Mahikari members are called kamikumite (kah-mih-koo-mih-tay), which means 'hand-in-hand with God', or kumite for short (koo-mih-tay).

They are generally lovely people, but there's a barb in the tail. These folks are all about being helpful, and have been trained to look for the painful (ie vulnerable) areas of your life (are you lonely, unwell, poor, recently bereaved, recently unemployed, generally stressed and in a bad place? Wonderful.) They will target their message accordingly.

There are a few things that will identify a kumite in public. They almost always wear their special badge, called a goshinmon (goh-shin-monh). It looks like this, and is worn on the left side on the upper chest, near the shoulder:

Unless they're swimming or playing contact sports (including sexy times!), they will be wearing their omitama, the pendant that gives them God's protection and channels the 'Divine Light'. You won't be able to see it, because it's wrapped in lots of layers to keep it dry and safe, and it's pinned into a pocket in their underwear.

They wear a strong necklace chain that is long, and leads to the pocket inside their clothes (so it doesn't swing free outside of their clothes).

The most basic form of this chain is the simple ball chain. Depending on people's means, they may have fancier chains, but they will always be strong. No light delicate necklaces here. That omitama is more precious than your own life, so you'd better put it on a strong chain!

Anyone wearing a bra will usually have the omitama pocket inside their bra, either on the left (spiritual) side or centrally. Adults and kids (from age 10) who don't wear bras will always be wearing a singlet or undershirt of some sort. The omitama pocket is sewn into this garment, either in the centre of the chest, or on the left side.

Women are guided not to wear black, generally, and the usual religious exhortation about modest outfits.

So, the main visible things to look out for are the Mahikari badge, a long sturdy necklace tucked inside clothes, and people who always wear an undershirt.

Plus, they're always smiling, and nothing is bad. And they're really nice and helpful (which sucks, because they are usually genuinely lovely people on the whole, but misguided and victims who have become unwitting perpetrators).

And one of their hands is often cocked at an angle (surreptitiously giving Light whether you want it or not). If they offer to give you Light, politely decline. Or go on, be rude ...

#mahikari #sukyomahikari #omitama #kumite #cult #truelight #influence

Mahikari promotes the “true ancient history” of Japan — Japan is much much more ancient than any “so-called archaeologists” and “scholars” have determined using, you know, science. The actual earliest known Japanese pottery dates from the Jomon Period (14,000 BC to 300 BC).

However, they want to prove the Japanese are much much older, to prove they were the first humans on earth, the original race, which all others came from.

It is the original place where God created spiritual forms and spiritual images of all with the Art of Mu-u (from nothingness to the existence with power). He placed O-bito (the King race [the Japanese]) here and dispatched all five races throughout the world as branch races.” — Goseigen, “Mankind, Make your spiritual origin clear”

They especially want to be proven to be older than the Chinese. This isn't a desire just within Mahikari, either.

In 2000, amateur archaeologist, Shinichi Fujimura, admitted that he had been planting pottery fragments in really fucking old (like 600,000 years old) layers of earth for years, and then “discovering” them. Before his confession he was said to have “god's hands” because of his “uncanny” knack of finding these super ancient find (ie the stuff he'd buried), and proving that lo and behold! the Japanese were making this cool pottery 600,000 years ago, and bam bitchez, they're much older than the Chinese!

Oshienushiama (the second leader of Mahikari) gleefully reported these findings in 1996, saying they proved the ultra ancient history of Japan:

In recent years, the discoveries of the Zazaragi and Babadan sites in Miyagi Prefecture have shown that Japan's palaeolithic age began more than 100,000 years ago. These findings have forced scholars, who had argued against it, to accept the existence of such an early palaeolithic period for Japan.

