Legitimizing an Evil Teaching: Deguchi Onisaburō and “Superstition” in Modern Japan

This article examines the writings of Deguchi Onisaburō, the cofounder of Omoto, and argues that he actively utilized the discourse of “superstition” to criticize a variety of contemporaneous religious movements and by doing so, legitimize Omoto as the only “true” religion destined to save Japan. Scholars of modern Japanese religions have highlighted the ways in which intellectuals, journalists, and proponents of mainstream religions condemned new religions as “superstitious and evil teachings” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet, an analysis of how new religions themselves responded to the charge of superstition has been neglected. Onisaburō was one of the most prominent religious figures in the early 1900s and possibly the public face of “superstition.” However, this article demonstrates that Onisaburō himself appropriated the language of superstition in his own writings, instead of rejecting it. More specifically, he used it to characterize established religions represented by Shinto and Buddhist institutions as backward and vilify other contemporaneous religious practices as worthless delusions. According to him, the teachings of Omoto alone represented the path forward for modern Japan. This article thus reverses the prevailing understanding of the discourse of superstition in modern Japan as simply targeting and demeaning new religions. Representatives of new religions also internalized it and invoked it to further their goals.