Mahikari 12/96
Manuscript review by Joe Szimhart
All the Emporer’s Men
by
Garry A. Greenwood
(electronically published by Strictly Literary, 1995)
Croncourt Pty.Ltd, ACN 010 748 777
PO Box 491
Moorooka 4105
Queensland, Australia
110 pages. Private print edition for North America:
Bank draft in Australian dollars, $33, payable to:
Garry Greenwood, PO Box 408, Alstonville, NSW 2477, Australia.
My six year old daughter enjoys watching “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” on television. The stories on this youth-oriented program are “scary” with themes that include ghosts, paranormal occurrences, and magic powers. One show, about a young girl who conjures up a ghoulish spirit with a magical incantation, tells the audience to beware that magic can be dangerous for the user if not properly handled. My six year old understands that TV magic is only make believe, and she is quick to point it out without any coaching from me. Millions of adults throughout the world, however, are prone to superstitions and a belief in magical powers. New religious movements and therapies that borrow from ancient shamanic and occult traditions tap into this propensity for adult belief in magical power. One such new religion based in Japan is Mahikari.
According to Mahikari promotional literature “Mahikari-no-waza [the “act of Mahikari] was introduced [in 1959 in Japan] to save mankind from a crisis and to perform miracles.” In a November, 1993 flyer distributed by the Washington, DC Sukyo Mahikari center, the group claims: “Sukyo Mahikari does not rely on faith healing because no belief is required by the person receiving Divine Light....Sukyo Mahikari is not a religion. It is not necessary to give up any religious practices or beliefs in order to become a person who can give Divine Light to others....Regardless of the nature of your interest, you are welcome to receive Divine Light as often as you wish. There is no fee.” The author of All the Emperor’s Men exposes Mahikari as a faith-healing religious cult that demands a lot of money from its believers, and indoctrinates members to believe that Mahikari is the only true spirituality that will save mankind. Greenwood also tells us that the movement has a major split, and has suspicious political agendas.
Garry A. Greenwood was a member of the Mahikari movement for seventeen years. He and his wife were first attracted to it in Australia in 1976. He soon rose high in the Australian ranks of the Mahikari and became an international Mahikari minister within twelve years. The Greenwoods were recruited into the Sukyo branch of Mahikari headed by a woman called Keishu. She claimed to inherit the “throne” of the sect from her “father” (she may have been his concubine) when he, Yoshikazu Okada, died in 1974. The legal heir, however, was Mr. Sekae Sekiguchi. His sect is called Sekai Mahikari Bunmei Kyodan. Greenwood estimates that both sects have over one million (perhaps two million) followers each. Two thirds of both sects are Japanese; the rest, from many other nations. Yoshikazi Okada is the “inspired” founder claimed by both sects, but Greenwood discovered, after a meticulous search, that Y. Okada “borrowed” his teachings from a Mr. Mokichi Okada (1882-1955). M. Okada was a student of Japanese Shinto and an art aficionado. He joined another Shinto-based sect called Omotokyo, but by 1934 he founded his own “healing” sect called Sekai Kyusei Kyo (SKK). Apparently, Y. Okada was a member of SKK before 1959, but current Mahikari members deny this.
Mahikari initiates receive a gold-plated pendant, or talisman, which they are not to take off. It protects them from evil spirits. Members practice a highly suggestive healing technique called “Okiyomi.” The technique utilizes the hands which allegedly project “Divine Light” according to the “will of God.” This Divine energy allegedly comes from the current leader who is most in tune with God and is worshipped as “God” incarnate. The groups are classic, pyramid “cults” with a militaristic loyalty within their ranks. Members are “free to leave,” but phobia indoctrination about loss of protection from evil spirits is pervasive in the Mahikari sects. During Mahikari “blessings” the blessed often exhibit trances, body twitching, convulsions and speaking in strange sounds--not unlike participants in charismatic Christian sects. These often dramatic “possessions by spirits” convince new members that the “spirit world” is real. Stories within the movement abound about paranormal healing and curses as a result of Mahikari “treatments.”
My work with persons affected by Mahikari supports Greenwood’s assertions of tremendous phobia indoctrination in Mahikari. Though one client had rejected the group, he still, after several months, had a “fear” of letting me touch his talisman, which was now in a box in his closet. But Greenwood explains that Mahikari is more than its stated purpose, which is to “save mankind from crisis and to perform miracles.” Greenwood came to understand that Mahikari is a continuation of the ancient Japanese cult of “State Shintoism” that upholds the notion that all civilization and spiritual awakening started in Japan. This is one of Mahikari’s alleged “secrets.” Other secret doctrines claim that both Moses and Jesus originally studied in Japan and returned there after doing their missions in the middle east. Photos of their graves with crosses on them are provided for initiates.
Mahikari belief also claims that the current emperor of Japan is divinely ordained and that Japan is the “pure” race that should rule the world, hence Greenwood’s title All the Emperor’s Men. Such nationalist drives fueled much of pre-war and World War II Japanese military thinking. Greenwood ties the Nazi philosopher and Hitler mentor Karl Haushofer with Japanese fascist theory. Haushofer may have been most responsible for inspiring Hitler and Japanese leaders (through the Green Dragon Society of Japan) with occult formulations. Greenwood invokes the esoteric criticisms of occult fascism by René Guénon, an “occultist” who wrote to expose the evil within his own camp early in this century.
A key pseudo-document taught by the Mahikari, but spread earlier by Haushofer in Germany and Japan, is the “Protocols of the Wise Old Men of Zion” [sic]. The Protocols read as if they were written by “Jewish Masons” with a sophisticated conspiracy to rule the world. The document, perhaps a century old, is an anti-Semitic forgery intent on discrediting Jewish people. Nevertheless, the “plan” intrigued fascists for two reasons: Jews could become a scapegoat for worldly ills, and a similar strategy could be implemented to undermine the “Zionist” conspiracy. Haushofer’s alleged occult powers were legendary among Japanese and German fascists. He eventually committed suicide, hara-kiri style in Japan, in keeping with a pact many fascist “occultists” made if their ventures failed. Like many western occult groups, Mahikari believes that it was part of God’s plan that the Nazis exterminate millions of Jews, according to Greenwood. Mahikari also believes that they are “blessed” with the same occult power known to Haushofer and the Japanese fascists. Greenwood parallels Mahikari teaching with the now infamous Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth sect).
Greenwood covers many other interesting aspects of the Mahikari, but we are most exposed to his journey out of the “Keishu” sect. During much of his tenure as a minister he helped to raise the “billions” needed to build a solid gold shrine to Mahikari in Japan. He tells of people who “gave everything” for this cause and are now “penniless.” The Keishu branch completed their shrine in 1983. To Greenwood’s dismay, he discovered that the Sekai sect had done them one better with an even grander gold shrine.
Greenwood’s diligent effort to expose Mahikari as a deceptive “cult” ends with his effort to describe how the group induced “fear and guilt” to control its members. Greenwood describes how most of his time was spent travelling for group causes. As a minister he hardly knew his children. He describes the large gatherings of tens of thousands chanting en masse in Japan attended by current heads of state. The Mahikari even implemented a “youth core” with highly regimented behaviors recommended for children. He utilizes “mind control” theory (mainly citing Leon Festinger and Steve Hassan) to help the reader understand how this unsavory seventeen year journey happened to an otherwise intelligent man and his wife.
Joe Szimhart