Furthermore, in 1994, a surprising discovery was made at the Kamitakamori site, also in Miyagi Prefecture. Splendid stone tools from the palaeolithic period were found in strata dating back all of 600,000 years, which is 100,000 years earlier than the appearance of Peking man. — Oshienushisama, A Major Turning-Point in the History of Humankind, 5 October 1996

But if she was really so damn holy, she would have known these were a hoax. Surely Su God, who sees and knows everything (apparently), would at least have given her — His one true representative on earth — a bit of a heads-up? But no, seems she was just operating from plain old “useless human knowledge”, like the rest of us.

If you want to read about this in much more detail, check these out:

The Early History Hoax Japanese Paleolithic hoax, Wikipedia

Photo credit: User: PHG, Public Domain, Wikipedia

#mahikari #hoax #ancienthistory #Oshienushiama #history #falsefacts

A lot of Mahikari's teachings focus around the process of cleaning our spiritual, astral and physical bodies of all the disgusting sins and impurities that currently pollute everything about us. It's a rather confusing topic, so I've made this ridiculously oversimplified fish diagram to help clarify things.

Still confused? Don't worry, Mahikari has a lot to say about Misogi Harahi. A lot.

Here's a basic definition from the Primary Kenshu (initiation course):

Concerning Misogi Harahi, true Misogi Harahi is “removing the impurities of the spirit and opening the yang spirit”. In the Divine era “spirit” used to be called “Mi”, and to remove impurities of the spirit, that is, to scrape off the impurities, was called Misogi.

Some more from Kenshu:

In other words, if you have committed sins and impurities in your previous lives, they'll return to you and you'll receive suffering phenomena in greater measure. This is called Misogi. If you haven't compensated in the astral world for the sins and impurities you committed in your previous lives through your reincarnations and transmigrations, you must compensate (aganahi) for them in the physical world. This is called “aganahi”. As it says ... “sins and impurities of ancestors spirits”, unless the ancestors erase their sins and impurities, these sins and impurities will enter their descendants. The sins and impurities of your ancestors will come into you.

In the same way you yourselves have impurities. Therefore, if you have any disease or illness, any kind of continuous suffering or turmoil, disasters that go on and on, that is, if unhappy phenomena are happening to you or your family, it means that impurities are now being shown like this because in your previous lives you yourself or your ancestors made other people suffer, or harmed or killed them. And such sins and impurities have accumulated.

Maybe some teachings from their book of holy words, where Su God is speaking directly to Okada (the founder), will help?

The earth is contaminated fully with spiritual poison, producing a foul scent in the Divine Realm. The very time is approaching when I cannot but carry out the great MISOGI-HARAHI of this earth. Do humans recognize a means to stop this chaos with their intellect and power? Unfortunately they do not. They will end up being blown away.

What about these?

Nowadays there are too many in the human world who are controlled by evil spirits. Therefore, due to my intensifying the Divine Light, the compensation phenomena will become more serious and widespread. Many souls in the three worlds of the Divine, Astral, and Physical will begin to feel uneasy, thus, “the Age of anguished resistance (AGAKI)” shall come. Consequently, in the human world, chaotic and aberrant phenomena will ceaselessly increase. Thus, NINGEN will continue to create the cause of twofold and threefold sufferings and plunge into agony. This is, indeed, the self-inflicted suffering. It cannot be avoided since the great spiritual cleansing (MISOGI) has started. They do not realize until I cleanse them. They must be forced to go through compensation (AGANAHI) with the Power of Spirit and Fire, unless they realize this by themselves and start making voluntary compensation (AGANAHI). Otherwise, they cannot complete the cleansing to develop the Positive Spirit (HARAHI); and furthermore, they cannot bring about the positive world of pure spirits (AKANAHI) forever.

Or this?

You may well think that God takes cruel action; however, it is not so. It is a manifestation of God's Great Love for eternity that the Arrangements have been set by the Law to let them end up in such a result. To begin with, these Arrangements had begun to be planned and set in motion at about the end of the creation of Heaven and Earth, that is, around the time when God began to create HITO. Therefore, it is not an arrangement that has been and will be able to be made by NINGEN who is so vain and conceited as to say, “God has been made up by NINGEN.” On the contrary, he will eventually go rampant in accumulating sins toward the Celestial World (AMATSU-TSUM1) and the Terrestrial World (KUNITSU-TSUMI) and leaving the negative karma to his descendants. Besides, he, himself, will have to go through suffering for hundreds of years in the astral world; and his bereaved family and descendants will have to suffer from worry, distress, and calamity in this world until their compensation can be completed. Thus, both of them have to go through the cleansing (MISOGI) together. It is due to God's “necessary evil” that is the goodness in MAHAYANA (in the Light of God).

