#

Cap.

PP.

1.

Introduction

1-16

2.

Lady in White

17-29

3.

Learning Mios^ie

30-51

5.

Other Revelations

64-72

6.

Gospel Sources

73-98

8.

Possession & Exorcism

115-60

/do-jo/ = ‘way (Tao)’ /do/ + /jo/ ‘place’

"Shortly before her baby was born, the mother had a revelatory dream in which a rat from the Grand Shrine of Izumo, a magnificent creature with gold and white fur, bit the big toe of her left foot."

p. 3

Okada Yos^ikazu, on Feb 22^nd 1959 : "Suddenly he found himself transported to the astral world, where he saw an old man with white hair standing in a white cloud and washing clothing in a golden tub. Later, Okada

p. 5

the Church of the World True-Light Civilization (Sekai Mahakari Bunmei Kyodan)."

"Okada ... regarded himself as God’s earthly "Proxy, Carbon Copy, and robot. ...

Throughout this period, revelations continuously came to Okada during the night that he jotted down in "automatic writing" with incredible speed. These were later collected in a 486-page volume called Goseigenshu, the scriptures of Mahikari. Members regard all the Savior’s

p. 6

"In 1974, ... only July 13, just after the Savior’s funeral, Sekiguchi was publicly installed as Leader of the church. ...

p. 7

Sekiguchi quickly moved to oust the Keiju group from the sect’s headquarters. Keiju changed the name of the organization from the Church of the World True-Light Civilization to the True-Light Supra-Religious Organization (Sukyo Mahikari) and moved her headquarters to Kanagawa prefecture." [fn. * : "Okada Kotama ... recommended his own neologism, sukyo or supra-religion."]

possessing-spirit

its movement

snake

"pressed her hands together and began to make twisting, serpentine motions."

badger

"clenched her fists and rolled them together."

fox

"intertwined her fingers and moved her hands in small circles."

human

"our hands shake up and down."

bird

"flapped her arms pretending they were wings."

p. 25

" "When a spirit is finally exorcised and leaves the body, a person’s hand or shoulder automatically rises towards the ceiling. Once a young girl came to our dojo and was

p. 26

possessed by a snake spirit that decided to leave her body by going out her leg. Since she was wearing a miniskirt that day, it was quite embarrassing." she said with a laugh."

"Sometimes the evil spirits talk through the mouth of the person they are possessing.

Sometimes they answer by making the person’s head move.

In other cases, they cause the person to do automatic writing on the floor." {doing automatic writing on the floor is a Taoist ritual}

Others will shake with cold." [p. 56 : "When she took the training course, she was bothered for three whole days by a dreadful cold sensation in her hips and had to sit through the lectures surrounded by pillows just to keep warm."]

p. 31

"Mahikari aims at the renewal of the world and the salvation of people both in this world and in the astral world [yukai]."

p. 31, fn. *

" "Renewal of the world" (yonaoshi). World renewal was an orgiastic ... theme ... . World renewal was a common theme in ... the peasant uprisings in the nineteenth century."

p. 31, fn. +

"Mahikari’s therapeutic ritual is ... tekazashi (raising the hand). Its function is purification (misogi) and exorcism (harai)".

"All bodies are surrounded with an aura, but there are three basic shapes named ... after the type ... found on traditional statues ... .

The Amida Nyorai aura is a circular halo, the bottom of which comes down to a person’s knees or shins.

The Kannon ... aura has an elongated turnip shape, which comes to rest on the ground around one’s feet.

The Fudo Myoo aura ... rests on the ground but has no end point above the head. On the aura meter, it looks like a tornado.

a woman who has had an abortion will have an aura peppered with small dark spots."

ailment

okiyome to __

bed-wetting

child’s temples

cough

groin

neuroses

lower neck

ailment

aitiology

facial neuralgia

"spirits who have been killed in traffic accidents.

angina pectoris

"spirits bearing a grudge."

menstrual problems

"the sexual lust of ancestral spirits."

"the primary soul [shukon] in the forehead and

a secondary soul [fukkon], which lies five centimeters behind and below the navel.

The former is the seat of conscience, reason, ... and is planted in us from the moment of our conception by the "strict" or "fire" deities.

The secondary soul, however, is the locus of ... material ... desires and is implanted in the fifth month of a fetus’s existence by the "secondary" or "water" deities."

"The human body is a trinity composed of the physical body [nikutai],

the astral body [yutai].

The first is shed when a person dies and becomes a corpse.

Then the spirit and astral bodies (which give off spirit and astral rays, respectively) leave for the other world."

"In the other world we continue to suffer from the illnesses that caused our death in this world. ... When a member dies, his family and friends gather around the coffin for the wake and give okiyome to his corpse. This cleans up the source of his disease".

p. 41

"Ancestors so send warnings or omens to their families if their graves are neglected or if their tombstones fall over ... . ...

p. 42

The memorial tablets should be painted with black lacquer and trimmed in gold. Tablets of this sort make the best contact with the spirit rays and are therefore the easiest for spirits to dwell in. Make sure the gold lettering does not fade. ... You should never use the thin kind of tablets that are stacked together in a bundle. With tablets like this, only the ancestors on the outside of the bundle ever get to eat." The spirits "of those who died more than thirty years ago ...

p. 44

should then be induced to move into the tallest tablet ..., which it placed behind all the others. This is the most prestigious position ... and is reserved for the oldest spirits in the family. The other tablets (each bearing the posthumous name of the deceased) are arranged in strict ... order according to the person’s date of birth (not death). The younger the spirit, the shorter the tablet and the farther toward the front ... it is placed." "Once a day, present food offerings ... . ... Bow, ring the bell ... twice, and say, "All ancestors, please come to eat!" ... Always give an ancestor a special treat on the anniversary of his or her death. When presenting you paycheck before the ancestors,

p. 45

... say, "Please use the spirit value of this money." You should always announce important things to your ancestors, such as a pay raise. ... In the evening, you should say good night to them, turn out their light, and close the doors ... . In the morning, open the doors ..., say good morning, and turn the light on again." "When dusting the tablets, always hold them at the base because it would be rude to pick them up by the head."

