Great Construction

TRUE HEALTH by　Mokichi Okada This book was originally published in Japanese under the title Shinji no Kenko .FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, 1987 Published by Church of World Messianity Copyright@ 1987 Church of World Messianity, all rights reserved Printed in the United States of America.

PREFACE

FAITH AND HEALTH

001 SUPREME GOAL
　　（序文　 『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行)
002 CURING THE WHOLE BY CURINGTHE PARTS
　　（巻頭言 　『地上天国』25号、昭和26(1951)年6月25日発行）
003 MY SINGLE SUFFERING
　　（一つの 苦しみ　『救世』65号、昭和25(1950)年6月3日発行）
004 HEALTH AND HEAVEN ON EARTH
　　（天国化 と健康問題　『光』14号、昭和24(1949)年6月25日発行）
005 A WORLD WITHOUT ILLNESS, POVERTY,ANDCONFLICT
　　（病貧争 絶無の世界　『病貧争絶無の世界を造る観音運動とは何？』昭和10(1936)年9月15日発行）
006 HEALTH IS EVERYTHING
　　（健康は 一切なり　『栄光』182号、昭和27(1952)年11月12日発行）
007 HEAVEN THROUGH HEALTH
　　（健康に よる天国化　自観叢書10編『神示の健康法』昭和25(1950)年4月20日発行
008 THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS
　　（幸福へ の道　『明日の医術（初版）第二編』昭和17(1942)年9月28日発行）
009 WITH FAITH AND WITHOUT FAITR
　　（無信仰 と有信仰　『光』2号、昭和24(1949)年3月20日発行）
010 SEKAI KYUSEI KYO AND MYSELF
　　（本教と 私（１）『地上天国』18号、昭和25(1950)年11月25日発行）
011 THE TRUE SALVATION
　　（本教と 私（２：本当の救い）『地上天国』18号、昭和25(1950)年11月25日発行）
012 POWER OF THE SPIRIT
　　（本教と 私（３：霊の行使）『地上天国』18号、昭和25(1950)年11月25日発行）
013 THE FEUDALISM OF SCIENCE
　　（科学封 建　『栄光』149号、昭和27(1952)年3月26日発行）
014 TOMORROW'S CIVILIZATION
　　（明日の 文化　『明日の医術　第三編』昭和18(1943)年10月23日発行）
015 THE TRUE NATURE OF ILLNESS
　　（病気の 本体　　西洋医学の大誤謬（一）『明日の医術・新日本医術としての岡田式療病法』昭和11(1936)年5月15日発行）


HEALTH　（健康）

016 THE TRUTH OF HEALTH
　　（健康の 真理　自観叢書10編『神示の健康法』昭和25(1950)年4月20日発行）
017 HUMAN BEINGS AS VESSELS FOR HEALTH
　　（人間は 健康の器　自観叢書10編『神示の健康法』昭和25(1950)年4月20日発行）
018 TRUE HEALTH AND FALSE HEALTH
　　（真健康 と擬健康　『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）
019 RAISING HEALTHY CHILDREN
　　（子供を 健康にするには　『栄光』95号、昭和26(1951)年3月14日発行）
020 A WAY FOR ANYONE TO PUT ON WEIGHT
　　（誰でも 太れる法『栄光』86号、昭和26(1951)年1月10日発行）
021 THE WAY TO BE BEAUTIFUL
　　（美人に なる法　寸評　白光生『光』25号、昭和24(1949)年9月3日発行）
022 MEDICINE AND SPORT
　　（スポー ツ医学『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）
023 MY HEALTH PLAN
　　（私の健 康法自観叢書10編『神示の健康法』昭和25(1950)年4月20日発行
024 WHAT IS DEATH?
　　（死とは なんぞや 医学試稿未発表　第一篇　森羅万象の構成、昭和14(1939)年より抜粋）
025 LIFE AND DEATH
　　（生と死 　医学試稿未発表　第一篇　森羅万象の構成、昭和14(1939)年より抜粋）
026 TURAL AND UNNATURAL DEATH
　　（自然死 と不自然死　未発表、昭和11(1936)年6月19日執筆）


TOXINS　（毒素）

027 AN ANALYSIS OF TOXINS
　　（毒素の 解剖 『結核信仰療法』昭和27(1952)年12月1日発行）
028 THE THREE KINDS OF TOXINS
　　（三毒 『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）
029 URINARY TOXIN
　　（尿毒　 医学試稿未発表 第二篇　病気、昭和14(1939)年より抜粋）
030 TOXINS PERSISTING FOR HALF A CENTURY
　　（毒結五 十年 『栄光』107号、昭和26(1951)年6月6日発行）
031 MEDICINE: A CAUSE OF WRONGDOING
　　（罪の因 は薬 『栄光』142号、昭和27(1952)年2月6日発行）
032 CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS
　　（事故の 原因 『栄光』165号、昭和27(1952)年7月16日発行）


PURIFICATION　（浄化作用）

033 THE CREATOR OF HUMANITY
　　（人間の 造り主　未発表、昭和11(1936)年執筆）
034 NATURAL THERAPY
　　（自然療 法 『日本医術講義録』第１篇、昭和10(1936)年執筆）
035 MEDICINE'S BLIND POINTS AND THE BENEFICENT POWERS OF NATURE
　　（医学の 盲点と自然良能力 『地上天国』26号、昭和26(1951)年7月25日発行）
036 WHAT IS SICKNESS?
　　（病気と は何ぞや 『アメリカを救う』P.4、昭和28(1953)年1月1日発行）
037 THE TRUE CAUSE OF ILLNESS
　　（病気の 真因 『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）
038 WHAT IS SICKNESS?
　　　　　　THE COLD
　 　（寒冒・病気とは何ぞや『結核の革命的療法』昭和26(1951)年8月15日発行）
039 WHAT IS THE COMMON COLD?
　　（感冒と は何か 『結核の正体』昭和18(1943)年11月23日発行）
040 INTERNAL BATHING
　　（体内の 入浴『救世』147号、昭和27(1952)年3月12日発行）
041 THE TRUE CAUSE OF SICKNESS IS IN THE SOUL
　　（病気の 本体は魂なり『日本医術講義録』第１篇、昭和10(1936)年執筆）
042 WRONGDOING AND THE FUNDAMENTAL CAUSE OF ILLNESS
　　（病気の 原因と罪穢『新日本医術書』昭和11(1936)年執筆）
043 SIN AND SICKNESS
　　（罪穢と 病気 『明日の医術　第三編』昭和18(1943)年10月23日発行）
044 SICKNESS AND SUFFERING
　　（病気と 苦痛 未発表、年代不詳）
045 MEDICINE TOXINS I
　　（薬剤の 毒（一）　医学試稿 未発表、昭和14(1939)年　第二編病気 より）
046 MEDICINE TOXINS II
　　（薬剤の 毒（二）　医学試稿 未発表、昭和14(1939)年　第二編病気 より）
047 LOW-GRADE FEVER
　　（微熱と いうもの『栄光』120号、昭和26(1951)年9月5日発行）
048 BALANCED PURIFICATION
　　（平均浄 化に就て 『救世』59号、昭和25(1950)年4月22日発行）
049 THE WORD PURIFICATION(JOHKA)
　　（浄化の 言葉 『栄光』157号、昭和27(1952)年5月21日発行）
050 ADMONITIONS FROM ANCESTRAL SPIRITS
　　（祖霊の 戒告 『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）
051 REBIRTH
　　（再生 『明日の医術　第三編』昭和18(1943)年10月23日発行）


JOHREI　（浄霊）

052 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD
　　（一の世 界 『栄光』111号、昭和26(1951)年7月4日発行）
053 THE GREATWORLD TRANSITION
　　（世界の 大転換 『明日の医術　第三編』昭和18(1943)年10月23日発行）
054 TRANSITION FROM NIGHT TO DAY
　　（夜昼転 換『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）
055 I AM A SCIENTIST OF THE SPIRIT
　　（私は宗 教科学者だ『栄光』255号、昭和29(1954)年4月7日発行）
056 THE PRECEDENCE OF SPIRITUAL OVER THE PHYSICAL
　　（霊主体 従『世界救世教奇蹟集』昭和28(1953)年9月10日発行）
057 THE PRECEDENCE OF SPIRITUAL OVER THE PHYSICAL
　　（霊主体 従『結核の革命的療法』昭和26(1951)年8月15日発行）
058 THE SPIRITUAL BODY AND THE PHYSICAL BODY
　　（霊と体 『世界救世教奇蹟集』昭和28(1953)年9月10日発行）
059 SPIRITUAL HEALING
　　（霊的医 術『明日の医術　第三編』昭和18(1943)年10月23日発行）
060 THE PRINCIPLE OF JOHREI
　　（浄霊の 原理　　神示の医学　『光』号外、昭和24(1949)年5月30日発行）
061 JOHREI AND THE THREE-ELEMENT COMPOSITION OF THE INTERNAL ORGANS
　　（内臓の 三位一体と浄霊『光』21号、昭和24(1949)年8月6日発行）
062 ABSOLUTE POWE
　　（絶対力 『救世』139号、昭和27(1952)年1月16日発行）
063 ONE PERSON AT A TIME IS INSUFFICIENT
　　（一人対 一人では駄目だ未発表、年代不詳）
064 MY LIGHT
　　（私の光 『地上天国』36号、昭和27(1952)年5月25日発行）
065 WHO IS THE SAVIOR?
　　（救世主 は誰だ　未発表、昭和23(1948)年10月20日）
066 ELIMINATING THE SUFFERING OF ILLNESS
　　（病苦を 消滅　真文明とは何ぞや『地上天国』31号、昭和26(1951)年12月25日発行）
067 BEING MIDWIFE TO WORLD CIVILIZATION
　　（世界文 明の産婆役　真文明とは何ぞや『地上天国』31号、昭和26(1951)年12月25日発行）
068 LIMITED AND LIMITLESS POWER
　　（有限力 と無限力　未発表、年代不詳）
069 PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION OF JOHREI
　　（哲学的 に観たる本医術『明日の医術（初版）第二編』昭和17(1942)年9月28日発行）　
070 RELIGION AND FAITH
　　（宗教と 信仰 『明日の医術　第二編』昭和18(1943)年10月5日発行）
071 THERAPY AND CONCEPTS
　　（医療と 観念『明日の医術・新日本医術としての岡田式療病法』昭和11(1936)年5月15日発行）
072 IT CAN BE CURED
　　（治るん だ 『光』3号、昭和24(1949)年3月30日発行）
073 THEORY OF METHOD AND THEORY OF EFFECT
　　（方法論 と結果論(再録)自観叢書12編『自観説話集』昭和25(1950)年1月30日発行）
074 FACTS SPEAK ELOQUENTLY
　　（事実は 雄弁なり 『地上天国』11号、昭和24(1949)年12月20日発行）
075 CHANGE IN THE JOHREI METHOD
　　（浄霊法 変る『栄光』84号、昭和25(1950)年12月27日発行）
076 SICKNESS AND HUMANCHARACTER
　　（病気と 人間の性質『新日本医術書』昭和11(1936)年執筆）
077 PRIDE AND ERROR
　　（慢心取 り違い 『栄光』111号、昭和26(1951)年7月4日発行）


NUTRITION　（栄養）

078 THE TRUE SCIENCE OF NUTRITION
　　（真の営 養学『日本医術講義録』第１篇 十四、昭和10(1936)年執筆）
079 FOODS AND NUTRITION
　　（食餌と 営養　日本式健康法の提唱（二）『東方の光』6号、昭和10(1936)年6月日発行）
080 NUTRITION
　　（栄養 『結核の革命的療法』昭和26(1951)年8月15日発行）
081 THE SCIENCE OF NUTRITION
　　（栄養学 『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）
082 THE COMEDY OF NUTRITION
　　（栄養の 喜劇　自観叢書10編『神示の健康法』昭和25(1950)年4月20日発行


NATURE FARMING　（自然農法）

083 PREFACE
　　（序文 (無肥料栽培法）　神農生 自観叢書第2篇『無肥料栽培法』昭和24(1949)年7月1日発行）
084 NATURE FARMING
　　（無肥料 栽培　神農生 『地上天国』1号、昭和23(1948)年12月1日発行）
085 THE TRIUMPH OF NATURE FARMING THE GREAT POWERS OF THE SOIL
　　（自然栽 培の勝利『土の偉力』『革命的増産の自然農法解説』昭和28(1953)年5月5日発行）
　　 Principles of Nature Farming
　　 The Adverse Effects of Fertilizers
　　 Superstitions About Fertilizers
　　 Merits of Natural Compost
　　 Repeated Cultivation Means Bigger Crops
　　 Good News for Sericulture
086 PRINCIPLES OF NATURE FARMING
　　（自然農 法の原理：日本農法の大革命　無肥科で初年度から一割乃至（ないし）五割増産『栄光』245号）
087 THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
　　（農業の 大革命　五カ年にして米の五割増産は確実『革命的増産の自然農法解説』昭和28(1953)年5月5日発行）
088 INSECT PESTS
　　（虫害　 『自然農法解説』昭和26(1951)年1月15日発行）
089 DAMAGE FROM TYPHOONS AND FLOODS
　　（風水害 　『自然農法解説』昭和26(1951)年1月15日発行）
090 RAISING TANGERINES FOR FORTY YEARS THROUGH NATURE FARMING
　　（無肥四 十年の蜜柑　『栄光』133号、昭和26(1951)年12月5日発行）
091 HOME VEGETABLE GARDENS
　　（素人菜 園に就て　『自然農法解説』昭和26(1951)年1月15日発行）
092 THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION CLEAN AND ENJOYABLE HOME GARDENS
　　（農業の 大革命　清潔で心から楽しめる　家庭菜園の無肥科栽培『光』3号、昭和24(1949)年3月30日発行）
093 THE EARTH BREATHES
　　（地球は 呼吸する 『信仰雑話』P.55、昭和23(1948)年9月5日発行）


CONCLUSION　（結び）

094 CONCLUSION
　　（総結論 『天国の福音』昭和22(1947)年2月5日発行）


APPENDIX　（別掲）

095 ADDRESS BY THE FOUNDER OF SEKAI KYUSEI KYO
　　（真文明 とはなにか　東京日比谷公会堂における講演会講話、未発表、昭和26(1951)年5月22日）

Preface

　　This volume, True Health, is a collection of the teachings on human health of Mokichi Okada, founder of Sekai Kyusei Kyo, who is known by the organization's members as Meishu-sama, or Enlightened Spiritual Leader. In its original Japanese-language form it was published as a sister volume to another collection of Meishu-sama's teachings entitled Tengoku no Ishizue (Foundation of Paradise).
　　Of the three salient elements of the Heaven on Earth that Meishusama felt was his mission to establish － health, prosperity, and harmony － health is the most fundamental. Health, both mental and physical, has always been the foundation of all prosperity and happiness, and mankind has exerted great and repeated efforts to attain it. Sometimes the approach was spiritual and psychological, sometimes scientific and material. Out of these efforts arose movements to cure illness, the great destroyer of health, through a unified, mutually interacting and complementary physio-psychological approach. Activities oriented toward that end continue today.
　　Medical science has, obviously enough, played the leading role in attempts to ensure physical health. Rapid strides forward in medico-therapeutic techniques, especially in recent years, have made it possible to save gravely endangered lives and to restore normal functioning to the human body. Yet in spite of such advances, not only does sickness persist, as is shown by the increase in the "diseases of civilization," but excessive medical treatment, overuse of medicines, application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to agricultural crops, widespread use of food additives, overeating, and extensive use of narcotics have led to an increasing incidence of psychological abnormalities, deformed newborn infants, and obese or frail children.
　　Many people continue to believe that, even though medical science clearly has negative as well as positive effects, it will eventually lead to a new era completely free of illness. But Meishu-sama has warned that if medical therapy and eating habits remain unchanged, illness itself will increase rather than decrease, even though pathological forms may change.
　　Modern therapeutic methods mistake a temporary effect for a fundamental cure. By concentrating research solely on the physical aspects, those who advocate such methods overlook the true nature of life as comprising both spiritual and physical aspects. Meishu-sama taught that though God made human beings to be healthy, modern medicine employs unnatural methods which are detrimental rather than beneficial.
　　Against this background of mistaken belief and practice, this compilation of Meishu-sama's teachings on the subject has been prepared in the hope of contributing to the attainment of true health for all humanity.
　　Since Meishu-sama's health philosophy differs from generally accepted ideas, the following outline of its major principles is offered to enable the reader to understand it better.
　　Our world has a spiritual as well as a physical aspect, and the two are as inseparably bound together as the upper and under sides of the same object. The spiritual world is indeed the generative cause, the fundamental essence, of the physical world. In other words, all phenomena occurring in the physical world have already occurred in the spiritual world and have been subsequently transferred to the world of matter. This truth is expressed in the principle that the spiritual precedes the physical. Since the spiritual and physical planes are two sides of the same entity, what happens in one affects the other. Occurrences on the spiritual plane have consequences on the physical plane, and physical phenomena influence the spiritual plane. In short, the condition prevailing in one plane comes to resemble or be identical with the condition prevailing in the other. The spiritual and physical planes are one. Similarly, the human being consists of the visible physical being and the invisible spiritual being. Phenomena occurring in the human flesh are transferred from the spirit, and changes in the physical being are reflected in the spiritual being.
　　Although essentially transparent, the spiritual being may become clouded by impurities caused by negative thoughts, words, and deeds such as anger, hatred, envy, and slander. Impurities entering the physical body make the blood murky and reflect on the spiritual being by making it cloudy. This spiritual cloudiness is transferred as a toxin, or poison, to the physical being, where it tends to stagnate and congeal as its quantity increases. When the poison reaches a certain level, the physical body loses its ability to function normally. Then the body's natural powers of self-purification eliminate the accumulation of toxins and restore normal health. These powers of Self-purification are God's greatest blessing. Such conditions as fever, pain, coughing; accumulations of phlegm, and diarrhea represent those self-purification powers at work dissolving and expelling the toxins from the body. These powers may cause temporary physical instability, yet as time passes the toxins are expelled, purification is completed and normal health is restored. The elimination of toxins removes the corresponding clouds from the spiritual plane.
　　Medical science, however, tends to regard these conditions as harmful and has always employed such things as medicines to cure symptoms as quickly as possible. Even where it has apparently succeeded, such treatment has halted the self-purification process midway. Since it prevents the elimination of clouds from the spiritual being and toxins from the physical being, these undesirable elements accumulate. Furthermore, the pollution of the blood with medicines reflects on the spiritual being by increasing cloudiness. This in turn amplifies the accumulation of toxin in the physical being to a still greater level and can lead to a dangerous situation. The natural self-purification powers once again strive to remove the accumulated toxin and manifest themselves in more violent forms than before. Medical science responds by prescribing stronger medicines, which halt the self-purification powers so that they once again assume still more violent forms. As the process recurs over and over again without resolution, spiritual clouds and physical toxins accumulate to the point where the self-purification forces become impotent and extremely stubborn pathological symptoms afflict the physical being. It is important to note here that not just medicines, but chemical fertilizers, pesticides and food additives fall into the category of impurities.
　　The way to eliminate spiritual clouds and their physical manifestation in the form of toxins is through Johrei purification by means of the divine light, which God made available through Meishu-sama.
　　Johrei entails channeling the divine light from the palm of the hand of one person toward the spiritual being of another, and thereby stimulating the process of purification and eliminating the cloudiness of the spirit and the toxins that are its manifestation in the physical being. This Johrei in turn enables the natural powers of self-purification to function normally.
　　In addition to eliminating spiritual clouds, it is vital to avoid creating then The fundamental thing here, as already explained, is to maintain correct mental attitudes and to speak and act in a correct manner, yet at the same time it is important to minimize the amount of impurities that is allowed to enter the body by eating only pure foods raised by natural agricultural methods, or what we call "nature farming."
　　Meishu-sama's explanation of the causes of illnesses and the way they can be eliminated is not mere theory but is based on divine revelation; on Meishu-sama's own repeated triumphant encounters with illness, some times serious enough to threaten life itself; and on innumerable other cases in which he helped people conquer illness. As Meishu-sama says in the text of this book: "I have been thoroughly instructed by God in all things pertaining to human health and illness. If I had not, I would never have undertaken the fearsome task of creating a world free of illness. I am able to speak boldly because I am absolutely certain of what I am saying" (p 11).
　　This absolute certainty enabled Meishu-sama to criticize modern therapeutic methods. He recognized their effectiveness and their necessity under some circumstances, but insisted that they are no more than temporary palliatives or extenders of life, incapable of bringing about a fundamental cure. Reliance on such therapy not only fails to eliminate the illness under treatment, but actually complicates and aggravates it Meishu-sama Warned that should this situation go uncorrected, the health of all humankind could deteriorate and the whole species be threatened with extinction. He devoted his own life to trying to increase as much as possible the number of people who know the meaning of true good health.
　　Meishu-sama's numerous adverse comments about modem therapy, medicines, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides in this text are something more than fault-finding and criticism. They are warnings and proposals founded on his immense spirit of compassion. "The utter misery of modern humankind brings me intolerable suffering" (p 11).
　　We hope, thus, that the reader will examine closely the deep meaning of Meishu-sana's teachings, rather than concentrating on their surface meaning or regarding them as rigid dogma.
　　Meishu-sama did not categorically reject all medical therapy and medication, but he did warn that in many instances medication can have adverse effects, especially when taken in excess. He also taught that, if the spiritual being is kept pure by means of Johrei, the physical being will remain in such good health that medical treatment and medicines will become Superfluous. In connection with this, in the October 15, 1950 issue (No. 17) of the monthly magazine Chijo Tengoku (Paradise on Earth), Meishu-sama stated: "There are people in our membership who say that our faith rejects doctors, medicines, injections, etc. We must be most cautious on this point. Mistaken interpretations of the aims of our organization invite general misunderstanding and are consequently harmful to our faith. I take this opportunity to warn you against giving the impression of rejecting medical therapy."
　　Many of the teachings included in this volume were originally published long ago. At that time, while desiring to make known his new theory of health in order to help as many of the world's suffering people as quickly as possible, Meishu-sama fully realized that publishing his ideas would expose him to sharp attack, since his philosophy varied widely from commonly accepted ideas on the subject and constituted a disturbing challenge to the medical and agricultural establishments. Nonetheless, he published for the sake of the well-being of humanity. As was expected, he was criticized, attacked, and even forbidden to publish further. But many people have been helped greatly because he spoke out.
　　In recognition of his great compassionate heart, our organization has decided to compile his teachings and publish then once again in new form. Happily, we were able to time the publication of the original Japanese-language version to coincide with the celebration of the centennial of Meishu-sama's birth and thereby express our gratitude for the blessing of his teachings.
　　It is our profound wish that this book will increase the numbers of people, who awakened to the truth about health and to the true way of attaining it, will become sound in mind and body and will devote their efforts and sense of mission toward the establishment of that which all humanity longs for: a better world.

FAITH AND HEALTH

001. 　The Supreme Goal

　　No one can deny that happiness is the supreme goal of all human aspirations, and that physical health is absolutely essential both to people in search of happiness and to people who are happy and wish to remain that way. As Jesus of Nazareth said, "What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world but loses his own life?"
　　I have succeeded in eliminating illness from human beings and restoring them to vigorous health, thereby prolonging their lives. This signifies the achievement of a great ideal to which humanity has aspired for thousands of years.
　　The prolonging of human life has hitherto been generally assumed to be a fool's dream. For that very reason, the great discovery leading to its realization must have value unrivaled in human history. I am certain that taking this new healing art to all humanity cannot fail to bring about a great global revolution. But this should not cause alarm: the revolution I speak of will be far removed from the bloody and violent revolutions of the past. It will be brilliant with light and joy, and will serve as the foundation for eternal peace.
　　Though I may sound overly bold, I believe that if you read this book carefully, think deeply about its contents and put them into actual practice, you will see that there is no falsehood in what I say.
　　What is the meaning of cultural development but the betterment of the well-being of each individual? The basis of this well-being must be health and longevity. As we all know, humanity has exerted great efforts to advance in the field of medical science, in the belief that this is the only way that this goal can be achieved.
　　It is certainly true that medical science has a glamour unequalled by any other science. But human beings tend to be dazzled by the great hospitals with their surgical theaters, countless kinds of medicines, microscopes, X-ray equipment, radium, and various radiation devices, by the minutely worked out scientific theories, the frequent new discoveries; and the publication of new theories. Because of all of this impressive paraphernalia, human beings naturally assume that medicine can ultimately eliminate illness. Yet today that goal remains in the remote future, and we have no idea when it will be achieved.
　　I do not wish to idly criticize medical science, yet I feel that it is time to warn the world that we are still moving in a direction opposed to what ought to be the true goal.
　　In clarifying the functioning of the human body by means of dissection and analysis, medical science has performed a service for which we must be grateful Yet that same medical science is in many ways fallacious indeed, it is surely one of the wonders of the world that humanity should have gone so long without recognizing those fallacies.
　　The healing art I have created represents the opening of a mystical door that has been closed for thousands of years. I believe that God has entrusted to me the great task of helping to restore humanity to its essential state of good health.

February 5, 1947

002. 　Curing the Whole by Curing the Parts

　　Let us consider for a moment the actual situation prevailing in the world. The reign of the irrational is wellnigh universal; truth is rarely, if ever, to be encountered. For this reason there is no telling when the suffering of humanity will be eliminated. In brief, the world as a whole as well as individual countries, is sick. Though it seems immense, the world is only a collection of individuals. The illness of one person is transferred to the whole nation and then to the world until the entire globe is in a pathological condition. Yet the reverse, too, is true: if the individual becomes healthy and sound, so will the nation and ultimately, the world. A person who understands this principle sees that promoting the health of individuals is the sole way to － as our motto proclaims － create an ideal world. In other words, curing the illness of individual after individual is the way to achieve this great goal.

June 25, 1951

003. 　My Single Suffering

　　I, too, have my sufferings. Since my task is to blaze a new trail in a bleak and lightless world such as that of the present, Satan and Devadatta (a cousin and disciple of the Buddha who turned against, and even plotted the death of his master; he has come to be a symbol of evil) run rampant. It is like being surrounded by a wall bristling with the spears of jealousy, envy, persecution, calumny, and misunderstanding. Trying to overcome these things and gradually turn this hellish world toward paradise is more difficult than can be imagined.
　　Nevertheless, since I enjoy the protection of the Supreme Spirit my lot is not so hard as it may appear to outsiders; indeed, I an constantly grateful for the great happiness and wonderful destiny that have been vouchsafed me.
　　Nonetheless, there is one thing that causes me great suffering. It is, as might be expected, related to modern medical science. Though I have been speaking and writing about the fallacies of modern medicine for many years, I have never yet gone ahead and told the complete, unvarnished truth. I have been careful always to avoid unduly provocative remarks, since I felt that to reveal the whole truth might cause unnecessary trouble. Furthermore, however I might have wished to publish the truth, I was unable to do so until the right time had come.
　　I have been thoroughly instructed by God in all things pertaining to human health and illness. If I had not, I would never have undertaken the awesome task of creating a world free of sickness. I am able to speak boldly because I am absolutely certain of what I am saying. Since the basis of eliminating suffering is eradicating illness, the utter misery of modern humanity brings me intolerable suffering. I am caught between my sympathy for humanity's plight and the feeling that the time is not right for speaking the full truth. This has caused me such great pain that I have constantly prayed for the speedy arrival of the day for full revelation.

June 3, 1950

004. 　Health and Heaven on Earth

　　As you already know from my repeated explanations, the ideal world that we constantly advocate entails the elimination of humankind's three greatest sufferings: illness, poverty, and conflict. Illness is obviously the main condition from which the other two sufferings arise. If God wishes to save humankind, He must begin by solving the problem of health. Without health, what happiness can there be? Any religion or science that lacks the power to solve the issue of health is of little value, since it is impossible to deal with poverty or conflict without good health.
　　This is probably the first tine that any religion, or science, has taken up the cause of creating a world free of illness, poverty, and conflict. To set such a goal requires enormous confidence, yet the fact that we have been able to attract hundreds of thousands of faithful followers in a short time, and that the number of those followers is gradually increasing as time passes indicates that this confidence was not unfounded.
　　It is essential that all ills be eliminated. Throughout the development of our organization, therefore, we have recognized the need to deal with the issue of health, and have given first precedence to healing. To bring the results to as many people as possible, we have filled the pages of our periodicals with case histories, which inevitably awakens doubt in the minds of readers, especially scholars and specialists. Since almost all of these case histories represent miracles of a kind that are usually thought impossible, specialists and people in positions of political responsibility naturally expect thorough investigations of then. Such people are likely to see in the results expressed in our testimonials a threat of unprecedented problems. They wonder, perhaps, whether many of our testimonials are true. If they are in fact free of exaggeration and falsehood, what can they mean? Unprecedented as it is in the history of the world, the issue is so difficult that such people have no idea how to approach it
　　Yet facts always remain facts; truth is always truth. We would not willingly be foolish enough to hurl ourselves into a whirlpool that is certain to drag us into major problems. Yet if one views the matter objectively, one sees that it is Time, the absolute authority, that has brought forth this great undertaking, in which we cannot help but recognize a tremendous love. How will the ordinary people interpret those well-documented cases of individuals, who, despairing after having tried in vain all kinds of accepted therapies in the hope of curing their grave illnesses, coming to know Johrei, and experiencing the joy of returning to life from the brink of death, are unable to express their gratitude in words? People who doubt and reject these experiences have never actually come into contact with the matter in question. It is only rational for human beings to use the power of Johrei in eliminating the suffering of the world, if thorough investigation proves beyond doubt that our experiences are fact. Anyone who persists in refusing to recognize the truth even after it is conclusively proved must either be lacking in love for humanity, be forced to adopt this Stand by inescapable circumstances, or be psychologically ill.
　　Perhaps what I have said is too outspoken; but the plea I make is one we cannot ignore as long as we intend to go forward into the new age.

June 25, 1949

005. 　A World Without Illness, Poverty, and Conflict

　　Most People regard a world without illness, poverty, and conflict as an unattainable ideal but our movement is not afraid to say that it believes firmly in its realization. The fundamental way to create such a world is to eliminate illness.
　　People who become ill must spend money on treatment and may be forced to stay away from work. Misfortunes pile on misfortunes as the illness continues. Ultimately, all the savings and property the individual worked and sweated for years to amass are gone. Then, when he has borrowed all he can from friends and relatives, he finds that no trace remains of the abundant, peaceful, and happy way of life he and his family enjoyed until only recently. There are many cases of people who, sinking to the lowest possible depths, suffer from both illness and poverty.
　　The entire family of a person who is gravely ill is obliged to shoulder limitless responsibilities. One person's illness can cause hardship to some degree or other, not only to relatives and friends, but also to employers and fellow workers. One person's illness can be a blow to the four or five people in his or her immediate family and to others outside the home as well. When two or three people fall terminally ill, one after the other, in the same household, it is not uncommon for even the wealthiest family to find itself compelled to live in severely reduced circum stances.
　　People save money with one of two aims; the positive aim of amassing property and a fortune, and the negative aim of providing funds to pay medical bills in case of illness. As everyone is aware, a very great number of people save for the latter, negative purpose.
　　We can conclude that illness is the greatest cause of poverty.
　　Everyone knows that the fundamental causes of conflict, whether on the individual or on the national scale, are economic. As I have already said, illness is a basic cause of economic trouble. Consequently, in order to rid the world of poverty and conflict it is essential first to eliminate the fundamental cause － illness. First priority must go to ridding humanity of sickness. Only a divine power could achieve such an aim; not even the Buddha or Jesus Christ dreamed of such a glorious undertaking, and whoever can have faith in its realization is a happier man than any before him.

September 15, 1935

006. 　Health is Everything

　　Theologians and journalists are mistaken when they insist that those religions which stress the cure of illness － or the promotion of good health － are somehow inferior because they concentrate on practical benefits. Illness is a tremendous hindrance to society as well as a cause of great suffering, and a thorough examination of contemporary society shows that sickness is the fundamental cause of all unhappiness and tragedy. It can even be said that there is illness behind every tragedy. The number of happy people increases in direct proportion to an increase in the number of healthy people. I have been speaking on the individual level, but on the national level, as well, there is nothing as negative as illness, the root of all troubles.
　　In the achievement of the supreme goal － a world free of illness, poverty, and conflict － solving the problem of illness leads to the solution of the problems of poverty and conflict. It is important to remember that illness means not only physical, but also psychological disorders, one of the most serious issues in the world today.
　　War provides a good illustration. The people who instigate wars are the exact opposite of the people who try to prevent them. Similarly, the ringleaders in aggression are very different from the people who must be urged to fight. The great villains in these instances are always the people of power who set war in motion, and exposure of their true motives always shows that they are greedy and unsatisfied with the degree of success ordinary people find sufficient. Their extraordinary talents and self-confidence make then impatient and spur them on to outrageous ambition. As the lives of historical heroes make clear, such people invariably end up in failure even though things may go their way for a while.
　　Furthermore, for the sake of achieving their own ambitious ends, they mercilessly sacrifice the lives of many ordinary people. Even though they are called heroes, such people are in fact able to remain unperturbed in the face of the horrifying unhappiness and loss of life they cause, the reason being that they themselves are psychologically flawed. They suffer from a kind of madness; obviously, there is something mentally wrong with a person who is able to persist in selfish, loveless, merciless actions that serve his or her own purposes regardless of the cost to others. Interestingly enough experience has taught me that a person with a psychological flaw always has some kind of physical flaw as well. The reason why some "heroes" and criminals seen to enjoy extreme good health is that, though they harbor large quantities of toxins, these are in a solidified state.
　　On the basis of this discussion, it might seem that any religion, science, philosophy, or educational system that eliminated human illness would be acceptable. In fact, however, there is no way to cure sickness completely but through the Divine Light.

November 12, 1952

007. 　Heaven through Health

　　Jesus Christ proclaimed: "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Undoubtedly, it is the goal of all religions to create a better world, to relieve humanity of suffering, and to bring about a world of joy. However, far from realizing this common goal, we have not yet even broken out of the hell on earth. Why is it that, in spite of the ceaseless efforts of religion, philosophy, science, morality, and education in all parts of the world from ancient times, we have made so little progress? We have still to see the first glimmerings of a solution to the problem of health that lies at the heart of all tragedy. Unless the problem of health is solved, it will be meaningless to try to set the other things right. The divine spiritual healing that I have perfected is capable of eliminating all human illness and of establishing perfect health.
　　Nevertheless, the discovery of this divine spiritual healing readily invites misunderstanding. The relation between it and the majority of the world is like that between people standing on the ground and a man standing on a roof. The people on the ground cannot see the top of the head of the man located on the roof.
　　Be sure that if you seek the cause of any tragedy, you will find illness at its heart. Take, for instance, the case of a young person who, on the verge of graduating from a school of higher learning, is afflicted with tuberculosis.* Hope vanishes both for the student and for the parents who centered all their aspirations in him. Their future is dark. Similarly, a middle-aged person attacked by some dread disease must stop working in frustration just at the time when he or she has laid the foundation for vigorous future activity. As I have said, most of the tragedies of human society can be traced to illness.
　　It is just at this most miserable of times that there has suddenly appeared divine spiritual healing. Anyone who has joined our organization and has actually experienced it will be convinced of just how revolutionary a medical science it is.

