Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

The paper is dedicated to the analysis of "musubi", the key concept in the quite remarkable ideological and philosophical system of Sato Nobuhiro, who belongs to what might be termed the mystical wing of "national learning".

Paper long abstract:

Sato Nobuhiro`s ideas are not unique, but, rather, a quite remarkable example of what was typical during Japan's 19th century philosophical eclecticism.

While he belonged to what might be termed the mystical wing of "national learning", he was far less interested in the problems of metaphysics and soteriology than he was in the "real science" - the practices of farming and development of the natural resources that would improve the well-being of the people ("keizai").

Although Sato apparently died in obscurity, some of his ideas about, primarily, the urgent necessity of Japan's territorial expansion and the creation of a paternalistic state became quite popular in post-Meiji Japan. He is largely known to the West from this aspect of his thought.

This unilateral approach has led to the misinterpretation of the complex thoughts of Sato Nobuhiro, who created an impressive and internally consistent ideological and philosophical system that is based on the principle of isomorphic correlativity of multiple layers of existence, known in Western esotericism as correspondences.

He also shared, common to numerous currents of mystical thought, the belief in the "living" totality of all things and creatures that differ only in their degree of "liveliness".

The core of his belief system is the principle of creativity through sexual intercourse in a direct or symbolic form, which he called the "musubi", or "production spirit", following earlier examples of Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane.

He believed that the cosmogony itself, as well as the successful economic activities of people, are based on the same principle, and all attempts to suppress this sexual energy lead to stagnation. For him, the myth of the birth of the Japanese islands by Izanagi and Izanami is the archetypical representation of "musubi" in action, and the myth itself remains to this day an archetypical example to be actualized every time people are engaged in productive labour.

Thus, it can also be concluded that the ideas of Sato Nobuhiro are based on a traditional notion of cyclical time and the possibility of actualizing any given period and deeds in illo tempore by their reenactment in the present.