JAPANESE NEW RELIGIONS IN THE WEST
Cover kanji: Japanese characters for wa - harmony / peace
Japanese New Religions in the West
Edited by
Peter B. Clarke
&
Jeffrey Somers
JAPANESE NEW RELIGIONS IN THE WEST
First published 1994 by RoutledgeCurzon
Published 2013 by Routledge
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Routledge 1994
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British library
ISBN: 1-873410-24-7 [Cloth edition]
Typeset by Bookman in Goudy Old Style 11 on 12pt
Contents
PETER B. CLARKE & JEFFREY SOMERS |
RICHARD GOMBRICH |
CARMEN BLACKER |
J.GORDON MELTON & CONSTANCE A. JONES |
JEFFREY SOMERS |
MICHAEL PYE |
CATHERINE CORNILLE |
J. H. KAMSTRA |
BRIAN BOCKING |
REVEREND DAISHIN MORGAN |
PETER B. CLARKE |
IT IS today a well-known fact that Japanese influence is considerable in the fields of car manufacturing, electronics and other elements of the 'material' culture of the Western world. Less is known about the influence and impact of Japanese religion and spirituality in Europe, the United States, Latin America and elsewhere. The purpose of this volume is to offer a perspective on the growing strength, variety and dynamism of Japanese religion and culture in Western societies by focusing on the Japanese 'new' and 'new, new' religions that are now established across the United States, Europe and Latin America. These movements are also found increasingly in the countries of Eastern Europe, including Russia.
Aware of such developments and interested in the reasons for the rise, appeal and fortunes of the 'new' and 'new, new' Japanese religions, the Centre for New Religions at King's College, University of London, brought together a group of experts in their particular fields at an international seminar to present their opinions on these and related matters. This volume, therefore, comprises these contributions as well as others which were provided by scholars who were unable to attend the seminar.
The editors are most grateful to them all for the time they freely gave to this project and for the care and attention they gave to their contributions. They would also like to thank King's College for providing the facilities for the seminar, all those who attended and all the support staff for making the occasion a success.
Finally, they would like to thank Japan Library/Curzon Press and in particular Paul Norbury for agreeing to publish the volume and for the courtesy, patience and understanding he has shown throughout.
PETER B. CLARKE and JEFFREY SOMERS
Centre for New Religions,
King's College, University of London, February 1994
Conventions
Terminology of 'New Religions'
shink-shky = New religions (lit. newly-arisen religion)
shin-shky = New religion
shin-shin-shky = New, new religion
in general sense = new religion, new religious movement, etc.
Personal Names
Japanese personal names are given in the standard order of family name followed by given name, except where otherwise indicated. Where a Japanese has Westernized his or her name - especially in the case of those Japanese living overseas - the name is given in the Western order of given name first.
CARMEN BLACKER is former Lecturer in Japanese Studies, the Oriental Institute, University of Cambridge.
BRIAN BOOKING is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, Bath College of Higher Education.
PETER B. CLARKE is Senior Lecturer in the history and sociology of religion and Director of the Centre for New Religions, King's College, University of London; he also teaches the sociology of religion at the University of Oxford.
CATHERINE CORNILLE is Lecturer in Theology at the Catholic University of Louvain.
RICHARD GOMBRICH is Professor of Sanskrit, University of Oxford.
J. GORDON MELTON is Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion at Santa Barbara, CA.
CONSTANCE A. JONES is Associate Professor, Sociology Department, Mills College, Oakland, CA.
J. H. KAMSTRA is Professor at the Centre for Asian Studies, University of Amsterdam.
REVEREND DAISHIN MORGAN, OBE, is Abbot of Throsselhole Priory, Soto Zen Monastery, Northumberland.
MICHAEL PYE is Professor of Religious Studies, University of Lancaster.
JEFFREY SOMERS is a Research Scholar at the Centre for New Religions, King's College, University of London, and is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.
1
Japanese 'New' and 'New, New' Religions: An Introduction
Peter B. Clarke & Jeffrey Somers
The Beginnings of the Japanese New Religions
LONG ISOLATED, Japan for some time now has been expanding its economic, technological and cultural influence abroad and, more recently, its religions - particularly its 'new' religions ( shin-shky ). To date, there has been little by way of scholarly research on the spread, appeal and impact of these new religions beyond the shores of Japan and thus one of the main reasons that the present volume, consisting of contributions from a number of outstanding scholars in this field, has been assembled to fill this gap.
The volume is not exclusively concerned with the Japanese new religious movements outside Japan in the West. There is, of necessity, some discussion of the Japanese context itself in order to ensure that the reader has the background knowledge to understand this new and interesting development in the modern history of Japanese religion. What cannot be ignored is its steady advancement overseas with the aim of transforming people's lives by influencing the major issues of the modern world such as those of peace and war, attitudes to work and the environment, as well as individual health, well-being and prosperity.
The first studies of new religious movements in Japan began to appear in the 1950s. Prior to this, such movements were treated variously: some as quasi-religions - examples being motoky and Seich no Ie, and others as sectarian offshoots of Shinto and Buddhism - Tenriky and Konkky being Shinto-linked examples, while Risshokoseikai is linked to Buddhism.
The terms shink-shuky (newly-arisen religion) and shin-shky (new religion) came into use among journalists and scholars in the 1950s, and since the 1960s the latter term has been the more widely used of the two, with the former having a somewhat pejorative nuance. There is also a third label in use and that is the controversial term 'new, new religions' ( shin-shin-shky ) which is intended to indicate a more recent stage in the development of the 'new' religions and is applied in particular to those movements such as Mahikari, Shinnyoen and Agonsh that rapidly increased their membership in the 1970s and 1980s while others such as Ska Gakkai were considered to have peaked.