April 20, 1950

*"At the time that this article was written, tuberculosis was still a dreaded and generally incurable disease in Japan."

008. 　The Road to Happiness

　　All human beings wish for happiness, and it is obvious that freedom from illness is essential for the happiness of individuals and families. But the idea of complete good health has been considered impossible until now, and many people, though healthy, live in the fear of falling ill sooner or later. Moreover, this anxiety is aggravated by uncertainty as to whether such an illness could be cured. For these reasons, even successful people in comfortable circumstances cannot enjoy true happiness because of the insecurity they feel about their health.
　　As I have explained frequently before, illness is the fundamental source of all unhappiness. People save money and buy health and life insurance to provide for themselves when they become sick. Similar motivation is behind many social institutions such as orphanages, homes for the elderly, and relief funds.
　　Consequently, until the problem of human illness is solved, even the most ideal governmental measures cannot bring people true happiness. In brief, health is the basis of happiness－indeed, is all of happiness－but no medical art or method has so far been able to solve the problem of sickness, until now.
　　I am not boasting; but, as I have already stated, the Johrei and health regimen that I have founded can liberate humanity from the insecurity caused by sickness. I can say with certainty that any person who comes to know Johrei will experience true happiness. The road is already open to the happiness for which human beings have longed for thousands of years.

September 28, 1942

009. With Faith and Without Faith

　　Firstly, I must make it clear that by the word "faith" I mean, specifically, faith in our teachings and not faith in the general sense.
　　The people living in this transient world of suffering are aptly described in Christ's words as "pathetic lambs." How many people can actually be said to live out their days completely free of anxiety? Among the factors causing human insecurity, illness is the most important. People cannot foretell when they will become ill. People can catch a cold within an hour of being perfectly sound in health. The cold can develop into pneumonia, or the early stages of tuberculosis. An attack of appendicitis may bring agonizing pain at any time. The next day, that person may come down with intestinal typhus or some unknown disease. Within two or three days, a child may die of such dread diseases as infantile dysentery, diphtheria, or meningitis. Elderly people can become bedridden and miserable for years from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage resulting in palsy or partial paralysis. A member of the family may be forced to lead a life of isolated hospitalization because of a highly contagious illness.
　　Moreover, in these days of high medical costs, it is impossible to foresee how much therapy and hospitalization will cost If the illness is easily cured, the situation is not too bad, but if the illness is protracted, hard-earned savings may be totally exhausted, positions may be lost as a result of long absence from the job, and all financial support may vanish. As long as the person recovers and is able to work, he or she can make a living, but how is a family to make ends meet if the head of the house either dies or becomes permanently disabled? Such a fate means the end of all undertakings and plans. It is especially hard when such tragedy strikes a person in the prime of life. Who can say that the tragic day will not come when, as a consequence of illness and death, the bonds of love between husband and wife or parent and children must be severed? As reflection on these considerations proves, all human beings, without exception, bear the fear of illness like a leaden weight
　　If humanity cannot be liberated from this anxiety, then the Buddha was correct in saying that the transient world is like a house on fire, and that no one can escape the four sufferings of birth, illness, aging, and death. According to the Buddha, it is the realization and acceptance of this that constitutes enlightenment.
　　What more wonderful news for humanity could there be, then, than the appearance of a teaching capable of liberating it from the anxiety of illness! At first, anyone proclaiming the advent of such a teaching would no doubt be ridiculed as claiming the impossible and as being one step short of madness. Nonetheless, such a teaching has most certainly appeared. My readers may entertain nagging doubts, may reject what I say － yet if true it is surely enough to create a worldwide sensation.
　　I shall now briefly explain the relation between faith in our teachings and illness. Anyone who grasps the essence of this faith has no fear of illness. Once its causes are clearly understood, illness is seen as a source of happiness rather than fear, since it is recognized as a natural physiological process in the advancement of good health and therefore as one of God's great blessings.
　　So far, I have concentrated on illness, but many other sources of anxiety make it impossible for contemporary people to enjoy even a moment's tranquility. For instance, vehicular transportation, on which so many people rely and in which they spend so large a part of their lives is frequently the source of serious disasters. Similarly, disaster due to dangerous machinery at places of work, fire, theft, or earthquakes, floods and other natural occurrences can, like the principal danger of sickness, strike at any time. Governments and private bodies take steps to protect the population against these things, and funds are set up to provide health insurance, disaster insurance, unemployment insurance, and so on. However, none of these tangible methods can ensure tranquility beyond a certain limit. Absolute security can be attained only with intangible insurance; that is, God's insurance. Modern people, who are truly "pathetic lambs," and highly unreceptive to the idea of intangible methods, find themselves trapped in constant anxiety, since the tangible means on which they rely can do nothing to solve the basic problem.
　　Those of us who have this understanding cannot bear to watch those without it, who, like rootless grasses, live lives of fear and trembling. They are like people afloat on the sea in a lifeboat, being intent only on their own vessel, they refuse to acknowledge the existence of the great ship that has drawn close with an invitation to board. Looking on and offering help, we are still unable to draw them from the darkness of rejection.
　　It is understandable, of course, that people find it difficult to accept this wonderful, but totally unprecedented spiritual power. Nonetheless, the very appearance of this great teaching removes all ground for doubt that the emergence of an ideal world, a world free of illness, poverty, and conflict is at hand.

March 20, 1949

010. 　Sekai Kyusei Kyo and Myself

　　As all members understand, our religion is quite different from all preceding religions. Though I cannot give a detailed explanation here, I should like to describe the difference briefly.
　　Most religions in Japan are of one or two general kinds. The first kind, which is so simple as almost to fall outside the category of religion, entails actions and ceremonies that give the performer no more than a vague sense of having done the right thing. From time to time, believers in such religions visit shrines, where they buy talisman plaques, amulets or fortune-telling papers. Those with money may sponsor performances of ritual dancing. Others toss money into the shrine offering box or make other contributions. Doing these things gives them a vague sense of spiritual security. In Japan, this kind of popular faith is called "Belief in the Gods." Since a corresponding organization is usually behind it, it can only be called a "religion."
　　The second kind is a pure religion in which members are registered and organized into groups, and in which numerous officers, ministers and missionaries engage exclusively in religious work. Firm believers in such religions have a sincerity that, in contrast to any vague sense of "grace," inspires them to throw themselves enthusiastically, body and soul, into religious activities.
　　The second kind of religion occurs in both old and new forms. Perhaps under the influence of the changing times, the older ones are less vigorous and tend to stagnate. I hear that, by now, some of them barely manage to survive at all. The newer ones (again in Japan) have come into being since the late nineteenth century and are currently developing with great vigor. Most of them, however, are related to the Shinto faith. Among the Buddhists, only some groups within the Nichiren Sect demonstrate vigor. The rest lack vitality. Though differing from each other in forms and modes, most of these religions are extension of the ideas or writings of their founders. Their believers serve sincerely because they enjoy the protection of the god or Buddha whom their religion reveres. Obviously, however, degrees of intensity of faith vary among members. Most of them claim to want to make humans happier and the world a better place. We are in agreement with them in this, but many religions concentrate too much on spiritual elements and show relatively little interest in material benefits to be obtained in this life.

011. 　The True Salvation

　　While not neglecting the psychological aspects, we realize that, without consideration of physical aspects as well, relief cannot be complete. This basic stand is what sets our organization apart from all others. Spiritual salvation alone is a theoretical matter that cannot give true happiness. Purely psychological happiness can vanish at any moment in our deteriorating modern society. Illness may strike; thieves may break in and steak swindlers may cause financial loss, or heavy tax burdens may bring grave difficulty. Of course, taxes are necessary if police and courts of law are to deal with criminals. Money must be spent in the prevention of the many sicknesses to which human beings fall victim, and money must be found through taxation to make up for the huge losses incurred in wars started by ill-minded men. Many other instances could be cited, but as these show, it is extremely difficult to live in security and tranquility on the basis of spiritual salvation alone. In short, in a world like ours, happiness is only possible when both material and spiritual salvation are ensured. As its name indicates, our organization brings both material and spiritual salvation to the world.
　　On the individual level, this means the fulfillment of the individual's wishes in terms of actual benefit in this life. On the social level, it means cultural reform. In practice, though, as the revelations of God show, contemporary civilization harbors inherent fallacies, fallacies that no one has yet seemed to notice. On account of them moreover, it often happens that a course of action adopted as being helpful often actually leads to harm. In short, something designed to promote the welfare of humanity results in the promotion of unhappiness.
　　The facts prove this better than anything else. Even though civilization has developed to its present level human beings not only fail to find happiness but tend to suffer more and more. Insofar as our civilization is the product of the wisdom and repeated efforts of great men and women, and wise scholars, who have appeared one after another over thousands of years, it should by now have reached a level of such supreme excellence that any serious inherent fallacy would be unthinkable. Yet I know that such fallacies exist. My wish is to make people understand this as quickly as possible, to share happiness with them, and to impart to them a policy for the creation of a new and ideal world civilization. This is the will of God.
　　I would like to say here a few words about myself. Before I begin, I must explain that, though my background is that of an ordinary human being, my destiny is a mysterious one, unparalleled in human history. I have been born to help the world in a way entirely different from such great religious leaders of the past as the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed. I have been given the power to accomplish what could not be accomplished in their time. I can, for instance, know anything that is important to know in the divine, spiritual and physical worlds and in the past, present, and future － within the limits, of course, of matters relating to helping humanity and the creation of an ideal world. It is fascinating that I can foresee, not only my own fate, but also changes that will take place in the world.
　　Furthermore, experience to date has shown that my predictions are in general accurate. It is as if dreams were to come true. I am constantly making plans and undertaking projects that, without exception, go as I want. If I decide to write a literary work on some topic or other, the words flow forth naturally. As you know, I am fond of poetry and can produce a surprisingly large number of verses. For instance, it is easy for me to compose fifty short verses in an hour. I would like to write other verse types, novels, and plays as well but lack of time prevents me. I also write satires and humorous literature. Although I have had no experience with the genre, I was able to write the ritual prayer our members recite. As you all know, I am also constructing a large-scale prototype of Paradise on Earth and have chosen each stone, tree, and flowering plant myself. I designed the landscaping, architecture, and decor. In designing the Hall of Worship in the prototype of paradise that we are now building, I have employed the LeCorbusier style now prevalent in the architectural world. But I have done so in a new way so that, when the building is completed, it is certain to attract global attention.
　　I have almost no need to think about the landscaping or architectural work, since if I only stand and look at the space for which some project is planned, concrete images arise before me. I have never studied these subjects; it is just that, if I decide to do something, I immediately get good ideas. I arrange flowers, paint pictures, and do calligraphy. Although I have studied painting a little, in all these other fields I am a complete amateur. I understand things that will happen a century in the future in politics, education, economics, philosophy, and medicine. Knowing as I do the fundamental ways in which contemporary civilization is in error, I am impatient to do something to introduce reforms, awaken humanity, and bring happiness to the world. But there is nothing I can do until the right time comes. At present I can only, in connection with the creation of a paradise on earth, point out problems related to health, which is fundamental to everything else, and mistakes in agriculture as they have been revealed to me.




012. 　Power of the Spirit

　　The most surprising thing to me is the way I can make use of the power of the spirit to enable members to heal illness, and to know the cures they effect are lasting and sound. Christ and other sages and holy people have been able to cure illness miraculously, but almost always in only one person at a time; it was impossible for them to help hundreds of minions of people. In order to help all mankind, it is essential to endow an infinite number of other people with the power to heal. This is what I am now doing － with amazing results, as the development of our organization most strikingly shows. As I said earlier, even Christ and the Buddha were unable to do this.
　　God has enabled me to do these things because the right time has come. When I think about God's reasons for giving me such great powers, I am deeply impressed with the importance of my own mission. Of course, God never creates anything superfluous. Everything is made or destroyed in answer to a need. If this is seen as the truth of what I say, my heaven-sent mission emerges clearly. I am constantly being informed about all mysteries and have been given limitless, profound powers of divine wisdom. I do all things on the basis of revelation in order to impart this knowledge to all people and to create an ideal civilization.
　　Humanity has become so sophisticated intellectually that the simple explanations that worked in the past now fail to convince. Miracles proving those principles are required so that people can accept them and God manifests miracles accordingly. We should be overwhelmingly grateful that God not only points out our errors, but also works miracles to substantiate what is revealed. The divine work that I am now carrying out removes all ground for doubt about the truth of what I have just said.

November 25, 1950

013. 　The Feudalism of Science

　　A large segment of the populace has recently come to realize that our Johrei is much more effective than modern medical science; but I would like to say a few words here on a related and difficult problem.
　　No matter how tremendously effective Johrei is, it naturally cannot cure all cases and unfortunately, people sometimes die. When this happens, our opponents raise a great clamor. Some, with seeming glee, seize the chance to criticize us in the newspapers.
　　Yet at the same time most people accept death as a possible outcome of medical treatment. We all know of instances in which patients have died as a result of a single injection. People who at first felt assured of recovery through medical treatment have gradually weakened and finally died. Others have perished because of unsuccessful surgery. But few people are critical and suspicious about such deaths; admittedly, close relatives are sometimes so enraged that they sue the doctors concerned, but it is very difficult to settle matters of this kind through lawsuits, and they usually swallow their indignation and give up.
　　In spite of the effectiveness of our method, we are often credited with no more than psychological cures, or are showered with the kind of criticism and attacks I have already described when we make a slight mistake. In short, mistaken trust in the power of medical science has the upper hand. Of course, this is no recent development there have been numerous similar instances in the past. It may be that this is the lot of a pioneer, but I should like to examine the reasons why society, in spite of its considerable advances, persists in harboring this irrational attitude.
　　Because materialistic science is a fundamental condition of modern society, practically everything considered nonscientific is rejected as superstition. It amazes me that people refuse to realize that science is not omnipotent, no matter how advanced it is. There are many problems for which it has no answers. As I always say, people blindly put all their expectations in scientific progress because they have become the captives of what might be called the superstition of science, which probably does incalculable harm. Some of the most notable damage is caused by medical science. But in this case, unaware that their adherence to it is profoundly superstitious, people persist in believing that only medical science is effective, and in refusing to pay attention to any other kind of therapy, no matter how effective and socially useful it is. In a word, Japan today is subservient to science in a feudal way. This is not without reason; history shows that before the dawn of the scientific age in this country, various widely held superstitions did great harm and that it was science that played a considerable part in rectifying this situation. Yet at some stage the worship of science went too far and came to dominate people's minds completely.
　　Even though they consider science supreme, people entertain doubts when they find that medicine is incapable of curing illness. Abandoning medicine, they seek psychological tranquility in one of the established religions. Then, if unable to find satisfaction in this way, they turn to the new religious teachings and come to us.
　　Before World War II, the Japanese people considered the feudal principle of patriotism and fidelity to one's sovereign to be the highest morality, and, as we still recall advocates of democracy were promptly thrown into prison. Today, most people worship science as the supreme morality and despise and reject our teaching, just as democracy was despised and rejected in the past.

March 26, 1952

014. 　Tomorrow's Civilization

　　I shall now reveal the results of about twenty years of study on all aspects of the spirit and the spiritual world. Properly speaking, in so far as the spirit is intangible － in a sense, immaterial － there is no way in which its existence can be proved experimentally, so that it is obviously difficult to develop the study of it into a concrete branch of learning. However, as I have already said, I am convinced that the irresistible march of science will eventually bring it, academically and scientifically, within the grasp of the most ordinary of men. The modern science whose great blessings we all enjoy now was originally based on what seemed to be the dreamlike, far-fetched imaginings of pioneers in earlier ages. These imaginings have evolved into important fields of scholarship. When this is taken into consideration, it becomes clear that the recognition of the existence of the spirit and the creation of an important department of learning to deal with spiritual science are only a matter of time. The civilized modern person who refuses to accept the existence of the spirit and the spiritual world, no matter how carefully they are explained, is like an uncivilized savage who refuses to accept the existence of air pervading the spaces all around him. But once one admits the existence of the spirit in observing the actual world, everything becomes totally clear and free of contradiction and inconsistency. In the same way, the source of the difficulties that make me criticize materialistic science becomes easy to grasp, in that the manifestation of this wondrous power is, in itself, the truth. This will give some idea of the nature of the great change taking place in the world at present, and of the new civilization that will be born as a result.
　　What will this civilization be like? It will inevitably be characterized by the emergence and development of a spiritual culture. And as the relation between matter and spirit becomes to some extent clearer, it should have a remarkably stimulating effect on established civilization also. This will, of course, take place after the war is over.
　　It is not an idle dream to assume that, just as the development of material civilization revealed the true nature of air and was therefore beneficial to humanity, so more sophisticated machines will serve humankind by making it possible to measure and utilize spirit.
　　In my study of the relation between the spirit and illness, I have finally come to know its essential character and the cause-and-effect relations connected with it and have learned that these things are intimately connected not only with human illness, but also with change and renewal in all phenomena. However, since the solution of illness is the topic of this book, I shall here confine myself mostly to the relationship between the spirit and illness.
　　My healing art is ahead of its time in that it has reached the stage where it is possible to make spiritual science serve humankind by manifesting astonishing powers for the improvement of human health.

October 23, 1943

015. 　The True Nature of Illness

　　Illness is what happens when an abnormality arises in one part or the whole of the human body and suffering follows as a result; however, medical science has not yet understood precisely what causes such an abnormality. Here I should like to outline the research I have done on this topic.
　　All animals consist essentially of the spiritual and the physical bodies, the close and inseparable connection of which gives rise to the life force. The spirit is controlled by the will, which arises from the soul. Western medical science has completely ignored the spirit and has concentrated, in minute analytical studies, on the body. This is all that can be expected as long as science remains materialistic in attitude. The true cause of illness, however, is not in the body, but in the spirit. Sickness arises first in the spirit and then transfers to the body. In other words, the spirit is the cause of illness, and physical manifestations in the body are the result.
　　Even hundreds of years more of research will not result in cures unless the relation between spirit and body is clearly understood. At its present stage of development, science is incapable of employing instruments to measure the spirit. Its prevailing situation is identical to the state of civilization before humanity discovered the existence of air in apparently empty space. A science that discovered the component elements of air is certainly not incapable of discovering the existence of the spirit. The discovery of air led to sudden forward leaps in science. Similarly, the discovery of the existence of the spirit will bring about the establishment of a true medicine, a true therapy and, by uniting religion and science, will eradicate once and for all the contemporary conflict between the claims of science and the spirit.
　　I am at present achieving astounding cures through a theory concentrated on the spirit. So startling are our achievements, in fact, that people describe them as miracles. However, anyone who understands the principle of spirit-oriented healing without medicines and without physical therapy realizes that what we do is perfectly natural, and not mysterious. On the contrary, we should consider it a miracle if anyone were able to heal completely by means of therapy concentrated on the body alone.
　　I am not criticizing science, but pointing out the fallacies of medical science. Science has brought humanity immeasurable blessings, and it must continue developing in the future. But I hope that its future progress will be in union with religion.
　　There is one point in this connection on which it is easy to err. As I have said, human beings have spirits controlled by will. Machines do not. Nonetheless, in its role as a kind of magician, science tends to make machines and instruments work as if they were alive and even to replace living human beings with them. But it is impossible to treat living human beings as machines.
　　Because they are nothing but physical matter, damaged machines can be repaired with tools, oil, and the like, which are themselves physical matter. The human body's blood vessels, nerves, and cells are constantly changing and ceaselessly engaging in metabolic processes. It is truly a mystery. It is not produced on the basis of scientific principles. The human body is something we cannot make, no matter how hard we try. Yet we cannot stop it from being made. It is a mystic product of creation, and a human being is a higher spiritual being completely different from plants, birds, beasts, and fish.

May 15, 1936

HEALTH

016. 　The Truth of Health

　　In taking about health, the very first principle that must be understood is that good health depends on obeying and respecting the natural order. Therefore, we must first consider the purpose of God, the creator, in making human beings. We interpret that purpose to be the creation of an ideal world consisting of truth, virtue, and beauty. This astounding idea is not easy to accept at first; who knows how many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of years it may take to attain the ideal? But history shows that the world has been moving, step by step, in the direction of its attainment. God is spiritual, and a human being is physical. Working together, the two are making unlimited progress. Humanity is in charge of this undertaking. Our responsibility is immense, and to accomplish it we must be in good health. Having given us various missions to carry out, God has endowed us with the degree of health we need to fulfill our responsibilities. Should we lose that health, God's purpose in creating us would miscarry. Profound reflection on this truth makes it clear that our normal state is that of good health. But, surprisingly, we fall ill － or become abnormal － easily. Once this basic truth is understood, it becomes apparent that converting the abnormal condition into the normal condition is in harmony with God's purpose.
　　In considering this truth, reflection shows that abnormalities in the human body result from deviations from the laws of nature. Corrective therapy needs, of course, to understand the abnormality, correct it and restore the body to its normal state. Consequently, I shall now set out in detail the kind of deviations that disrupt the natural order.
　　When first born, human infants are fed on mother's milk or formula because they still lack teeth and their digestive organs are still weak. Gradually, as they gain their teeth and as their internal organs mature, their diets are supplemented with appropriate foods. Each of the many varieties of foods available to us has a distinctive flavor, and the human body has been endowed with a sense of taste enabling it to take pleasure in those flavors. The rest of our environment is well supplied with the right amounts of air, fire, and water for the maintenance of human health. The human being is equally well equipped. The brain is endowed with the ability to reason, remember, and react emotionally. The hands can make things, and the feet and legs give freedom of movement. Other necessary parts such as hair, nails, eyes, nose, mouth and ears are provided. The skin that covers the face and the rest of the body contributes to human beauty. Outlined in such detail, the human being proves to be a wonderful work of creation. One is moved by the wonder of God's work in a single flower, a leaf, a beautiful natural view and all birds and beasts down to the last insect and fish; but humanity is certainly the Creator's masterpiece. The miracle of the reproductive process ensuring continuance of the species defies description. When we realize that the human body is the Creator's masterpiece, we see that illness, which inhibits human action, is an aberration against nature. This is the point to which human beings must devote most serious thought.

April 20, 1950

017. 　Human Beings as Vessels for Health

　　Since humankind was made to be healthy, we must correct the old belief that human beings are vessels filled with illnesses. Nothing could be further from the truth. A human being is a vessel for health. Nonetheless, we are subject to illness, and since the problem seems insoluble, many people give up and accept what they consider to be inevitable fate. Of course, illness is often difficult to cure. Sickness may linger for so long or recur so frequently that people may be sick more often than they are healthy. For this reason, people have come to think of their bodies as vessels for illness and have invented a proverb to express their condition. It is not surprising that, because the basic nature of illness has remained unknown, people have come to believe that sickness and death are unavoidable. The same belief led the Buddha to say that all life consists of the four sorrows of birth, illness, aging, and death.
　　I have already explained that illness is caused by deviations from the laws of nature. When people become ill, they usually resort to medicines, which is a mistaken course of action. It is unnatural to employ either Chinese medicines, which are made of herbs, roots, and barks, or Western medicines, which are usually extracts of mineral and vegetable substances. Medicines are always bitter, malodorous, sour, or otherwise disagreeable; since olden times, people have spoken of the need to eat or drink something good to refresh the mouth after a medicinal dose. Medicines are unpleasant because God made them so in order to show that they are poisonous and should not be taken. In contrast, all wholesome foods and drinks are designed to please the palate. This is the way of nature.
　　It is a mistake to attempt to define in generalities what is and is not nutritious. Foods differ according to the soil, climate, and locale in which they grow, but they are all produced to suit the needs of the people living on that soil and in that locale. It is right for Eastern peoples to eat rice, and Western peoples to eat wheat. People of an island nation like Japan eat large amounts of fish, and continental people eat meat. In accordance with this line of thought it is right for farmers to eat plenty of vegetables, since a vegetarian diet is suited to people who must work long hours without resting. If the nutritionists of our time have their way in convincing farmers to eat more fish and meat, agricultural labor power will decrease. Since they eat seafood, fisherman work intermittently and are incapable of long periods of sustained labor. Moreover, eating seafood increases sensitivity and in this way also suits the needs of fishermen. Nature is truly wonderful.

April 20, 1950

018. 　True Health and False Health

　　Almost all humankind － or at least almost all members of the "civilized" peoples － are ill. Some are not visibly sick while some are manifestly so. In other words, the people actually suffering are clearly ill, and the apparently healthy suffer from latent illness. Here I shall deal only with the condition of the latently ill, since there is no need to explain the condition of the manifestly sick.
　　The latently ill harbor toxins, but purification to break down their solidified state has not yet started. A truly healthy person is one who is absolutely free of toxins and in whom no purification process takes place. In comparison with this, the latently ill person harbors accumulated toxins yet apparently stays in good condition, carries out his daily duties, even hard labor, and looks totally healthy. Furthermore, since it is difficult to discover such toxins, modern medical examination pronounces such people healthy. I call this condition "false health," and cannot help shuddering to think how many people today go merrily on their way in spite of the explosive load of illness they bear. The old-fashioned saying that human beings are "vessels for illness" refers to this state of "false health."

February 5, 1947

019. 　Raising Healthy Children

　　Japanese children today are in poor health. It alarms me greatly to see how poor their facial color is and how frail they look. In the past this condition prevailed largely among urban children, but lately it has also begun affecting those in farming villages. Physical examinations conducted at a primary school in a certain village in Nagano Prefecture, located in central Japan, showed that eighty-one out of one hundred children were suspected of suffering from tuberculosis. Since then, similar reports have appeared from time to time in the newspapers. It must puzzle everyone to read this kind of thing at a time when modern medical progress has reached even rural areas. The gravity of the problem is all the greater in that the cause of the phenomenon has not been found. To enable people to understand, I shall describe the cause in terms of my system of natural medicine.
　　The only conceivable cause of poor health among urban and rural children is mistaken hygiene and nutrition. The mistake lies in believing that Japanese children are exactly like Western children, and in raising them totally in the Western mode. This is a grave error. Japanese and Western children are essentially different. The mistaken idea that Japanese children can be raised in the Western way seems in the past to have been limited to the city, but has now spread to the country as well. The error of the Western way is in ignoring nature, giving children too much milk, neglecting breast-feeding, pampering, overdosing with medicine, and administering the wrong kinds of injections. Though theoretically acceptable, this kind of rearing actually weakens children physically. The system may be suitable for Westerners, who have been accustomed to it for generations, but it represents a sudden and bad change for the Japanese. If there must be a change in the old-fashioned way, which the Japanese have long found compatible, it should be gradual. The facts make this perfectly clear. Children were much healthier a few decades ago at a time when medical science had not yet advanced to the level it has reached today. For the sake of reference, I shall now describe the right way to raise children.
　　Mothers should work until the month of their delivery if possible. They should breast-feed their children, and use cow's milk only when absolutely necessary. Children should be allowed to live in as natural a way as possible, and mothers should not be too worried over things like catching cold. In other words, children should not be unnecessarily bundled up, but should be allowed to go their own ways without too much parental interference. Use of medicines must be minimized. Parents should recognize that children are born into this world endowed with the capacity for healthy growth. Too much coddling only weakens them. The best general policy is to keep in mind the venerable old ways handed down from our ancestors without being carried away by the fashions of the times. We should use modern progress by adopting not its theories, but its truly good aspects. I strongly urge authorities and specialists to take this point into consideration.

March 14, 1951

020. 　A Way for Anyone to Put on Weight

　　A large number of people who are born thin yet want to put on weight try all kinds of methods to no avail Practically everyone has at some time seen a woman with lovely facial features who was too thin to allow her innate good looks to show to best effect, and has thought regretfully how beautiful she would be if only she were a little plumper. Sometimes physical debility makes children peevish, and frail It is common for parents wanting to strengthen their offspring to feed them milk, cod-liver oil, and other nutritious foods and to lament later that all their efforts have produced no weight gain.
　　There is away by which people like this can fatten up and improve their facial color. On the shoulders of people who cannot gain weight there is invariably a hard, rocklike place that is slightly feverish.* Because it exhausts cells, this fever sharply reduces the appetite; but if Johrei is used on it, the hard spot will gradually soften. As this happens, the appetite will increase, and the person will put on weight. Not only does Johrei make people healthy, it makes them beautiful too. If this method were known widely throughout the world, we would all be able to rejoice at the increased number of lovely people. Parents too would be made happy by the improved health of their children.

January 10, 1951

021. 　The Way to be Beautiful

　　There are three major kinds of beauty: artificial, natural, and emotional. Artificial beauty is the result of using powders and rouges, but natural beauty is the result of good health and good circulation; it is the beauty of vitality and vigor. Emotional beauty springs from the heart and inspires respect and affection in others.
　　Today women plaster themselves with powder, rouge, and lipstick to make themselves look lovely because they have forgotten everything but artificial beauty. Yet there is a way to be lovely from one's innermost core without resorting to ridiculously costly cosmetics.
　　This is true beauty, which comes from good health and purifying the blood. Women's skin becomes lusterless, wrinkled, pallid and puffy from the use of too many medicines. To hide these effects, women today make excessive use of cosmetics.
　　True loveliness is impossible without inner beauty, which comes from faith. We see this in people receiving Johrei, who grow so much more beautiful as time passes that it is almost impossible to recognize them.

September 3, 1949

*The person administering Johrei does not touch the afflicted person's shoulders. Instead, the person receiving Johrei ascertains the hardness or softness of his or her own shoulders.

022. 　Medicine and Sport

　　Athletes, who have splendid bodies and great physical strength, are generally considered likely to die fairly young. Why this should happen is a riddle to medical science, but the following are the reasons. Although there are many kinds of sports, a person usually specializes in only one kind. Consequently the athlete repeats the same movements over and over through long hours of training, so that toxins gather and harden at his power points. As time passes, the purification process starts. But since toxins are more persistent in athletes than in ordinary people, purification and cure are more difficult for them.
　　My own experience has shown that hard protuberances of accumulated toxins form on one shoulder or the other of swimmers, and that the purification process associated with them produces symptoms similar to those of tuberculosis. In evalulating the condition of such swimmers, doctors frequently diagnose tuberculosis, and this accounts for the large number of persons in this field apparently suffering from this disease.
　　Similarly, golfers tend to be afflicted with kidney trouble, because tensing the waist and hip region causes toxins to accumulate and harden around the kidney area, and it is a well known fact that marathon runners frequently suffer from enlargement of the heart.
　　For the sake of their health, athletes ought to engage in two or more sports.
　　Musicians should also be careful, since their work calls for repetition of the same movements, which could lead to sickness. For example, people who are fond of piano playing have accumulations of toxins in their chest regions since their power points are in both arms. Violinists are subject to the same kind of problem in their shoulders, and cellists in their left shoulder and hip region. These conditions deserve serious thought, and musicians should compensate by performing movements other than the ones involved in their work.

February 5, 1947

023. 　My Health Plan

　　I should like to explain the method I myself follow in keeping fit. This year I am sixty-seven years old according to the Western way of reckoning age, but I am more hale and hearty than many men in the prime of life. I frequently climb the hill on whose slopes our new headquarters is being built and always have to slow down for the younger people, who lack strength in their legs. I am almost embarrassed by their frequent questions as to whether Meishu-sama is tired, since I am not fatigued in the least. I go to bed at two thirty or three in the morning and sleep till seven or seven thirty, which means I have about four or four and a half hours' sleep. As my close associates know, I do the work of ten people. Younger people find it hard to keep up with me, but there is nothing to do but let them keep trying.
　　I do all these things as a result of my method of keeping healthy. Since my way is the opposite of the one generally followed today, I shall explain it here in the hope that it will serve as a reference for other people.
　　The modern medical prescription for good health is to exert oneself only moderately, to get plenty of sleep and nourishment, to chew one's food well, and not to think too hard. My method is the opposite of this. I insist that people should exert themselves to the maximum* since this is a most effective way to improve health. Nonetheless, I urge sensible moderation, since overexertion can cause suffering. The amount of sleep a person requires varies with age, but for a person of about my age four or five hours is just right. Interestingly enough, as far as food is concerned, I am constantly worried about getting too much nourishment. There are so many offerings from members that we can scarcely cope with them, and I always make a point of eating at least a little of each in appreciation of their kindness, so that I tend, if anything, to eat too many rich things. To make up for this I unfailingly eat a considerable quantity of sweet potatoes after breakfast each morning. As a late-night snack, I often have a bowl of plain rice-and-tea and never miss a serving of sweet bean-soup.
　　Foods have yang (positive) and yin (negative) characteristics that must be kept balanced. Vegetables are yin and fish and meat are yang. These foods must be taken in a way that avoids leaning too much in either direction. I eat seventy percent yin and thirty percent yang foods in the morning, fifty percent of each at lunch, and seventy percent yang and thirty percent yin foods in the evening. Pickles too are yin or yang in nature: pickled green leafy vegetables are yin and pickled daikon, radish and turnip are yang. I eat them in a half-and-half ratio.
　　I chew my food only about halfway, not thoroughly, because chewing food fully weakens the stomach. Furthermore, I do not rest after meals but immediately begin some activity.** This is a way to strengthen the stomach. I have effectively cured stomach illnesses through this method.
　　I never set limits to the foods I eat. My basic dietary principle is to eat as much as I want of what I want when I want it. It is, however, impossible to be always as self-indulgent as this statement suggests, so I eat suitably.
　　Though it may sound surprising, thinking as much as possible is a kind of health regimen. People who use their brains live long, but worrying is a poor use of them. Instead, one should use them in interesting, pleasant ways. This is where faith reveals its value. Whenever you have a worry, if you take the attitude that you should leave it up to God, the worry will diminish considerably. In other words, let God shoulder the burden. Perhaps this seems conveniently selfish, but God finds such selfishness highly pleasing.
　　For a long time, no matter how it might rain or blow, I have never missed going out once a day. I walk as much as possible. Old people who continue to improve in health often say the same thing. I drink only about three small sake-cups of sake or one small glass of beer and smoke only an average amount.***
　　This is my system for good health. I pay no attention at all to germs. Although the ordinary person might consider my method unwholesome, in fact it is the true way to be healthy. I guarantee that anyone who buts this method into practice will become healthy. There is no chance, at least, of your becoming a pallid indoor type, so I recommend that you put your mind at ease and follow the system I have set forth.

April 20, 1950

*(Exert oneself to the maximum) This means that healthy people must not pamper their bodies. It does not mean that people who are confined because of illness or who are constitutionally frail should attempt to lead the same kind of active lives as completely healthy people.
**(When I have finished eating, I immediately begin some activity) This does not pertain to the ill.
***Meishu-sama did not inhale but only enjoyed the fragrance of cigarettes. He smoked four or five a day and did not recommend that others smoke.

