Rewriting Reiki: the Yokoi hypothesis and the politics of spiritual whiteness

Japanese Religions, 2023

Reiki レイキ has become a common practice in Japan’s spiritual therapy subculture. However, at the time it was originally developed in 1920s Japan (under the name Usui Reiki Ryōhō 臼井霊気療法 ), it was not nearly as widespread as it has become since its “re-importation” from the United States in the 1980s. Why did Reiki flourish more in late-twentieth-century Japan than it did in the early part of that century? This article examines Japanese texts about Reiki from two periods with close attention to how their authors position Reiki vis-à-vis the category of religion. It concludes that, while authors in both periods placed their practice in an ambiguous “third space” that was neither religion nor non-religion, the authors in the latter period exhibited more ease drawing on religious vocabulary without explicitly distancing Reiki from religion. It argues that this helps demonstrate how the “spiritual world” (seishin sekai 精神世界 ) / New Age subculture of the 1980s and 1990s was a more institutionalized “third space” where the curious could safely engage with spiritual therapies without the stigma of new religious movements than the “psychospiritual therapies” (seishin ryōhō精神療法 ) / “wondrous techniques” (reijutsu 霊術 ) subculture of the prewar decades. The article concludes with some reflections on how Reiki’s relationship with religion has continued to change along with Japan’s religious landscape.

The set of spiritual healing practices called Usui Reiki Ryōhō (hereafter, “Reiki”) were systematized in 1920s Tokyo, but it was not until Reiki became a global phenomenon in the 1990s that it became widely taught in its land of origin. This paper compares narratives by Japanese Reiki practitioners from these two times: Reiki’s early years and its popularization period. It analyzes their efforts to distinguish Reiki from “religion” and relates this phenomenon to larger issues for the study of religion and modernity. First, it describes how these spiritual healing practitioners in Taishō and post-Aum Japan situated their practice between, yet distinct from, both medicine and religion. It briefly explores how each of these eras saw the flourishing of unorthodox medicine despite moral panics surrounding alternative religions that used healing practices. Next, it considers how the narratives of the latter era make employ “spirituality” to represent a “third space,” at once “religion” and “non-religion.” This “spirituality” is produced at the nexus of popular culture, mass media, market forces, and academic commentary. Like the “spiritual, but not religious” identification in the postwar West, the “spiritual world” (seishin sekai) and “spiritual boom” allow practitioners to engage in transmundane activities without sacrificing modern secularity or identifying with any particular religion, including the stigmatized “new religions.” “Spirituality” allowed later Japanese Reiki practitioners to see their activities as socially valid in a manner that was unavailable to Taisho practitioners, who struggled to describe their techniques in the language of religion and medicine. The paper ultimately argues that the rise of “spirituality” constitutes a key rupture in the conceptualization of “non-religion” between the wave of early twentieth-century “psycho-spiritual therapies” (seishin ryōhō or reijutsuka) and that of late twentieth-century “spiritual healing therapies” (supirichuaru hīringu serapī).

History and Anthropology, 2005

The article argues that these liberal Christians use "ritual proximity" to bring together symbols, acts and memories from various times and cultures, thus constructing new lineages of religious inheritance within webs of Christian ritual.

The relations between religion, migration, transnationalism, pluralism, and ethnicity have gained increasing focus in religious, cultural, sociological, and anthropological studies. With its manifold transfigurations across time and location, Buddhism is an obvious case for investigating such issues. Hawaii, with its long migration history and religious pluralism, is an obvious living laboratory for studying such configurations. This article investigates Japanese American Buddhism in Hawaii, focusing on the relationship between religion and ethnicity. By analyzing contemporary religious life and the historical context of two Japanese American Zen temples in Maui, it is argued that the ethnic and cultural divide related to spirituality follow a general tendency by which the secularization of Japanese Americans' communal Sangha Buddhism is counterbalanced by a different group's spiritualization of Buddhism. Journal of Global Buddhism 14, 2013

2016

Zen Buddhism has for decades fascinated the West, and the former elitist tradition has in contemporary times become part of broad popular culture. Zen is for Buddhists, but it is also part of a general “Easternization ” and alleged “spiritual revolution ” narrative. In Japan, both Zen and “spirituality ” are important factors in both media and the lived religious environment. This article aims to investigate how and to what extent “Zen ” and “spirituality ” are related as narratives and religious practices in a contemporary Japanese context. While there are overlaps, it is argued that the two domains are separate and that such a division is based on general differences in culturally constrained narratives (Western/Japanese, Zen/spirituality). Besides focusing on a concrete Japanese context, the article also contributes to research on global and transnational (Zen) Buddhism as well as to the field of comparative spirituality.

