Japan's Mummies: The Sokushinbutsu in Post-war Occulture

This paper examines the shifting representation of Japan’s mummified monks sokushinbutsu 即身仏, within postwar culture and occulture. Traditionally venerated within mountain ascetic and Buddhist contexts, these mummified bodies have, since the mid-twentieth century, been reconstituted through what Christopher Partridge terms “occulture,” a domain where religion, science, and the occult intermingle in modern media. Drawing on print culture, television and digital platforms, this study traces how the sokushinbutsu were transformed from sacred relics into cultural signifiers of extremity, curiosity, and national identity. The analysis situates this reimagining within the broader postwar fascination with mummification triggered by Egyptological exhibitions and Hollywood horror films, arguing that Japanese representations both mirrored and subverted international “mummy mania.” Drawing on theoretical frameworks from thinkers such as Deleuze and Guattari and drawing on the previous research by Han on the relationship between occulture and Japanese esoteric thought, the paper explores how the sokushinbutsu operate as hybrid bodies: not as static relics of premodern asceticism but as dynamic media figures whose continued visibility exemplifies Japan’s negotiation between the sacred and spectacle in an era of technological change. Their recent appearances, however, have been further away than ever either from their original Japanese context or the influence of the Egyptian mummy and its media tropes. This plasticity suggests that the sokushinbutsu have been reterritorialized, assuming an image-form that circulates independently within occulture. I argue that this occurred through a process of typification as “Japan’s mummies,” developed in response to the persistent presence of the Egyptian mummy within international occulture.