Celebrity Gods: New Religions, Media, and Authority in Occupied Japan by Benjamin Dorman (review)

As the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) during the occupation of Japan, General Douglas MacArthur replaced the divine Emperor Hirohito as absolute authority and was equally as remote and inviolable. MacArthur later reminisced that his “spiritual stewardship” over the defeated nation, particularly efforts to propagate Christianity, was the most personally satisfying aspect of his reign,¹ and, indeed, reforms enacted under his watch had far-reaching consequences for Japanese religiosity. Although several books and articles address MacArthur’s Christian mission,² there is surprisingly little scholarship on other aspects of Japanese religion during the occupation. In particular, historical studies of new religious movements (hereafter NRMs), the most dynamic sector of Japanese religion during that period, have been largely ignored.

Benjamin Dorman’s thoughtful account of two NRMs in occupied Japan is an important contribution toward understanding relationships between religion, the media, and Japanese and occupation authorities during a critical moment in Japanese history. Dorman’s argument is that occupationera media coverage of new religions reflected “negative representations of new religions that had developed in the national media during the Meiji period” (p. 21), portraying them as superstitious, fraudulent, tainted by illicit sexual activity, and posing a threat to public welfare. The postwar press echoed these charges and called for official intervention to control or eradicate NRMs. Dorman claims “most journalists in the postwar period either loathed the new religions or laughed at them” (p. 214). He offers case studies of two fascinating groups in the immediate postwar era, Jiu and Tenshō Kōtai Jingū Kyō (hereafter, TKJK), and their notorious leaders, Nagaoka Nagako (known as Jikōson) and Kitamura Sayo (known as Ogamisama).

The first two chapters demonstrate media attitudes toward NRMs from the 1890s to the 1930s. Chapter 1 weaves together existing scholarship on Renmonkyō, a faith-healing group established in the 1870s and affiliated with an official Shintō sect, to demonstrate how the media supported Meiji authorities’ classifications of religions as either legitimate or as “quasi-religious” evil cults. Newspapers reinforced official support of both imperial Shintō ideology and scientific, rational social development. In 1894, the Yorozu chōhō, a working-class tabloid known for its “scandal journalism,” pilloried Renmonkyō in a 94-part series describing how this debauched sect defiled Shintō and defrauded the ignorant public. The series provoked an immediate response; crowds attacked Renmonkyō shrines and officials stripped the leader of credentials. Dorman observes the healthy effect of the salacious material on Yorozu circulation, prompting other media organs to take up similarly sensationalistic coverage of new religions.

Chapter 2 surveys press coverage of the flamboyant Deguchi Onisaburō, leader of Ōmoto, a nonofficial spiritualist religion that attracted massive followings and was twice suppressed by concerned state authorities.³ As the number of NRMs climbed dramatically during the Taisho period, the media increasingly trumpeted the danger of “evil cults” and encouraged state action to suppress them. Psychologists, who declared NRM leaders delusional and their followers mentally ill, emerged as experts who further heightened negative media reportage. The chapter also provides our first encounter with Ōya Sōichi, the influential journalist known for his “heckling spirit.” Ōya is an important figure for Dorman’s argument as the journalist’s writings on NRMs spanned pre- and postwar periods and attacked all religion, established and new, as “irrational” and “unscientific.”⁴

Several chapters focus specifically on the groups and their leaders. The origins of the two movements and the biographies of their founders are presented in chapter 3. Nagaoka Nagako rises to a place of primacy within Jiu as Jikōson, a deity sent by Amaterasu to save the world, and is arrested in 1945 for prophecies of impending calamity. Jiu members were insular and secretive during the final years of the war, hiding from authorities and living communally under the stern will of Jikōson. Kitamura Sayo’s fiery, funny temperament provides a striking contrast to Nagaoka. Kitamura was...