[00:00:00] ANDREW SZERI:
Good afternoon. I’m Andrew Szeri, Dean of the Graduate Division. We’re pleased, along with the Graduate Council, to present to you Susumu Shimazono, this year’s speaker in the Foerster Lecture series.
As a condition of this bequest, we’re obligated to tell you about how the endowment supporting the Foerster Lectures on the Immortality of the Soul came to UC Berkeley. It’s a story that exemplifies the many ways this campus is linked to the history of California and of the Bay Area. In 1928, Miss Edith Z-Zweybruck established the Foerster Lectureship to honor the memory of her sister, Agnes Foerster, and Constantine Foerster, her husband.
Edith’s sister and, uh, brother-in-law shared her high hopes and ideals. A lawyer by profession, Constantine Foerster was a man of high intellectual achievements and of rare personal charm. Although he passed away at the age of thirty-seven, he had achieved an enviable place at the San Francisco Bar and was considered one of its most highly respected members.
For several years prior to his death, Foerster was a law partner to Alexander F. Morrison, one of the most prominent of San Francisco attorneys, for whom our own Morrison Memorial Library is named, by the way. In her last days, Miss Edith Zweybruck expressed her deep and abiding interest in the spiritual life by creating this lecture series on the immortality of the soul or similar spiritual subjects. She believed that through the medium of a great university and the words of scholarly lecturers, she might bring new light upon a subject that has interested the world for centuries.
Paul Foerster– Past Foerster lectures have included Oliver Sacks, Thomas Kuhn, Aldous Huxley, and Paul Tillich. And now I’m happy to welcome to the podium my colleague, Professor Stanley Brandes, chair of the Foerster Lecture Committee and professor of anthropology, to introduce our speaker, Susumu Shimazono.
(applause)
[00:02:11] STANLEY BRANDES:
Thank you very much, Dean Szeri. Uh, it gives me great pleasure to be here and welcome our guest, uh, Professor Susumu Shimazono, uh, who is not new to this campus. Uh, we first met, Professor Shimazono and I, when he was here in nineteen eighty-four, eighty-five as a visiting scholar affiliated with the sociology department, and he enrolled in my seminar on the anthropology of Catholicism.
It surprised me because this was, uh, a topic on Roman Catholicism, and yet, uh, Shimazono-san is a specialist in the religions of Japan. But i-it doesn’t surprise me now in hindsight after twenty-five years. As I speak with him on various occasions over the years, I realize how broad his education is in, in religion in general.
And although his writings have focused on Japan and particularly Japanese new religion, of which he is the preeminent, uh, specialist in the world. Uh, he has a vast and very detailed knowledge of major religions, uh, all over the world from, uh, the West to the East. Um, Professor
(coughs)
Shimazono is a professor of religious studies in the Graduate School of Sociology and Humanities at the University of Tokyo. He has served as the president of the Japanese Association of Religious Studies, and he received the Japanese Association of Religious Studies Prize. Um, his scholarly work ranges widely.
For one thing, right now, he’s the editor of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. Uh, his books include From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements in Modern Japan. Uh, he is the co-editor and a contributor to Religion and Society in Modern Japan, and most recently, a co-editor and contributor to a book entitled Dark Medicine: Rationalizing Unethical Medic-Medical Research, which I have not seen myself, but I’m going to run out and, and get as soon as I can.
It’s, uh… It, it represents Professor Shimazono’s new interest in bioethics and medicine, and is an exploration of, uh, World War II Nazi medical experimentation and how those who did this, uh, rationalized it, Japanese, uh, medical experimentation on American pilots who had been downed, and also on Chinese prisoners of war, and, uh, post-World War II medical experimentation associated with the Cold War and with Korea. So, um, this is kind of a departure, but I think it represents a, uh, an expression of Professor Shimazono’s deep, uh, humanity.
He is, uh, a fine scholar, but also an extremely humane, uh, human being. Um, he’s, uh, edited or authored A total of ten volumes. Uh, most of them are in Japanese, but a few in English as well, and one in Korean.
So without further ado, I’d like to give you an opportunity to hear him on the topic of From Salvation to Spirituality: Contemporary Transformation of Religions Viewed from East Asia. Please join me in welcoming Professor Shimazono.
(applause)
[00:06:32] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
As, as pro-uh, Professor Brandes, uh, introduced me, I came he– Uh, I first came here in, uh, uh, 1984. Uh, and I stayed one academic year.
It was a great experience, and especially, uh, his seminar on, uh, anthropology of Catholicism was exciting. And I also worked, uh, with a sociologist, very influential sociologist, Robert Bellah, uh, when he, uh, is just publishing a well-known book, uh, Habits of the Heart. Uh, then I became the translator of that book into Japanese.
So, uh, it was, um, a very important life event staying here. So I’m very excited to be here and, uh, given this opportunity. I’m very honored and thankful to Dean of the Graduate Division, uh, Professor Andrew Szeri, and also to the Foerster Lecture Committee for giving me this opportunity to address on the theme of contemporary religion.
