Happy Science was founded in 1986. It is an enormous and powerful enterprise claiming millions of adherents and tens of thousands of missionary outposts across the world.
Secretive, hostile to the media, and structured around a tiered, pay-to-progress system of membership, they’re sometimes called Tokyo’s answer to Scientology.
The founder is a former Wall Street trader named Ryuho Okawa, whose followers, incredibly, regard him as the incarnation of a supreme being from Venus.
What’s more, he also claims to channel the spirits of hundreds of characters, dead and alive, like Freddie Mercury, Barack Obama and Steve Jobs. Mr. Okawa almost never appears before the media and, via aides, declined requests to speak.
In the early 1980s, he joined one of the country’s largest trading firms and said he spent a year working at its Manhattan office.
Around this time, he came to believe he was in contact with wise men from the past, like Buddha and Jesus. They told him he was chosen to spiritually redeem a world gone to rack and ruin. Who was he to say no?
“It was up to me,” he later wrote, “to gather all the peoples of the world into this new faith.”
At first Mr. Okawa was just a channel for far-flung spirits. Then he was a reincarnated Buddha. Eventually he proclaimed himself the supreme deity of this world. And remarkably, his followers agreed.
Mr. Okawa came to teach that life on earth, was engineered millions of years ago by a creator god from Venus named El Cantare who had been reincarnated over the years as deities and enlightened masters, like Hermes, Thoth from Atlantis, Odin, Buddha and an Incan king named Rient Arl Croud. The latest incarnation of El Cantare, of course, was Mr. Okawa himself.
El Cantare is believed to be the supreme god whose name means, the beautiful land of light and earth and he is believed to be the source of all life who embraces humanity and life on earth.
According to the faith, El Cantare is the highest of all gods that exist in different religions. It is believed that he has lived in six other people since the beginning of time including the founder of Buddhism. He is now re-incarnated in their worldwide spiritual leader Master Ryuho Okawa.
Mr. Okawa has continued to churn out books, which now number more than 2,000, most of them transcriptions of lectures. A film division also puts out feature-length anime.
Meanwhile, Happy Science has left scores of disaffected members in its wake. Opponents accuse the group of fleecing acolytes in what they say amounts to a pyramid scheme. Much to the embarrassment of Mr. Okawa, his own son Hiroshi (once primed as a successor) is now one of Happy Science's most vocal critics.
Hiroshi Okawa, in a message, said of his father: “He claimed to have received the ‘messages of God,’ he relentlessly lied to his followers.”
He added, “I believe what my father does is complete nonsense.”
Happy Science’s claims of 11 million members also seem unlikely. When Mr. Okawa’s first wife, Kyoko, left the group in 2011 she estimated real membership was 30,000.
For his part, Mr. Okawa denounced his estranged family as demonic. He has since remarried.
Beginning in January, Mr. Okawa claimed to receive messages from a trio of extraterrestrials— going by the unfamiliar names R.A. Goal, Metatron and Yaidron — and the spirits of Chinese leaders, including Xi Jinping. (The guardian angels of Boris Johnson, John Lennon and Angela Merkel also sent transmissions.)
According to Happy Science, the virus was created as a bioweapon by the Chinese government in Wuhan, and then, in a twist, it was unleashed by a U.F.O. to punish the communists for their godless ways. It has spread to other lands that lack true faith.
This material was quickly published as three booklets in Japanese and has now been translated in English this month as “Spiritual Reading of Novel Coronavirus Infection Originated in China.”
But there is hope for the faithful, the Happies say. Along with the book series, they now sell coronavirus-themed DVDs and CDs of Mr. Okawa lecturing; the sound alone of his voice is meant to hold immune-boosting power.
In one video clip, Mr. Okawa advised, “You must knock out the coronavirus with your El Cantare belief.”
NewYorkTimes
*Jesus spoke about false christs arising in the endtimes:
"For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.
