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Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 8
INTERLUDEIII: Deguchi, Ueshiba and Omoto:Part 1: The First SuppressionThe last column focused on several aspects of prewar Japan that would have had some impact on Morihei Ueshiba's view of the martial arts in general and the art he was creating. Ueshiba's membership of Omoto was a major factor in the way he conceived his martial training and this topic deserves more detailed examination.I begin, however, with more general discussion of an aspect of what one might call ‘aikido narrative history'. One advantage of Thomas Nadolski's thesis on the Omoto suppressions is that the author appears not to be a member of the religion and also appears not to practice aikido—and he has not written a biography. So his thesis might be thought to be an ‘objective' examination of the suppressions, which will give us a solid foundation, from which we can look at other aspects of Omoto. In fact, reading Nadolski's study side-by-side with Kyotaro Deguchi's biography of his grandfather and Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography of his father is a very instructive exercise. All three rely on similar sources, though Nadolski seems to be more meticulous with them (in the sense that one is more conscious of him weighing the evidence and using footnotes, as might be expected in a PhD thesis). It is not that Kyotaro or Kisshomaru deliberately falsifiy—since there are no footnotes, there is no means of checking their sources to find out, more that Nadoslski adds a wealth of background information concerning two of the major crises in Omoto, crises which, in the biographies, arose as if by magic—they were cases of ‘kami-ex-machina'.The biographies of Onisaburo Deguchi and Morihei Ueshiba tend to be similar. They tend to be hagiographies, with only the occasional wart or blemish allowed to cloud the lives of total dedication to truth and virtue. They focus exclusively on their chosen subjects and introduce associates only as sakura (cherry blossoms), which appear only in order to enhance the desired qualities of their subjects—and disappear immediately afterwards. With histories, the emphasis is different. Warts and blemishes are crucial to explaining what actually happened.With regard to aikido, Nadolski's thesis is certainly noteworthy: the author never mentions martial arts training at all. The organization known as the Budo Senyokai, for example, is mentioned in rather grandiose terms in Kyotaro Deguchi's biography (as the All-Japan Society for the Promotion of the Martial Arts), but is not mentioned in Nadolski's thesis. Since the organization was established during the period when Omoto established links with ultra-nationalists and the radical Right, Nadolski would have had good cause to discuss it. Moreover, it is in connection with the radical Right that Morihei Ueshiba makes his sole appearance in Nadolski's thesis (as Ueshiba kenshi), but the appearance is actually part of a quotation from the memoirs of Lt. Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, a member of the Army General Staff, and of the Sakurakai (Cherry Blossom Society).Thus, one might wonder, if O Sensei was so prominent a member of Omoto and was so close to Onisaburo Deguchi, as Kisshomaru Ueshiba states that he was, why he completely escapes Nadolski's notice. One might also wonder, given the prominence given to the Omoto suppressions in Nadolski's thesis, why Omoto itself is not even mentioned in the magisterial work by Marius Jansen on the making of modern Japan (details at the end of this column).In one sense, this is not so unusual. Jansen presents the flow of a very broad current, with only the most prominent events allowed to break the surface. The Omoto suppressions do not even cause a ripple. Nadolski's aim is different. He focuses exclusively on the politics of Omoto and how this caused successive governments to respond to the organization. Thus, for Nadolski, much of Jansen's broad current was actually a reaction to two major tidal waves, caused by Omoto and Deguchi. A general history of Omoto would have a wider scope than Nadolski's thesis and would also have a place for Ueshiba and Aiki-budo. Of course, a general history would not be a biography of Onisaburo Deguchi or Morihei Ueshiba. If we continue the marine metaphor, the biographies present their respective subjects as major land masses, around which everything else flows.Nadolski's thesis was presented in 1975 and the bibliography is evidence of his extensive research, using Japanese and non-Japanese sources. The thesis is chronologically based, so Nadolski is able to chart the changing fortunes of Omoto, including the revisions of doctrine made by Deguchi to suit the changing political circumstances, and also to chart the varying degrees of control that Deguchi himself had over the organization of Omoto. Since the thesis has not been published and thus is not freely available, I will base this column and the next on a general summary and analysis of the thesis. The section headings below are the chapter headings from Nadolski's thesis. Nevertheless, each chapter is intended as a peg, on which to hang a more general discussion on Morihei Ueshiba's relations with the Omoto organization.For reasons of length, this discussion of Nadalski's thesis is split into two parts. In this column we will examine the origins of Omoto and the events leading up to the First Suppression of the organization in 1921. The Mongolian Adventure and the events leading to the Second Suppression in 1935 will be considered in the next column.1. Recent Research concerning Japanese ‘Newly Arisen Religions'The first chapter starts from the general attitude to religion espoused by the Tokugawa shoguns: they emphasized centralization, order and