Shifting PDF

Shifting Paradigms and Mediating Media: Redefining a New Religion as "Rational" in
Contemporary Society
Author(s): Christal Whelan
Source: Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 10, No. 3
(February 2007), pp. 54-72
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nr.2007.10.3.54
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Shifting Paradigms
and Mediating Media
Redefining a New Religion as Rational
in Contemporary Society
Christal Whelan
ABSTRACT: Japanese new religions sometimes undergo a radical

alteration in doctrine or orientation during the course of their
development. This article focuses on the politics of representation within
the deliberate transformation of a Japanese new religious movement
known as GLA or God Light Association from a popular shamanistic neoBuddhist form of religiosity to an increasingly rational and
psychological religion. This paradigm shift revolved around the
contested practice of past-life glossolalia promoted by the religions
founder as proof of reincarnation. Direct or mediated representation of
this phenomenon, serving initially as a locus of power, came to be viewed
negatively as expressive of GLAs roots with Japans folk religious past.
Unsuitable for the new secularized target clientele in an age of
globalization, representations of this behavior and the man who fostered
it were gradually suppressed and history was re-inscribed.
nthropological research, once premised on a notion of discrete

cultures, is still coming to terms with the growing realization that
a world system now links the planets societies in a common
historical process. Acknowledging this, the exigencies of ethnography
have evolved in such a way that the present challenge has become one of
handling detailed, local, contextual analysis and simultaneously
portraying the global forces implicated.1 In terms of religion, a globalized
world constituted of intense flows of people, technologies, and
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 10, Issue 3, pages
5472 ISSN 1092-6690 (print), 1541-8480 (electronic). 2006 by The Regents of the
University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission
to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California
Presss Rights and Permissions website, at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.
54
Whelan: Shifting Paradigms and Mediating Media

information has multiplied religious options while expanding the
repertoires of existing religions. This condition of pluralism has placed
great pressure on religions to distinguish themselves from the many other
faith communities in their midst. In the case of Japan, media
representations produced by the religious groups themselves have come
to play a major role in the careful construction of their religious identities
intended primarily for internal useindoctrinating converts, maintaining
membershipbut also for winning over uncommitted seekers.
The subject of this article is why the religious practice of speaking in
tongues, or glossolalia, as practiced by a Japanese religion known as GLA
or God Light Association came to be suppressed by the group itself. This
striking behavior and all representations of it, particularly as captured
on video, but even its collective memory, were steadily replaced by new
psychological practices. I attempt to illuminate what this radical shift in
orientation reveals about GLA, and by implication, what it reveals about
contemporary religions that must operate in an age of globalization
characterized by an unprecedented religious pluralism.
GLOBAL AND GLOSSOLALIC
GLA is a neo-Buddhist Japanese new religion founded in Tokyo in
the late 1960s. It changed its name twice before finally deciding on the
English name, God Light Association, in 1970. The abandonment of its
former Japanese names (Doy-kai or the Saturday Association in 1968,2
and Dai Uch Shink-kai or the Great Universe God Light Association
in 1969) in favor of an English one signified the leaders realization of
the international arena in which religions were now expected to
operate. The new name also signified the groups growing confidence
in its own universality and global aspirations. An earlier Japanese new
religionmotokyhad promoted Esperanto as a policy when it was
still possible to imagine Esperanto as something other than the utopian
relic it has since become. But the desire for a panhuman language took
one further step, and assumed a most alluring form, in the practice of
glossolalia (igen in Japanese) promoted by GLAs founder, Takahashi
Shinji (19261976).
In the early days of this new religious movement, glossolalia served as
the major distinguishing feature of the group. An immensely popular
practice, it was the primary reason for many conversions to GLA.
Although GLA was neither the first nor the only Japanese religion to
practice glossolaliathe post-war new religion Tensh Ktai Jing Ky,
known also as the Dancing Religion, had its own versionGLAs
interpretation of speaking in tongues was novel and had an enduring
appeal throughout the 1970s. In speaking of his first encounter with
Takahashi in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, one of the present top officials
of GLA spoke of how amazed he had been when first induced to speak in
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tongues: A stream of strange words that I did not know came out of my
mouth.3 He interpreted this event as an affirmation that Takahashi had
gotten in touch with a past life in his (the mans) soul and made it speak.
Past-life glossolalia, as I refer to the particular species of glossolalia
practiced by GLA, was Takahashis hallmark practice which he explained
in compellingly simple terms through a technological metaphor: the
soul was a videotape on which all past lives had inevitably been
recorded. After blazing the reid, or spiritual pathway, to the soul
envisioned as deeply buried within the conscious personone needed
only to rewind the tape and then switch the play button. The soul as
videotape was an extraordinarily apt metaphor for the times. Videotape
technology had been pioneered in the late 1950s in the United States,
but by 1972 Sony had introduced its own Port-a-Pak, a black-and-white
video recorder, followed not long after by the U-matic. References to the
new technology and the ways in which it was gradually affecting the
world were a staple in Japan during this era, according to Yamaori
Tetsuo.4 Trained as an engineer, and working his entire adult life in the
computer-parts manufacturing company he founded, it is not surprising
that the new technology which had stimulated new ways of imagining
human experience, had suggested to Takahashi the videotape as the
most up-to-date metaphor for the soul.
Past-life glossolalia with Takahashi was a public event that entailed
electrifying performances. These encounters between Takahashi and his
subjects took place on stage before an audience of hundreds, and
sometimes a few thousand people crammed into spaces often overflowing
their capacity. Indicative of his great energy and exertion, Takahashi
would characteristically work up a sweat that followers claimed turned into
flecks of gold they scrambled to collect on their handkerchiefs. A GLA
Kansai official stated that he had to protect Takahashi from the crush of
people who crowded furiously to dab his face and hands. A collection of
these gold flecks said to be gathered from Takahashi now rests in a bottle
of clear liquid with the names of all the donors on the label and kept
locked in a glass case at GLA Kansai Honbu (headquarters).
Although Takahashi made appearances in various parts of Japan,
his two regular locations for ken or public lectures were at the GLA
headquarters in Tokyo and in Higashi Osaka, for which he maintained
special ties of affection. It was in Higashi Osaka in 1971 that Takahashi
visited the former Nichiren temple for the first time. Then occupied by
Zuihkai, an offshoot of Reiykai, its second-generation leader
Nakatani Yoshiothought Takahashi magnificent and decided to
abandon Zuihkai, still in its infancy, in order to become Takahashis
disciple. Nakatani promptly turned over the temple to Takahashi and
they renamed it GLA Kansai.5
A Takahashi event typically included a sermon, exorcisms, healings,
and glossolalic conversations. He initiated these conversations by
56

