Agonshū — The Way of the Āgama — An ethnographic introduction to Agonshū (阿含宗) — the Japanese new religion founded by Kiriyama Seiyū in 1978, which claims to restore the original Buddhism of the Āgama sutras, combines early Buddhist scripturalism with spectacular esoteric fire rituals, and possesses a relic of the Buddha presented by the President of Sri Lanka.
Byakkō Shinkōkai — The Way of the White Light — An ethnographic introduction to Byakkō Shinkōkai (白光真宏会), the Japanese new religion founded in 1955 by Goi Masahisa — built around the prayer 'May Peace Prevail on Earth,' the theology of guardian spirits, and the conviction that the human being is, in essence, a divine spirit temporarily wearing a body.
Cheondogyo — An ethnographic introduction to Cheondogyo (천도교, the Religion of the Heavenly Way), the indigenous Korean religion founded in 1860 by Choe Je-u — a movement that synthesized the East's philosophical traditions against colonial threat, unleashed one of the nineteenth century's great peasant revolutions, and planted the seed of Korea's independence movement, all on the basis of a single thunderclap claim: that every human being is heaven.
Daesoon Jinrihoe — The Great Itineration of the Truth — An ethnographic introduction to Daesoon Jinrihoe (대순진리회, 大巡眞理會) — one of the largest new religious movements in South Korea, founded by Park Wudang (Dojeon) in 1969, which venerates Kang Jeungsan (Gang Ilson, 1871–1909) as Sangje, the Supreme God incarnate who descended to earth to resolve cosmic grievances and inaugurate a new world order of mutual beneficence — a movement of several million members that synthesizes Korean shamanism, Confucian ethics, Buddhist soteriology, and Daoist cosmology into a distinctively Korean millennial vision.
Falun Dafa — The Great Way of the Law Wheel — An ethnographic introduction to Falun Dafa (法轮大法), also known as Falun Gong — the qigong-based spiritual discipline founded by Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China in 1992, which teaches cultivation of Truthfulness (Zhen 真), Compassion (Shan 善), and Forbearance (Ren 忍) through five sets of meditative exercises and moral self-improvement — a movement that grew to tens of millions of practitioners in China within seven years, was banned and persecuted by the Chinese state from 1999, and has since become a global diaspora movement and one of the most significant religious phenomena of the late twentieth century.
Gedatsu-kai — The Way of Liberation — An ethnographic introduction to Gedatsu-kai — a Japanese new religious movement founded in 1929 that synthesizes Shinto, Shingon Buddhism, and Shugendo asceticism around a single compelling concern: the liberation of suffering souls. The movement's defining ritual involves pouring sacred hydrangea tea over wooden spirit tablets to relieve the karmic burden of the dead — an act that is simple, intimate, and theologically serious.
GLA — The God Light Association — An ethnographic introduction to GLA (God Light Association, GLA総合本部) — the Japanese new religion founded by Takahashi Shinji in 1969, which teaches that every human being possesses a divine light-body, that the founder was the reincarnation of the Buddha, and whose short, brilliant trajectory helped birth the Japanese spiritual boom of the 1970s and directly seeded Happy Science.
Happy Science — An ethnographic introduction to Happy Science (幸福の科学, Kōfuku-no-Kagaku), the Japanese new religion founded in 1986 by Ōkawa Ryūhō — a movement that synthesizes Buddhist cosmology, New Age spiritualism, and Japanese nationalism into an elaborate nine-dimensional universe centered on the claim that its founder was El Cantare, the supreme being of Earth, now deceased and of contested succession.
Ittoen — The Garden of One Light — An ethnographic introduction to Ittōen (一燈園) — the Japanese intentional community founded by Nishida Tenko in 1905, which practices radical selfless service, zero possession, and the spiritual discipline of cleaning toilets as a path to enlightenment — one of the most quietly extraordinary religious experiments of the twentieth century.
Jeung San Do — The Way of the Later Heaven — An ethnographic introduction to Jeung San Do (증산도, 甑山道) — the Korean new religious movement rooted in the teachings of Kang Jeungsan (강증산, 1871–1909), founded as a distinct organization by Ahn Unsan (안운산, 1922–2012), and currently the most internationally visible of the Jeungsan-gye movements — built around the theology of the Later Heaven (후천, hucheon), the Autumn of Civilization, and the cosmic renewal that the Supreme God (상제, Sangje) set in motion through the Great Work of Renewal of Heaven and Earth.
Korean Muism — The Way of the Mudang — An ethnographic introduction to Korean Muism (무속신앙), the indigenous shamanistic tradition of the Korean peninsula — a world of spirit descent, gut ceremony, and the calling of the mudang — which survived Joseon-era suppression, Japanese colonial regulation, and the modernization campaigns of the twentieth century, and now persists, contested and renewed, as one of the oldest continuous shamanic traditions in Asia.
Kurozumikyō — The Way of the Living Sun — An ethnographic introduction to Kurozumikyō (黒住教), the Japanese new religion founded in 1814 by Kurozumi Munetada after a mystical experience of complete union with Amaterasu Ōmikami — historically the very first of the Shinto-derived new religions, predating even Tenrikyō by twenty-four years, built around the theology of direct divine union (tenmei jikiju), daily solar worship, faith healing, and a radical sincerity ethic that transformed a dying Shinto priest into the founder of a tradition that persists two centuries later.
Nipponzan-Myōhōji — The Way of the Peace Pagoda — An ethnographic introduction to Nipponzan-Myōhōji (日本山妙法寺), the Nichiren Buddhist order founded by Nichidatsu Fujii in 1917 — a monastic community that has built over eighty peace pagodas across the world, dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons and the transformation of human consciousness through the chanting of the Lotus Sutra.
