How about Demons? by Felicitas D. Goodman

Author:Felicitas D. Goodman [Goodman, Felicitas D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Religion, Demonology & Satanism, Social Science, Folklore & Mythology, Body; Mind & Spirit, Occultism
ISBN: 9780253014627
Google: P3xiAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 1988-05-22T03:29:04+00:00

After this initial possession, Miki continued having similar experiences. She also started giving away everything the family owned, apparently upon divine command, even having the family home torn down. If her demands were refused, she reacted with severe convulsions. These actions constituted her initiation. Some years after its completion, it was discovered that she possessed miraculous healing powers, especially granting painless childbirth. Her fame spread, and with the help of an adherent, Izo Iburi, an efficient administrator, her following was organized into a fast-growing sect. In 1869 she started writing a very long poem in trance, an Ofudesaki or transmission of her revelations. It took fifteen years to complete, and together with other revelations it formed the body of teachings of her sect, which was officially recognized a few years after her death in 1887.

As a second example, let us look at the life of Kitamura Sayo, called Ōgamisama, the founder of Tensho Kōtai Jingukyō, popularly known as the Dancing Religion. She was born to a farmer’s family in 1900 and at twenty was married to a weak and colorless man, whose mother mistreated and starved her outrageously.

[She started] various ascetic religious practices, which she continued for a couple of years until in 1944 she became aware that there was another being inside her body with conversed with her and ordered her about. This entity announced itself to be a snake by the name of Tobyo. It explained many things to her, of the past and the future and of her previous lives. It also gave correct weather forecasts and lessons in laundering and cooking, together with useful advice on diet and vitamins. Its advice was always good, but if for any reason Ogamisama were to disobey its commands she was immediately racked with agonising pains. [Thomsen quotes her as telling that it would say, “If you disobey me, I will kick your stomach to give you internal hemorrhage, or I shall beat your head and give you cerebral hemorrhage. Which do you prefer?” (1963:201)] She soon found that she only had to open her mouth for sermons and songs to pour forth from the being inside her. (1975:135)

The early life of the founder of the powerful Ōmoto sect, Deguchi Nao, born in 1837, is also characterized by frightful suffering in childhood, poverty, a disastrous marriage, and the deaths of several of her eleven children. In 1890 one of her married daughters went insane, and the following year the same fate befell her eldest daughter.

A few days after this latest and culminating disaster, in January 1892, Nao had a vivid dream that she was wandering in the spirit world. A day or two later she fell suddenly into a violent state of trance. Her body almost tore apart with the strain, she leapt up and down from a sitting position while loud roars like those of a wild beast burst from the pit of her stomach. In the course of this seizure an extraordinary dialogue is said to have taken place between her own voice and the terrible “stomach” voice of the deity inside her.

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