encouraging audience volunteers to join him on stage. Standing beside
his subject, Takahashi would raise his hand several inches above the
persons head in an action described as sending light through the palm
of the hand and would then begin to speak in tongues. The seated person
might briefly hesitate but eventually by increments also begin to speak in
tongues. In turn, Takahashi responded in tongues and a glossolalic
conversation would ensue that could last as long as twenty minutes.
Takahashi often gestured with his hand, rolling it in backward or
forward circles, to dramatize the videotape in rewind or fast-forward
mode. This was either for the audiences sake and/or to cue the person
to return to the present or spin in reverse to some point in the remote
past. In this way, the audience also witnessed the transition from
glossolalia to a diffident and broken Japanese during the fast-forward as
the person crossed the threshold into the present and back to Japan.
Takahashi played a dual role here: not only did he carry on a
conversation in tongues but he also served as the interpreter of those
messages. Although many people could allegedly speak in tongues, few
were actually able to interpret them. Members considered Takahashi the
most authentic interpreter of tongues.6 Takahashi explained the
practice itself as one of opening the spiritual pathway to the soul after
which ready access became possible without the necessity of sending
further light through the hand.7 Breaking through, so to speak, was a
one-time event, an informal and public initiation ceremony.
According to Numata Kenya, Takahashis younger sister and another
long-time member, both adept glossolalists, claimed they spoke the
tongues of nineteen countries.8 This is an important point because it
reflects the official interpretation of Takahashi and GLA. In effect, they
maintained that the languages spoken during these glossolalic
conversations were natural languages. Thus, GLA was making a claim for
xenoglossia, or speaking actual foreign languages. If no one present
could understand the speech, it was because the languages were not
only foreign but ancient forms of those foreign tongues. From the
archival video material that I have been able to assemble, without
exception Takahashi claimed antiquity for all of the glossolalic speech
acts represented. Despite Japans own considerable antiquity, none of the
past lives recovered during these conversations were those of Japanese.
Indeed, the only Japanese utterances were typically those of malefic
spirits that harass and possess people and therefore require exorcism.
Given that instances of past-life glossolalia were restricted to this
ritual space and public forum, what role did their discovery or recovery
play in a persons present and daily life to warrant the complication of
introducing a multiplicity of alternate selves from the past into the
present? Firstly, the practice established a strong bond between
Takahashi and the person involved. Secondly, it gave them considerable
prestige in the group, since people often gossiped about others in terms
57
Nova Religio
of who so-and-so had once been some five hundred or a thousand years
ago. One GLA member in Osaka told me with some satisfaction that she
had already been born in China, Greece, India, and Israelall countries
she had never visited in her present life.9 Thirdly, glossolalia served to
resolve some of the tension, or indeed oppression, experienced on the
individual and collective levels of a sense of gaiatsu, or foreign pressure.
During the 1970s, Japan was subject to significant pressures from
Western nations to open its markets to foreign goods and services, to
liberalize its whole economic system, and to play a more active role in
international affairs. In response, Japan developed a national discourse
of kokusaika, or internationalization, that was so pervasive as to permeate
every sector of society. Therefore, glossolalia was a religious response to
kokusaika, or the pressures of globalization experienced as the
imperative to be international.
Inevitably, these past lives were not those of obscure people such as
milkmaids or shepherds, but rather famous historical personages or
others elevated through proximity to the famous: Moses brother,
Shakyamuni Buddhas disciples, Jesus apostles, or simply a nun
contemporaneous with the Buddha. An illustrious past self not only
served to legitimate the present self, but tipped the scales in favor of this
past self which was somehow considered more authentic. Alternate selves
bore an explanatory weight by their simple presence thought to elucidate
an otherwise opaque present. Thus, in speaking about one of Tokyo
GLAs top officials, a GLA Kansai member once remarked: He failed in
a previous life in India. He didnt achieve enlightenment, so here he is
back again.10 On another occasion, a believer told me that together with
a troubled Buddhist nun she had once visited Takahashi who told them
they had formerly lived on Mt. Tien tai (Tendai-san) in China studying
Buddhism. But she could not recall at that moment the identity of the
person she had been told she was supposed to have been in that era.
When I asked, Was it Chigi [Chih-i]? Amazed, she had said: Yes, yes,
it was Chigi! Chigi! She then added, But how did you know?11
The creation of alternate selves gave new breadth and life to people
who entered GLA through this baptismal experience of opening the
reid. Through the practice, the wider world of nations was no longer
viewed as alien and threatening. One member in Osaka claimed that
having discovered her past identity as a Jew in ancient Israel brought her
a sense of relief and peace in the present.12 She was part of a much
larger world. What opening the spiritual pathway did not signify,
however, was that the person had achieved enlightenment in the
Buddhist sense of the term. For a few people, the experience was the
first realization that they actually possessed a soul at all.
Indeed, access to past lives sufficed as evidence of GLAs core
doctrine of eternal life predicated on the notion of an eternally
transmigrating soul. Speaking in tongues affirmed the presence of
58