Uh, in considering th- uh, the trends in contemporary religions of the world, the year of 1978 has a symbolic significance to me. The Iranian revolution occurred in this year, and the name of Ruhollah Khomeini became known to the world. The revolution gradually strengthened its Islamic inclination, and the year will be remembered as a turning point when the drive of reli- religiously inspired political powers gained strength against secular political powers in the increasingly modernizing and globalizing world.
It was also in nineteen seventy-eight that the term spiritual world, uh, was coined in Japan and the spiritual world section was first set up in bookstores in Japan. The term spiritual world, uh, seishin sekai in Japanese, is an original Japanese term and not a term applied to an imported concept. It had a close connection with religion, but it came into use with connotations that it, it would suit the intelligence and sentiment of modern people, replacing religion, which was becoming outmoded.
In a short while, many of the spiritual section, spiritual world section in, in,
(uh)
(coughs)
in a– in a short while, the spiritual world section was installed next to the to the religion section, uh, in bookstores, uh, large bookstores in, in Japanese cities. Young people have been more attracted by the spiritual world section. Here is, uh, the picture of the magazine which first used the term spiritual world in 1978.
The ma-magazine was titled The Meditation, using the English term, suggesting that it is not for the traditional religion, but for something radically new and attractive for the younger generation. The magazine featured eight hundred books of the spiritual world. Selection of books on religions, especially Eastern religions, philosophy, psychotherapy, and novels by, for example, Hermann Hesse and Dostoevsky.
The book list of the spiritual world became, became the yearly event, and in two– the year two thousand, they listed ten thousand and five hundred and eighty-eight books. So many books in this genre. Uh, and then they rename, uh, the book as “Spiritual Data,” again, using the English word.
The focus of young people’s interest, like myself in the 1970s, was turning more to religions than to politics. Among young people, a shift occurred from participation in the anti-Vietnam War movements or anti-pollution movements to being engaged in introspective activities to transform themselves through meditation, body work, and psychotherapy. While in the United States, the counterculture movement of the 1960s was replaced by the trend of seeking alternative spirituality in the 1970s, a similar trend occurred in Japan a little later.
What is called the spiritual world in Japan largely ov-overlaps with a phenomenon called here as new ray– New Age, And both are interactively related to some extent. In the 1980s, the spiritual world became a pop culture and achieved quite a commercial success as a part of the consumption culture. Around the turn of the decade into the 1990s, I came to consider that it was more than a cultural fashion.
For example, there emerged cases that it was more than, uh, uh, uh, there, there emerged cases that people suffering from social violence were involved in gaining spiritual knowledge and conducting spiritual practices together with other people who also share the same suffering. A good example of this is the self-help movement, whereby people suffering from the eating disorder formed a network aiming for healing and for sharing spiritual experience. It was around this time that networks spread among people who became overhel-overwhelmed with grief due to separation by death.
The theory of secularization was dominant among sociologists of religion in the 1950s and ’60s. They discussed that along with the process of modernization and rationalization in social life, the influence of religion had declined and was, was bound to further decline in the future. Bryan Wilson, a leading British sociologist of religion in the 1960s and ’70s, and, and Peter Berger One of the leading sociologists of religion in the United States, at the same time advocated the theory of secularization.
Uh, the content shows, uh, how that theme of secularization is so important for, for the book. However, in the 1980s and ’90s, those who favored the secularization theory decreased in number. More people considered that the influence of religions might have been weakened at a certain stage in the process of modernization, but that secularization would not proceed in a linear manner.
The view that a return to the sacred would occur became stronger. Thus, the terms such as de-secularization or re-secularization came to be used. Uh, in what phenomena was re-sacralization observed?
I consider it, it can be observed from three aspects. The first aspect is the revival of, of traditional religions. In Islamic countries, the tendency to live i-in accordance with the Islamic religious norms was strengthened.
In India, Hindu nationalism gained strength, and in Israel, the religious party came to have stronger influence. This tendency was more remarkable in developing countries rather than economically advanced countries. The second aspect is the rise of spirituality, which was more notably observed in advanced countries.
An increasing number of people in these countries came to consider that their lifestyles and mindsets were led not by secular rationality, but by their relations with something greater than themselves. They do not like to use the term religion to explain what they regard as worthwhile to follow. Many of them consider themselves to be spiritual, but not religious.
The third aspect is an increase in the number of people who realize there is a limit to secularism in the modern institutional domain in which secularism was a norm, and who find it necessary to bring religion and spirituality into their lives. In the modern assumption, these institutions, like hospitals and schools, have their own functions which are, Jeff, uh, apart from religions, religions and spirituality. However, it was revealed that they are in fact inseparable from religion and spirituality.
For example, hospitals and other medical institutions which give medical and nursing care for terminal patients cannot avoid being faced with the spiritual suffering of patients whose death is drawing near. They find it necessary to offer spiritual care that is, that is not necessarily based on a specific religion. In this lecture, my focus is on the second aspect, that is, the rise of spirituality or the shift from religion to spirituality, so-called.
