Abstract
People often suffer from aphasia due to the destruction of their thought-processes in a disaster or a catastrophe. People must learn, however, to represent the experience externally by producing new thoughts and words in order to overcome such painful circumstances. In this article, we call suffering from aphasia "the critical state of words to be reproduced," in which new words and thoughts need to be reproduced, so as to represent the ruined world. We discuss the case of Minamata disease as an example of a catastrophe; we especially study the case of Hongan-no-kai (Club of the Original Vow), which is loosely organized and made up of patients. Its members pray for victims and represent their own experiences of the Minamata disease incident by using some religious words; a life, a soul, etc. By focusing on the event and facing "the critical state of words," through which they represent their own experience and hand the words over to others, we will find that the event can be regarded as a path to regeneration or salvation, and will reveal a relation between the event and religion.
