Magic, Sorcery, and Geomancy in Japanese History

At the heart of Japanese society lies something mystic that many people have tried to place over the years. People travel to the dazzling heights of Mt. Fuji to experience the awe it bestows on them. For westerners, we have no words to describe this feeling or this experience, but for the Japanese there are many factors that determine why it is. While there are many avenues that this could be taken through I will specifically target the connection of Lady Nijo to sexual relations and religious practiced during the Tokugawa era, and the use of magic and Kami in the mid 1900's.

Before I continue on the path of highlighting these aspects of Japanese culture, there are some terms that need to be broken down. Magic, sorcery, and Geomancy, have certain connotations in western society and while they are not radically different in Japanese culture, they are different to a point that they need to be separated from preconceived thought. Geomancy, in African culture for example, could rely on throwing dirt in the air and discerning how the dirt landed to determine certain events or make a prophecy. While this has been included to a certain extent in Japan's culture through the use of turtle shells and bones, in this article it will take a certain flavor in appeasing the kami, or focusing a group's energy.

On the same topic, magic in Japanese society is not used in the same way it had been in Europe. Magic was not something that was used to put a "hex" on someone because they had slighted you or done something wrong. Nor was it something that the inquisition could burn you at the stake if you were seen practicing it. No, Japan is and was very much a land of tolerance when it came to religious practices (for the most part), even those that would seem arcane. Magic or sorcery was used in a way to influence one's one destiny by pleasing kami or warding off bad spirits. It was also used as a form of divination by using magic numbers, much in the way many other civilizations have done in the past. It can also be seen in their tattoo are as a way of influencing their own destiny's. It started as a magic armor on a person's body; each person's specific in a way to balance their energy and protect them from harm, moving into a form or rebellion for those who were not allowed to wear armor due to their class in society.

But let us get down to business. In Karen Brazell's translation of, Confessions of lady Nijo, there are many instances of Geomancy and sorcery, while it may have been implied rather than explicitly stated. I will attempt to approach two subjects here at once because I would like to show the "super naturalness" or attempts to practice sorcery in both sexual and religious practices. During the later tokugawa era there is a very prominent sexual occurrence that goes hand in hand with the religious practices of the times. This will be shown to tie in nicely with lady nijo, as she is both a nun, as well as concubine throughout her lifetime. One very specific instance of Geomancy, or divination, during Lady Nijo's lifetime is on page 188 when she is recovering from sickness on her travels to various shrines. She comments on how before when she was at the palace and she had something as slight as a runny nose that the emperor would send:

"Numerous diviners and doctors would be summoned, a family heirloom or prized horse would be offered to a god or Buddha renowned for miracles, and people would fuss over me and feed me rare nanrei oranges or Kempo pears."

Previously in Japanese culture, one would call for a diviner just as much as one would call for a doctor when they were sick. While the doctor would be able to tell the certain ailment, the diviner would be able to tell the reason for this happening. As well as the summoning those familiar in the arts of fortune telling, there was also "a family heirloom or prized horse would be offered to a god or Buddha renowned for miracles." The magical properties or sacrifice has been seen in many other cultures and civilizations and is not unique to Japan. Whether it was the Mayan's in sacrifice to their sun god, or the Japanese and their offering of prized possessions, they were both used to instill a positive response from a higher power.

Before I continue any further, I would like to clarify a few things. The question or religious practices such as prayer, can these not be seen as magic or sorcery, even geomancy? These are beyond the realm of normal human capacity and therefore can fall into the realm of magic. Is asking the gods for help in the future and acting out a prescribed ritual to give you the answer, whether it be from a god or a man, not divining the future? Therefore I believe that, while it may be considered anti-religious, for the sake of this research that most religious festivals and practices can fall into the category or magic or geomancy. Now the idea of divine retribution or a willful act of a god to punish humans, such as a tsunami which is believed to have been because of wrongful doing of the people, does not fall into the same categories as festivals or practices. You could say that the previous two are attempts by humans to control or influence their destiny through "extra" normal means which constitutes the term geomancy.

With that being cleared out of the way, you could say that every prayer in Confessions of Lady Nijo, or religious festival partaken in, was a willful act of geomancy. By asking for the grace of the Buddha Amida, Lady Nijo was asking for her life to in some way be influenced by a power outside of herself. For this reason, books four and five of COLN, have extremely large and poignant magical undertones.

