Konkokyo (Golden Light Teachings) and Modernity
A Test of the Faivre-Hanegraaff Six-Point Typology of Western Esotericism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/arsr.v20i3.317Keywords:
New Religious MovementAbstract
Scholarly interest in Japanese new religions (shin shukyo) or newly arising religions (shinko shukyo) appears to have peaked in the 1960s when a number of book-length studies appeared. In the early twenty-first century, such movements have been marginal within the academic study of religion. This may be due to three stereotypes that were promoted in the 1960s as to the nature and function of Japanese new and ‘new new’ religions (shin shin shukyo) which are still influential. Earhart has trenchantly criticised the reductionist tendency to characterise these movements as ‘crisis cults’ and the false logic that when social upheaval is followed by formation of new religions that there is a causal relationship between the two. The similarly reductionist claim that the universalising tendencies of the kami venerated by Japanese new religions are the result of Christian influences has also been challenged. The third stereotype, that the new religions were founded by charlatans, attract the gullible, and lack religious authenticity has not been as effectively refuted, though some recent research has offered a more positive assessment (Pfeiffer 2000; Pye 1994).
References
Anderson, Richard W. 1995 Vengeful Ancestors and Animal Spirits: Personal Narratives of the Supernatural in a Japanese New Religion. Western Folklore 54(2): 113-40.
Anon 2006 Everyday is a New Day for Konkokyo’s Spiritual Leader: The Honorable Reverend Heiki Konko Reinaugurated. Face to Faith 48: 1 April.
Braden, Charles S. 1953 Religion in Post-War Japan. The Journal of Bible and Religion 21(3): 147-53.
Campbell, Colin 1972 The Cult, the Cultic Milieu, and Secularization. A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5: 119-36.
The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Blackwell, Oxford.
The Easternisation of the West. In Wilson and Cresswell 1999: 35-48.
Clarke, Peter B. 1999 Japanese New Religious Movements in Brazil: From Ethnic to ‘Universal’ Religions. In Wilson and Cresswell 1999: 197-210.
Konkokyo [Golden Light Teachings]. In Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopaedia of Beliefs and Practices, edited by J. Gordon Melton and Martin Baumann, 753-54. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, Denver, and Oxford.
Earhart, H. Byron 1969 The Interpretation of the ‘New Religions’ of Japan as Historical Phenomena. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 37(3): 237-48.
Toward a Theory of the Formation of the Japanese New Religions: A Case Study of Gedatsu-Kai. History of Religions 20(1-2): 175-97.
Gedatsu Kai and Religion in Contemporary Japan: Returning to the Center. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Faivre, Antoine 1994 Access to Western Esotericism. State University of New York Press, Albany.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1998 New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. State University of New York Press, Albany.
Hardacre, Helen 1986a Creating State Shinto: The Great Promulgation Campaign and the New Religions. Journal of Japanese Studies 12(1): 29-63.
b Kurozumikyo and the New Religions of Japan. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Konkokyo. In The Encyclopaedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade, 365-66. Macmillan Publishing, New York and London.
Holtom, D.C. 1933 Konko Kyo: A Modern Japanese Monotheism. The Journal of Religion 13: 279-300.
The National Faith of Japan. Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London.
Hori, Ichiro et al. (eds) 1981 Japanese Religion: A Survey. Repr., Kodansha International, Tokyo; Palo Alto [1972].
Howell, Julia Day 2006 The New Spiritualities, East and West: Colonies, Legacies and the Global Spiritual Marketplace in Southeast Asia. Australian Religion Studies Review 19(1): 19-33.
Howes, John F. 1964 New Writing on Japan’s Religions. Pacific Affairs 37(2): 166-78.
Iwasaki, Michiyo (Rev.) 2006 ‘Kami Exists Because of Man’: Let Us Practice Faith Based on the Truth. Face to Faith 47: 1 January.
Kamstra, J. 1994 Japanese Monotheisms and New Religions. In Japanese New Religions in the West, edited by Peter B. Clarke and Jeffrey Somers, 104-17. Japan Library, Sandgate, England.
Kasulis, Thomas P. 2004 Shinto: The Way Home. University of Hawa’ii Press, Honolulu.
Kishimoto, Hideo 1959 Some Cultural Traits and Religions of Japan. Philosophy East and West 9(1-2): 34-36.
Konkokyo 1987 Gorikai (Teachings of Konko Daijin), vols. I–III. Konkokyo Honbu, Konko.
Konko Daijin Oboegaki (Memoirs of Konko Daijin). Konkokyo Honbu, Konko.
Voice of the Universe: Selected Teachings of Konkokyo. Konkokyo Honbu, Konko.
n.d. Shine from Within: An Introduction to the Konko Faith. Konkokyo Honbu, Canada.
Lyon, David 2002 Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in Postmodern Times. Polity Press, Cambridge [2000].
McFarland, H. Neill 1967 The Rush Hour of the Gods: A Study of New Religious Movements in Japan. Macmillan, New York.
Miller, Alan S. 1992 Predicting Nonconventional Religious Affiliation in Tokyo: A Control Theory Application. Social Forces 71(2): 397-410.
Offner, Clark B., and Henry van Straelen 1963 Modern Japanese Religions with Special Emphasis upon their Doctrines of
Healing. E.J. Brill, Leiden.
Pfeiffer, William Sanborn 2000 Mahikari: New Religion and Japanese Culture. Journal of Popular Culture 34(2): 155-68.
Pye, Michael 1994 Religion: Shape and Shadow. Numen 41(1): 51-75.
Schiffer, William 1955 New Religions in Postwar Japan. Monumenta Nipponica 11(1): 1-14.
Schneider, D.B. 1962 Konkokyo, a Japanese Religion: A Study in the Continuities of Native Faiths. ISR Press, Tokyo.
Shimazono, Susumu 1979 The Living Kami Idea in the New Religions of Japan. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 6(3): 389-412.
Stark, R., and W.S. Bainbridge 1985 The Future of Religion. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Stoesz, Willis 1986 The Universal Attitude of Konko Daijin. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13(1): 3-29.
Tacey, David 2001 Jung and the New Age. Routledge, London and New York.
Thomsen, Harry 1963 The New Religions of Japan. Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, VT.
van Straelen, H. 1962 The Japanese New Religions. Numen 9(3): 228-40.
Watanabe, Baiyu 1957 Modern Japanese Religions: Their Success Explained. Monumenta Nipponica 13(1–2): 153-62.
Wilson, Bryan, and Jamie Cresswell (eds.) 1999 New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response. Routledge, London and New York.
Young, Richard Fox 1995 Review of Clarke and Somers (eds), Japanese New Religions in the West. Monumenta Nipponica 50(4): 583-86.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.