Any clearer?

Anyway, here's how you compensate, according to Primary Kenshu:

Even if you say you haven't done a single bad thing ever since you were born into this world, still, if the impurities from your ancestors have not been completely erased, these impurities are transmitted to you. Therefore you need to have Misogi, that is, to scrape off the impurities of the spirit. And if you don't have aganahi, you can't become a bright spirit. Well, the point is that one's life will be completely different depending on whether one goes through aganahi willingly and actively or receives it passively.

With passive compensation the impurities committed must nevertheless be scraped off. Therefore, if a person killed someone or something like that previously, he would have to have a major accident, for example, and have his leg amputated and suffer for the rest of his life with a disabled body. Or he may have to have a horrible face injury, and by living the rest of his life with an ugly face, going through a lot of insults and shameful experiences, he continues to apologise and pay for the sins he committed. Or, he might have to suffer from, say, cancer or be paralysed from stroke and so on.

Then there follows a bunch of stories about how kumite who were destined to have serious accidents to erase their sins and impurities ended up just having minor accidents instead, because they offered divine service.

In this way, major disasters change into minor ones, and minor disasters change into no disasters at all. In other words, if a person devotes himself wholeheartedly to serving God, that is, continues compensating actively, he will erase his impurities. Even though he is receiving the same compensation, the suffering will be rather small. Well, after this kenshū I hope you'll become involved in active and willing service for God.

So there you have it, folks, the divine arrangement for changing major disasters into minor ones, and minor disasters into no disasters at all.

#mahikari #cleaning #misogiharahi #compensation #ancestors #karma

In case you don’t notice, I am fucking furious. F U R I O U S.

I just came across this teaching in the Primary Kenshu (what they now call the Spiritual Development Course). It’s in the section about sins and impurities common to all humankind. This is a screen shot of the actual document that the lecturer is instructed to read 'exactly like a parrot’. I’d forgotten it.

So. God created your body and it was perfect. The highest object of art. (Evolution has actually created a human body that's lucky to work, or else God's design is a bit shit and He meant that.) And if you do anything to it like sticking needles in it (injections, vaccinations, piercings, shock horror TATTOOS) it’s defiling God’s art, God’s property! That’s YOU, by the way.

Now, if you have had any surgery, that causes massive sins and impurities from wounding God’s physical body property (that’s YOU).

Needless to say, if one has a surgical operation, the sins and impurities are even greater.

NEEDLESS TO SAY?

If you needed surgery as a baby — A BABY — you accumulated great sins and impurities. If you broke your arm and needed surgery, you accumulated sins and impurities. If you needed your gall bladder removed, or cataracts removed, or a skin cancer removed, or an emergency heart operation, or a Caesarian to save your baby, or anything surgical done at all — yep, you accumulated massive sins and impurities.

How. Fucking. Dare. They.

The surgery might have been inevitable, and necessary to save your life, but you probably needed the surgery because of your family’s horrendously deep sins and impurities. But having the surgery adds the debt back on.

They also say that going through suffering, like illness (untreated by ‘so-called medical science’) is cleaning, erasing your sins and impurities.

This is the worst sort of manipulation and fear indoctrination. What an evil way to ensure your followers are certain of their deep sins and impurities and the ‘debt they owe’ your 'so-called God’.

How many of us have got through life without a single needle, without a single scalpel cut, let alone without a piercing or tattoo? Oh, practically none of us?! Well isn’t that convenient?! That's everyone in the room, then.