This is observed mainly in the advanced countries and represents only a part of the transformation of the religion and the worldview in the contemporary world. But still it is a very important phenomenon, especially for those living in the East Asia who have experienced the great economic advancement during the past few decades. This new phenomenon is of great importance.
But is not spirituality inseparable from religion? What exactly is the shift from religion to spirituality? In the following, my first task is to explain what I mean by the terms religion and spirituality.
However, uh, it is not easy to define what they are. The terms religion and spirituality have been used in the Western civilization, and they con-connote meanings heavily connected with Christian, uh, tradition. Since the nineteenth century, the term religion has been used to ex-express phenomenon– phenomena similar to, but different from Christianity in different parts of the world.
There were many cases that the application of the term was not easy. For example, in East Asia, the question whether Confucianism is religion or not has always been difficult to answer. Under such circumstances, there is no wide- widely accepted definition of religion in the contemporary academia of the world.
Whatever definition is applied, there are some phenomena which cannot be covered adequately by the definition. Fully understanding such a situation, religion is to be defined here as a system organized around the sacred. In using the term sacred, I’m following the academic tradition outlined both by Émile Durkheim and Mircea Eliade, who is strongly aware of the necessity to overcome the Western and Christian bias.
Then what is the sacred? First, it im-implies beings, power or experience that cannot be confirmed with the ordinary five senses, but that are thought to be very real. A spirit, a deity, a world of a different dimension, And something that can, that that can be felt through mystical e-experiences or spiritual enlightenment can be considered sacred.
Also, something that give, gives deep meaning that strongly influences persons and, and continuously leads their thoughts and practices It’s sacred. In some cases, specific objects, words by persons, and books can be sac-sacred things. When the day-to-day life of people is, is is structured upon a system surrounding the sacred, or when the system surrounding the sacred is incorporated in the communal life of people, such a system may be called a religion.
What then? Is spirituality? Spirituality is a term used to understand religious phenomena from the humans embodied in them.
It is a term to express human experience, quality, or property that is associated with something sacred and beyond human control. In Japanese, Buddhist term, reisei, originating in the Middle Ages, is a word with the closest meaning. In a well-known book, Nihonteki Reisei, published in 1944, Daisetsu Suzuki, a well-known Zen scholar, is strongly conscious about the term spirituality.
Naturally, the book was translated into Japanese into English with the title, title Japanese Spirituality. While religion is both an affair of individuals and as a system outside them, spirituality has been considered as being found mainly inside individuals or something observed or e-expressed through individuals. Both are closely related and can be said to be the same with a difference in emphasis, whether to give an emphasis on the system or on individuals.
In other words, where a religion existed, spirituality was always present. When a stable religion was considered as a premise, and many people shared the same religion, the need for designating spirituality was not felt. The term was only used at best as a term related, relating to a small number of people having strong or elaborated spirituality.
Since the twentieth century, notably since the last quarter of the century, an understanding of spirituality as being independent from religion has been spreading. It is a new movement or cultural style which can be called new spirituality or alternative spirituality. The New Age in the United States, the spiritual world in Japan are examples of, of new spirituality movements and new spirituality culture.
I think there are, uh, very good, uh, books written by American scholars on these phenomena. Uh, In new spirituality, it is often considered that spirituality exists separately from religion, and that such a status is suitable to modern people. For example, while some people spend much energy for facing with their own death or for spiritual interaction with the deceased, they are not convinced of the teachings of, of salvation in the other world taught by traditional religions.
Some other people consider that psychology and psychotherapy can more accurately grasp the experience in the depths of their consciousness and take steps on a path to go beyond their own ordinary self. These people find it difficult to follow traditional religions, in particular salvation religions, but they have a strong interest in spirituality and consider themselves to be spiritual but not religious. Oh, this is the title of the Robert Fuller book.
Uh, so this is, uh, um, regarded that, uh, you know, uh, many people share this perception. Uh, it is not new spirituality alone that is on the rise today. Within traditional religions, spirituality is increasing, increasingly discussed.
In the tradition of Christianity, the term spiritual has long been used, which, however, is not directly linked with the use of spirituality as a matter of individual concerns. It is understood that the term was used in France in the seventeenth century as a term that had much in common with mysticism. There, spirituality was typically found in monasteries.
The use of this word to call something developed through individuals undergoing special training and a monastic life is still valued today. For example, an attempt of exchange training between Zen Buddhist monks in Japan and Catholic monks and nuns in the West has been implemented since nineteen seventy-six in the name of East-West spirituality exchange. Later, a time came inside Christian organizations.
when the development of spirituality was sought not only in the scheduled– uh, excluded life of monasteries, but also as something deeply associated with the daily life of lay followers. Spirituality came to be considered not as a concern of a limited number of religious persons, but as being related to the inner life of all followers. Presumably, this use of the term started in the 1950s to ’60s.
