Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan (review)

Oomoto—alternatively transcribed Ōmoto—is one of the oldest of Japan's "new religions"; due to its age, its history, and the number of its offshoots, it is also one of the most important. A plethora of books and articles have been published in several languages covering various aspects of Oomoto's history, doctrine, practices, and founders. Nancy Stalker's Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan focuses on Deguchi Onisaburō (1871–1948), Oomoto's energetic, genial, and flamboyant cofounder, whom Stalker justly characterizes as a "charismatic entrepreneur," that is, someone who combines "spiritual authority, an intuitive grasp of the religious marketplace, savvy management skills, and a propensity for risk taking" (p. 3, see also pp. 12–16, where Stalker describes and explains this term in some detail).

As stated in the introduction, Stalker's aims are to show how Oomoto successfully adapted to the difficult and unstable sociopolitical and ideological conditions of the years between the female founder Deguchi Nao's retirement in 1908 and Oomoto's second suppression in 1935; to illustrate Onisaburō's role in Oomoto's at times exponential growth during those years; and finally to introduce Onisaburō as a role model for later founders of new religions. Stalker courageously tackles two presumptions simultaneously: the uniqueness of Japan's new religions and the monolithic character of modern, pre-1945 Shinto.

In chapter 1, "Deguchi Onisaburō: Early Life to Oomoto Leadership," Stalker introduces Onisaburō with a focus on hagiographic elements; on elements typical of Meijiera biographies; and on those aspects that became particularly significant for Oomoto's history, such as his insufficiently trained teachers, his many attempts at starting a business, his one-week initiatory experience on a not-yet-sacred mountain, his interest in poetry and Nativism (Kokugaku), and his first encounters with Nao's nascent new religion. In the chapters that follow, Stalker takes up, in roughly chronological order, several areas in which Oomoto interacted with contemporary society.

The second chapter, "Neo-Nativism: Oomoto Views on Mythology, Governance, and Agrarianism," describes and analyzes Oomoto's doctrine, which combines Nao's radical millenarianism with concepts Onisaburō drew from popular Nativism. The Nativist movement was highly influential before and during the establishment of the Meiji state, but is said to have declined in the 1880s before resurfacing in the Shōwa period. Stalker argues, however, that Nativist doctrines continued to exist at the grassroots level and were incorporated in somewhat adapted form into Oomoto belief and practice. Belief in kotodama, central to Motoori Norinaga's studies of the Kojiki, was brought to Oomoto through Ōishigori Masumi and thereafter frequently employed in puns, poems, and editorial work on Nao's otherwise incomprehensible Fudesaki. Born and raised in rural Kansai, Onisaburō opposed the strict priority given to Amaterasu and the Ise shrines in the state ideology and granted Kunitokotachi, alias Ōkuninushi, and thereby Susanoo and the Izumo shrine, prominent positions in his pantheon and in his interpretations of the classical myths. He raised Agrarianism, another Nativist tenet, to the position of a somewhat abstract ideal of a self-sufficient state, without taxation but with hardworking farmers. Xenophobic ideas were more pronounced in Nao's doctrine than with Onisaburō, who considered all races equal, but held the so-called Japanese Self to be superior to that of other peoples.

Chapter 3, "Taishō Spiritualism," illustrates the success of chinkon kishin, Oomoto's mass ritual of spirit possession, against the backdrop of general interest in spiritualism in Japan as well as in the United States, Great Britain, and many other countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite the Meiji government's efforts to abolish practices it regarded as superstitious, such as faith healing, these remained popular. Whereas Nao was one of an older type of new religion founder who emphasized moral integrity as a prerequisite for physical well-being, Onisaburō adopted a...