Monday, June 04, 2007

Mahikari in context (2): Origins of psychic research in Japan

In the previous post, I started with the information in Sukyo Mahikari printed material concerning Dr. Shioya and the Omine Rosen spirit, and worked backwards towards Makoto no Michi and the Chidori-kai psychic research group. Ironically, working backwards in this way, SM's connection with psychic mediums seemed like a new and rather startling discovery (shocking, even, given Y. Okada's strong criticism of such practices in his teachings). However, now that we are looking for information on websites that discuss the history and influence of psychic research, it seems we are simply the last to know about this connection! One site simply states that Okada's Mahikari group developed from Makoto no Michi as if this were common knowledge.

In this post, I am going to have a look at the connections between earlier pre-war Japanese psychic research groups and Chidori-kai, and see what influence these may have had on the emergence of new religions. [Since there are many unfamiliar names of different groups and their founders, I've color-coded the names in an attempt to help keep track of everyone. For example, Omoto and Deguchi are dark blue, Asano and his psychic research group are purple, etc. Not sure if it helps much!!]

Incidentally, in the West, "psychic research" usually implies some sort of attempt to scientifically test claimed paranormal abilities. However, the "psychic research" practiced by Chidori-kai and earlier similar groups seems to have been the use of "psychic" methods to "research" the nature of the spirit world and "divine truths".

As many scholars have noted, there is a strong shamanistic element in the new religions of Japan. The founders of many of these religions claimed to have received revelations in some form or other; via automatic writing, dreams, or through being possessed by spirits (spirits of dead people, divine spirits, and gods) who spoke through them. Sometimes these "possessions" were spontaneous, and at other times there were deliberately induced via trance-producing ascetic practices in order to ask spirits or gods for information. Many of these founders also practiced some form of spiritual healing, such as tekazashi.

The information conveyed by psychic means was sometimes quite mundane. However, in cases where the person receiving the spirit communication believed that the source was a messenger god or a divine spirit, the information was regarded as revealing important divine truths and became part of the religious doctrine of the relevant religious group.

In Japan's long history of shamanistic, divination, and psychic practices, Omoto, founded by Nao Deguchi (1836-1918), is a relative newcomer. Deguchi had a "spirit dream"…and thereafter became possessed (kamigakari) by a spirit that began to speak through her…she began to record the deity's words in automatic writing. Due to her reputation for prophecies and faith healing her followers grew in number. Later she collaborated with Onisaburo Deguchi to establish a system based on her automatic writings and his spirit studies (a method of mediated spirit possession). After Asano Wasaburo (a teacher at Japan's Naval College), joined the group in 1916 and began proselytizing activities on its behalf, various intellectuals and high-ranking military officials began to join its ranks.

Apparently, the main thing that attracted Asano to Omoto was a practice called Chinkon Kishin: chinkon refers to the procedures for healing and directing spirits; by extension, it also refers to joining a deity's spirit [with a human subject]. Kishin means possession by the spirit of a kami [god]. One type of kishin is abrupt and spontaneous while another is humanly induced through the process of chinkon.. According to the Aikido Journal, when Onisaburo Deguchi introduced this technique to Omoto, A variety of people began practicing chinkon kishin, but as they began to experience divine inspirations, the Omoto order was thrown into somewhat of a pandemonium. You see, during such divine inspirations most spirits will appropriate the name of some other more “correct” spirit, which the inspired person will believe to be its true name and identity. The little country town of Ayabe was beset by a sort of divine rush-hour. Deguchi therefore banned this practice, but revived it again in 1916 and taught it to Asano.

Several sites mention that Asano's influence within Omoto was so great that it was debatable whether Asano belonged to Omoto, or the other way around. According to the Nihon Shinrei Kagaku Kyokai site (日本心霊科学協会 – Japanese Psychic Science Association), Asano was arrested along with other Omoto staff members in 1921 (the "first Omoto incident"), which led to him leaving Omoto and returning to Tokyo, where he established this psychic science group in 1923.

This section of the Encyclopedia of Shinto states that the introduction of Western occultism and Theosophy (about 1905 to 1910) lead to the development of psychic research, as promoted by Wasaburo Asano. These investigations of the spirit realm were carried out through the actions of spiritual mediums and clairvoyants.

Another imported influence was the Fu Ji divination technique (Tenjo). Fu Ji was practiced by the Chinese Dao Yuan group, founded in 1921, and was introduced to Omoto via the charitable arm of Dao Yuan, the World Red Swastika Society. The Shinri Kenkyukai site has this to say about Tenjo:

Tenjo is the term used for divine words produced by the action of spirits. This is called Fu Ji in China, but in Chidori-kai we call it "Tenjo", because this means "stick of heaven" (ten no jo). Using this, we can learn all things: the true principles of the universe, the real state of affairs, the past, the present, and the future.