024. 　What is Death?

　　In life, no issue is as urgent or as imponderable as death. As a result of my own long personal experience and of my researches into various religions, experiments in spiritualism conducted in the West, and every other related field, I have arrived at an answer.
　　I shall begin my explanation by describing the composition of the human being, which is not the physical body as scientists claim but is composed of two fundamental elements: the physical body and the spirit (element of fire). The elements of water and soil are the fundamental components of the physical body, which cannot function as a living being without the soul, the intangible spiritual element. The human body is no more than the visible manifestation of the spirit, and the separation of the spirit from the body is what is meant by death. When the physical body grows old or ill, or is injured or suffers excessive loss of blood, and can no longer be used, the law is that the spirit must separate from it. The loss of the element of spirit, or of fire, causes the body temperature to drop and the blood to coagulate at certain points. The element of spirit, in the form the physical body had in life, then goes to a separate world called the spiritual realm. Because it is an excellent example of how this happens, I shall describe an experiment once conducted in the West in connection with the form of the spirit.
　　As a certain patient was approaching death, the nurse on whom this experiment was being conducted noticed a white, steam like vapor rising from the vicinity of the ill person's forehead. It thickened and, after forming a large oval in space, gradually assumed the shape of a human body like the one the patient had had in life. The vapor form hovered in the air about three feet above the now lifeless corpse, and looking down on the grieving family surrounding the bed, seemed to want to say something, but finally quietly floated toward the window and thence outside.
　　The spirit is thought usually to leave the body from a limited number of places: the forehead, the abdomen, or the feet. In instances like death by explosion, when the body is mangled, the spirit is temporarily dispersed into countless fine particles but immediately reassembles centripetally to assume the shape of body the victim had in life. From there, it proceeds just as do the spirits of those who die as a result of illness.
　　When the spirit moves to any given place under its own volition, it assumes a spherical shape as it floats through space.
　　People who can see these spirits, like the nurse in the above example, have special powers that are either innate or acquired through training. There have been many such people in our country, and I have met them on numerous occasions. One woman whom I used in an experiment proved to have wonderful powers of clairvoyance.

1939

025. 　Life and Death

　　Since ancient times, people have devoted more energy to the problem of death than to any other. Nothing is more terrifying than death, which puts an end to all happiness and hopes. Yet with the exception of certain special cases, the majority of deaths are caused, one might say inevitably, by sickness. Most deaths occurring before the age of ninety result from illness － are, in other words, unnatural. The natural human life span would be terminated not by sickness, but by aging and gradually increasing physical debility. For this reason, people who die in this natural way do not suffer and usually can for see the end. The corollary is that deaths accompanied by suffering do not represent the natural termination of life. People are merely resigning themselves to their lot when, in a case of premature death, they seek comfort in words such as "His time had come." The famous Zen priest Torisu Etsuzan, who died a few years ago at the age of one hundred and twelve, foresaw his own demise. He called a considerable number of immediate family members, relatives, and friends to his side, said some parting words to each, and meditating until the prophesied time arrived, died quietly and painlessly. This is an excellent example of a "natural" death.

1939

026. 　Natural and Unnatural Death

　　Death is the extinction of life that occurs when, like a tree that withers and dies, the physical being is no longer capable of living. The numerous causes of death can be grouped into two major categories: natural and unnatural. Natural death comes when the living being's allotted span of years has been exhausted. Unnatural death results from illness, accident, violence or suicide. Human beings should die naturally; yet, incredible as it may seem, natural deaths have steadily decreased in frequency as civilization has advanced, while unnatural ones, especially those caused by illness, have increased.
　　Why is it that, in spite of inexorable advances in other fields of civilization, the situation in relation to human life has retrogressed? This single fact should make one suspect some grave error, yet despite their limitless desire for research in other fields, they remain extremely indifferent to this issue, presumably because they are resigned to their inability to do anything about the question of mortality. This is because no science or religion of the past has ever been able to provide a definite solution to the question. Consequently, no matter what progress is made in other fields, in this one area man has no recourse at present but to let nature run its course.
　　The topic obviously requires further thought. Nothing could be more contrary to the intentions of God, who made man to be the supreme animal, than for unnatural deaths to exceed natural deaths in number － and to continue increasing. If God is indeed almighty, sooner or later He must restore to humanity its qualifications as leader of creation. There is obviously no reason for God to look on silently forever at the abnormalities of human life.
　　It is natural, it follows, that the Almighty God should eliminate unnatural deaths and thereby lengthen human life through divine power. And this only underlines further the imminence of the world of light, the world free of sickness for which humanity has hoped for thousands of years.

June 19, 1936

TOXINS

027. 　An Analysis of Toxins

　　I shall now turn to an explanation of toxins. Basically, toxin is something that taints the blood, or clouds the spirit. This tainting or clouding arises, of course, as a result of contamination through evil. The idea of contamination has been made much of by religions since ancient time, but so far accounts of it have been over-simplistic: evil is contaminating, so it should be avoided. But this kind of explanation cannot possibly convince a civilization that has become intellectual and scientific. Today, people require a sound argument based on empirical logic.
　　Just as the world consists of a physical and a spiritual realm, so a human being is made up of inseparably interrelated physical and spiritual beings. Because the spirit and body are one, cloudiness of the spirit is reflected in the blood and vice versa. This is of paramount importance, and must be clearly understood. The physical wrong a person commits causes clouds to form on the spirit. An accumulation of these clouds cause a purification process to begin; this may take the form of illness, legal punishment, or some other disaster. Any wrong which escapes these kinds of purification will be spiritually punished according to God's law. A person may avoid retribution by his fellow mm, but the punishment of God is absolute and will be reflected in the body in the form of some great suffering. Such illnesses are highly malignant and often fatal. The process of suffering the consequences of evil can be likened to a debt. The longer it goes unpaid, the more the interest accumulates. Those rare villains who manage to avoid the punishment of humankind and God in this world will plunge into hell when they die because of the gravity of their misdeeds, and finally be obliged to repent. The hell in question is like that which the Buddhists call Avichi, the lowest of all hellish regions, or the Nezoko-no-kuni (land below the roots) of Shintoism, where there is complete darkness in which one remains as if frozen for hundreds of years. All desperately wicked people must resign themselves to going to this kind of world. I realize that modern people will have difficulty accepting this, but I insist it be believed, since what I say comes directly from spirits I have heard during my researches into the spiritual realm.
　　The self-reproach one feels at doing wrong results in suffering which is in itself a form of mild purification. It would be good if complete repentance followed at this stage, but it rarely does, and most people go on sinning more and more. The extent of one's spiritual cloudiness is commensurate with the degree of wrongdoing. Clouds, however, can come from without as well as from within. Take, for example, a case where one person causes another suffering. The victim becomes angry and bitter, and these emotions are transmitted through spiritual cords to the spiritual being of the person who caused the original harm, and thus cause clouds. By contrast, when one person makes another happy, his or her gratitude is transmitted back in the form of light to the benefactor, whose clouds are reduced by it. It is a fundamental law of nature that the more such good deeds are done in secret, and without desire for reward the greater will be the reward from God. Human beings shall believe and abide by this absolute truth. Purification of the cloudiness causes sickness and other disasters; therefore, if human beings wish to be happy they must do good, not wrong, and thereby prevent their spirits from becoming clouded.
　　Next, I shall touch on the subject from the physical standpoint. The form of illness which comes from murkiness in the blood is, of course, caused by the poison called medicine. Medicines are essentially toxic, but people have mistakenly interpreted them as beneficial because they are unaware that sickness is a purification process. I shall explain the principle involved in toxic medicine from the standpoint of practical experiment, but must point out that even people who have been cured by Johrei can suffer a relapse. We call this repurification. Though the initial Johrei removes the toxins that have already stimulated the purification process, as the person returns to vigorous, active work, a brisk purification starts again. In other words, the patient becomes healthy as a result of purification, and further purification is stimulated by this good health. As the process is repeated, the patient gradually approaches full recovery. This repurification, however, can entail fairly violent high temperatures and severe coughing. The phlegm coughed up is old and therefore thick; it is easily recognizable by its medicinal smell. The patient loses appetite, grows weak, and in rare cases may die.
　　The Creator has enabled the earth to produce all the food needed for the nourishment of humanity, the protagonists of the world. God has given to each food its own flavor and to human beings the sense of taste. There is thus no need to worry about nutrition. Merely to eat and enjoy the things one likes is enough for good health. The principle in operation in this case is similar to that governing the sexual appetite, which has other purposes than simply to create human beings. Thus, human beings should not put into their bodies anything other than substances specified as foods. If the food has no taste or is bitter it should not be eaten. It is through, ignorance of this, that people have always made the great mistake of assuming that unpalatable medicines are good for the body.

December 1,1952

028. 　The Three Kinds of Toxins

　　All illnesses are caused by the three toxins: accumulated toxin (nendoku), urinary toxin (nyodoku), and medicine toxin yakudoku). Accumulated toxin could also be called hereditary medicine toxin since it is transmitted from generation to generation and is ultimately transformed into an independent kind of toxin. Urinary toxin results from excess urine caused by malfunction of the kidneys. I have already explained what medicine toxin is, and will confine myself here to explaining the ways in which it manifests itself. It mainly produces such unpleasant conditions as fever, pain, itching, diarrhea, nausea, paralysis, and so on. The fever is more noticeable in people who take medicines in large amounts. For the same reason, it can be said that people who normally use no medicines rarely suffer from fever. Again, the pain caused by Western-style medicines is often sharp, whereas pain from Chinese-style medicines is duller.

February 5, 1947

029. 　Urinary Toxin

　　As has frequently been pointed out, especially hard toxins that persist in the body as the result of generations of use of medicines and that are thus not readily discharged, tend to accumulate where the nerves are most dense. Since we tense our waists, hips, and backs in the positions we assume during various activities, these toxins accumulate particularly in the region of the kidneys; this is clearly illustrated in the ailments of golf enthusiasts. Since such toxins constrict the kidneys, the extent to which they accumulate affects the organ's efficiency. For instance, if kidneys operating at maximum efficiency are capable of removing ten units of urine from the body, they may be able to remove only nine units when constricted by toxin accumulation. The other unit remains in the body to become urinary toxin. Like second-stage toxins － those reinforced by some extraneous substance, such as medicine, multiplied on the original or first stage toxin － urinary toxin accumulates in regions of dense nerve concentration. Because of its relationship to bodily movements, it tends to concentrate most in the kidney region, the abdomen, the lympatic glands of the groin, the peritoneum, the shoulders and the neck. Toxin accumulation is greater on the side that is more constricted. Whereas hereditarily transmitted medicine toxins are limited in quantity, and medicine toxins themselves limited to the amounts of medicine taken, urinary toxins are constantly produced and therefore hard to treat. This urinary toxin is one of the three toxins that together are, generally speaking, the source of all disease.

1939

030. 　Toxins Persisting for Half a Century

　　At the age of eighteen, I contracted pleurisy. The treatment consisted of opening a hole in my side and draining off about two hundred grams of fluid. Germicides were used in the operation. Later the illness recurred. This time I was given medicines. The combined effects of the medicines and the disinfectants caused a hard accumulation of toxins at a place between my back and armpit that I discovered only recently. I decided to give myself Johrei to get rid of it. At first, it was very hard, but it gradually softened and began to dissolve. Each time it dissolved a little more, I had diarrhea. Though the toxin accumulation caused little pain, I was interested to note how certain the occurrence of diarrhea after Johrei was. This experience proved that toxin accumulations persist for years. I am now sixty-eight, which means that that hard lump of toxins was in my body for fifty years. If I had not known about Johrei, it would have remained with me for the rest of my life. After each bout of diarrhea accompanying the dissolving of the toxins, I felt much better, even though I had thought myself quite healthy, unaware of the toxin accumulation. After the toxins finally dissolved completely my condition improved greatly, to my great joy. I feel as though I have added twenty or thirty years to my life. An even greater benefit is that my mind works so well now that writing is easier for me than ever before.
　　What I learned from this incident, in short, was that, in people who do not know about Johrei, medicine toxins can persist for life. Furthermore, as I have always said, the sources of diarrhea are almost always either in the head or in the back. Thus there are two types of diarrhea; the kind that occurs when the accumulations of toxins in those areas disperse and collect temporarily in the abdomen; and the kind that is caused by poisoning through food or drink. When brought on by Johka (purification) of the head, diarrhea is accompanied by large fluxes of blood.

June 6, 1951

031. 　Medicine: a Cause of Wrongdoing

　　Most readers will probably be surprised by the title of this article. The idea of a relation between wrongdoing and medicine is indeed startling. Yet astounding as it may seem, there is actually a very serious connection between the two. Medicine, as I often insist, is poison. When it enters the body, the blood becomes cloudy. When the blood becomes muddy, the spirit becomes cloudy, and this results in discomfort for the person who has taken the medicine.
　　The sense of discomfort is the true villain since it makes the person afflicted by it fretful, irascible, and ultimately bellicose. A person who feels well can shrug off provocative remarks from others, but may fly into a rage at practically nothing when he or she is suffering some malaise. In other words, the feeling of the moment determines whether a person is bright and cheerful or gloomy and ill-tempered. It must be taken very seriously, moreover, since it has a close connection with his or her whole fortune in life. Emotions play an important part in human life; they can lead to the break-up of married couples, quarreling between parents and children or brothers and sisters, trouble among friends, and in some cases to loss of one's job.
　　Obviously, emotions play a very large part in all spheres of practical, everyday life: whether, for example, an employee in some government or business office is liked and trusted by his or her superiors; whether a person is approved of by his or her colleagues, or a merchant popular among his or her customers; whether a technical expert is successful in his or her work or a student in his or her study; and so on. Emotion is a normal component in all such cases; what matters is when it gets out of hand.
　　People who have trained themselves to a state of great self-control can deal with emotional problems successfully, but ordinary human beings often look to the stimulus of drink say, or gambling as a distraction from their sense of discomfort. Others, who are well off financially and occupy a high position in society, look for similar escape in luxurious living or sexual philandering. This all costs money, which is frequently obtained by less-than-admirable means. Human beings have been known to resort to embezzlement, fraud, graft, and － most terrible of all － murder, just to acquire quite insignificant sums. Some people claim to be able to find a woman behind every crime, but I myself think medicine is at the heart of the trouble. In brief, to find emotional relief, people today seek stronger and stronger stimulation. To serve their needs, organizations offering unwholesome amusements of all kinds are increasing and are becoming steadily more accessible through modern transportation methods. These factors, combined with the breakdown of older social restrictions such as class systems make the serious life look foolish in the eyes of many.
　　However, troubles of this kind represent the brighter side of the picture. The darker side of medication is much more serious. Here, illness is caused in almost all cases. Moreover, people recklessly dose themselves with medicines and injections, so that illnesses increase and more and more human beings experience discomfort. The ramifications of excessive reliance on medicine are extensive. First, because medicines cause increased illness, patients must spend money on treatment and lose time from work. The expenditure and the loss of time on the job reduce their income and drain their savings. They must therefore borrow or be a burden on others. They become increasingly disgusted with life. At the same time, since medicines repress but do not fully cure, the illness drags on until they find themselves in a complete impasse, and are driven to steal the needed funds or, if they are weak-willed, commit suicide, either alone or sometimes with the whole family. Cases of this kind are reported in the newspapers every day. Tuberculosis is the illness precipitating many such tragedies.
　　To sum up, then, crime has its origins in a human sense of malaise, which is caused in turn by medicines. This is the meaning behind the title "Medicine: a Cause of Wrongdoing."

February 6, 1952

032. 　Causes of Accidents

　　The many accidents occurring today on highways and in other places continue to increase alarmingly, even though we are being constantly warned about them. The question of how to deal with them is so difficult that warnings and admonitions seem to be the only way open. The true cause of the accidents seems to go unrecognized; but from our viewpoint, it has to do with the condition of modern humanity's nerves. In short, people's nerves today fail to respond sensitively and quickly. Confronted with danger, people cannot react and avert harm with the agility that is essential. This sluggishness must be rectified since, in crises, a split-second's slip can spell disaster.
　　In this connection, I am constantly struck by the lack of agility in young people. Many of them are much more sluggish than I, and I am nearly seventy. What I look on as an ordinary way of moving and acting they consider speedy. The cause of this mental dullness is the modern tendency to resort to injections or medicines unthinkingly and at every turn. Moreover, the alcoholic beverages they drink contain preservatives or other chemicals, and the foods they eat have been grown with the aid of chemical fertilizers and insecticides. People who have eaten and drunk this kind of thing for a long time usually have large accumulations of medicine toxins in their bodies. Virtually saturated in medicines and compelled to lead lives of increasing complexity in which they must think too much, modern people understandably have massive coagulations of medicine toxins in their heads. Mild purification processes are taking place in their heads all the time, so that practically no one today is mentally lucid; almost everyone suffers from hotness, rushes of blood, heaviness, and pain in the head. This mental state accounts not only for accidents, but also for the many murders and assaults reported recently in the newspapers.

July 16, 1952

033. 　The Creator of Humanity

　　Who created humanity? Obviously humanity itself. God created our first ancestors, but there after human beings have created other human beings. Our bodies have the mysterious power to create priceless human spirit and flesh. This power cannot be obtained through knowledge, learning, mechanical equipment, or medicines. God has endowed each human being with this innate power. If each human being has been given the wonderful power to create a physical being, then it is scarcely surprising that he should be able to cure his or her own illnesses. Natural therapies can thus produce certain results.

1936

034. 　Natural Therapy

　　Human beings are indeed the artistic masterpiece of all God's creations. Truly, as is said in the Bible, humans were created in the image of God. Consequently, it is impossible for science to understand entirely the mysterious structure that is a human being. Science has only come to a partial understanding of humanity, and no one can say how many thousands of years will be required for a full understanding or even if such an understanding is scientifically possible. We can only praise the might of the Creator of so wondrous a creature with its many amazing characteristics manifest in the movements of limbs and body; in the subtle operations of will and thought in emotional expressions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure; in nerves so sensitive that they find intolerable the itching caused by a mere flea bite; in a tongue capable of conveying all kinds of intentions and of tasting the flavors of all kinds of food and drink; in faces, each one unique among the 1.8 billion people on earth. Especially mysterious is the process of reproduction whereby a human being is created. In the light of these wonders, it is scarcely surprising that, as long as human beings are not scientifically produced robots, science will be unable to solve the mystery of life.
　　The minute a person becomes ill, the body itself sets to work to eliminate the trouble. Capable of producing its own home-made medicines, the body is both a great pharmacist and a great physician. When the body is invaded by the impurity called illness, the doctor of home medicine who has his own hospital there promptly diagnoses the cause of the trouble and immediately issued a prescription to the pharmacist, thus initiating therapy. The body produces splendid medicine and maintains splendid equipment, both of which can produce effective cures. When a toxin is absorbed by the body, the body's pharmacist immediately prescribes a laxative, which induces diarrhea to rid the body of the offending substance. Other bodily reactions, too, are remarkably ingenious. For instance, the entry of harmful bacteria into the body stimulates the great sterilizing process called fever. When poisoned in one way or another, the body forces the poisons outward to prevent them entering the internal organs. The result is that red splotches appear on the skin, and itchiness and fever eliminate the cause of the trouble. Toxins stimulate the kidneys to vigorous action in order to use liquid to excrete the poison in the urine. When a great deal of dust is inhaled, the body expels it in sputum. Therefore, most illnesses can be cured by leaving them to nature.* Nevertheless, ignorant of this, people rely on the medicines and therapeutic systems developed by scientific research, thereby greatly hindering natural therapy and extending the duration of the illness.
　　Nevertheless, a reliance on natural therapy does not completely eliminate the need for medical practice. There is much value in such things as bacteriology, some aspects of hygiene, surgery in time of war or following traffic accidents and other emergencies, dentistry, and bonesetting.

1935

*This does not mean refusing to call on the help of medical science in case of a grave and possibly fatal illness. It merely states that, since taking advantage of the natural powers of recovery of the human body is fundamental to the maintenance of good health, natural therapy is most desirable.

035. 　Medicine's Blind Points and the Beneficent Powers of Nature

　　The greatest mistake of modern medicine is ignoring completely the natural powers with which human beings are innately endowed. We often hear of people who, when taken sick, go immediately to the doctor. After examining them, the doctor says, "It's a good thing you came to me without delay. If you had waited longer, it would have been too late." Doctors say such things because they believe illness or allowing an illness to go unattended, means that the patient's condition is certain to worsen. Medicine dislikes the idea of not dealing with a situation in time, and immediately prescribes medicines or other therapy to halt the sickness as soon as possible. However, it is important to realize that this eagerness to stop the progress of a sickness is a serious mistake. Sickness is the process where by toxins are eliminated. If it is allowed to run its course, the disease is certain to be cured once the toxins have been removed. It is to rid the body of toxins that such sufferings as fever, coughing, phlegm, runny nose, sweating, diarrhea, pain, and itching exist. All that is necessary is to put up with the condition for a while. When the impurities have been eliminated, the interior of the body will be clean.
　　There is no sense in trying to deal with sickness in accordance with a timetable. Doctors, however, ignorant of this principle, take the opposite stand and strongly caution against allowing an illness to run its course. They try to block the passage of impurities the body is trying to push out, and in this way cause the toxins to harden. Obviously, this is no way to bring about a fundamental cure.
　　Another serious blind spot of medicine is the dread of the suppuration that usually occurs when the human body suffers a wound or burn. Because of this fear, doctors make the great mistake of taking various steps to prevent infection. The shock of a wound or a burn causes toxins to collect in the injured area; everyone has a considerable amount of toxins, which the body tries to expel whenever an opportunity presents itself. Since they collect around wounds, the larger the infected area the greater the amount of toxins that will be removed from the body. This, of course, is a very good thing.
　　The process whereby the human body is constantly cleansing itself and eliminating impurities is called natural self-therapy. Each human being is endowed with such power, and to respect it and give it every opportunity to manifest itself is the only true way to true medical science. In practice, however, as is amply borne out by the facts, doctors accept and even encourage things that hinder the operation of this natural power.
　　Simply to realize humanity's heaven-bestowed, natural self-healing powers － more wonderful than anything medical science is capable of － is a source of immense happiness. Johrei further reinforces and stimulates these natural powers and is therefore the most progressive and rational of all therapeutic systems.

July 25, 1951

036. 　What Is Sickness?

　　All human beings have both innate toxins, inherited from their parents, and acquired medicine toxins, which enter the body after birth. Most people find this statement surprising. From ancient times the belief was accepted, and served as the central idea underlying medical practice, that medicine was something that cured disease and improved health, and that, given the right medicine, the problem of sickness could be solved. People have thus assumed that the discovery of good medicines would solve the problem of sickness. Everyone knows the importance the people of the United States attach to medicines, and the extreme efforts they devote to discovering new ones. If medicines produced cures, the number of illnesses should in theory gradually decrease. Instead, in apparent defiance of all reason, they are steadily on the increase. There is no such thing on earth as a truly curative medicine. All medicines are poisons, each with its own effect. The operation of the poison called medicine appears to cure because it decreases pathological symptoms.
　　Why do I say that medicines are poisons? When the Creator made human beings he simultaneously provided all the foods they require. The things that are fit for human consumption are clearly distinguished from those that are not. Things that we should eat have pleasing flavors, and we have been endowed with a sense of taste. The scrupulous care the Creator has taken with these arrangements is revealed in the way people can derive all the nourishment they need simply by eating the things they like. We do not eat consciously to live, but live because we eat. The mystery of procreation is similar, in that men and women do not only engage in sexual intercourse specifically to have children. Children are granted to human beings as the incidental result of acts performed for other purposes.
　　The interior functions of the human body are incapable of dealing with foreign materials other than the ones created to serve as foods. These other materials are the medicine toxins, which tend to accumulate and, as time passes, harden in various parts of the body. The resultant hard areas are found only in regions where the nerves operate, such as the upper body, especially the neck and above. This is the region dominated by the brain, and includes the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. These are the places where toxins tend to accumulate, hardening in the vicinity of the neck and causing the stiffness in the neck and shoulder region that everyone experiences. When a certain degree of intensity has been reached, the natural elimination, or purification, process sets in. Fever dissolves the toxins, which, in fluid form, are passed out of the body in coughing, sputum, nasal discharges, sweat, bowel movements, and urine or the symptoms of what is called the common cold.
　　The cold is a process for ridding the body of toxins. If the patient endures the discomfort and allows things to run their natural course, eventually the interior of the body will be cleansed, and a cure will be effected. This is a marvelous thing. The simple physiological process known as the cold is actually evidence of God's providence for which we ought to be grateful, even though people incorrectly interpret the suffering caused by purification. It is surely evident how mistaken medicine is in devising ways of putting an end to the process.
　　The more vigorous and lively the human being, the more readily the purification process occurs. Attempting to halt the process can only reduce the vigor of the body. Nevertheless, people still resort to the poison called medicine. From ancient times, people have prepared liquid medicines, pills, unguents and injections by brewing, powdering, and extracting elements found in grasses, roots, barks, minerals and animal organs for use in halting the purification process. Since such poisons are strong enough to be fatal, they are administered in small, diluted doses. Amounts are laid down to be taken several times daily. A medicine that works well is one in which the toxin has been strengthened as much as possible without reaching a level that can cause addiction.
　　The use of medicine toxins hardens those other toxins that, having been dissolved, are in solution and in the process of being eliminated. The current fuss about preventative hygiene and fear of the common cold indicate how poisoned modern man has become and how easy it is for him to fall sick. Furthermore, the happiness people feel over a life-expectation of sixty-odd years is gravely mistaken. If it were not for sickness, human beings could easily live to over a hundred. Death at less than that age is unnatural and caused by sickness., if illness were eliminated and natural death prevailed, we would all live longer.
　　As the discussion so far should have shown, medical therapy does not cure illness but simply alleviates pain temporarily. All the methods it employs to achieve that end－total rest, wet dressings, applications, ice packs, electrical therapy, radiation treatments, and so on－only harden the toxins. Moxa cautery and heat treatments are exceptions. These use heat stimulation to guide the toxins to certain locations and bring relief from pain, but that is all; when the situation returns to what it was before, nothing lasting has been achieved.
　　Therapy methods used until now have hardened toxins. The only way to bring about a true cure is to dissolve toxins and remove them from the body.

January 1, 1953

037.　The True Cause of Illness

　　As I said in the preceding section, human beings possess various toxins when they are born into this world. Since it is impossible to maintain perfectly good health because of the obstructions these toxins create, the body is constituted to undergo a constant natural purification process to eliminate them physiologically. This natural purification process is accompanied by some pain connected with the process known as sickness.
　　This can be illustrated by reference to the most common of all sicknesses, the cold. Though there is probably no one who has not experienced a cold at one time or another, the causes of the sickness remain unknown to medical science. My own discovery, however, has been that the cold is one of the simplest of all purification processes. A person who catches a cold is likely to manifest a variety of unpleasant symptoms － fever, headaches, coughing, expectoration, nasal discharges, loss of appetite, sweating, lethargy, and pain in the joints － that I will shortly discuss in detail.
　　First, though, I must look at the nature of the purification process, which I divide into two categories. In the first category, various toxins in the blood accumulate and harden in various parts of the body. The places where they naturally accumulate are areas of nerve concentrations or regions that are on the underside of the body when it is at rest. As time passes, the accumulated toxins harden to produce what is commonly called stiffness. Usually this condition is painless or associated with nothing worse than stiffness of the shoulders.
　　The second purification process occurs when the first one has already exceeded certain limits and natural elimination of toxins begins. To facilitate such elimination, it is essential to dissolve the hardened toxins. Fever is the means employed to achieve this end. The degree of fever required depends on the hardness, nature, and quantity of the toxins and on the patient's physical constitution. Fever is occasionally experienced from fatigue after exercise. This happens because exercise stimulates the purification process. The toxins dissolved by it are removed from the body in sweat expectoration, and nasal discharges.
　　Since it results in expectoration, coughing in such cases can serve as a "pump". Nasal discharges are removed in sneezing. Sputum is expectorated after coughing; sneezing is always followed by discharge of nasal matter. Fever, expectoration, and the taking of medicine cause loss of appetite. The movement caused by the dissolution of hardened toxins and preparation to eliminate them stimulates the nerves in the affected area and brings on headache and pains in the joints. Toxins being eliminated by coughing come into contact with the mucous membranes, causing catarrh in the throat and vocal cords, which in turn cause pain and hoarseness.
　　If no treatment is given and no medicines are used, these symptoms of the cold are left to run their natural courses and they will be cured in a short time, as the purification process is completed in an orderly way. Relying on natural therapy in this way reduces the amount of toxins in the body and improves health. By showing that colds should really be welcomed as the simplest of the purification processes, this discussion should make clear how mistaken people are when they fear them, and how mistaken medical science is to try so hard to prevent people from catching them. Since ancient times it has been said, for example, that "the cold is the source of all illness." In fact, however, it is necessary to affirm that the cold is the sole means by which all other illnesses can be avoided.
　　Ignorant of the causes of the cold, medical science applies various methods when a person catches cold, yet all of them halt the purification process. Antipyretics, ice packs and wet applications to lower fever are examples. They have the effect of setting purification back from the second to the first category. They reharden those toxins that had begun to dissolve. Though doctor and patient are deluded into thinking the condition is improving because such symptoms as fever, coughing, and nasal discharge are reduced, actually the toxins have hardened again and the situation has regressed to what it was before second-category purification started. Recurrence of the illness is therefore only to be expected. It is important to notice that all such steps as medication, ice packs, and wet applications make the situation worse when it does recur because they halt the purification process. Consequently, the repeated interruption of minor purification processes by such means as medicines causes the toxins to accumulate and increase, thus making necessary an inevitable major purification process, which takes the form of a serious illness.

February 5, 1947

038. 　What Is Sickness?
　　　　　The Cold

　　Medical science agrees that people have various innate toxins. The body initiates a natural physiological process in the attempt to get rid of them. We call this process purification. Initially, the toxins accumulate in various parts of the body, especially in those areas where nerves are most used: the upper part of the human body, notably around the brain. When a person is awake, the brain, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth are constantly active, even though the legs and arms may be at rest. Consequently toxins accumulate mostly in the area of the brain and then in the shoulders, neck, lymph glands, the top of the spinal column, and the region of the glands under the ears. Gradually these localized accumulations of toxins harden. When the hardening reaches a certain stage, the elimination process begins. This should be regarded as a blessing. Hardening of toxins reduces vigor to the point where the human being is incapable of carrying out his fundamental tasks, by interfering with blood circulation and causing stiffness in the neck and shoulders, headaches, heaviness of the head, reduction of vision, hardness of hearing, stuffy nose, dulling of the olfactory sense, pyorrhea, bad teeth, shortness of breath, sluggishness in the legs and arms, backaches, and swelling. To prevent this, the Lord Creator provided the splendid purification process called sickness.
　　If the pain involved in the elimination of toxins is what we call sickness and this sickness purifies the blood, it ought to be considered the greatest of all God's blessings, since it is the essential element for good health. It could even be that, if they were not subject to illness, human beings would gradually weaken and perhaps become extinct. Since I advocate the creation of a world free of illness, I might seem to contradict myself by saying this, but that is not the case. What I mean is the elimination of all toxins so that the purification process, and therefore illness, become unnecessary. I shall now explain my meaning as thoroughly as possible and in the most readily understandable way.
　　We call the process of eliminating hardened toxins purification. When a person catches cold, the first symptom is fever. Nature employs fever to dissolve the hardened toxins and facilitate their elimination. The liquid toxins then quickly enter the lungs. This is a highly mystical process. For instance, if we dissolve the toxins by means of Johrei, they go immediately to the lungs, passing straight through muscles and bones. The condition is fairly light when toxins are concentrated in only one or two places in the body, but grows more serious as the number of concentrations increases. This is why a cold that seems mild at first sometimes grows more serious.
　　If the liquified toxins are thin, they quickly enter the lungs then are immediately expelled from the body as sputum. If they are denser, however, the pumplike operation of coughing is called on to eliminate them through the trachea. Thus coughing is immediately followed by discharge of sputum, as sneezing is always accompanied by nasal discharge. Similarly, headaches, pain in the throat, inflammation of the inner ear and of the lymph glands, and pain in the arms and legs and the glands near the groin are all caused when toxins that were solidified in those parts liquefy and begin to move in search of an outlet. These conditions occur because of stimulation to the nerves. The fluid toxins may be either concentrated or dilute. Concentrated ones are eliminated from the body in sputum, nasal discharge, or diarrhea; extremely diluted ones are watery and may be eliminated as night sweating or urine. The completely natural way in which this purification process takes place makes one marvel at the powers of the Creator. There is no reason why God should have produced human beings and then imposed on them such a thing as illness that causes them to suffer and impedes their activity. In fact, human beings produce toxins through error and allow them to accumulate in what ought to be unfailingly healthy bodies, so that the elimination process becomes unavoidable and essential. If this is the nature of illness, it means that the ordinary cold, if left to run its course naturally, should be cured without specific treatment since the purification process will take place naturally. When this happens, the health will improve.
　　Yet for some unaccountable reason, at some point this purification process became completely misunderstood. When an illness develops, people take extreme measures to halt purification because they interpret the accompanying pain as an indication that their condition is deteriorating. Out of fear they try to reduce the fever. Reduction of the fever halts the liquefaction of the toxins; as a consequence, all such symptoms as coughing and discharge of sputum decrease, giving the impression of recovery from the sickness. By resorting to medical therapy to treat a cold, people only reharden toxins that had started to liquefy.
　　Since measures such as ice pack, cold applications, medicines, and injections harden toxins and simultaneously eliminate pathological symptoms, people tend to believe they are effecting a cure. In fact these measures only hinder the cleanup operation that had once begun. Colds grow worse because, by trying to halt them, people force the purification process to conflict with the nonpurification process in a way that generates friction. Even when application of medical therapy seems to have conquered it the cold will inevitably reappear. In short instead of curing illness, medicine only postpones it. The way to cure sickness is to purify the body by completely ridding it of the toxins that are the fundamental cause of illness. The only true therapy is one that when purification begins, accelerates the liquefaction of toxins and maximizes their elimination from the body.

August 15, 1951

039. 　What Is the Common Cold?

　　It is probably impossible for the ordinary person living as a member of society to avoid catching cold. Becoming chilled is generally regarded as the cause of colds, and it is difficult to avoid the condition that presents itself many times everyday when one may get chilled: undressing before going to bed, dressing upon waking, bathing, and going out into the cold wind and rain. Consequently, I teach that people should not worry about this too much.
　　Sometimes, feeling cold is followed by actually catching a cold and sometimes it is not. When it is, it is because the person had a slight fever; when it is not, it is because there was no fever. In other words, the person had already caught cold, and the slight fever was the first sign of the illness; the cold would have come no matter whether his body was chilled or not. Particularly if he has a slight fever, he will shiver from cold no matter where he is and no matter how heavily he is dressed.
　　It is important to realize, however, that when the weather changes or when a person is exposed to cold, there is no way to prevent the natural process of purification that takes place in response to those conditions. It is therefore futile to try to avoid catching colds, which are inevitable. Indeed, the attempt can have adverse psychological effects. I am convinced there is no one who can avoid a cold by being careful.
　　Medical science still cannot pinpoint the cause of the common cold. Nevertheless, I will attempt a rough explanation in the light of my own views. First of all, the basic cause of health or sickness in human beings is the purity or impurity of their blood. A healthy person has pure blood, whereas the blood of an unhealthy person is clouded. Fortunately, a purification process is constantly taking place in the body of a person with clouded blood, and the elements (toxins) responsible for the clouding collect in one place and harden. This is, as I have already explained, the first purification process. The second purification process － that is, elimination of the hardened toxins － follows. This process is what is called the common cold. Fever dissolves and liquefies the hardened toxins, which, after first accumulating in the lungs as sputum, are expelled by the pumping action involved in coughing. In other words, the common cold is the simplest form of purification. As a result cloudy blood becomes pure, and health is improved. Consequently, the cold is a great blessing bestowed on humanity by God and a natural physiological process.

