Japanese Ghost Stories: Spirits, Hauntings, and Paranormal Phenomena Read online

  The government subsequently prosecuted sixty-one key Omoto leaders, all of whom were convicted for disturbing the public peace. Authorities then dynamited the sect’s facilities, with the damage so severe that the fires burned for over a month. They also dug up the grave of Deguchi Nao, destroying not only her tomb, but also all of the surrounding trees. Her remains were then moved to the corner of a public cemetery and given a cheap wooden marker. The Deguchi family tomb was also desecrated, as was the charnel house for Omoto followers. Still more, the symbol of the Omoto sect was erased from all headstones where it was displayed.

  In September 1945, Deguchi Onisaburo was again acquitted and released, and in February the following year he restarted Omoto under the name Aizenen. He died on January 19, 1948, at the age of seventy-six. The Omoto sect still exists today.

  Like so many eccentrics in the world of Japan’s supernatural, Chonan and the Deguchis reflect a long lineage of mystics and psychics, each claiming or demonstrating unique gifts. Tanaka Morihei (1882–1928), for example, felt he could see through bodies and heal disease. In 1911 he showed his psychic powers in China and Mongolia, where he announced he was a human deity. Controlling mind and spirit through the practice of reishi, the flamboyant Tanaka engaged in a wide variety of activities, including standing for the House of Representatives, founding a healing clinic, and quarreling with the Omoto sect.

  Another controversial figure was Hamaguchi Yugaku (1878–1943), a healer who treated patients by slicing his hands in the air. His therapy must have been effective, because even journalists and police detectives became his patients, along with members of the aristocracy. In 1926 he traveled to America to show his powers and compete as a magician. He won, garnering a considerable sum of prize money. Regarded as strange and even somewhat retarded in his childhood, Hamaguchi told fortunes and trained as a monk. As an adult he married four times, and had numerous mistresses. In his huge house he would host almost nightly saké parties, ostensibly to dispel the sadness he always felt. As his healing fame spread, people waited day and night outside his front door to see him, but police, spurred by a nervous Meiji government that frowned on potentially disruptive psychic activities, arrested him countless times. He was usually released because his activity was argued to be spiritual rather than medical.

  A much quieter sort was Kuwahara Tennen, (1873–1906). A former teacher who had taught himself hypnotism from books, Kuwahara eventually wrote a best-selling book on mystical practice. Born in Gifu Prefecture, in 1903 he moved to Tokyo, where he continued to develop his mental and spiritual powers. As a healer he sucked up phlegm and pus from sick patients—even those with tuberculosis—with his mouth, calling his psychic healing power “benevolence.” He later died of tuberculosis.

  Such phenomena, eagerly covered by the print media, ensured that Japanese interest in the supernatural would remain strong, even in defiance of government disapproval. In 1930, for example, there were some thirty thousand known psychic healers throughout Japan. Understandably, most patients simply sought easy cures, with little or no deep interest in the supernatural or psychic powers. But at the same time there was a veritable boom in paranormal training and display, as growing numbers of more curious people sought to explore the unexplainable for themselves. Buddhism had long taught the importance of the “sixth sense,” or the minds of the conscious and subconscious, and mystic seekers sought to further explore this, as well as the dimensions of the seventh and eight senses. Here, the supernatural was no longer “super,” but normal and accessible. People with obvious psychic gifts were often regarded as pointers along the mystic path by those committed enough to undertake the arduous journey.

  Research, both individual and institutional, continued after the Second World War. Several new organizations were founded, including the Japan Society for Parapsychology, the Japan Association for Psychotronic Research, and the Japan Nengurafii Association. Nengurafii, or metal-bending ability, was claimed by the teenager Kiyota Masuaki, who was touted as the Japanese Uri Geller, and extensive experiments with him were carried out in 1977. Several of these tests were filmed for American television in “Exploring the Unknown,” a ninety-minute program aired by the National Broadcasting Company on October 30, 1977.

  The stage for present-day supernatural investigations had been firmly set.