Instead of considering that followers are unilaterally told by clergymen that they should abide by holy words in the Bible, or that they are passive beings with faith, followers should develop, the new idea is that followers should develop their spirituality themselves. The meaning of the term spirituality was broadened based on this view. This phenomenon should be distinguished from new spirituality, but it is closely correlated with it.
It constitutes a part of the rise of spirituality in the contemporary world. Moreover, in close connection with both of them, there are growing interests in spirituality within the medical and educational institutions such as palliative care and death education, as well as within the self-help movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Then can spirituality be defined as something not religious?
It will narrowly limit the term of religion and close an avenue to compare various forms of religions. Both terms concern people’s relationship with the sacred. Religion designates the phenomena in terms of a system, while spirituality designates them from the aspect of individual experience, quality, and property.
In the past, system, system was more conspicuous, but now individuality is gaining a strong, stronger emphasis. Even with this change, both aspects are always seen, and there is spirituality where religion exists, and there is religion where spirituality exists. Therefore, new spirituality can be embraced within religion in a broad sense.
In other words, a new type of religion has become prevalent among people who are not in favor of defining it as religion. Now I move to the third section. Uh, in what aspects do participants in new re-spirituality consider their position to be different from religion?
First, they would say spirituality is not a formal system existing outside individuals. Those who are interested in new spirituality consider that Traditional religions with a solid system and organization have characteristics that they, they are, that are disagreeable to them. Such characteristics sought to be inseparable from organized religions are that, one, They require followers to be members in a religious organization and to follow the norms of the organization.
That two, they require followers to believe in a single and supreme being such as Jesus Christ and Sakyamuni Buddha or a divine superhuman being. That’s three. They tend to have self-righteous and exclusive attitudes and believe that only the religion they believe in is right, while other religions and ideologies have little or no, no value.
And that four, they tend to have a dichotomy of good and evil by which they teach about an afterlife distribution by superhu– superhuman beings and possible punishment for those who are non-believers. Very bad image of the religion. And, uh, this kind of bad image was, uh, uh, uh, broadened, you know, or propagated by bad examples, as you may know.
Uh, Asahara Shoko was a leader, uh, who organized a terrorist attack, uh, in the Tokyo subway. And, and this is, uh, Timothy McVeigh, uh, militia, uh, uh, member, uh, Christian who, uh, uh, attacked the government, Oklahoma, uh, government facilities, and Osama bin Laden. Uh, they are, uh, honest believers of salvation religions.
And, uh, they, uh, many people think that, uh, we don’t like that, that kind of religion. Religion tend to have these characteristics. Uh, these characteristics of religion which connote negative meanings for the supporters of new spirituality do not apply to all religions or to many followers of some religions.
However, these are remarkably observed in the type of religious religion categorized as salvation religion, a technical term, uh, of the religious studies. What then are salvation religions? In order to understand the lives of the spirituality today, an un-understanding of salvation religion will be a great help.
In East Asia, the idea of, of salvation religion is represented, uh, by Mahayana Buddhism, but there are also strong traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto, and folk religions, which cannot be subsumed within the category of the salvation religions. In the Christian and Muslim world, salvation religion is the sole authentic religious tradition. In many parts of, uh, the world, it is regarded so.
Thus, religions outside salvation, authentic salvation religions tend to appear only as a heretical and marginal religions. In contrast, in East Asia, salvation religions are regarded only as a part of the various religions or various expressions of the Tao was a way. Contemporary phenomenon of the lives of the spirituality can be understood in, in some different way in the light of the East Asian perspective.
Uh, this is my hope. Salvation religions urge people—
[00:35:48] MODERATOR:
You’re one ahead.
[00:35:49] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Okay.
(laughter)
I, urge people to realize that humans have fundamental limits, which cannot be overcome through the ordinary ways, but also teach that there is an only way to overcome the fundamental limits, by appealing to a supreme being, the highest wisdom or power related to different dimensions. To overcome the fundamental limits and difficult situations and sufferings resulting, resulting from the limits means salvation. Therefore, there are religions focusing on the reality of suffering and difficult situations of the human beings, as well as the concept of salvation.
In Christianity, falsely charged Jesus Christ as a child of God has expiated the sins of humans by being crucified. By believing this, followers believe that they who are sinful would be delivered. According to the traditional faith, to be, to be delivered here implies that followers would go near God in heaven after their death.
The original meaning might be that their souls would be fully purified. The most frequently cited prayer in Christianity is the Lord’s Prayer, which I think clearly states the idea of salvation. In Buddhism, a fundamental limit for humans is that they cannot save themselves from suffering.
But following the sublime wisdom of Gautama Buddha, taught as a four truth, you can attain the status close to Buddhis– Buddha. This is regarded as enlightenment, which would lead people to deliverance or nirvana. Finally, Tenrikyo will be cited as an example of a salvation religion that originated in Japan.