The first time you hear this you’re sitting in the primary course, all keen to absorb their 'special teachings', trying to accept what you’re hearing. Being told to be obedient. And you will quickly discover that you are shameful, defiling yourself without even knowing it, and have to start with an ‘attitude of apology’ otherwise God will not save you! Let’s create shame and guilt from the very start!

This makes me sick. This is the lowest of the low. Utterly. Disgusting.

#Mahikari #medicine #surgery #sins #impurities #debt #manipulation #shame #guilt #apology

A small gem for you today. This is a teaching from the Advanced Kenshu (ie third and most advanced initiation) of Sukyo Mahikari.

“In the beginning God created millions of dinosaurs to solidify earth.”

So dinosaurs were created to stomp around and make the earth solid. Sounds like something my toddler would come up with.

Bit like making a nice pastry dough from a crumbly flour and butter mix, tampering coffee when making an espresso, or compacting a new road with a 30 tonne roller machine thingy ...

“Hey Fred, you missed a bit over there!”

“Fuck off Jim, you haven't finished that mountain range, who are you to talk?!”

They only 'reveal' these sorts of teachings at the most advanced level because anyone who is less brainwashed by this crowd would laugh hysterically and walk away.

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

#Mahikari #dinosaurs #cult #JapaneseNewReligion #weirdshit

Mahikari has pretty sick teachings on charities. And I mean sick as in cruel, not excellent.

So here’s how this goes.

First of all let’s get one thing straight. You have heaps of sins and impurities, right? From previous lives, general sins of all humankind, and the crap stuff you’ve done in this life. Hell, it’s a lot. Trust me on this. Lots and lots of negative karma. Fuck you’re screwed.

However. God really wants you to erase this negative karma, and is trying to help you! Woo! How does He manage this? Well, by cleaning you up, erasing this crap ... by causing you suffering, or 'cleansing'. Pay back time. Illness, being poor, being beaten up, conflict, shit abusive jobs and relationships. That’s God showing his love. Honest. So you can erase your negative shit and make everything great. Eventually.

This ties in with their ‘have gratitude for anything and everything from morning til night, how gracious it is that nothing bad exists’ thought-stopping shit mantra, too. Lost your job and can’t feed your kids? Cool! You’re erasing heaps of sins and impurities! Got a dreadful disease? Congratulations! Begone, negative karma! Be grateful! Yaaaaaaaaay!

In normal life, someone who has fallen on hard times might be helped by a charity. Housing for women fleeing domestic violence, help for the homeless, food for the starving, toys for refugee kids, saving a forest. Heaps of stuff. Cos, you know, that’s the decent humane thing to do. To help each other. Actively. Doing stuff, donating stuff. Showing the fuck up.

However.

Mahikari teaches that charities and even hospitals interfere in God’s plans, stopping His cleansing, by making things easier for you, and lessening the suffering associated with whatever crap you’re going through. They ‘perpetuate the misery of mankind’. And when that happens, well, God’s got no other choice, does He? (Does He? I mean, being God and all … ? Maybe he could kinda not do that? No? Just me?)

He has to make your suffering more severe, seeing as what you were going through before was the ‘easiest option to erase your karma’. But you’ve chosen, fuckwit that you are, to use useless human knowledge to ‘solve your problems’. And now He has to step you up a notch to the Next Level of Erasing Karma. You might get incurable cancer, or have your kid killed, or go bankrupt, or something much worse than what you were already going through. You idiot.

So, members are actively discouraged from supporting ‘hypocritical’ charities. It’s much MUCH more important to support the TRUE charity of spiritual awakening and purification to save humankind and the environment — Oh wait! Is that us in Mahikari? It IS? OMG! Oh guys, I don’t know what to say, I’m just overwhelmed, we’re the one true path to God and we’re the one true charity? Oh wow. I don’t have a speech prepared or anything. AND we have tax-free status as a charitable organisation? Oh, this is like the best thing ever!