A perfect example of this would be when she travels to the Itsukushima shrine. During this time she is witnessing the Shaman Priestesses practice for an upcoming festival. The dance for the festival in which they were performing was to inspire the kami of the area and to bring good fortune upon their area. It is at this point that I would like to point out the absence of Shinto throughout most of this book. After reading through the book for the first time a statement like that does not make much sense but when pulled together in a larger context it seems to be questionably missing. While our character Lady Nijo does visit many Shinto shrines, she partakes of none of the Shinto practices. At first glance that would make sense considering that she is a Buddhist nun and therefore has no reason to. But if she is a Buddhist nun, they why is she visiting Shinto shrines in the first place and not only Buddhist temples. This is where we can start to see the blending of Shinto and Buddhism in Japanese society. She makes no mention of it at all in her diaries because to be of one religion did not supersede Shinto. To visit Shinto shrines was not blasphemy in the eyes of Buddhism. It was not considered the same say if you were a Christian and went to a temple of Zeus to worship. For Christianity there is a fundamental difference between itself and all other non monotheistic religions.

For lady Nijo though, and for a larger Japanese culture as a whole, there was no distinction between practiced religions. So while at first glance there seems to be an absence of Shinto in her diaries, it is in fact included in everything she does. There is an absence of the mention of Shinto because it is blended so closely with all other religious (and in our case magical) aspects of her life that she doesn't see a difference and therefore does not mention it.

In relation to Confessions of Lady Nijo, The River Ki, by Sawako Ariyoshi, shows many magical undertones in a central theme throughout the book. In The River Ki, the three main characters continually visit the Jison-in temple of their local area. While the temple itself does not provide the magical undertones, it is the rituals that they perform there. As the character Hana is preparing for child birth she goes to the temple and performs a ritual which is supposed to bring good luck to both the mother and the child during birth and rearing. The expectant mother makes a breast charm, one that looks like a nipple. After making this she walks up to the altar and hangs it with previous charms made by previous mothers. While no chant is made during this ritual it is clear what it is trying to do. Through symbols of fertility the mother to be is asking for good fortune to be brought to her, and is making a physical effort to effect that. This is not the same as praying for good health of the child though; this is a way of physically altering, in her mind, the reality of the situation in a positive light towards herself. She is attempting to impose her will and thoughts on the physical world through a metaphysical entity. This is done more than once throughout the book and while it is used as a story telling device it is also part of the magic of the River Ki.

Moving on though I would like to now approach the subject of geomancy specifically in Japanese society. The Japanese have many customs when building things such as cities, temples, shrines and houses. One of the most obvious uses of geomancy to bring good energy among the people is when designing city plans. In Arne Kalland's article, geomancy and town planning in Japan, he notes that cities were broken down into two categories for planning:

"...isolates two structures, the diametric structure, whereby a settlement is divided into two halves by an axis; and the concentric structure, where the settlement is divided up into concentric circles, the center being of the most importance."

He goes on to say how Japanese geomancy has been heavily influenced by Chinese fengshui. Many of Japanese magic and geomancy practices, other than ones native to their culture, stem from Chinese practices. He notes that much of this came over when Japan went through its cultural borrowing stage from china and adopted many of their techniques such as their writing style along with their architecture. With these guiding principles of fengshui, the Japanese did not only relegate this practice to the planning of their cities but also to the planning of their houses, the location of furniture, which way the house was facing, and what time of day to chant the sutras. In the chanting of the sutras we again see the blending of different ideas and practices from multiple religions. Fengshui is not a Buddhist idea but chanting of the sutras most certainly is. The line between what was Japanese and what was Chinese is blurred again by the naming of the streets

Honmachi, or Main Street, was named not because it had anything to do with being the center of the town or being a major street. In fact, any street named Honmachi was always put near the docks or by the fisherman. This came from the Confucian idea that fisherman were more important in society than traders. This sentiment would continue throughout Japan for many hundreds of years as traders and merchants would be seen as one of the lowest classes on the totem pole in Japanese society.

From the idea of Fengshui, two Chinese schools of thought can be discerned. While the form- or the shape-school geomancer "reads" the geomantic qualities of the landscape (particularly in relation to the mountains and the water) and the mutual influences of the five elements (wood, water, fire, wind, metal) on a site, the analytical or compass school expert relates the site to its celestial orientation (Kalland, 20).

