1994 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Religio-historical Study of religious World of Meaning in Contemporary Popular Religions of Japan
| Project/Area Number |
04301004
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Co-operative Research (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Religious studies
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| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
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Principal Investigator |
ARAKI Michio Univ.of Tsukuba, Instit.of Phil., Prof., 哲学思想学系, 教授 (60103032)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HOSHIKAWA Keiji Univ.of Info., Dept of Lib.Info., Lecturer, 図書館情報学部, 講師 (10173585)
NAKANO Tsuyoshi Soka Univ., Dept.of Lit., Prof., 文学部, 教授 (00164252)
YAMANAKA Hiroshi Aichi Gakuin Univ., Dept.of Lit., Asst.Prof., 文学部, 助教授 (40201842)
SHIMAZONO Susumu Univ.of Tokyo, Dept.of Lit., Prof., 文学部, 教授 (20143620)
IKEGAMI Yoshimasa Univ.of Tsukuba, Instit.of Phil., Asst Prof., 哲学思想学系, 助教授 (60122925)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1992 – 1994
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| Keywords | Popular Religions / New Religions / Folk Religions / Soteriology / Religious Experiences / Faith-Healing / Mental Training / Politics and Religion |
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| Research Abstract |
This project has attemted to grasp the religious world of meaning of people of modern Japan who live their life in critical cultural historical conditions of the last changing society, how it has looked at the human and the world, and what the religious salvation has been meant to be, among those "new religions" and folk religions that have emerged from the late 19th century till today. Araki and Ikegami, starting from those new religions of Konko and Tenri, and ending in World-Messianity, Mahikari and Pentecostal Christian groups of Okinawa, collected data on their faith-healing and religious experience, to understand the deeper meaning of their soteriological structure and to reexamine each methodology, and to grasp the characteristics of contemporary religious salvation in comparison with those of ancient archaic religions of Koyasan, Yoshino and Ise. Shimazono and Ichikawa dealt with those types of group that emphasize experiencialistic tendency in mental training and life attitude
… More
in combination with contemporary secularism. Nakano constructed a theoretical framework to analyze the power relations between religion and politics in those gigantic religious organizations including Sokaggakai. Hoshikawa made a research on those imported religions popular in urban areas, especially Transcendental Meditatation, focusing on the problem of understanding and verbalization of religious experience. And Yamanaka made a critical reassessment of the theory of science and sociology of religion on the basis of popular religion materials.
One of the most important discoveries of this project is that the historical process of the development of modern popular-folk religion as a whole is closely related to the impact of the modern West as well as the introduction of Western culture and civilization in Japansese society, which in itself is a part of the entire development of modern Western history which was based upon cultural contact of the West with the non-West started in Columbian explorations in 500 years ago. Our research project in the next stage must examine the whole development of modernization and Westernization of Japan as the introduction of the modern West in various aspects of Japanese life, including religion and science, in comparison and relations with the westernization of the other part of the globe. Less
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