Encyclopedia of Shinto

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カテゴリー1： 1. General Introduction
カテゴリー2： Special Topics
カテゴリー1： Special Topics
カテゴリー2： Special Topics
Title
Female Founders and Shamanesses
Text
Among the founders of the many Shinto-derived New Religions (Shintōkei shinshūkyō), there have been a number who claim to have been chosen as vehicles to be "ridden" by kami (kamigakari). Among the female founders, in particular, there is a relatively large number who proclaimed their "distinction" of having experience(s) as kamigakari. In 1838 Nakayama Miki of Tenrikyō, in the middle of a "spirit-inviting ceremony" (yose kaji), was suddenly gripped by a kami in a state that continued uninterrupted for three days and nights. During that experience, a kami identified itself as "the one original and true kami," a kami that, in Tenrikyō today, is called Tenriō no mikoto. Likewise the foundress of Ōmoto, named Deguchi, on the Lunar New Year of 1892, suddenly had a vision in which the Golden kami of the northeast descended to relate an eschatologic message of the end of the world. Kitamura Sayo of Tenshōkōtaijingūkyō, in 1944, the spirit possessing her began to speak from her abdomen and in the following year witnessed the descent/advent of the absolute kami of the universe to this world.
The kami that descended into the female founders go by various names, some identifying themselves by an original name, and others identifying themselves by names that can also be found in classical Shinto scriptures. In a relatively recent example, Komatsu Shinyō of the Shinmeiaishinkai, had both such experiences— after first communing with a dragon-kami, in 1976 she also communed with Amaterasu ōmikami.

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