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- Convenor:
-
Ioannis Gaitanidis
(Chiba University)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Religion and Religious Thought
- Location:
- Lokaal 0.1
- Sessions:
- Saturday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
By focusing on dimensions such as martial arts, popular culture, and social movements, this panel intends to shed new light on the reception and development of the idea of “the Occult” in postwar Japan, an important but heretofore poorly explored aspect of contemporary Japanese religious history.
Long Abstract:
After several decades of being relegated to the position of “fringe topic,” the academic study of “the Occult” (okaruto) in modern Japan has gained, in the twentieth-first century, significant traction. Due mostly to the pioneering work of the late Yoshinaga Shin’ichi (1957-2022), the history of Japanese “Occultism” —be it as the appropriation of Western esoteric trends or the development of local ones— shifted from an issue focused on by no more than a few enthusiasts into a serious interdisciplinary field that has successfully managed to convince academia of the importance of its subject matter. Although a global history of “the Occult” in Japan can be traced back at least to the 1880s with the introduction, into the archipelago, of the Theosophical ideas of Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), it was not until the postwar days that Japan saw what both academia and contemporary critics referred to as an “Occult Boom.” In fact, the very term that is now used in Japanese to refer to the idea —okaruto— does not make an appearance until 1973. This panel will focus on different phenomena both leading to and pertaining to this “Occult Boom,” namely religious networks, social movements, and contemporary media. Our first presenter discusses the global entanglements between New Religious Movements, the martial arts phenomenon, and works of “parahistory” (koshi koden); the second presentation focuses on how Esoteric Buddhism (Mikkyō), thus far criticized by post-Meiji intellectuals as the very manifestation of the “non-modern,” was re-evaluated in the late 1960s and early 70s context as a true revolutionary force; the third and last presentation pays attention to different 1970s periodicals and attempts to understand the development of a contiguous okaruto readership. Put together, these presentations help clarify important questions in the study of contemporary Japanese religions, namely the global character of the Okaruto phenomenon, its networks, and scope.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 19 August, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
This presentation looks at how prewar occult beliefs and practices, based closely on Shinto and Japanese mythohistory and initially confined to Japan, were transformed into global practices through the martial art aikido from 1958 through the 1970s.
Paper long abstract:
Starting in 1958, Japanese aikido teachers were rapidly dispatched around the world, including Singapore, South Africa, France, Brazil and the United Kingdom. Aikido quickly gained worldwide appeal as a martial art, but it brought with it two other types of knowledge, both of which originated in the early 20th century. First, seemingly from its first overseas establishments from 1958 through 1963, aikido introduced methods of breathing practice, physical austerity, and bodily meditation which its founder Ueshiba Morihei connected to Shinto mythology and tradition. Aikido historians seem to assume these practices originate in Deguchi Onisaburō’s Oomoto movement, but in fact, they can be traced to Kawazura Bonji’s Misogi movement, with Oomoto being a secondary source of spiritual language surrounding them. Second, starting around 1972, Ueshiba’s disciple Nakazono Mutsuro infused aikido with teachings about the symbolism of Japanese syllables, called kotodama. These teachings, which have found their way into many aikido publications, were combined with an unusual Japan-centric view of human evolution. Nakazono was inspired by the Takenouchi Documents, an alternative ancient historical narrative or, as I have called it in the past, “parahistory”; in this case, there are very few actual documents associated with the narrative. These more spiritual teachings of kotodama and parahistory originated with Nakazono’s contemporary in Japan, Ogasawara Kōji, and most were most likely unrelated to the key concerns of the founder Ueshiba. Through such esoteric beliefs and practices, aikido’s fortunes became tied to an exoticized spirituality which perceived aikido’s original masters as having special access to the flows, vibrations, and natural harmonies of the universe. In the 21st century, this “harmonious” worldview has isolated aikido from other martial arts and seems to be losing popularity.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation examines how Mikkyō (Japanese esoteric Buddhism) was reevaluated and reinterpreted under the apocalyptic mood of 1970s Japan, especially with regard to the group titled the “Association of Priests for Death-cursing the Head of Companies that Pollute [the Environment].”
