At the forefront of a ‘spiritual business’: independent professional spiritual therapists in Japan

Abstract

The current ‘spiritual boom’ represented by the phenomenal popularity of spiritual counsellor and television personality Ehara Hiroyuki provides evidence that the 1980s media-based religious boom in Japan did not come to an end in the aftermath of the terrorist act perpetrated by the new religious group Aum Shinrikyō. Today, however, the media focus seems increasingly to be falling on various therapies that have become objects of business transactions, which one Japanese researcher has vaguely referred to as the ‘spiritual business’. The author of this paper, by examining the activities described as ‘spiritual business’ through an empirical study of practitioners active at the forefront of this phenomenon, narrows down the use of the term ‘spiritual business’ to the Ehara-inspired, independent professional spiritual therapists, and links their increasing number to two sociological factors: the sluggish Japanese economy and the commercialization of therapy as sacred.