Techniques for nothingness: Debate over the comparability of hypnosis and Zen in early-twentieth-century Japan

Introduction

In the early twentieth century, a debate took place over the comparability of hypnosis and Zen in Japan. Some people argued that they were similar, even identical, mental states. They proposed replacing Zen-sitting with hypnosis, claiming that hypnosis was a more reliable and efficient scientific method for the cultivation of Zen. Other people, however, denounced the comparison as misplaced and misleading, maintaining that the two mental states were absolutely different and utterly incomparable. Although it lasted only a few years, the debate attracted considerable attention and sparked lively discussion. Those involved included leading contemporary psychologists and Zen masters. Whichever side they took, they all acknowledged that there were indeed resemblances between hypnosis and Zen, which they thought were important to grasping the nature of the two mental states, and thus needed to be explored and clarified.

Hitherto, the debate has received little attention from historians of either Japanese hypnotism or religion, although many of them have explored the important role played by hypnotism in the spiritual life of Japan in the first few decades of the twentieth century. Briefly speaking, hypnotism figured prominently in contemporary discussions about science and religion. On the one hand, some Enlightenment-oriented intellectuals attempted to use hypnosis to scientifically explain, and thus normalize or even pathologize, religious miracles and mystical phenomena. On the other hand, there were a considerable number of people hoping to find through hypnosis new forms of spirituality that were founded on and could be proved by science. In their hands, hypnosis developed into a variety of occult reijutsus (literally, spiritual techniques). ¹ While the scientific and medical interest in hypnosis declined in the 1910s and 1920s, reijutsu flourished and formed a movement comparable to the modern occultist movements in the contemporary West. ² Some scholars contend that reijutsu gratified the need of a growing number of people who were dissatisfied with the gap between science and religion. ³ However, it may be this gap, as well as the development of hypnotism into reijutsu, that has shaped the current historiography of Japanese hypnotism. Insufficient attention has been paid to the significance of hypnotism, psychical research and reijutsu to the history of psychology. The above historiographical context explains why the few studies that have touched upon the debate merely treat it as an example of the mystical turn of Japanese hypnotism. ⁴

However, there are important themes about this debate worth further investigation and discussion from the perspective of the history of psychology. As recent scholarship in the history of Western dynamic psychiatry and psychology has shown, hypnosis, as a controlled and reproducible altered state of consciousness, was an important experimental tool for exploring the deeper psyche in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Studies on hypnosis and its associated phenomena, such as automatic writing, laid a theoretical and methodological foundation for investigating and understanding various extraordinary mental states and the working of the unconscious mind. Pierre Janet’s experimental psychopathology and Edmund Gurney’s and Frederic William Henry Myers’s psychical research were among the most remarkable schools of psychology inspired by this approach. ⁵ Another important psychologist in this regard was William James, who was influential in contemporary Japan. ⁶ James thought highly of Janet’s and Myers’s works. His interest and research in various exceptional mental states, including religious and mystical experiences, psychic phenomena, hypnosis, and pathological states such as multiple personality, led him to conceive a psychology that could encompass psychopathology, psychical research, and religious psychology. ⁷ These schools of psychology, although previously ignored by historians of psychology, were just as influential, if not more so, as the German experimental psychology. They played pivotal roles in the history of dynamic psychology and psychiatry, and have contributed greatly to the understanding of the unconscious and the conception of psychology as a person-centered science. ⁸

Based on these new insights, we can further explore the significance of this debate – many of whose participants were under varying degrees of influence of French experimental psychopathology, Western psychical research and William James – and rethink the relationship between psychology and religion at the time. The debate was among the first exchanges between psychology and Buddhism in Japan, and it cast doubt on previous assumptions that a clear boundary existed between the two fields. In this debate, we find that Japanese contemporaries readily combined the Buddhist ideas of nothingness (mu), emptiness (kū), and spiritual enlightenment (satori) with ideas from psychology to reach new understandings of both Buddhism and hypnosis. There was a wide range of approaches. Apart from those religious-oriented theorists and practitioners whose aim was to establish new forms of religions, there were also students of psychology who, aspiring to broaden the scope of psychology, attempted to study and understand the mystical experience of Zen in the same way as other altered states of consciousness. The resulting new theories and techniques of nothingness were fruits of a fairly fluid boundary between psychology and Buddhism. Their emergence, particularly that of reijutsus, was more a cause than a consequence of the widening of the gap between the two fields, as it prompted psychologists and orthodox religious leaders to define and defend their respective boundaries by drawing absolute distinctions between normal, pathological, and mystical mental states. The delineation of the boundaries partly explains why the rich exchange between psychology and Buddhism occurring in the period has seldom been examined from the perspective of the history of psychology. However, the debate reveals that some psychology scholars and intellectuals had tried to address the challenges and possibilities posed by Buddhist introspective meditation and intuitive experiences in a productive way, attempting to use them as a window into the inner psyche, and as psychotherapeutic methods. Their efforts anticipate, and may have influenced, some of the indigenous forms of psychotherapy that emerged in the following decades.

Before delving into the details of the debate, it is useful to briefly introduce the respective histories of Zen Buddhism and hypnotism in Japan. While one was a religious sect that had flourished for centuries, the other was only recently known to the people of Japan. In the early twentieth century, however, it seemed not only appropriate but necessary to try to compare Zen and hypnosis.