November 23, 1943

040. 　Internal Bathing

　　I am constantly writing about the fallacies inherent in modern medicine. Some people accept the principles on which our philosophy is based, but in reality most are unable to put it boldly into practice because they think of sickness in terms of the doctor and medicines. For the sake of that majority, I shall here explain our approach in the most readily understandable way.
　　Probably the most easily understood sickness is the ordinary cold. When people catch cold and such symptoms as fever, coughing, phlegm, sneezing, watery nasal discharges, headaches, and pain in the joints develop, they immediately go to a doctor for a diagnosis. This is the cause of the trouble. While realizing that the sickness is no more than a cold, most people who catch one at once entertain the fear that, if they are not careful, the situation will become more serious and that they are experiencing the first stages of a much graver sickness. Some people simply do as their doctor instructs and wait to get better. Others turn to home remedies like aspirin, root and herbal brews, a drink of sake and eggs, charred orange peel, and so on, or go to bed, pile quilts on themselves, and try to sweat it out, turning bright red in the process. Not satisfied with makeshift home cures and afraid that the sickness will get out of hand and become perhaps incurable, people with less courage than money rush to their trusted physician. They ask a lot of questions, but, because the doctor himself does not understand the cause of the common cold, he or she is unable to give any clear explanation. Consequently the patient's mind is, quite naturally, not put at rest. The doctor may well suspect the danger of pneumonia, but must be content with such perfunctory injunctions as "Go to bed and rest," or "Take good care of yourself," thus only increasing the patient's anxiety. Such patients are obliged to stay at home all day with a thermometer and, from our viewpoint, look ridiculous.
　　There is nothing more beneficial to health than the cold, since it cleans out the toxins stored in all parts of the body. It is good to sweat as much as possible and to rid of body of phlegm and nasal discharges, since these fluids contain toxins that have been dissolved by fever. The more quickly they are removed from the body, the sooner will a cure of the cold be achieved, leaving the patient feeling refreshed and in better health than before. A cold cleanses the body's interior free of charge, what could be a greater blessing than that? Just as bathing is a way to keep the outside of the body clean, a cold is a way to keep the inside clean. Washing removes the grime clinging to the skin; a cold removes the grime on the body's interior. Sputum, nasal discharges, and sweat are the interior dirt being removed from the body. Though it is easy to wash the outside of the body, similar cleansing of the interior is impossible. Nature, bearing witness to the great skill of God the creator, has provided colds to do this work, and we should be correspondingly grateful to them.
　　Employing the toxins called medicines and misinterpreting the nature of colds, doctors do all they can to stop them. I doubt if there is one true medicine among the medicinal products of the world. All the substances now considered beneficial medicines are actually toxins retarding the natural process of recovery. Nothing is more mistaken than to rely on these toxins. People make the mistake because they are deluded into thinking that, when medicines bring relief from pain by temporarily halting the internal cleansing process, an actual cure has been effected. In short, medicine is truly a forbidden fruit.
　　The fact that I have discovered this remarkable human error and teach Johrei, moreover, as a way of eliminating medicine toxins, clearly shows how great a salvation my work represents. It should be obvious too, that my insistence on the creation of a heaven on earth free of illness, poverty, and conflict is more than mere boasting.

March 12, 1952

041. 　The True Cause of Sickness Is In the Soul

　　Everything in the physical world is made up of a spiritual being and a material being. The material being decays and decomposes when the spirit leaves it This happens even in the case of stones; for example, stones that crumble and break easily are sometimes referred to as "dead." Rust on the surface of metal can be called a corpse since it represents what the metal becomes when its spiritual being departs. Well-burnished sword blades and ancient metal mirrors do not rust much because the spirit of the persons who made them have been added to those of the physical objects. All material things have spirits, but living creatures have spiritual beings. In living human beings, the spiritual being and physical body are intimately, inseparably, linked to each other. Death occurs when the spiritual being leaves the physical body for the spiritual world.
　　Besides their spiritual beings － or rather, within their spiritual beings － all living creatures have minds and souls. The mind is the center of the spiritual being, and the soul is the center of the mind. In size, the mind is one-hundredth that of the spiritual being, and the soul is one-hundredth that of the mind.
　　When the soul moves, the mind is put into action. When the mind moves, the spiritual being is put into action, and this in turn causes the physical being to act. The soul is the fundamental source of all human movement and of au other physical phenomena. Classified in terms of good and bad, the mind acts as good in relation to the bad of the physical being, and the soul as good in relation to the bad of the mind. The friction between the various goods and bads gives rise to a harmony which manifests itself as potential action.
　　Consequently, illness is generated by part of the soul, which activates the physical body. Though small, the soul has free powers of expansion and contraction. When a person is awake and working, the soul assumes human form, but it becomes round during sleep. At the instant of death, the soul, the mind, and the spiritual being become round. Light is associated with this roundness. Therefore, on leaving the body, the spiritual entity assumes the form of the flying, flaming spheres which are occasionally visible to the human eye.
　　The occurrence of illness in one particular part of the soul in its human form signifies, in fact, a clouding － diminution of the light － of a part of the soul itself. This is transmitted first to the mind, and then to the spiritual being. Finally, it manifests itself as illness in the physical being. Therefore, as long as the soul remains unclouded, the person will contract absolutely no illness. Pollution with sin is the cause of clouds on the soul. To explain this, it is necessary to delve into the field of religion. Therefore, I shall not deal with it here, but instead will explain illness as a physical manifestation.
　　As I have already explained, when clouds occur in part of the spiritual being － let us say the lungs － the blood in the corresponding physical being becomes muddy. Since this principle is not limited to lung disease but applies to all other sicknesses, treatment must depend on removing the clouds from the spiritual being. Acquainted only with the evidence and ignorant of the main cause － that is, of this principle － modern medical science concentrates most of its research and effort on pathological symptoms in the physical being. Though it may bring temporary respite, such treatment cannot effect fundamental cures. In contrast, Johrei employs the divine light to eliminate clouds in the spiritual being. When this happens, the concentrated liquid is dissolved and the illness is either alleviated or cured entirely because purification of the spiritual being results in a cure in the physical being. However, it cannot be said that this is truly fundamental. Though certainly more fundamental than the effects of medical science, it cannot be called absolute since, unless the soul is totally purified, it is impossible to be truly mentally tranquil. Purification of the soul is only thorough when the person has a firm understanding of the right faith and puts that faith into practical action. Since this kind of action is the work of the divine light, the people carrying it out generate absolutely no sin but instead accumulate virtue. Consequently, such people lead lives of joy and rapture utterly free of illness or calamity. They enjoy happiness, long life, and prosperity.
　　I should like to take the opportunity this discussion offers to say one more thing about the soul. Some people are easily startled by external things, and are constantly unsettled and restless because their souls have been weakened and their powers of resistance against impulses from the outside world have been reduced. The many people today who suffer from nervous debility are of this kind. The cause of the weakness is clouds in the soul, but it can be cured if the coagulation of toxic blood at the nape of the neck is dissolved. If their condition deteriorates, such people may suffer insomnia. They must also live with the likelihood of a recurrence even after a cure has been effected. Therefore they should accept Johrei and allow their souls to be so illuminated by the divine light that no clouds can develop there.

1935

042. 　Wrongdoing and the Fundamental Cause of Illness

　　Illness is basically caused by pollution of the blood, and an accumulation and coagulation of suppurative fluid. These in turn are manifestations of clouds in the spiritual being. This is a result of pollution through sin, which can be either hereditary or acquired. Hereditary pollution is the accumulation and consolidation of the wrongs perpetrated by many ancestors. Acquired pollution is the accumulation of the wrongs a person commits in this life.
　　First I shall deal in detail with hereditary pollution. We are not creatures who have suddenly sprung to life unrelated to all other beings. Each of us has thousands of ancestors and is the present living, breathing culmination of all our forebears. At the same time, however, each of us is an interim being, a temporal individuality, in an eternal process. In the large view, we are links in the chain connecting our ancestors and our descendants. In the smaller view, each of us is the link joining parent and child. To explain thoroughly how sickness can result from the wrongdoing of ancestors, it is essential to discuss life after death, that is the organization of the spiritual world. In what follows, therefore, I give a summary of the situation here.
　　In leaving this world and passing through the gate of death, a human being divests itself of its clothing of flesh. The flesh belongs to this world, and the spirit to the spiritual world. As a result of aging or illness the physical body degenerates to the point where it is no longer serviceable, whereupon the spirit abandons this useless physical burden and goes to the spiritual world, where it must prepare for rebirth into this world. This preparation is purification. Since most people are greatly polluted by sin during physical life, in the spiritual world, as a result of a fair and strict judgment, the majority fall into hell. Enduring their punishment there, they improve little by little. Nonetheless, this purification still leaves spiritual pollutants, or a residue of sin, to be passed on in an unbroken stream to their descendants. Children and grand children must bear the burden of their forefathers' wrongs in what might be called a cause-and-effect law of atonement. Since this is the inscrutable law of God the Creator of all things, human beings have no choice but to obey it. The spiritual pollutants ceaselessly flow in the direction of a human being's brain and spinal column and, immediately after entering the soul, assume physical form as suppurative fluid, which is the cause of all kinds of illness.
　　The second, or acquired pollution is something everyone understands well since no person is capable of living this life without doing wrong in some way or another. Of course, wrongdoing is of many kinds and degrees; there is legal wrongdoing, moral wrongdoing, social wrongdoing, and so on. Some wrongs manifest themselves in actual physical action, whereas other kinds are only wrongdoing of the mind. Though it may sound too severe, Christ's statement that a man who lusts after a woman in his heart has already committed adultery with her is certainly not mistaken. All the small acts and thoughts of daily life － hating someone, wishing another person harm, lustful desire － though apparently insignificant in themselves can become serious if allowed to accumulate over a long period. Superiority of the kind gained by victory in a competition or social success can cause the person who has not succeeded to resent or feel envious of the more fortunate person. This kind of resentment can be the cause of sin. Unnecessary taking of life, being lazy, attacking others, wasting material possessions, oversleeping in the morning, breaking promises, falsehood, and many other actions and attitudes are all sins committed without being felt as such. Though small individually, yet over a long period of time these sins can become numerous and accumulate as clouds in the soul. Contrary to what might seem to be the case, even newly born infants have acquired clouds. The case may be different after children leave their parents' sides to become independent, but as long as they are under their protection, children must share the sins of their fathers and mothers. The parents are the trunk of the tree. The boughs are the children, and smaller branches are the grandchildren. Just as no branch is unaffected by the trunk, so it is impossible that the spiritual clouds of the parents should fail to influence the offspring.
　　Acquired pollution and its effects are often readily apparent, as the following few examples show. In two of these instances, people who persistently pulled the wool over other peoples' eyes went blind themselves. As a child I often went to Senzoku-cho, in Asakusa, to visit an old man, who in his younger years, had been the proprietor of a shop specializing in mounting scroll paintings and calligraphy and who had himself amassed a fortune as a result of his genius for forging such works of art. His new scrolls passed muster for sale as valuable antiques. However, as he told me himself, after he had grown old he went incurably blind; he died not long afterward.
　　In another instance, the head priest of a temple in the Shizuoka district wanted to place the main Buddhist image of his temple on view in Tokyo. He took the statue to Tokyo to raise funds but failed and found himself without sufficient money for the trip home. To raise the fare, he left the statue as collateral with the proprietor of a dealer in furnishings called Hanagame, in Hanakawado, Asakusa, from whom he borrowed what he needed. Realizing its great value, Hanagame sold the image. When the priest, who had gathered the money for repayment, returned to Tokyo to redeem it, Hanagame stubbornly and brazenly refused to admit he had ever accepted it in the first place. In an irresolvable impasse, the priest hanged himself under the Hanagame eaves. Having made a huge profit on the sale of the statue, Hanagame expanded his business and for a while steadily prospered until he was extremely wealthy. But in his late years he, too, went blind. To make matters worse, his son, who was supposed to succeed his business, took to drinking and womanizing and squandered the family fortune. I often saw Hanagame as a wretched, miserable, scrawny old man being led by the hand about town by his old wife. My father told me the story of his fate. There can be no doubt that the revenge of the dead priest was at work in what happened to him.
　　In another instance, the sin of the father was visited on the child. A girl of seventeen or eighteen who worked as a maid in our house had lost the sight of an eye when the children of the family by whom she had previously been employed accidentally shot her in the face with an air gun. It was discovered that in the middle of the nineteenth century, her father had been especially skillful at making imitation coral beads of rubber, which he sold to rural people at high prices as the genuine article. Though he made a great deal of money this way, the resentment of the people he duped must have been equally great. The father's sin was visited on the daughter in the form of lost sight in one eye. Moreover, if her eyes had been normal, this girl would have gone far in the world since, aside from this one deformity, she was very lovely.
　　In still another instance, an old man came asking me to treat a pain in his wrist. I was so surprised that more than ten days of therapy failed to cure him that I asked what his religious faith was. He told me that for more than twenty years he had put his faith in a certain deity. As soon as he followed my advice to stop worshiping that god his arm gradually got better. And, in a week, he was completely cured. I frequently hear of people whose hands are paralyzed or painful or whose knees will not bend because they mistakenly worship the wrong deity.
　　As these examples show, we must not underestimate acquired pollution by sin. People who suffer from illness or other hardship should carefully examine themselves to discover what they are guilty of, then repent and make amends.

1936

043. 　Sin and Sickness

　　Before discussing this topic, I should say that, though "sin" tends to be thought of in religious terms, when I speak of it, I am talking about its ethical aspects. Men of religion do in fact frequently use the term sin; but, as what follows shows, sin is not some hypothetical, man-made abstraction, but a practical reality.
　　As I said in the preceding article, when people think evil and commit evil, cloudiness in the spiritual being increases both in quantity and concentration. When the concentration reaches a certain degree, the purification process sets in naturally. This is a strict inescapable law of the spiritual world, and no one is immune to it. Though the purification process usually manifests itself as illness, it sometimes takes other forms. Where medical therapy has no effect on illness even though applied with utmost thoroughness, it is because it attempts to use mechanical and pharmaceutical means to solve a spiritual problem. It is pursuing a totally mistaken course. Praying to a god or Buddha in cases of illness, as some people do, is effective to some extent since, obviously, such beings are of the spiritual realm and their blessings help to diminish spiritual clouds. However, not even a god or Buddha － the more conscientious he is the more so, since he must be fair － will allow impurities accumulated over a long period to be resolved with only light suffering. This is like a person who has violated a national law, no matter how he repents and laments, his crime cannot be overlooked, though his punishment may be lightened as a result of his penitent attitude.
　　In some cases, alternative kinds of purification processes have taken place before the usual one begins. In these instances, the degree of clouding is relatively light, so that only a mild purification process is required. Such prior purification may have been motivated by a psychological awakening brought about by contact with religious stories or holy writings or by the testimonials of older persons or people of distinction. The good effects these can have show the importance of good books, lectures, motion pictures, and dramas in awakening the human soul or conscience.
　　Next, then, I should like to discuss the process occurring in the spiritual being when people are awakened in these ways. The spiritual being is in three stages; including the mind, which is the center of the spiritual being, and the soul, which is the center of the mind. The soul, which is essentially conscience, is constantly being clouded over by influences from without. It is fundamentally a radiant sphere; cloudiness in the mind, its outer casing, obscures its brilliance and puts it to sleep; but when the mind is as calm as stillwater or a clear mirror, the celestial brilliance of the soul shines forth.
　　When a person is spiritually awakened, the soul that has slumbered suddenly shines bright. Until today, the primary ways to bring about such an awakening have been educational － for example the stories and written material that I mentioned earlier. Contact with them awakened the soul and allowed it to glow. This in turn dispelled the cloudiness of the mind and initiated purification of the spiritual being. In this way, the three elements － soul, mind, and spirit － preserve a state of balance between light and dark.
　　In this educational approach, first the soul is awakened; then the mind and spiritual being are purified. In our therapeutic method, however, the order is the opposite: by means of Johrei from without, the spiritual being is first purified; this dispels the cloudiness of the mind and, irresistibly, awakens the soul. Furthermore, when the soul and mind are awakened by the educational method, the person undergoes the suffering of self-denial, which in turn affects the spiritual body, leading to sickness and other sufferings, whereas our therapeutic method constitutes a kind of ideal remodeling of spirit and body together, whereby the soul is awakened without its realizing it, in the course of the cure.

October 23, 1943

044. 　Sickness and Suffering

　　Suffering is the awareness people have that they have fallen ill. It might even seem that sickness and suffering are synonymous, but there are many different kinds of suffering. Until the present medical science has regarded suffering and illness as the same thing and has believed that easing suffering was tantamount to relieving sickness. This approach is fundamentally mistaken, as the example of the common cold will show. When people catch cold, they first develop a fever. Since the head hurts, they apply ice packs to it. Because this brings a little comfort, they feel that the lessening of the suffering is the same thing as lessening the gravity of the sickness itself. This is wrong. Illness and suffering are different the more the suffering is relieved, the more aggravated the sickness becomes. Though modern people might find this an astonishing statement, it is an unshakable truth. No medicine that fails to accept it as a fundamental tenet can be a true medicine. The explanation that follows should leave everyone who reads it totally convinced. In the past, people used to say that there was no man untainted by conceit and syphilis. Actually, there is no one who has not inherited toxins. Furthermore, most people have more of those toxins than they think. When the toxins are transformed medicines, we call them medicine toxins; I will discuss them later.
　　As a result of the metabolic processes, toxins accumulate in various parts of the body and harden gradually with the passing of time. Toxin accumulation occurs in places where the nerves are used, and is therefore most frequent in the upper body, especially above the neck. During waking hours, the head, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and throat work unceasingly. This is especially true of the brain, where more nerves are employed than in any other part of the body. Consequently, the toxins of the whole body are constantly moving toward the brain and accumulate to a great extent in the vicinity of the neck this is because the nerves of the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears have their origins in the brain. The phenomenon explains why most people have lumps in the neck area or stiffness in the shoulders.
　　When toxins accumulate to the maximum degree, they impede the continued maintenance of good health. At this stage an elimination process, called purification, begins. The Creator has exercised the utmost ingenuity in providing this purification process. First a fever develops and melts the toxin lumps. Then, instantaneously, the toxins pass in fluid form into the lungs, where they are immediately expelled from the body in the process called expectoration. Coughing is the pumplike process resulting in expectoration. Toxins in the rear of the head and the vicinity of the top of the spinal column become nasal fluids, which are discharged through the nose in the process called sneezing. The way these processes act to remove liquefied toxins from the body is obvious when it is recalled that one always discharges sputum in coughing and nasal fluids in sneezing. After liquefaction, toxins in the body below the neck are discharged as night sweating. Headaches are caused by liquefied toxins seeking a way out of the body and stimulating the nerves to cause pain. These toxins are striving to reach the lungs, from which they will be expelled in the form of sputum. When we administer Johrei for headaches, coughing and expectoration of sputum are instantaneous, and relief from pain follows. Because human beings often bend their arms and legs, toxins accumulate in the joints, where purification results in pain.
　　As this explanation makes clear, sickness is the process of cleaning pollutants from the human body. It can therefore be said that there is no greater blessing than the common cold, or sickness in general. The cause of poor health is accumulated pollutants. Sickness is the process whereby those pollutants are cleansed away and good health is restored. The suffering of sickness is blessed since it is a cleansing process. If left alone, it will not be severe.
　　Medical science views pain as an evil and attempts to halt it. By preventing the emergence of matter that naturally ought to be expelled from the body, this causes a collision between natural and artificial power and in this way intensifies the suffering. Obviously, medical science, which has developed under the delusion that suppressing natural processes in this way can work cures, is fundamentally in error.
　　There is, however, a condition essential to the removal of the localized accumulation of toxins. Unless the body is vigorous enough to expel the toxins, that is, unless the metabolic processes are strong enough, purification cannot take place. Interpreting this in the opposite way, medical science attempts to suppress the emergence of purification. To do this, it must weaken both metabolism and health. Medicines are a way of weakening health.
　　Fundamentally, medicines are poisons; they are effective precisely because they are poisonous. This may seem ludicrous, yet a dose of medicine in fact weakens the body. Weakening the body weakens the purification process, which in turn reduces suffering. Established medical science deludes itself by assuming it is the medicine that has cured the illness. The same can be said for other so-called therapies. Applying ice packs to the head to reduce fever only rehardens those toxins that had started to liquefy. Total rest with no exercise of any kind is the most effective possible way to weaken the body. Even people in good health will suffer ill effects if forced to remain still for several months without exercising their bodies. Their stomachs will weaken, they will lose their appetites, their arms and legs will be debilitated by lack of use, and they will find themselves on the verge of serious illness. Clearly the case is much graver with a sick person who is deprived of all exercise. Wet poultices also weaken the body. Human beings breathe, not only through the mouth and nose, but also through the capillaries dispersed throughout the skin of the whole body. Poultices stop dermal breathing wherever they are applied. This lowers fever and relieves suffering, but it stops the purification process in the vicinity of the poultice.

(Date uncertain)

045. 　Medicine Toxins I

　　I shall now go on to explain the grave danger of medicine toxins, in general aside from what I call the "hereditary toxins."
　　In all ages and all places, it has been considered sensible to take medicine when ill, just as it is to eat when hungry. The idea that medicines cure is deeply ingrained. Yet I have realized that medicines are fearsome poisons that totally lack power to cure sickness. Indeed, they cause illness in the sense that they are its source.* Some people may find this difficult to understand, but it is true. I once read in a book the following words of a noted Chinese-style doctor: "Fundamentally there are no medicines; they are all poisons. Taking medicine for an illness is the same thing as attempting to control one poison by means of another." This is a very wise thing to say and reminiscent of the old proverb about "making medicines out of poisonous herbs."
　　When pain is intolerable, relief can of course be had by means of, say, morphine injections. Yet as medical scientists know full well, the relief is brought about only by a temporary paralysis of the nerves caused by the poison called morphine.
　　I have explained earlier that sickness arises as a result of the process of purification, which is always accompanied by the suffering referred to as illness. Obviously, everyone dislikes suffering and wants to escape from it quickly.
　　There are two ways to eliminate suffering. One way to get rid of it completely is by totally expelling from the body those toxins that must be removed. The other is a temporary escape and a return to the condition predating the occurrence of suffering; this means, merely, halting the purification process and returning to the condition existing before its initiation. Since the complete elimination of toxins is a natural process, it takes time. It is the desire to be free of suffering quickly that has stimulated the development of all the medical and other therapeutic methods invented in the past. Moreover, medical science has never yet understood the principle of toxin elimination and purification as the true nature of illness.

1939

*Though medicines are capable of extending life temporarily and of creating a condition of false good health, they cannot bring about a fundamental cure. Essential good health is a condition in which human beings can live without medicine. For this reason, it is important to avoid taking medicines as much as possible, though sometimes respect for human life makes their application necessary.

046. 　Medicine Toxins II

　　When people become sick they develop fever, pain, and general malaise or may cough and expectorate sputum. If they take medicine they will feel better, just as if the medicine had cured the sickness. But, as I have often said, taking the poison called medicine weakens the whole body. Because the body weakens, the purification process grows faint, and pain is eased. If this were all, the situation would not be so bad. The truly serious problem is what happens to the poison after one has taken it.
　　Let me explain. The ingestion of poison stimulates an antidotal process, or one that eliminates the harmful substance. This is true of toxins in the foods we eat, but the body is powerless to counteract immediately poisons other than those in our foods. Since the poison from the medicines that people take is not completely eliminated, some remains to accumulate in the body. Just as in the case of toxins that have been handed down through generations of medicine users, these newly introduced toxins accumulate in areas where nerves are plentiful; when purification and elimination of accumulated hardened toxins of the kind that are most difficult to expel from the body begin, medicine toxins halt the process and increase toxic levels. This is the effect of medicinal therapy.
　　A second-stage accumulation of toxins develops. Then purification begins again; but this time, owing to the increased amount of toxins, the purifying process is a greater strain. This is why secondary purification, or repurification, is more severe than the initial process. Furthermore, third-stage and fourth-stage purification can occur.

1939

047. 　Low-grade Fever

　　Though only some people are aware of it, probably no one today is without what is called low-grade fever. Because of the surprisingly great influence it has on the human body, I shall now discuss this kind of fever.
　　A persistent slight fever causes headaches, heaviness in the head, lack of psychological concentration, distraction, diminished memory, loss of perseverance, laziness in everything, sluggishness of the whole body, and a desire to lie around and doing nothing. It reduces the appetite and makes people finicky about what they eat. When afflicted with it, people show a preference for liquids and foods with high liquid content. They may be irritable, shut off from the world, jaded, and pessimistic. They become hysterical, are negative in outlook, and prefer rainy to fair weather. They catch cold easily and are prone to stuffy nose, ringing in the ears, and tonsillitis. They become short of breath and suffer heaviness in the legs from walking fast or climbing slopes. As this brief summary of its effects clearly shows, a low-grade fever is not something to take lightly.
　　Because of these symptoms, such people do not mix well with their friends or get along smoothly with other people. Their marital and other relationships are poor because such people insist on acting precisely as they wish and always have some kind of justification for their own selfish behavior; "liberalism" is one of their favorite excuses. Because such people are dissatisfied with life at home, horrible things often happen in their lives. The currently increasing numbers of young people who run away from home may well be influenced by this kind of domestic situation. In the worst cases, entire families have been known to commit suicide together.
　　On a social level, large numbers of people concerned with nothing but pursuing and justifying their own selfish ends disrupt harmony, debate unimportant matters, and resort to conflict to solve issues that could be solved amicably. Egotism of this kind is apparently common in the world of politics.
　　Whenever something is being debated in a group, there is so much bustle and commotion that it takes a long time to come to an agreement; the reason is not so much that people are unaware of the cause as that they are indifferent to it.
　　But there is still more to the matter. As society becomes disturbed in the ways I have described above, people experience more unpleasant than pleasant things, and seek diversion by turning to alcohol; this is why the sale of alcoholic beverages, no matter how much they cost, continues unabated. Next, such people seek still stronger stimuli in the hope of escaping from their suffering. Young people seek unwholesome amusements. Older people with the money to pay for such things keep mistresses or seek consolation in the red-light districts. For this reason, the world today is filled with such unhealthy amusements.
　　Clearly, then, nothing is so fearsome as a low-grade fever, which is the fundamental cause of trouble in all these aspects of life. The presence in the body of medicine toxins is the cause of the slight fever, which is a sign of the slow purification process taking place in the body to eliminate these hardened toxins. Since Johrei is the only way to work a cure, an increase in the number of people who do Johrei will eliminate the deplorable situation I have described above. When this happens, society will be a pleasant, happy place in which to live; and we will have an ideal world.

September 5, 1951

048. 　Balanced Purification

　　The person who administers Johrei must remember the principle of "balanced purification." For example, pain in the right arm may disappear, but then develop in the left arm. The pain seems to move from one arm to the other, but this is really an example of balanced purification: cleansing must take place in an equalized fashion. Thus, when toxins have been purified out of the right arm, a parallel natural purification may start in the left arm if there are toxins there. Obviously this pertains not only to the arms, but also to other parts of the body. Pain does not shift from the abdomen to the back. The appearance of a shift is only the result of the balanced purification I speak of.

April 22, 1950

049. 　The Word Purification (Johka)

　　The word "purification" which we use for illness is, I feel, peculiarly apt, not least because it exactly expresses the truth. It has, to begin with, a very pleasant sound, whereas the word sickness is unpleasantness itself. Yet even the word for sickness, in Japanese, is hardly a mistake. The two characters for it, byo and ki, mean "sickness" and "mind," and the trouble is precisely that people fret their minds about sickness too much without realizing that it is, essentially, a good thing.
　　In this connection, I am encouraged and delighted when I hear members saying to each other, for example, "I'm pleased to say that purification has started," or "Thanks to purification, I feel much better now," or "Purification is a true blessing."
　　Though I dislike it very much, the word byoin (hospital) is an apt description of the institution: a place (in) where incurable illness (byo) continues for a long time. If we in this organization were asked to give a name to a place where illness is treated, we would probably call it a johin, or place of purification. If people stopped taking medicines, the only illnesses that would remain would be simple ones that could be cured at home; and there would be no need to build hospitals of any kind.

May21, 1952

050. 　Admonitions from Ancestral Spirits

　　Because they sincerely hope for the happiness and prosperity of their descendants, ancestral spirits are ceaselessly sending them warnings to prevent their making mistakes and doing evil that runs contrary to their own well-being, and to help them avoid falling into negative ways. When their posterity left in this world are lured by evil forces into doing something wrong, the ancestral spirits inflict all kinds of calamity and illness on them both as a warning and as expiation for sins already committed. For example, a person who has made a fortune by dishonest means will be made to suffer fire and loss that destroy all his property. With some sins, again, purification by illness is carried out.
　　Such admonitions manifest themselves in various ways. For example, it may happen that an infant or a child undergoes purification in the form of a cold － a simple illness that Johrei should be able to cure easily － yet nothing has any effect. Perplexingly, the child begins to vomit a great deal; loses appetite; rapidly declines and dies. This is an admonition from the ancestral spirits of the kind already described, necessitated by, say, the child's father's marital infidelity or by his keeping a mistress. Where the man fails to understand the first time such a warning is delivered, his other children are taken from him one by one. It is lamentable in the extreme that a man should thus sacrifice the life of a dear child for fleeting moments of pleasure. In a case of this kind, the spirits hesitate to take the life of the father, who is the mainstay of the whole family, and are compelled to take the child in his stead.
　　Here is an interesting illustration of such an admonition. The head of a family, about forty at the time, was disinclined to worship in front of the family Buddhist shrine; this disturbed his daughter, who discussed the matter with her father's younger brother. As an outcome of these talks, the family shrine was transferred from the house of the older to that of the younger brother. The younger man began to worry about what might happen in the future and went again to his older brother's house to request him to write a clear statement of the shrine's transfer. The older brother agreed and took pen and paper in preparation, but in the very instant in which he was about to write, he had a spasm of the hands, and his tongue was paralyzed. He was unable to write or say anything.
　　Various kinds of treatments were tried on this man, but to no avail. Finally he came for help to one of my disciples, who related the daughter's story of the family shrine to me. The ancestors delivered this admonition to the older brother as head of the family's main branch, because, while willing to permit the transfer of the shrine temporarily to the home of the younger brother, they could not countenance a permanent transfer, since this would upset the family lineage and could result in severance of the family line.

February 5, 1947

051. 　Rebirth

　　There is a great deal of latitude in the speed with which people are reborn, depending on the will of the person involved. A person who is very attached to this world at the moment of death will be reborn quickly. But the effects of such a speedy return are not good. The deepest purification takes place in the spiritual world. Therefore, the longer one is there, the purer one's spiritual being becomes, and the more fortunate one's circumstances at rebirth. If rebirth is fast, pollutants remain and must be purified away during life by means of an unfortunate fate filled with sickness, poverty, and disaster. This is the situation that determines why some people are born fortunate whereas others are born unfortunate. Good and bad fortune are in no way accidental but are inevitably determined by the degree of purification in the spiritual world.
　　There is still another determining factor: the sincerity and thoroughness with which survivors hold memorial services for the spirit of the departed. Moreover, the fervor with which survivors and descendants help others, work for the welfare of society and the nation, and accumulate virtue, stimulates the purification of ancestors.
　　This means that filial piety is not limited to this life. On the contrary, the prayers offered and good deeds performed after the death of one's parents can be even more important than care shown during life. It is only people ignorant of the nature of the spiritual world who say, "By the time I was ready to be good to them, my parents were no longer alive to enjoy it."
　　People who are reborn before their purification in the spiritual world is complete are sometimes physically deformed or disabled. To take one example, one may be born with a deformity of an arm or leg because one has broken a limb in a fall, then been reborn before it has had time to heal.
　　There are cases in which the devotion and attachment of survivors influence the speed with which a person is reborn. Women not infrequently become pregnant again soon after the death of a beloved child. This may be because the devotion and longing of the mother have greatly accelerated rebirth of the infant. For precisely this reason, such children are usually not very happy.

October 23, 1943

052 　The Spiritual World

　　I should now like to discuss in more detail the way in which modern civilization is based, as needs no pointing out, on materialistic science. First of all, it is necessary here to understand the structure of the universe itself. I shall concentrate on the major points, and on those particular matters that are related directly to human beings.
　　Basically, the universe consists of three elements: the sun, the moon, and the earth. These three elements are the essences of fire, water, and soil, and manifest themselves as the spiritual realm, the air realm, and the phenomena realm; reality is a complete fusion and harmony of these three. Hitherto, people have understood only the realms of air and phenomena (the material realms) and have been ignorant of the existence of another, the spiritual realm which material science was unable to understand. Modern civilization is only two-thirds of what it should be because it has been produced by progress in only two of the basic elements.
　　As long as this other element is ignored, a perfect civilization cannot evolve, since that element is at the heart of all basic power and is far more important than the other two combined. This statement is clearly illustrated by our culture, a culture that has not been able to ensure happiness, humanity's sole desire, despite all its material development. A close examination of the fundamentals of this paradox reveals a profound truth. If mankind had understood the existence of the spiritual world from the outset material civilization would not have achieved the kind of wonderful development it manifests today. Ignoring the spiritual realm gave birth to atheism, and from atheism, much evil was born. The resulting struggle between good and evil has caused man to suffer, and has thus relentlessly stimulated the development of material civilization. Deep thought on the matter shows that this can only be God's plan. Now, however, having developed to a certain level, materialism threatens to bring about the destruction of civilization. The invention of the atomic bomb vividly illustrates the truth of this. The time has come to make a great turnabout in our thinking concerning the advance of civilization.
　　The first step must be to make clear to all people the existence of the spiritual world, which hitherto had been considered nonexistent. Since it is in fact intangible, of course, it is impossible to deal with it through science. The only way is through a manifestation of the power of God, a power greater than anything humanity has experienced in the past. Even so, it is difficult to convince modern humanity, which has for so long and so stubbornly stressed the materialist view of this power. It is here that the central miracle of our faith comes to the fore, the method of Johrei where by the most confirmed atheist finds himself convinced at once. When it becomes known to all humanity, a true worldwide civilization will come into being and modern culture will do a great about-face.
　　Even so, a troublesome problem remains to be solved. During the tens of thousands of years it has taken to produce modern civilization, an untold amount of evil has been committed. Pollutants of the spiritual body have accumulated to the point that, unless something is done about them, they will hinder the building of a new world. Just as it is essential to sweep up the wood shavings and lumber scraps on the site of a new building, so these pollutants must be cleaned away. Such a cleaning-up process may be what Christ meant by the Last Judgment.
　　It is a fact that with Johrei we have performed innumerable miracles. To make the existence of the spiritual world known to all people － this, surely, is God's plan, and God has laid the great responsibility for it on my shoulders.

