Encyclopedia of Shinto

Main Menu:   
Links:   

詳細表示 (Complete Article)

カテゴリー1： 8. Schools, Groups, and Personalities
カテゴリー2： Modern Sectarian Groups
Title
Makoto no Michikyō
Text
A religious movement founded by Matsumoto Jōtarō (September 1881-1944). Originally born into the Yamaoka family in a mountain village in Ehime Prefecture, Matsumoto began a rice business upon reaching adulthood but it proved a failure. He also tried his hand at a variety of other occupations, including making wooden clogs, selling clogs and tobacco, and charcoal making, but in part due his suffering from serious illness, none of his jobs turned out well.
In 1921 Matsumoto, who had become absorbed in the study of charcoal manufacture, met a devotee from the Matsuyama branch church of Konkōkyō. Matsumoto spent two days and nights in religious practice at the branch church, and after returning home, he finally succeeded in producing the high-quality charcoal he had been seeking. At this, he realized that "nothing can succeed without divine assistance," and based on this realization, he joined Konkōkyō and devoted himself to religious practices.
From around 1923 he found himself with the ability to assist numerous people who came to visit him, and while maintaining his job he not only continued his religious practice at the Matsuyama branch church, but engaged in other austerities as well, such as making a pilgrimage on foot to Konkōkyō's Tamamizu branch church in Osaka and climbing Mount Ishizuchi. After moving to Kinuyama in Matsuyama City, he received an increasing number of devotees, but also began to experience pressure from the police; on one occasion in 1930 he was ordered to cease his activities for twenty days. To gain the right to engage in proselytization, Matsumoto entered Konkōkyō's doctrinal studies institute and became a religious teacher of Konkōkyō, establishing the Hisaeda branch church of Konkōkyō in 1931.
Various problems continued to plague his efforts, however, with the result that he resigned his position as Konkōkyō teacher in 1933. Since he had attracted numerous devotees to the religious center (in Konkōkyō called a hiromae) he had established at Kinuyama, however, he decided to found a new group called Shinseikai the same year. In 1934 this group became the Makoto no Michi Kyōkai (church) affiliated with the religion Fusōkyō.
In 1944 the founder died and Matsumoto Tadayoshi (?-1953) became second-generation superintendent (kanchō) of the group. In 1946 the group became independent of Fusōkyō and was registered under the poswar Religious Corporations Ordinance (Shūkyō Hōjinrei) as Makoto no Michikyō. Its current Superintendent is Matsumoto Yoshiharu, who took office in 1978.
The influence of Konkōkyō on the group is evident in the fact that even after resigning from his position as a religious teacher in Konkōkyō, the founder Matsumoto continued to make pilgrimages to the Konkōkyō' headquarters and to expound the teachings of Konkōkyō's founder Konkō Daijin. As a result, the movement's ritual and religious forms closely resemble those of prewar Konkōkyō's, including the performance of rites of otoritsugi (spiritual intercession between kami and follower, mediated by a spiritual teacher) at religious centers called hiromae. The group claims that even though the religions are different, their views about the principles governing heaven and earth and the path of truth are the same, and that they both transmit unchanged the teachings of the founder of Konkōkyō.
Headquarters: Ehime Prefecture
Nominal membership: approximately 8,800 (M)

— Fukushima Shinkichi

Pronunciation in Japanese/用語音声

No movie/映像なし