  CHAPTER THREE

  New Forays into the Mystic

  The small room at Nippon Medical School is an unlikely setting for Zen meditation, but Sato Daishin, a Rinzaisect Buddhist, does not seem to mind. Arranging his simple monk’s robe, he settles himself comfortably on the cushion to prepare himself for sitting meditation, or zazen. Round about him on the floor is a mess of coaxial cables, which are also attached to an antenna positioned two meters behind him. No cables touch the monk, but the antenna will nevertheless pick up his body’s electromagnetic field. To protect against interference, the four walls and ceiling have been shielded with a fine metal mesh curtain.

  As Sato Daishin begins his forty-five-minute meditation, Nomura Harehiko, the physicist who invented the antenna, and Kawano Kimiko, a physicist at Nippon Medical School, begin the measurement. The monk’s breathing slows to about three breaths per minute, with the out breath as long as twenty-five to twenty-eight seconds. The room becomes stiflingly hot, and halfway through the meditation the monk’s concentration breaks, but is expertly recovered. Later, the antenna readings are plotted according to Fourier analysis, which determines the harmonic components of a complex waveform. The conclusion drawn from the sharp spikes on the graph is that as he meditates, the monk naturally emits ki.

  For Nomura and Kawano, once again the mystic practice of meditation has successfully met modern science in this experiment designed to research and measure ki, the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character chi, or qi. No discussion of spiritual or supernatural energies in Japan is possible without mentioning ki, an ancient metaphysical principle integral to Asian philosophy. Never clearly defined, even in Asia, ki is difficult to translate directly, but can be understood as the fundamental creative energy which permeates all things. There is the ki of the universe, as well as individual ki, usually manifested in breath power. Ki practitioners believe that at the core of every human being lies this world-forming energy waiting to be individually awakened.

  Ki has more than four thousand years of history in China, where it is also expressed in the form of yin-yang dualism. From this arose the Chinese Five Elements Theory and the Book of Changes, or I-Ching, probably the first book to teach the Chinese people about the variations of ki in nature and humans. In India ki was known as prana ; the ancient Greeks called it pneuma. Today, training in so-called internal ki ko (qi gong in Chinese) is concerned with personal health improvement and heightened spiritual development. External ki ko, on the other hand, is often used as a form of psychic healing, and can be an effective martial art.

  Experiments in the physical measurement of ki have been a consuming interest of Nomura Harehiko for the last seven or so years. Officially the senior researcher in the superconductor application lab at MITI’s electrotechnical laboratory at Tsukuba Science City, Nomura is also an inventor who has studied at America’s M.I.T. Describing himself as a “professional of ki,” he conducts numerous experiments into its physical nature. He is also a founding member of the Mind Body Society, a group of some eight hundred members drawn from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, but which has also attracted mystics and philosophers. Founded in 1990, the society holds annual meetings which witness the results of its latest scientific research, including exploration of the supernatural.

  Nomura explains that the human body is a wave emitter and that actually all living things emit and receive electromagnetic waves through the skin, an organ which once played a much more vital role in communication than it does now. Telepathy, for example, may have been an everyday, ancient ability, the art of which gradually disappeared through the centuries. Because an electromagnetic wave is very com
plex, Nomura measures what he calls the “power average” emitted from meditating monks. Emission of ki as evidenced by the sharp spikes is extremely important in ki practice. Nomura points out that the spike can be negative, at which time it is taking in energy because the monk is absorbing energy, or healing himself. A positive spike shows that the monk is emitting ki or releasing energy, which means that he is potentially healing others.

  Some ki ko practitioners believe that the ancient practice of healing by laying on of hands is most likely a subtle form of electrical stimulation. The human body is made up of numerous and varying electrically conductive materials, which create a living electromagnetic field and circuit. Electromagnetic energy is being continuously generated in the human body through normal biochemical processes, as well as by the electromagnetic forces deep within the cells. In addition, human beings are being constantly affected by external electromagnetic fields arising from the earth below and the sky above.

