Myths used to substantiate Sūkyō Mahikari - Conclusion
Finally, we're at the last item on my list of substantiating myths...the archeological "findings" that support Okada's version of history.
Okada claimed that people were living in Japan a million years ago, and that future archeological finds would prove him correct. Such confident predictions imply that Okada was receiving privileged information from God. I guess it would tend to bolster Okada's credibility (with some people, at least) if his predictions did prove to be correct. Conversely, failure to find evidence proves nothing. Sūkyō Mahikari can simply claim that the evidence hasn't been found yet.
You may remember Keishu's teachings from October 5, 1996, in which she reports that:
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.
Further on in the same teachings she says, Facts unthinkable according to ideas commonly held until now are coming to light and being proved by archaeology. The predictions Sukuinushisama made regarding the great expanse of human history are turning out to be correct.
There is an excellent and detailed article concerning these archeological "findings" on this page of the Mahikari Exposed site, so I'll let you read the details there. Just briefly, it turns out that the evidence of 600,000 year-old tools was faked.
Shin'ichi Fujimura, an archaeologist, was caught on video planting the artifacts at a site he was working on, and admitted that he had planted almost all of the artifacts that had been regarded as proof of people being in Japan 600,000 years ago.
It seems there is plenty of reliable archaeological evidence from the Late Palaeolithic period, which dates from about 35,000 years ago until 12,000 years ago. However, as of November 2001, no reliable evidence of any earlier human habitation had been found, despite plenty of searching. What about in the last 4 years? Does anyone know if anything has been found yet?
I should point out that Mahikari itself is not implicated in this hoax. Firstly, this series of events simply illustrates Keishu's very human fallibility. If Okada was receiving inside information from God, and if he is still guiding Keishu from the world of spirit, why didn't Keishu know the finds were a hoax? Secondly, these events serve to remind us that evidence to back up Okada's claim has still not been found.
So....round about now, you might be wondering why I bothered to draw up this list of "substantiating myths", and why I spent the last few weeks questioning their validity. Well, my logic process goes something like this.
I think that the really fundamental premise underlying anyone's belief in Mahikari is that its founder, Okada, was something special; that he received divine revelations containing "all the truth", and that God gave him a special divine role. If we believe that, then we are still kumite. If Okada was not someone special, then the entire basis of Mahikari crashes.
So, what does Mahikari present to people to convince them to believe the above? We have the contents of Okada's revelations from God (Goseigen and his other teachings), we have okiyome, and we have the "substantiating myths"...the peripheral stories, starting with the "dog story", that we are told to bolster Okada's reputation as a holy man. My plan was to work through these elements one by one, and see how much was left.
What do you think? Are any of those substantiating myths still worth anything in terms of making us think Okada was special?
What about okiyome? Even after writing those 4 posts back in the December archives, I'm still not sure exactly what I think. Either its not special....or it is special but Mahikari doesn't have a monopoly on it.
Various sources, including Davis, have already noted that Okada borrowed okiyome from SKK, which in turn derived its spiritual purification/healing technique from Ōmoto. I've recently seen a genealogy of groups, prepared by another former member, that are direct or indirect offshoots of Mahikari or SKK. Altogether he has identified and verified 14 different offshoot groups from SKK that practice some form of "okiyome". If we add in Ōmoto and SKK, that's 16 groups, and that's before we add in groups that practice pranic healing, reiki, etc. (Keep an eye on Mahikari Exposed. I believe this genealogy will be published there soon.)
So, regardless of what we think about okiyome itself, it doesn't appear to provide proof of Okada being "special".
As far as I can see, that only leaves one thing as the sole foundation of belief in Sūkyō Mahikari...Okada's revelations.
No prizes for guessing what I'll be writing about next time I have enough free time to write a new post!
Okada claimed that people were living in Japan a million years ago, and that future archeological finds would prove him correct. Such confident predictions imply that Okada was receiving privileged information from God. I guess it would tend to bolster Okada's credibility (with some people, at least) if his predictions did prove to be correct. Conversely, failure to find evidence proves nothing. Sūkyō Mahikari can simply claim that the evidence hasn't been found yet.