Tenrikyo was initiated in 1837 by Nakayama Miki, a housewife of a farming household in agricultural province who experienced divine possession. It is influenced both by Shinto and Buddhist traditions, and we call it, uh, a new religion. Every morning and evening, Tenrikyo followers cite the words of prayer, Mikagura-uta, to a melody while gesturing with their hands.
Oh, this is, uh, the picture of, uh, their central shrine. They have about, uh, uh, hundreds of thousands, uh, of followers. Uh, they gather, uh, on the twenty-sixth of every month.
Uh, she’s, uh, praying with a song and ge-gestures. It’s, it has a very folk traditional, uh, uh, flavor, but it is, I think, uh, salvation religion. Uh, the standard, uh, prayer clause chanted every morning and evening is Tenri-O-no-Mikoto, please save us by sweeping away evil.
Tenri-O-no-Mikoto is the name of the main deity, the God the Parent, they say. Uh, the evil resembles sin in Christianity. It means that a person soils one’s heart with evil, evil thoughts and conducts.
uh, evil thoughts and conducts, and that such evil thoughts and conducts are accumulated in one’s heart, preventing the innate function of the heart. It is often likened to dust. When dust in the heart is wiped out and the heart is purified, followers can spend their life, uh, their days in happiness.
This is called relief, tasuke. The term relief and salvation, sukui, have almost the same meaning. Uh, this is the, eh, festival, monthly festival in local church.
They, uh, dance and pray. Uh, this picture is the picture just taken after the, uh, foundress’ death, that these are the disciples, first disciples of the religion. Uh, in salvation religions, evil, suffering, and sin are considered to be the fundamental limits of humans.
Some evil and suffering may not have been caused by humans, but they come from nature and some invisible beings. The important elements here are that humans must confess, repent, and apologize to God, to God, or that they must reflect on their sins and try to get rid of, rid of them. The first thing that comes to mind as an evil or a sin that humans tend to commit is to cause others pain, and in most cases, it means violence.
Salvation religions, therefore, can be defined as a religion that concerns evil and suffering and further violence. How can violence be overcome? Salvation religion preaches that as human capacity is limited, we should entrust it to the love of power of God or the wisdom and mercy of the Buddha.
It recommends praying and looking at and calming one’s mind and heart. On the other hand, it urges followers to take action in order to control violence or go beyond and stop violence. It implies that it implies the observation of precepts and the practice of love and compassion.
In addition to the requirement of attaining a peaceful state of mind, it requires followers to actually practice love and compassion in their social life. The concept, concept of virtue recommended by salvation religion may vary widely, but acting by love and compassion and keeping away from violence is the essential element. According to the teaching of salvation religion, a path leading to salvation is open for everyone by having faith in the religion.
Salvation religions urge individuals to make decisions independently. Before the truth advocated by salvation religions, every person stands, so to say, at the same start line. This means a universalism and egalitarianism that does not discriminate against individuals by their birth, status, or circumstances.
At this point, salvation religions have something common to democracy and human rights ideals. As universalism does not discriminate against any person, it helps break the walls of a closed community. The chance of– for reconciliation of conflicts will increase among families, tribes, and the ethnic groups by sharing faith in the same salvation religion.
Salvation religion is characterized by its power to remove the walls between people. Therefore, it ex-ex-it expands individual freedom and facilitates more open human relations. Para-paradoxically, from a different point of view, salvation religion may be seen to potentially divide people.
It is because it establishes a hard system of differentiation between people who follow right teachings and those who do not. Even though it may break the walls of communal groups and societies, including family, tribe, and nation, it creates a system of differentiation based on good and evil between people who have accepted the right truth and those who have not. Simply stated, a salvation religion regards people who do not accept the teachings of truth tends to belong to the evil group or to the group which is more liable to commit evil.
Salvation religions sometimes cause or amplify violence as an aggressive expression of this characteristic. Salvation religions often consider it good to, to expand their influence. Looking back on history, salvation religions were accepted by a wide range of people because their universalistic and expansionistic properties were appropriate to political governance by empires and large area states since the ancient, ancient times.
When colonialism spread in modern times, It is undeniable that Christian missionaries first landed in the countries. to raise a foundation for later militaristic and politic domination. Relatively well-off people in industrialized countries today are likely to have a sense of discomfort at the aspects of salvation religion as described above.
In this context, it may be most appropriate to understand the phenomenon of transition from religion to spirituality to be an evolution from salvation religion to the emphasis on spirituality in religion, or from salvation to spirituality. In the contemporary world, people who are skeptical about secularism are on the rise, And people’s minds are directed to religion in a broad sense. Even so, many people feel that salvation religions are unacceptable.
New spirituality is attracting interest among these people. On this assumption, the trends in worldview in the contemporary world have been reviewed, focusing on advanced countries. Then will the evolution from religion to spirituality, in particular from salvation religion to spirituality, be further accelerated?
It may not necessarily develop in this way, because new spirituality has difficulties that prevent its development. It is difficult to predict the steady increase of supporters. In comparison with salvation religion, new spirituality lacks, first, the cosmological and doctrinal structure to squarely accept ultimate human limits such as evil and death.
