A CURIOUS SECT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 11, 23 October 1937, Page 11

A CURIOUS SECT.

CULT OF THE WEASELS. A curious sect which set up weasels, snails, bedbugs, and other insects as objects of adoration lias been suppressed by the Japanese police, who have arrested its founder, Aisei Akatsu, and his wife and an associate named Masayulii Takayama on the charge of obtaining money under false pretences, says the ‘‘News-Chronicle.” Akatsu converted his home into a place of worship in 1934 and gave his sect the imposing name. Great Nippon Imperial Buddhist Chancel Praying Worshippers’ Society. Pieces of paper, on which were written the names of various hugs and animals, were placed on the altar to represent the deities. One man paid thirty yen for a quantity of these papers, which, according to Akatsu, would drive out the evil of the 550 reptiles living in his house. There was apparently some mystical significance about the number 550, for the founder of the cult came to grief over a “talisman” which he sold to a woman with the promise that it would drive out the spirits of 550 whales that were preventing her from finding a husband. While it lasted the cult was a reasonably profitable enterprise for its exponents, as it realised 4500 yen (about £250). Sixty followers were paying 20 sen (about 3d) montly dues. Men like Akatsu find a ready audience among the poorer and more ignorant classes because of the Buddhist tendency to endow with some element of spirituality not only animals but inanimate objects which serve human uses. Quite recently 5000 worshippers attended a. service in the Asakusa Kwaunon Temple, celebrated by forty priests in honour of the spirits of silkworms and cotton plants. The priests burned incense and offered prayers before heaps of old string and thread. “This function is an expression of appreciation for services and sacrifices,” declared Tatsugoro Kishima, sponsor of the ceremony. “The Japanese people have become too deeply engrossed in the material things of life and have become selfish.”

Buddhist services are regularly held not only for dead pets, such as dogs and cats, but also for broken and irreparably damaged dolls and toys, for broken needles and other inanimate objects. Schoolgirls sometimes thrust their needles into beancurd paste so that the points can find rest after a year’s hard work.