Moving onto a smaller scale the Japanese expended massive amounts of time and energy when planning how to orient a house to fit into the proper energies. The used a compass which was broken down into eight sectors each named after a hexagram from the Taoist Yin-yang school of thought. Each of the 8 sectors is then subdivided again into 3 more sectors bringing it to 24 sectors each occupying 15 degrees on the compass. It is then connected with the 5 earth signs to create an incredibly complex map for aligning streets, houses, all the way down to objects within a house. All of this can be seen with the placement of two shrines located in the cities of Tokyo and Kyoto. On the compass, the northwest of it is considered the demon's gate. Because of this when traveling to those two cities you will notice that both of the shrines are facing to the northwest in an effort to protect the city from evil influence. Second to only the demon's gate is considered the back demon's gate facing southwest. When plotting the location of Shinto shrines one will begin to notice that there is a serious population of shrines that are located at the Northwest and Southwest corner of every city. This can also be seen on a smaller scale if one is to look into building, houses, or even a person's room. These measures are put in place in nearly every aspect of building layout and construction. The Japanese people took great responsibility in assembling altars and running water as ways to ward themselves from evil influence and spirits.

One can compare the historic aspect of these shrines and placement in Japanese society, but one will also notice that many buildings are still done in this way. With what little ground the Japanese have to build on, almost all buildings plans are taken a look at by the owner/builder's home shaman to check for the correctness of the alignment. Along with this the shaman priest is also brought once the building is completed to christen the building and ward off any evil spirits that may reside there. This is an idea and practice that has been put use for many hundreds of years and permeates throughout many ages of Japanese society.

While we are on the subject of cultural borrowing, I believe it is entirely appropriate to talk about the influence of Taoism on Japanese society. Taoism came to Japan from china around the 6^th century A.D. over the course of a few centuries it had turned into something completely different in the Japanese culture though. It turned into a form of Japanese cosmology which came to be known as Onmyōdō(陰陽道). This came to be a conglomerate of Shinto, Buddhism, and Taoism and was accepted as a practical form of divination. It is considered much in the same way as astrology is here in America. It became known as onmyodo at the end of the 7^th century and was actually band by the imperial government and regarded as superstition. It wasn't until the 19^th century when the ban on onmyodo was finally lifted and is practiced even today by many Japanese as a way of personal fortune telling. Before it was banned in the early 10^th century, there was actually a department of the government to relegate the responsibility of onmyodo as it was practiced also as a way of the death rituals. It became so popular at one point that the creation of the Japanese calendar was relegated solely to the onmyodo-ryo, or the department of onmyodo. They were also held responsible for divinations of the imperial court as well as astrological observations. Unfortunately it was buried from the heian era on until religious freedom was granted at the end of the 1800's.

It is because of this that Taoism has had a heavy influence, although subtle, in Japanese culture throughout the ages. Taoism is very similar to Shinto in that it is an indigenous religion, although Taoism is hermetic while Shinto is more shamanistic. Many Japanese superstitions show their roots in Taoist texts as well as the Japanese concept of demons and spirits. The irony of Taoism in Japanese history and society, is while it is shown in an innumerable number of influences in past and present Japan, it was never truly its own, organized religion in Japan. This may have been due to its closeness and affinity to Shinto that may have attributed to its non-religious status. It also may have had much to the assimilation of many different aspects of different religions into Shinto. While different religions have been known to adapt themselves to fit into Japanese culture, Japanese culture has also taken parts of foreign influence and integrated them into their own practices.

Fast forwarding several hundred years brings us to the tokugawa period of Japanese history. Despite being the rough equivalent of "pax romana" in Japan, there was a definitive change happening in both the sexual and religious realm of the time. According to Janine Sawada's, Sexual relations as Religious practice in the Late tokugawa period, male and female roles were going under some profound changes in the way they both practiced their religion, but also performed sex, which when framed in larger context showed social change in Japanese society. Janine posits that:

"The body served as a kind of coping mechanism- one could use it either to escape or to control the disorder of one's life-world. Just as the various forms of asobi (play) promised to enhance or anticipate the joys associated with eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse, a number of cultivation programs of the time linked the regulation of these bodily functions to individual and social well-being, and, indeed, to the maintenance of overarching natural and cosmic forces. Control of the body in these groups was therefore a moral and religious matter."