The ends of a T-shaped stick are held by two people who sit facing each other and concentrate. A brush hanging from the center of the stick moves automatically and writes very quickly, but the direction of the writing is not obvious. One day, we were given the Tenjo "真鈴真喜", but the brush moved freely, writing from the top, then the bottom, so that at first we could not understand what was being written. We didn't know what had been written till after the writing was finished.

As you probably know, Mokichi Okada, the founder of SKK, was originally a member (and a missionary) of Omoto. According to the book Okada Mokichi Meshiasama to wa, quoted on the Shinri Kenkyukai website, Mokichi Okada attended a Fu Ji (Tenjo) session at the Omoto headquarters in March 1930. On that occasion, the word "Jo" (purification) was written in large writing, and alongside in small writing was "Okada Mokichi". This could be seen as implying his mission to purify and save the world. He started his own healing center, but did not actually leave Omoto and start his own group until 1935. Perhaps the idea to do so began with this divination.

The founder of Seicho no Ie, Masaharu Taniguchi (1893-1985), was also originally a member of Omoto. He left Omoto in 1925 and joined Asano's psychic science group. In 1929, Taniguchi received a revelation which told him to "Arise now!", which he interpreted as meaning he should start publishing his spiritual doctrines in a magazine, called Seicho no Ie, and eventually led to the establishment of his religious group. Several sources, including the Encyclopedia of Shinto, say that Taniguchi was a member of Asano's psychic research group but, perhaps not surprisingly, I've found no mention of this particular influence on Taniguchi on any of the English sites I've seen so far that promote Seicho no Ie.

Wasaburo Asano's name pops up again as an influence on Yutaro Yano, who founded the short-lived Shinsei Ryujinkai (Theocratic Dragon Deity Association) in 1934. Yano was also an instructor at the Japanese Naval Academy, and became interested in Omoto via Asano and Asano's brother, who was a Vice-Admiral. Yano visited the Omoto headquarters in 1917, where he received the Chinkon Kishin ritual from Wasaburo Asano. In 1929 Yano's wife Shin began to experience divine possessions and to produce "revelations" (shinji)……[other] conditions were also influential in his eventual organization of a shamanistic religious group.

Yano was strongly influenced by yet another factor, namely his encounter [in 1930] with the religion Amatsukyo and the so-called Takeuchi Document (Takeuchi monjo) which the group possessed. Amatsukyo was a religious movement led by Takeuchi Kiyomaro [1874-1965], priest of the Koso Kotai Jingu……the "Takeuchi Document" claimed that the Japanese emperor was ruler not merely of the nation and people of Japan, but of all the peoples of the entire world..

Yano's Shinsei Ryujinkai lasted less than 18 months, and as of May 1935 had only about 60 members, but these members included members of Japan's nobility, a retired army colonel, and navy commander Kaseda Tetsuhiko. According to information (not yet verified) on one of the Japanese Mahikari discussion sites, Nobuo Shioya was also a member. Shioya, too, was rather well-connected. He ran a flourishing medical clinic in Tokyo, and claimed that he successfully treated the Empress using some form of tekazashi.

So, what was it that led Shioya and Ogiwara to establish the Chidori-kai psychic research group after the war? Were they also perhaps influenced by Asano's psychic science group? The Encyclopedia of Shinto says this of Makoto Ogiwara (1910-1981), who eventually founded Makoto no Michi: Having experienced paranormal powers since before World War II, Ogiwara began participating as a psychic in a spiritualist research group in 1947. In time, Ogiwara and medical doctor Shioya Nobuo (1902- ) together founded a spiritual cultivation society called Chidorikai in response to the divine will revealed through Ogiwara.

This Encyclopedia of Shinto entry gives no further details of Ogiwara's pre-war experiences or of the group in which Ogiwara participated after the war and before founding the Chidori-kai group. According to information on this site, Ogiwara went to Manchuria and the Japanese colony in Korea, where he became famous for his spiritualism meetings. He returned to Japan at the request of Hideto Oda (1896-1989), who had founded a psychic research group called the Kikka-kai (chrysanthemum society), and met Asano in 1936.

Information quoted on the Shinri Kenkyukai site indicates a close association between Ogiwara and Oda. A younger psychic who participated in Oda's group, Mitsutomo Takeuchi, also participated in psychic endeavours with Ogiwara and received training from Ogiwara. (I don't know if this Takeuchi was part of the family who possessed the Takeuchi document or not.) The above site also indicates a close association between Oda and Asano, and says that Oda's Kikka-kai group was financially sponsored by Omoto.

Asano died in 1937, and his group ceased activities during the war, but this group began functioning again, as the Japanese Psychic Science Association, soon after the war ended. Nobuo Shioya's younger brother, Tsutomu Shioya (1911-1998), was an advisor to this group. Tsutomu Shioya published a number of books, including "Rei wa Ikiteiru" (spirits are "alive") in which he described a psychic research meeting he attended where Oda and Mitsutomo Takeuchi demonstrated various paranormal phenomena, transmitted "guidance" from spirits, and so on.

