A controversial four-decade-old Japanese cult, whose first disciples were bar girls, has now found a different kind of following in Nepal. Sukyo Mahikari is a religious movement started in 1959 by Japanese mystic Okada Yoshikazu, who envisioned bathing the world with a light that would heal believers but destroy non-believers.
... Like many cults, the Sukyo Mahikari movement too is known to have its share of controversy.
Background to Sukyo Mahikari
Sukyo Mahikari Europe web site
Reprint of 1998 Sunday Times article on Sukyo Mahikari
The Sukyo Mahikari cult - said by former members to propagate neo-Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda - was denounced last year by witnesses at an official parliamentary inquiry as "dangerous".
...Former members of Sukyo Mahikari, which has successfully applied for charitable status in Britain, say it is preparing for a "baptism of fire" that could end the world next year. The cult's Japanese supremacist leadership says only its members will survive.
...Police and parliamentary bodies in five countries have expressed concerns about Sukyo Mahikari - already expelled from one African state - which was founded by Yoshikazu Okada, a former Japanese imperial army officer. He played a key role in the massacre of 200,000 men, women and children in Nanking, China, in the 1930s.
Former Cultist Speaks Out
Some years later an old Mahikari friend presented him with some teachings of a certain organisation which were identical to those of Yoshikazu Okada's and yet which pre-dated them by one or two decades. Intrigued by their similarity, Garry and two friends embark upon their own voyage of discovery which was to take him back to Japan. In June 1994, Garry and his friends eventually trace the source of the similar, yet earlier revelations to a certain, Mokichi Okada, (now deceased) a noted poet, artist and philosopher. (Okada is a common name in Japan). After interviewing several of Mokichi Okada's old friends and ministers, it becomes clear that Yoshikazu Okada had been a minister in Mokichi Okada's own organisation (Sekai Kyusei Kyo or Church Of World Messianity), but had been sacked for allegedly sexually assaulting a female member of the congregation. These old ministers and friends supplied Garry with anecdotal, documentary and photographic proof of Yoshikazu Okada's ministerial role etc.