July 4, 1951

053 　The Great World Transition

　　I shall now explain in detail how the Johrei that I originated came into being, and why no one else has so far realized the causes of sickness and the uselessness of almost all existing therapeutic methods.
　　The universe is composed of some things as limitless as the sky and others so minute that they cannot be seen even under a microscope; all these things, in accordance with their size and composition, come into being, develop, combine and separate, aggregate, disintegrate, and rebuild in a process of eternal development. Just as each of these things has a yin and a yang aspect, so there is the difference between night and day in a single day, and a cold period and a warm period in each year, and so it continues for ten years, one hundred years, one thousand years, or ten thousand years.
　　Yet, naturally, once every several thousand years, there occurs a transition of day to night and night to day. The time for such a transition is coming now. Indeed, today corresponds to the dawning of such a period. The reader may be puzzled by this statement, since he is likely to think of night and day as part of a regular 24-hour cycle. However, it can be explained quite easily.
　　The world in which we live consists of three stages: the spiritual world, the air world, and the world of phenomena. These can also be grouped into two stages: the water element － air － and the soil element － the globe itself － are physical, whereas the fire element － the spirit － is totally nonphysical. In this case, the last-named corresponds to the spiritual world and the former two to the physical world.
　　To understand the relation between the spiritual world and the physical world, it is essential to know that all phenomena arise first in the spiritual world and are transmitted to the physical world. In metaphorical terms, the spiritual world is the motion-picture film, while the actual world is what appears projected on the screen. This is a strict law of the universe. In the case of the human being, the invisible mind moves first, then the arms and legs move at its command. It is impossible that the arms and legs should move first and then the mind. The spiritual world corresponds to the mind, and the physical world to the arms and legs.
　　The night and day cycles which occur once in thousands or tens of thousands of years are occurrences in the spiritual world. For a long time, the world has been in a state of night, but it is about to be transformed into a world of day. The ancient Japanese history known as the Kojiki prophesies this in the story of the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami, who concealed herself in a cave, thus plunging the world into darkness, but later emerged to bring daylight again. In my opinion, the idea of the Light from the East, long popular in the West, is nothing other than this prophecy.

October 23, 1943

054. 　Transition from Night to Day

　　All occurrences in the physical world are projections of occurrences in the spiritual world. Everything becomes clear if it is realized that a great transition has recently been taking place in the spiritual world.
　　From God's point of view essentially all things in the universe are created and destroyed as a result of the action of both the spiritual and the actual worlds in an unending process of development in the material world that ranges from the limitless universe to the most minute particles. It is these unending changes that give rise to unceasing cultural progress and development. Calm and quiet reflection on this cannot but inspire one with a sense of the universal will, of the purpose of God. In all things, there are distinctions between in and yang, dark and light, night and day. These variations, as well as those of the seasons of the year and of the growth and decline observable in all things, relate to human life as much as to all other phenomena. The distinctions observable among all things, of all sizes, are to be seen in time too. For instance, just as a twenty-four hour span is divided into day and night, so each year, decade, century, millennium, has a day and a night. These larger days and nights, however, are phenomena of the spiritual world. To the actual world only the day-and-night division of a twenty-four hour span is observable.
　　The time for the change from night to day that must happen in the spiritual world every so many thousands or tens of thousands of years has now arrived. Unless one understands this important fact, it is impossible to grasp the principles of Johrei. At the same time, knowledge of this truth makes it possible to see the future of the world and inspires serenity of mind. Next, then, I shall explain how this change in the spiritual world from night to day － a change that takes place only once in thousands of years － affects the physical world.
　　Hitherto, the spiritual world has been experiencing a night that, like night in the actual world, is a dark broken only by periods of moonlight. Of course, when the element of water is abundant and the moon is concealed, only the stars shine. When the stars are clouded over, the darkness is complete. The effects of this state are clear in the physical world, which is simply a reflection of the spiritual world. The alternating periods of order and disorder, war and peace, in the nations of the world in the past have been very much like the waxing and waning of the moon. Now the time has come where dark must give way to light; we are entering a period that can be likened to dawn.
　　As an outcome of this transition in the spiritual world, humanity will experience an immense, awe-inspiring, and joyful transformation of a kind never known before. Harbingers of this transition have already appeared on the scene.
　　Like day in the actual world, the new day of which I am speaking will begin with the appearance of the sun's orb in the east. Now, in the Far East － in Japan, the land of the rising sun － a great revolution is taking place. The destruction of the existing culture of night is starting in this country. This is the reason for the total destruction of our major cultural cities, the reduction of our industry and economy to dire straits, and the general abolition of the privileged and ruling classes. Signs of the construction of a new culture － the culture of day － have already appeared. Following complete disarmament, democracy is coming into being in Japan. Both phenomena are unprecedented in the 2,600 years that have passed since the founding of the Japanese nation. More than unprecedented, they were also un foreseeable. They are a first step in the establishment of world peace.
　　In contrast to the world of night, characterized by war, hunger, and suffering, the world of day will be a time brilliant with peace, abundance, and good health. The Japan of the present shows we are at the turning point.
　　The sun that is now rising in the eastern heavens will eventually reach its zenith. What will that mean? Obviously it will mean the overall destruction of the culture of night. What is more, it will signify the birth of the culture of day. Since Japan can already show a little of that culture, this much is easy to prophesy. The fate of the world is bearing down heavily on us at the present. No one win be able to escape from this framework; the only course open to us is to find a way to minimize the suffering we must face. Such a way is at hand in an understanding of our principles of Johrei and in participation in the development of the culture of day.
　　The Bible says, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." I believe this to signify that my writings must fulfill this mission. In explaining the principles of Johrei I have gone so far as to explain the fate of the world because this is very important. Discovery of the principles of Johrei and discovery of the fallacy of medical science both depend basically on the one point of converting night into day.
　　The cause of sickness is clouds in the spiritual body. Eliminating those clouds is the sole condition for the cure of sickness. Why then was this not known before the discovery of Johrei? The reason is that there are two ways to treat sickness. One is to bring about a return to the state before purification of toxins started; that is, rehardening the toxins. The other is to liquefy the toxins and eliminate them. As the reader will understand well by now, established medical science employs the first method, whereas Johrei employs the second.
　　One of the principles of Johrei is that the human body radiates an invisible, mystical light that is a spiritual essence peculiar to the human body and that consists basically of the element of fire. Channeling of Johrei demands large amounts of the element of fire, which will gradually increase in quantity in the spiritual world as the latter moves into the period of day, since the sun is the basic source of fire-element radiation. Aside from its value in healing, an increased quantity of the element of fire is equally important because it will stimulate the purification process in the human body. Change in the spiritual world will directly influence the spiritual body. Increasing the amount of the fire element will play, as it were, a supplementary role in encouraging purification of the clouds in the spiritual body. Sickness will therefore occur more easily, and established medical therapy, which depends on hardening the toxins, will lose some and finally, all of its efficacy. For instance, whereas in the age of darkness it took several years before the toxins, once hardened, became active again, in the age of light this period will gradually shorten to a year, then half a year, and so on until in the end hardening of the toxins actually becomes impossible.
　　We are gradually moving into the world of day. In the world of night, the toxin hardening, and not the toxin-liquefying method of treating sickness has prevailed because the element of fire needed for toxin-liquefaction has been available in insufficient amounts. This has made it seem necessary to settle for the toxin-hardening method as the best substitute. But this was a grave mistake that has been the cause of shortened life spans, illness, hunger, war, and other sufferings.

February 5, 1947

055. 　I Am a Scientist of the Spirit

　　Though it might sound odd for me, a specialist in religion to describe myself as a scientist, yet anyone who reads this to the end will be convinced that the description is accurate.
　　As I often say, modern science is still on a level too low to be called science at all. Contemporary science places maximum stress on the discovery and investigation of particles. Sophistication of the microscope has made possible astounding advances in humanity's understanding of extremely minute particles. We are capable of investigating things magnified thousands, even millions of times, and possibilities for further development seem infinite. The word spirit, which has come into popular usage in recent years, probably refers to this limitless world. It is not scientific operations as such, of course, by hypotheses deduced from the results of research into scientific theories that have enabled us to learn about this world; without such hypotheses, efforts to understand it would have been futile. This infinite world is the same thing as the spiritual world that I teach. Science, which in reality has long denied the spiritual, has now been obliged to recognize it.
　　By coming to a more accurate appreciation of the spiritual world, science has suddenly raised itself to an elevated position and taken a step forward in the scholarly search for ideal truth. In its early period, science concentrated on the physical; in its latter period, it will concentrate on the spiritual. The emergence of such a science on the world stage signifies a 180-degree turn, bringing science into agreement with religion.
　　To make this still easier to understand, let us imagine a line drawn through the center of the world of science. Material science is below that line, and spiritual science above it. The former concerns itself with external content, and the latter with internal content. It is a matter for great rejoicing that science should have moved from the material, where it was a science of existence, to the spiritual, where it is a science dealing with things without physical existence.
　　A serious problem still remains, however. It is not enough simply to understand the spiritual world. Its essence must be grasped and then made useful to humanity. Physical science has no method capable of doing this. To deal with the spiritual, it is essential to employ the spiritual.
　　In my opinion, this difficulty can easily be overcome. Indeed, it has already been overcome in my work with astonishing results. In cases of curing sickness I am using the spirit to solve spiritual problems. To explain briefly: since impurities accumulated in the patient's spirit are the sources of all illness － according to the firm law that the spiritual precedes the physical － removing these impurities necessarily effects a cure. The method where by this cure is effected is to use a special kind of spiritual radiation － it might be called a spiritual atomic bomb － to burn away the impurities. This method, which we call Johrei, is a sophisticated scientific operation worthy of being called a "super-science," since it solves problems that medicine, science, and religion have heretofore found irresolvable.
　　Since the inferior cannot overcome the superior, a solution of the high-level problems of human life by means of low-level material science is impossible. This is proved by the ease with which Johrei can cure illnesses that medical science has given up as hopeless. Spiritual science could be called the inner essence of physical science.
　　Let us now examine more thoroughly the nature of the spiritual world. Essentially, the spiritual world is made up of the essences of sun, moon, and the earth, a union of what science refers to as oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, and what we call the fire element, the water element, and the soil element. Earth is the basic form of the material world; sun, of the spirit; moon, of the air. Sun and moon control the atmosphere, which fills all spaces on the earth. The fire element, though the strongest, is also the rarest of the three. For this reason, while understanding heat and light, science has not yet grasped the nature of the fire element as a spirit. Since science has concentrated solely on the elements of water and soil, it is these that characterize modern civilization; this is its greatest failing.
　　At this point I have to describe a major, startling change that the world is due to undergo. The world, as we have seen, is composed of the three elements of sun, moon, and earth. In terms of physical phenomena, the alternation of the sun and the moon signifies the change from day to night A similar division between day and night exists in the spiritual world, even though material science cannot understand it. Spiritual science, on the other hand, can understand it. The great change which must take place in the world is a transition of a startling kind humanity has never previously considered. It is now about to begin. It is a historical change, an expansion of day and night that can only be comprehended in terms of time itself. In the spiritual world, alternation of day and night takes place once in ten, a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years. Just as the planet earth is composed of the three elements of fire, water, and soil, so all universal space is based on the number three. According to this immutable law of the universe, day and night last three years, thirty years, three hundred years, three thousand years, and so on. Of course, there are differences in the speed with which the transfer from spirit to material being is made depending on the nature and size of the thing in question. Nonetheless, in general, everything mows according to the law.
　　Surprisingly enough, the great transition that must take place once in three thousand years is about to happen now － now is its dawning. As I have written previously, the very date of the transition is clearly known: since June 15, 1931 the world has been in its day phase. Though the transition has been made in the spiritual world, it is gradually being transferred to the physical world and will eventually become a reality.
　　As the spiritual world enters the day phase, the quantity of fire element will increase. This too will gradually be reflected in the physical world, and the situation prevailing until the present in which water has taken precedence over fire will be reversed; fire will take precedence over water. No physical science can explain this, yet people of enlightenment will understand fully. Problems that have necessarily gone without solutions in the past can now be readily solved. In this way, my idea is to elevate physical science from its present low level to the point where it can help to create a true civilization.

April 7, 1954

056. 　The Precedence of the Spiritual over the Physical

　　Because it is materially oriented, and concentrates solely on visible, tangible objects, modern science understands only the outer surfaces of things and pays no attention at all to an important inner reality. The "reality" in question, which might well seem a kind of non-existence, is what is known as the spirit. As long as science fails to realize that the spirit is the main constituent of all things, its advances will be limping and partial, no matter how much progress it makes. Nor can it be expected to give rise to a true civilization. Once this is clearly understood, all the unsolvable problems of the past will be easily solved, since the law that the spiritual takes precedence over the physical is universal. To take one example, the invisible will is responsible for the motion of the limbs and other parts of the human body. The body does not move on its own. No matter how miraculous it may seem, it is necessary to understand that the original cause arises in the spirit and is then transferred to the body. I shall now explain this in relation to sickness, in which the principle is most easily understood.
　　Though it is manifest as phenomena in the body, illness has, of course, its origin in the spirit. In other words, a cloudiness first occurs in one or several parts of the spirit, then is reflected in the body as illness, so that to get rid of the clouds obviously means curing the sickness. As long as the cause of the sickness is in the spirit, medical science's practice of treating only the physical symptoms cannot effect a true cure. It is essential to realize this as quickly as possible and make a new start. Happily, God has entrusted to me the immense responsibility of revising and correcting the mistakes of medical science. The responsibility is all the greater in that the error goes beyond medical science and extends to all aspects of our civilization.
　　Let me give an example. The many crimes that occur today are, like sickness, only surface manifestations. Their causes, like those of illness, are to be found in the spirit or the soul. Nonetheless, as in treating sickness, people remain unaware of the true causes and attempt to deal with crime by treating the symptoms only; in other words, through punishment. Such treatment, however, is only temporary, and crimes continue as numerous as the sands on a beach. People should realize that the remodeling of the soul essential to their elimination can be achieved only through religion. As I have shown, failure to take the spirit into account is behind these two major problems. Miracles are a method of making this thoroughly understood.

September 10, 1953

057. 　The Precedence of the Spiritual over the Physical

　　Let us consider the relation between the non-material world and physical illness. By "non-material world" I refer to what we call the spiritual world. In human beings there is unity between the body and the spirit. The body is visible and physical. The spirit is invisible to the eye, but it exists as a kind of ether. The human body belongs to the realm of air, and the human spirit to the spiritual world. As previously stated, the spiritual world is a transparent entity still more rarefied than air. In this, it might seem similar to non-existence, yet in fact, far from being nonexistent it is a source of absolute and infinite power, a realm of unimaginably mysterious depths compounded of the essences of sun, moon, and earth. I shall tentatively refer to it here as "universal power." This universal power brings all things into being and stimulates their growth and development but this process accumulates pollution, and a purification process takes place to eliminate the pollutants. This is very much like bathing, which human beings use to remove the dirt and grime accumulating on their bodies. Pollutants accumulating in specific localities in the spiritual world of the planet earth stimulate the development of low-pressure cells that perform a cleansing and purifying function. Fires, whether caused by lightning or by human agency, perform the same kind of function. It is the same with human beings, of course when pollutants accumulate, the spirit takes the lead in initiating a purification process. I shall now examine this in detail.
　　The pollutants － or clouds － that accumulate in the human spirit create opaque spots on the essentially transparent spiritual body. There are two causes for this: clouds arising in the spirit itself and clouds transferred to the spirit from the physical body. I shall begin my explanation with the former. The spirit consists of three layers which converge in the center. The innermost is called the soul － the tiny entity that, in terms of human birth, is first transferred by the man to lodge in the womb of the woman. However, since the soul is enclosed by the mind which is itself enclosed by the spirit, conditions in the soul are transferred to the spirit by way of the mind, and in reverse, conditions in the spirit are reflected on the soul by way of the mind. In short, the soul mind, and spirit are simultaneously three and one. As long as they are alive, all human beings do both good and evil. When the bad outweighs the good, the difference is sin that reflects as clouds on the soul. Then the mind and the spirit, in this order, become cloudy too. The clouds are removed when the following purification process begins. Accumulated clouds contract and condense and gather in certain localities in the body. Interestingly, the location differs according to the nature of the sin. For instance, sin committed through the eye causes accumulation in the eye; sins committed through the head, accumulations in the head; and sins committed through the chest, accumulations in the chest
　　Let us consider now the reverse case, where clouds are transferred from the physical body to the spirit. In this case, the murkiness develops in the blood before transference to the spirit. Since the blood is the physical manifestation of the spirit and the spirit, conversely, a spiritual manifestation of the blood, the body and spirit are one. Conversely, transference of concentrated clouds to the body causes murkiness in the blood; when this becomes still further condensed, it hardens; and when the resulting hardness is liquefied and seeks outlets from various parts of the body, the suffering caused is what is known as sickness.
　　Transference from the body, thus, refers to the transference of the blood's murkiness. The question, then, is what causes this murkiness. Surprisingly enough, it is the medicine that forms the mainstay of medical therapy. Since all medicine is poison, introduction of medicine into the body causes clouds in the blood,* as facts prove better than anything else. Because of the toxic nature of medicine, it is scarcely surprising that, while being subjected to medical treatment, illnesses often linger, worsen, or give rise to pathological side effects.
　　If clouds in the physical blood are reflected as clouds in the spirit and if this in turn is the cause of sickness, the way to cure sickness itself is the same as the way to cause sickness. It is a universally applicable law that the spiritual takes precedence over the physical. For this reason, unless the clouds in the spirit are removed, the illness resulting from them cannot be completely cured. Our therapy is an application of this law in that we fundamentally cure illness by purifying the spirit through Johrei. Ignorant of this, medical science tries to cure the body only while ignoring the spirit. Consequently, no matter how much progress it makes, it remains capable of temporary cures only.

August 15, 1951

*Though medicine may prolong life and may produce people who are apparently, though not actually healthy, it lacks the power to effect fundamental cures. Human health in its original form is the ability to live without medicine. For this reason, it is important to avoid taking medicines as much as possible. There are, however, cases in which very grave illness makes resort to medicine unavoidable.

058. 　The Spiritual Body and the Physical Body

　　It is a fundamental principle that in all things the spiritual takes precedence over the physical; once this principle is understood, many so-called miracles become comprehensible. It is, however, necessary to understand first the relation between the spiritual world and the physical world. Human beings may be clad in a fleshy raiment, but they also have a spiritual raiment (aura). The aura is a kind of ether or light reflected from the spirit; and, though it is vague, there are people who can see it with their ordinary eyes. Like the weather, the aura is constantly changing from clear to cloudy and from cloudy to clear. If the person thinks good and does good, the spirit is clear; but if he thinks evil and does evil, it becomes cloudy. Thus belief in a true deity sheds a light that helps to dispel the clouds, whereas worship of a false deity only increases them.
　　Ordinary people who lack knowledge of spiritual matters tend to think that any god is a true god. This is a great error. Actually, false gods are more numerous than true gods. Proof of this is to be seen in families that, despite generations of ardent faith, suffer an endless line of misfortunes. The deities such people worship are either false or weak. When a person puts his faith in a true god, however, and accumulates merit as a consequence of his own efforts to save others, his light increases, and his aura widens. The aura of an ordinary person may be about 3 centimeters wide. That of a good and virtuous person may be from 15 to 30 centimeters wide, while that of someone with a godlike personality and immense merit may be many miles in width. That of a great religious leader will extend throughout a number of peoples and lands, as is true in the cases of Christ and the Buddha A savior of the world has the astounding power to encompass all humanity with his light, though history shows that no such savior has appeared in the world so far. The attitude and effort of the individual determines the width of his or her aura. People should believe this and seek to accumulate as much virtue as possible.
　　Members of our organization are often saved from disaster by their auras. For instance, a wide aura may prevent the spirit of an oncoming automobile from reaching a person even if it should strike him. In similar circumstances, people with thin auras or none at all may be killed or suffer severe injury.
　　The case is similar with good and bad luck. Things are organized so that the human body belongs to the physical world, and the spirit to the spiritual world. The spiritual world is made up of upper, middle, and lower zones, each of which is divided into three stages. Each of these stages is further divided into twenty levels for a total of one hundred and eighty levels in all. Of course, the lower zone is hell. The middle zone is the world of being, or a realm of the same caliber as our ordinary world. The upper zone is paradise. Ordinary people dwell in the middle zone but can move either upward or downward depending on whether their actions are good or evil.
　　Furthermore, the spiritual world, unlike the actual world, is utterly fair without the least partiality of any kind. Though this is a disadvantage to the wicked, it is a true joy for people of true faith.　 　The world of hell, of course, is a turmoil of jealousy, resentment, envy, hatred, and poverty. These traits the Buddhists call greed, anger, and folly, all of which increase in intensity as they descend through the levels. The very bottom realm is said to be a hell of utter darkness and cold. All this does not pertain only to the world after death. Happiness and unhappiness in this actual world depend on the individual's position in the spiritual world. The numerous reported cases of entire families who, after having been driven to extremities of suffering, commit suicide together, reveal the way the realm of hell in the spiritual world is reflected on the actual world. Since such suffering ultimately stems from evil which the person himself has perpetrated, no one is as foolish as the deliberate wrongdoer. Even people who seem temporarily to have gotten ahead in the world as a consequence of evil acts must sooner or later come to grief because they are placed in hell in the spiritual world. The reverse, too, is true. If a person does good and if his position in the spiritual world improves, it is an inviolable, divine law that happiness will one day come his way, no matter how much he suffers now. Although teaching this principle is the essential mission of religion, it has not done so thoroughly until the present time, the reason being the emphasis on scriptures and preaching at the expense of the really important thing; actual demonstration － that is, miracles.
　　But the time has come. The Supreme God will manifest his absolute powers and through our organization will work startling miracles that will awaken humanity from its delusions and win the faith of all people.

September 10, 1953

059. 　Spiritual Healing

　　From various angles, I have explained that the world of day will be a world in which the spiritual precedes the physical. Toxins accumulated as material substances in the human body are the fundamental causes of illness. In the spiritual being, clouds occur in zones corresponding to the areas in the physical body where these toxic accumulations take place.
　　Elimination of the toxins from the physical being is a temporary measure only; the toxins will regenerate as time passes in accordance with the law that the spiritual precedes the physical. Consequently, the only correct method of achieving the ultimate aim of therapy is to remove the clouds from the spirit. This is the fundamental way to eliminate toxins.
　　The very word relapse makes it clear that, by concentrating on the physical body and employing no methods other than elimination or hardening of physical toxins, past therapies have had only temporary and never fundamental results. As I have just indicated, medical science has only two ways of dealing with toxins: hardening them or surgically removing them. Folk remedies use electricity or light rays to harden toxins or moxa combustion to cause burns that concentrate and then eliminate suppuration.
　　The therapy to which we subscribe, however, is based on the removal of clouds from the spirit by means of a kind of spiritual wave composed mainly of the fire element radiating from the hands and fingers of the person administering Johrei. I have tentatively named this wave the "mystic ray." Everyone has it to some degree. Perhaps it would be better to say that this ray boundlessly fills the space all around us － in short, the spiritual world.
　　Why has no one in the past discovered the use of this spiritual ray to conduct therapy by eliminating clouds? It is because the world was in a night phase, in which the available light was limited to, roughly, that of the moon and it was impossible to obtain enough of the mystic ray to treat illness; that is, to remove clouds from the spirit. This is not to say that the ray was totally non-existent. As is well known, some religious people and faith practitioners have been able to win fame among people for their doctrines, and renown as founders of religious sects because their cures have had some effect. Nevertheless, since it is primarily composed of the water element, the light of the moon has been effective in dealing with only limited numbers of sicknesses and for only limited periods. Since the water element of moonlight is a cooling factor, it hardens toxins.
　　Since it employs mainly the fire element, Johrei has the great effect in dissolving all kinds of toxins. Thus the following are the two fundamental motivations behind the discovery of my therapeutic method: the knowledge that the world is about to enter a transition from night to day, and the desire to effect great cures by radiating on pathologically affected parts of human bodies a powerful ray, thus causing the fire element, the molecules of which increase in the day phase of the world, to pass through the human body in great concentrations.

October 23, 1943

060. 　The Principle of Johrei

I

　　The general educational level today makes explanation of this principle most difficult. There is nothing to be done about this, however, as long as education remains structured on materialism.
　　In fact, however, the written records and traditions handed down by word of mouth of founders of virtually all religions include mention of miracles. This is especially the case in the great religions, because in those days performing miracles and producing beneficial results were sufficient to convince the masses, who had no desire to be told the principles of the miraculous things they beheld. It is obvious even now how many more people Jesus Christ would have saved in his lifetime and the great extent to which he would have been able to expand the limits of his teachings if it had not been for his crucifixion. The brevity of Christ's life was caused by the great power of Satan at that time. Satan's power was superior because, where the spiritual realm was concerned, the time was premature. Spiritual intuition tells me, however, that now the time is at last ripe for the great transition in the spiritual world and that Satan's power is weakening day by day.
　　Divine revelations have made clear to me all the things that have puzzled the world in the past. Through this knowledge, I am striving to define clearly the true and false, elucidate the basic roots of good and bad, rectify all errors, and stimulate lively development of a spiritual culture to contrast with the materialistic culture that has progressed so haltingly in the past. In other words, by stimulating the simultaneous development of the spiritual and material cultures, I aim to create an ideal world, or paradise on earth. I shall explain some of the principles which enable members to get good results through startling miracles. As I have said, unlike uncivilized people or people living in a time of low cultural development, modern humanity is not inspired to faith by miracles alone. People today are unconvinced unless miracles have theoretical corroboration. Many older religions have gone into decline because they merely rejected materialistic culture and failed to bring actual benefit in this life to the people of the time.
　　I shall now explain the Johrei method by means of which our members work miracles. Raising the hand and directing the palm toward a sick person immediately lightens difficult and serious illnesses. In a short time, intolerable pain is relieved or eliminated altogether. This can only be called miraculous.
　　Over hundreds and thousands of years, outstanding scholars of many lands have studied and practiced to perfect modern medical science, and their meticulous and elaborate therapeutic methods deserve praise. For an ordinary person to successfully apply the Johrei method to cure sicknesses that have proved recalcitrant to therapy at the hands of medical authorities who have trained for decades at great expense, must be described as the wonder of the century. This is precisely what is meant by "the truth that transcends truth." It is understandable, since this is something without precedent in all history, that people who have done no more than hear such stories cannot accept what they hear, and that they regard the bearers of the tales as either superstitious or demented.
　　If we were less than absolutely certain of what we can do, we would never have made such an ambitious and sweeping statement of purpose: "A world absolutely free of illness, poverty, and conflict." If we lacked the power to carry out this program we would be guilty of the un forgivable evil of deceiving the world.
　　Miracles are not miraculous for us. They are phenomena that occur as the result of a particular process, and are capable of scientific corroboration.

II

　　Nothing is purely material; everything has a spiritual body that is invisible to the eye. Human beings are composed of a physical body and a spiritual body, which in very general terms correspond to the essences of the moon and earth and the essence of the sun, respectively. In simple terms, the spirit is fire, yang, male, exterior, vertical and diurnal. The body in contrast is water, yin, female, interior, horizontal, and nocturnal. Concentrating solely on the body, science has made the fundamental error of not recognizing the existence of the spirit. If they were body without spirit human beings would be matter only, as inanimate as trees and stones, devoid of both life and spiritual activity. Failure to understand this simple fact has been behind all the errors science has committed in the past. Scientists assume that space is occupied by nothing but air. Unfortunately science has not yet developed to the stage where it can discover the many invisible elements other than air that fill space.
　　I Fortunately, however, I have been able to discover those invisible elements. call this approach "spiritual science." The discovery has led to the pioneering of an age in which humanity's greatest suffering, illness, will be totally eliminated.
　　What, then, are the basic causes of sickness? The human being is composed of spirit and body. The two are inseparably joined, and the spirit enables the body to live and move. The spirit assumes a shape like that of the body. At its center is the mind; at the center of the mind is the soul. The operations of this three-in-one entity manifest themselves in the form of will and thought. Since it controls the body in the form of will and thought, the spiritual precedes the physical. In simple terms, when a human being moves his arms and legs, the limbs are motivated, not by themselves, but on the command of the will. The same is true of the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and all other parts of the body.
　　To explain sickness in connection with this principle in a way that is readily understood, I shall take boils as an example. Almost everyone has experienced them. Generally, they begin as small eruptions, increase in size, become red, inflamed, and are painful or itchy at their head. They are a manifestation of the natural physiology of the body as it attempts to expel toxins. The body is naturally able to generate fever to liquefy toxins that have accumulated and localized, and then to discharge them in fluid form. To create an exit passage for the toxins, the skin becomes thinner and softer than usual. The redness of a boil is the toxic blood visible through skin that has become transparent. A short while later, a small hole opens, and liquefied toxins in the form of pus are expelled from the body. This is the end of the purification Process.
　　This is the physical explanation. In the spirit, a kind of cloud corresponding to the boil develops. The graver the sickness, the denser the clouds. The clouds accumulate and localize in one part of the spirit. This is the ordinary purification process leading to the elimination of toxins from the entire spiritual body that have accumulated in one place. The purification, which is inseparably connected with the physical being, is what is called sickness.
　　Not only the human body, but everything else in the universe is subject to the previously mentioned law that the spiritual precedes the physical. The purpose of Johrei is to eliminate clouds in the spirit. By means of Johrei, the clouds are rendered completely ineffective, their life is converted to death. "Dead" clouds are impotent and cannot irritate the nerves. Consequently, pain no longer exsists.

III

　　The Johrei method I use at present is to write the character for the word hikari (light) on pieces of paper, which exert their effect when worn on the person as focal points. When someone wearing a focal point administers Johrei, strong waves of light radiate from the ink with which the character is written, travel along the person's arm, and then radiate outward from the palm of his or her hand. The written characters for hikari give off light rays which are transmitted instantaneously to each one of them through "spiritual cords" from my body, just as radio waves are broadcast. To say that light waves are emitted from my spiritual body raises the question of what kind of mechanism there is in my spiritual being that can do this. The answer is simple: in my abdomen is a ball of light with an ordinary diameter of about 6 centimeters. There are people who have seen it. This ball of pure light emits limitless light rays. The source of this light is the cintamani gem of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, which, located in the spiritual world, directs its boundless light to me. This is called the divine power, the imponderable power, and the power of wondrous knowledge. The cintamani gem, or the jewel of satisfaction, held by the bodhisattva called Cintamanicakra-avalokiteshvara is the same as this one.

IV

　　Concerning the background of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (or Kannon in Japanese), from ancient times this particular Buddhist deity was believed to have a unique, mysterious power. With God's permission I will some day reveal all of the mystery of this bodhisattva, but at present, the time is not ripe. I shall therefore set forth only as much as is necessary to Johrei.
　　Of course, Avalokiteshvara has been active in Japan since the arrival of Buddhism, but until now that activity has been limited to salvation of the spirit. Avalokiteshvara conferred practical blessings when people prayed for them, but they were only of the most minor kind because, though the basic element of the light was a close union of the elements of fire and water, the element of soil was missing. Because it included only two elements, the light lacked full power in the conferring of benefits. But the time for the great transformation in the spiritual world has arrived － what the Bible calls the end of the world and the Last Judgment. For this reason the mightiest and most absolute power of salvation has become necessary. This power must include all three elements － of fire, water, and soil － the last-named being the element of matter which corresponds to the human body. The three-element composition is completed when soil is added by the passage of light through the body. The power of this three-in-one is the power of Avalokiteshvara. In simple terms, the light element emitted by the cintamani jewel of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara passes through my body, thus becoming a manifestation of the bodhisattva's mystic power, which passes from me and through followers in our faith, becoming in turn the power of purification.
　　I shall now use an example to explain this principle. In the past, people prayed for blessings to pictures or statues of Avalokiteshvara. But the Johrei performed by believers in our faith is capable of bestowing many times more blessings because the light waves emitted by statues and paintings consist of only two elements and lack the vital power of the physical body.
　　The great transformation in the spiritual world, of which I am constantly speaking, is another reason. Before the middle of June 1931, the water element predominated in the spiritual world; the amount of the fire element was small. Since that time, however, the amount of the fire element has been gradually increasing. The transition actually started decades earlier, but at that time the element of fire was extremely rare. To explain the strength of the light, I might say that the light is strong when the fire element is abundant, just as an electric lamp of high candle power gives off strong heat.
　　As another example, I am often told that I am much hotter than ordinary people because of the mass of the fire element in my abdomen. Each evening some of the people who serve me rub my shoulders and then always comment on the great heat they feel in my body. Even in winter, it is such that they often have to remove one or two outer garments. Everyone says that a room becomes warm by my being in it for a short time. I laughingly call myself a "substitute stove." In winter, after a bath, I am comfortable for an hour or two in nothing but a terrycloth robe. I greatly prefer bath water that is not too hot. The principle involved is like the one that increases heat when water is poured into a fire or that makes clear winter days colder than cloudy ones.

May 30, 1949

061. 　Johrei and the Three-element Composition of the Internal Organs

　　Among the internal organs, the function of the heart, lungs, and stomach has the greatest importance to human life. I shall now explain how they act in terms of the three fundamental elements of fire, water, and soil.
　　The heart absorbs the fire element, the lungs the water element, and the stomach the soil element; the heart corresponds to fire, the lungs to water, and the stomach to soil. But the way in which medical science has explained this matter has been totally inadequate. Science has pointed out the way in which oxygen taken into the lungs purifies the blood, but this alone fails to reach the heart of the matter. I shall now explain the situation according to the medicine that has been divinely revealed to me, but I must first begin with an explanation of the true nature of the spiritual world. It is impossible to understand this true nature without realizing that, though it is imperceptible to the five human senses, the spiritual world is actually the fundamental source of all things.
　　The principle that water causes fire to burn and that fire causes water to flow is the key to the solution of all things. A prerequisite to an understanding of the invisible spiritual realm is an explanation of the realm of air. Oxygen, familiar through modern science, is the spirit of fire; hydrogen is the spirit of water; and nitrogen is the spirit of soil. These three maintain their individual identities but when they are unified they form the essence from which all things rise. The ineffably mystical action of these three elements results in a situation in which extremely hot, extremely cold, and temperate climates are each suited to the needs of the creatures living there. Hypothetically, if all the water element were removed, the world would explode at once. If all the fire element were removed, everything would instantaneously freeze. If all the soil element were eliminated, everything would crumble to nothing. This principle should make clear the basic significance of the function of the heart, lungs, and stomach. In other words, the heart absorbs the fire element from the spiritual world; its operation is the pulse. In a similar way, the lungs absorb the water element; their operation is respiration. The stomach absorbs the soil element from the physical world; its operation is intake of nutrients.
　　The liquefaction of the hardened toxins that cause all illnesses demands heat. This is the first step in the purification process. Interpreted as a pathological symptom, this heat, which is necessary in large quantities, is fever. At such times, in order to accommodate this heat, the pulse rate increases greatly. Since heat concentrates in the affected region, it tends to decrease in other parts of the body, thus bringing about unpleasant chills. At such times, the lungs absorb large quantities of the water element, causing the respiration rate to increase, stimulating the activity of the heart, and preventing dehydration.
　　The spirit of fire is of course, emitted by the sun, the spirit of water by the moon, and the spirit of soil by the earth.
　　Principal among the three major organs is the heart, which activates the lungs, which in turn activate the stomach. Though insufficiency of food in the stomach does not mean immediate danger to life, survival is possible for no more than a few minutes if the lungs become inoperative and for only seconds when the heart fails. This is clear from the custom of medical science of always giving heart failure, not failure of the lungs or stomach, as the cause of death.
　　When a person dies, the heart first stops operating. The body then becomes cold as the spirit, the element of fire which had previously filled it, departs to return to the spiritual world. Then the lungs cease respiration, and the element of water which had permeated the body returns to the realm of air, initiating a process of drying up. Obviously the stomach also stops operating and the impossibility of obtaining drink and food causes the body to become rigid.
　　Since the human body is composed of an amalgam of the three elements of fire, water, and soil, curing illnesses that beset the body is rational only if it relies on the powers of those three elements. This is the principle of Johrei.
　　Johrei depends on power from the Supreme God, a transmitting of light. It is a spiritual light, invisible to the human eye, whereas the visible light of the sun, a lamp, or an electric bulb is the physical manifestation of light. The essence of light is a close union between the elements of water and fire. The greater the amount of the fire element, the stronger the light. However, the power of light composed of fire and water is insufficient. The element of soil is also necessary. Inclusion of the element of soil perfects the union of the three-in-one, which emits a light with wonderful healing powers. Waves of this light penetrate the body and eliminate polluting clouds in the spirit. The effect of this process is transferred to the body in the form of therapeutic effects.
　　As for the practical means of carrying this out, I write, as I have so often explained, the character for the word light on a piece of paper, which is then folded and worn inside the clothing. The spirit of light waves pass through my arm and through the pen to permeate and condense (though I use the word condense, the process is difficult to explain). A connection is then established between the character for light and the source of light within my body by means of spiritual cords along which a supply of light waves passes ceaselessly. The spiritual link between the Supreme God and myself is similar; an infinite amount of light waves is transmitted to me for the sake of the salvation of mankind.
　　As this explanation should have made clear, a therapeutic method making use of the power of the three-in-one composition of the human body is true therapy, and as is only to be expected, such therapy is capable of manifesting unprecedented healing powers.

