Shukado News Letter No.8

Dear Customers & Friends


Kon-nichi-wa, hello from Ginza!

This is Chiaki Tanaka from Shukado,and this is vol.8 Shukado Newsletter.

For these 2-3 of years, it is said that Japan has been seeing the "Spiritual boom".

As a matter of the fact, a spiritual counselor, Hiroyuki Ehara and his TV program called "Oura-no Izumi" or "the Fountain of Aura" are creating this boom.

In this program, famous TV personalities and actors or actresses are invited as guests and their deep worries and traumatic experiences are revealed through his mediumship and he suggests the guests some clues to solve their problems.

At the time of his mediumship performance, Ehara talks about the personal details, which only the guest knows such as details of his/her room. This is the trick to make the viewers believe that he has some kind of special abilities. Moreover, he tells the guest about his/her previous life, numen and the color of the aura and explains that the current life is connected to the previous life. In the end, he mediates the words of the dead parent or relatives to give some advice to the guest and the guest finds the direction of his/her future.

The program seems to be very persuasive and famous actors or actresses appear in this program, therefore, the viewers are drawn into the program.

My younger sister is very quick to catch on a trend. We call this kind of person as "Mee-her". She is watching this program every week. I think that it is typical of her, but the program is quite interesting so I would not blame her for being a blind follower.

There are some people who criticize this program as a "made-up". Such people say that Ehara could know the private secrets from advance investigations and there are some rumors that he caused some violent incidents with the staff of the program. They point out that the previous lives of the guests are usually staged in Japan or Europe not in Africa and they find this very strange.


Some other people even give warnings for the danger of peoples' crazes for something unbelievable or extraordinary while saying that the Aum Shinri-kyo terrorist attack revealed that danger of desire or passion for such things.

The other day, one junior high school student who was refused to join in the group committed suicide saying "I want to re-born to seek better life". After this incident, Ehara was accused for his influence through the media.

Although I initially thought that he was a bit dubious, after reading his book, I could understand his thoughts of "inevitable fate" in his life. To be brief, he was not intending to be a professional spiritual counselor even though he had a special ability to see ghosts and people's aura since his childhood. However, his father died at his young age and his mother too when he was a teenager, then he came to think deeply about "What is the purpose of my life?" and "Why is my life so unusually difficult?" After a while, he came to a conclusion that people live to brush up his/her own soul, which is connected to his/her previous life.

His story telling someone's previous and present life seems to be a little bit inconsistent but it captures and touches people's mind or even makes people cry or appreciate their own lucky life. It is easy to say that that is a cheap trick for tears but simply fake stories cannot move people. Probably, his powerful speech backed by his heavily agonizing past or his fate touches people's mind.

Although I do not believe in "previous life" or "people's aura" at all and I think that some of his remarks are a bit doubtful, I agree with his comment "People live to brush up his/her own soul. I may have a little bit of spiritual way of thinking because I cannot explain theoretically about it, however, I believe that even when people face a lot of difficulties, if they believe that there is a fate created by God or something similar to God, people can be very strong in their lives.

The another reason why this kind of people can be popular and famous in Japan while some people point out the danger of craze for supernatural or extraordinary things is the lack of strong base of religions in Japan. Japan is categorized as a Buddhists country, there are numerous small Buddhist sects and 100 thousands of temples (the total number is similar to that of convenience stores) in Japan. However, as a matter of fact, Japanese people see them as the organization to run the funerals or take care of cemeteries. Not many people ask Buddhist monks for their advice. We of course need someone to explain why people experience unreasonable difficulties; therefore here comes the cult religions. "Millionaire wannabe" boom can be said as one of this kind of cult religions.

It is not a religion, but the love for the birthplace or the patriotism which were serving drives for Japanese people after the Meiji era when the existence of God became faint or fear for the invasion from other nation or the self-confidence as a reflection of such fear were all smashed away by the defeat in the WWII. Japanese people may be suffering from the emptiness in their mind while enjoying economic growth.

Looking at this from different perspective, new thoughts, religion and ideas which may serve good for the people in the world may spring from this place where the freedom of religious activities and speech is guaranteed and people are open minded about religions. Although such a situation may be unique to Japan, the negative effects of rapid modernization may be causing such a trend of spiritual boom.

What is the situation like in your country with regard to the issue of psychological problems and spirituality?

Before ending my news letter, I would like to introduce new items; the artworks of Utagawa Kunisada.

http://www.japanese-finearts.com/sp/list.php?spid=S474bd5a96dea4

We recently added a lot of Yakusya-e prints (Actors' portraits) created by Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864) at our website.

http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/search.php?md=0228
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/search.php?md=0229

They look cool, don't they? Kunisada's yakusha-e's impression is very distinctive and brilliant. High level of printing technique with detailed touch is used for those prints. While Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utamaro are globally well-known ukiyo-e artists, Kunisada was the most popular ukiyo-e artist in the late Edo era and probably was most prolific.

Ukiyo-e has been studied extensively overseas rather than in Japan. However, overseas scholars' focus of their intellectual curiosity had not been placed in Kunisada's artworks until recent times. There are some scholars who are now reevaluating his works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunisada

Please take a look at the life history of Kunisada who created the foundation of ukiyo-e.

I hope that the readers of this newsletter will know more about old and new Japan through our newsletter.

See you next week!



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