Shinreikyo
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Shinreikyo (神霊教 Shinreikyō) is a Japanese New Religion founded in 1947. It claims to have 100,000 members.
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[edit] Founder
The group claims Kanichi Otsuka (大塚 寛一 Ōtsuka Kan'ichi) as its founder, but his wife Kunie Miyashitain also had a role in the development of the group. Kanichi Otsuka claimed to be a child prodigy and took the religious name "Kyososama" ("revered founder"). Shinreikyo believes "Kyososama is God made flesh." The group began in Nishinomiya, but by 1953 a site on a hill in the Akasaka district of Minato, Tokyo would become Shinreikyo headquarters.
Otsuka left home at fifteen and traveled around. He later married and founded the Electric Heating and Products Company.
[edit] Beliefs
Like many Japanese New Religions the group is syncretistic. The primary connections are likely Buddhism and Taoism. Although the idea of "Kyososoma" as God made flesh is directly Christian in origin. The sect is dualistic in that it believes in a material and spiritual division, but apparently it values both. The group strongly believes in miracles. They also believe the deceased faithful go to heaven through Sublime Transmigration, leaving bodies without rigor mortis or putrefaction. Also that miracles can occur to animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. That in fact the world is full of miracles.
[edit] Unusual claims
Adherents believe that their founder knew everything almost at birth due to his connection with/being a Divine Power. They also state that for members "the skull enlarges and expands into a fine rounded shape" due to their faith, making them more intelligent. They state their women suffer from no morning sickness when pregnant and that their childbirth is naturally without pain.
Some compare Otsuka to David Koresh of the Branch Davidians, in that he is a controversial figure deemed as god in flesh by his followers. Also critics charge that he is pedophile convicted of numerous child-molestation and rape charges, but that due to his close association with Japanese ultra-nationalists Otsuka is able to keep his criminal record sealed.[citation needed]
Shinreikyo is an ultra-nationalist cum Shinto-offshoots racist cult which entices Japanese men and women to reject Science and Reason and follow obediently to Kanichi Otsuka's scheme for world subjugation under the Japanese monarch.[citation needed] Shinreikyo is vehemently xenophobic, believes in extermination of all races except Japanese.[citation needed]
See also List of people considered to be deities
[edit] External links and references
Koepping, Klaus-Peter. 1997. "Ideologies and New Religious Movements: The case of Shinreikyo and its doctrines in comparative perspective." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 4/2-3 (June-Sept): 103-149.