So. Donate your time and money to Mahikari! It’s that simple really. Don’t waste your time or money on actual charities, which only make people accumulate more impurities and the need for more severe purification. You’re actually being kind to people by offering to give them True Light (the highest form of altruistic love, by the way, in case you didn’t know), and helping them learn how to offer Divine Service too! Offering more and more money to them is the ‘true charity work’.

Besides, God is the one who gave you any money you have in the first place, so it’s only fair that you give a whole lot of it back to Him! You selfish arsehole.

When I was in, we never did fundraising for anyone or anything outside of the cult. Build a new temple, sure! Help anyone else ... yeah, nah.

Hmmm 🤔

Just to show I’m not making this fuckery up, here’s one of the founder's 'Mini Teachings'. Note: ‘charitable work’ = them.

“To build hospitals in order to save sick people, to collect money to do so ... just increases the number of patients who are poisoned by medicines*. They are far from charities. I would call them hypocritical charities, which accumulate sins and impurities. 'Charitable work' is the deed to rid mankind of disease and poverty, and actualise truly peaceful and safe civilisation on this earth.

“In order to spread heavenly civilisation, it is also a 'charitable' work to correct clearly the mistakes which are considered as common sense at the present time. To offer more and more money for that work ... this is also charitable work. The flood of hypocritical charities is too much now and the world is deteriorating more and more.

“For these reasons I wish, all the more, for those who work hard in hypocritical charities, to be awakened to the real charities and to introduce people who are suffering in poverty and sickness without tranquillity of mind to real salvation.

“Suppose one person has donated one hundred million yen* [to Mahikari]. Imagine how much this will cause the circle of salvation to expand. That can be a great salvation, can't it? I call this 'charitable work'.”

How charities should be, Sunkyo, pg 82–83

This cult presents a benign face to the public, trying to look less fucking insane, but I can guarantee you that the founder’s teachings and their prayer book and ‘bible’ won’t have had a single word altered. Don’t trust these fuckers.

---

1. Medicine = toxins, which build up in the body to cause diseases. Obviously.

2. ¥100,000,000 = about $880 USD (Nov 2021)

---

Do More photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash

Seeking Kindness photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

#Mahikari #cult #charity #medicine #money #donations

Did you know that in the first 49 days after you’ve died, you can do anything you like and go anywhere you want in the world, just by thinking about it? On the 50th day, your arse is hauled off to your ‘training place’ in the astral world (probably some abyss, let’s be honest here). Yup, Mahikari knows the real deal.

So if in life, you hadn’t been able to get to the Main World Shrine (see this post), or got to the Dojo (Mahikari Centre) a whole lot, you could do that. All the time. For 49 days. Sounds like fun, huh?

And if you’d spent your physical life being a diligent kumite, attending Dojo, and ceremonies, and going to Suza, and doing all the Good Kumite Things, then after death you can do everything. Go to the movies for free because ha ha ha they can’t see you. Visit your family (they also can’t see you, maybe that's a plus?). Go to art galleries and Disney World, see dolphins swimming. Stay at the most luxurious tropical resort for free because ha ha ha they can't see you. Party hard. Zoom around the solar system. Fuck it (literally), visit a brothel while you’re at it.

They never explicitly said which category you should be in, but it was pretty fucking obvious. You should stop wanting those stupid worldly things like going on holidays, seeing your family, travelling, doing frivolous fun stuff, going to the movies, visiting art galleries, getting drunk and paying for kinky sex. Offer Divine Service now. Catch up and do that other stuff after you’ve died. Without the pain of actual travel or lost luggage or expensive flights!

Brilliant way to keep your slaves working hard, eh? Enjoy your life when you’re dead! Til then — offer more service. Cos you have to Save the World now. Have fun in the afterlife!

For 49 days, anyway ...

(Photo credits: Party: Michael Discenza on Unsplash Tropical resort: Photo by Daniel Klaffke on Unsplash Dancers: Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash)

#cult #SukyoMahikari #Mahikari #death #afterlife #mindcontrol

Mahikari’s great at thought-stopping catch phrases. One of their absolute favourites is ‘Be grateful for anything and everything, from morning til night.’