Historical backgrounds

Among historians, the accepted view is that there were two waves of interest in hypnosis in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ⁹ The first one developed around 1887, shortly after hypnosis was first known to the Japanese through intellectuals returning from studying abroad. At the time, Japan still continued pursuing development along the lines of modernization and Westernization, actively introducing the latest sciences, technology and thought from the West. Meanwhile, academic interest in hypnosis in the West was recently revived first by Jean-Martin Charcot’s work and then by the dispute between his Salpêtrière School and the Nancy School. Hypnosis became an important – if not the most important – tool for experimental psychology and psychotherapy. ¹⁰ Noticing the trend, a few Japanese intellectuals became attracted to this new science and medicine of mind. They sporadically introduced a wide range of Western theories and practices of hypnosis, from mesmerism and spiritualism, to Charcot’s neuropathological theory and researches on telepathy and automatic writing carried out by members of the Society of Psychical Research. ¹¹ They regarded hypnosis as a science capable of enlightening the Japanese people by providing rational explanations for all kinds of mystical phenomena. Their efforts, however, failed to attract the attention of the wider public. Judging by the small number of publications on the subject, interest subsided for most of the 1890s and the early years of the new century. ¹²

However, a second and much larger wave of interest began in 1903 and continued to grow for about a decade. Unlike the first one, this new wave of interest was not dominated by intellectual elites. Of the wealth of publications on hypnosis in the last decade of the Meiji period (1867–1912), most were written for the general public. These books covered the wide diversity of views currently circulating in the Western world. For example, Takeuchi Nanzō’s’s Gakuri Ōyō Saiminjutsu Jizai, which sold extremely well and was credited with igniting the interest in hypnosis, was a selective translation of Albert Moll’s Hypnotism and focused on the therapeutic use of suggestion. ¹³ The same author’s other works included one focused on correcting bad habits by hypnosis, which drew heavily on Edgar Bérillon, ¹⁴ and a couple on psychic phenomena, which introduced the latest results of Western psychical research. ¹⁵ Additionally, Kuwabara Toshirō’s Seishin Reidō, which was published in the same year as Takeuchi’s Gakuri Ōyō Saiminjutsu Jizai and also sold many copies, mainly related the spiritual insights that the author claimed to have obtained through experimenting with hypnosis and promoted using hypnosis to cultivate religious belief. ¹⁶ The large number of publications and their heterogeneous views reflected the intense interest in, and diverse understandings of, hypnosis in Japan in the early twentieth century.

Contemporary interest in hypnosis came from several interrelated aspects. First, people sought in hypnotherapy an alternative cure-all. Second, some people regarded hypnosis as a technique of seeing into and controlling others’ minds and hoped, by means of it, to have the upper hand in social relationships which were becoming increasingly complex at the turn of the century. Third, some people were attracted to the mystical aspects of hypnosis, seeing it as a science of the soul and a method of developing supernatural powers. Lastly, hypnosis became a popular method for personal cultivation, by which people sought to improve not only physical health but also mental capacities and powers. ¹⁷ However, worried by lay hypnotists’ extravagant claims, scientists and physicians began to express disapproval of hypnosis and to lobby the government to restrict its practice to medical doctors. This increased the public’s suspicion of hypnosis. ¹⁸ In the wake of a couple of high-profile scandals, hypnosis rapidly lost its appeal in the early 1910s. Some people remained interested in hypnosis, but most of them were concerned with its spiritual dimensions. They developed hypnosis into a variety of reijutsus and continued the mystical trend arising in the first decade of the twentieth century into the late 1920s. ¹⁹

As several scholars have pointed out, the interest in hypnosis stemmed from the social and cultural situation of Japan in the early twentieth century. After decades of rapid modernization and Westernization, Japan entered an “era of anguish” (hanmon no jidai) at the turn of the century. An increasing number of people began to harbor doubts about the path the country had taken, and to feel discontent with the Western scientific materialist worldview. Questions were also raised about Western medicine, to which the government had granted monopoly power in 1874, with concerns growing that its emphasis on treating diseases, rather than strengthening constitutions, had led to the deterioration of national health. With educational and social competition growing ever fiercer, moreover, it became increasingly difficult to achieve success in real life (risshin shusse), which drove people to turn their attention to their own inner experience. Self-cultivation became a major concern in the face of the intensifying competition and confusion of values. A variety of old and new cultivation methods were invented or reinvented, competing for the attention of those who wished to improve themselves and their life. It was in these circumstances that hypnosis came into vogue. ²⁰ Zen-sitting, which had centuries of history in Japan, also enjoyed a revival in the same context.

The long and rich history of Zen Buddhism in Japan is beyond the scope of this paper. For present purposes, it is sufficient to take a brief look at how Zen Buddhism attempted to reinvent itself in the Meiji period. As a result of the policy of separating Shinto and Buddhism (shinbutsu bunri) and the ensuing movement of abolishing Buddhism and destroying Shākyamuni (haibutsu kishaku), in the early Meiji years Buddhism lost much of the economic, political, and social power that it had enjoyed since the mid-Tokugawa period. The government’s subsequent religious policies, which were intended to build Shinto as the state religion, and the advent of Western modernity further undermined Buddhism’s position. Faced with such challenges, some Buddhist sects began to reform themselves to adapt to the new world, including Zen Buddhism. ²¹ Popular among the samurai class, Zen Buddhism, in fact, had been secularized to some extent in the late Edo period. ²² This trend was consolidated and accelerated in the Meiji era. Many Zen masters began to put more emphasis on the worldly benefits of sitting-Zen, promoting it not only as a religious practice but also as a method of improving health, treating diseases, and cultivating oneself that could help practitioners gain happiness and success in this life. ²³ Shaku Sōyen, a leading Zen monk of the time, proposed to replace the abstruse and mysterious kōans with ones that were more straightforward and relevant to modern life and attempted to complement the traditional tacit style of teaching Zen with more direct guidance and explanation. ²⁴ There were also efforts to use the knowledge about modern physiology and psychology to elucidate and reinterpret the teachings of Zen. ²⁵

