Rezensionen
327
Anthropos 81.1986
which took their toll, the author mentions mainly that a
member who proselytized new members may not be able
to call regular meetings because of other obligations and
so the new members may lose contact. But is this, if not
the only, the main reason for alienation? It might have
been helpful to know more about this negative kind of
appraisal also in order to situate the group better in the
rest of society.
Let me take up a few points that are of particular
importance. I must say that this is a rather arbitrary
selection which does not mean that other points are not
equally important in this fine book. And since some of my
following remarks will look somewhat negative I would
like to underline at the outset that they are not mere
negative criticism but further considerations of someone
who is in basic agreement with the author.
Against earlier studies Hardacre holds that Japan’s
new religions cannot be explained as nothing more than an
expressive reaction against a crisis situation. She says and
in fact shows that Reiyükai Kyódan is not only an
expression of crisis but an instrument to solve that crisis
satisfactorily and lastingly. The solution basically consists
in redressing the equilibrium of two cosmos bound togeth
er by reciprocity, namely, the microcosmos of the family
and the macrocosmos of the world of the ancestors.
Disequilibrium of any kind in these worlds results from
bad karma which has to be corrected or redressed by the
power of sutra recitation. Hardacre shows with concrete
examples from members’ witnessings how people in crisis
situations would turn to reciting the sutra and find a means
to overcome the situation by joining the religion. It is
therefore clear that this joining becomes instrumental for
the solution on one side, on the other side I agree with
Hardacre when she says that the earlier crisis theory does
not account for the reasons why people stayed with their
religion once their crisis is overcome or if they were
members of second and third generation. I am not so sure,
however, whether her own material allows for saying that
later generations stay with the religion “quite apart from
any sense of ‘crisis’.” Custom and family tradition or
group pressure may play their part here, but we are also
told repeatedly that leaders in their addresses to the
believers give expression to concerns about the path Japan
is following after the War. At the same time they
propound a very traditionalistic ideal of what a Japanese
family has to be, an ideal which is in conflict with much of
the present situation. And since this conflict is made
conscious again and again, would it be too much to
imagine that this has consequences in such a way that a
member, although not suffering from any personal crisis,
has an accute feeling of crisis affecting the community as a
whole? Besides, the reasons for such a crisis are under
stood to be the same as those of a personal crisis, i.e., bad
karma. Not that I would say this religion is upheld by
nothing but an accute feeling for crisis and a missionary
spirit to help solve the crisis, but I have the impression
that the author, in her right endeavor to correct an older
opinion, may have forced her own position too much.
Another very important point is what the ancestors,
the center of this religion, mean. In general, there is good
reason when speaking of the ancestors in Japan to make a
distinction between the household (re) as an ideological
entity and as a factual entity. Although it is seen mainly as
a unilineal entity it does in fact not preclude the inclusion
of non-unilineal persons according to some particular
decision of the re’s members. What is, however, important
in Hardacre’s study is the fact that Reiyukai, as a matter of
principle, reckons the ancestors from a bilateral point of
view. From this emerges a quite interesting situation,
namely in such a way that, inspite of the ideological
emphasis given to the ie and its continuity, the ancestors
are conceived and organized centering on a voluntary
group, which is the whole group of the believers in the last
instance. But even on the level of the particular family the
ancestors addressed are focussed on the couple that makes
up the present family. This concept of bilateral ancestors
might be of special importance for the future of ancestor
worship in Japan, especially in the face of the fast
increasing numbers in so-called nuclear families. There are
indications which seem to point to such a development as
being possible, but it is still too early to see a clear trend,
and I cannot be as confident as the author seems to be in
assuming that the situation she describes accounts for the
majority of the population. If we consider mainly the
cities, where the new religions find their most fertile
ground, such an assumption would not be out of place, but
the rest of the population should not be disregarded too
lightly.
A third point I want to mention is the emphasis
Hardacre gives to the fact that Reiyukai Kyddan is a lay
movement, or better quite explicitly an anti-clerical move
ment. This has special importance in the question of
transferring merit to the ancestors which in Reiyukai’s
view can be done directly by the believer. This way there
is a direct and at the same time reciprocal relation
established between the believer and the ancestors. In
contrast to this, says the author, in the priestly model the
priest transfers merit only one way, viz. to the ancestor.
This is true insofar as the priest’s role goes, but at least, as
far as I have experienced in my own research in rural
areas, people do expect that their ancestors show appre
ciation by protecting the ie in some form. I must add,
however, that this idea is mostly taken for granted in such
a way that it is not expressivly formulated unless there is
special reason to do so, as, e.g., really unexpected luck of
some kind. But it finds expression in a negative form, if
things go wrong over a longer period of time. Then it is
very likely that the reason for misfortune may be diag
nosed as being the lack of ritual attention given to the
ancestors. For this reason Hardacre is right when she says
that there are no clearly stated provisions, what will
happen in such cases, nor are there clear ideas about the
ancestors and their form of existence (147), but this
reflects, to my mind, a general characteristic of Japanese
religion in the sense that somewhat clearly delineated
concepts are often formulated only if there is a specific
need for doing so. And this might be exactly the case with
Reiyukai Kyddan itself where the ancestors are not just a
diffuse center of religious activity, but where they are the
conscious center of attention and the causative explanation