Then, if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!', do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise..." (Matthew 24:5,23-24).
Secretive, hostile to the media, and structured around a tiered, pay-to-progress system of membership, they’re sometimes called Tokyo’s answer to Scientology.
The founder is a former Wall Street trader named Ryuho Okawa, whose followers, incredibly, regard him as the incarnation of a supreme being from Venus.
What’s more, he also claims to channel the spirits of hundreds of characters, dead and alive, like Freddie Mercury, Barack Obama and Steve Jobs. Mr. Okawa almost never appears before the media and, via aides, declined requests to speak.
In the early 1980s, he joined one of the country’s largest trading firms and said he spent a year working at its Manhattan office.
Around this time, he came to believe he was in contact with wise men from the past, like Buddha and Jesus. They told him he was chosen to spiritually redeem a world gone to rack and ruin. Who was he to say no?
“It was up to me,” he later wrote, “to gather all the peoples of the world into this new faith.”
At first Mr. Okawa was just a channel for far-flung spirits. Then he was a reincarnated Buddha. Eventually he proclaimed himself the supreme deity of this world. And remarkably, his followers agreed.
Mr. Okawa came to teach that life on earth, was engineered millions of years ago by a creator god from Venus named El Cantare who had been reincarnated over the years as deities and enlightened masters, like Hermes, Thoth from Atlantis, Odin, Buddha and an Incan king named Rient Arl Croud. The latest incarnation of El Cantare, of course, was Mr. Okawa himself.
El Cantare is believed to be the supreme god whose name means, the beautiful land of light and earth and he is believed to be the source of all life who embraces humanity and life on earth.
According to the faith, El Cantare is the highest of all gods that exist in different religions. It is believed that he has lived in six other people since the beginning of time including the founder of Buddhism. He is now re-incarnated in their worldwide spiritual leader Master Ryuho Okawa.
Mr. Okawa has continued to churn out books, which now number more than 2,000, most of them transcriptions of lectures. A film division also puts out feature-length anime.
Meanwhile, Happy Science has left scores of disaffected members in its wake. Opponents accuse the group of fleecing acolytes in what they say amounts to a pyramid scheme. Much to the embarrassment of Mr. Okawa, his own son Hiroshi (once primed as a successor) is now one of Happy Science's most vocal critics.
Hiroshi Okawa, in a message, said of his father: “He claimed to have received the ‘messages of God,’ he relentlessly lied to his followers.”
He added, “I believe what my father does is complete nonsense.”
Happy Science’s claims of 11 million members also seem unlikely. When Mr. Okawa’s first wife, Kyoko, left the group in 2011 she estimated real membership was 30,000.
For his part, Mr. Okawa denounced his estranged family as demonic. He has since remarried.
Beginning in January, Mr. Okawa claimed to receive messages from a trio of extraterrestrials— going by the unfamiliar names R.A. Goal, Metatron and Yaidron — and the spirits of Chinese leaders, including Xi Jinping. (The guardian angels of Boris Johnson, John Lennon and Angela Merkel also sent transmissions.)
According to Happy Science, the virus was created as a bioweapon by the Chinese government in Wuhan, and then, in a twist, it was unleashed by a U.F.O. to punish the communists for their godless ways. It has spread to other lands that lack true faith.
This material was quickly published as three booklets in Japanese and has now been translated in English this month as “Spiritual Reading of Novel Coronavirus Infection Originated in China.”
But there is hope for the faithful, the Happies say. Along with the book series, they now sell coronavirus-themed DVDs and CDs of Mr. Okawa lecturing; the sound alone of his voice is meant to hold immune-boosting power.
In one video clip, Mr. Okawa advised, “You must knock out the coronavirus with your El Cantare belief.”
NewYorkTimes
*Jesus spoke about false christs arising in the endtimes:
"For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.
Then, if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!', do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise..." (Matthew 24:5,23-24).
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