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Erick Mead wrote:
I find the visions and the explanation of the move to Iwama consistent. Kisshomaru reports him at the time concerned about a vision of cataclysmic fiery devastation then loosely concerned with Tokyo. After the fact he naturally associates this premonition with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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I certainly believe that the visions involving the white phantom swordsman and the move to Iwama were consistent. I have less confidence in the chronology of the other material and one of the reasons for this is that it conflicts with the other contemporary evidence, such as Kiyosawa's diary. It is irrefutable that B-29 bombers were NOT targeting mainland Japan in 1941, contrary to what Kisshomaru states in his biography. (Note that this was even before the Doolittle raids.) As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I do not doubt Kisshomaru's good sense in excluding any mention of this in his biography.
Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
That move was shortly following Doolittle's raid -- which was more jarring to the Japanese mythological psyche than the Pyrrhic win in Coral Sea or the disaster of Midway. The attack on the home islands is what eventually brought forth the image of the Divine Wind, and its modern implementation to defend against the ancient threat twice avoided by that means).
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Well, I don't know much about mythological psyches, but the Doolittle raids were obvious to all who witnessed them. Nevertheless, government-directed air-raid drills were started only from the autumn of 1943. The army minister shrugged off the Doolittle raids with the words, "When several enemy planes come flying onto our territory, there is just no way to prevent them." (Havens, p. 155.) The losses of Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal were actually presented as victories, until the B-29s provided irrefutable evidence (in late 1944) that Japan was really losing the war. The recruitment of kamikaze pilots occurred even after this.
Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
If the thesis is Ueshiba has long associations with the bad boys of Showa, and has a vision he associates with divine intervention to alter his course, one could listen to what he says instead of wondering what he means that he has not said. With a record of forty-three kami that have served various tutelary roles in his training and in its realization -- you have an answer right there. Maybe not the whole answer -- but an answer. Given your preference for Hofstede, and what I see as his Jungian sociological typology -- it seems to me that examining the archetypal significance and functional associations of the forty-three Kami would be a good place to begin.
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I do not understand your argument here. Where in the column have I "wondered what Ueshiba means that he has not said"? In addition, you see more in my 'preference for Hofstede' than I do, in particular with respect to Jungian sociological typology. In any case, the record of the 43 deities was provided by Kisshomaru (it is on p. 268 of the new translation of Kissomaru's biography), not by O Sensei himself in the texts I have quoted. So, why don't you yourself research the 'archetypal significance and functional associations' of the 43 kami? It will make a very good column.
Best wishes,
PAG