This is very handy for stopping people complaining about, well, everything.

It is good to be awake, it is good to be asleep and it is good to be living. All is good. How gracious it is that nothing bad exists.*

Fucking gracious, eh?

Anything ‘bad’ is happening to you to erase your negative karma. So that’s good, right? And if you complain, that’s only going to erase the positive effects of your suffering. You’d just go backwards, you idiot.

If you’re still suffering, it’s proof that you are basically a bit evil:

If the suffering from disease, poverty or discord continues for a long time in your life, you should realise that it is a sign of much spiritual impurity.

If disease, poverty, conflict or disaster linger on, you shall understand that it is proof of your living in pseudo-truth [Shin-nyo] and the adverse way [Gyakuho].

[Norigoto [Prayer Book] Mahikari no Waza, pg 132 (verses 87-5 and 87-6)]

Did you stub your toe? Don’t complain. Have the flu? Great cleansing, removing impurities from your body. Be happy you’re sick! Congratulations!

You lost your job? Great! Your kid had an accident? Get cancer? House burnt down in catastrophic bushfires (we see you, Australia ❤️)? Child drowns? Family crushed in a landslide? Woo hoo! Keep on smiling! It’s great, nothing bad to see here!

People literally congratulated you for being sick or having some misfortune. They would sympathise, but basically, it was a good thing that's happened to you, even if it was hard. Even shockingly awful stuff. A friend of mine died in an awful accident, a lovely gentle intelligent man, who only did good in his life — and I was told that he deserved it. He was erasing his karma.

Nothing bad exists. NOTHING. So that’s great.

I think the worst one is that if you’re being abused by your partner, you should stay with them, let them keep abusing you, and be grateful to them for helping you to erase your obviously deep negative karma. Once you finally elevate yourself enough, and erase enough karma, then their abusive behaviour will naturally improve. Because everything is in balance. If you're being treated horrifically badly, it's effectively your fault. I don’t see how that message can be acceptable at any fucking point.

Shallow is the heart which makes judgments of good or bad. It is like a shallow river where many ripples of problems always appear.*

Don’t want a shallow heart, hey? Be always smiling yokoshi**! Always present a positive face to the world, to show how great Mahikari is! Keep smiling through the blood and tears and cuts and bruises. We got really good at wearing our masks. They were grafted on.

When one regards illnesses and misfortunes as bad phenomena, he has already forgotten the Principle of MISOGI (the cleansing of one's spiritual contamination) which is brought about by the Great Love of God.*

I for one can do without the Great Love of God, thank you very much. He can fuck off.

========================================================

[*These quotes are from the Mahikari Prayer Book, Norigoto, and the particular prayer: Yoshi Ashi — Good and Bad, pg 177 (verses 115-3 – 115-5)]

** Yokoshi = sun light children

#Mahikari #cult #gratitude #thoughtstopping #abuse #cleaning

Photo: Shutterstock

You probably didn’t know this, but The Main World Shrine, yes folks, for all of us, was built by Sukyo Mahikari, in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, in the Japanese Alps. It’s all very impressive. It’s called Suza (where Su God, the head honcho, dwells), or Sekai So Honzan (Main World Shrine) — their new age ‘Solomon’s Temple’.

I’ve been there. As an indoctrinated member (kumite), it was certainly a memorable experience. I’d never been to Japan before. There was a small group of us travelling from our Dojo (Mahikari Centre) in Europe. Demonstrating our utter devotion by travelling so far. Luckily one of them was Japanese, so we had a translator with us. This isn’t a travel blog, so I’ll just say that Japan itself was an exciting place to visit, delicious meals, stunning scenery, oozing history and culture and so on. I’d like to go again one day without being a cult member. That skewed my view of the whole thing.

We were attending the Autumn Grand Ceremony at Suza that year, so there were thousands of kumite from all over the world there. It is an odd place. It’s supposed to unify all the world’s religions.

