Yoshikazu Okada (岡田良一), born February 27, 1901 in the Aoyama area of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

's Minato Ward, also known as Kōtama Okada, (岡田光玉) was the founder of a

new religious movement A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or th ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

('' Shinshūkyō'') generally referred to as ''

Mahikari Mahikari is a Japanese new religious movement ( shinshūkyō) that was founded in 1959 by Yoshikazu Okada (岡田良一) (1901–1974). The word "Mahikari" means "True (真, ma) Light (光, hikari)" in Japanese. Foundation The Mahikari organizat ...

''. Yoshikazu Okada was born into a wealthy family as the son of Inasaburo, a

major general Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

in the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

. Okada, who studied with

Prince Chichibu , was the second son of Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito) and Empress Teimei (Sadako), a younger brother of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) and a general in the Imperial Japanese Army. As a member of the Imperial House of Japan, he was the patron of several ...

(Yasuhito) and others who came from prominent Japanese families,SM Monthly teachings, June 2005 graduated from the Japanese Army Officer Training School in 1922 and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Japanese Imperial Guard. After serving in military campaigns in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

, Okada retired from the army in 1941 due to a back injury with the rank of

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

. Yoshikazu Okada established L. H. Yokoshi no Tomo in 1959, and in 1963, registered a religious organisation under the name "Sekai Mahikari Bunmei Kyodan." He assumed the name of "Kōtama" ("Sphere of Light") in accordance with a divine revelation. In 1974, with Okada's passing, there were court hearings held over eight years. After an amicable settlement was reached (wakai), Sakae Sekiguchi assumed the leadership of Sekai Mahikari Bunmei Kyodan, and Keishu Okada established Sukyo Mahikari.

References

Founders of new religious movements Japanese new religions {{japan-reli-stub

See also

References