Great Construction

Actual Examples of Superstition

     How much superstitions are to be feared, I do believe, is not fully appreciated by members of the general public. To warn all of the danger, I have recorded as they were actually experienced these examples of superstitions.
     The first account concerns a follower of the ABC Pious Association whose husband was an executive in the association. As a member of the association, he entertained to a particularly frightening degree superstitious aspects which are well known to all those in society. Recently the wife (around 30 years old) came for treatment accompanied by an infant (3 months old). Examination of the infant showed that it had lips inflamed with toxic pus which were always hemorrhaging blood from several places. I could barely look at the hideous condition, and overall the baby was quite pale from malnutrition. At first glance, the child appeared to be in a condition that was beyond help. The doctor had said that because the illness was syphilis, the infant could not be cured unless injected thirty times, and the mother had come to my place after only three injections. Nasal mucous continuously flowed and because the mucous was plugged up by the pus, the infant would become short of breath and could not get any sleep. The mother appeared to originally have been quite healthy, but for some reason, she could not produce milk and had to give the baby artificial milk. When I examined the mother, I saw that her kidneys were in poor condition and that her hands and legs were somewhat paralyzed. It was at that point that I told her that if matters went on as they had, her baby would not be saved, and urged her to keep coming. And, she did come three times. She became astonishingly better, her baby’s lips healed completely, with complexion that was better than before. The situation therefore reached the point where the baby’s life was not in danger. Mother and baby both were about ninety percent healed.
     However, because the person who had introduced this patient to me was one of those who was distributing our newspapers, and since the patient came only three times, the distributor inquired to see about matters. The fact that the mother and child had been healed by the Kannon Society had become known to the ABC Pious Association executive, and the astounded executive had let loose with threatening language. The mother had stopped coming to see me because he had told her that whether she was healed or not, she would surely become blind if she went anywhere besides ABC.
     Thus it was that the woman was so terrified, she would not come. Furthermore, the woman had three other children. One was lame and could not walk and another had peritonitis along with chronic tonsillitis. The distributor told the woman that the Kannon Society could heal those diseases, but because the executives of the branch that she belonged to found out about the visit, they were greatly surprised, thought it would be a serious thing if she happened to change religions, convened a meeting of the executive board, and put strong pressure so that the executive’s wife would not go to the Kannon Society. They further added that if the wife went to the Kannon Society, her eyes would be poked out. Poking out somebody’s eyes if they went to the Kannon Society for whatever reason is not just ridiculous, it is scandalous. The wife was constantly attacked by threats in such forms, but she told the distributor that she knew well if she went to our society, she would be healed. Because her husband and others were so persistent, however, she would like to stay away for a while. The wife, whether for herself or for her children, had been clearly shown Kannon’s spiritual virtue, so from now in her heart she would pray to Kannon, but to her previous religion, her worship would be as before but in form only. She concluded saying that she did regret doing this now, but she told the distributor that very soon she would go to pray at the Society.
     So those are the circumstances in which whether disease is healed or not, whether one is unfortunate or not, nothing matters as long as is diligently pursued preservation of the sanctity of the group. In spite of the fact that the husband had become an executive and was fervently pursuing his faith, four people, the wife including three children, were sick and furthermore, even his infant child was at a point where life could not be guaranteed, so the whole situation was indeed nothing but astonishing. I even thought that had these people been without a faith, such kind of an unfortunate situation would not have come about. As I witness such tragedies, it seems that superstition truly causes tragic conditions in which people lead their lives as if stepping into a swamp, neither being able to advance nor remove their feet. I truly feel that there are many at present who are so unfortunate and that how it would be possible to save these individuals must be studied as new social issues. I dare to request consideration by informed persons and intellectuals.

2
     The woman was forty-four years old, had been a member of the XYZ religion for some ten-odd years, and had fervently practiced her faith. To do so, she had sacrificed, separating from her husband, giving all of the several tens of thousands of yen of her assets to her church. She worked as a missionary and boarded at another person’s house. Suddenly and for the past six months she had lost movement of her left arm. She had tried to cure her condition through her faith but to no avail and so had tried many other kinds of treatments, still with no result. She had even received moxa therapy, but this also had no effect. Through a newspaper article, she came to our society asking to be treated upon which after one treatment, she made rapid progress. Because of the miracle of having full use of her arm restored in about two week’s time compared to the some ten-odd years of the faith she had practiced until then, the difference was so astonishing, she converted to the Kannon faith.
     If this were all there was to the story, there would be nothing particularly unusual about it, but at the beginning of her treatment she carefully kept secret that she was coming to us. The reason being that if the fact that she was coming to us became known to her church head, the kind of harm he might cause her was unimaginable. She said it was possible he could even break her arm, which astonished me. I thought should not be possible and most peculiar that someone in the position of head of a branch church who is serving God, whatever the reason, to use brute strength. The more I heard her account, I continued to be surprised to hear that although a prominent church in Japan, there were such things as the presence of many heavy drinkers and frequent instances of illicit relations between the sexes in the church. She also said that previously the church had manifested considerable spiritual virtue in healing sickness, and that is why she had believed so fervently, but since spring of the previous year, the spiritual virtue had come to be almost nothing which she had thought strange. The religions that have come about so far in the world are from the lineage of gods of the moon, and it was in January of last year that appeared the Kannon Society, so with the appearance of the sun, that is, the light from the east, the light of the moon has disappeared. It is, therefore, inevitable that in all other religions as well, as time passes, spiritual virtue will gradually come to nothing.

3
     Among the patients who came to see me in the summer of 1935 was a twenty-two-year-old woman whose arms and hands all at once had stiffened, who could barely walk, and who was not able to sit Japanese style. She said she had been sick for some fourteen to fifteen years, and regardless of the therapy or treatment applied, there had been no result. Since usual methods of treatment did not seem to help, she asked her mother if they should not pray to Kannon. But the mother’s reply was indeed astonishing. This is what she said.
     The mother said that their ancestors had been followers of Shin Buddhism for generations. The only therapies permitted to us were doctors, moxabustion, and electricity, and that to receive the blessings of healing from any other god or buddha than the Amitaba Buddha was a tremendous sin. The daughter added that it was the judgment of the Tathagata itself which was frightening. At that point I asked what would happen if my instructions were not followed and the daughter was not healed, and the mother is reported to have said, “It cannot be avoided if she cannot be helped her entire life. It is all right if a daughter has to be sacrificed, because she must be at the side of Amitaba Buddha always.” There were no words with which to respond, and I could only be silent. The strength of her religious conviction was obvious, and one can only wonder whether her common sense had been lost. Stepping back and thinking about the situation, in spite of the fact that the mother was prepared to put so much faith in the Amitaba Buddha, why is it that a person must spend an entire life deformed? Was it not proved a living fact that the Amidaba Buddha had not helped at all? And then, to the daughter only I told the following, confidentially. Her sickness was a sin of worshiping the Amitaba Buddha for so long. This could be understood because her fingers were bent and she could not put her hands together. Furthermore, because she could not bend her waist, she could not bow. I told her these conditions came about because the wrong buddha had been worshipped.

Unpublished manuscript, thought to be written somewhere around 1935
    translated by cynndd