There are tiled Islamic prayer towers, a sort of ancient Incan fountain, Stars of David, Buddhist symbols, stained glass … think of a religion, they’ve used their icons. Cultural appropriation gone wild.

We made new friends, from New Zealand, America, Canada, Australia, Brazil, France, all over the place. We commiserated with our new friends who had family who objected to their involvement. We were brothers and sisters in solidarity. Buses brought in droves of us. We were organised and corralled into groups, climbing the millions of steps as a group. Row upon row of Mahikari Tai (the youth group) in their uniforms (you can see a tiny portion of them in the photo below).

Thousands of people in the massive ceremony hall, chanting in unison. It was intense. Mostly thousands of Japanese, but we gaijin got special seating near the front. The stage has a massive fish tank filled with carp underneath it. To symbolise the ‘horizontal water aspect’ of the Mahikari cross (blue horizontal line). The golden altar on the stage represents the red vertical ‘fire’ aspect. There are pine trees growing next to the altar. On the stage. Yep … not even joking.

Photo by David B, TripAdvisor, May 2017

Okada, the founder dude, decided that God had given him a covenant to build the Main World Shrine. Cos the Jewish people had fumbled on that duty. According to Okada’s version of the Bible, anyway (this is never actually mentioned anywhere in the actual Bible, and kumite took him at his word, which was the word of God, right? So no need to check).

Okada explained that the ongoing persecution of the Jewish peoples was the consequences of them dropping the ball when it came to building a shrine. Nice to have it all explained, huh? This was also the leverage for pushing members from earlier times to donate as much money as they could to get this shrine built. And to keep making donations to complete the full construction plan and pay for maintenance and improvements. It needed a lot money. Probably still does, I'm betting.

This is what Okada himself had to say:

So, I have something that I want to ask of you. I have been given the divine command to build Suza. I have made a covenant with God. And because I have made that covenant, I must, no matter what happens, fulfil it.
Daiseishu — 1993 English version p218-219 (Japanese version 1983)

By 'I must' he means 'you suckers must', of course.

It was a “covenent”, guys. Based on lies. Okada’s version of the Bible was, let’s just be charitable here, incorrect, self-serving and fucking wrong.

Basically, if we, the members, didn’t make Suza, the Main World Shrine, a reality, and keep it running, we were all going to be damned forever, and our (imaginary) ability to give (imaginary) ’True Light’ would be taken away as (less imaginary) punishment. So we all donated, and donated, and donated. And then donated some more. That bit wasn’t imaginary.

The most wonderful thing happened, though, in 1974. Okada died. And there was a fight over the leadership of the group, and his organisation split into two groups. Splitters! And both of them built a Main World Shrine. Both of them enshrined the Creator God. Both of them built their shrines in the ‘most spiritually significant place’ indicated by Okada. (Surprise! The plural in this blog post title is not a typo!)

So. The group Sekai Mahikari Bunmei Kyodan, known as SMBK or the World Divine Light Organization (which was Okada’s original group), established their Suza at Amagi, Izu (Shizuoka, Japan). It was inaugurated on 23 August 1987 But the new faction’s Sukyo Mahikari Suza in Takayama was inaugurated on 3 November 1984, beating its rival by nearly three years. Good going, guys. Winning.

There’s not much recent chatter about these places online (or about Mahikari in general). (Come on other ex-members. We need to keep the conversation going! I know you're out there.)

Here’s what I could find:

This blog post has some photos of the exterior of the shrine

There’s TripAdvisor reviews here too

A lot of the positive reviews are written by cult members, so take those with a teaspoon of salt (both of which will make you throw up, by the way). Here’s some choice quotes from the more candid ones:

Disney meets a new world cult

Well the temple is bonkers. I was going to describe it as Alice in Wonderland meets the Scientologists but felt that was a little unfair as I had never been to a cult temple before!

Very confusing

… the whole experience was low-key terrifying and confusing. The use of swastikas, the star of David, a fish tank, and military uniforms meant that it was very memorable.