August 6, 1949

062. 　Absolute Power

　　It is indisputable that the power of God is the source of all activity in the universe. All growth and change are a manifestation of this power, as are the stimulation and cessation of all action. All living creatures, from human beings to bacteria, are born and die because of this power. It is the limitless, absolute controller. I could supply endless other examples of this fact, but suffice it to say that the universe itself is, ultimately, power, which I would now like to examine from various viewpoints.
　　The actual Chinese character signifying "power" (力) shows how not only the meaning of words but the way they are written is a product of God's will. The character in question is produced by first making a vertical line, then crossing the vertical with a horizontal slightly higher than midway to make something like a cross and finally swinging another vertical down from the horizontal, allowing the brush to rise sharply upward at the bottom of this second vertical in a kind of tail. In short, from a combination of vertical and horizontal arises action, which then proceeds to revolve with a clockwise circular motion. This is the way power itself works.
　　To examine this now in terms of actuality, it represents, in the widest sense, the two great principles or ideologies of the world: spiritualism and materialism, or the spiritualistic and materialistic types of culture. In religious terms, in which they are easiest to understand, these are the cultures of the two great world religions: the oriental vertical spiritual culture of Buddhism and the occidental, horizontal, physical culture of Christianity. In the past, because they have existed independently, the vertical and horizontal have been unable to manifest true power, as is most patently proved by the failure of the world to achieve harmonious unity and to save humanity.
　　The major religions have undeniably had as their goals the realization of an ideal world, but the wretched confusion and deadlock of today's world shows how far the ideal is from actuality, how remote is its realization. Lack of power is the reason for this state of affairs, and that has come about because the vertical and the horizontal have not been bound together. Of course, this may be a matter of time and may be unavoidable within God's plan.
　　If I now explain my own mission, the meaning of what I have just said will become all the more apparent Johrei is the central aspect of my activities. As our members know very well, I write the character of "light" on a piece of paper, which, when worn as a focal point imparts the power to cure completely even those difficult illnesses that doctors have given up as hopeless. I have already written hundreds of thousands of these focal points, but their effectiveness remains unchanged, no matter how their number increases. Furthermore, they are effective, not only in curing illness, but also in altering a person's psychological makeup. They thus improve the personality and save people from very dangerous crises. Thanks to the innumerable examples of such miracles occurring all the time, more and more people are living in happiness. This is due entirely to the power of the focal points; I do not wish to boast but facts are facts and there can be no harm in relating them. Never before in history has anyone ever exercised this absolute power. There can be no doubt about all these miracles, since they are related in testimonials of actual experiences in our periodicals. In Buddhist terms, this power which is born of the binding together of the vertical and the horizontal is the mystical power of the Bodhsattva Avalokiteshvara. In Christian terms, it is the power of the Messiah. Though largely spiritual now, this power will someday manifest itself in physical form. When this occurs a true culture, born of the conjunction of the spiritual culture of the East and the material culture of the West, will come into being. The birth of such a culture is God's goal and God's will and is unprecedented in the world.

January 16, 1952

063. 　One Person at a Time Is Insufficient

　　The great achievements of the many sages, who like Jesus Christ, have worked miracles in saving human beings glow brightly in the history of religion. But such people have only been able to cure individually, which makes it impossible to heal large numbers of people. Even Christ, who performed such wonderful miracles as opening the eyes of the blind, causing the lame to walk, and driving demons out of the spiritually ill, was able to heal only one person at a time, so it is not surprising that his achievements attracted little popular attention in his own day. Yet tens of thousands of our members daily perform similar healing, and there is no telling to what extent their number will increase as time passes. One thing that is predictable however, is that since large numbers of people will gradually be saved, our activities will become an important global issue in the future.
　　Our therapeutic system is undeniably a wonderful medical science, but physical healing alone is insufficient, since the creation of an ideal world is our ultimate goal. We must strive to create both psychological and physical health, producing the kind of human being that is united in spirit and body, thus making possible the formation of a paradise on earth. This discussion indicates that the time has come and that our organization has appeared as the ultimate religion, as is most vividly proved by the way people who accept our faith immediately become capable of miraculous healing powers.

(Date uncertain)

064. 　My Light

　　Some readers no doubt are astonished by the things I have written about Buddhism － things that have been divinely revealed to me, though never said by anyone before. It is merely a matter of timing that has prevented God from making these things clear before. For a long time darkness and ignorance have prevailed, but a great transition into an age of brilliant sunlight, driving away the dark, is approaching. Even in the age of darkness, of course, the light of the moon enabled people to discern things to a certain extent, and they were grateful for such small mercies. I refer to the teaching of Buddhism.
　　Yet moonlight is only about one-sixtieth the power of sunlight, too dim to make things clearly visible. Thus throughout the period of darkness, human beings were deluded, unable to live in peace and tranquility since neither religion nor anything else was clearly discerned. But when it is day, everything on earth is clearly revealed in the light of the sun and nothing is obscure, so that it is perfectly natural that I, whose task is to create a "civilization of day," should understand all things.
　　What, exactly, is my relation to the world of day? Within my body resides a ball of light － what was known from ancient times as the cintamani jewel. I have already made this fact known, but here I shall deal with the light itself in detail. It has been thought that the light is the radiance of the sun, but this is mistaken. It is in fact a close conjunction of the light of the sun and the moon. Its fundamental nature is a union of the two extreme elements of fire (sun) and water (moon). As long as it resides in my body, the soil element of my flesh is added to those two elements, thus completing the three-in-one triad of fire, water, and soil. In saying this, I do not imply that ordinary people are made up entirely of the son element. They too have light, though it is small and weak. My light, however, is much larger than that of ordinary people. It may be tens of thousands or millions of times larger, or so infinitely larger that it defies the imagination. When worn on the person, the three kinds of focal points, bearing the characters for light, divine light and great divine light, immediately manifest healing powers radiated by the light of their written characters. In writing them, I neither pray nor do anything out of the ordinary. I merely write them, one at a time, at a great speed: it takes about seven seconds to write one, and I can easily write five hundred in an hour. Each of those pieces of paper is capable of curing tens of thousands of people. Though I may give them to hundreds of thousands of people, their effectiveness remains unchanged. In other words, the power of the light I possess is inconceivably great.
　　Since I possess such power, it is unlikely that I should fail to understand anything. As our members well know, no matter what I am asked, I am never at a loss for an answer. Sometimes suffering people in places far removed from me telegraph asking for blessings, and many of them receive curative aid from me by doing no more that that. As soon as I hear of their plight, a part of the light within me breaks off and connects with them. The light travels through spiritual cords to bring them assistance. Since this light can be multiplied tens of thousands of times and radiate as far as necessary to make such connections, it is extremely precious. In simpler terms, what radiates from me could be called "light bullets," except that, unlike ordinary bullets, they do not kill but give life.
　　This general explanation deals with only a part of my power; to explain all of it would be difficult. Even so, it will be enough to make people open their eyes and observe the work I do in the future. Any person of intelligence will be able to understand to some extent. In religious terms, people vary in their "spiritual awareness," and if believers purify their bodies and souls wholeheartedly so that they are free of clouds, they will be spiritually enlightened and accurately comprehend my great power.

May 25, 1952

065. 　Who Is the Savior?

　　I consider this an unusual title for an article, as I am sure the reader does. In order to explain it, I must now give a psychological account of myself. I should say in advance that my chief aim here has been to view the workings of my inner mind objectively and without the least deception: I hope the reader will keep this in mind.
　　The words savior and messiah have been used at all periods throughout the East and the West. Yet, with the exception of a few people of special religious faith, the majority of humankind has always regarded the birth into the world of the long-awaited, supernaturally powerful savior as no more than an ideal hope, a great dream. Those who have claimed to be saviors themselves have vanished with the passing of time. Clearly, no true savior has yet appeared.
　　Though I am not fond of calling myself the savior, I must confess that I cannot definitely deny that I am. The appearance of a savior is of unprecedented importance in the history of humankind and, obviously, must not be discussed lightly. Nor can one regard it simply as an ideal: one must believe that it will take place sooner or later, since the sages of the ancient past have prophesied it in such various forms as the coming of the Messiah, the Second Coming of Christ, and the birth into the world of the Bodhisattva Maitreya as the next Buddha.
　　To turn then, to my own psychology: for a long time I have thought that the primary condition for a savior is the ability to solve the problems of human illness. The greatest quality of a savior is to be endowed with an absolute method for perfecting human health and allowing people to live their heaven-appointed life spans, plus the power to put that method into actual practice. Of course, the physical health must be accompanied by mental health.
　　In a famous passage, Jesus of Nazareth made this clear when he asked what it would profit a person to gain the whole world and lose his life. In this connection, I have always held that the value of a religion or a religious leader is clearly limited if the power to eliminate sickness is lacking.
　　One day, over a decade after I first entered the life of faith, I came to understand the fundamental principle of illness and the method for dealing with it. The surprise and joy I felt at that time is unimaginable. Among all the peoples of the world, no one has ever made so great a discovery as this. No other discovery or invention is in any way comparable with it; I must indeed have been born with a miraculous destiny.

October 20, 1948

066. 　Eliminating the Suffering of Illness

　　Since ancient times, two major methods have been used to cure illness. One method is totally spiritual and involves prayers to divine beings or Buddhas, either directly or through the intervention of shamans or other religious practitioners: conjurations, surrogates, or spiritual discipline. The other method, totally physical in nature, relies on such things as medicine, mechanical equipment, surgery, injections, and radiation treatment but includes as well such folk treatments as shiatsu (finger pressure cure) and massage. In other words, the methods are diametrically opposed. In modern civilization, however, science has made such startling progress that it has become usual to assume that physical therapy is the only way to effect cures. Consequently, it is believed that progress in physical therapy will one day free humanity totally from the sufferings of illness. By overemphasizing science, men have come to reject the very existence of the divine spirit.
　　To examine the situation now in greater depth, we see that oriental civilization evolved, according to God's plan of operations, after humanity had developed to a certain stage. For a while it made great strides, but later failed because it was too spiritual and mental, firmly denying physical matter; thus it entered the period of decline in which it still is at present. On the other hand, occidental civilization, which has underestimated the spirit and worshiped the physical developed to the stage it is in at present. But it, too, has ultimately failed. Both civilizations have failed, as the present state of the world clearly proves. In short, humanity has failed first in one direction, then in another. Yet in spite of this double failure, people's eyes have not been opened and they still cling desperately to the kind of civilization that offers no hope. Obviously some kind of great change is required.

December 25, 1951

067. 　Being Midwife to World Civilization

　　This is where Sekai Kyusei Kyo appeared and pointed out the errors in the already faded civilization. In this sense, I am now writing the text for the creation of a new civilization. Essentially this project inclines strongly neither to the vertical nor to the horizontal, but is the teaching of an adaptable, indestructible truth, a truth of moderation. In simpler terms, it recognizes the existence of the spirit while greatly respecting material progress. The Johrei method itself is a combination of the power of both spirit and body, since it consists of the spirit emitted through the palm of the hand. Consequently, I am both the midwife and the leader in the birth of a true world civilization.

December 25, 1951

068. 　Limited and Limitless Power

　　It is necessary to understand the difference between limited and limitless power, since people today tend to assume that all power is finite. Possibly this is all one can expect in a purely materialistic social and cultural environment. Many people ignorant of the truth fail to be successful because they base their actions only in belief in limited power. There are many different kinds of limited power. In primitive civilization the basic power was human power or physical strength. As civilization evolved others followed － mental power, authority, then political power, the power of oppression, military power, financial power, economic power, the power of leaning, horse power, mechanical power, destructive power, the power of thought, the power of the pen, and the power of publicity － these gradually developed to supersede human power. The strength of each one depended on the period in question. In the primitive period, the kinds of power that succeeded each other were violence, authority, and control.
　　It is important to note that all these kinds of power are limited and have no quality of absoluteness, as is irrefutably proved by the way a power once considered absolute can later be totally destroyed. An examination of examples of failures from the distant past makes this clear. In contrast to limited power. limitless power is absolute, eternal, and irresistible. Though limited power is visible and tangible, limitless power seemingly exists nowhere. For this reason, people are unable to believe that it exists and remain convinced that limited power is the only power. Limited power is produced by human beings; limitless power is employed by God.
　　A ready example is the Johrei method used by our organization. People assume that since medical science uses visible, medicinal, and mechanical methods it will necessarily effect a cure; yet find it impossible, at first, to believe that Johrei, which involves no more than raising the hand into space, can have any therapeutic effect. They are totally unable to understand why Johrei, in practice, is comparably more effective than medical science; they can only wonder. In short, they can understand limited power, but limitless power is beyond them. However, for a person who understands the principle, it is perfectly natural. What is quite clear is that medical science is the power of humanity, whereas Johrei is the power of God.

(Date uncertain)

069. 　Philosophical Examination of Johrei

　　The basic premise on which people have criticized the great effect of Johrei is quite erroneous. People have long been accustomed to believing that no cure is possible without physical treatment and tend to think that the effects of our therapy, which employs no medicines and no mechanical devices, must result from psychological suggestion. Nonmembers especially are prone to think this way. Interestingly enough, however, the truth is the opposite.
　　Almost all the sick people who come to us, or who resort to certain kinds of folk medicine, entertain a certain degree of doubt about it because they are baaed by a treatment that employs no machines and no medicines. However, when others explain the great effects it has and when they see how effective it has been in the cases of people close to them, they almost all come to temper their doubt with belief.
　　Most people who undergo medical treatment are dominated by the assumption that they will recover. They all, moreover, put great faith in big hospitals and people with doctorates. Preconceived ideas about the wonders of progress in medical science make their confidence in it incomparably greater than their trust in other forms of healing. This is proved by the way in which many people continue to undergo a prescribed medical treatment in vain for months, without losing their faith in it. Sometimes, even therapy extending over one or two years and resulting only in an aggravation of the condition does not alter the patient's confidence, which is truly amazing in its tenacity.
　　Quite often, doubt does not arise even when mistaken diagnosis and mistaken treatment worsen the patient's condition, when injections cause death or surgical errors increase the gravity of the sickness. When a great doctor, employing all the latest methods, is unable to do anything but go on making matters worse until the patient finally dies, people resign themselves to fate and make no complaint at all; even a great doctor working as hard as possible was unable, they say, to effect a cure. Even when the cause of death being a patently mistaken treatment, a legal suit would be justified, but people usually take the easy way out and let matters ride saying, "No matter what we do now, the person who has died will not come back to life again."
　　Medical science commands this absolute trust, I believe, because, in making judgments, people today are far too likely to emphasize external form, theory, and tradition more than substance. As a young person interested in philosophy I was once deeply impressed by the theories of the famous French philosopher Henri Bergson, especially his ideas on intuitive theory and the perpetual motion of all things. The gist of those theories is as follows:
　　It is difficult for human beings to respond intuitively in making observations of the things around them, since all of us fall under the influence of currently existing ideas. The comprehensive effects of things such as education, custom, and tradition lie latent in our minds, tending to make our thinking fixed and rigid. We are unable to escape their influence. The sum of these things prevents us from grasping objects as they actually are. In other words, they obscure our vision like dark glasses. To understand things correctly, we must put ourselves in a state where not a grain of these preconceived ideas remains to hinder us. Bergson has described the self in such a condition as the self of the instant. It is the self for which there is neither past nor future, the self of the unprejudiced mind, free even of speculation. When the self of the instant views things it is with completely unhindered intuition. This is the only way for human beings to view things correctly.
　　The theory of the perpetual motion of all things － that is, the idea that everything that exists is in constant movement and never stops for an instant － means that the individual self, the Japan and the world of today are not the same as the individual self, the Japan and the world of yesterday. Obviously, the culture, politics, economics, art, and medicine of yesterday differ from their counterparts today. Therefore, what was truth yesterday may, or may not, be destroyed today. If it is destroyed, it was false to start with. Truth that is not destroyed can be said with certainty to be either truth or something closer to truth than falsehood. The appearance of truth in relation to time is also important. There are many historical instances of truths that have been considered supreme for decades and centuries only to be proved paradoxes at a later date.
　　Bergson's philosophy, as outlined here, is extremely convenient in arriving at an understanding of the true nature of Johrei and Western medical science. It is important to note in this connection that the majority of the people who come for our purifying practice do so because the medical science in which so many have absolute faith has failed to cure them. Strangely enough, when the medicine they trust does no good, they are cured by the kind of therapy that they view with suspicion. Reflection on this state of affairs clearly reveals the difference between the healing powers of the two approaches to therapy. It is a sign that the healing powers of Johrei transcend psychological suggestion and go much farther.

September 28, 1942

070. 　Religion and Faith

　　Whenever Johrei is described as a religion or a faith, I insist that it is neither. Religions occur in various forms and require various different kinds of activity, but generally they are organized into sects or groups with certain established doctrines and expounding certain teachings in accordance with which their adherents must act. In addition, religions frequently require their members to worship figures of buddhas, bodhisattvas, gods, sages, Christ, or sect founders.
　　Faith means trust and confidence which grow stronger as time passes and ultimately evolve into reverence and total conviction. Its objects are not limited to gods or buddhas but can include practically anything. Praying for the sun to rise at dawn is faith. The samurai spirit is a kind of faith, as is belief in science. Belief in medical science in the west is also faith that has become so absolute that people are willing to entrust their precious lives to it with tranquility, no matter what effects its treatments produce.
　　It is where these religious elements and concepts of faith are concerned that Johrei differs. It has, of course, no religious element at all. As for faith, it is not entirely non-existent; it is, for example, only natural for people who have recovered from a critical illness, even after physicians have warned of impending death, to rejoice so greatly that their emotion extends into faith. However, this is a natural reaction, and not superstition.
　　Now I have a word to say to doctors. There is a reason why doctors invariably attribute successful cures effected by other than medical means to faith. Their interpretation, based on the experience of western medical science, is that medicines are especially effective when the patient has faith in the doctor administering them. Doctors frequently speak of the many instances in which the same medicine has superlative effect when prescribed by a famous physician and much less effect when given by an unknown doctor. This proves that the medicine itself has no curative effect at all and that belief alone is at work in such cases. In the light of this situation, it is probably unavoidable that doctors accustomed to such attitudes should think that belief in the doctor effects the cure.
　　As I often say, in the case of Johrei the effect for a doubter is exactly the same as the effect for a believer.

October 5, 1943

071. 　Therapy and Concepts

　　There is at present a grave misconception concerning the treatment of sickness. It is the idea － put forward, moreover, by doctors themselves － that healing based on faith and healing by folk medicine are greatly assisted by psychological suggestion and spiritual strength. In my opinion, this is putting things the wrong way round. The average person has absolute faith that medical therapy can cure sickness. The extent of this belief as shown in all kinds of daily instances is quite astounding － as is witnessed by the fact that such people consider any case of cure through nonmedical means to be miraculous. In other words, the patient who chooses to seek a cure through conventional medicine starts with the psychological conviction that his or her sickness will be cured. Should, even so, a cure not be achieved, it means that medicine itself － which theoretically commands all the resources of science and psychological suggestion － has proved ineffective, thus making nonsense of such ideas.
　　Now let us examine the opposite kind of case. In the beginning, all patients who come to us entertain doubts about the likelihood of a cure. Most of them, after having found no help in medical treatment and other methods, are merely accidentally guided to us and turn to our system as a last resort, hoping for a stroke of good luck. Thus, whereas medical science, which theoretically has an absolute advantage in such undertakings, is unable to cure, our group, which ought to be at the greatest disadvantage, shows solid results. There is food for serious thought there.

May 15, 1936

072. 　It Can Be Cured

　　The elimination of illness － that is, the assurance of good health － is the most important of the three conditions we constantly profess as our goal － a world free of illness, poverty, and conflict. Without health, what salvation is possible? Those people of great faith who believe salvation is possible while they groan beneath illness and suffering are greatly mistaken. Though spiritual salvation is possible under such a philosophy, physical salvation is not. The reason why people of faith are only half saved is that, limited to spiritual salvation, the existing religions unfortunately lack the power to save on the physical plane. As a consequence of the long-established conviction that religion should concern itself solely with spiritual salvation, religious scholars have concocted the ingenious theory that physical salvation is heresy. On the basis of this paradoxical view, they voice the highly mistaken opinion that any religion propounding the aim of bringing to its followers actual advantages in the present world is of inferior quality.
　　The members of our organization are able to enjoy in abundance the practical blessings which established religions consider impossible to bestow. Such people who come to us after having been given up as hopeless by doctors immediately take a turn for the better and recover. Such an astonishing truth should be a matter of major concern for physicians. Nonetheless, despite all the critical attacks directed at us by the world, our organization continues to develop at an unabated rate.
　　The people who spread our teaching have no inclination to offer the sick cures from a religious viewpoint. All they do is perform Johrei － purification of the spirit － in response to the request of the person. When the spirit has been purified, the illness vanishes naturally. In other words the process involved is not one of curing but of allowing a cure to effect itself. This is the most important point. It is inconceivable that it could infringe any law or do any harm to society. We welcome any kind of investigation of our activities since the number of lives we have saved and the extent to which we have helped enhance the general welfare are clearly revealed in the mountains of reports and written expressions of gratitude we receive from people who are so happy at being saved by Johrei they cannot contain their delight. Indeed these written expressions of thanks are too numerous to be accommodated in the pages of the monthly magazine Chijo Tengoku (Paradise on Earth) and the weekly Hikari (Light). As a rule, the person who has been helped by Johrei writes his or her own report, telling the facts as they are without exaggeration People who for some reason cannot write their reports dictate them orally. But in all cases, names and addresses are given in detail, and anyone who doubts can visit the people and question them.
　　It is most distressing that people, either wittingly or unwittingly, attempt to hinder us as much as possible in our struggle toward the goal of creating a new Japan. I am at a loss how to describe people who attempt to crush us because we have superior powers in curing illness, humankind's greatest source of suffering, when both the official and private sectors of the population ought to offer us all possible support and encouragement.

March 30, 1949

073 .　Theory of Method and Theory of Effect

　　Here I would like to deal in some detail with the unfortunate readiness of the general public to misunderstand the Johrei therapy. Although the wonderful effects of Johrei treatment are now known to a large segment of the populace, a considerable number of people, and especially a group of specialists, still seriously misunderstand us. My purpose in writing this is to enlighten them in their error. In the criticisms made of our system there is never a word indicating that its effectiveness is inferior to that of medical treatment. The criticism is that our method is mistaken, unscientific, and superstitious because it makes no use of such material means as machines and medicines. I refute this objection, though I realize that such people make it because they consider human beings to be physical bodies only. In contrast to their opinion, we see the human being as composed of the two elements of physical body and spirit, and insist that the spiritual takes precedence over the physical. In other words, the body moves in accordance with the operations of the spirit, or the will. The difference between our view wd theirs is the difference between materialism and spiritualism or between the belief that the physical takes precedence over the spiritual and the belief that the spiritual takes precedence over the physical. They employ physical means to cure the spirit.
　　The key to determining which of the views is correct is to find a criterion for accurate judgment. The only absolutely infallible criterion is the actual effects of the two methods. In contrast to the materialist method, which deals with visible things that anyone can recognize, the spiritualist method is at a disadvantage in that it is dealing with something invisible and intangible that cannot be readily recognized. When the spiritualists are criticized on this point, no mention is made at all of effects; and method alone comes in for censure. The method that concentrated on visible things seems on the surface to be reasonable. However, without employing medicines and mechanical equipment and relying solely on the operation of the palm of the human hand, we are able to manifest amazing therapeutic effects in dealing with illnesses that medical science cannot cure no matter how much medicine and mechanical equipment it resorts to. In short, one system seems reasonable but fails to cure, while the other seems unreasonable but cures. It is important to note that one system concentrates on method and the other on effect. It should be perfectly clear which of the approaches is correct.
　　To carry the discussion to its logical conclusion, one may say that, even though it is scientific, the system that produces no positive effect is in practice useless and therefore, to say the least of it, not good science. The system that does have a positive effect is useful, and therefore good science. The essential point is that one is concerned with visible things and one with invisible things. The former deals with the visible and is not true science; the latter deals with the invisible and is true science.

January 30, 1950

074. 　Facts Speak Eloquently

　　In a short time, our organization has grown and extended its boundaries to an extent probably unprecedented in the history of religion. Why has this happened? In this hard world, people do not donate money, use their spare time, and remain fervently faithful without some reason. Furthermore, our present membership of two hundred thousand includes representatives of all social levels: from politicians, doctorate holders, university professors, members of the national diet, high ranking officials, and influential businessmen to middle-class merchants, white- and blue-collar workers and farmers. The great diversity of this membership deserves thought.
　　There are quite a number of people who, refusing to accept such facts, self-righteously dismiss our teachings as superstitious and heretical; however, it would be a mistake to condemn such people outright since virtually all of the new religions that have appeared so far have been without true value. Though some of them have flourished in the beginning and have seemed to promise to become great religions in the future, as time has passed they have gradually lost their vigor and ended in fiasco. Only a limited number of them continue to exist today. With examples of this kind in mind, people might be called justified in dismissing new religions as superstition and wrong teachings.
　　How does this situation affect us? Before answering this, I would ask you to abandon all prejudice, begin with a blank page, and look at things through untinted glasses. The quickest and most sensible answer is to talk about the effect of our characteristic Johrei, which is unprecedented in the history of religion and in the history of humanity. That this is neither empty theory nor conceit but living fact is proved most vividly by the mountain of reports on my desk; of the experiences of individual human beings, reporting their overflowing gratitude. The reports are regularly carried in large numbers in the newspaper Hikari and the monthly magazine Chijo Tengoku.
　　Because we know these facts, we are compelled to believe in the possibility of realizing our extraordinary ideal of a Paradise on Earth in which there will be no illness, poverty, or conflict.
　　The work we are doing at present cannot really be called religion. Use of that word summons up associations with older established religions and is therefore a hindrance to understanding the true nature of our organization, which is actually an undertaking of salvation on a scale larger than anything that has gone before it. Since the world is entering a phase of tremendous transformation, it would be difficult without salvation on this vast scale for humankind to escape a great crisis. Consequently God has chosen me as the person to carry out this great undertaking. Though I am not bold enough to call myself a Messiah I can say now that in the future God will manifest Messiah-like powers through me.
　　As history shows, all religions have been misunderstood by the world at one time or another. I am no exception to this rule, for I too have been misunderstood, but the numbers of my supporters are gradually increasing. For my part, I merely act according to God's instructions and, entrusting myself to God, allow time to pass.

December 20, 1949

075. 　Change in the Johrei Method

　　Henceforth, I wish Johrei to be performed in a new way that has been divinely revealed to me and that derives from the recent tremendous alteration in the spiritual world. Formerly, Johrei involved the action of both spirit and body in that, when the spirit was emitted from the palm of the hand, the person exerted a certain degree of physical power. However, the use of physical power had the effect of reducing the spirit's power. Even in the past this was so; that is why, the harder the person performing Johrei tried, the more the effect diminished.
　　To check this tendency, from now on no physical power should be exerted in the channeling, and the spirit alone should be radiated. To explain in greater detail: the light of the divine spirit will pass from me along spiritual cords to the focal points all of you possess, where it will abide. Since that light will pass through the palm of the hand to the pathologically affected part of the recipient, from now on Johrei practitioners must channel the spirit with as light and easy an attitude as possible and must exert no force at all. It is certain that, with this method, healing powers will be much greater － indeed, five times greater this will stimulate astonishing progress in the work of God. You must do as I say without confusion or fear, for it is the will of God, now that the time is ripe and that salvation for humanity is moving forward. I will explain practical details personally in interviews, so as to make them easier to grasp.

December 27, 1950

076. 　Sickness and Human Character

　　My considerable experience has revealed to me interesting correlations between a person's character and the sickness from which the person suffers. As I have discovered in therapy, a person who is direct by nature will recover in a direct fashion. A person who doesn't make a fuss will recover without a fuss. But the illness of a person who is egotistical is likely to persist for a long time. The symptoms of a stubborn person are stubborn themselves. The sick condition of a person who is changeable is likely to alter easily. The sickness of a person with an negative personality is likely to take negative turns.
　　It is important to know the character of the person one is attempting to cure and to alter his or her bad traits, since this is certain to have a good effect on the sickness itself. The best thing is to attempt to develop straightforwardness in the person's character.

1936

077. 　Pride and Error

　　Two of the things that we are most strongly warned against in the teaching of Omoto Sect are pride and error. It is good that we should be on the lookout against pride, for the experiences of many of our members reveal how it can be a problem. For instance, a person who performs Johrei for the first time is uncertain of his or her ability to heal and goes about the task in fear and trembling. When in fact he succeeds in curing, he or she considers it wonderful; and the person healed is overjoyed and grateful; all of our members must have experienced this at some time or other.
　　But, as time goes by, the person forgets to be grateful for being allowed to heal and comes to think that the greatness resides in himself or herself. When this unmistakable kind of pride develops, stern cautioning is needed, since this is a stage of great danger, one at which the person's thinking can take a reverse turn. As I have already stated, the Johrei practitioner must not attempt to exert any of his or her own human power. The less human power exerted, the better. A proud person, however, is most likely to exert his or her own strength, which has a more debilitating effect on the effectiveness of Johrei than anything else.
　　People often ask me why their healing power has fallen off lately now that they are practiced, whereas it was so much greater when they were hesitant beginners. The explanation I have just given should make the answer obvious.
　　We must also be on our guard against error, for it is easy to make a mistake in relation to one's thinking concerning faith. For instance, people sometimes conceive a desire to know about God's causes and effects, or the origins and relationships of the gods as set forth in myths and legends, or become interested in the phenomena of spiritual possession, thirsting for more and more knowledge on such subjects. Too much enthusiasm on these topics can cause a person to neglect the basics of faith. There is nothing wrong with knowing a little about such matters, but limits must be set, since becoming wrapped up in them can lead the person away from the true path. Error of this kind comes from either not reading my teachings or from reading them but failing to put them to practice.
　　A person who understands what I have written on these two important points and puts my writing to practice will be able to follow the line of true faith.

July 4, 1951

078. 　The True Science of Nutrition

　　The basis of nourishment is the spirit of the food we eat, but contemporary nutrition concerns itself only with vitamins, calorie counting, and other minor details. In fact, the spirit is impossible to understand at the present stage of learning, no matter how much research is expended on the matter, since spirit cannot be measured in a test tube. Calories, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, and so on are the dregs left behind when the spirit has been removed.
　　Humans are active beings made up of both spirit and body. Our food, consequently, must nourish both the spirit and the body. Foods themselves also consist of spirit and physical being. The spirit is retained in large amounts in fresh foods such as newly picked vegetables or newly caught fish. Foods spoil when their spirits are allowed to escape. The length of time spirit remains in foods varies according to type: grains retain their spirits longest; vegetables come next; fish lose their spirit faster than all other foods. Observation of the way foods spoil will make this clear. The fresher the food, the greater the concentration of spirit in it. Salt-dried foods retain their spirits relatively long because they borrow the spirit of salt, which removes much of their moisture.
　　The spiritual energy of foods nourishes the human spirit, and their physical components nourish the human body. The fundamental source of human activity is adequate spirit, which is at the same time the factor determining physical strength and weakness. Consequently, it is essential for good health to consume foods with large amounts of spirit. Eating such foods stimulates greater activity of the spiritual being and in this way makes the body stronger and healthier. No matter how many manufactured nutritional supplements are consumed, they have virtually no power to activate the spiritual being and thus have no stimulating effects, their own spiritual elements having been dispersed and weakened. Eating plenty of fresh vegetables is infinitely wiser than resorting to such supplements.
　　Modern science is mistaken in ignoring the importance of the spirit and concentrating research on the body only. Yet, to give a simple example, the limbs and body of a human being do not control the mind; it is the mind that controls the limbs and body.

　　The human body is made up of hundreds of different kinds of matter, principally blood, cells, muscles, bone, hair, fluid, calcium, and so on; each of these is composed of different elements. The organs of the body constantly function without resting a single second. All these things receive energy from spiritual and material elements extracted from foods, which contain without exception all that is necessary for active human life. Consequently, human beings should ideally consume as many kinds of foods as possible. People should eat whatever they want to eat without making the mistake of assigning medicinal virtues to some and harmful effects to others.