multiple past lives. It was experienced as the living and incarnated truth
of what had previously been only a doctrine. Past-life glossolalia
extended the boundaries of the self beyond political, geographical,
ethnic, racial, and gender limitations. It bestowed on men and women
a kind of androgyny. Most importantly, it was grounded in the
individuals own body. Therefore, people experienced it as deeply
personal. Takahashi was fond of repeating that ninety percent of a
persons consciousness was located in the real world (jitsuzai-kai), by
which he meant the spiritual world, while only ten percent remained
in the phenomenal world (gensh-kai). Takahashi stressed that opening
the reid was only the first step in the spiritual life and must be followed
by shugy, or ascetic practices.13 But the opening provided the
motivation for converts to further exert themselves.
I have suggested that the practice of glossolalia in the context of GLA
throughout the 1970s served as a strategy for managing the pressures of
an impinging globalization as experienced on an individual and
collective level.14 It expressed the globalized state symbolically and
personally through embodiment. Both GLA Tokyo and GLA Kansai
videotaped these glossolalic performances and kept considerable
collections of these amateur productions. In time, these programs
would play a crucial role for GLA Kansai as a means of maintaining
contact with Takahashis exuberant charisma particularly after his death,
whereas Tokyo GLA would come to suppress them entirely.
Without delving too much into Takahashis biography, some points
should be mentioned because they bear on the phenomena of
glossolalia as practiced by GLA. After the loss of the Pacific War in
which Takahashi had fought as a staunch patriot, and before the
establishment of GLA, Takahashi found himself in a deep spiritual crisis
that compelled him to visit a variety of temples, shrines, and churches.
In terms of new religions, it is safe to say that he had at least some
contact with Mahikari Bunmei (Divine Light Organization) and Tensh
Ktai Jing Ky. The former is known for raising the palm and sending
healing light to people. The latter, as mentioned above, practices
xenoglossia of a more conservative variety than what GLA claimed.15
GLAs glossolalia was strikingly different from Tenshs. After
entering altered or ecstatic states of consciousness, Tensh members
were allegedly able to speak in foreign languages they claimed to have
never studied. The two languages most commonly spoken in these states
were English and Chinese. Tenshs leader Kitamura Sayo identified two
kinds of speaking spirits: gairei (foreign spirits) and futsu no rei (ordinary
spirits). The former, in search of salvation, harassed people. According
to Carlyle May, if a gairei happened to be that of a dead Spaniard, then
the glossolalist would speak Spanish. A British spirit would speak English
and so forth.16 Two members possessed by spirits from similar nations
might also converse in the same foreign language while other members
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Nova Religio
interpreted the conversation. The ordinary spirits were former foreign
spirits that had been saved by the prayers of Tensh members.
Therefore, the ordinary spirit would speak the native tongue of the
person in whom it came to reside. For the most part, this meant that
ordinary spirits spoke Japanese.
Besides similarities to Mahikari, Takahashis opening of the reid
bears a striking resemblance to the Pentecostal method of speaking in
tongues in which the experienced glossolalist places a hand above the
head of the person being induced to speak in tongues. Having exposure
to Pentecostals would not be unusual in Japan since they have been
active in the country since 1907. By 1918, the Assemblies of God
succeeded in their first outpouring of the Holy Spirit or glossolalia
among Japanese, and in 1929 they established the first organized
Pentecostal church. For the most part, Pentecostals have always focused
their activities in the Tokyo area.17
Takahashis performances owe much of their great appeal to the
fact that they were deeply rooted in other Japanese cultural forms and
practices. His style of performance was not unlike that of the benshi, a
tremendously popular but short-lived Japanese institution. Benshi were
the people who stood next to the screen to narrate films in the days of
silent cinema in Japan. They assumed multiple roles and were more
famous than the stars in the films that they narrated. Besides narration,
they introduced, interpreted, and commented on the films. They made
the alien familiar. As film technology was newly introduced, the benshi
might also explain how the projectors worked. Since the places depicted
in the films were often alien as well, the benshi would provide a
geographical and cultural location for the remote and exotic. When the
industry introduced intertitles,18 a sizable portion of the audience was
still illiterate and the benshi served as reader.
With their direct contact with the audience, the presence of benshi
became an essential element of the cinematic experience. As film
historians have noted, Japanese audiences were seasoned in storytelling
traditions and brought considerable expectations to the cinema. With
great agility, the benshi gave different voices to different characters,
varied pitch and simulated emotions.19 A powerful mixture of theater
and poetry, even after the introduction of talkies in 1927, the tradition
of the live cinema performance remained the norm in Japan until 1939.
The fact that GLA established its base in the entertainment district of
Asakusa in Tokyo, where the majority of Japans cinemas were located,
is highly suggestive.
I draw this parallel between the art of the benshi and the religious
performance of Takahashi Shinji because of a striking family
resemblance, and the extraordinary level of oratorical skill involved in
both cases. Takahashis performances possessed a high entertainment value,
were full of dramatic suspense, and encouraged audience participation.
60