"the forty-eight gods who are associated with the forty-eight characters of the Japanese syllabary. [fn * : "The leader of these forty-eight deities is Kuniyorozu Tsukurinushi Okami {"Great Deity-Lord of Building Myriad Nations", praesiding at the 4^th divine council ("E&WR")}, ancestor of Okuninushi in the Kojiki".] Through these deities, forty-eight types of men came into existence."

Still one level above them come the "spirit-governing gods" [reitoshi], the tutelary gods [ubusunagami], the clan deities [ujigami] ..., and, finally, the forty-eight gods themselves. The individual is joined to all of these divinities by invisible spirit rays or cords.

The gods are divided into two camps.

The strict or fire gods ... are the gods who create our primary souls.

In addition, there are the easy-going "water gods," or "secondary deities," who are the sponsors of material wealth and desires."

p. 48

Because the auxiliary water deities have now withdrawn, there are no real gods in the Shinto shrines ... .

p. 49

The Japanese islands themselves are now threatened with submersion under the waters of the Pacific Ocean." [fn. * : "Nippon Chinbotsu, by Komatsu Sakyo (translated by Michael Gallagher as Japan Sinks; New York, 1976)."]

"members allegedly repaired broken television sets, radios, automobiles, air conditioners, and wristwatches simply by "raising their hands.""

up to the seventh, the divine world of Su-god himself."

level

its nature

3^rd

"The world we inhabit ..., a world where gods and spirits can see us, but where we cannot see them."

4^th

"the astral world, where spirits are reborn after death,"

5^th & 6^th

"(the God-Spirit World), there are gods with only spiritual bodies."

7^th

"consists of pure spirit and thought, and is the realm of the forty-eight deities, ... clan deities, tutelary gods, the "spirit-governing gods," and, or course, Su."

"Trainees are instructed in the names of some of the sect’s lesser-known deities... who ruled before Jimmu. ... Most of these names are ... long ... such .... as Amehinomotoashikabikiminushi Mihikari Okami".

p. 67

"In ancient times, ... winged monsters were a manifestation of the dragon god, Ryujin ... . "Ancient documents" reveal that thousands of these creatures died at the foot of Mount Tsukuba during the geological cataclysm that took place in Japan 100,000,000-100,050,000 years ago. At that time, lava flows covered their bones".

p. 68

"the first human were created in five different colors : yellow, red, white, blue-green, and purple. The colored stripes on the Mahikari banner carried at all festivals are a reminder of the Five Colored Races of primordial times, whom Mahikari now aims to unite."

p. 74

mites^iro ("honorable hand-substitute") : "the minister took a rice ladle (oshakushi or shamoji) wrapped in a red folder and moved it slowly around the patient’s body".

p. 75

Omoto’s "pantheon, like Mahikari’s, includes forty-eight tutelary spirits associated with the Japanese syllabary."

p. 75

"Sekai Kyusei Kyo. or the Church of World Messianity, ... was founded by Okada Mokichi (1882-1955)" in 1934, using (not Omoto’s rice-ladle, but rather ) "a fan instead."

p. 76

"The world of spirits is a three-stor[e]ied cosmos in which the better sort of spirits, having higher vibrations, can hover closer to the Light ... . Evil spirits, on the other hand, are condemned to live in the freezing cold of the lower regions."

(quoted from Lebra 1976, p. 236) "The chukaisha and bontai sit side by side in front of the altar and go through the spirit-inviting ritual, invoking the names of deities ... and repeatedly bowing to the altar. The spirit’s arrival is signaled by the sudden rapid movement of the bontai’s folded hands in which a special charm is held. ... the spirit identifies itself and conveys its message through the bontai’s mouth or hands (by tracing letters on the floor) in response to requests and questions by the chukaisha."

"perhaps the closest to okiyome is the possession scenario in the Ontake scenario, in which the medium (nakaza) and the ascetic {summoner of the possessing-spirit} (maeza) simply change places after the ritual has been performed. See Percival Lowell, Occult Japan or the Way of the Gods (Boston, 1894), pp. 3-8, 130-36."

p. 89, fn. *

"In Japan, the will-o’-the-wisp (ignis fatuus) is often described as lanterns carried by foxes on their way to a wedding (kitsune no yomeiri)."

p. 92

"According to Mioshie, when the strict fire gods retired from the world they left "dragon bodies" behind them. ... These divine dragons were later slain by men who first drove sharp holly thorns into their eyes and climaxed their sacrilege by ripping out the dragons’ entrails (zomotsu). This horrible deed was the origin of the Japanese New Year’s dish, ozoni."

"In the San’in region of western Honshu, where fox possession is considered a form of sorcery, families said to "keep foxes" are commonly discriminated against, especially in marriage.

The same is true of the hereditary "dog-spirit holders" in southwestern Shikoku."