Onisaburo Deguchi


Onisaburo Deguchi, born Kisaburō Ueda 上田 喜三郎 was a Japanese religious leader. Together with his mother-in-law Nao Deguchi, he was one of the two spiritual leaders of the Oomoto religious movement in Japan. While Nao Deguchi is the Foundress of Oomoto, Onisaburo Deguchi is the Holy Teacher.

Biography

Onisaburo had studied Honda Chikaatsu's Spirit Studies and also learned to mediate spirit possession from Honda's disciple Nagasawa Katsutate in Shimizu, Shizuoka. Starting from March 1, 1898, he followed a hermit named Matsuoka Fuyō, who was a messenger of the kami Kono-hana-saku-ya-hime-no-mikoto, to a cave on Mount Takakuma near Kameoka, Kyoto, where Onisaburo performed intense ascetic training for one week. While enduring cold weather with only a cotton robe, as well as hunger and thirst, Onisaburo received divine revelations and claimed to have traveled into the spirit world.
Onisaburo met the founder of Omotokyo in 1898 and in 1899 they established the Kinmeikai, later called Kinmei Reigakkai. In 1900, Kisaburō married Nao's fifth daughter Sumi and adopted the name Deguchi Onisaburō. Oomoto teaches that the guardian spirit of Nao is Amaterasu, described as a male spirit in a female body, and Onisaburo's spirit is Susanowo, a female spirit in a male body.
In 1905, he published Michi no Shiori, for which Esperanto and Portuguese translations were published in 1997. Another book similar in length and topic, Michi no Hikari, was also published. Onisaburo Deguchi also wrote the Three Mirrors or San Kagami, which consists of the Water Mirror, Moon Mirror, and Jade Mirror.
In 1908, he and Deguchi Nao founded the Dai Nihon Shūseikai, which in 1913 became Taihonkyō and in 1916 the Kōdō Ōmoto. Soon afterwards, he began publishing a periodical journal called Shinreikai. In 1923, he learned Esperanto, an international planned language, and introduced it to the activities of Oomoto. In 1924, retired naval captain Yutaro Yano and his associates within the Black Dragon Society invited Onisaburo on a journey to Mongolia. Onisaburo led a group of Oomoto disciples, including Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba. Ikki Kita had previously been sent to China by the Black Dragon Society and had proposed in for Esperanto to be the only language spoken in the Empire of Japan.
During the Ōmoto Incident, he had been detained for about six years and a half since his arrest in 1935.
He is remembered as a jovial patriarch of that school and is best known to Westerners as a teacher and religious instructor of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido.
A believer in the Oomoto maxim that it was humanity's duty to move forward together, bringing about a new age of existence on Earth, Onisaburo went to great lengths to promote the syncretic faith preached by Nao Deguchi. He wrote the Reikai Monogatari, an 81-volume work that covered his alleged travels into the spiritual planes of existence, as well as many other theologically permeated stories which expounded on numerous Oomoto spiritual ideals.
Onisaburo Deguchi also wrote numerous other texts, such as Michi no Oomoto and Tama no Ishizue.
Throughout his life, Onisaburo was often quite flamboyant, taking delight in wearing richly textured costumes of his own design and posing as a wide variety of deities, mostly Buddhist or Shinto. He would also dress like a shaman, and often even took up the appearances of female divinities. His outlook on life tended to be eclectic, sometimes even to the point of being outrageous. At varying points of his lifetime, he claimed to be an incarnation of Miroku Butsu, and often referred to himself as a remodeler of the world.
Like most Oomoto followers, Onisaburo believed that the original kami founders of Japan were driven away by the kami of the imperial line. This placed him in opposition to the authorities at the time, though he had the ability to hide it. This again differentiated him from Nao Deguchi, who was more open and direct in her proclamations. Onisaburo was quite talented in quieting the government officials while at the same time subverting their efforts that he found distasteful or amoral.
Onisaburo's legacy is largely concerned with art, including a wealth of calligraphic and poetic works. He also dabbled in cinema, sculpture, and pottery, leaving behind thousands of items that are now considered by many enthusiasts to be of great value. Onisaburo is known for the coining the proverb "Art is the mother of religion".

Sacred sites

Some Oomoto sacred sites associated with Onisaburo Deguchi include:
  • The Cave of Onisaburo Deguchi on Mount Takakuma, where Onisaburo entered the spirit world during his asceticism there during the first half of 1898. Today, Oomoto followers organize monthly pilgrimages to the cave.
  • Zuisen-en, the historic site of Onisaburo's birth home in Anao, Kameoka. The site was destroyed during the Second Oomoto Incident in 1935 but was rebuilt shortly after the end of World War II. It is located next to Kongo-ji in Anao. Zuisen-en is noted for its holy well mentioned in various Oomoto scriptures.
  • Okutsuki cemetery in Ayabe, where Onisaburo Deguchi is buried in a mound. His mother-in-law Nao Deguchi and wife Sumi Deguchi are buried in adjacent mounds. Nao Deguchi is buried in the front right mound, and Onisaburo Deguchi is buried in the front left mound, while Sumi Deguchi's mound is located just behind the two front mounds.

Selected works

Onisaburo Deguchi was a highly prolific writer. As a result, the list of works below consists of a selection of some of his most representative sacred writings, and is far from exhaustive.
  • Michi no Shiori . Translated into Esperanto, Portuguese, and English in 1997.
  • Michi no Hikari. Excerpted from and in Oni bunko. Various passages in Michi no Hikari contain paraphrases from the New Testament gospels, particularly the Sermon on the Mount.
  • Michi no Oomoto.
  • Izunome Shin'yu
  • Reikai Monogatari
  • *Tama no Ishizue. These texts show influences from Honda Chikaatsu, from whom Onisaburo Deguchi derived his practice of chinkon kishin, and from Emanuel Swedenborg's spiritualism. They are in volumes 16–20, 23, 24, 37.
  • *Oomoto sanbika, songs of praise from volumes and of the Reikai Monogatari
  • Three Mirrors. Dictated by Onisaburo Deguchi from 1925 to 1934. A 1958 edition was published in 1958 by Tenseisha, Oomoto's publishing house. The most recent complete edition was published in 1999 by Hachiman Shoten.
  • *Water Mirror
  • *Moon Mirror
  • *Jade Mirror
  • Oomoto sendenka-shū . Historically, these were songs sung by Oomoto missionaries during their proselytization activities.
  • Azuma no Hikari
  • Oomoto no Michi. Consists of 1,068 poems published in 1957, which is a revised edition of Aizen no Michi . The poems summarize the basic teachings of Oomoto.