Chinkon Kishin

Chinkon Kishin
Author: Birgit Staemmler
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2009
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3825868990

Religion and National Identity in the Japanese Context

Religion and National Identity in the Japanese Context
Author: Hiroshi Kubota
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 3825860434

This book focuses upon the relationship between religion and socio-cultural or socio-political aspects in the history of religions in Japan. Religious and ideological justifications in the course of forming a political and national identity, and the mutual relation between political, national and cultural issues can be noticed in every region of the world before the onset of secularization processes, but also in modern nation-states today. In Japan as well, just like in most modern societies, political, cultural and religious elements are closely interrelated. In a comparative approach the sixteen papers in this volume elucidate the intellectual undercurrent in Japanese history of putting positive perspectives on national achievements and cultural-religious uniqueness into service of establishing and refurbishing a national identity.

Prophet Motive

Prophet Motive
Author: Nancy K. Stalker
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2007-10-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824864042

From the 1910s to the mid-1930s, the flamboyant and gifted spiritualist Deguchi Onisaburô (1871–1948) transformed his mother-in-law’s small, rural religious following into a massive movement, eclectic in content and international in scope. Through a potent blend of traditional folk beliefs and practices like divination, exorcism, and millenarianism, an ambitious political agenda, and skillful use of new forms of visual and mass media, he attracted millions to Oomoto, his Shintoist new religion. Despite its condemnation as a heterodox sect by state authorities and the mainstream media, Oomoto quickly became the fastest-growing religion in Japan of the time. In telling the story of Onisaburô and Oomoto, Nancy Stalker not only gives us the first full account in English of the rise of a heterodox movement in imperial Japan, but also provides new perspectives on the importance of "charismatic entrepreneurship" in the success of new religions around the world. She makes the case that these religions often respond to global developments and tensions (imperialism, urbanization, consumerism, the diffusion of mass media) in similar ways. They require entrepreneurial marketing and management skills alongside their spiritual authority if their groups are to survive encroachments by the state and achieve national/international stature. Their drive to realize and extend their religious view of the world ideally stems from a "prophet" rather than "profit" motive, but their activity nevertheless relies on success in the modern capitalist, commercial world. Unlike many studies of Japanese religion during this period, Prophet Motive works to dispel the notion that prewar Shinto was monolithically supportive of state initiatives and ideology.

A Popular Dictionary of Shinto

A Popular Dictionary of Shinto
Author: Brian Bocking
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2005-09-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1135797390

A comprehensive glossary and reference work with more than a thousand entries on Shinto ranging from brief definitions and Japanese terms to short essays dealing with aspects of Shinto practice, belief and institutions from early times up to the present day.

Journey to the Heart of Aikido

Journey to the Heart of Aikido
Author: Linda Holiday
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1583946608

Journey to the Heart of Aikido presents the teachings of Motomichi Anno Sensei, one of the few remaining direct students of Morihei Ueshiba, the legendary founder of Aikido. After a lifetime of practice and teaching in Japan, the United States, and Europe, Anno Sensei conveys through his teachings Aikido's essential spirit of love, harmony, gratitude, and purification with simple authenticity and eloquence. Author and translator Linda Holiday--herself a senior instructor of Aikido--brings to life the intimacy of this communication through translated discourses on the deep practice of Aikido and candid dialogues between Anno sensei and Western students. Journey to the Heart of Aikido includes Linda Holiday's vivid account of her adventure as a young woman studying Aikido in the mystical region of Kumano, Japan, in the 1970s, and a poignant telling of Anno sensei's life and his first-hand experience of training with Aikido's founder. An essential resource for the global Aikido community, Journey to the Heart of Aikido also offers spiritual teachings relevant to all contemporary seekers, touching a wide range of themes such as the meaning of martial arts, the integration of body and spirit, the truth of interconnectedness, and the practice of peace, offering all readers insight into the profound spiritual questions at the heart of life.

Reiki Practice and Surrender

Reiki Practice and Surrender
Author: Dori-Michelle Beeler
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-01-25
Genre:
ISBN: 3643912706

The authors discuss the religious spiritual healing practice Reiki, revealing components of it that help transform the message held by the alleged life-force called reiki energy into meaning expressed in efficacy for the recipient's body, mind and spirit. Components that are analyzed include but are not limited to, touch, symbols, initiation, and precepts. The practitioner's surrender to a combination of internal and external authority - with reiki energy being part of that - is a crux in Reiki practice and one means with which practitioners speak of beneficial effect. This work contributes to academic knowledge about how practicing a religious or spiritual practice may contribute to one's well-being and flourishing life. Moreover, it explores the question of the nature of Reiki in academic definitions of religion.

Converting Cultures

Converting Cultures
Author: Dennis Washburn
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2007-05-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9047420330

This volume fundamentally improves our understanding of processes like the secularization of society, and the growth of mass ideological movements, by looking upon these transformations to modernity as a species of conversion akin to religious conversion. The geographical areas covered by the contributors—the Ottoman domain, India, China, and Japan—provide striking examples of the dynamic force of conversion as a reaction to the tremendous pressures exerted by colonialism and imperialism and by the types of transformations constitutive of modernity.

Establishing the Revolutionary

Establishing the Revolutionary
Author: Birgit Staemmler
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2011
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3643901526

New religions in Japan claim millions of members and simultaneously provoke criticism and fulfil social functions. This publication serves as a handbook about these new religions on the basis of recent research, written by an international range of scholarly experts.

AiKiDô

AiKiDô
Author: Winfried Wagner
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2015-06-19
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 3658101660

In this volume, nine renowned experts delineate their theoretical or methodological approach of Aikidô in potentiating constructive handling of social conflicts. The authors depict the contribution of the Japanese self-defensive art Aikidô to the theory and practice of conflict transformation. The concept of Elicitive Conflict Transformation (Lederach, Dietrich) necessarily calls for a revised understanding of applied peace work and a new personal profile of the conflict worker. This is the point where Aikidô and conflict/peace work meet.

Sacred Schisms

Sacred Schisms
Author: James R. Lewis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2009-05-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0521881471

This first book-length study of religious schisms as a general phenomenon draws widely from different traditions and geographical areas.