Founders of New Religious Movements

Founders of New Religious Movements (SHINTO) One of the most fascinating phenomena in Japanese religions is the astonishing emergence of new religious movements (NRMs, shin shukyō in Japanese) and sects since the early 1800s throughout the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That was a time when Japan was experiencing a major political change from the feudal Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868) to that of the Meiji regime (1868-1912) and his European-style government. It was also a time of rapid modernization and adaptation of Western ideas after some two centuries of near complete isolation from the rest of the world. Such socio-political and cultural context was conducive to the emergence of a number of shin shukyō that offered alternative modes of religious faith and belonging to distinguish from the traditional religions. Many were typically established by a prophetic foundress experiencing a revelatory experience, a shamanic practice that traces its history back to Japanese folk traditions. Women had long functioned as mediums and dancers at Shinto shrines, blind shamanic diviners and folk healers. However, with the Meiji regime promoting the adoption of Western medicine, in 1873 a new imperial order officially prohibited independent shamans to conduct exorcisms, performing divination and healing rituals. Consequently, folk healers - many of whom were women – and foundresses of newly established religious groups faced continuous harassment and systematic eradication by authorities. During this transition, they integrated into established religious structures in order to avoid suppression by authorities that feared their idiosyncratic accounts of gender roles and heterodox healing practices.