Category: Sukyo Mahikari

Yes to the yen?

A donation to establish a Japanese cultural center at the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from a controversial religious sect has opened up a Pandora’s box of accusations and counter-accusations, pitting members of the University’s Department of East Asian Studies against each other while the Hebrew University remains strangely mute. On January 10, the university inaugurated the Japanese Culture Center in Israel (JCCI) to serve as a bridge between Japan and Israel through the promotion of Japanese culture in this country. Several sources have contributed to the establishment of the center. A major donation (12 million

Cancer patients turn to Japanese faith healing

Kathmandu, July 25: A controversial four-decade-old Japanese cult, whose first disciples were bar girls, has now found a different kind of following in Nepal – cancer patients. Sukyo Mahikari is a religious movement started in 1959 by Japanese mystic Okada Yoshikazu, who envisioned bathing the world with a light that would heal believers but destroy non-believers. Okada, who began his career with the imperial army, turned to spiritual healing after receiving a severe back injury in the Pacific War and subsequently being diagnosed with tuberculosis of the spine. When Western medicines failed to cure him, Okada became an active member

Cult with terror link sets up London base

A doomsday millennium cult, members of which have been linked by police to the terrorists who killed 12 people in a sarin gas attack in Japan, has established a London base and recruited scores of members in Britain. The Sukyo Mahikari cult – said by former members to propagate neo-Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda – was denounced last year by witnesses at an official parliamentary inquiry as “dangerous”. Police have linked some members of the cult to Aum Shinrikyo, the terrorist sect whose leaders are facing charges of mass murder after the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Former

Japanese sect in spotlight

AUM’S AUSSIE FRIENDS A Japanese doomsday religious sect, deeply infused with anti-Semitism, and supported by the wife of the WA Premier, is being scrutinised by authorities in Australia for possible links with the terrorist Aum Supreme Truth sect responsible for the fatal gas attack on a Tokyo subway two years ago. Australian Federal Police, acting on an international alert, have begun interviewing former members of the sect, Sukyo Mahikari, who have spoken out against it. Sukyo Mahikari has, behind a facade of benign spiritual enlightenment, a doctrine based on world domination and veneration of the Emperor of Japan. It is