, 158 Weber, Max, 13, 15 Whitefield, George, 25 World Mate, 139

265

World War I, 5, 18, 82–83, 145, 168 World War II, 18–19, 186, 191 yakumo koto, 1, 7 yamabushi, 22 Yamamuro Gunpei, 51. See also Salvation Army yamato damashii, 71 Yanagi Sòetsu, 117 yasokyò. See Christianity Yasukuni Shrine, 172, 177 Yasumaru Yoshiò, 37 yonaoshi (world renewal), 16, 37, 41, 44, 51, 58, 63, 190 youth groups, Oomoto, 131–132, 161, 164, 175, 180 Zamenhof, Ludovic Lazarus, 155 Zen: art and artists, 113, 120–121; monks, 21; Onisaburò paintings of Bodhidharma, 121; postures, 105; sects at Religions Expo, 118; as supporters of militarism, 143, 191; in World Religious Federation, 162



About the Author

N a n c y K i n u e S ta l k e r received her Ph.D. in history from Stanford University in 2002. She is currently assistant professor in the Departments of Asian Studies and History at the University of Texas at Austin. Prophet Motive is her first book.

Production Notes for Stalker / Prophet Motive Cover and jacket design by Santos Barbasa Jr. Text design by Paul Herr in Sabon with display    in Champers. Composition by Santos Barbasa Jr. Printing and binding by The Maple-Vail Book    Manufacturing Group Printed on 55 lb. Glatfelter Offset B18, 360 ppi.