With these reforms, Zen became fashionable again in the “era of anguish” of the early twentieth century. Sitting-Zen, as a health, therapeutic, and cultivation method, was often compared to other methods with similar objectives, including hypnosis. ²⁶ Many intellectual elites thought highly of Zen. For example, Motora Yūjirō, the first professor in psychology at Tokyo Imperial University, held Zen to be a rational, rather than mystical, experience, and the “seeing of the true nature” (kenshō) in Zen as a deep self-understanding. Zen-sitting, he praised, was an excellent method for mental cultivation. Far from being outdated, it was still very relevant in modern times. ²⁷

Therefore, although one was a traditional religious practice and the other a modern science and technique, sitting-Zen and hypnosis overlapped and sometimes competed with each other in many areas at the turn of the century. It was natural that students of hypnosis and Zen began to make comparisons between the two extraordinary mental states. They attempted not only to explain Zen by hypnosis but also vice versa, and thereby reshaped their understanding of both Zen and hypnosis.

Early comparison

Although it was not until the early twentieth century that the comparison between hypnosis and Zen was earnestly pursued, some pioneers of hypnotism had noticed their similarity in the late 1880s. For example, Ōsawa Kenji, a physiology professor and then the head of the medical department of Tokyo Imperial University, once compared hypnosis to Zenjō (the Zen calm) and quoted a Zen master as saying that his “sitting-Zen is also a hypnotic method.” ²⁸ Additionally, Inoue Enryō, a major philosopher, Buddhist reformer, and leading figure in hypnosis during the period, contended that the “nothingness” of hypnosis, which he described as a state of “no will and no mind,” was responsible for its therapeutic effects. He wrote:

The simple explanation of hypnosis is that it leads one’s mind to other dimensions, leaving it in a sleep-like state of no will and no mind. Previously incessant mental activity came to a halt upon entering the state, no longer exerting an influence on the body…. It [hypnosis] can restore the mind to its original natural state and thus eliminate all the interferences caused by the activities of the mind. Patients feel refreshed and spirited upon awakening from hypnosis…. However, the previous mental activities could rise again and hinder the cultivation of true nature, for which a second hypnosis would be performed. Thus, there must be great therapeutic benefit after no more than five or seven sessions. ²⁹

These remarks reveal Buddhist influence upon Inoue’s understanding of hypnosis. Inoue described the cessation of conscious activity in hypnosis as a state of “no will and no mind”, which originally was a Buddhist idea, referring to a state of returning to the true self attained by eliminating all distracting and deluded thoughts. Although the term, like many other Buddhist terms, had become part of everyday language and might be used in other senses, Inoue here seems to have the Buddhist meaning in mind when he used the term to describe the hypnotic state. We can find similarities between the nothingness of hypnosis described by Inoue and that of Zen. Both were seen as the true nature of the mind attained by eliminating distracting thoughts. The cumulative effect of hypnosis is also comparable to the gradual enlightenment (tongo) of Zen cultivation that obtains great enlightenment through a series of small ones.

However, Inoue held conflicting views on the nothingness of hypnosis. In contemporary Japan, Inoue was known as “Doctor Specter” for his efforts to investigate and explain ghost phenomena by science. ³⁰ Among the abnormal mental states he attributed those mysterious phenomena to was hypnosis, as well as illusion, hallucination, and delusion. In other words, he seems to have regarded hypnosis as abnormal and pathological instead of sacred and transcendental. Besides, Inoue was a pioneer of psychotherapy in Japan. He categorized sitting-Zen as psychotherapy by self-power, whereas hypnosis, in his view, was psychotherapy by another’s power. In his view, the two mental states were active and passive, respectively, and of different natures. ³¹

Other early proponents of hypnosis had expressed similar contradictory opinions. For example, Dr. Majima Tōhaku, the first physician committed to hypnotherapy in Japan, similarly described hypnosis as a state of “no self”. By that term, however, he sometimes referred to habitual or reflex unconscious actions, and even to pathological states of losing self-awareness like somnambulism and fox possession, but sometimes to a state of pure innocence that belonged to the sacred Buddhist realm of “no self.” ³² In a similar way, Kondō Yoshizō held that, with higher mental functions coming to a halt, hypnotized subjects were like decerebrate animals; ³³ but at the same time, he equated the hypnotic nothingness with the Buddhist one, exalting it as the “the original feature of the soul.” ³⁴

Hence, the “nothingness” of hypnosis was understood sometimes in a descriptive and mechanical sense but at other times in the Buddhist sense. Accordingly, hypnosis was sometimes regarded as a lower or even pathological mental state, but at other times as a sublime, transcendental one. This ostensible contradiction reveals the deeper reason behind these early proponents’ interest in hypnosis. When they used the two different senses of nothingness to describe and define hypnosis, they actually thought that there were associations between them that were worth exploration. They tried not only to explain transcendental nothingness by mechanical nothingness, but also to endow the latter with transcendental significance. A significant part of their interest in hypnosis was driven by religious and philosophical concerns. Majima concluded that philosophy was vital to the fundamental understanding of hypnosis. ³⁵ Kondō’s aim was to prove the reality of, and provide explanation for, traditional magic. As regards Inoue, as a Buddhist philosopher and reformer, his interest in hypnosis could be understood within the broad context of his efforts to revitalize the Buddhist self in the modern era.