control. As a result, later governments inherited a readiness to interfere with religion in a way that non-Japanese might find objectionable, given Meiji Japan's agreement with western powers to allow legal "freedom" of "religion" (The Japanese side had to find new kanji compounds for both of these new and unusual concepts.) Given this background, Nadolski believes that his study of the government's suppression of Omoto is of great interest.Nadolski himself gives four reasons why Omoto is worthy of detailed study. First, Omoto was a highly syncretistic religion, with an ebb and flow of doctrines drawing on established religious traditions and also political events. Secondly, like the postwar art of aikido (though, of course, Nadolski does not mention this), Omoto was created for the ‘masses', and acquired the wealth and means to spread information at grass-roots level. Thirdly, Omoto was thoroughly Japanese, in that it was a faction-ridden religion, spawning numerous offshoots. The theme of an Omoto Achilles withdrawing to his tent in high dudgeon at Agamemnon Deguchi's overbearing attitude—but also having one or two visions and satori experiences, to safeguard the essential connection to the roots—after which he emerged once more in new armor, to lead his bands of Myrmidons into yet more yo-naoshi battles, was often repeated. (Yo-naoshi is world renewal.) Finally, the suppressions of Omoto illuminate the developing political attitudes of successive post-Meiji governments. As Nadolski puts it, "the second suppression set a tone and established legal precedents in the collapse of resistance to government control before the Pacific War". In other words, the way that the government suppressed Omoto, especially during the second suppression, was a very good indication of the way it intended to suppress any kind of resistance to its policies. It was writing on the wall, for all to see.As a consequence of Omoto's character as a ‘mass' religion, effective in spreading information and thus keeping the attention of the government, Nadolski also cites the vast amount of source material available, critical, adulatory, reliable, and propaganda. He ends the first chapter with a brief analysis of the phenomenon of anomie, a concept coined by Durkheim to characterize a state where individuals lack integration in a stable social framework, to an extent that threatens the stability of the framework. This is the negative phenomenon, but usually leads to a positive reaction from a number of individuals. These adopt a ‘code' that reforms their identity and provides a focus and sense of security for the people who gather round the individuals.I am not enough of an anthropologist to know whether or not this model, the work of Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and Anthony F C Wallace, has been superseded. In the case of Meiji Japan, there were a number of instances of this type of response to anomie. One was Omoto; another was the ‘restored emperor system' & kokutai. The interest of Nadolski's thesis is that it is a study of the interplay between the two.Interlude:Myths and DoctrineIn his thesis, Nadolski gives a detailed explanation of how Nao Deguchi created Omoto doctrine and how Ueda Kisaburo (a.k.a. Deguchi Onisaburo) modified it. However, unless a preliminary sketch is given of the myths of the Kojiki & Nihongi, the doctrine will be difficult to understand.The myths of the Kojiki and Nihongi are quite unlike anything in the Bible, though there are ‘western' parallels in Hesiod's Theognis and, of course, in Homer. Ueda Kisaburo used these myths for his new doctrine of Omoto, but Morihei Ueshiba, also, used them as the basis for his explanations of aikido. However, we do not really know how O Sensei studied these myths. To explain what I mean, I present an anecdote.A few years ago, on the occasion of an IAF Congress, I was in the Kinokuniya bookstore in Times Square, which is part of an enormous shopping complex in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Foreign residents of Tokyo gravitate to Kinokuniya, as if drawn by a magnet. I was browsing, when who should I meet in the foreign books section of Kinokuniya but the late Sadateru Arikawa Shihan. I was with Christian Tissier and other members of the French Aikikai, but, on seeing Arikawa Sensei, Christian quickly disappeared behind the book stacks. So I had a 45-minute conversation with Arikawa Sensei in difficult Japanese.Hiroshima is starved of scholarly books in English, so I had bought several books on Japanese culture—including the Kojiki. Arikawa Sensei was very interested in what I had bought and questioned me closely about my interest in Japanese creation myths. So I explained that I was teaching a university course on creation myths and was comparing the Bible and the Kojiki. I also casually mentioned that O Sensei had also studied the Kojiki. Then followed one of those searching exchanges, similar to those conducted on Aikiweb about ‘internal' arts, wherein I was severely checked about how much I really knew. I must have passed the test to some degree, for Arikawa Sensei explained that many of O Sensei's training practices were actually based on his study of the Kojiki and that if I studied what he said and what he did, I would come to understand. He added that O Sensei's studies of the Kojiki were somewhat unorthodox and I have gradually found this to be true.In The Art of Aikido: Principles and Essential Techniques, Kisshomaru Ueshiba stated that in 1920, his father:
"came under the influence of the famous Shinto shaman Deguchi Onisaburo (1871-1948) and he developed a deep interest in ancient Shinto meditation techniques, especially kototama, as espoused by Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), Kiyohara Michihisa, and other mystics." (p.74.)The above is the translation by John Stevens