People were not passive absorbers but co-creators. They laughed at
recalcitrant spirits and by doing so encouraged the possessed to do the
same. At times, one past life might suddenly shout in recognition to
another past life across the room, climaxing in a weeping reunion of two
long-parted souls. People also clapped at the end of sessions that
demonstrated a moving vignette from a past-life or a successful exorcism.
Depending on their state, people shed tears, laughed, or grumbled.
With GLA, Takahashi had created a precious space for time-out
from Japan where people could express various troubled states without
fear of criticism. By drawing this parallel with the benshi, I intend to
imply that entertainment is in no way incompatible with religious
seriousness, and indeed can be, as this case indicates, a close companion
to it. In the case of GLA, entertainment has played an integral part in
the religion from its beginning and up to the present. The
entertainment value of Takahashis performances that included a knack
for joking was probably one of the major reasons for his success as a
religious leader. Emotional and charismatic, Takahashis behavior fits
into a well-established cultural framework that involves considerable
oratorical talent. Both precedents and cultural models existed for the
innovations Takahashi made in the religious sphere.
Characterizations of Takahashi by people who knew him support
the evidence of his broad and dramatic emotional range of expression.
A devout 80-year-old female disciple in Osaka, who knew him well, told
me that he was the most yasashii (gentle and affectionate) person she
had ever known. Lets face it, she said. People are not really yasashii,
but he was unbelievably yasashii. Others described him as osoroshii or
scary.20 This was not only because he was well-known for a two-volume
book on akury or evil spirits. He was also capable of expressing strong
indignation in public. His constant dealings with the darkness in the
human heart and his readiness to converse with malignant spirits
accounted for the mixture of fear and admiration in which he was held.
Descriptions of Takahashi in terms of polar oppositesexceedingly
gentle yet very scarywere typical.
GLAS TRANSITIONAL PHASE
Takahashi Shinji died in 1976. Although he died of illness, many
members attributed his death to karshi, or burn-out, since he worked
incessantly both in his company and for GLA. Advising the troubled,
and performing healings and exorcisms was extremely taxing work.
After his death, a major crisis of authority and succession ensued in
GLA. According to the version told by Takahashis brother, Takahashi
Kwa,21 in March of that year, three months before his brothers death
at a ken in Wakayama, Takahashi realized that the soul of his daughter
Keiko had been guiding him towards enlightenment his whole life.
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They had made a promise beforehand and something happened in
another dimension. Keiko and Shinji united there at Shirahama. For
GLA Tokyo, Keiko was definitely the rightful religious heir of GLA, not
merely because she was Takahashis eldest offspring, but because of the
above-mentioned spiritual incident, that came to be dignified by GLAers
as the Shirahama Legend. Another GLA Tokyo member explained a
related incident that occurred in February 1976 at the Okinawa ken.
According to this story, Keiko was identified publicly there as the
Archangel Michael, the being whom Takahashi considered his assistant
and successor to his shh or teachings.
Keiko heard a voice in a dream or vision. It said Mikaeru. They were
both [Takahashi and Keiko] looking for Takahashis successor at the
time. Keiko went to her father to ask him the meaning of the word she
had heard in her dream. He knew that it [Michael, his successor] was
Keiko at that time but did not tell her. People say that he wanted her to
discover it for herself. She thought the word was urging her to look
back or reflect as in mikaerinasai [look back]. But evidently it was
Mikaeru, or Michael the Archangel.22
From this point onward, members of GLA spread the word that Keiko
had been the Archangel Michael in a past life. Before long, this past life
became Keikos present identity and the basis of her authority as the new
leader of GLA. Keiko publicly assumed her identity as the Archangel
Michael in 1977, inaugurating a new phase of GLA. However, this new
identity and Keikos spiritual authority were highly contested on a
number of fronts. She was only nineteen-years-old at the time and a
student majoring in philosophy at Nihon University (where her father
had studied) in Tokyo. Various talented men with alleged psychic
abilities who had surrounded Takahashi during his tenure as leader of
GLA felt that Keiko was too young to assume such an important role.
According to one official at GLA Kansai, any one of six prominent
disciples, possessed as they were of considerable spiritual acumen, might
have taken over the leadership. Since Tokyo GLA would hear of no
other leader than Keiko, the organization splintered at this difficult
juncture and lost much of its talent.
A few of these disciples such as Hota Wase and Haba Taketsugu
forged their own organizations. Kishida Mamoro, who took over the
leadership of GLA Kansai, believed himself the rightful heir on the
basis of Takahashis last words to him, and refused to acknowledge Keiko
as Takahashis successor. From this time on, GLA Kansais gatherings
consisted of showing old videos of Takahashi. They also continued to
practice past-life glossolalia. Besides contenders from within GLA, a
surprising candidateChino Ykoappeared. According to the
account given me by a Pana Wave Laboratory official:
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When Shinji-sensei died, she [Chino Yko] had many visions in which it
had been revealed to her that she was Shinjis successor. But when she
[Chinos mother who was a GLA member] went to announce this at
GLA, they wouldnt hear of it. GLA has made a big mistake; they have the
wrong person as leaderKeiko.23
Chino proceeded to found her own religion, Chino Shh, initially