The exact relationships between all the people mentioned above are not all that clear but, despite the disruption of activities during the war years, there seem to be several different chains of influence stretching from Asano and Omoto in 1916, through to the post-war Chidori-kai. Ogiwara's supposed channelling of the voices of spirits appears to be a continuation of Asano's tradition of using psychic means to seek "divine guidance".

According to the website of the current Makoto no Michi group, Ogiwara established the Chidori-kai psychic research group in 1948. They held meetings for communicating with spirits, and began receiving the "revelations" from divine spirits which form the basis of Makoto no Michi teachings. Chidori-kai was registered as a religious body in 1949, with Ogiwara as its first Oshienushi. Chidori-kai was renamed as Makoto no Michi in 1952.

You'll notice that there is no mention of Nobuo Shioya. I imagine he was "written out" of Makoto no Michi history (much like Sekiguchi has been written out of Sukyo Mahikari history) after he formed a separate group, called Makoto no Michi Kyokai, in 1955.

Its not clear at what point Chidori-kai stopped being a "research group", attended by members of other religions such as SKK and Seicho no Ie, and started being a separate "religious group". Before that change, however, at least one other new religion was born, as noted in the previous post.

According to the Encyclopedia of Shinto, Masahisa Goi (1916-1980), the founder of Byakko Shinkokai, originally practiced some form of faith healing. After the war, be became an instructor in Taniguchi's Seicho no Ie and, at the same time, he also attended meetings of the Chidori-kai, a group engaging in psychic experiments, and he experienced paranormal phenomena so frequently that leading an ordinary life became impossible. In 1949, he left Chidori-kai and began week-long fasts, after which he became one with the divine. The next day he experienced union with Shakyamuni and Jesus. This led to Goi leaving Seicho no Ie, and his followers established a group of supporters in 1951. This group was later registered under its current name, in 1955.

On the Shinri Kenkyukai site, Goi himself is quoted as saying that the Chidori-kai Omine Rosen spirit encouraged him to leave Seicho no Ie and train to develop his spiritual abilities. On this occasion, too, Omine Rosen supposedly materialized his voice via the ectoplasm of the spirit medium Ogiwara.

So, what is the relevance of the above to Yoshikazu Okada and his Mahikari groups?

The first consideration should be whether or not any psychic phenomena are genuine. The quack-watch people do a pretty good job of exposing such things as mere smoke and mirrors. Next, we should ask if the apparently involuntary actions involved in automatic writing, channelling of "voices", Tenjo, etc., are produced by the practitioners subconscious via the ideomotor effect, rather than by spirits. Anyone who does consider such things to be the work of spirits should then question whether the source of such communications can be trusted. Are such communications "divine" guidance and teachings, or are they from some lesser source?

Regardless of which of these options seem believable to us, the people who attended the psychic research meetings conducted by Asano, Ogiwara, and Shioya appear to have believed that these men were sincere, and that the information they transmitted was legitimate. This information appears to have contributed, at least in part, to the decisions to form several of the new Japanese religions, and has shaped much of their doctrine. The founders of these religions, between them, have managed to convince millions of people (temporarily, at least) that the teachings of their particular founder were divinely inspired. That is a frightening amount of power! What if the spirits speaking through these men were fox spirits? What if it was all smoke and mirrors?

As stated in the previous post, we do not know if Y. Okada actually attended Chidori-kai meetings. We do know, however, that he quoted Shioya and the Omine Rosen spirit in his kenshu textbooks. We know that he claimed that the Tenjo investigation of his soul was proof that God had given him the role of Yo. Thus, regardless of whether or not Y. Okada participated personally in psychic research activities, we know that he considered communications from the Omine Rosen spirit to be reliable and legitimate. This places the Mahikari groups firmly in the context of the Japanese tradition of psychic research outlined above.

In the preface of Goseigen, Y. Okada claims: These holy words contained in this collection of holy words are revelations that have been given to me by Su God, the Creator of heaven and earth, through a messenger deity….Following God's guidance, I have started to transmit and propagate the teachings.

Who was this "messenger deity"? Shioya and Ogiwara regarded Omine Rosen as a "divine spirit", rather than a deity, but they did apparently regard him as transmitting divine truths about matters of grave importance. Would Okada have "twisted the truth" a little and used "messenger deity" to refer to Omine Rosen? Is it possible that Okada, too, was encouraged to start a new religion by Omine Rosen or some other spirit? (Or should I say, encouraged to do so by a psychic medium who appeared to transmit the voice of a spirit?)

This of course is just speculation…there could well be some other explanation for the similarities between the teachings of Y. Okada, Ogiwara, Shioya, Kura Fukuda, and the pre-war Shinsei Ryujinkai group. (More on the latter group in the next post…)

Incidentally, for me personally, it would make more sense if Okada had claimed that a divine spirit called Omine Rosen had told him, "Rise. Your name shall be Kotama. The world shall enter severe times", back in 1948, rather than that God had told him that in 1959. At least the "Kotama" part would then predate Okada's use of that name when he was an SKK staff member.


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