Paper long abstract:
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the public perception of pollution-related issues (kōgai mondai) such as the Minamata and Itai-itai diseases became very prominent, as did the realization that such environmental problems were the result of a modern civilization that put too much emphasis on materialism. In addition to these domestic issues, the ongoing Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States gave the Japanese a very keen sense of crisis, which culminated, in 1973, with the publication and popular success of a series of apocalypse-themed works, such as Komatsu Sakyō’s Japan Sinks (Nihon chinbotsu), and Gotō Ben’s The Great Prophecies of Nostradamus (Nosutoradamus no daiyogen). In the context leading to the publication of these very popular books, a group named the “Association of Priests for Death-cursing the Head of Companies that Pollute [the Environment]” (Kōgai kigyōnushi jusatsu kitō sōdan) was founded to denounce those companies that caused harm to Japanese society. Established in 1970 by priests of different Buddhist schools as well as members of civil society, this group repurposed traditional Mikkyō —Japanese esoteric Buddhism— as a weapon for protesting not only against polluting businesses, but also the Japanese state that supported them. For instance, members of this association reinterpreted the figure of Fudō Myōō (Skt. Acala), one of the fiercest dharma-protecting Buddhist deities. In their perspective, only Fudō Myōō could respond to the sorrow and anger of the population who had perished due to pollution-related illnesses. This association also developed ideological connections with the contemporary student movement, styling themselves as a “Zenkyōtō of the Dead.” Considering Mikkyō’s long-term association with “Aristocratic Buddhism,” the association’s interpretation of Esoteric Buddhism as a religion for the unprivileged people marks an important shift in modern Mikkyō discourses. In this presentation, I will explore the historical meaning of the association’s ideas and activities, especially how their emphasis on the revolutionary possibilities of Esoteric Buddhism’s magical aspects in an era of pending apocalypse contributed to Mikkyō’s postwar revival and the development of the 1970s’ “Occult Boom.”
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation I will analyze materials included in Chikyū Roman, Meikyū, Gensō to kaiki, and Bokushin, periodicals central in the development of the 1970s “Occult Boom.” In special, I will focus on Aramata Hiroshi (b.1947), who contributed simultaneously to several of these magazines.
Paper long abstract:
When considering postwar Japanese discourses on “the Occult,” analyzing the media in which they developed is one of the most important aspects. Although books and television shows did play an important role, magazines held a central role in the 1970s “occult boom”. In an age before the Internet, periodicals not only introduced new information about the occult to readers, but they also helped forge communities and networks that survived well into the Heisei years. In this presentation I will focus on the magazine Chikyū Roman, published from 1976, and its successor Meikyū, published from 1979. At the same time, I will also look into Gensō to kaiki and Bokushin, fantastic literature periodicals published around the same period. The former two magazines were important predecessors to Mu and Towaraito Zōn, the main occult publications of the 1980s, while the latter two preceded Gensō Bungaku, which continued into the twenty-first century. Chikyū Roman (and Meikyū) published articles on UFOs, pseudo-history, and esoteric topics in general; while Gensō to kaiki and Bokushin focused on vampire and gothic stories. Although these two groups of magazines apparently dealt with different genres, their readers overlapped to a great extent, sharing a common imagination about contemporary fantastic topics. That is, the “Occult Boom” of the 1970s included publications that, despite different in nature, were consumed contiguously by readers. When analyzing these magazines, I would like to focus on the figure of Aramata Hiroshi (b.1947), who began his career as translator of English-language occult literature, and became editor-in-chief of Gensō to kaiki. Aramata also made contributions to Chikyū Roman, which shows that these periodicals overlapped not only in terms of readers. Aramata later developed an interest in natural history, occultism, and yōkai culture, making him an inescapable figure when discussing “occulture” in contemporary Japan. That is, while focusing on the journals above I will pay special attention to Aramata’s work as a way to understand the spread of aspects of “the Occult” in Japan after the 1970s.