with the intention of carrying on Takahashis shh. Its scientific branch
is now known as Pana Wave Laboratory.24
Meanwhile, Tokyo had launched the Michael Movement to spread
the teachings of Keiko throughout Japan. GLA Tokyo formed the
Michael Boys and Girls (MBG), a young peoples vanguard devoted to
Keiko, who had the distinct appeal of a young Japanese pop star.
According to GLA Kansai members, Seki Yoshiro, one of Takahashis top
disciples, was a major force behind the promotion of Keiko, joining in
on the shouting Biba Biba Mikaeru! (Viva Viva Michael!). GLA Kansai
was scandalized by this attempt to promote Keiko as an object of worship
and claimed this could not have been Takahashis intention. Some
people even pinpointed their disaffection to a specific event that came
to be referred to as the Mikaeru jiken or Michael Incident, in which
Keiko appeared on stage in a long white dress and claimed she was the
Archangel Michael sent by God.
Many members devoted to Takahashi found Keikos performance
and self-representation sufficiently objectionable to defect at this point.
The Michael Incident had demonstrated a strategic ineptness that was
harmful to Keikos cause. That same year, Tokyo GLA began to sell the
Message from Michael, two audiocassettes for the MBG School. In
these tapes, Keiko completely assumed the identity of the Archangel
Michael, made references to the Bible, and began to give GLA a definite
Christian and Western spin exemplified by the many English words
written in katakana script typical of her style, yet incomprehensible to
members over a certain age. In addition to a sermon, the tapes
contained a dramatic glossolalic conversation between Keiko and a man
who sobs intermittently. Keiko also gave instructions in glossolalia to two
assistants, after calling out their names in Japanese. When Yamaori
Tetsuo visited GLA Tokyo in 1979, he described a very dramatic
glossolalic conversation between Keiko and a young man.25 Thus, GLA
continued to represent itself by glossolalia throughout the decade of the
1970s when internationalization was a pressing issue in Japan as it
would continue to be in the 1980s.
While GLA had lost a lot of its talent after Takahashi died, it also gained
some. The famous science-fiction writer, Hirai Kazumasa, joined the staff
during the Michael Movement. His 20-volume novel, Genma Taisen (Great
Magic War), was modeled on Keiko. Between 19771978, Keikos three
volume Shinsseki (True Genesis) was published. This was the work
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intended to give Keiko authority and credibility as GLAs spiritual heir.
However, Hirai did not remain in GLA and when he quit he also confessed
that he was the ghostwriter of Keikos book.26 Whether this is true or false,
only those involved know with any precision, but this represented yet
another serious blunder that solidified the chasm between GLA Kansai
and GLA Tokyo. The organization in Tokyo needed a more coherent
strategy and a new image that could promote Keiko exclusively without
reference to her father. Glossolalia, once the hallmark of GLA, came to be
pivotal in this reinvention of post-Shinji GLA. Glossolalia was suppressed
and eliminated from GLAs self-representations and representations of
Takahashi minimized. This meant that no video material of Takahashi
could be circulated. As watching videos of Takahashi was the only practice
left to GLA Kansai, coolness and occasional altercations between the two
GLAs characterized their relations.
Part of the pressure for a paradigm shift was traceable to the succession
struggle itself, but another part came from larger global trends attracting
attention that could not be ignored. One of these was the global
spirituality discourse in which channeling played a big part. For GLA,
the main issue in terms of channeling was that it resembled glossolalia and
therefore could easily be confused with it. Both practices involve
dissociation or an altered state of consciousness, at least initially, and
channelers also frequently spoke in unknown languages. Channeling was
a well-established subculture in the West from the late 1960s into the
1970s well before the appearance of Shirley MacLaines publication Out
on a Limb in 1983. Its Japanese translation appeared three years later.27
The presence of this subculture was increasingly making inroads in Japan.
Given the observable similarities between the two practices, the presence
of channeling diminished the uniqueness of glossolalia.
In addition, in 1978 the translation of Flora Rheta Schreibers
bestselling biography Sybil was translated into Japanese as Okonawareta
Watashi. Schreibers book dealt with a young woman named Sybil who
suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder (now known as Disassociative Identity Disorder). Sybil experienced fugue states and alternated
between sixteen distinct personalities. With each person, her voice
changed in pitch, rhythm, and accent. This coping strategy that
consisted of the proliferation of alternate selves, had made life bearable
for this victim of infant sexual abuse. The book demonstrated the heroic
efforts of Sybils psychiatrist to integrate all these multiple identities
into one personality or a single self.
In other words, the definition of illness in this famous case was linked
to multiplicity and the cure ultimately involved not accessing alternates,
since these were merely a coping strategy, but creating a strong and
integrated single personality. Works such as Sybil suggested another
unflattering interpretation of the glossolalic practice and of those who
tended to glossolalia. Were they religious or simply ill? If not a sign of
64

dysfunction, glossolalia still risked being interpreted as such. In
addition, the increased presence of foreigners in Japan also meant that
some actual speakers of the tongues of India, China or Greece might
challenge the authenticity of GLAs glossolalia. Scholars such as Yamaori
had already visited GLA and transcribed portions of the glossolaia for
analysis. He was unable to verify the utterances as any historical
languages.28 All these reasons rendered the practice of glossolalia
vulnerable to criticism. Its interpretation as proof of past lives might now
undercut the doctrine of eternal life it was meant to support.
If past-life glossolalia had lost uniqueness because of competition from
channeling, and risked being labeled pathological, more unsettling still
was the fact that other aspiring religious leaders claimed to be channeling
the spirit of Takahashi Shinji.29 One of these was kawa Ryh of Kfuku
no Kagaku who wrote at least fifteen books of material supposedly
channeled from Takahashi. GLA Tokyo was confrontational about such
claims and refuted them with the counter-claim that Takahashi had
promised that he would channel to no one but Keiko after he died.30 A
top official recounted an incident dealing with a channeling duel in
which two GLA officials had gone to the offices of one such religious
leader in order to watch him actually channel Takahashi before their
eyes. The fact that this person declined to meet with them sufficed as
evidence for them that he was not truly channeling Takahashi but rather
making a claim in order to boost his spiritual authority.31
In addition, within the glossolalic conversation, Takahashi had
functioned as a shaman by interspersing glossolalic conversations with
the exorcism of harassing spirits. The whole spirit gamut from Japanese
folk tradition turned up in these sessions: raccoon-dogs, foxes, snakes,
dragons, and irate ancestors. This tie to the Japanese folk past was
lacking in appeal to the apparently secularized and well-heeled clientele
that GLA wished to attract. The desire for a new clientele of physicians,
executives, and scientists was part of GLAs quest for legitimization in the
wake of several serious missteps.
Therefore, from a neo-Buddhist, shamanistic, folk-orientation where
glossolalia was a central practice, GLA reinvented itself as a rational
and psychological religion of seminars and costly retreats, basing its
new leadership on a celebrity model. This radical shift necessitated
suppression of video images of glossolalia and very infrequent and
sanitized representations of GLAs founderTakahashi Shinjiwho
had introduced the practice and was associated with its dramatic
performances. Glossolalic performance had also been as unwieldy,
varied, and individualistic as the many personalities who momentarily
dropped their inhibitions to speak in tongues. The new GLA was
conservative and sought tighter control and less free expression.
GLAs suppression of glossolalia does not stand alone in the history
of glossolalia. British colonial authorities in Zambia outlawed glossolalia
65
Nova Religio
after World War I because it unnerved them and threatened their
authority. Thomas Csordas explains why glossolalia can have such an
unsettling effect:
. . . glossolalia ruptures the world of human meaning, like a wedge forcing
an opening in discourse and creating the possibility of creative cultural
change, dissolving structures in order to facilitate the emergence of new
ones. The creative potential in glossolalia lies in the phenomenological fact
that it is gibberish, and hence threatening, only to nonparticipants. Yet
what is compelling about glossolalia is that it is more than a dramatization
of the post-Babel loss of a unified tongue. On the contrary, speaking in
tongues is experienced as a redemption of pre-Babel lucidity . . . for despite
the existence of distinctly recognizable gloss, the global meaning of
glossolalic utterance can be apprehended immediately.32
GLA members certainly experienced the redemptive aspects of