Salvation religion preaches that there is a dimension where evil is completely overcome, and there is eternal life far beyond death. If one can believe in this, he or she would not keep asking questions like, “Isn’t there anything beyond death?” Or, uh, why do good people in difficult situations continue to bear suffering?
Well, why can’t I go away from sin? New spirituality does not always present clear answers to the questions of deep-rooted evil and death. Unless one believes in salvation, he or she would have to accept that the ultimate answer to deep-rooted evil and death would not be pro-pro-provided from anywhere.
In the face of deep-rooted evil and death, humans may naturally require an ultimate answer that sal-salvation religions has offered. Besides, in comparison with salvation religion and traditional religions, new spirituality is lacking other aspects. Salvation religions have family established communities and the system of educating followers.
New spirituality has an individualist, individualistic inclination and prefers loose networks to structured organizational groups. They are greatly, greatly interested in spiritual pursuits and their own growth, but they are not in favor of maintaining long-term relations with leaders who are going through hard training for these purposes. They see that these things will lead to the loss of their autonomy, to unwilling restraint, and to submission to authoritarianism.
How do people develop their interest in, acquire, and enhance spirituality? The media perform an important role here. In unilateral communication media, such as books, cartoons, movies, videos, and the internet are predominant.
People obtain information through these media and take part in seminars and lecture meetings. Instead of forming communities, the inst-initiation into spirituality and education and training are often carried out in a commercial manner. Even in the case where, uh, an organization is founded, is found, and it needs to be commercially successfully through by approaching interested people around it.
The livelihood of leaders and expenses of the management of the organ-organization are supported by the sales of books, participation fees from organization seminar or, or organizing seminars, and so on. In such a commercial style, there is no means to rectify consumers’ arbitrary understanding of spirituality, setting aside the question of the quality as assurance of merchandise. It is like selling products without reliable quality assessment and after-sale services.
Uh, Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, British scholars, this book, uh, is a good criticism on, on that point. Um A weak point for new spirituality is the difficulty encountered in developing communal organizations and traditions, which are considered as a natural prelu-prerequisite for salvation religions. Being unable to deepen or stably maintain their spiritual pursuits in thoughts and practice, people who are involved in this new spirituality often harbor a feeling of frustration.
This is related to the inclination among seekers of new spirituality to to have familiarity toward traditional religions. And I have met many people who, once attracted by new spirituality, come back to traditional religions. The New Age and new spiritual world movements initiated by young people in the nineteen seventies advocated the replacement of religions.
However, since the nineteen nineties to date, a tendency to call for the replacement of religions has declined. Rather, spirituality and religious traditions are considered as being complementary. Such complementarity may take different forms in the different parts of the world.
In the West, a tensed relationship tends to exist, tends to stand out between new spirituality and Christianity, the mainstream religious tradition. Books criticizing new spirituality from the standpoint of Christianity abound. In contrast, in Asia, new spirituality, including the New Age and spiritual, spiritual world movements, gives high evaluation to religious tradition.
Some new spirituality movements have eagerly introduced elements from them. In Japan, for example, new spirituality and the revival of animism have been actively advocated since the 1980s. Uh, animism is considered at the core of Shinto and traditional folk religion and is, uh, inheriting ecological insight shared by many indigenous people of the world, including Native Americans.
The perception has been increasingly noted in Christianity that tra-traditional religions are complementary with the rising interest in spirituality. It is true, on the other hand, that a tense relationship remains to exist between the concept of salvation and new religion spirituality. Within with the expansion of capitalism, while individualization of social society progresses, the advancing of a shift from salvation to spirituality is observed.
However, new spirituality has its limits, and many may be pushed back by the current of revival, revival of traditional religion. Relations among salvation religions, non-salvation traditional religions, and new spirituality are complicated. They should be carefully looked at while paying attention to differences in religion and religious traditions.
Thank you for he- uh, listening.
(applause)
[00:56:06] STANLEY BRANDES:
Thank you very much for a very broad-ranging and interesting talk, Professor Shimazono. And now if there are questions or, uh, comments, this is a good time, and we’ll pass around the microphone.
[00:56:23] STUDENT:
Hi. Um, fantastic. Thank you.
Um, I’m an undergraduate at Sonoma State University, and I’m doing anthropological studies on religious groups, um, in my local community. And I’ve found, um, at least for example, um, groups like the Quakers and the Unitarian Universalists who seem to be already bridging that gap between the spiritual and the organized-
[00:56:48] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Mm-hmm.
[00:56:49] STUDENT:
-institutionalized religions.
[00:56:50] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Yeah, yeah. Um,
[00:56:51] STUDENT:
how do you see that happening here in America?
[00:56:54] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Yes. Mm-hmm.
[00:56:55] STUDENT:
Do you think that groups like that are gonna become more prevalent? And is that happening, yes, in Japan as well?