1935

079. 　Foods and Nutrition

　　Specialists in modern health should realize that they lean too far in the direction of scholarly research and separate themselves too far from reality. I say this because, after more than a decade of study, I have come to a conclusion that is diametrically opposed to accepted beliefs.
　　Fifteen or sixteen years ago, I was a great eater of meat. Dinner was always either Western-style or occasionally, Chinese food. In other words, I ate what nutrition experts of the day would probably have considered an ideal diet. But, in my thirties at the time, I never weighed more than a miserable fifty kilograms or 104 pounds, suffered from stomach and intestinal disorders and colds all the time, and never went a month without having to call on the services of a physician. In my eagerness to regain good health, I tried all the currently popular regimens － deep breathing, cold-water massage, meditation, and so on. Though some had limited effects, none led to overall physical improvement.
　　Realizing the negative effects of a meat diet, I switched to eating in the traditional Japanese fashion; that is, plenty of fish and vegetables. Suddenly, I began to gain weight. In two or three years, I was weighing from about fifty-nine to sixty-one kilograms or from 124 to 128 pounds. I gradually became free of colds and forgot all about stomach and intestinal disorders. For the first time I knew the joy of good health; and since then I have remained active and completely strong and sound.
　　Trying the same diet on my six children and the other members of our family, who number fifteen or sixteen in all, has produced excellent results. We know the great happiness of never having our doorstep darkened by the demon of illness.
　　Out of curiosity, I asked my wife and our maid to feed the children on what in the eyes of modern nutrition specialists is poor nourishment par excellence. They were given such plain fare as seventy-percent hulled rice, plenty of vegetables, on rare occasions "inferior" fish such as salted salmon and dried sardines, pickles and rice-and-tea gruel or pickles and salted balls of steamed rice, and homemade rice-and-seaweed rolls. The results were surprising. Our children in both primary and middle school were physically robust. Their nutrition was above average or excellent. None of them, from our oldest daughter, who was sixteen at the time, to our smallest boy, who was four, ever suffered anything that could be called a serious illness, and they always won prizes for perfect school attendance.
　　For the past eight years, I have been applying this experience in treating hundreds of physically ill people, always with excellent results. I would be happy if medical scientists would make a study of the especially good effects vegetables in the diet have had on patients with lung ailments.
　　These are the simple facts. They encourage me to state flatly and unequivocally that, though it seems to have made great progress, the contemporary study of nutrition is fundamentally wrong. This is a matter of great importance to the health and welfare of the whole nation; the time has come to rise up fearlessly, sound the alarm, and issue a warning to the population in general as well as to the learned authorities.
　　If generally adopted, the diet I advocate could have a most beneficial effect on the national economy. I guarantee that Japanese farmers would become incapable of the hard work they have always done if they were to adopt a meat diet instead of the homely fare to which they have long been accustomed.

June, 1935

080. 　Nutrition

　　My detailed explanations in previous articles should already have made the danger of medicines clear, but it is also important not to overlook the great fallacy currently prevalent in connection with nutrition. The science of nutrition concentrates on foods and neglects the way the human body functions. It is folly to try to compensate for nutritional insufficiencies by means of vitamins － which science has actually classified into groups A, B, C, and so on － because this is to overlook the innate capabilities of bodily functions.
　　Essentially the life force is a result of the activity of the bodily functions. These functions, especially digestion, are the main constituent of the drive to live. The drive to live is synonymous with good health. And "activation" of the functions signifies the working of the functions to perfect imperfect foods. This is easy to understand if one thinks of the way the body grows weak when the stomach is empty. The reason for this condition is that food processing has stopped. When one eats, digestive activity resumes; and the body feels refreshed. Since all the body's functions are interrelated, the weakening of the fundamental digestive function weakens all the others. Conversely, recovery of the digestive function brings about recovery of the others.
　　Exercise is essential to good health because it stimulates the metabolism. The good effect it has is supportive and not fundamental in nature. The essential thing is to stimulate the activity of the digestive function itself. And, to this end, especially easily digested foods are not so good. We would do better to eat perfectly ordinary, simple foods.
　　Medical science urges us to eat foods that are easy to digest. However, they are in fact harmful since they weaken the stomach. Though long chewing of food is recommended, it also, if overdone, has a similar weakening effect on the stomach. An illustration of these effects is the malpositioning of the stomach called gastroptosis, a purely manmade sickness, which results from the stomach relaxation that is the inevitable outcome of eating easily digested foods, chewing them too well, and frequently taking digestive medicines, all of which aggravate gastric weakness.
　　In relation to this, I recall an experience of my own. I once tried the regimen known as Fletcherism, which was popular in the United States more than thirty years ago and which advocated chewing food as thoroughly as possible. For a while, the system seemed to be doing me good; but, after about a month I started growing progressively weaker. Realizing that the system was at fault I returned to the ordinary way of eating and soon recovered.
　　As this should indicate, medical science cannot hope to improve health so long as it follows a course diametrically opposed to the truly beneficial one. To take another example, it is very odd to suggest to a mother whose breasts fail to produce enough milk that she should drink cow's milk. Human mothers should be able to produce enough milk to breast-feed the children they bear. If they cannot they have been doing something wrong and the condition will be rectified when they discover and correct their mistake.
　　Medical science is either unaware of or unable to cope with this situation and seems to believe that whatever a mother takes in at the mouth goes straight through to the nipples. This is an absurd error. Drinking cow's milk actually reduces the amount of mother's milk produced. In other words, supplying milk from outside reduces the ability of the mother's body to lactate.
　　A moment's thought will suffice. The process whereby human beings eat rice or bread and green vegetables and yellow beans to produce red blood is wonderful. If blood is produced from eating food that contains no blood at all, then what would be the outcome of drinking blood? Obviously, cessation of blood production. If cows produce splendid milk by eating hay, how much greater is the human power to produce totally different substances from nutrients! Refusal to examine nature is the fundamental cause of the fallacies prevailing in the science of nutrition.
　　Vegetarians are healthy and long-lived because vegetables contain all the nourishment the human body needs in large amounts. Zen priests, who eat simple fare, often live to very ripe old ages. The famous writer George Bernard Shaw, who died at ninety-four, was a well-known vegetarian.
　　In essence, then, human beings should follow the natural course of eating what they want without worrying too much about nutrition. Urbanites should try to eat vegetable and animal foods at a half-and-half ratio. Farmers and the sick should eat seventy to eighty percent vegetable and twenty to thirty percent animal food. With such diets, and abstaining from all medicines, there is no reason why people should become ill. Since so many methods of hygiene and health are mistaken and cause more trouble than they do good, men would do best to live a simple life in accordance with nature.

August 15, 1951

081. 　The Science of Nutrition

　　The contemporary science of nutrition errs fundamentally in studying only one of the two aspects deserving research. It studies only foods and neglects the human bodily functions that must ingest and process those foods. The body's internal functioning, which is still not completely understood even by the scientist with his modern theories, freely produces and alters the necessary nutrients from foods eaten. One has only to observe how magically the digestive functions transform rice, bread, leafy vegetables, yams, beans, and so on into blood, muscle, and bone, even though the most meticulous analysis of these foods is unable to discover the smallest particle of the element of blood or the slightest trace of the basic material of muscle. Nor can analysis find in foods any of the malodorous odor of urine or feces, or any ammonia. Consequently, in prescribing vitamins and other supposed supplements, modern nutrition only increases bodily debilitation.
　　Here is an example to make my meaning easier to understand. Think of a factory that brings in supplies of iron as raw material and coal as fuel. It operates mechanical equipment, utilizing the work of laborers and the burning of coal in various processes that ultimately result in finished products. The production processes are the factory's life power. If instead of raw materials and fuel, however, finished products were brought to the factory, there would be no need for laborers or coal. The machines would not need to operate, and no smoke would come from the chimneys. Since the factory could not continue under such circumstances, the laborers would be discharged, and the mechanical equipment would rust.
　　Similarly, if the human body is supplied with supplemental nutrients in exactly the forms it requires, there is no room for the activities of its own nutrient-producing plant, and debility sets in. This is why it is essential to understand that human energy is generated from the activity of converting imperfect nutrients into perfect nutrients such as vitamins and other similar substances.
　　Moreover, the modern science of nutrition is mistaken in underrating the food value of grains and believing that foods eaten to supplement such staples are more nutritious. The truth is that grains are the major source of nourishment and the supplementary foods of secondary importance － something added merely to make eating the grains more enjoyable.
　　Essentially, the human bodily functions are made to be able to adapt to the environment. The tongue of a person who habitually eats the plainest foods comes in time to find them delicious. This fact, however, is little known; as is often observed in people of luxurious inclinations, gourmets become jaded with ordinary fare and constantly seek new delicacies.
　　Let us now examine the significance of different foods. Fundamentally, foods, which are essential to the maintenance of the life of living organisms, are suited to the needs of those organisms. The Creator thus has determined the kinds of foods human beings, birds, and beasts should eat. It is easy to tell what foods are provided for human beings; foods have tastes, and human beings are endowed with a sense of taste. The human being enjoys eating those foods that are naturally nutritious and that are the elements of which good health is made. It is therefore essential to realize that ingesting such unappetizing things as tonics, which do not require chewing and which do not demand the functioning of the digestive system, is not only mistaken, but also harmful. Each person has a different environment, occupation, and physical constitution. The thing that the individual likes to eat is a necessary element for that person. In other words, we should eat what our natural instincts tell us to eat without being too greatly concerned with such things as theories of nutritional science.
　　Vegetables are more nutritious than anything else. From the nutritional standpoint, a diet of grain and vegetables is sufficient, as actual cases of people who follow it make perfectly clear. Vegetarians like Japanese farmers and Zen priests are healthy and long-lived, whereas urbanites who continually eat fish, fowl, and meat, become sick easily and have shorter life spans.

February 5, 1947

082 .　The Comedy of Nutrition

　　At present substances such as vitamins A, B, and C, amino acids, glycogen, carbohydrates, rats, proteins and so on figure largely in artificially prepared nutritional supplements and tonics. A great variety of them is available, and the number of different kinds of vitamins increases each year. Though taking such substances, either orally or by injection, may have a temporary effect, it produces no long-term improvement. In fact, they have adverse effects, and the more such supplements a person takes, the weaker the body becomes. It goes without saying, of course, that human beings consume foods for the sake of life support and the manifestation of life powers; yet today's scientific theories misinterpret this truth.
　　In eating, the human being ingests and chews food, which passes to the stomach and thence to the intestines, where the necessary elements are assimilated and the remainder is excreted from the body in urine and feces. By means of this process, the life powers of the liver, gall bladder, kidneys, and pancreas function to produce, extract, and distribute all the nutrient elements needed for the functioning of blood, muscles, bones, skin, hair, teeth, finger and toe nails, and so on. The mysterious, mystical, infinite life process cannot be described in words but is nature itself.
　　The nutrients human beings require for life are contained in all kinds of foods, whose virtually limitless variety arises partly from the need for different kinds of nutrition, partly from differences in individual preferences and capacities from time to time, and partly from the differing needs of the individual constitution. When hungry, the human being eats. When thirsty, he drinks. A person who craves sweets has a sugar deficiency, and one who craves salty food lacks salt. The natural desires of the human being reveal our needs for various kinds of foods. But we all want food that tastes good. It is mistaken to force ourselves to take tasteless or unpleasant things like medicines. The old Japanese saying to the effect that good medicines always taste bitter is equally mistaken. The Creator made things bitter to show that they are poisonous and must not be eaten. Consequently, the better foods taste, the denser their spiritual content and the higher their nutritional value. Fresh fish and vegetables are delicious because they still have dense spiritual beings. As time passes, their flavor diminishes because their spiritual energy disperses.
　　A few words, now, about tonics and artificially prepared nutritional supplements. The body is able to produce freely, in just the right quantities, an the various nutrients － that is, vitamins and everything else － it needs from the foods it consumes. In other words, the body's nutritional function has the miraculous power to produce the vitamins it needs even from foods that are totally lacking in them. Indeed, this process of producing nutrients is precisely what constitutes the human life force: the activity of converting incomplete foods into complete ones is, in short, life itself.
　　Taking artificially prepared nutritional supplements, which are complete foods, reduces the need for the body's own nutrition producing function, which therefore naturally degenerates, thus stimulating degeneration in other functions that share communal responsibility with it and leading gradually to total physical debility. In what follows I give two or three examples of what I mean.
　　Some years ago, the dietary regimen known as "Fletcherism" was popular in the United States. It required that all food be chewed thoroughly till it was dense pulp. I followed this system diligently for a month, only to find to my surprise that my body gradually grew weaker and was incapable of exerting the kind of energy I wanted from it. However, after abandoning the system and returning to my ordinary way of eating, I recovered. This experience shows how mistaken it is to chew food too thoroughly. I realized that, since thorough chewing with the teeth reduces the demand for stomach action, the stomach weakens, and that chewing food moderately is best. Long ago people used to say that a person who eats fast and defecates fast is healthy. In this respect, they were more advanced than modern civilized mankind.
　　Taking digestive aids also weakens the stomach by dulling its activity. The person with a stomach problem again resorts to medicine for the condition, and this further weakens the stomach. In other words, taking digestive medicines is undeniably a cause of gastric sickness. One often hears of cases in which chronic sufferers from stomach and intestinal illnesses made no improvement as long as they persisted in eating easily digested foods but recovered by eating rice-and-tea gruel with pickled vegetables.
　　The way the human life force converts incomplete foods into complete ones can be compared to the operation of a machine factory. Raw materials are brought to the plant, where coal is burned as fuel to operate the necessary equipment. Workers employ the energy from the coal, and the raw materials, to produce, eventually, finished machines. The process whereby this is accomplished is the factory's reason for existing. If finished machines were brought to the factory in place of raw materials, there would be no need for labor, coal would not be burned as fuel, equipment would not operate, workers would be superfluous, and there would be nothing to do but close the plant.

April 20, 1950

NATURE FARMING


Nature Farming

083. 　Preface

　　The theory of cultivation without fertilizers* that I have advocated is so unorthodox that it has encountered general astonishment and disbelief － so far, indeed, not only crops but human beings themselves have become addicted to fertilizers.
　　Admittedly, quite a lot of people have accepted the theory － in large measure out of respect for me personally － yet even here they have, as all the reports show, carried it into practice at first only with the greatest misgivings. Then suddenly, just before harvest, when the crop is much bigger than anticipated, the fear vanishes. One fact is more convincing than a thousand theories.
　　I believe that as a result of this great discovery a revolution will occur not only in Japanese agriculture, but someday perhaps, in agriculture all over the world. If such a great philanthropic task were achieved, it would be an unprecedented piece of good tidings for mankind and a perfectly natural outcome of our organization, which has as its goal the creating of a paradise on earth.

July 1, 1949

084. 　Nature Farming

　　To explain nature farming in terms of fundamental theory, I must begin with a discussion of the nature of soil. The Creator made soil for the cultivation of grains and other vegetables essential to the support of life. Consequently, the essence of soil is a mystery far beyond the complete comprehension of modern materialistic science. Over the ages, agriculture has steadily, though imperceptibly, fallen into evil ways. Underestimating the power of soil, farmers have accepted the necessity of using manure or chemical fertilizers for the improvement of crops. As a result the soil has degenerated and altered, and its generative powers have weakened. Unaware of this, and suffering under the delusion that insufficient use of fertilizers causes poor crops, farmers resort to still more fertilization, with the result that the soil declines even further. Farmers all over Japan today unanimously lament the poverty of the soil. I set forth below a few points illustrating how dangerous the use of artificial fertilizers is.

1. One of the greatest agricultural worries today is insect pests. However, instead of finding out what causes them, farmers concentrate all their efforts on exterminating them. In other words, unable to find out the reasons why harmful insects occur, they take what seems to be the next-best alternative. In fact, fertilizers generate harmful insects, and the number of such pests has increased in recent years as the number of fertilizers used has increased. Furthermore, people are unaware that the insecticides used to exterminate pests penetrate the soil and cause it to degenerate, thus leading to the appearance of still more insects.

2. The application of fertilizers gravely weakens crops. Heavily fertilized plants fall and break in wind and rain. They bear little fruit because their blossoms drop. In the case of rice, wheat, and beans, the plants grow too tall and their leaves are too big, so that crops are shaded, husks are thick, and seeds are small and sickly.

3. The ammonium sulfate and ammonia in manure and chemical fertilizers are powerful poisons. Eating plants that have absorbed such substances means that, though perhaps only in minute quantities, these poisons constantly enter the body through the stomach. This can scarcely be called harmless to the health. Doctors have recently reported that cessation for two or three years of the use of manure fertilizers totally eliminates intestinal worms. Here is one of the great advantages of nature farming.

4. Rising fertilizer prices bring the cost of raising rice so close to the price the government sets for it that farmers are compelled to sell on the black market.

5. Acquiring and applying fertilizers and dusting and spraying insecticides require tremendous labor and effort.

6. Vegetables and grains raised by nature farming are better tasting, larger, and faster growing, and crops are bigger than those produced with fertilizers.

　　These points should make clear both the danger of toxic fertilizers and the advantages of nature farming, which can be called without exaggeration a major revolution in Japanese agriculture. In what follows I discuss the results and methods evolved from my own experiences, and the reports of a number of people who have put nature farming to practical application.
　　I suspect that very few people in Japan know what real vegetables taste like because few crops in this country are raised without chemical or manure fertilization. The inherent flavors are lacking in vegetables that have absorbed such fertilizers. Vegetables that have absorbed natural nutrients from the soil, however, develop their own truly delicious flavors. I have found much more happiness in life since I came to appreciate the taste of naturally cultivated vegetables. In fact, the advantages of the nature farming method are so great that to apply it might be called killing seven birds with one stone: the costs and labor of fertilizing are eliminated; there is no unpleasant odor; there is no danger of spreading parasites; insect pests are minimized; crops are large; and vegetables are delicious.
　　To begin with practical matters, I shall first discuss the nature of soil, which is a three-in-one unity of the three great elements of soil, water, and fire. The soil element provides the basic power for plant growth, while the water and fire elements are supplementary powers. The nature of the soil itself, which is the main driving force, can produce either good or bad effects on plants. In cultivation, it is imperative to improve the quality of the soil, which is the fundamental element. The better the soil, the better the results.
　　The way to improve soil is to strengthen its vitality. To do this, the soil quality must be cleansed and purified. Soil that has been purified is rich in power for the raising of plants. Agricultural practices in the past, however, have polluted the soil to an extreme degree. This is best understood by examining the opposite theory first.
　　 Fertilizer has from ancient times been considered essential to the raising of crops, but the reality is that the more it is used, the more it kills the soil. Fertilization may produce temporary good effects, but the soil gradually becomes addicted to it and is unable to produce good crops without it. In other words, the more fertilizer is used, the more adverse its effects.
　　When crops from paddy fields become poor, farmers haul in new soil and temporarily increase their harvests. However, they interpret this phenomenon mistakenly. They believe that repeated crops over a number of years have exhausted the nutrients in the soil and made it poor. What they never realize is that the soil has degenerated because of repeated years of chemical and manure fertilization. The new soil they introduce is free of chemical and manure fertilizers and, therefore, rich in life power. For this reason, it increases crops. But I will leave theoretical discussion at this point and proceed to explain the advantages of nature farming in practice.
　　First, I should mention the short height of plants raised the natural way. Fertilized plants grow tall and have heavy foliage with large leaves that shade and retard the growth of such crops as beans. Furthermore, frequent dropping of blooms greatly reduces the formation of fruit. In the case of green soybeans, a naturally cultivated crop will be twice as big as a fertilized one and the beans will be free of insects and have a most delicious flavor. The skins of naturally cultivated string beans and broad beans are incomparably tender.
　　Amateurs trying to raise potatoes often complain that their crops are either small or none and that the individual potatoes themselves are of unsatisfactory size. Unaware that the cause of the trouble is too much fertilizer, and operating under the mistaken notion that they have fertilized insufficiently, they apply increasing amounts of these harmful substances, thus decreasing the results of their labor. When asked for advice, instructors or experienced people totally miss the point by saying that the seed potatoes must have been bad, that the acidity of the soil is at fault, or that planting was done at the wrong time. The amateur has no way of discovering the true cause of his poor crop. Potatoes raised by means of nature farming are extremely white and fragrant, have a firm texture, and are so delicious that they might be mistaken for another kind of vegetable. The same thing is true of taro and yams. Naturally cultivated sweet potatoes raised in high furrows, well spaced in a place that gets plenty of sun are astonishingly big and delicious. I have heard, however, that most farmers use no fertilizers in raising sweet potatoes.
　　The success of nature farming in raising corn deserves special mention. Since all seed, not only that of corn, include the fertilizer poison, crops are not as good as they might be for the first year or two. In the third year, however, there is a remarkable improvement. Corn raised from seeds free of fertilizer poison in land also free of fertilizer poison has very thick stalks and flowing green leaves. If the ground is well watered and gets plenty of sun, the stalks will bear plenty of ears that are long and densely seeded in even rows. Once tasted, this sweet, delicious corn can never be forgotten. Daikon radishes raised the natural way are large, pure-white, thick and sweetly delicious and have a fine, firm texture. It is fertilizer poison that causes the air pockets and hardness marring some daikon radishes. Naturally cultivated vegetables, which are never attacked by bugs, are tender, have attractive colors and stimulate the appetite because of their tempting fragrance. Since no manure is used in growing them, they are of course completely sanitary.
　　Nature farming is especially recommended for the raising of egg plant. Grown this way, egg plants have tender skins, beautiful color and an appetizing fragrance. My own family refuses to eat egg plants that have been raised with fertilizer.
　　In the nature farming of rice, chopped straw, which absorbs heat is mixed with the soil to provide greater warmth. As is generally known, cold mountain water is very bad for rice. Consequently, irrigation ditches should be long and shallow to allow the temperature of the water flowing through them to rise. No ponds should be dug along the course of the ditches since the depth of the water would make it slow to warm up. Nature farming of such things as squashes, melons, water melons, and pumpkins produces unprecedentedly good results.
　　Rice and wheat raised the natural way are short in stature and excellent in both quantity and quality. Ordinary rice is extremely glossy and almost as dense in texture as glutinous rice. It has such body and is so delicious that it is always rated as superior.
　　In brief then, these are some of the advantages of nature farming. surely there has never been better news than this in connection with household vegetables. I and others like me produce top quality vegetables by no more labor than is required to sow seeds and weed the fields from time to time.
　　Although, as I have said, there is no need for artificial or animal fertilizers, it is important to use large quantities of natural compost, which I shall now discuss. In stimulating plant growth it is of the greatest importance to allow the root hairs at the ends of the larger roots to develop. This means preventing the son from compacting and hardening. If natural compost has decomposed too much, it tends to harden easily; about half decomposed is best. Grassy plants are suitable for compost since they decompose quickly. The hard fibers in tree leaves, however, linger for a long time. Consequently, such leaves should be allowed to decompose thoroughly, since contact with the hard fibers impedes the growth of root hairs. Recently some people have argued that it is good to allow roots to come in contact with the air, but this is a mistaken notion. If the soil is loose enough to aerate the roots, the root hairs have plenty of room to grow. This roominess is the reason why plants grow well in such soil. Air has nothing to do with the matter.
　　Warming the soil is another point that must be taken into consideration. In general, for vegetable cultivation, a bed of grassy compost about one foot thick is made at a depth of about one foot. For plants like daikon (turnip), carrots, and burdock, however, where the root is the most desirable part, it is best to mix grassy compost well with the soil and make a bed of leafy compost underground. Recently, people have been concerned about the damage caused by soil acidity. Since the acid is the result of artificial or animal fertilizers, those of us who use the nature farming system have no need to worry about this.
　　Another thing that amazes people about our way of growing vegetables is our success in planting the same crop in the same ground year after year,** a practice that is generally considered unsound. With our method, crops gradually improve as the years pass. This may seem miraculous, yet there is a very good reason for it. The nature farming method takes advantage of, and tries to reinforce, the powers inherent in the soil. Planting the same crop on the same land, year in and year out enables that soil to naturally generate the properties needed for the cultivation of the particular kind of vegetable, to which it becomes accustomed.
　　Though insect pests may not totally vanish when the nature farming method is used, it does reduce them to a fraction of what they are when fertilizers are employed. Farmers often say that too much fertilizer increases the number of insects that plague the crops. I have heard from experts that Manila and Havana tobaccos, which are used in the finest cigars and are famous for their superb aroma, are never troubled with insect pests, because the plants are never fertilized. In particular, there is the fact that insects do not damage weeds; and the special fragrance of the wild parsley and edible chrysanthemum picked in the country in springtime is due to the fact that they have had no fertilizer.
　　It is important to make one point clear. For the first year or two after the shift is made from fertilized agriculture to nature farming, results will be poor. This phenomenon occurs because the soil has become addicted to fertilizers. The situation is like that of the drinker, who, when denied alcohol, suffers a period of absent-mindedness; the smoker who becomes lethargic when he stops smoking; or the morphine or cocaine addict who cannot tolerate being denied drugs. It is imperative to be patient and wait two or three years until the soil and seeds are freed of the fertilizer poison and the land can manifest its great powers.
　　This explanation of the principles behind nature farming should make clear how mistaken the agricultural methods of the past have been. This is a matter unrelated to faith. A person can have no faith and still produce revolutionary results by using natural composts instead of artificial or animal fertilizers. But it is important to realize that, if the divine spirit is used to purify the soil, the effectiveness of nature farming will be even greater.

July 1, 1949

*The original Japanese uses a compound term Muhiryo saibai, translated here as "cultivation without fertilizers." However, though the system of agriculture Mokichi Okada advocated employs no commercial fertilizers or animal manure and is popularly called a "no-fertilizer" system, it actually makes extensive use of natural compost. The term "no-fertilizer" is therefore inaccurate. Stressing as it does the powers of nature, this method of cultivation is best described as "natural." Mokichi Okada has stated that this term is proper, and we intend to use it exclusively from now on.

** "Planting the same crop in the same ground year after year." Measures must be taken in connection with the soil and other conditions to make this kind of cultivation successful.

085. 　The Triumph of Nature Farming
　　　　　　　The Great Powers of the Soil

Principles of Nature Farming
　　The basic principle of nature farming is to give full play to the great powers inherent in the soil itself. Hitherto, people have not known － or perhaps it is better to say have not been told about － the true nature of soil. This gave rise to the idea that fertilizer is essential, and to an almost superstitious reliance on it. In the early stages, no matter how vigorously I advocated nature farming, people either would not listen at all or laughed at me. But gradually my efforts were repaid. In recent years, the number of nature farming farmers is increasing annually, and all of them are reaping astonishingly successful harvests.
　　At present, such farmers are mostly members of our organization. However, judging from the way nonmembers in various regions are coming to see eye to eye with us and the speed with which they are adopting the nature farming method, it is possible to predict that in the relatively near future our method will have spread all over Japan. Publicizing this system is nothing but a movement to destroy superstitious belief in the efficacy of fertilizers.
　　The system is called natural because, rejecting an artificial or animal fertilizers, it employs only natural compost. The leaves and grasses in natural compost grow out of the soil itself. Though provided by nature, chemical fertilizers, animal manure, fish meal, and wood ash neither fall from heaven nor arise from the soil and, since they must be introduced by human hands, run counter to nature when used as fertilizer.
　　Fundamentally all things are blessed by nature; that is, all things are composed of and caused to grow because of the three elements: fire, water, and soil. All agricultural products partake of these three elements, which in scientific terms are the oxygen of fire, the hydrogen of water, and the nitrogen of soil. Reflection on this principle makes clear that God has created things in this way so that the earth will produce grains and many vegetables required for food in just the right amounts, with no scarcity and no superfluity. It is inconceivable that God should allow human beings to be born and then fail to provide the food they must have to live. A nation that is unable to feed its population is doing something contradictory to God's natural laws and will be unable to solve its food problems as long as it remains unaware of the violation it is committing.
　　If my system of nature farming, based on the principle I have just outlined, is put into practice, the food shortages currently causing the Japanese farming population such distress and suffering can easily be eliminated. In his great compassion and love, God, perceiving mankind's error and unwilling to stand by without helping, has caused me to spread knowledge of the principles of this natural agricultural method. The farming population will be saved if only they awaken to their mistake as quickly as possible and adopt the nature farming system.
　　As I have said, the three elements of fire, water, and soil are the energy sources in the growth of agricultural products. There is no doubt that if plants are given plenty of sunlight and water and allowed to grow in clean soil, harvests will be greater than have ever been experienced before. I do not know when it happened, but at some point in history, humanity made an immense and foolish error in using fertilizers, thus revealing its total lack of understanding of the true nature of soil.

The Adverse Effects of Fertilizers
　　Fertilizers produce quite good results for a while but they gradually have adverse effects when used over long periods because, forced to rely on these artificial substances, crop plants change so that they become incapable of drawing sustenance from the soil The situation is similar to that of drug addiction. At first a person who takes narcotics experiences a pleasant, mentally lucid state. Gradually, however, he becomes so addicted that without them he lapses into mental vacancy or suffers violent malaise. His overwhelming need may even drive him to steal to obtain the drugs even though aware of the crime he is committing. The frequent cases of this kind appearing in the newspapers reveal how terrible addiction is.
　　The fertilizer addiction which is destroying soil throughout Japan is equally terrible. Farmers have blindly trusted in fertilizers for such a long time that they are unable to open their eyes to the truth. Farmers who have happened to hear our teaching have tried the natural, fertilizer-free method of cultivation but, after being disappointed by the results in the first few months, have frequently leapt to the conclusion that fertilizer is necessary after all and have returned to their old ways.
　　The easy way to understand the true value of our system of farming is to follow my guidance and learn from the result. When people change from the fertilizer method to nature farming, they generally experience the following series of developments. When the seedlings are first transplanted from beds to the paddy fields, for a while the color of their leaves will be poor and their stalks thin. Indeed, by comparison with seedlings in other fields, they will look so scrawny that neighboring farmers will smirk, and the farmer trying the natural method will become worried enough to turn to God in prayer. After two or three months plant condition will improve, and, at blooming time, the farmers' brows will unknit a little. They will finally be put at ease when, just before harvest time, they see that their crops are as good as or better than ordinary. When harvest comes around, they will be astounded to see not only that their crops are big, but also that the grain is of high quality, lustrous, strongly adhesive, and delicious. Most of it will be first or second grade, and practically none will be below third grade. Moreover, the grain will be from five to ten percent heavier than usual and will be so dense that its volume will actually increase instead of reduce in cooking. This means that a person's appetite can be satisfied and will stay satisfied on one-third less than the usual amount of steamed rice. Thus, rice grown the natural way is highly economical. If everyone in Japan ate rice raised according to our nature farming method, consumption would drop by one-third. As long as current amounts continue being produced, this could eliminate the need for importing rice, and therefore have a splendid effect on the national economy.

Superstitions about Fertilizers
　　With nature farming, the seedlings are weak and poor in color for the first two or three months because fertilizer toxin remains in both seedlings and the soil. As time passes, however, they rid themselves of these poisons, regain their own innate powers, and gradually improve. Farmers should be able to understand this because they can see how fields that have been in poor condition improve after heavy rains wash out excessive fertilizers. Farmers are in error in believing that hauling in new soil improves crops from low-producing fields because nutrients have been sapped from them by long use. The truth of the matter is that the soil has become poor from many years of being artificially fertilized － so deeply affected are such farmers by a superstitious belief in the efficacy of fertilizers.

Merits of Natural Compost
　　In using natural compost for rice cultivation, rice straw should be chopped as fine as possible and thoroughly mixed with the soil to produce a warming effect. To soften soil for dry-field cultivation and thus to permit roots to grow and spread, allow dried leaves and grasses to decompose until soft, then mix this compost with the soil. Recently it has been said that ground should be soft in order that air may penetrate to the roots. It is not that air is good for the roots, but if the soil is soft enough to allow air passages, root growth will not be obstructed.
　　For the cultivation of plants whose roots do not penetrate deeply, mixing grasses and leaves with the field soil is sufficient. For deep-rooted plants, on the other hand, a bed of tree leaves should be made about thirty centimeters below ground level. Such a bed warms the soil. Since root-system depth varies considerably from plant to plant, the depth of the leaf bed must be adjusted to suit the needs of the given plant.
　　The uninitiated claim that composts of this kind contain fertilizing elements is untrue. They are employed to produce three effects; to prevent the soil from hardening, to warm the soil, and to retain moisture around plant roots. Where the soil around crop roots tends to dry, spreading of large amounts of natural compost keeps moisture in.
　　As the discussion so far should have made clear, nature farming takes advantage of the powers of the soil by avoiding the introduction of such impurities artificial fertilizers and by preserving soil purity. Doing this eliminates hindrances and enables soil to make the most of its own essential qualities.
　　Interestingly, farmers err when they think it is necessary to allow soil to rest. Soil improves the more crops are raised on it just as human beings become stronger the more they work and weaker the more they rest. I feel very sorry for farmers who refuse to cultivate the same fields in consecutive years because they believe this will drain it of nutrients.

Repeated Cultivation Means Bigger Crops
　　Our natural system advocates repeated consecutive cultivation of the same piece of land. For instance, for the past seven years we have been raising corn on a piece of gravelly land in Gora in Hakone that would take a prize for the most unlikely agricultural site. Nonetheless, the harvest this year is wonderful. The ears are longer than usual and densely packed with even rows of sweet, tender, delicious grains. Consecutive cropping means better harvests because the land naturally develops the qualities suited to the needs of the plants being raised on it, just as men who do heavy labor develop muscular bodies and men who are engaged in intellectual pursuits develop clever minds. Similarly, as human beings who constantly change occupation and domicile are unlikely to succeed, so crop rotation is unlikely to result in abundant harvests. Seeing this makes clear how mistaken are the agricultural practices of the past.

Good News for Sericulture
　　Silk worms raised on leaves from mulberry trees cultivated in the natural way suffer from no diseases and produce larger quantities of strong and lustrous threads. The profits that the implementation of this policy would bring to the sericulture world and to the entire national economy are immeasurable.

May5, 1953

086. 　Principles of Nature Farming

　　A complete understanding of these principles is impossible on the basis of established scientific thought and can be attained only through explanation on the basis of the spiritual science that has been revealed to me. consequently, the principles may be difficult to grasp at first. But a person who reads attentively what I have to say and reflects upon it is certain to understand. Anyone who finds it incomprehensible is probably, quite unconsciously, caught up in the superstitions of science. The facts, more than anything else, show that what I say is absolutely true.
　　Actual results invalidate the apparent progress of agriculture today, which, as is well known, is a combination of traditional and scientific methods. Weak seedling stock and the plants' inability to surmount various natural disasters are the direct cause of the poor rice harvests of last year. I am certain that most people would gasp if I told them that fertilizer toxin is responsible for weakening seedling stock. Farmers have considered fertilizers indispensable to crop raising and, owing to their limited knowledge and scientific blindness, have been unable to perceive the harm they do. An important element in their misunderstanding lies in science itself. Science, though admirable in other fields, is not merely powerless as far as agriculture is concerned, it is mistaken. For example, through lack of understanding of the true nature of soil and the capabilities of fertilizers, science has promoted artificial methods and ignored the powers of nature. In spite of the united, long-term efforts of the government, leading farmers, and agricultural specialists, the lack of true progress shows that, in the face of poor crops like those of last year, science is impotent and easily defeated by nature. Japanese agriculture is up against an apparently impenetrable barrier. Happily, God has revealed a natural system of cultivation which will break down that barrier.
　　The cause of present problems in agriculture is the lack of knowledge of the nature of soil and the tendency to stress fertilizers, which are actually only auxiliary substances. What, after au, is the point of plants removed from the soil? After World War II, American soldiers stationed in Japan tried the hydroponic cultivation of plants. Although at first their efforts seemed to produce good results, it has recently been reported that the method is gradually being abandoned.
　　It is astounding that farmers have neglected the soil for such a long time and have concentrated on fertilizers to provide nutrients for the raising of crops. The consequence of this policy is that the soil has become debilitated and acid, as the disastrous crops of last year prove. Nothing can be so foolish as the way farmers have wasted labor and expensive fertilizers to create the very conditions responsible for poor crops.
　　Before examining its nature from the standpoint of spiritual science, it is necessary to explain the significance of soil. The Creator, who made human beings, also made soil in which to grow the food humans require. Seeds sown in the soil germinate and put forth stalks, leaves, flowers, and finally fruit which can be taken in at the happy time of harvest. We should regard the soil, that wonderful technician that produces rice, with gratitude. Since it is the forces of nature that are at work here, there is of course no more suitable subject for scientific study, yet in practice science has made the great miscalculation of relying more on the power of human beings than on the power of nature.
　　Natural power, or X, is generated by the union of sun, moon, and earth; that is, the fire, water, and soil elements. It is common knowledge that at the center of the earth is a mass of fire, which is the energy source of ground heat. The spirit of this ground heat, which penetrates the earth's crust and fills all space up to the stratosphere, is composed of spiritual and material aspects. Its material aspect is what science calls nitrogen; its spiritual aspect is as yet unknown to science. The fire element, which is radiated from the sun, has spiritual and material aspects. The material aspect is light and heat; the spiritual aspect is also as yet unknown. The water element, which is radiated from the moon, has a material aspect － water itself － and a still undiscovered spiritual aspect. X is now the result of the unification of the three undiscovered, spiritual aspects of these elements. Though apparently nonexistent, this X is existence itself. It is the source of life of all things. It follows that, since the growth of agricultural crops is equally its doing, it is, in itself, an unlimited fertilizer. To recognize its power and to cherish and respect the soil is the true, the only agriculture because this allows the soil to manifest its capabilities to an amazing degree. Putting this method into practice is the fundamental solution to the problem.
　　Another important point is the prevailing belief that only animate beings are capable of such reflections of will and thought such as reason and emotion. No doubt the idea that inanimate things are also capable of these things would surprise many people. Yet it is true of inanimate things, including the soil and crops. Respecting and cherishing the soil enables it to manifest its capabilities fully. Keeping soil clean and free from pollution makes it happy and active. The difference between the will and thought of animate and inanimate phenomena has to do with freedom; whereas animals are free and active, soil and rice plants are bound and static. If farmers wish for bumper crops in a spirit of gratitude to soil and rice plants, their attitude will be communicated, and their wish will be answered. It is science's greatest mistake to assume that anything invisible and intangible does not exist.

