The Search for Spirituality

From a Gender Perspective

Abstract

Although “spirituality” has been discussed in contrast to established religions, the feminist religious scholar Ursula King has pointed out that this “spirituality” is what happened when many women started to express their own spiritual experiences and thoughts both inside and outside of established religions. The movement of modern Japan's spirituality is not unrelated to this situation of women who suffer daily in contradiction with gender norms. In this article, “spirituality” is discussed as a movement where women find meaning and a sense of fulfillment in their lives and create changes in everyday life by themselves. These movements are spreading not only through the relationship between the healer and the client, but also between people who hold small healing events locally, owners of restaurants who want to help solve customers'problems, the healers who enliven the events together, and various customers visiting these events and restaurants.