Japanese new religions

**Japanese new religions** are new religious movements established in Japan. In Japanese, they are called **shinshūkyō** or **shinkō shūkyō**. Japanese scholars classify all religious organizations founded since the middle of the 19th century as "new religions"; thus, the term refers to a great diversity and number of organizations. Most came into being in the mid-to-late twentieth century and are influenced by much older traditional religions including Buddhism and Shinto. Foreign influences include Christianity, the Bible and the writings of Nostradamus.

In the 1860s Japan began to experience great social turmoil and rapid modernization. As social conflicts emerged in this last decade of the Edo period, known as the Bakumatsu period, some new religious movements appeared. Among them were Tenrikyo, Kurozumikyo and Oomoto, sometimes called *Nihon Sandai Shinkōshūkyō* ("Japan's three large new religions"), which were directly influenced by Shinto (the state religion) and shamanism. Many of them were characterized by a larger focus on this world, and a downplaying of abstract spiritual goals in favor of tangible ones.

Japanese new religions in general tend to have four characteristics. Founding by a single charismatic leader, a tendency towards monotheistic supreme principles against a polytheistic backdrop, syncretism, and a this-worldly focus. The new religions usually teach that rapid change is happening soon, and a divine new age is imminent, and they place an emphasis on healing. Most of the new religions actually began as spiritual healing movements, only gradually developing a full spectrum of doctrine and practice.

The groups in the games have to be understood in terms of the backdrop of the development of japanese new religions. Both the messians and gaians are coded to have a veneer of these new religions, with the messians adopting the more millenarian and egalitarian aspects, and gaianism the more militaristic aspects. The shomonkai in devil survivor likewise do.

## Yonaoshi

**Yonaoshi** or "world renewal" is a term associated with a trend common in many new japanese religions to shift away from the idea of otherworldly goals, and towards a kind of millenarian world transformation that would rectify social inequalities. Yonaoshi gods were originally more local deities who fixed social ills, but the beliefs evolved to messianic and often monotheistic teachings of world transformation. While the origins were tied to japanese peasant movements, some of them also took inspiration from western egalitarian or christian teachings, sometimes even conflating their gods with yahweh. Many of the initial yonaoshi gods were deified humans (though one was the catfish namazu), though over time as its scope expanded to a universalist eschatology, they tended to be more absolute gods.

The concept of yonaoshi gods marked an important deviation from historical japanese religion in many ways. Neither shinto nor buddhism bore a specific eschatology of world improvement, or particular hope for the improvement of material conditions in the future of this life. And teachings on karma, or confucian family roles tended to focus on the idea of your place in the world being fairly static, and so difficult to question. Yonaoshi gods were a radical deviation, calling into question the social structure in an overt and more radical way, As well as emphasizing the possibility of improvement in this world, rather than hoping for justice in a future world.

Yonaoshi is a central japanese historical context for understanding the law side. Its in-game focus notably revolves around a messianism and millenarianism that is this-worldly focused, revolving around the creation of an equal world rather than any otherworldly goals. And both law and chaos are heavily inspired by japanese new religion, and its often cult-like associations. In keeping with the view of yonaoshi as often drawing on western ideas, law is also mainly western coded, with yahweh as its initial head. Though of course these actual new japanese religions tended to be mostly entirely eastern in character, with only minor inspirations from the west.

## Specific religions

While there are many japanese new religions that could be talked about, we will focus on a few specifically relevant examples.

   **Aum Shinrikyo** is a Japanese doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for the Matsumoto sarin attack the previous year, although many involved with the group were unaware of these attacks. Later, the remains of the group would change its name to aleph.

Aum shinrikyo is a syncretic belief system that draws upon Asahara's idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Hinduism, taking Shiva as the main image of worship and incorporating millennialist ideas from Christianity. Its founder, Chizuo Matsumoto, claimed that he sought to restore "original Buddhism," but actually functioned with a degree of syncretism, and employed Christian millenarian rhetoric. In 1992, Matsumoto, who had changed his name to Shoko Asahara, published a foundational book, declaring himself to be "Christ", Japan's only fully enlightened master, as well as identifying himself as the "Lamb of God".

Asahara's purported mission was to take upon himself the sins of the world, and he claimed he could transfer spiritual power to his followers and ultimately take away their sins and bad deeds. While some reject Aum Shinrikyo's claims of Buddhist characteristics and affiliations with Buddhism, other scholars refer to it as an offshoot of Japanese Buddhism, and this was how the movement generally defined and saw itself. It believed in an apocalyptic prophecy that said that america would instigate a third world war, culminating in using nukes on japan, leading to a collapse of the entire world, in which only the members of aum would be the survivors. America was equated to the beast of revelations by them for this reason, drawing on western conspiracies.

Although Aum was, from the beginning, considered controversial in Japan, it was not initially associated with serious crimes. It was during this period that Asahara became obsessed with Biblical prophecies. Aum's public relations activities included publishing comics and animated cartoons that attempted to tie its religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes, including space missions, powerful weapons, world conspiracies, and the quest for ultimate truth. Aum published several magazines including *Vajrayana Sacca* and *Enjoy Happiness*, adopting a somewhat missionary attitude.

   Aum is considered an inspiration for several things in the series. While the messians and shomonkai draw on them somewhat, the most clear references show up in the gaians. The gaians not only bear a similar tantric buddhism aesthetic, as well as using the tantric om as a logo, but the first game revolves around america, under the influences of shadowy groups using nukes on japan as the beginning of an apocalyptic process.

Aum also believed that they would replace the japanese government after the war, which ties to gotou's taking over of it (albeit he did this before the war). Gotou also talks about reaching back to the past to restore old gods, similar to aum talking about needing to restore what it purports to be original buddhism. Aum was also known for preaching that a certain degree of violence being used to aim at its goals was an acceptable project, tying it to the violent reputation of gaians. A branch off from them later used the name ring of light, which may tie to the gaian cult later being called ring of gaea, and having mem aleph as a figure. Although this last part is more speculative, and may be coincidence.

In smtii, some of the conspiratorial aspects also show up in equating satan with imagery from the book of revelations. This imagery being tied to law, and satan in particular relating to its conspiratorial depiction. Which relates to also being equated with america in the first game. While this draws on conspiracies in general, it is worth noting that they are also specifically conspiracies that made their way into the teachings of aum.

While the messians bear less of a resemblance to aum, they may draw from the same general idea of doomsday cults within japan in general. And their focus on the thousand year kingdom may be drawing from aum's millenarianism.

   **World messianity**. In contrast to the buddhist toned new religious movement, there is a new japanese christian slanted church with yonaoshi elements called The Church of World Messianity, or the world church of messiah. Their founder claimed to have received a divine revelation that empowered him to be a channel of God's Healing Light (*johrei*) to purify the spiritual realm to remove the spiritual causes of illness, poverty, and strife from the world and inaugurate a new Messianic Age. He went on to teach Johrei to his followers to allow them to achieve Messianity and spread the teachings across the world. Members are given permission to channel Johrei by wearing an O-Hikari pendant containing a copy of one of Mokichi Okada's calligraphies. He is often referred to as "Meishu-Sama" (Lord of Light) by his followers.

The name may be an inspiration for the order of messiah. While the group is not well known enough for a major amount of its teachings to be known for comparison, one parallel is that it believes in undertaking its work for the bringing forth of the messianic age in part by human hands. As well as the idea that while jesus was the past messiah, that there is a new one for the present age. And that different people can become in a sense the messiah themself by channeling the messianic spirit.