Shinreikyo

Shinreikyo

Shinreikyo (神霊教 "Shinreikyō") is a Japanese New Religion founded in 1947. It claims to have 100,000 members.

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.

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.

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.

See also List of people considered to be deities

External links and references

* [http://www.srk.info/ Shinreikyo Home Page (Japanese/English)]
* [http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/shinreikyo.html Religious Movements page on them]

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.


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