January 27, 1954

087. 　The Great Agricultural Revolution

I
　　Over a decade ago, I discovered that it is possible to produce large agricultural crops by means of the nature farming method, which adds only leaf and grass composts to the soil and uses no artificial fertilizers or animal manure at all. At the time, however, few farmers would lend an ear to what I had to say, no matter how hard I tried to convince them. I have continued unfalteringly to the present not just because from the outset I have known that my belief is absolutely true, but also because I am convinced that the nature farming method is the only way to save the farming population, and is thus deeply connected with the fate of the whole nation. Fortunately or unfortunately, the grave situation that I anticipated with such concern has now come about. I am painfully aware of the need to win the understanding of both the farmers and the general Japanese population. I am gradually perceiving hopeful signs in the outlook for the nature farming method.
　　The fact that I am a religious leader is helpful here because members of our faith believe what I say and put it into practice, even though they cannot explain it. This has produced relatively quick results, and won many sympathizers. Recently, even ordinary farmers who are not members of our faith have gradually started paying attention to our method.
　　Before going into a detailed explanation of the principles where by this agricultural method is able to ensure large crops by adding nothing to the soil but natural compost, I should like to explain its effects. It is startling in the way it reduces costs and labor, there is no need to pay for fertilizers; insect damage is reduced to a fraction of what it is in ordinary cultivation systems, and damage from wind and storm is halved. This means that labor too is cut by half. I have been speaking of rice cultivation, but the method has the same effects with other crops as well. One example of the wonderful success it has with all kinds of vegetables is the immense size of sweet potatoes raised this way. Bean crops too are greater, and individual beans are bigger. Radishes are whiter, finer in texture, crisper, and much more delicious. Other vegetables also have excellent flavor and color, are tender, and are not attacked by insect pests. I have no space to enumerate them all, but an astonishing list of other vegetables － including corn, pumpkins, and watermelons － benefit from this system in the same way.
　　The wonderful flavors of foodstuffs raised by nature farming deserve special mention. No one who has tasted grains or vegetables grown in this way has any desire to eat those raised with fertilizers. I myself eat only foods raised without fertilizers, and farmers following this system have increased to the extent that I receive more vegetables than I can eat. People are grateful to find that abandoning the use of fertilizers can increase the harvests and the quality of fruits. Flowers grown the natural way have larger blossoms and brighter color and last longer in ikebana arrangements.
　　Nature farming drastically reduces insect pests, which emerge because of the use of artificial fertilizers. The folly of the current reliance on chemical insecticides and germicides is greatly to be lamented, since these substances sink into the soil and actually stimulate the development of more insects. Furthermore, plants grown according to the natural system suffer much less than others from the wind and storm damage that has been occurring almost yearly in recent times. Plants are greatly weakened by absorbing artificial fertilizers. I have discovered that chemical fertilizers and animal manure become toxic when absorbed by crops. The resultant poison becomes both nourishment and a stimulus to reproduction on the part of insects. Fertilizers give rise to minute insects which eat the plants themselves. If they develop in the roots, they weaken the plant by ravaging the root hairs. In addition, they can cause leaves to wither, stalks to break, flowers to drop, and fruit to fail to ripen. They cause withering in potatoes. When these minute insects develop in areas other than the roots, healthy plants have the strength to destroy them. But when plants are debilitated because of fertilizers, they fall victim to the pests. In winds and storms too, plants raised the natural way are tough and resilient enough to stand again even when blown down. Plants raised in the ordinary way, however, are ruined if blown down in this way, and an examination of the roots tells why. The root hairs of plants raised the natural way are much more numerous and longer than those of fertilizer-grown plants, and root spread is better. As all farmers know, plants that are low and have short leaves bear more grain or fruit. Nature farming results in plants with short leaves, whereas those raised on fertilizers are tall and have large, long leaves. Though they look good, such plants bear surprisingly little fruit.
　　Since they suffer from no sicknesses, silkworms raised on leaves from naturally grown mulberry trees are extremely healthy and produce more high-quality threads that are both tough and lustrous.
　　In short, all crops raised the natural way are incomparably better than those raised with fertilizers. The important thing to understand in this connection is the capability of the soil itself. Because the Creator made soil to grow the crops needed by humans and animals, it contains in itself more than enough fertilizing material. In short, it is, in itself, fertilizer. Ignorant of this fact, human beings have greatly weakened the soil by applying artificial fertilizers as if they were plant nourishment. This is an astonishing error since, to increase crop production, what is really necessary is to increase the strength of the soil. To ensure the finest results, it is necessary to keep the soil pure by mixing no impurities with it and adding nothing but natural composts.
　　The fundamental theory of nature farming is respect for nature. As the generation and growth of all things in the world illustrate, there is nothing that does not depend on the power of nature: that is, the three basic elements of fire, water, and soil, as manifest in the sun, the moon, and the planet earth. Given plenty of sun, ample water, and pure soil, plants will produce more than human beings require. The leaves that fall in abundance and cover the earth each autumn are the true enrichment of the soil. Nature is teaching us to use them to improve the soil. Cultivators are mistaken, however, if they think natural composts are used as nutrition for the soil. Their true purposes are to absorb moisture and thus to prevent drying, to supply warmth, and to keep the soil from hardening.
　　Thus the best thing to do for rice cultivation is to chop rice straw as fine as possible and mix it with soil in a kneading fashion. Since rice straw is produced by the rice plant, it has a warming effect on the roots. In vegetable cultivation, dried fallen leaves and grasses should be mixed with the soil the usual proximity of wooded areas to fields will encourage their use.
　　The center of the earth is a mass of fire ceaselessly radiating ground heat － that is, the spirit of soil － in the form of nitrogen. A God-provided fertilizer, it penetrates the earth's crust and rises to accumulate at a certain height above the planet. It is then brought back to earth in rainfall to permeate the soil. This natural nitrogen fertilizer descends from the heavens in exactly the required amounts.
　　During World War I, when the Germans were experiencing food shortages and were forced to increase Crop Production rapidly, they discovered that nitrogen could be taken from the air and used as fertilizer. Since then, the practice of using this chemical has spread all over the world. But its temporary good effect cannot last. Ultimately the soil is weakened by oversaturation with nitrogen, and its productive power drops; despite this, people, like drug addicts, have become addicted to the practice and thus overlook the real cause of the trouble.
　　It must be remembered that the amount of fertilizer toxin persisting in soil and seeds even after the change to nature farming has been made greatly influences crops. In wet-field rice cultivation, some farmers may expect a ten-percent increase for the first year, but others may witness a ten- or twenty-percent decrease for the first year or two. The ten- or twenty-percent increase will take place finally in the third year. Very poor crop results after the change mean that a great deal of artificial fertilizer remains. In such cases, it is wise to haul in fresh soil from elsewhere to neutralize its effects.
　　Rice plants absorb such highly poisonous substances as ammonium sulfate when these are used in chemical fertilizers. Consequently, people for whom rice from those plants is a dietary staple take the poison into their bodies three times daily, albeit in infinitesimal amounts. Naturally, this has an insidious harmful effect. It is conceivable that the high rate of illness today is caused by such poison intake.
　　In conclusion, I would like to summarize the economic effects of the nature farming method.

1. The cost of fertilizers is saved.
2. Labor is halved.
3. Crops are greatly increased.
4. Grain volume increases so that there is no loss in cooking, and the grain is delicious.
5. Insect damage is minimized.
6. The danger of ascarids and other parasites, a topic of major concern today, is eliminated entirely.

　　This explanation has shown how revolutionary the nature farming method is. To implement it would immediately solve more than the food problems; by ensuring adequate nutrition, it would also have salutary effects on human health. If implemented throughout the nation, the system would accelerate the rebuilding of Japan, which would without doubt earn the respect of the whole world for the high level of its civilization. It is for these reasons, and to bring this method to the largest possible number of Japanese readers, that I have compiled this special edition.
　　Finally, I should say that I have absolutely no intention of using this material as religious publicity. The results of the nature farming system will be the same for people who do not share our faith.


II
　　Last year the season was unfortunately short and no harvest was possible in some areas. However, after considering the reports from various regions, I can understand what happened, and will give my opinion of the situation here.
　　At first, family members and fellow villagers are likely to criticize or ridicule those who adopt the nature farming system, since it rejects the fertilizers that have always been considered the source of crop life. Reading accounts of the perseverance in the face of setbacks of the farmers trying the system brought tears to my eyes and filled my heart with joy at the wonders faith can do. Nor is it surprising that people whose ancestors have for generations adhered to superstitious belief in fertilizers should object to the nature farming method. One recalls how, throughout history, inventions and discoveries, even those that are now making the greatest contributions to humanity, were at first objects of misunderstanding and persecution, and the many records telling how they triumphed over suffering and hardship cannot fail to move us deeply today.
　　I was prepared for the nature farming method to meet with great initial opposition, but felt that the period of patient perseverance would be limited since our system actually produces astonishing results. From reports gathered so far I see that, as predicted, our methods are finally capturing the attention of people in many fields. Nonetheless, external conditions are bad, and, since he is not entirely certain that method will succeed, the farmer who decides to employ it does so fearfully and only as an experiment. Furthermore, since soil and seeds are still permeated with fertilizer toxin, the plants are so yellow and scrawny in the first year that the farmer fears they will dry up entirely and in his anxiety turns to God in prayer. Thus everyone who has tried the system confesses to a feeling of great relief when harvests turn out to be surprisingly good. It is by overcoming the initial period of hardship that the crown of victory is won.

May 5, 1953

088. 　Insect Pests

　　The three greatest burdens on the agricultural community in recent times have been the high cost of fertilizers, insect pests, and damage from wind and storm. I have already dealt adequately with the topic of fertilizer, and would now like to speak in detail about insect pests. Harmful insects breed because of fertilizers, which pollute the soil, cause it to degenerate, and weaken its potential. At the same time, the impurities introduced by the fertilizers remain. All kinds of matter decomposing in the polluted places encourage insects and bacteria. The several varieties of fertilizers are responsible for the varieties of insects that breed because of their presence, and the new kinds of insect pests that have emerged recently are the results of the production of new kinds of fertilizers.
　　One should emphasize here the grave wrong committed by people who use chemical insecticides to rid themselves of crop pests. These substances, which are toxic enough to kill insects, permeate and ruin the soil. Soil polluted with chemical insecticides adds yet another poison to the fertilizer toxin already absorbed by plants grown in it. The soil weakens and, like human beings, loses its powers of resistance, with the result that insect pests proliferate. This kind of vicious circle is a good example of how mistaken agricultural practices have been in the past.
　　Obviously, the health of people who eat rice raised with the highly toxic fertilizer, ammonium sulfate, will be adversely affected, since their blood will be clouded. Even though individual dosages are very small, eating such contaminated rice three times daily all year round causes a large accumulation of toxin, which becomes the fundamental cause of all kinds of illnesses.

January 15, 1951

089. 　Damage from Typhoons and Floods

　　Both the governmental and the private sectors are anxious to do something to prevent the ever-increasing crop damage caused by typhoons and floods. Proper preventive measures would require enormous expenditure, and for the moment one has to be content with stopgaps. Nevertheless, so long as great losses are incurred each year, action of some kind must be taken. Those who accept that to minimize the damage is the most that can be expected at the present time are amazed at the way plants raised according to our nature farming method withstand wind and storm. Their root spread, for instance, is good, and stalk breakage is only a fraction of what it is with fertilizer grown crops. Flowers do not drop, and rice does not rot even after rain. Indeed, in comparison with fields of rice raised with fertilizers, fields cultivated the natural way seem to suffer no storm damage at all. Examination shows that plants raised without fertilizers have many more hair roots and much stronger root spreads than plants raised with fertilizers, and are consequently as strong and healthy as human beings fed on a plentiful diet of wholesome, toxin-free foods. Farmers always welcome plants － not just grains, but all other crop plants as well － that are low and have small foliage, since they bear better. This accords exactly with the results of my own method, and serves to show how superior it is. People of experience are unanimous, moreover, in praising the excellent quality and flavor of the crops. Crops of plants raised with fertilizers, on the other hand, are less satisfactory because too much nourishment goes to their leaves, which flourish to the detriment of the fruit or grain. Offshoots from rice raised the natural way are extremely numerous. The record at present is an amazing one hundred and fifty shoots, producing fifteen thousand grains, from one rice seed. Furthermore, naturally cultivated rice straw is of very high quality and is strong enough to be used in many ways.

January 15, 1951

090. 　Raising Tangerines for Forty Years Through Nature Farming

　　Not long ago, a member of our organization gave me tangerines from a tree he has been cultivating for forty years without the use of fertilizers. I ate some at once and can say I have never found anything so delicious. Fellow believers often give me naturally cultivated fruits and vegetables that, though certainly more delicious than those raised with fertilizers, are still not one-hundred percent as good as they should be. This is because some fertilizer toxin remains in their seeds or in the soil in which they are grown. It takes more than four or five years to eradicate this toxin and allow true flavors to emerge.
　　Eating the tangerines made me think of the effects our cultivation method could have on the economy. If naturally grown fruits and vegetables were marketed, their delicious flavors would soon win them an enormous following, and there is no telling how great sales might be. In addition, they could be exported abroad, bringing in unprecedented amounts of money, to the great advantage of the national economy.
　　Recently, many stores have started selling so-called sanitary vegetables raised with chemical fertilizers but without human manure. It is true that this system eliminates the danger of internal parasites, but the vegetables themselves are inferior in flavor. Consequently, experienced members of our organization could make plenty of money selling vegetables and fruits raised our way, without fertilizers of any kind. Aside from making money, such action would publicize nature farming, and I would like our members to start doing this at once.

December 5, 1951

091. 　Home Vegetable Gardens

　　So far, I have directed my explanations largely at people who farm for a living, but I would like to conclude with some words on the domestic garden.
　　With nature farming, the method is clean and sanitary, and crops are surprisingly good, abundant, and flavorful. There is no need to worry about damage from insects and there is no danger of internal parasites. Leaf color and stalk form are much better than in plants raised with fertilizers. A home gardener who adopts the nature farming method finds his daily garden chores enjoyable rather than trying as in the past.
　　Amateur gardeners have often complained that their potatoes did not produce well or that the potatoes were small. They have spoken of flowers dropping from tomatoes and eggplants or of daikon (turnips) riddled with holes. Other constant complaints include cucumbers that wither because of root worms, or pickling greens with practically no undamaged leaves. The home gardener, unaware that these crop failings have been caused by use of fertilizers, has assumed that he has been fertilizing too little and has increased the amounts, thereby further damaging his produce. Puzzled, he has turned to the specialist for help. The specialist has been unable to give a satisfactory answer, for he too is superstitiously convinced of the importance of fertilizers, and the number of people troubled and perplexed by the situation has increased greatly. If all these people only knew of the nature farming system, they would experience a quite extraordinary sense of relief.

January 15, 1951

092. 　The Great Agricultural Revolution Clean and Enjoyable Home Gardens

　　I would now like to explain the system mainly for the benefit of the home gardener.
　　Readers of Chijo Tengoku and of this paper will already be aware of the wonderful results farmers achieve by growing crops without fertilizers. The same system can be a light in the darkness for the home gardener as well. In addition, it provides the double advantage of crops better than those possible with fertilizer, and of reduced labor. For reference, I will enumerate here the most important of the many benefits of the system.

1. Since only natural leaf and grass composts are required, there is no need to deal with animal manure. Labor is reduced.
2. All vegetables are of better quality and much more delicious than those raised with fertilizers.
3. Individual fruits and vegetables are larger and crop quantities are greater.
4. Insect damage is reduced to a fraction of that experienced with fertilizers, and there is obviously no need for insecticides.
5. Plants raised without human manure cannot carry ascarids or other internal parasites.

　　Since most home gardeners raise vegetables rather than grains on their limited plots of land, I shall now discuss some of the experiments we have already completed on vegetable cultivation.
　　Amateur gardeners often complain that their potatoes bear poorly and are small. These difficulties, which are caused by fertilizers, do not exist in nature farming, which makes it possible to produce large crops of pure-white, dense, subtly flavored, and appetizing potatoes.
　　Corn stalks are thick and the leaves are long and bright green. It is possible to ten at a glance that they are larger than usual ones. The ears are long and thick, and heavy with densely packed, orderly rows of tender, sweet kernels.
　　Daikon (turnips) are longer and thicker than usual. They have a fine, crisp texture, are extremely delicious, and completely lack the holes and hard places so often caused by fertilizers.
　　All the leafy plants used in Japan for pickles, spinach, Kyona (Japanese cabbage), Chinese cabbage, and cabbage turn out subtly flavored, tender, large, and appetizing. Last year, an amateur gardener showed me three heads of Chinese cabbage he had raised, each weighing roughly six kilograms. They were the largest I have ever seen.
　　All bean crops are better with nature farming, but green soybeans are especially noteworthy. The plants have short branches and small leaves and produce twice as many beans as plants raised with fertilizers. Each pod usually contains four beans; almost none contains only one.
　　Tempting to see and delicious to eat, eggplants have good color, tender skins, and strong flavor. Anyone who has eaten them raised the natural way will never want eggplants produced with fertilizers again. I shall not discuss them in detail here, but scallions, onions, tomatoes, pumpkins, and all the melons are also outstanding when cultivated without fertilizers. The smooth texture and delicious taste of pumpkins grown this way, however, deserve special mention. Yams raised according to the nature farming system are exceptionally large, and grow even larger if they are allowed to remain in the ground somewhat longer than usual.
　　Fruits raised the natural way, especially citrus fruits, persimmons, and peaches, are much more delicious than those raised with fertilizers.
　　Natural composts, which are essential in nature farming, are of two kinds: grass and tree leaves. Grass is suitable for mixing with the soil; leaves are used to make bedlike layers under the soil.
　　I shall now explain the effects and principle of cultivation without fertilizers and the difference between it and ordinary methods. Originally, the Creator made soil for raising vegetable foods; as such it is a subtle substance of mystic properties. Taking full advantage of its powers is in keeping with soil's essential function. Not realizing this, however, at some period in the past people made the mistaken decision to employ fertilizers, which killed the soil by destroying its vitality. Attempting to rectify the situation by using still more fertilizers, they caused plants to become addicted to these outside substances. The soil of Japan is now said to be poor. This is because of the use of fertilizers, and the chemical fertilizers that have recently come into use have aggravated matters. To prove this, one has only to examine the case of rice cultivation. When rice crops decrease, farmers attempt to stimulate better growth by hauling into their paddy fields soil from other areas. They do this in the belief that importation of virgin soil will restore the nutrients that long periods of cultivation have depleted. They are totally mistaken; the truth is that long application of artificial fertilizers and animal manure has destroyed the soil's vitality. The importation of soil free of fertilizer toxin restores it.
　　The purpose of composts is to keep the soil soft and warm. Roots must be able to spread well if plants are to grow strong and vigorous, so the soil must not be allowed to become packed hard. Thoroughly mixing grassy composts with the soil prevents such hardening. Grassy composts, which have tender fibers, permit the growth of root hairs at the ends of plant roots. Tree leaves, on the other hand, have tough fibers and should not be mixed with the soil. Instead, they should be used to form bed layers for keeping the soil warm. Ideally there should be a layer about 30 cm thick of soil mixed with grassy compost and below it a layer of tree leaves about 30 cm thick. This arrangement is good for all vegetables and beans. For crops of long-root vegetables like daikon (turnips), carrots, or burdock, adjustments in layer thicknesses must be made. Furrows of maximum height provide the roots with ample sunlight and growth is excellent. Yams planted at intervals of about 30 cm in furrows about 60 cm tall reach astonishing sizes.
　　Furrow orientation － east and west or north and south － must be determined on the basis of natural lighting and prevailing wind directions. To prevent strong winds from breaking stalks and scattering the ridges of earth, it is always wise to build suitable fences or plant trees as windbreaks.

March 30, 1949

093. 　The Earth Breathes

　　All things － not just animals but plants and minerals as well － breathe. In fact, the planet earth itself breathes, as I shall now explain.
　　Earth breathes once a year. Exhalation begins in the spring and reaches its climax in the summer. The exhaled breath of the earth, like that of human beings, is warm. It results from the emanation of ground heat and grows more intense in spring, when all things begin to grow. The grasses and trees come into bud first of all, all things reach upward, and man himself feels a lifting of the heart. As summer approaches, the vegetation flourishes increasingly till a kind of peak is reached, when the earth itself begins to breathe in. At this point, plants and trees wither, and all things go into a state of decline. Human beings too become cool and calm. As this course of development moves toward the opposite pole, winter sets in. In this natural cycle, the earth exhales its spiritual ether － nitrogen, in scientific terms － which enables plants to grow. Nitrogen constantly rises, collects at the upper limits of air, then is returned to earth again with the falling rain. This is natural nitrogen fertilization. It is an error to take nitrogen from the air and use it artificially as fertilizer. At first, this increases crops, but if nitrogen fertilization is continued for a long time, the soil becomes poor as a result of nitrogen addiction. In other words, oversaturation of nitrogen dulls the soil's vigor. During World War I, the Germans invented nitrogen fertilizer in order to increase crops. They were able to achieve their wartime aims with its use, but such fertilization should have been abandoned with the return of peace.
　　Incidentally, sun spots, for which there have long been various explanations, represent in fact the breathing of the sun. Every eleven years, when the spots are said to increase, the sun reaches the end of its exhalation phase. Though it is usually said that the light of the moon is a reflection of the light of the sun, the burning of the sun might also be seen as caused by the moon's water element. The waxing and waning of the moon, which take twenty-eight days to complete, represent that body's respiratory activity.

September 5, 1948

CONCLUSION

094. 　Conclusion

　　In this book, besides providing a solution to the problem of health, the fundamental source of human happiness, and discussing the possibility of creating a world without illness, I have dealt with ways to eliminate poverty and strife. I also explain that the spiritual world, being the source of all things, is where true solutions to all problems must be worked out. By avoiding theory and concentrating on actual experience and examples, I think I have enabled the reader to understand the basic concepts of my philosophy and to find a certain amount of hope and tranquility.
　　As the book makes clear, my true purpose is to save as many of the world's two billion people as possible at a time when the unprecedented shift from the old world of night to the new world of day threatens massive destruction. I feel sure that my readers will give their wholehearted assent to this aim. In addition, while suggesting a revolution in the field of medical science, I have attempted a blueprint for the realization of a heaven on earth in the new world to come.
　　My ideas must be put into practice in a realm that is not exclusively scientific nor religious but a combination of both and that also relates to politics, economics, education, morality, and art. I foresee the imminent birth of a new culture in which all the useless elements from the culture of night will be destroyed while all that is still useful will be preserved. The recent idea of a world federation is a manifestation of the new world I have in mind.
　　In that world, my new ideas for cultural activities in religion, politics, economics, education, and art will at last be made known. Like our medicine, they will be something mankind has never known before. For the creation of a heaven on earth, an unprecedented undertaking, unprecedented concepts must be established. Christ urged his followers to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand. The Buddha said that, after his own death, the world of the Bodhisattva Maitreya would come into being. At present, the entire planet is experiencing the birth pangs of a new world.

February 5, 1947

APPENDIX

095 Address by the Founder of the Sekai Kyusei Kyo
Delivered at the Hibiya Public Hall, Tokyo

　　What I am about to say is very unusual and unlike the things other people say. But what would be the sense in my coming all the way here from Atami just to say the same things as others?
　　People are fond of calling our time an age of culture － an age in which culture has made great advances. Such remarks represent a confusion of culture and civilization. The two are very different. A civilized world is an ideal one completely free from barbarity. Culture is the stage between barbarity and the attainment of civilization. Men today are infatuated with the chimera "culture," convinced that what they have now is either fine in itself or can result in a good world if further improved and developed. Actually, however, the world today is very different from what I mean by a civilized world.
　　In the simplest terms, civilization is a state in which life is safe, in which the safety of human life is ensured. However, the world today is perilous and frightening, threatening a last judgment in the form of atomic and bacteriological bombs or the like. Ours is a time of culture, not civilization, since the safety of life is threatened. We live in an age of transition between barbarity and civilization. What, then, is civilization?
　　War and illness are the greatest threats to life. Consequently, a truly civilized world is one totally free of these two threats; one in which the safety of life is completely guaranteed. Since it is now imperative to move toward that civilization, the Sekai Kyusei Kyo has adopted as its goal the creation of a world free of illness, poverty, and conflict － war being, simply, conflict on a grand scale.
　　Illness, which is the source of all three of these evils is both physical － something that hurts or caused discomfort － and mental. Without curing such physical illnesses as tuberculosis, contagious diseases, and dysentery － which are said to be unusually common this year － it will be impossible to achieve a civilized world, even in hundreds or thousands of years.
　　As personal histories show, the roots of poverty lie in physical sickness. A person loses or is unable to find employment because of bodily illness and is therefore forced to bear the double hardship of physical suffering and loss of income. This in turn has a negative effect on family, relatives, and friends.
　　Psychological illness is the cause of war. The people who initiate hostilities － history calls them great men and heroes － possess great power and brains but suffer from a kind of psychological sickness.
　　In short, we must eliminate both mental and physical sickness for the sake of creating a true civilization. In theory at any rate, it is assumed that medical science can cure physical illness － members of the medical profession are doing their best in that direction － and that only religion can cure psychological illness. Doubt persists however, about the very possibility of cures. In fact, only Johrei can heal the mind and the body and thereby enable us to create a civilized world.
　　Seeing humanity and the whole world today as barbarous in the worst sense, I fear modern warfare much more than I would have feared fighting in some so-called "barbaric" age. People today are dazzled by the cultured － or "civilized," as they say － surface of a society that is barbarian － at best semicivilized － in its essential nature. It is as if they were admiring the beauty of a woman who is wearing fine clothing but who is actually a mass of syphilis and suppuration.
　　Sekai Kyusei Kyo is not a religion. If religion were capable of solving our problems, solutions would have been found long ago. Throughout history, religious leaders, founders of faiths, philosophers, and moralists have purported to solve issues, make progress, and put things right. Humanity has reacted toward them with the same unquestioning trust shown by a tattooed, naked savage to a witch doctor. But the failure of all the religionists' efforts to ensure the safety of life points to their lack of power. They have been able to bring the barbarians to a state of culture but are impotent to take them further to a state of civilization.
　　Mankind has made many wonderful discoveries and has invented many splendid things but has used them in wrong ways. The discovery of atomic energy is an illustration of my meaning. Used correctly this discovery would make it possible to operate a train or automobile for days on an energy source no larger than the tip of a finger. Instead of putting it to such good uses, however, human beings created the atomic bomb, which as we know, is capable of killing millions of people. The airplane, a fast and convenient means of transportation has been converted into a dreadful machine carrying deadly bombs.
　　Although science has advanced so far, yet lacking the essential quality, it has been put to wrong uses that cause humanity suffering and hardship. If only the soul is altered, however, these things can be put to good uses and employed in the creation of a splendid world. Christ urged people to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Shakyamuni predicted that, after his death, the realm of the Bodhisattva Maitreya would come into being. As I see things, it would have been better if Christ, for example, had talked less of the kingdom of heaven's being at hand and more about creating a kingdom of heaven; but in practice the world at that stage was not ready for such things.
　　In those days, culture had not advanced to the stage where the creation of true civilization was possible. What they said was therefore right for their time. By now, however, material culture has advanced so much that the world has become almost completely one. What I am saying can be heard in all corners of the globe. I could board an airplane and after a single night's sleep, be in America. The physical conditions for the creation of a civilized world are nearly fulfilled, but our souls still have not developed to the point where we are ready to put our knowledge and skills to good uses. We must ten all men of this situation and help them develop the right kind of soul. As the members of our organization know well, I am constantly writing with the aim of telling people these truths.
　　In addition to carrying this message to others, I am engaged in Johrei, which is a method of curing illness and of healing the evil － in simpler terms, barbarity － in the soul. The soul itself cannot be removed, since human beings cannot live without souls. Johrei, therefore, alters its way of thinking by dissolving evil elements and increasing the number of good elements. All people who have undergone this experience feel a desire － a compulsion － to do good.
　　As I often ten members of our organization, people today frequently want to do wrong. Even when they do not have this positive longing, they feel that doing good is foolish and that to be open and frank somehow lowers their dignity; thus, they prefer to put up a good front and look smart. In fact, their attitude is the reverse of the correct one, though many years ago even I myself did not realize this. I too thought it was clever to get ahead in the world by doing flashy things. As I came to know God through faith, I saw I was wrong. From then on, I found myself concentrating on looking for something, anything, that would be good for others. By "good" here, I mean anything that makes people happy, makes them feel good, pleases them, gives them satisfaction. From that point on, things began to go better for me. In short, when one begins to look at things in this way － it's not a matter of faith at this stage － one discovers that things are going increasingly well and that one is finding increasing happiness. So I felt a sudden desire to let other people know about it. The more I experienced this practical truth, the more I came to realize that God and the devil really exist, and from that time on I was subjected, little by little, to all kinds of what I might call training in faith. And all kinds of miracles and the like convinced me quite plainly that I had an extremely important mission to fulfill. And that is how I came to form the Sekai Kyusei Kyo and to start the activities in which I am still engaged.
　　Many sages and men of religion have dealt with the topic of a final judgment for humanity － Jesus Christ spoke of the last judgment and the Buddha mentioned a world that would come into being after his own death. It is often thought that this final judgment will be a kind of court session, not in hell but in the actual world, presided over by someone like the Buddhist Yama, king of the spiritual world. This is not true.
　　The spiritual realm, to put it simply, consists of three realms for all beings: the physical, tangible, visible world of ordinary experience; the inner spiritual realm; and the realm of air, which is intermediate to the other two. In general, humanity understands the physical realm and the realm of air but not the spiritual realm. In other words, there are three stages comparable to the three stages of human history from the barbaric age, to the age of culture, and then to the age of civilization.
　　In addition, the world undergoes alternating phases of light and darkness. The most common of these is the twenty-four-hour cycle of day and night. In the yearly cycle, winter, when the rays of the sun are the weakest, is the period of dark, and summer, when those rays are strongest, the period of light. Moreover there are ten-year and one-hundred-year periods of light and dark manifested as ages of peace followed by dark ages. This too is a kind of rhythm. There are similar alternating stages lasting a thousand years and ten thousand years. We have long been in an age of dark but are now about to enter an age of light, of civilization (the second of the two characters used to write the Japanese word for civilization, "bummei," means "bright"). When the transition from dark to light is made, things of darkness that have no place in the culture of light must be gotten rid of. There will be many of them, like the electric light that is useless in the daytime; they will have to be destroyed.
　　The "Last Judgment" means differentiating between what will be useful and what will be useless when the break between day and night occurs, useless things must be either put away or destroyed, and new, useful things must be created.
　　Human beings themselves also consist of a physical being, a spiritual being, and an intermediate water or water-vapor being corresponding to the realm of air. The human body contains a large amount of liquid. The spiritual being, or soul, belongs to the spiritual realm. As the spiritual world becomes light, the spiritual beings of humans must become correspondingly light. This means that whatever cloudiness is in them must be removed; this must be accomplished by means of a natural process of purification replacing the unclean with the clean But the cleansing process will involve suffering since, as our faith teaches, purification is the principle source of illness.
　　In the past, people have not known or have ignored the strength of the operation of the spirit － the soul. For example, the day before yesterday, I happened to think of a person I had not seen for a year. Then, yesterday, he came to see me.
　　Such communication takes place along what are called spiritual cords, whose operations are most interestingly observed in affairs of the heart It is not my purpose to discuss such things here, but it does seem that when one comes to believe, one begins to understand this kind of communication, which helps one to understand better the nature of, and the prospects, for a love affair among other things. This is no light matter. Foreseeing all kinds of development in society by means of the spirit and spiritual cords can prevent tragedy and social evil But enough of such matters for the moment....
　　Where moderate sickness is enough to remove cloudiness and make the spirit conform to the environment of light all is well. But if the cloudiness is very great the illness required to eliminate it may be so grave that the person dies. Illnesses that come in small doses may be tolerated, but when all the sickness required for purification comes at once, the burden may be too crushing. The final judgment when the spiritual realm becomes totally bright, will suddenly inflict this kind of intolerable burden on many people. God in his mercy is taking pity on them at present and trying to help them by letting them know what is imminent. Thus he commanded me to make these things known. Whereas Christ and Shakyamuni prophesied the coming of a better world, I proclaim now the need for us to make it ourselves and to create on earth a heaven free of illness, poverty, and conflict. God has commanded me that we should make it.
　　In fact God has already done all the preparations. I do not need to work myself to death in actual acts of creation: all I need to do is to deal with phenomena as they present themselves. This is easy, yet imposes on me a responsibility greater than anything humanity has ever known before. Carrying it out will make the prophecies of the great men of the past cone true. If they failed to come true, the prophets who made them would be liars, and great men like Christ and the Buddha were not liars. Therefore, someone must make their prophecies come true, and I have been selected for the task. Until now, I have never spoken of this immense and awesome responsibility; but today, for the first time in front of a large assembly, I make this statement because the time of change from night to day is gradually approaching and I must inform the greatest number of people as quickly as I can for the sake of their own salvation.

May 22, 1951

Sekai Kyusei Kyo
26-1 Momoyama-cho
Atami City, Shizuoka Pref.
Japan