glossolalia when they described the present peace that followed in the
wake of the discovery of a past life. Even though most could not
interpret the tongues, the very fact of their utterance had global
meaning. The practice had become threatening to GLA Tokyo not only
because of the controversial image it might create to the uninitiated, but
the individualistic forms of expression it took ran counter to the tight
control that the post-Shinji GLA wanted to exercise on its membership
through its new practices of personality testing, establishment of subgroups based on age, and Naikanesque techniques33 used to monitor
both the private and professional lives of members.
Other scholars of Japanese new religions have noted that these
religious movements sometimes radically change their doctrinal
orientation, object of worship, or religious practices. The neo-Buddhist
group Agonsh changed the sects central object of worship, doctrine,
and ultimately its name.34 The group Jiu changed its orientation after its
leader received an oracle.35 In its early days, Kfuku no Kagakus praxis
consisted of channeling spirits (particularly that of GLAs founder
Takahashi Shinji). It then made a dramatic exit from the parlor to the
public sphere when it reinvented itself as a moral crusader for the
nation with an agenda to eliminate pornography and pernicious
religious sects. It staged mass protests against pornography, and Aum
Shinriky prior to the sarin gas attack.36 Chino Shh completely
changed its orientation upon declaring that it was not a religion, but a
science, hence the name Pana Wave Laboratory.
GLOBAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
At GLAs 2003 gathering in Kobe some 7,500 people attended. In the
spacious auditorium, a huge banner hung over the stage with the words:
Biggu kurosu no jidai, or Era of the Big Cross. Below it, the sub-theme:
66

Jibun saihakken, sekkai saihakken, or Rediscover Yourself, and Rediscover
the World. Each GLA event has a theme, for the organizations
gatherings today are carefully choreographed multi-media productions
that require an admission ticket costing 2,500 yen ($25.00) for members
and non-members alike. They are held at large hotels or auditoriums in
major cities. The lobbies are often furbished to conduct personality
tests with the assistance of computers that generate on-the-spot results.
Personality typing is crucial for all members since GLAs teachings are
adapted to the four character types as designated by Keikos shinri, or
divine truth: Over-Confident Type, Resentful-Victim Type, SelfDeprecating Type, and the Self-Satisfied Type. Tables laden with books
and videos by Keiko are standard fare at these events.
A typical event consists of two parts separated by an intermission. The
first half is taken up with news related to the organization as typically
conveyed by two interlocutors and interspersed with video clips. The
videos depict past meetings of GLA and vignettes of Keiko: visiting
hospitals, counseling businessmen, paying an unannounced visit to a
members home, or emoting at the podium. After intermission, which
tends to be long enough to take a personality test and meet with a
counselor, Keiko makes her appearance. Perfectly groomed and
coiffured, wearing a fitted two-piece suit and carrying a slim black
notebook, her self-presentation is thoroughly secularthat of a perky
business executive.
A typical GLA event today also features elaborate stage props such as
the spiral of transmigration that Keiko uses to dramatize points in her
talk. While this kind of solo performance has a certain appeal, the
tension always dramatically increases after Keiko calls on stage specific
people from the audience for her now hallmark practicethe spiritual
dialogue. In these dialogues, Keiko and her subject face each other
standing. Then Keiko narrates the persons past tribulations and crises,
putting questions to them along the way. Usually the person cries quietly
but persistently throughout, responding mostly with nods or a soft yes
and no as they listen to her recount their personal narratives. Keikos
discourse relies heavily on rhetorical questioning as a persuasive device.
Through this narrative approach, Keiko becomes the person before
her in a kind of empathetic mirroring of their former selves. By skillful
alternation of the pitch of her voice, sometimes with dramatic intensity,
Keiko expresses the emotions of the troubled person in front of her. In
these persuasive encounters, the distressed are prodded to re-live
various incidents that have molded the course of their lives. But these
are now objectified in another and the distance created would allow
them to see their own lives as spectacle.
Some of these dialogues have acquired legendary status within GLA
so that people need only refer to the Nishimura monogatari (Nishimuras
Tale) and everyone knows that this is a miracle story that refers to a
67
Nova Religio
woman from Tohoku who was miraculously saved by Sensei or
Teacher. This woman had been using an ATM machine and had just
finished her transaction when someone came up from behind and
stabbed her with a 16-millimeter knife. She cried out, Sensei, Sensei,
ikinaosasete kudasai! (Teacher, Teacher, please let me live!). Although
she had lost five liters of blood, she lived and was there to express her
gratitude. Her doctor, also in the audience, stood up to testify. He
repeated the phrase the other doctors had used when they saw Ms.
Nishimura in the emergency room: modoranai (She will not recover).
The soul as videotape is no longer used as a metaphor in GLA. But the
fascination with videotape has neither disappeared nor gone digital.
Instead, the videotape has become the new seish or Bible on which
these many monogatari have been recorded. They cover a range of topics
and problems. One member assured me that a thousand years from now
people will have these videotapes and will be able to see Sensei.37 For
whatever problem they may have, they can find the appropriate monogatari
on one of the videos. However, for all the catharsis that these monogatari
engender, and the mini-celebrities that they create within the organization,
these performances at GLA give the impression of having been rehearsed.
Throughout the performance, photographers circulate in the lobbies
and lecture hall in order to snap photos of people that will inevitably
appear in GLAs monthly journal. After each event, several pairs of
members, one holding a small professional Sony video camera and the
other a microphone, stop people on their way out in order to interview
them about the event: What did they learn from Sensei? How did they
feel about Sensei? Or, what kind of a person do you think Sensei is?
Portions of these interviews will be incorporated into the video programs
produced by GLAs own media crew who film every event. GLA members
in branch offices across Japan will watch these videos when they are not
attending actual events that generate more videos. Other than these
designated media people, no photographing or audiotaping is
permitted. All representations of GLA are tightly controlled.
Only once did I hear glossolalia at one of these events (20 March
2004). But so embedded in the sobbing of the man who uttered it, that
I had to be told by a long-time member seated beside me that what I had
just heard was glossolalia. It was at a three-day seminar for professionals
aged thirty and overthe Frontier Collegeheld at a hotel that
overlooked Lake Biwa and boasted having a view of the lake from every
room. So novel was the glossolalic occurrence by that time that the top
official of GLA came out on stage afterwards to explain what glossolalia
was, and to assure us that scriptural justification for the practice existed
in both Christian and Buddhist traditions. He even went so far as to give
us the specific references in the Bible and the Kegonky or Flower Garland
Stra.38 He added by way of further reassurance that this instance of
glossolalia was not dangerous because Sensei was there.
68

