Spirits in the Japanese Shinto Religion
The Japanese female author Aiko Sato (1923-2026) died at her age of 102 this April.
She was well known by Japanese readers as a daughter of her late famous author named Koroku Sato and as a sister of her late brother named Hachiro Sato, a famous poet. She was a member of a famous family.
But what is particular about her is that she had experienced attacks from evil sprits for decades. It had started when she built a second house in Hokkaido (the biggest northern Island of the Japanese archipelago). Then mysterious things happened in the house where she spent summer to avoid heat in Tokyo.
Pieces of furniture in the house moved around mysteriously; the electricity of the house started to work while none was there; and various sounds started to sound. One day when Aiko and her daughter were in the house, the daughter of her daughter, namely the grandchild of Aiko, changed her direction in sleeping in a baby's bed although the grandchild could not move around. Aiko got nervous and irritated so badly. This strange situation continued even when she came back to Tokyo. The facsimile machine started to sound and present dark papers without real calling. So, she asked for help from various psychics, she felt that there were evil spirits behind these mysterious and evil events.
Some famous psychic told her that he could see a spiritual image of an Ainu man behind Aiko; The Ainu had a grudge to mainland Japanese as they had once killed many Ainu people (racially minority Japanese) to take their lands. And the place Aiko built her summer house was a holy place of Ainu people, so that Aiko became the target of those spirits of past Ainu people. What is worse evil spirits of foxes (well known by Japanese as a type of animals with mysterious spirits) joined the Ainu attacking her.
So, Aiko asked leaders of a Japanese spiritual association for help. They somehow succeeded in driving evil spirits out of her houses in Hokkaido and Tokyo.
But, it was a Japanese associated with the Japanese shinto religion that could finally conquer those evil spirits. As Aiko was not a Christian, she did not ask for help from Christian priests. But, Japanese shnito religion gave the Japanese strong spiritual power. Aiko was finally relieved and saved. She wrote some stories based on her experiences.
Then after her 60s, 70s, and 80s troubled by evil spirits, she died peacefully this spiring in Tokyo.
After her death, her ground daughter wrote that Aiko was actually a faint-hearted woman though Aiko wrote in her books that she had had fought bravely with evil spirits. Aiko wrote her image she wanted to be in her books; she had fought boldly with various evil spirits with help from psychics and religious men to conquer them finally. But as she was actually a faint-hearted woman, she visited many psychics for help mostly in vain. But she finally could contact Seiji Aiso (1910-1999) with spiritual power he had obtained through his long study and training in the shinto religion.
Fight with evil spirits is not unique in Christianity. The Japanese shinto priests and psychics related with the Japanese shinto religion often handle troubles believed to have been caused by evil spirits or Satan. This spiritual tradition is deeply rooted in the Japanese society.
Even in soccer games, Japanese fans of soccer prayed for help from great Shinto spirits while Europeans, etc. pray for help from the Christian God, Jesus Christ, Mother Mary, etc.
And most priests of the Japanese shinto religion respect the Japanese Imperial family. The respect for the Emperor and the Imperial family is based on the belief that the Imperial family has special spiritual power.
However, it is unknown how much Aiko Sato respects the Imperial family, since she must be taught in the spiritual world after her death that there are more powerful good spirits in the spiritual world from whom he should have asked for spiritual help.
Anyway, there are many Japanese who believe that spirits in the Japanese shinto religion are strong enough to conquer evil spirits. But, the Japanese Government seems to believe that security and safety of Japan are assured by the international treaty with the United States of America whose official religion is virtually Christianity.
16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”