This, of course, was not unique to Japan, since hypnosis was also a subject of interest for science, philosophy, and religion in the contemporary West, and some prominent scholars’ research into hypnosis could not be separated from their philosophical or religious interest. ³⁶ Indeed, in Japan – where, as Ichiyanagi points out, the conceptions of the psyche (seishin), the soul (shinrei), and the mind (shinri) had just been formed or transformed with the introduction of Western medicine and psychology ³⁷ – the boundary between psychology and religion might have been even more fluid, with these concepts open to different kinds of meanings and understandings. The openness was particularly evident with respect to hypnosis, not only because of its mysterious phenomena but also because it, characterized by the cessation of normal conscious activity, could be suitably described as a state of nothingness, making it easy to link it with the Buddhist mystical experience. It is worth pointing out that the Buddhist nothingness was neither a literally unconscious state nor a split consciousness with refined mental activities as described by Janet and other Western scholars of hypnosis. ³⁸ Instead, it was a fully enlightened and indivisible transcendent self. This Buddhist concept of self exerted great influence on these pioneers’ understandings of hypnosis. The similarity (or difference) between the hypnotic and Buddhist nothingness also became the focal point in the forthcoming debate over the comparability of hypnosis and Zen.

Mystical hypnosis, reijutsu and Zen

As stated above, hypnosis came into vogue in Japan in the early twentieth century, capturing the interest of people from every walk of life. They held widely divergent understandings and expectations of hypnosis. One particular position was represented by the book thought to have initiated the vogue – Takeuchi’s selective translation of Moll’s Hypnotism. ³⁹ Like Moll, some medical doctors and intellectuals actively promoted the therapeutic use of hypnosis and suggestion, while at the same time they launched attacks on the misuse of hypnosis by lay healers and self-styled priests. They mostly adopted the Nancy School theory and regarded hypnosis as a state of enhanced suggestibility. Although they championed the use of hypnosis for medical and correctional purposes, hypnosis, in their view, was of no spiritual significance; nor could it serve as a method of self-cultivation. Furthermore, some of them increasingly saw the enhancement of suggestibility as morally and socially dangerous, particularly when crowd psychology became a subject of concern in the wake of a series of social disturbances beginning in 1905. ⁴⁰ Takeuchi, for example, warned of the dangers of hypnosis, contending that hypnosis inevitably led to the enhancement of suggestibility. He linked the popularity of hypnosis with the rise of socialist and nihilistic thoughts in Japan, and regarded hypnosis as harmful to morality and health on both individual and collective levels. ⁴¹

At the same time, hypnosis played an important role in the rise of mysticism and occultism. In this regard, Kuwabara’s Seishin Reidō has been deemed one of the most influential works of the period. ⁴² A teacher at a teacher’s college, Kuwabara learned of hypnosis from Kondō’s Magic and Hypnosis and went on to develop a mystical theory that he claimed was founded solely on his experiments with hypnosis. Kuwabara maintained that hypnosis was a state of “no will, no thought, no self, and no mind.” ⁴³ In this state of nothingness, he contended, the mind returned to its original nature and recovered its connection, as a small spirit, to the Great Spirit that was the source of the beings of the universe. This connection had been lost when the mind was clouded by all kinds of thoughts and desires and thus became a personality. As an efficient method of eliminating personality, hypnosis could reunite the mind with the Great Spirit and realize its psychic capacities, including healing, clairvoyance, fortunetelling, and telekinesis, all of which Kuwabara claimed to have confirmed by experiments on himself. ⁴⁴

Kuwabara criticized Western psychology as a body of knowledge inferior to Oriental mysticism. He also lamented that Buddhism had degenerated, as it could no longer convince people by causing miracles. Yet he praised Zen Buddhism for having developed a profound theory of the psyche that could “philosophically and theoretically” elucidate that everything originated from the mind. Kuwabara stressed that he had proved the teachings of Zen by hypnosis. With hypnosis, he hoped to re-establish the authority of Buddhism by providing it with a firm foundation of scientific, experimental facts. ⁴⁵

Kuwabara provided a basic framework for the reijutsu which would soon emerge. Similarly, the reijutsu masters of the 1910s and 1920s often compared hypnosis to traditional religious experiences. However, these reijutsu masters usually had lower social standing. Although they were worried by the prevalence of reijutsu, most scientists, orthodox Buddhist priests, and intellectual elites seldom gave serious thought to reijutsu masters’ theories and practices, but often straightforwardly dismissed them as superstition or heresy. As a result, their views concerning the similarity between hypnosis and Zen were deemed unworthy of serious consideration. However, there were other people who had been exploring the comparison, and their ideas were not so easy to dismiss. Among them was Fukurai Tomokichi, then arguably the foremost authority on hypnosis. Fukurai’s claim that hypnosis and Zen were the same mental states provoked much discussion, prompting leading figures in Zen Buddhism and psychology to join the debate.

Fukurai’s scientific comparison

Fukurai was the first native-trained psychologist in Japan, having obtained his doctoral degree at Tokyo Imperial University in 1906. He went on to serve as a lecturer there and was promoted to the post of associate professor in 1908, looking set to succeed Motora to the professorship. ⁴⁶ A prominent figure among the few psychologists at the time, Fukurai was best-known, particularly outside the academic world, for his expertise in hypnosis, the topic of his doctoral research. Fukurai’s doctoral thesis was published in 1906, and was widely read and frequently quoted by contemporary authors on hypnosis. ⁴⁷ It provided a comprehensive and critical review of contemporary theories, as well as detailed reports of some of the numerous experiments that he had conducted. Fukurai criticized the then dominant suggestion theory as too superficial to explain the psychological basis of hypnosis. Although he held that hypnosis was physiologically a state of brain anemia, he strongly opposed the view, held by the likes of Hippolyte Bernheim, Auguste Forel and Moll, that hypnosis was normal sleep or part of normal sleep. Instead, he stressed that the brain anemia in hypnosis was fundamentally different from that in sleep, for brain blood flow in hypnosis could change swiftly in response to suggestion, which he claimed to have confirmed by experimenting with Italian physiologist Angelo Mosso’s technique of “human circulation balance.” ⁴⁸ He was also critical of Janet’s theory of personality for confusing the objective self with the subjective one. The latter, he held, was of an intuitive and transcendental nature and could not be empirically studied. ⁴⁹ Yet he spoke highly of William James and was the first to translate James’s works into Japanese. In his view, Japanese psychology was disproportionately influenced by Wilhelm Wundt’s school of experimental psychology and knew very little of James’s ideas, despite the fact that James was as renowned and influential as Wundt in the West. ⁵⁰ Like James, and probably under his inspiration, Fukurai adopted a positive attitude toward psychical research, and was concerned with comparing hypnosis with other exceptional mental states.

