Oh cool! Konjin or Kubera or Pluto or Hades or Ahriman or even Amatsu Mikaboshi and Myoken and Bishamonten or Tamonten (North God of Wealth and Metals and All Directions and Spirits) is a theme I've been dealing with a lot as well.
I also dislike the Japanese Imperial focus on Amaterasu instead of the North or Pole Controller was the representation if the Supreme in China and other parts of Asia to Japan.
We are reminded by the God of All Things by the Compass and the Swastika and the color Gold as well as other metals and Ursa Majoris.
Lord North even appears in Tolkien and just like throughout history is associated with evil, as Melkor, Morgoth Bauglir.
During the 1840s, perhaps through influence of materials in a pawn shop dealing with antiques, Wei Changhui became increasingly under the influence to the point of being called North King and becoming a "God Worshipper" as he helped in efforts againt the Qing, perhaps similar to the Ancient Yellow Turban rebellion (really its Gold and Black and Yellow and Black, as this is Tezcatlipoca and Kronos, Typhon Serpent footed, Boreas, Fujin, even Acala or Fudo Myoo who is the immovable seen also in the central pole as all moves around in the heavens and upon the Earth, it both considered the blowing agent and central commander and chief).
In Chinese, Persian, and later Islamic maps, the North was placed at the bottom rather than the top, and thus had links also to the underworld in some sense as well in the visual culture influenced by the way maps were depicted. The magnetic North and Pole Star were extremely important as well, and Kubera was called King of Everything besides starting out as Demon Lord.
In Demonology Kubera is Mammon, and Moloch to some degree, Midas and Minos are also linked, but apparently a whole lot of things are, since this is one if the most famous and popular aspects of God as the Abudant Provider Lord of the Heavens and the Earth Treasure Dispenser, even Hermes, Mercury, and Odin, even Satan in some forms takes on attributes that were once associated with this highly influential concept.
So I thought its interesting that Konjin is what they ended up targeting in Oomoto and it was brought up here while I had recently been looking into similar stuff.
Special "coins" were and still are printed in China related to all this stuff, but in modern times in Japan this aspect has become associated with home organization.
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According to Sources: Kokugakuin University; and Mark Teeuwen, p. 92:
“The forced separation of Buddhism and Shintōism in the Meiji Period (1868-1912), shrines commonly replaced Myōken with a Shintō kami counterpart known as Ame no Minakanushi no Mikoto 天御中主尊 (Lord of the Center of the Sky).
Myōken worship suffered when the Meiji government forcibly separated Shintō and Buddhism (Shinbutsu Bunri 神仏分離) in the late 19th century. Between 1868-1875, when the government actively outlawed all fusion of the Kami-Buddha, the Buddhist deity Myōken was commonly replaced with the Shintō kami Ame no Minakanushi no Mikoto 天御中主尊 (a primordial ancestral kami), who then served as the chief kami of the seven major stars of the constellation of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major). Ame no Minakanushi is generally translated as “Lord of the Center of the Sky.” This kami appears in the Kojiki 古事記 (Record of Ancient Matters, 712 AD, Japan’s oldest record of its creation myths), and from 12th-century texts onward, the deity is generally interpreted as equivalent to the Pole Star. (Also spelled: 天之御中主神, Amenominakanushi, Amanominakanushi, Amaterasu). “
Says the Encyclopedia of Shinto:
“Japanese scholar Hirata Atsutane, in particular, propounded a theology wherein Ame no Minakanushi no Mikoto 天御中主尊 was chief kami of the seven major stars of the constellation Ursa Major. As a result of this influence, Ame no Minakanushi was made a central deity at the Daikyōin Temple in the early Meiji period, and he was worshiped within sectarian Shintō (Kyōha Shintō) as well. During the process of separation of Shintō and Buddhist objects of worship, the deity Myōken (the north star) was changed to Ame no Minakanushi at many shrines. <end quote> Many Suitengu Shrines throughout modern Japan still revere Amenominakanushi — which can be roughly translated as “Chief of All Celestial Deities,” thus retaining the nuance of Myōken’s exalted position among all stars. For an excellent review of Myōken in modern times, see story by scholar Gaynor Sekimori entitled “Star Rituals and Nikkō Shugendō,” which appeared in The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice., pages 217-250, edited by Lucia Dolce; a special double issue of Culture and Cosmos, ISSN 1368-6534. Elsewhere, says scholar Mark Teeuwen, p. 92: “At Ise shrines, from the 12th century onwards, Ise priests wrote texts claiming that the deity of the Outer Shrine at Ise was identical to Ame no Minakanushi (the first deity of creation in the Kojiki).” <end quote Teeuwen> "
Its annoying when modernizing governments start making religious practices and behaviors more difficult, the Oomoto thing doesn't even sound very radical after all.
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In
Japanese mythology,
Ama-tsu-mika-boshi(天津甕星, "Dread Star of Heaven", "August Star of Heaven"), also called
Ame-no-kagase-o(天香香背男, "Scarecrow Male of Heaven", "Brilliant Male"), was originally a malevolent
Shinto god.
For the Marvel Comics character, see
Amatsu-Mikaboshi (comics).
Under
Chinese Buddhist influence, the god was identified with
Myōkeneither as the
pole star or
Venus, before being combined with the god of all stars, Ama-no-mi-naka-nushi(天之御中主神, "Divine Lord of the middle heavens").
He is mentioned in passing in the
Nihon Shoki as being subdued by
Takemikazuchi during the latter's conquest of the land of
Izumo, and is sometimes identified with the figure of
Takeminakata in the
Kojiki.[
"
"
At the beginning of the god's
manifestation, he took off his robe, put them on an eight-year-old boy, and dubbed him 'great priest' (
Ōhōri). The god declared, "I do not have a body and so make this priest (
hōri) my body."
This [boy] is Arikazu (有員), the priest of the sacred robe (御衣祝
Misogihōri), the founding ancestor of the Miwa/Jin (神, i.e. Suwa) clan."
This is what repeatedly happens throughout history, in the cases of Jesus as well as the Oomoto thing and among the Aztecs, the belief in a divinely possessed or inspired individual under the influence of a particular aspect or manifestation acts in the singular or upon a group which represents its active material "body" moving like so many blind cells by its animating force for a while before its dispersal like a cloud.
