Lafcadio Hearn said Japan lay under The Rule of the Dead. This belief system was so pervasive that a ceremony to welcome the dead into the ranks of protective spirits was even established and observed in the Imperial Court.
To calm spirits, official rituals were performed to posthumously raise the dead in rank and title before they were enshrined as kami, protector spirits in Shinto shrines.
Controversial author Umehara Takeshi calls it the consistent theme through the history of Japanese civilization.ĭuring the Heian period the government bowed to practitioners of Goryō Shinko - the Religion of Ghosts. The pacification and transformation of yūrei has dominated Japanese religion and politics for millennia. Wielders of fire, flood, and earthquake, there is nothing more fearsome than an angry Japanese ghost. Since ancient times, natural disasters were said to be the result of yūrei. Their manifestation can be as benign as delivering a final “thank you” never said while alive, to as terrifying as shattering the earth with rage. Desire is the key to yūrei - they want something. Yūrei can never be destroyed, only sated. But if something goes wrong - if the spirit has some lingering business, or if death rites are not properly performed - then a yūrei is born. For good or ill.Įdo period scholar Hirata Atsutane wrote, “The spirits of the dead continue to exist in the unseen world which is everywhere about us and they all become gods of varying character and degrees of influence.” If properly respected with the correct rituals, a person’s spirit becomes a protective ancestor deity - called kami or sōrei. This powerful, supernatural entity…is held in check only by the meat-cocoon of the body. This powerful, supernatural entity - called reikon or tamashi - is held in check only by the meat-cocoon of the body.
Both feared and revered, yūrei are part of the deep magic a foundational belief that humans have a god inside of them. Since ancient times, Japan’s religion and culture has been deeply bound with ghosts, called yūrei. Japan lives with its ghosts like few other cultures. Japan is the most haunted country on Earth. But while a previous sojourn in New Orleans had supplied him with ore for his imagination, in his new home he struck the mother lode. That his answer was to write about Japan’s spirits should have surprised no one Hearn had a predilection for the macabre and uncanny. On assignment from Harper’s Magazine, Hearn was charged to explore and explain this undiscovered country to eager Americans. When Lafcadio Hearn stepped onto the shores of Japan in 1890, he began writing ghost stories. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.
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