Fukurai claimed to have first noticed the similarity between Zen and hypnosis in his experimental subjects’ self-observations and reports of their hypnotic experiences. In other words, like many contemporary researchers, Fukurai not only conducted experiments on hypnotized subjects but also inquired about their experiences. Yet while hypnotized persons in the West were recalling and reliving their traumas, Fukurai’s subjects appeared to experience hypnosis in a rather different way. Fukurai noted:

According to their [the hypnotized persons’] descriptions, being hypnotized is entering a state of konton [literally, muddled confusion], doing away with all distinctions. Some of them described it as a state of hachimenreirō [a clear and exquisite state of mind in every perspective]. ⁵¹

Elaborating on the experience, Fukurai described hypnosis as a state of “being totally calm, just like a pool of absolutely balanced, quiet and waveless water.” He explained:

Hypnosis is a state of no will and no thought. All our preconceived ideas about things disappear, and all cognitive activities come to a temporary halt, making all stimuli from the outside world appear in konton and without distinction. Remaining conscious but without activity of thinking or perceiving, the mind thus enters a state of konton, one of no distinction and separation [ichinyo]. ⁵²

Fukurai noticed that these descriptions of hypnosis were similar to those of Zenjō that he read in books, which prompted him to extend the comparison and find more similarities. First, he compared their respective methods of achieving nothingness, finding that the meditation methods of Zen, including introspective meditation and kōan meditation, were much the same as the fixed-gaze method of hypnotic induction in terms of mechanism and effects. Both of them, he explained, were intended to help the practitioners or subjects suppress all other ideas by focusing their attention on a meaningless object or activity, be it a bright object, an unintelligible kōan, or the counting of one’s breaths. As the objects and activities were meaningless and associated with no other ideas, they finally would disappear from the mind, leaving it in a state of nothingness. ⁵³

Second, Fukurai compared the illusions and hallucinations occurring in Zen cultivation and hypnosis. In Zen cultivation, such perceptions could be deliberately generated by active imagination to help practitioners gain insights by virtually going through certain experiences. The method was called “kanhō” (meditation). Yet they could also emerge spontaneously and impede cultivation and harm the practitioners’ health; these perceptions were known as “mashō” (the demons of temptation). Both kanhō and mashō, in Fukurai’s view, were simply suggestive or autosuggestive phenomena. They were no different from hypnotic illusions and hallucinations, which, similarly, were caused by suggestion or autosuggestion and could be therapeutic or pathological in nature. ⁵⁴

Lastly, Fukurai compared the physiological bases of Zen and hypnosis. As mentioned above, Fukurai regarded hypnosis as a state of artificially induced brain anemia. As for Zen, he pointed out that the body techniques of sitting and deep breathing in Zen cultivation not only concentrated the practitioners’ attention on the lower abdomen but also directed the flow of blood there, leaving the brain in an anemic state. An anemic brain, he contended, was the physiological basis of both Zen and hypnosis, and corresponded to their psychological characteristics of being exceptionally calm, quiet, and perceptive. ⁵⁵

Based on these comparisons, Fukurai, in a 1908 article, contended that Zen was simply a state of hypnosis, and hoped that further comparative study would provide a full psychological account of the two mental states. ⁵⁶ The claim had significant implications for both Zen and hypnosis. On the one hand, the nothingness of Zen was no longer purely subjective and intuitive but could be understood and explained by psychological laws, and could be reliably achieved by specific techniques. On the other hand, the nothingness of hypnosis was endowed with religious and spiritual significance. This was not a novel view – examples of it could be found as early as the 1880s − but Fukurai’s scientific authority made it more credible and convincing. Based on his theories, a number of hypnotists began to pursue this comparison further. They not only called for the teachings and practices of Zen to be modernized but also promoted hypnosis as a modern method of Zen cultivation. Hypnosis, they contended, could shed light on the true nature of mind pursued by Zen, which some of them – borrowing the terminology of the latest dynamic psychology – called “the latent consciousness,” “the second personality,” or “the unconscious.”

Hypnosis as a modern, scientific method of Zen cultivation

Among them was Ono Fukuhei, a well-known hypnotist who claimed to be the first full-time hypnotherapist in Japan. Aspiring to establish hypnosis as a proper scientific and professional discipline, Ono strongly criticized mystical hypnotists like Kuwabara, condemning their spiritual theories as outdated and superstitious. He also fought, alongside Fukurai, against the medical profession, which had been lobbying the parliament to restrict the practice of hypnosis to physicians. ⁵⁷ Despite his rationalistic approach, he, like Fukurai, was fascinated by the similarity between Zen and hypnosis. “From the perspective of psychology,” he wrote, “hypnosis is the temporary halt of active mental activity” and could be simply described as “a state of no self.” ⁵⁸ However, the no self in hypnosis should not be understood literally, Ono stressed. It was the manifestation of what Alfred Binet called “the second personality,” which was equivalent to the “fundamental mind” (honshin) and “ontological essence” (hontai) in Buddhism. ⁵⁹ According to Buddhist doctrine, Ono noted, “A person achieves the emptiness of mind by getting rid of all distracting ideas. In an emptied mind, out of the spiritual no-thinking will grow thorough and comprehensive knowledge.” ⁶⁰ The second personality was the “ontological essence of the mind” that had thus come to manifest itself. Ono thus argued that Zenjō, which was a state of no self, was a hypnotic state, and that the state of “wisdom” (e), in which one attained comprehensive insights, was an effect of suggestion. ⁶¹ The only difference between hypnosis and Zen was that no-self was attained on one’s own in the latter but with outside help in the former. Although they used different methods, hypnosis and Zen cultivation had exactly the same goals and effects.

