The literal translation of this movement’s Japanese name is the ‘science of happiness’, but it generally means The Institute for Research in Human Happiness (or IRH), and this is its official English name. IRH was established in October 1986 in Tokyo by the 30-year-old former businessman, Ryuho Okawa (1956-). In 1981, just before graduating from Tokyo University in Law, Okawa’s spiritual experiences suddenly began; he is said to have been contacted by a number of spirits, many of whom were extremely well known religious figures, such as Jesus, Moses, Confucius, and the Buddha. After continuous discourses with the spirits, Okawa gradually became aware of his mission to save the world, and of his identity as the reincarnation of Gautama Buddha and the embodiment of El Cantare, or the ‘Grand Spirit of the Terrestrial Spirit Group’ (Okawa, 1994). His discourses with high, divine spirits were taped, edited and published by his father, Saburo Yoshikawa, whose influence on Okawa becoming a religious leader is said to have been significant. Yoshikawa, who had studied various religious ideas in the Christian Church, in Seicho-no-Ie, and in God Light Association (GLA), taught his two young sons the basics of the Bible, Zen Buddhism, Kantian thought and the Communist Manifesto. Despite his continuous religious experiences, Okawa carried on his business life with considerable success in one of Japan’s major trading houses, and was later sent to the firm’s US Headquarters in New York. However, after strong ‘persuasion’ by many divine spirits, including the spirits of Jesus, Nichiren and Amaterasu O-mikami, he finally left the trading house in July 1986 and established his religious movement three months later. During the first three years Okawa concentrated on educating his followers.
He limited the number of members by assigning an entrance exam, and only started missionary activities in 1990. In July 1991, IRH held its first ‘Birthday Festival’ for its founder in Tokyo Dome (a major indoor baseball stadium in Tokyo) and claimed that the number of members had reached 1.5 million (IRH claimed ten million followers worldwide in 1995). During the Festival, Okawa revealed his true identity as El Cantare for the first time. In the same year, the movement officially became a ‘religion’ by obtaining Religious Juridical Persons status. IRH’s purpose built Head Office is in central Tokyo, and it has built a number of retreat centres, called Shoshin-kan, across Japan; it has major temples in Utsunomiya City and in Tokyo.
The members study and put into practice IRH’s fundamental doctrine, called the Fourfold Path, which consists of ‘love’, ‘knowledge (of the truth)’, ‘self-reflection’ and ‘development’. The two most important tasks for the members are to practise the ‘Quest for the Right Mind’ or the mind of the Buddha, and to establish the ‘Buddha Land— Utopia’ on earth. IRH’s doctrine became more Buddhist orientated after 1992, and especially after 1994, devotion to the Buddhist concept of the ‘Three Jewels’, in this case the Buddha (El Cantare/ Okawa), Dharma (Okawa’s teaching) and Sangha (IRH) have been of supreme importance to the believers. According to Kofuku-no-Kagaku, humans are reincarnated on earth on an average of about every 300 years in order to ‘polish’ their souls and to work towards establishing Utopia on earth. The power of the Three Jewels is considered vital in achieving these objectives.
In 1991 IRH was severely criticized by Kodan-sha, one of the largest publishing companies in Japan, and a number of court cases took place between them.
