Maruyamakyō

Maruyamakyō is a Mount Fuji worship group which evolved in the late 19th century into one of Japan's new religious movements. Its charismatic founder Itō Rokurōbei received a revelation in 1870 to use his neighborhood Fuji association Maruyama Kō to provide salvation to people. As news of Rokurōbei's words and deeds spread rapidly through the countryside, Maruyama Kō rapidly accumulated hundreds of thousands of rural members, peaking around 1892 with a self-estimate of 1.38 million households. Reorganized within a Shinto institution as Maruyamakyō, the group rapidly shrank after Rokurōbei's death and today specializes in Shinto funerals for the descendants of members.