Based on this comparison, Ono maintained that hypnosis was not only a medical treatment and experimental tool but also an excellent method for self-cultivation. He refuted the common assumption that hypnosis was a purely passive and dependent mental state, pointing out that, as in the case of hypnotic hypermnesia, people often showed better mental abilities under hypnosis than while awake. This, he explained, was because the full potential of some mental abilities was realized through the suspension of the others. Hypnosis, in his view, was a modern scientific method for Zen cultivation by which practitioners could attain the state of Zen in a reliable and efficient way. He called on Zen practitioners to replace traditional sitting-Zen with hypnosis, which he called the “experimental Zen.” ⁶² What Ono meant by “experimental Zen” was for a practitioner to undergo hypnosis to experience the state of no self and be given the post-hypnotic suggestion that he would enter the state again upon receiving certain commands from others or from himself. Thereby he would be able to attain the realm of no self at will. The “experimental Zen,” Ono contended, was much more efficient and reliable than traditional sitting-Zen, which not only required lengthy cultivation but also had no guarantee of success.

In the name of science and modernization, Ono proposed to substitute hypnosis for sitting-Zen, which appeared to be following the direction of modernization that Japan had taken since 1868. However, the above analysis reveals strong Buddhist influence upon his, as well as Fukurai’s, understanding of hypnosis and related concepts, such as the second personality. Their idea of hypnosis as a state with extraordinary self-awareness and willpower was formed with reference to the concept of Zenjō. They explained the state of Zen by hypnosis, and vice versa. More precisely, they constructed a novel mental state, and a new body of knowledge and techniques, by comparing them to each other.

“New” body techniques of hypnosis

Many contemporary hypnotists had made similar attempts, particularly with regard to the technical side. They drew on the rich body techniques of Buddhism to invent new methods of hypnosis and, at the same time, sought to find a physiological or psychological basis for those old techniques. For example, Kumashiro Hikotarō, another well-known hypnotist of the time, posited that taking proper postures and doing deep abdominal breathing, which was a long-established method for Zen cultivation, was an effective way to induce brain anemia, which, in turn, was essential to achieving quietness and the state of no will and no thought. As hypnosis was also a state of brain anemia, it could also be induced by the same method. Kumamoto accordingly invented a new induction method to replace the then-standard eye-fixation. It consisted of having the subjects take a proper sitting posture, do deep abdominal breathing, and count their breaths. ⁶³ By this method, a person could be easily induced into a state of hypnosis that was equivalent to the “understanding of nothingness” (mukan) pursued by Zen practitioners, Kumamoto claimed. He compared this method to the famous cultivation method invented by Hakuin Ekaku, an influential Zen monk of the Edo period. Both, he said, were intended to obtain the “ultimately true and pure understanding” by means of the body techniques of posture and abdominal breathing. ⁶⁴

Kumamoto was not alone in his use of these techniques. In fact, by 1910, these techniques had become one of the most popular, if not the most popular, hypnosis induction methods in Japan. ⁶⁵ The comparison of hypnosis to Zen led to, and was strengthened by, this technical transformation. It might also reflect the influence of Fukurai’s brain-anemia theory of hypnosis and the cultural affinity of Japanese hypnotists and their clients with these techniques. Accordingly, hypnosis and Zen were understood in physiological as well as psychological terms.

Murakami’s attention theory

However, there were also hypnotists attempting to compare Zen and hypnosis from purely psychological perspectives. Among them was Murakami Tatsugorō. Murakami was a scholar in agricultural ethics and had worked at the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University and Tokyo Agricultural College. When the academic and public sectors became suspicious of, and even hostile to, hypnosis in the Taisho period (1912–1926), his broad connections in the educational world enabled him to continue exhibiting experiments of and teaching hypnosis across the country, particularly at educational institutions. This, together with his higher academic and social status, made him a prominent figure in hypnotism in this period, respected by both rational hypnotists and occultists. ⁶⁶

The most remarkable feature of Murakami’s hypnosis is the exclusive emphasis that he placed on verbal suggestion. Hypnosis, he stressed, was a psychological state in nature. For its induction, there was no need for any bodily manipulation; a simple command issued by a hypnotist with high moral authority was sufficient. ⁶⁷ As regards the psychology of hypnosis, apart from nothingness, he emphasized a particular psychological function, namely, attention. Hypnosis essentially consisted of an extraordinary state of intentional attention, he contended. He divided intentional attention into passive and active types, explaining that while the former’s function was to maintain the free flow of attention by getting rid of distractions, thus keeping one alert to all stimuli from without and within, the latter’s function was to direct all attention to one focus. As far as hypnosis was concerned, Murakami held that hypnosis without suggestion was a state of full passive attention and that hypnosis with suggestion was one of full active attention. Hypnotic methods, moreover, were simply techniques of manipulating and training attention. ⁶⁸ Based on this view, he first renamed hypnosis the “attention technique” and then the “psychological experiment for mental unity,” insisting that these names better captured the essence of hypnosis. ⁶⁹

