Sunday, June 18, 2006

More on Dr. Shioya

I've not managed to find much in English about Nobuo Shioya (see previous post), but if you click on the links labeled English 1 and English 2 on this site, you can read about the health technique Shioya has been promoting recently.

Note: As you will see from the comments below, I did not realize when I originally wrote this post that there is a rather serious mistranslation in the English pages linked to above. The title of one of Shioya's book is translated as "Health, Long-life and Euthanasia" on that site. However, I've just checked with pheonix3000, and "euthanasia" is definitely a mistranslation...apparently, the word for euthanasia sounds the same as this part of the title in Japanese, but is written with different kanji. The real meaning of this part of the title is something like "gentle and easy death".

When I wrote the Tenjou post a few months back, I was not sure if this was the same man as the one who provided Okada with the explanations concerning the role of Yo (as stated in Mahikari primary kenshu), but it seems it is the same man.

Back in the late 40s and 50s, Shioya was very active in psychic research and various psychic/spiritual divination techniques. For 8 of those years, he "received revelations" from the Oomine Rousen "guiding spirit". Shioya was co-founder of Makoto no Michi, a group which practices what they call "manate"...basically tekazashi without the omitama.

I'm still trying to find out exactly how much Shioya influenced Okada and the shape of the Mahikari organizations. Still, since Okada clearly relied on Shioya's explanations concerning his all-important role of Yo, we know there was at least some influence.

So, half a lifetime later, what is Shioya doing? Is he still promoting healing from the hands, revelations, etc? No. These days he is promoting a breathing technique (to increase the supply of oxygen to the physical cells) and use of positive affirmations. Doesn't that tell us something?

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anne

Most interesting reading about Dr Shioya. This guy has written about Euthanasia as well as Long Life. Isnt SM against suicide? I doubt the Okadas would like to be linked to him, as it would certainly cause an uproar if SM were to be identified as "cultish" encouraging its members to kill themselves (like Jonestown stuff).

A friend of mine who works with the Light enabling earthbound spirits to return to the Light attended one SM ceremony and he said that the Light emanating from the hands of those kumites giving okiyome was so dim or non existent he remarked that they were really wasting their time! Now that is food for thought. Imagine giving light for hours on end with no tangible result forthcoming. So who is deceiving who?

June 18, 2006  
Blogger Anne said...

Hi Butterfly,

That was very observant of you. I had read the "euthanasia" word in that book title, but not really thought about it.

I must check this out and get back to you, but I've a funny feeling that "euthanasia" might be a mistranslation...it doesn't fit at all well with the rest of the content.

I suspect that these titles are not available in Emglish, and that the person who translated that part of the site into English simply gave a translated version of the Japanese titles.

June 19, 2006  
Blogger Anne said...

Butterfly,

I have now checked, and euthanasia IS a mistranslation (see the note I've added to the above post). Thank you for drawing my attention to this.

June 19, 2006  
Blogger Anne said...

Hi Joe,

I get the impression from reading about the backgrounds of various founders of post-war Japanese religious groups that there was fairly free movement between these groups. In the 50s and 60s, these new groups were quite tiny, and I suspect that membership was initially fairly informal. In some cases, there seems to have been some level of involvement with more than one group at a time.

I think we tend to expect that "belonging" to a religion is an all-or-nothing affair, which involves concepts of "us" and "them". However, I'm starting to get an impression that, in that era, there was a kind of primordial spiritual/psychic soup, in which Okada, Shioya, and others had some degree of contact and awareness of what each other was doing.

June 19, 2006  
Blogger darwin said...

Anne,

A pleasant day!!!

I read about the article written by Medical Doctor (Nobuo Shioya Shioya-shiki Seishin Chosoku-ho (Breathing practice with right mind devised)).
i am quite confuse on the hand position of SUZU NO IN.

Suzu no In

Except lying posture, the position of the hands is right hand over the left
hand in front of your navel at the distance of one fist. Left hand sits
horizontally. Put your right hand over your left hand vertically. Grasp
both hands each other as if you hold the small egg within them. Cross your
right thumb over your left thumb. The angle of both your arms are at 90
degrees. Both of your arms touch your body softly. This hands posture is
called "Suzu no In" (sign of the bell).


Can you please help me to do it properly?

It would be a great help if you send me a picture of the above mentioned hand posture...


Thank you Very much...


darwin

February 28, 2010  
Blogger Anne said...

That description is certainly confusing!

There's a picture of it here:

http://www.seishin-chosokuho.net/pdf-suzunoin.pdf

February 28, 2010  

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