[00:56:59] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Yes. So the book I showed in, in my slide, uh, by Robert Fuller, titled, uh, Spiritual But Not Religious, he, he says that this type of, uh, spirituality, uh, not the mainline and, uh, you know, uh, stressing the individualistical aspect, which is not new, which, uh, is very old in American tradition. And, uh, you mentioned some, several examples.
Uh, the Quakers is a very good example. So, uh,
(throat clearing)
in this light, we must, uh, re-uh, evaluate the history of religions. Uh, the organized religions always has other aspects, uh, in the periphery, uh, when the organized religions are predominant, still there are many, uh, unorganized, you know, phenomena, which is close to what we call new spirituality. Okay.
[00:58:07] STUDENT:
Uh, yes, perhaps a couple of, um, points. Uh, do you know William Johnston, the, uh, Jesuit, uh, who was actually at University of Tokyo and, uh, did studies with Zen and related to Catholic? And with that, I would also think of Thomas Merton and some of the movement in centering prayer which has been happening via his work.
If you could comment perhaps on that.
[00:58:35] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Yes. So the, uh, the ecumenical, uh, tradition, ecumenical orientation, uh, in modern, uh, religions, uh, I think, uh, they prepared the new, you know, very broad stream, uh, I introduced today. And so I think, uh, what looks like new is not new sometimes, you know.
You, you, your, uh, suggestion is very, uh, timely, I think. Thank you.
[00:59:16] STUDENT:
Thank you so much for this talk. Uh, the– what you call properly the salvation religions have often been very comfortable places for people of very weak faith or no faith at all, uh, because they offer forms of spirituality that aren’t totalistic or ideological. Mm-hmm.
This has changed over time and place. Mm-hmm. We’re at a bad time now, I think, because those salvation religions have been variously captured from the inside or by the hierarchy, uh, by fundamentalists convictions.
And it’s certainly fundamentalism that you didn’t set aside as a category here, interestingly, that’s particularly terrifying. And it happens in all sorts of ways, whether we’re talking about the Roman Catholic Curia or about breakaway movements in the Anglican Church. I mean, we don’t even have to look at the, at, at fundamentalist Protestantism or at, uh, or at Islam.
So I wonder how– Uh, and I think a good deal of this spiritualist energy and conviction has come from persons who might have been disposed to have a comfortable but distant relationship with non-tyrannical salvation religions. People who find those places no longer comfortable.
So I, I’m curious what you, uh, would have to say about the fundamentalist leanings, not only in, uh, fundamentalist Islam right now, but let’s say in either Roman Catholicism or in, uh, Anglicanism.
[01:01:21] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Yes. So, uh, it’s, uh, an important point. Uh, I raised three elements of the revival of religion or de-secularization.
And the first point is the, is the move back to traditional religion, but it is often in the form of fundamentalist, or I would say, uh, politically oriented, uh, religious force. Uh, it is not good to say, uh, fundamentalist, for example, the, the, uh, Hindu nationalist, they are very different. But, uh, nationalism, uh, for them, uh, com-combined with religion can make them strong, you know.
So the religion and politics, uh, can become correlated in various places, and, uh, this is a very widely found phenomenon. In Japan, uh, the state has, uh, some religious, you know, uh, uh, meaning and those who are, uh, who do not, who are not satisfied with the contemporary political situation in Japan, what is called right, right-wing people, uh, are now tending to, uh, emphasize the religious elements of, uh, the state. The emperor is playing an important role in that.
So this, uh, is not, uh, uh, only in salvation religion, you know? Mm-hmm.
(clears throat)
Politically oriented religions, uh, but supported by, uh, many Lankan five people or, or, you know, uh, Ordinary people gain power in joining the movements. This is very uh modern, you know, and, uh, new. Uh, religions, uh, organized, but, uh, in up to the, uh, early modern times, maybe
(eeeh)
leaders have, uh, great power, but, uh, Lankan five people are not. They, they are only the, uh, you know, passive, you know, uh, player of the game. But, uh, in modern times, uh, these people can get power by themselves.
This is a very new, uh, things. And in salvation religious tradition, this has brought various difficult things, I think. In Japan, new religions, uh, Uh, the leaders are not, are not very educated people.
Uh, but when controlled by the state, it had a, uh, you know, organized a good community. But, uh, when the state control is loosened, uh, they can become very violent. Uh, this kind of, uh, freedom, uh, accelerate religious violence.
This is, I think, new.
[01:04:57] ANDREW SZERI:
I think the great majority of people have lived in homogeneously religious, uh, societies. Um, but because of, uh, mixing and communication, now, uh, people receive many, uh, different inputs from different religions. Do you think this is connected with the rise of spirituality?
[01:05:19] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Oh, yes. Uh, mm-hmm. So popular religious movements, uh, mm, has, uh, uh, developed since maybe, uh, the Reformation in, in, in the West.
The, the, uh, some of them are very individualistic Quakers and so, uh, very famous, uh, such as the sociologist of religion, Troeltsch. Uh, so, uh, mm, discussed that it is a mysticism. Mysticism.