Omoto — An ethnographic introduction to Ōmoto (大本), the Japanese new religion founded in 1892 by Deguchi Nao — a movement of catastrophic prophecy, artistic mysticism, and universal religion, twice destroyed by the Japanese state and rebuilt, whose influence reaches from the ethics of Aikido to the roots of several major new religions.
Omoto-Kyo — An Account of One of Japan's Popular Faiths — A 1920 account of Ōmoto-kyō by a Japanese scholar writing for The Japan Chronicle — a contemporaneous Western-educated observer's portrait of the movement at the moment of its first national prominence, before either suppression. Contains translated passages from the Ofudesaki, the full ten-article Credo, and eyewitness description of the chinkon-kishin practice and the Ayabe compound.
PL Kyōdan — The Way of Perfect Liberty — An ethnographic introduction to PL Kyōdan (パーフェクト リバティー教団, Church of Perfect Liberty), the Japanese new religious movement founded in 1946 by Tokuchika Miki — heir to the suppressed Hito-no-Michi movement — whose central claim, that Life is Art and every human being is a work of God's self-expression, constitutes one of the most distinctive theological moves in the history of modern Japanese religion.
Reiyūkai — The Society of Spiritual Friends — An ethnographic introduction to Reiyūkai (霊友会), the Japanese new religion founded in 1930 by Kubo Kakutarō and Kotani Kimi — a Nichiren-derived lay movement built on ancestor veneration and recitation of the Lotus Sutra, which became one of the most important parent organizations in the Japanese new religions landscape, spawning Risshō Kōseikai and several other major movements.
Risshō Kōseikai — The Way of Righteous Community — An ethnographic introduction to Risshō Kōseikai (立正佼成会), the Japanese Buddhist new religion founded in 1938 by Nikkyo Niwano and Myoko Naganuma — a lay movement centered on the Lotus Sutra, the practice of dharma-seat group counseling (hōza), and one of the most ambitious interfaith programs in modern religious history.
Seicho-no-Ie — An ethnographic introduction to Seichō-no-Ie (生長の家, 'House of Growth'), the Japanese new religion founded in 1930 by Taniguchi Masaharu — a synthesis of Ōmoto revelation, American New Thought, and Buddhist philosophy that became, through a remarkable crossing, the only Japanese new religion to become majority non-Japanese, with more members in Brazil than in Japan.
Sekai Kyusei-kyo — An ethnographic introduction to Sekai Kyūsei-kyō (世界救世教, 'Religion of World Salvation'), the Japanese new religion founded in 1935 by Okada Mokichi — tea master, poet, art collector, and conduit for divine light — whose practice of johrei healing, philosophy of natural farming, and theology of beauty have spread to over ninety countries and transformed one of Brazil's sacred landscapes.
Shinnyoen — The Garden of True Suchness — An ethnographic introduction to Shinnyoen (真如苑), the Japanese new religion founded in 1936 by Itō Shinjō — an aeronautical engineer turned Shingon Buddhist priest who built a worldwide movement around the Nirvana Sutra, the practice of sesshin spiritual contact, and the conviction that every human being can attain Buddhahood through the awakening of Buddha nature inherent in all things.
Sukyo Mahikari — An ethnographic introduction to Sukyō Mahikari (崇教真光, 'Supreme Teaching of True Light'), the Japanese new religion founded in 1959 by Okada Yoshikazu — former military officer and Church of World Messianity minister — whose practice of tekazashi hand-raising healing, theology of the supreme Su-god, and Mu-centered cosmology has spread to over one hundred countries, and whose institutional history includes one of the cleanest and most instructive schisms in the Aquarian tradition.
Tenrikyo — An ethnographic introduction to Tenrikyō (天理教), the Japanese new religion founded in 1838 by Nakayama Miki — one of the oldest and largest of the Aquarian communities, built around the theology of the Joyous Life, the sacred geography of the Jiba, and the practice of selfless service.
Tenshō Kōtai Jingū-Kyō — The Dancing Religion — An ethnographic introduction to Tenshō Kōtai Jingū-Kyō (天照皇大神宮教), the Japanese new religion founded in 1945 by Kitamura Sayo — a farmer's wife who declared herself possessed by the deity of the Ise Grand Shrine and built a confrontational, ecstatic religious movement around the practice of selfless dance and the denunciation of established religion.
The Unification Church — The Way of True Parents — An ethnographic introduction to the Unification Church (Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, 世界平和統一家庭連合) — the new religious movement founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1954, whose theological system of cosmic restoration, mass marriage blessings, and intense political engagement made it one of the most consequential and controversial religious movements of the twentieth century, with an especially profound and troubled relationship with Japan.
Won Buddhism — An ethnographic introduction to Won Buddhism (원불교), the Korean new religion founded in 1916 by Sotaesan — a movement that replaced the Buddha statue with a circle, insisted on the inseparability of spiritual and material life, ordained women from its first year, and emerged from colonial Korea carrying a vision of universal dharma for the age of science.
World Divine Light — Sekai Mahikari Bunmei Kyodan — An ethnographic introduction to Sekai Mahikari Bunmei Kyōdan (世界真光文明教団, World True Light Civilization Church) — the minority organization that emerged from the 1974 Mahikari succession dispute. Headquartered in Izu, Shizuoka Prefecture, on the slopes of Mount Amagi, it won the courts but lost the congregation, retaining approximately fifteen percent of the original membership while Sukyo Mahikari took the rest. Both organizations teach the same theology, use the same scripture, and build facing shrines toward the same God — a theological paradox that neither has publicly resolved.