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Diana Frese wrote:
Here I am back again, because the mention of Omoto reminds me of a book I had somewhere that was moisture damaged when we had our storage in the basement, but no one seems to have mentioned "the Eagle and the Rising Sun" about the Japanese new religions. Some of you scholars may have heard of it! I think Seicho no Ie may have derived from Omoto. all religions from one Truth, or something like that.
Anyway the book, which I read many years ago, was a fascinating account of people's search for understanding of I suppose we could call it Ten Chi Jin no Wago no Michi (as Arikawa Sensei once quoted to a few of us in the little coffee shop)
Well, the successful metaphoric fisherwoman asks another question.... hope this one is of interest too...
thanks in advance, Daian
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Hi Daian,
If I recall correctly, Masaharu Taniguchi was an editor for Omoto Kyo, which is very significant because Omoto Kyo was a publishing giant during that time. Anyway, he received a Devine message and started Seicho no Ie, I think coincidentally this happened around the time of one of the Omoto suppressions by the government.
Seicho no Ie got along well with the government, and as a consequence came under the scrutiny of the post-War occupational government. This worked itself out (with the help of certain members of the Military Intelligence who benefitted personally from a miraculous remote healing attributed to Masaharu Taniguchi himself). Seicho no Ie found its way to Hawaii and members were instrumental in helping to bring Aikido (note the connections) to Hawaii.
As an aside, Masaharu Taniguchi was a very prolific writer and, I believe, translated many of his works into English, others were translated by other members. Seicho no Ie continues to exist in many foreign countries including the U.S.A. I don't know about now, but they used to have a Japanese section and an English section in their U.S. operations. They were quite different, but that is to be expected. There were similar translation "modifications" that made the two sources of textual information quite different from each other.
I once had an interesting conversation with a certain highly placed leader about what I decreed to be troublesome conflicts between war-time Seicho-no-Ie rhetoric and post-war time Seicho-no-ie rhetoric, both of which were divine messages.
One other interesting tidbit. The Japanese contingent could be typified as "right wing" while the English contingent would definitely be typified as "left wing" . . . all under the same roof thinking they were all thinking the same things. The interesting "middle men" were the nikeijin who found themselves walking a tightrope . . . come to think of it, I suppose they were used to that. For most their entire life consisted of "walking a cultural tightrope."