Such reassurance possessed a great irony, and confirmed more than
anything else the total erasure of GLAs history. For glossolalia had
originally served as the most personal sign of supernatural presence.
Expressed uniquely by each person, glossolalia had generated a group
solidarity based on the common experience of the eternal life of the
soul. Without the spiritual authority of Takahashi Shinji, glossolalia
seemed destined to degenerate into mere gibberish and stereotype after
all. This was further complicated by the fact that glossolalia was fast
losing its edge to an encroaching global spirituality characterized by
channeling. By comparison, past-life glossolalia appeared folkish and
overly Japanese which threatened to compromise GLAs aspiration to be
absolutely modern. GLA had effectively achieved the suppression of
glossolalia except for rare moments such as this when it reemerged
unexpectedly. At such times, it would require rationalization in
scriptural terms and then subjugation under GLAs sacred canopy.
This article is based on fieldwork as a Fulbright grantee in Japan during
20032005 for my Ph.D. dissertation Religious Responses to Globalization in
Japan: The Case of the God Light Association (2006).
ENDNOTES
1
George E. Marcus, Contemporary Problems of Ethnography in the Modern

World System, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1986), 16593. See also: Jonathan Friedman,
Toward a Global Anthropology, Cultural Identity and Global Process (London:
Sage Publications, 1994), 114.
2 At this time, it also seems to have had an alternate nameShinri no Kai
(Divine Truth Association) as noted by YAMAORI Tetsuo, Rei to nikutai [The Spirit
and the Flesh] (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppan-kai, 1979),129. See also:
SHIMAZONO Susumu, From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements in
Modern Japan (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2005), 263.
3 GLA official, personal communication, 24 April 2004, GLA Kyoto Terminal,
Kyoto.
4 Yamaori Tetsuo, personal communication, 12 January 2005, Nichibunken,
Kyoto.
5 The story of the conversion of this temple is rather more interesting,
complicated, and illustrative of the Japanese penchant for internal religious
pluralism. Zuihkai spun off from Reiykai by virtue of Takemoto Chiyos
charisma. He had no doctrinal disagreement with Reiykai but had developed
his own style to such an extent that it seemed to justify initiating his own sect.
He acquired the Nichiren temple, and his successor Nakatani Yoshio freely
abandoned Reiykai in order to follow Takahashi Shinji and the temple was
renamed GLA Kansai. But the priests continued to maintain a dual identity.
69
Nova Religio
They performed Zuihkai funerals but expanded these to include GLA
elements such as recitation of Takahashis straShingy. One of the current
priests told me that in spite of this GLA conversion, they still considered their
honbu or headquarters to be part of the Nichiren sect (Nichirensh). When
they performed shugy (ascetic practice) they would do this at Mt. Minobu,
Nichirenshus head temple in Yamanashi. But the current head of GLA Kansai
was never a member of Zuihkai and was completely devoted to GLA. This
shows not only the capacity to maintain multiple identities but also perhaps a
preference for the multiple over the singular and the remarkable capacity for
co-existence and cooperation in spite of differences.
6 NUMATA Kenya, Shinshky no Kyojin: Takahashi Shinji no sugao [The
Giant of New Religions: The Real Face of Takahashi Shinji], Asahi gekkan 4, no.
13 (12 December 1991): 5055.
7 GLA Kansai Honbu, Kenkai Video, 13 July 1975.
8 Numata, Shinshky no Kyojin, 53.
9 Member, personal communication, 5 June 2004, GLA Kansai Honbu, Higashi
Osaka, and 27 June 2004, Wakayama.
10 Official, personal communication, 11 December 2004, GLA Kansai Honbu,
Higashi Osaka.
11 Member, personal communication, 13 June 2004, GLA Kansai Honbu,
Higashi Osaka. Chigi or Chisha in Japanese refer to Chih-i (53897 C.E.),
the founder of the Tien-tai school of Chinese Buddhism, or Tendai in Japanese,
famous for his systematic classification of Buddhist teachings.
12 Member, personal communication, 26 June 2004, Osaka.
13 Takahashi stressed this often in his sermons, although he intended moral
practices such as following the Eightfold Path, and not the physically
challenging varieties of shugy commonly practiced in Japanese religions
whether new or established. See, for example, GLA Kansai Honbu, Kenkai
Video, March, 1975.
14 In Japan, the word globalization was not, and still is not, utilized as much as
the term internationalization that is used widely as a synonym.
15 GLA Tokyo has consistently denied Takahashis contact with any other
Japanese new religions. They claim personal revelation for all of Takahashis
practices in GLA. However, I have heard him make a humorous reference to
Tensh Ktai Jing Ky on one of the videos I viewed at GLA Kansai Honbu.
Officials there who knew Takahashi commented that he had some contact with
Mahikari, a claim also made by Numata. See Numata, Shinshky no Kojin, 51.
16 L. Carlyle May, A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in NonChristian Religions, American Anthropologist, New Series 58, no. 1 (1956): 34380.
17 Paul Tsuchido Shew, A Forgotten History: Correcting the Historical Record
of the Roots of Pentecostalism in Japan, Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 5, no.
1 (2002): 2349.
18 Silent films often used brief blocks of explanatory text between scenes as
guideposts to filmic action. These were known as intertitles.
19 Jasper Sharp and Mike Arnold, Forgotten Fragments: An Introduction to
Japanese Silent Cinema, (2001), <http://www.midnighteye.com/features/
silentfilm_pt2.shtml>, accessed 21 September 2006.
70