Mysticism, popular movement, but mysticism. This is very individualistic oriented. I think this is the, uh, ancestor of contemporary, uh, spiritual– new spirituality movements.
But, um, many of them, more of them are organized and, uh, very communal religions, uh, at that time. So the tendency is from, uh, community to individuality. Uh, this is a big change.
Uh, participation, participation by the ordinary people, but they used to unite together, led by local leadership, but now they are independently connect with, uh, uh, media figure Or something, uh, like that.
[01:06:54] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
I’d again like to thank you for a very, uh, uh, wonderful presentation. You had so many cogent points, it’s hard to respond to any one in particular. But I’d like to follow up on the, the lady’s, uh, mention about fundamentalism because it’s tied in very much with the what’s current events, and because it also relates in something I’ve been reflecting on.
I… There’s a conflation of beliefs with, uh, narratives, uh, religious narratives. So the old saying, you can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time.
So, uh, people buy into these dominant narratives within a certain religious culture. I, I’ve lived in Israel and so I’ll give that a study example. So if you follow the, the, uh, narrative of the, um, uh, Diaspora.
And, uh, the Zionistic you went Zionistic, you buy into the Zionistic conclusion, you have to go to Israel, and it’s an apocalyptic war to save the history of the Jewish people. Then if you’re born again, then you buy into the another type of apocalypse where you have to go to the Middle East to fight, you know, the, the evil S- Satan there. And if you’re Islam, frankly, you’re actually defending yourself from the onslaught of a hundred years of, you know, American foreign, um, you know… or excuse me, hundreds of years of, uh, imperialistic domination.
So and of course, you combine them all, they’re taking the whole world to hell. And so I’d just like to suggest we need to examine our narratives. This is, you know, and not conflate them with re-re-religious beliefs, ’cause that’s when you get a very toxic recipe for vi– incre– aggress– uh, increasing aggressing violence.
And I, again, so many points. I just… Very wonderful and beautiful presentation.
[01:08:58] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Thank you. Thank you. So the, uh, it is increasingly difficult to share the, the, the, uh, narratives, which is very, very important for human beings, uh, shared memories.
Uh, and, and they construct the traditions by which we can live. But it’s, it is more and more difficult to have that kind of, uh, important past. So we, we are very much irritated that, uh, we are disconnected with the past.
So-
[01:09:33] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
mm-hmm.
(laughter)
[01:09:36] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Right. Right, right. So the, the irritation is ex-expressed, you know, as, as fundamentalism.
[01:09:45] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Thank you very much for your talk. Um, I was very struck by something which you said and also wrote in the notes here, namely that, um, almost half of religiously active persons in Japan now follow the new religions. And I was wondering whether you, you touched upon this briefly in the religion of the housewife, which seems to have a very large following and seems to be communally organized.
But I was wondering whether you could, um, talk a little bit more about others, other new religions that have a direct impact on contemporary Japanese society. Mm-hmm. The one I think most people are familiar with is, um, Shinrikyo, but this has to be just one very small aspect of this broad phenomenon.
[01:10:38] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Right.
(laughter)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Uh, one very important, uh, example is Soka Gakkai.
Soka Gakkai or Nichiren Shoshu. Uh, this is an, uh, Buddhist new religion, and, uh, they organized, uh, they are organizing a political party. So if you– the, the majority, uh, ruling party keeps, uh, its power, they need to, you know, borrow powers from the, this, uh, clean government party organized by Soka Gakkai.
So the popular religious movement, the, the, uh, they claim that they have, uh, sixteen million followers. It’s, it’s an ex-exaggeration. Maybe the real membership is, uh, maybe four million, but they can get ten, about ten percent of the, uh, total voting.
So the popular religious movements in Japan, uh, is best, very influential.
[01:11:38] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Mm-hmm.
[01:11:39] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
And we must be very careful, uh, that, uh, uh, the, the, the power is so attractive, you know? So religion can be more, you know, oriented to a good life,
(laughter)
But not the power.
(coughs)
[01:12:01] STANLEY BRANDES:
Yes. Uh, thank you very much. I, I would just say, uh, as a student of, um, Alcoholics Anonymous in Latin America, uh, that the adherents insist they are spiritual.
This is a spiritual movement, but there are so many religious aspects to it, and I think it’s one kind of blanket term that can be used in order to gain adherence to a very, uh, widespread movement. One other thing not directly related is that Professor Shimazono belongs to a group of Japanese scholars and alumni who have been associated with our university, who gave us as a gift the beautiful Japanese lantern that is at the entrance to this, uh, alumni house. And, um, I don’t know when we, when we erected that, but it’s absolutely beautiful, especially surrounded by all the flowering azaleas and rhododendron.
[01:13:07] SUSUMU SHIMAZONO:
Yes. And it is not a dangerous group. Yeah, you’re right.
[01:13:12] STANLEY BRANDES:
So thank you very much, and thank all of you for coming on this beautiful day. Thank you.
(applause)
