A Cult Seeks the True Light

Today Sukyo Mahikari has anywhere from half a million to a million followers, depending on whose estimates you believe, in dozens of countries worldwide. It has 18 centers in the U.S. alone, including one in Manhattan. Mahikari's beliefs are an eclectic mix, encompassing reincarnation, spirits and even apocalyptic Christianity. Okada claimed that he was sent to finish what Moses and Jesus had started. In the 1970s and 1980s the movement's followers, at least in Japan, tended to become possessed by evil spirits and act rather dramatically, contorting themselves on the floor, fencing with invisible swords, stealing sake to drink.

But Mahikari is by no means just a religion for kooks. Most people are attracted to it for its energy-healing practices. Nor does its membership consist mainly of Japanese expatriates. At a recent thanksgiving ceremony there were maybe 200 men, women and children, black, white and Asian, Spanish- and Russian-speaking, in a plainly furnished sanctuary on an upper floor of a Madison Ave. office building.

In Japan, belief in spirits?ancestral, animal, demonic or benevolent?is fairly common. In America, somewhat less so. This doesn't seem to have limited Mahikari's local appeal too much. The Manhattan chapter head, a calm white man with graying hair and a slow, soothing air about him, didn't hesitate to attribute the "increase in malicious juvenile crime around the world" to "how much young people are being manipulated by attached spirits." His evidence? A press report quoting some hapless young criminal as saying that "something within me" led him to act.

Mahikari, of course, has the true light?the weapon with which to counter such spiritual interference, which manifests itself not just in violence but in disease, injury, and career or romantic setbacks. In other words, what others might call bad luck. For Mahikari there is no such thing. What may look and feel like misfortune is actually opportunity, the opportunity to experience a "cleansing" that brings one closer to becoming a "yokoshi," a "person of light." Giving and receiving light is Mahikari's central healing ritual. At the Madison Ave. center, members testified about how they used the light in their own lives. One woman explained how her job at Coney Island Hospital gave her plenty of opportunities to give light to patients, with miraculous results, much to the dismay of the nursing staff.

You don't have to be a Mahikari member to receive light or attend ceremonies. Members do have to go through training courses, and in the end are given an ornate cross-shaped pin. Former members Dean and Jean Logan of North Carolina claim on their website that they had to pay for their pins, and pledge to give a certain amount of money each month in order to remain Mahikari members. They also say members are told that their pins are holy amulets, necessary for channeling the healing light.

It's hard to know if such statements are reliable. Many ex-Mahikari members have a lot of bad things to say about the group, ranging from ambiguous complaints of "control" to mentions of the group's supposed links with Aum Shinrikyo (authors of the poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway a few years back) to allegations of anti-Semitism?for example, using The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion in advanced training classes. Mahikari has countered these reports, stating that they have Jewish members. Ex-members of what are known to academics as "new religions" are notorious for their score-settling ways, and the shadowy rumors about Mahikari, including that it has been investigated by the authorities in several other countries, are hard to confirm, especially since staff at the Manhattan center wouldn't talk to the press.

"We're a spiritual organization," they said. "We do everything by word of mouth."

The organization does seem to be on a French Parliament list of suspicious religious "sects," one that includes many other groups, including Scientology. The list has been criticized by religious freedom advocates in the U.S. Winston Davis, a professor at Washington & Lee and author of the only academic book on Mahikari, claims via e-mail that while he knows the group to have a "fascist" streak, he was surprised by the allegations of overt anti-Semitism. Whether the group is harmless or sinister, its prime digs, diverse membership and efficient organization (including a youth cadre) make it one to keep an eye on.