20
Member, personal communication, 23 May 2004, Kensh-kai (training

meeting), GLA Kansai Honbu, Higashi Osaka.
21 Takahashi Kwa, Interview, 2 April 2004, GLA Sg Honbu, Tokyo.
22 Member, personal communication, May 2, 2004, GLA Seinen Juku Seminar,
Yatsugatake.
23 Pana Wave member, personal telephonic communication, 8 July 2004.
24 See Benjamin Dorman, Pana Wave The New Aum Shinriky of Another
Moral Panic? Nova Religio, 8, no. 3 (March 2005): 83103.
25 YAMAORI Tetsuo, Reikon tensh no higi: GLA kydan no baai [Secret
ceremony of the transmigration of the soul: the case of GLA], Rei to nikutai [The
Spirit and the Flesh] (Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppan-kai, 1979),12648.
26 SHIMADA Hiromi, Shinshin shky no sakigake: GLA Takahashi Shinji [GLAs
Takahashi Shinji: New Religions Pioneer], Shkan shinch no. 29 (31 July 2003): 48.
27 The Seth Material by channeler Jane Roberts was published in the United States
in 1970. While immensely popular in the West, it was not translated into Japanese
until 1999. But the works of some of the most popular figures of Western
Esotericism had been translated into Japanese by the early 1970s. Thus, Walter
Ernest Butlers Apprenticed to Magic (1962) had been translated into Japanese as
Mah nymon in 1974. Butler was founder of SOL or Servants of Light, a British
mystery school. Many of his themes are those found in GLA. Kurt Seligmans work
on magic had also been translated into Japanese as early as 1961. These figures
were heirs of Western Esoteric traditions in which Spiritualism was prominent and
channeling long a central practice. I mention this because Shirley MacLaines Out
on a Limb is usually cited as the source of Japans channeling boom. However, the
fact that that work was a runaway bestseller in Japan may not be for the reasons
usually attributed to it. MacLaine deals with a number of compelling and timely
topics in that book: she allows people a glimpse into the private feelings behind her
phenomenal career as a Hollywood actress and a Broadway dancer. She discusses
her prolonged and furtive love affair with a British Member of Parliament. She
touches on feminist themes, such as the fact that she was invited to lead the first
delegation of women into China shortly after the country re-opened. Not least of
all, MacLaine had lived for several years in Japan where her daughter Sachi was
born. At the title suggests, the book is mostly about the willingness to take risks.
28 Yamaori, Reikon tensh no higi, 147.
29 The religions and religious leaders influenced by Takahashi had various levels
of contact with GLA. Asahara Shk, subsequently the founder of Aum
Shinriky, had attended at least some of Takahashis ken. kawa Ryhs father
was a GLA member for a time and kawas self-presentation in Kfuku no
Kagaku is strongly imitative of Takahashi. Chino Ykos mother was a GLA
member. Before founding Chino Shh and Pana Wave Laboratory, Chino
herself had attended GLA Kansai where she had direct exposure to Takahashi.
She had also gone to him for counseling on one occasion. Given her Kansai
affiliation, it is little wonder that GLA Tokyo has denied any relation with her
particularly when the media focused its attention on the group in 2003. See
Dorman, Pana Wave.
30 The Sybil critique was not applied to channeling because this activity was
considered a special talent accessible to religious virtuosi alone, whereas
71
Nova Religio
glossolalia was something that anyone, at least in theory, could do by virtue of
possessing a soul.
31 Official, personal communication, 24 April 2004, GLA Kyoto Terminal, Kyoto.
32 Thomas J. Csordas, Language, Charisma, and Creativity: The Ritual Life of a
Religious Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Also, Embodiment
as a Paradigm for Anthropology, Ethos 18, no. 1 (2004), 10540.
33 Naikan or introspection is an indigenous Japanese psychotherapy
formulated by Yoshimoto Ishin, a Buddhist priest of the Jdo Shinsh
meditation practice mishirabe or self-reflection. Naikan consists of a week-long
meditation on three questions while facing a white screen: What was I given?
What did I give in return? What troubles did I cause? The Naikan client may
focus on any person, but according to classical practice, the meditator begins
with his/her mother and then proceeds to father. The meditation proceeds at
three-year increments with the Naikan therapist entering every two hours for a
brief interview to ask the client what he/she has examined. Naikan has been
used widely in Japan in prisons and hospitals, as well as for private clients.
Takahashi was very interested in Naikan and even corresponded with Yoshimoto.
For more on Naikan, see David Reynolds The Quiet Therapies: Japanese Pathways
to Personal Growth (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980).
34 Ian Reader, Spirits, Satellites, and a User-Friendly Religion, Religion in
Contemporary Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991), 194233.
35 Benjamin Dorman, SCAPs Scapegoat? The Authorities, New Religions, and
a Postwar Taboo, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 31, no. 1 (2004): 10540.
See also Dormans Mixed Blessings: Reactions of Two Japanese NRMs to
Postwar Media Portrayals, Nova Religio 9, no. 2 (November 2005): 732.
36 Trevor Astley, The Transformation of a Recent Japanese New Religion:
kawa Ryuh and Kfuku no Kagaku, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 22, no.
34 (1995): 34380. I had occasion to follow the groups protest of Aum
Shinriky in Tokyo the weekend prior to the sarin gas attack in March 1995 in
order to photograph the event.
37 Member, personal communication, 21 July 2004, GLA Kyoto Terminal, Kyoto.
38 Known in Sanskrit as the Avatamsaka Stra, the passage cited was book 20:10.
However, this does not actually discuss glossolalia, but rather affirms the
innumerability of human past lives. The biblical passages are many, but the one
most apt is that of the Pentecost, Acts 2:512.
72

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