What this means is that Japanese society was going through a change in ways to help deal with the stress of life by controlling it through religious or humanistic ways. This could be seen with the physician Inoue Masakane (1790-1849), who founded the new religion misogikyo, taught that a particular style of breathing would lead to religious salvation. The practice, which involved rhythmically exhaling in conjunction with chanting Shinto prayer syllables, would foster not only unity with amaterasu and other Shinto deities, but also moral purity, physical health, and family happiness (Sawada, 342). What we are seeing in this time period is a shift to self controlled, physiological practices to better one's own social and religious life. Now, how does this end up affecting the sexual practices of the Japanese at this time you may be wondering. A religious community sprang up near the base of Mt. Fuji which it is named for. It started as a small religious movement that spread to the larger part of Japan. They believed in cosmic restoration which required that both men and women perform rituals and share equal importance. The requirement that a woman be present in a male dominated ritual is not unheard of in the history of the world's religions. But in Fujido, they envision the role of the female principle that goes way beyond a symbolic presence in an all male practice. Men and women of the Fujido faith had different roles in different rituals in which both were required to play the dominant role. The primary leader of the faith, Kotani Sanshi wrote this in order to show the change from male dominated sex to the passing of the torch to the female

Revise the marital act

With the woman on top and the man underneath

The nature of woman is water;

It flows downward

Man is fire and therefore rises upward

Until now the marital act was enacted back to back

If woman and man embrace each other in the reverse

They will create a harmonious seed.

This passage can be taken to mean that women, who had traditionally been at the bottom of the social hierarchy, would now take a leading role over men in the family and society of the world, the reversal was mean to provide good relations between spouses and in turn providing good children.

"This kind of social restoration is a large part of Sanshi's meaning when he writes of the exchanging of positions; the reversal of the conjugal act represents a broad social and psychological transformation in gender relations. For example, in contrast to the early Japanese myth in which the female deity izanami is reprimanded by her male partner for speaking first during their courtship ritual, sanshi predicted that women would now take initiative in the bedroom (Sawada, 348):

A long time ago, brides were bashful

Even their replies remained in their mouths

The manner of speaking of new brides now

Will be speech that surpasses that of men

They will not act shyly at all

On the night the bride comes to be married, she will be unable to wait

The woman will speak first

The man will reply, yes! Yes!

And he will seem bashful.

All of this can be seen to be a paradigm shift in Japanese society, albeit a small one, that is profoundly different than any before it. Instead of just giving women power, it gave them responsibility and a joint need to take care of the religious rituals as well as the family.

How does all this fall back into magic? When describing the religious rights and rituals, Sawada is specifically talking about Shinto ones. They are not Buddhist influenced nor do they take from other religions as influences. They practice the Shinto rights as well as magic's to influence the deities, and this specific instance, the Kami of Mt. Fuji. Where this shows profound differences is of course now that women are partaking in these rituals which has spread to other forms of Japanese culture. The difference between Fujido and other religions is that after the tokugawa ended they did not see themselves as sociopolitical institutions as well and were not granted the same rights that others were.

All in all, the supernatural has played a large role in Japanese society. It has taken many forms and influence many generations of Japanese people. Many of those influences can be seen today in the Taoist yin and yang symbols along with the placement of Shinto shrines in the northwest and southwest corners of every city and house. We can see the Geomancy in the very layout of the country as each city was designed around the idea of channeling good energies, an idea that continues down onto a micro scale all the way to someone's room. We have seen Magic and sorcery be behind a shift towards equality in the tokugawa era as women took a large step forward in their social, political, religious, and sexual identity. All of these factors have weighed in on the Japanese culture, most of it which can still be seen today, even in Japanese mainstream culture. Japan, more than any other culture, has showed its adherence and respect for its past, one that shines through as a beacon for them all.

Sources:

Brazell, Karen, Trans. The Confessions of Lady Nijo. New York, NY: Stanford UP, 1973. 181-229.

Kalland, Arne. "Geomancy and Town planning in a Japanese Community." Ethnology 35 (1996): 17-32.

Renshaw, Steven. "Ancient Japanese geomancy and astrology and modern day influences." Thesis. Journal of Japanese studies 23 (1997): 261-85.

Sawada, Janine. "Sexual relations as religious practice in the late Tokugawa." Journal of Japanese Studies 32 (2006): 341-52.

Schnell, Scott. "Are mountain Gods vindictive, competing images of Japanese alpine landscape." Journal of Royal Anthropology Institute 13 (2007): 863-80.

York, Michael, and Mikirou Zitakawa. "Expanding religious Studies: the obsolescence of the sacred/secular framework for pagan, earthen, and indigenous religions." Pomegranate 9 (2007): 78-97.