Murakami also compared hypnosis and Zen based on this attention theory, which might have been conceived under the influence of Zen thought in the first place. He pointed out that Buddhist cultivation, particularly Zen cultivation, placed great emphasis on the concentration of attention. Samadhi, as it was known, was an ultimately settled and unified mental state in which one was extremely focused on one thing, becoming blissfully unaware of anything else. The state of attention in samadhi, he maintained, was identical to that in hypnosis. He also pointed out that “nothingness” and “attentiveness” were related to each other in a similar way in Zen cultivation and hypnosis. In both cases, the attainment of “nothingness” was conducive to that of “attentiveness,” and vice versa. They were the quiescent and active sides of an ultimately settled and unified mind. There was therefore little difference between Zen and hypnosis. Self-hypnosis, in particular, was a more efficient and reliable method of Zen cultivation than sitting-Zen. ⁷⁰ As a teacher, Murakami advised students to be hypnotized or self-hypnotized on a regular basis to experiment with all kinds of hypnotic phenomena, including catalepsy, hallucination, personality change, planchette, and mind-reading, contending that they were all attention-training methods in themselves and were effective for the improvement of intelligence, morality, and willpower. ⁷¹

Integration of psychology and Buddhism: a legitimate objective

Thus, Japanese hypnotists made a series of comparisons between Zen and hypnosis, pointing out the similarities between their nothingness, attentiveness, active imaginations, hallucinations, physiological bases, induction techniques, and therapeutic and cultivation effects, and between hypnotic suggestion and Zen insight. Their enthusiasm about making this comparison might have been motivated, in part, by their desire to promote hypnosis. Zen, after all, was embedded in Japanese culture and still enjoyed considerable moral and cultural authority. Its terminology and concepts were part of everyday language and integral to people’s self-understanding. Its techniques of posture, breathing, and meditation were ubiquitous in health and cultural practices. Comparing hypnosis to Zen could lift the status of hypnosis or, at least, make it less dubious. It might be easier to explain hypnosis to the public by concepts such as “nothingness,” Zenjō, and samadhi. The use of traditional body techniques as induction methods also made hypnosis more accessible and agreeable.

However, their efforts were also a genuine attempt to integrate Buddhism and psychology, a goal that remained legitimate and desirable for both psychology and Buddhism at the time. Apart from Fukurai, several other psychologists had tried to study Buddhism from the perspective of psychology. ⁷² Meanwhile, there were students of Zen invoking psychological theories to reinterpret and reconstruct Buddhist teachings. ⁷³ For them, there was no significant gap between psychology and Buddhism, whose mutual enrichment and validation were, to some extent, deemed natural and necessary. In fact, the popularity of this approach might have contributed to the formation and widening of the gap by propelling psychology and Buddhism to more clearly define their boundaries. For psychology, it had to address the difficult questions concerning the extraordinary nature of meditative introspection and intuitive experiences, which, unlike hypnosis, could not be easily reduced to pathological states. As for Buddhism, it was threatened by competition from a variety of new religions claiming to be founded on science and psychology. Trying to draw a clear distinction between psychology and Buddhism, several leading psychologists and Zen masters used the comparison of hypnosis and Zen to illustrate their differences in basic assumptions and methods. They came to concur that hypnosis was an abnormal or pathological mental state complying with mechanical, objective psychological laws, which was absolutely different from the transcendental, subjective Zen. However, some of them had held different views at earlier times, or in different contexts, which testified to how fluid the boundary had been and still was.

Shaku Sōyen’s refutation

It is worth noting that the two respective leading figures in psychology and Buddhism who raised objections to the comparison had a close connection, which is another example of the rich exchanges between the two fields at the time. They were Motora Yūjirō, the first professor in psychology at Tokyo Imperial University, and Shaku Sōyen, the superintendent priest of the prestigious Zen temple Engakuji, who was also the Zen master of Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō and gave him his Buddhist name “Daisetsu”. In 1895, for his psychological study of Zen, Motora went to Engakuji to practice sitting-Zen under the instruction of Sōyen. ⁷⁴ He later invited Sōyen to join the Society for Philosophy (Tetsugakukai). ⁷⁵ New members were routinely asked to deliver a lecture, and Sōyen used his lecture to state his view on the comparison of Zen and hypnosis. Motora was probably in the audience and, if he was, might have felt a little awkward, as the main target of Sōyen’s criticism was probably Fukurai, his former student and colleague.

Sōyen’s speech was entitled “What Is Enlightenment [godō]?” ⁷⁶ Concerning the title, he acknowledged at the outset that, according to Zen doctrine, the state of enlightenment could not, and should not, be taught or explained in words. Nevertheless, he said, he felt the need to publicly state his views on the issue after reading a doctor’s article which, to his surprise, argued that Zen enlightenment was hypnosis and that sitting-Zen was nothing but a hypnotic method. Worried that the doctor – who, Sōyen said, was supposed to know better than the general public – could misunderstand Zen so seriously, Sōyen called on all Zen students to learn more, and think more carefully, about Zen enlightenment. ⁷⁷

Borrowing from Guifeng Zongmi (780–841), a Chinese Zen monk of the Tang Dynasty, Sōyen divided Zen into five different levels: gedō (heretical) Zen; bonpu (ordinary-people) Zen; hīnayāna Zen; mahāyāna Zen; and ultimate Zen. Gedō Zen, he explained, meant practicing religion based on superstitions and for worldly ends. Citing Taoist immortality techniques, Shintoist chinkonkishinhō (the method of returning to the divine through spiritual quietude), contemporary Western spiritualism, and Christian Science as its counterparts, Sōyen regarded gedō Zen as a superstitious form of Zen. In his opinion, this was the only level of Zen that might resemble hypnosis in some respects. The doctor, he surmised, must have been ignorant of levels of Zen other than gedō Zen. ⁷⁸