Zen Buddhism has for decades fascinated the West, and the former elitist tradition has in contemporary times become part of broad popular culture. Zen is for Buddhists, but it is also part of a general " Easternization " and alleged " spiritual revolution " narrative. In Japan, both Zen and " spirituality " are important factors in both media and the lived religious environment. This article aims to investigate how and to what extent " Zen " and " spirituality " are related as narratives and religious practices in a contemporary Japanese context. While there are overlaps, it is argued that the two domains are separate and that such a division is based on general differences in culturally constrained narratives (Western/Japanese, Zen/spirituality). Besides focusing on a concrete Japanese context, the article also contributes to research on global and transnational (Zen) Buddhism as well as to the field of comparative spirituality.

Within the field of study on Japanese religions, the issue of globalization tends to be associated with the missionary activities of some successful new religious movements, and there is a certain reluctance to approach analytically the dynamics of glocalization/hybridization and the power issues at stake. In this article, I address these and other related problems by taking my cue from the relativizing effects of globalization and a working definition of religion based on the concept of authority. To this aim, I focus on two case studies. The first concerns the ongoing greening of Japanese Buddhism. The second revolves around the adoption of meditational techniques by priests and lay practitioners in Hawaiian Shin Buddhism. My findings show that there are at least four factors underlying the glocalization of Japanese Buddhism, that is, global consciousness, resonance with the local tradition, decontextualization, and quest for power. Moreover, they indicate that it is possible to distinguish between two types of glocalization (glocalization and chauvinistic glocalization) and two configurations of glocalization (juxtaposition and integration).

Journal of Religion in Japan 1/2: 168-187, 2012

This article analyzes a few selected case studies from diffferent religious traditions in contemporary Japan to illustrate, fijirst, the active role played by religion in Japan in the creation of hybrid forms and, secondly, the potentiality in two instances to promote cultural chauvinism. The topics explored here are Japanese Buddhism and the issue of human rights, Shintō’s self-representation as a ‘religion of the forest,’ and Kōfuku no Kagaku’s adoption of Theosophical themes. The discourse of human rights found in traditions such as Jōdo Shinshū, Jōdoshū, and Sōtōshū shows how this western idea is made to resonate with religious concepts from the Buddhist tradition, thus making possible a reshaping of local religious identities. While in this case the catalyst in the process is provided by an external source, the recent reshaping of Shintō as a ‘religion of the forest’ may be characterized as a glocalization leaning to ‘native’ sources, in which the ‘native’ religious tradition is subject to a creative reading following the worldwide growing awareness of ecology. Here a tendency to emphasize the superiority of the ‘native’ culture may also be noticed. However, as the case of Kōfuku no Kagaku’s adoption of various Theosophical themes illustrates, also glocalization leaning to external sources may be accompanied by forms of cultural chauvinism.

H-Buddhism, 2022

Journal of Interreligious Studies, 2018

In the 1950s, Ukrainian American filmmaker Maya Deren traveled to Haiti and became initiated as a manbo (priestess) in Haitian Vodou. How did Deren become drawn to Vodou, and how did she cultivate relationships with fellow devotees? Further, what does her experience as a Vodouizan reveal about other North American whites converting to " exotic " religions practiced largely by people of color? In an exploration of race and religious belonging, this essay offers a theoretical framing of " whiteness, " and considers the history of North American conversions to Buddhism as a precursor to white initiation to African Diasporic traditions. The paper examines Maya Deren's identity as an immigrant artist, resulting in an alternate experience of whiteness, and allowing her to conceive of her journey to Haiti as a spiritual homecoming. Ultimately, I argue that Deren became enmeshed in a ritual kinship system whose bonds reached far beyond the boundaries of mortal geographies. “Whiteness in the Ancestral Waters: Race, Religion, and Conversion within North American Buddhism and Haitian Vodou,” The Journal of Interreligious Studies, Special Issue: The Color of God: Faith, Race, and Interreligious Dialogue, Issue 23 (May 2018): 90-102. Eds. Axel Oaks Takács and Funlayo E. Wood.