You may remember Keishu's teachings from October 5, 1996, in which she reports that:
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.
Further on in the same teachings she says, Facts unthinkable according to ideas commonly held until now are coming to light and being proved by archaeology. The predictions Sukuinushisama made regarding the great expanse of human history are turning out to be correct.
There is an excellent and detailed article concerning these archeological "findings" on this page of the Mahikari Exposed site, so I'll let you read the details there. Just briefly, it turns out that the evidence of 600,000 year-old tools was faked.
Shin'ichi Fujimura, an archaeologist, was caught on video planting the artifacts at a site he was working on, and admitted that he had planted almost all of the artifacts that had been regarded as proof of people being in Japan 600,000 years ago.
It seems there is plenty of reliable archaeological evidence from the Late Palaeolithic period, which dates from about 35,000 years ago until 12,000 years ago. However, as of November 2001, no reliable evidence of any earlier human habitation had been found, despite plenty of searching. What about in the last 4 years? Does anyone know if anything has been found yet?
I should point out that Mahikari itself is not implicated in this hoax. Firstly, this series of events simply illustrates Keishu's very human fallibility. If Okada was receiving inside information from God, and if he is still guiding Keishu from the world of spirit, why didn't Keishu know the finds were a hoax? Secondly, these events serve to remind us that evidence to back up Okada's claim has still not been found.
So....round about now, you might be wondering why I bothered to draw up this list of "substantiating myths", and why I spent the last few weeks questioning their validity. Well, my logic process goes something like this.
I think that the really fundamental premise underlying anyone's belief in Mahikari is that its founder, Okada, was something special; that he received divine revelations containing "all the truth", and that God gave him a special divine role. If we believe that, then we are still kumite. If Okada was not someone special, then the entire basis of Mahikari crashes.
So, what does Mahikari present to people to convince them to believe the above? We have the contents of Okada's revelations from God (Goseigen and his other teachings), we have okiyome, and we have the "substantiating myths"...the peripheral stories, starting with the "dog story", that we are told to bolster Okada's reputation as a holy man. My plan was to work through these elements one by one, and see how much was left.
What do you think? Are any of those substantiating myths still worth anything in terms of making us think Okada was special?
What about okiyome? Even after writing those 4 posts back in the December archives, I'm still not sure exactly what I think. Either its not special....or it is special but Mahikari doesn't have a monopoly on it.
Various sources, including Davis, have already noted that Okada borrowed okiyome from SKK, which in turn derived its spiritual purification/healing technique from Ōmoto. I've recently seen a genealogy of groups, prepared by another former member, that are direct or indirect offshoots of Mahikari or SKK. Altogether he has identified and verified 14 different offshoot groups from SKK that practice some form of "okiyome". If we add in Ōmoto and SKK, that's 16 groups, and that's before we add in groups that practice pranic healing, reiki, etc. (Keep an eye on Mahikari Exposed. I believe this genealogy will be published there soon.)
So, regardless of what we think about okiyome itself, it doesn't appear to provide proof of Okada being "special".
As far as I can see, that only leaves one thing as the sole foundation of belief in Sūkyō Mahikari...Okada's revelations.
No prizes for guessing what I'll be writing about next time I have enough free time to write a new post!
posted by Anne at 3:38 PM
1 Comments:
Given that I can make myself feel as if I'm 'receiving okiyome' this very instant, simply by focussing my attention on any part of my body - say my knee - I really don't think there is anything mystic going on with okiyome at all. I simply pay attention to my knee, I don't even raise my hand in a quasi-giving-Light gesture - it starts tingling as soon as I pay attention to it - with exactly the same sensations as I got when I was giving Light to it - sensations of pressure, tingling, heat, the whole bit.
Nw either I'm some sort of amazing healing guru (and I strenuously deny that!), or the whole effect of giving and receiving okiyome simply pays tribute to the immense power of our conscious and subconscious minds - but no higher spiritual power.
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