A bit unnerving!

We were told by our guide that we must not reveal our true identities or leave email addresses here … I personally was totally unprepared for what greeted us on arrival and have to say I found the whole experience somewhat sinister and unnerving.

It's free and looked interesting from the view of it from Hida no Sato (Folk Village)

Personally … it seems to me these guys are the Scientologists/Later Day Saints of Japan.

(By the way, the Folk Village is brilliant. Do recommend.)

If you want to read more about these dramas in detail, check out the full blog post on Mahikari Exposed over here and Building the Main World Shrine — using the Bible. They cover the revelations about why the Jewish people have been persecuted through the ages (you always wanted to know, didn’t you?) and how Mahikari has now saved us all by doing the Jewish peoples' job for them, and building this temple for the world.

Thanks a lot, you crazy Main World Shrine building people. It’s just great. Really great. No, really.

(Unless otherwise noted, the photos were supplied to us by an ex-member.)

#Suza #Mahikari #MainWorldShrine #Okada

These are just 20 of the weird shit things that Mahikari members often believe and do. Not all of these are official teachings, but most are, and most of the group does these, so if you want to be a part of team, you do them too.

I am not making these up.

1. Very cold and frozen foods will solidify the toxins in your body, so you should avoid them (actual teaching). This includes ice cream.

2. Microwaves destroy the spiritual aspect of food, so you should avoid them. You can’t offer microwaved food to your ancestors.

3. If you leave the cult, you or your loved ones will suffer all manner of various accidents, illnesses, including just plain old dying. Classic cult manipulation by fear.

4. As a mark of respect, it’s good to iron your dollars when offering them as a donation to God. Doesn't work with plastic-based notes though! Also, it's rude to offer coins. Notes are so much more polite.

5. Charities are only delaying your negative karmic 'payback'. If a charity helps ease your suffering, you're no longer erasing negative karma for yourself and your family. Well fuck. So they don’t support charities.

6. Is is better if women wear skirts and dresses, which isn’t official teaching, but certainly the female Doshis (priests) have this enforced. They aren’t allowed to wear sleeveless tops, or to show their underarms. Black isn’t a suitable colour for women to wear, either. Female Doshis' hair should be cut short, or tied back in a ponytail.

7. As you get more purified and spiritually elevated, you won’t need much sleep. Maybe three or four hours a night? If you need more ... well, you’re not very elevated, are you?

8. If you’re serious, you’d only take holidays with a Mahikari focus, or spend your holiday time offering divine service. Ceaseless efforts, bitches!

9. You have to pay a monthly “spiritual line maintenance donation” to keep your connection with God going. Yes, a monthly subscription to God. He'll cut you off otherwise!

10. Attaching spirits can make you think, hear and see anything. So they can make you see a green traffic light, when the light is actually red, for example, and cause a bad car accident.

11. Homosexuality is seen as spirit disturbance 😡

12. You have to wash your ‘top’ clothes (things worn above the waist, which have your omitama pocket in it) have to be washed separately from ‘bottoms’ (underwear, socks, pants etc).

13. Offering cigarettes to ancestors. Unlit. But still ... 🤢

14. Don’t point your feet or sit with your back towards the ancestor’s altar, or the holy altar. So rude!

15. Vaccinations and medications are poison. Of course 🙄. More on this over here.

16. Cars and plants and machines and food and everything has a spiritual aspect, and you should talk to them, and purify them with True Light.

17. Don't put your hands flat on the floor when you're in the process of giving 'True Light' as this is impure.

18. Purify your groceries for at least 20 minutes with 'True Light', before putting them away, also chanting the dodgy af 'Ancient Japanese prayer' the whole time.

19. Keep all your Mahikari books, notebooks, journals and such in a special place, and don't let them touch the floor (man, they love those purity rituals).

20. They love numerology. The same day as the number of the month was a major deal. 1 January, 2 February, 3 March, and so on. If you were going to have a really shit day, it would be one of these days.

#Mahikari #purity #rituals #weirdshit