  In fact, every cell of the human body functions like an electric battery able to store electric charges. Actually, the human body is like a huge battery assembled from millions and millions of tiny batteries. All these batteries together constitute the human electromagnetic field. Each body cell can function like a miniature radio receiver, with a characteristic, measurable frequency. Before the cell can receive other frequencies, it requires an electric potential (voltage), which it draws from the water that constitutes about sixty to sixty-five percent of the adult human body. The human body seems specifically designed to receive fundamental energies in the form of vibrations from its surroundings.

  Despite its long history in East Asia, ki has only in the last century become a legitimate topic of research at Japanese universities and scientific institutions. Trailblazers include Motoyama Hiroshi, with his work in the paranormal as well as ki. Using a technique known as meridian measurement, Motoyama used electrodes strategically placed on the fingers to send voltage pulses which demonstrate the path of internal ki. Machi Yoshio, of Tokyo Denki University, is well known for his measurement of internal ki as it relates to brain waves. A close friend and sometime research associate of Nomura, Machi believes that ki may have properties similar to a wave, and that it may be emitted from and received by special points in the body known as tsubo in acupuncture. Recent research has shown that the conductivity of the skin is much higher at these acupuncture cavities, which can be pinpointed precisely simply by measuring the skin’s conductivity. Today, guided by Machi, Tokyo Denki University researchers are continuing investigations of ki emissions, while at Tohoku Technology University ki ko practitioners have been found to be able to control their movement of ki, an ability that manifests itself through such acts as emitting light from the center of the forehead, the same area marked by a crystal in ancient statues of Buddha.

  For those who want to see ki power in action, an exciting display is routinely staged by Nishino Kozo, founder of the Nishino Ballet Group, in Shibuya. Now sixty-eight years old, Nishino was fifty when he started studying the martial arts of kenpo, or Japanese fencing, and aikido, which means the “way” (do) of “harmony” (ai) with ki. He rapidly developed a breathing technique meant to harness and circulate internal ki, and each week, several hundred students are, one by one, tossed or sent somersaulting about the room by Nishino’s seemingly effortless use of ki.

  Typically thrown back and upward onto a large, soft wall, students scream, giggle, twist, turn, and tumble, all the while apologizing or saying thank you. Even those in their seventies and eighties seem to have bodies which have suddenly turned into rubber. Some flip over and bounce down on their heads. Others roll off into the corner and have to be stopped by waiting assistant instructors. Successfully catering to a burgeoning public interest in perceived ki power, Nishino boasts a considerable following that includes several company presidents, as well as doctors, university professors, monks, martial artists, students, and the elderly. He now has twenty-eight assistant instructors, all of whom wear the uniform of a white polo shirt and dark pants.

  Nishino, who had planned to be a doctor but gave up medical studies at the age of twenty-two to become a ballet dancer, believes that the energy of ki is fundamental. In fact, he is convinced that ki is a form of communication that takes place at the level of the body’s DNA. He hypothesizes the existence of what he calls a “biospark,” a spark of energy— ki —inside the cell. According to Nishino, a protein promoter releases the potential of the biospark, and this promoter can be stimulated through breathing techniques and ki training. The everyday breathing pattern of the majority of people is extremely shallow, but it can be changed so as to affect the body’s cells more deeply. Nishino explains that students seem so happy when they receive ki because communication with the body’s deeper internal level is very joyful for the cells, which experience a heightened energy exchange. A flamboyant, visibly energetic man, Nishino also claims his ki is so strong that it can change the color of diamonds.

  In mainland China, training techniques were kept secret until the last twenty years, but instructors are now flocking to Japan to meet a booming interest in such ki- related arts as taikyokuken (taijiquan in Chinese) and ki- based healing therapy. The Chinese have long believed that human life depends upon proper circulation of ki in the body, and that stagnant or stopped-up ki leads to illness. Ki ko practitioners can train their ki to circulate more smoothly, and can also let it flow to help others. To this end training encompasses both internal and external exercises, usually through meditation and specialized physical movements.

