Cindy Jacobs: Japan has “Gone Downhill” Because of Shinto Ritual

Neo-Pentecostal leader Cindy Jacobs discusses the Japan earthquake:

I have personally felt that one of the reasons Japan was such a hard group for the gospel was the fact that they have had a direct link with the Imperial family and a direct link with the sun goddess, Amaterasu.

After the end of the second world war, under the U.S. agreements with Japan, this connection with Amaterasu was renounced…

However, of recent years, this link with Amaterasu and sun worship was reinstated in a ceremony in which the new Emperor once again participated and “spent the night with the goddess” after eating the sacred rice.

I believe this is one major reason that Japan has gone downhill economically in such a drastic way. The debt ratio to GDP is now 200%. With the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, the economy and banking system, insurance industry, etc., will certainly take a massive hit.

…this island, Hokkaido, looks like the head of a dragon with the body being the rest of Japan. The people of Asia have worshipped the dragon for 5,000 years. If one looks at the place where the earthquake took place, it looks like the soft underbelly of most vulnerable part of the dragon. Let’s pray that the deep idolatry and the worship of hundreds of idols under the guise of Shintoism, Buddhism, and allegiances to being “sons of the dragon” will be broken and thousands will turn to the Lord.

Jacobs is a close associate of Rick Joyner; she is a member of Joyner’s “Oak Initiative”, alongside Jerry Boykin and other  figures on the neo-Pentecostal Christian Right. I blogged on Joyner’s musings on “the spiritual significance of the Japanese earthquake” yesterday.

Jacobs’ discussion of the Emperor supposedly “spending the night with with goddess” refers to a Shinto ritual called Daijosai. This is undertaken when a new Emperor comes to the throne, although the meaning of the symbolism around it is today obscure. Scholar Carmen Blacker explains that:

Wars, rebellions, and impoverishment of the imperial house led to periods, longer or shorter, of dicintinuance. The longest lapse lasted for more than two centuries, from 1466 to 1687, when civil war and its aftermath prevented its performance. During this long gap much of the tradition surrounding the ritual was lost.

One interpretation suggests that it is a rite of passage through which the Emperor is reborn as the child of the Goddess. Part of the ceremony involves a bed-like object, called a shinza. However, the shinza is not touched, the emperor does not lie on it, and its meaning is unknown. Blacker observes:

An intriguing variey of theories have been advanced to account for its presence. It has been seen as a throne, as a marriage bed, a symbol of the Sun Goddess, a resting-place for a visiting god, a refuge where the emperor may receive the soul of his ancestors. (1)

However, as I blogged in 2009, neo-Pentecostals such as C. Peter Wagner interpret the ritual salaciously: Wagner believes that the Sun Goddess is a demonic “succubus” who becomes “one flesh” with the Emperor through “sexual intercourse”. Wagner heads the “Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders”, of which Jacobs is a member.

Jacobs is not the first person to suggest that Japan is shaped like a dragon, with Hokkaido as the head; a couple of popular guidebooks claim this is a feng shui conceptualization, although it doesn’t appear to be a traditional belief.

(1) See “The Shinza or God-seat in the Daijosai: Throne, Bed or Incubation Couch?” in The Collected Writings of Carmen Blacker (Routledge 2000)

(Hat tip: Right Wing Watch)

8 Responses

  1. […] Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion zeros in on NAR prophet(ess) Cindy Jacobs, who previously gained our attention when she gloried in the destruction of Haiti, and is now […]

  2. From the comments quoted with this article, I did not see any blatantly malicious content. I think scripture clearly indicates that any country that worships idols or practices wickedness will suffer undersirable consequences. If you consider Cindy Jacobs comments as false or insensitive, you must consider the Bible is false and insensitive as well. God warned His own chosen nation Israel to turn from their idols or they would suffer death and destruction. The same is true for any country or people group today. I am so glad that God gives us all a chance to repent and turn to Him for mercy, so we don’t have to receive the punishment we all deserve.

    • The Bible is false and in many ways insensitive.

      I’m glad that your crazy, childish, vengeful, a-hole of a god doesn’t exist.

  3. […] who blamed a dip in the Japanese economy on the Emperor having sex with a demon. And there’s Cindy Jacobs, who agrees with Wagner and thinks the Japanese are sun worshipers. And another neo-charismatic, […]

  4. But… Why Japan ?
    Consider the birthright blessing given to Joseph. One half of the tribe of Manasseh (one of his two sons) ended up “toward the sunrising” (in Japan). It is why Japan became the second greatest economic power on earth and is why they need our fervent prayers now.
    Blessings ~Chris
    Japan know thyself

  5. “neo-Pentecostals such as C. Peter Wagner interpret the ritual salaciously: Wagner believes that the Sun Goddess is a demonic “succubus” who becomes “one flesh” with the Emperor through “sexual intercourse”.”

    My goodness what dirty literal little minds these religionists do have. But then, you just have to look at the nonsense of their own religion that they take literally so it’s not surprising.

  6. I’ve read that the Emperor and Amaterasu join sexually, also.

    ” Each emperor-to-be is given a two-year trial period or courtship with Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess and national deity. Hours after his predecessor succumbs the prince designate performs a perfunctory accession rite and accepts the symbols of sovereignty, the seals and petty duties of state. But he must wait years for the epiphany that consecrates him as the chosen of Amaterasu. In a ceremony called the daijosai, the imperial aspirant purifies himself, prepares a feast and waits alone with it in a sacred hut. If she appears, if they touch, embrace and fuse, then the human walks out a Tenno[Emperor], possessed of godhead and grave responsibility.

    “After this fateful private tryst, writes Holtom in The Japanese Enthronement Ceremonies, our man emerges as “a sacred living kami (god or divine power) in whose magical person is enfolded the entire welfare of the people, their protection from evil, both human and superhuman, their representation before the kami of heaven and earth, and above all their food.” Now that’s a potent political personage you might expect, and one whom the postwar Constitution was expressly designed to emasculate.”

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