Articles [Special Issue: Religion and Religious Studies during the Interwar Period]
A Study of W. P. Woodard's Kokutai Cult Theory
2023 Volume 97 Issue 2 Pages 175-199
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2023 Volume 97 Issue 2 Pages 175-199
Most attention on the work of American religious scholar W. P. Woodard has focused on his works about the Japanese occupation and after the Peace Treaty, because of the attention given to his major volume The Allied Occupation of Japan 1945-1952 and Japanese Religions, which was published in 1972.
In this paper, however, I note that Woodard argues that the “Kokutai Cult,” as the target of Shinto directives, emerged in the latter half of the interwar period. I will then examine his sympathies for the American intellectual diplomats, examples of Japanese extremists who intervened in the emergence of the Kokutai Cult, and the behavior of those who were the accusers of the cult, as described in Abe Yoshiya's Japanese translation of what is a part of Woodard's book manuscript.
As a result, we understand that Woodard drew the context of the banning of the Kokutai Cult as a wedge between the Emperor, Shintoism, and militarism, based on his own experience of staying in Japan. On the other hand, its establishment corresponded to the period of social change due to the total war system. Following this paper, I will discuss the implications of this view, reinforcing it with further document research.