  There are three main types of ki. Heaven ki comprises the forces exerted upon the earth by the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets, and as such it controls weather, climate, and natural disasters. Rainstorms and tornadoes are a way for Heaven ki to recover its energy balance, which must be maintained. Located beneath Heaven ki is earth ki, which is made up of lines and patterns of energy across the earth’s surface, as well as the strong heat hidden in the earth’s core. Earthquakes are also a means of recovering essential energy balance. The third type of ki exists within each individual person, animal, and plant. When this personal ki field is out of alignment, living beings grow sick and die, eventually decomposing.

  Despite these seemingly clear-cut classifications, the East Asian definition of ki is actually quite broad, and ki can be generally defined as any type of energy that shows strength and power, including light, heat, magnetism, and electricity. Different energy states can also be called ki.

  Well-attended classes on releasing ki potential are taught by Kurita Masahiro, a former Buddhist priest who is now a physician on the Faculty of Medicine at Tokyo University. The author of more than seventeen books, Kurita regularly appears on television to showcase his ki- related finger rotation exercises and super reading skills. Kurita, who undertook mystic training for more than nine years, sees ki as a type of information connecting body and mind; one that can dramatically change our lives. If one can hear music, Kurita assures us, then one can also learn to hear the vibration inherent in all things, including plants, the earth, and even the sun, moon, and stars. He believes that such abilities, usually seen as supernatural, or as a type of “superpower,” are not super at all, but normal, and that human beings need only train to awaken such latent, inherent talents.

  MITI allocated government funds to undertake a preliminary look into the paranormal and such topics as ki in a “sensitivity study” begun in October 1992 and completed in May 1993. The report’s preliminary conclusion was that Japan ought to begin integrating existing knowledge from diverse fields to create a fusion of information that will shape future scientific research. The long-term objective, of course, is to better understand such phenomena as the “sixth sense” and the mechanism behind ki power, as well as telepathy, various psychic abilities, and even the mystical experience.

  Within MITI there has been an informal study group dedicated to exploring the supernatural. Every month the group receives some sort of demonstr
ation or lecture in supernatural powers. Guests have included Uri Geller, the controversial Israeli psychic best known for his spoon-bending feats, as well as Chinese ki practitioners. Even Asahara Shoko, the leader of AUM Supreme Truth, the doomsday cult that achieved notoriety after nerve gas attacks attributed to it in 1994 and 1995, was scheduled to show his levitation talents. The former head of this MITI study group, Hashimoto Hayashi, who now teaches at Saitama University, believes that rational, scientific methods can be used to explain what is currently viewed as irrational and inexplicable.

  By combining high technology with more esoteric energies, Japanese researchers may eventually be able to create different models for perceiving both the phenomenal and supernatural worlds. One recent theory supposes the existence of a “neuron modulator,” akin to a spiritual “field” running through nerves—a biological counterpart to the field theory of the new physics. Development of such theories may mean that the phenomenon of “sixth sense” will soon be explainable scientifically. Some MITI researchers are hopeful that the traditional, static models long used to explain the universe will be replaced by dynamic models that perceive things in a new way. Inomata Shuichi, who was the chief researcher at MITI’s electrotechnical laboratory, hypothesized that ki is akin to a neutrino, an elementary particle at the level of the conscious mind. A founder of Japan Conscience Engineering, Inomata has proposed a mathematical transformation formula based on Einstein’s principle E=MC 2 to illustrate the existence of ki.

  Social scientists have noted that the collapse of the so-called bubble economy of the mid-1980s is prompting renewed awareness of considerations beyond the material world. Increasing numbers of Japanese are openly questioning what life is all about. Beneath the glitter of economic prosperity is stirring an individual search for deeper meaning that may well come to include the supernatural. This explains, in part, the current enthusiasm for joining new religious groups. Notwithstanding negative publicity over AUM Supreme Truth, religion thrives in Japan, a nation with a long history of sects and fringe cults. Many sects have taken a cue from Omoto, with former members leaving to set up splinter groups. And although women have typically been accorded a more lowly status than men in modern Japanese society, they have played key roles in cults through the ages, with female mystics often being the founders of new organizations. Their intuition and sha-manic gifts have been recognized and valued, and women have many times been seen as having easier access to the realm of the supernatural.