To be fair, this criticism is misplaced, as it was directed against mesmerism and other forms of mystical hypnosis. Sōyen appeared to be himself ignorant of the largely rational forms of hypnosis proposed by Fukurai and others, which, in fact, were more akin to bonpu Zen. Sōyen held a mixed view of bonpu Zen, which he explained as practicing religion for worldly ends as well but based on rational beliefs. On the one hand, he regarded it as founded on sound physiological or psychological bases. As well as the quiet-sitting practiced by Chinese Confucian scholars, he referred to William James’s and Carl Lange’s emotional theory as an example of bonpu Zen, contending that it was in agreement with the traditional thought of sitting-Zen on the importance of bodily training to the cultivation of mind. Practicing bonpu Zen, he maintained, was beneficial for mental as well as physical health, and was a remedy for the ills of contemporary brain-centered, overintellectualized, and overspecialized culture. ⁷⁹

On the other hand, Sōyen stressed that bonpu Zen was, nonetheless, merely a worldly level of Zen and could not lead to true Zen enlightenment. In the rest of the speech, he briefly explained the remaining higher levels of Zen, pointing out that they were all concerned with transcendental spiritual experiences and could yield genuine religious insights. ⁸⁰ He stressed that the state of enlightenment, in which thinking and emotions attained their ultimate accomplishment, was intuitively experienced and could not be understood and explained by psychology, philosophy or other sciences. He also gave an abstract interpretation of the miraculous powers described in Buddhist texts, understanding them more as metaphors for the enlightenment of the mind than realities, and thereby drew a line between them and psychic phenomena upon which occultists like Kuwabara attempted to build new religions. ⁸¹ In the conclusion to his speech, Sōyen again expressed his dismay at the comparison of hypnosis to Zen. In his view, hypnosis, as a regressive and pathological mental state, could not be more different from the transcendental state of Zen, which produced extraordinary mental powers. ⁸²

A closer look at Sōyen’s speech reveals that he, in effect, differentiated between three kinds of Zen, superstitious, secularized, and truly religious, with the first being the principal object of his criticism. He was most concerned by those occult forms of hypnosis and keen to make a clear distinction between them and true religions. It was in this context that he adopted the narrow view of hypnosis as a completely passive and dependent sleep-like mental state, which was instrumental in his rebuttal of those self-styled scientific religions.

However, as manifested by his positive view of bonpu Zen, Sōyen also felt the need for secularization, considering it an important task for beleaguered Buddhism in the modern era. In this respect, he made more specific proposals in an earlier influential work, Recommendation for Quiet-Sitting. In this book, Sōyen again referred to the James–Lange emotional theory as a scientific confirmation of Zen-sitting practice. ⁸³ He also reframed the cultivation of Zen in the psychological theory of attention. Sitting-Zen, he explained, could not only inhibit psychological reflexes and thereby prevent wasting mental energy, but also activate and sustain intentional attention. It, therefore, was an effective method for training attention. ⁸⁴ Moreover, he argued for the need to reform kōan, contending that those mysterious, unintelligible traditional kōans were too difficult and troublesome for most contemporary Zen practitioners, who, without religious talent or aspiration, only sought in Zen a method for self-cultivation. He advised modern practitioners to choose a preferred saying appropriate for the cultivation of moral virtues, be it from the Bible, the Analects of Confucius, or any other great philosophical work, and meditate upon it, arguing that, with these modern kōans, sitting-Zen was nonetheless an effective method, even for non-believers, to improve morality, intelligence, and willpower. ⁸⁵

In terms of both theory and technique, the secularized form of Zen proposed by Sōyen was similar to Fukurai’s, Ono’s, and Murakami’s Zen-hypnosis. He agreed with them that Zen was a state of nothingness and attentiveness. The modernized kōans were much like self-suggestion. There were more similarities than differences between Sōyen’s psychological reading of Zen and those hypnotists’ Buddhist reading of hypnosis. It is no wonder that, although Sōyen was opposed to comparing Zen to hypnosis, some hypnotists had quoted him in support of the contrary argument. ⁸⁶ However, Sōyen wished to defend Buddhism against new religions founded on mystical hypnosis, as well as maintain the uniqueness of Zen practice. He thus narrowly defined hypnosis as a totally passive and dependent state of mind, thereby drawing an absolute distinction between it and Zen.

Empirical hypnosis versus transcendental Zen

Most people arguing against the comparison used similar strategies to make their case. By characterizing hypnosis as a passive and dependent state of mind, they could treat it as a purely empirical phenomenon belonging to the domain of psychology and, at the same time, keep the transcendental experiences of Zen within the realm of religion.

For example, Okada Gihō, a famous Zen monk and scholar, also argued from this angle against the comparison of hypnosis with Zen. Unlike Sōyen, Okada spoke positively of hypnosis, praising it as a body of scholarship developed by psychologists based on meticulous scientific studies. ⁸⁷ However, he stressed that it was wrong to confuse hypnosis with Zen, for the two, despite some resemblances, were of an absolutely different nature. To elucidate this point, Okada first compared their respective techniques. He pointed out that although hypnosis and Zen shared certain techniques, such as breathing and meditative skills, hypnosis primarily used them to cause brain anemia, thereby inducing hypnotized subjects into a “sleep” or “drunken” state, or into “the world of night’s darkness,” while Zen intended them to lead practitioners into an “enlightened” or “awakened” state, or into “the world of day’s light.” ⁸⁸ Seemingly identical techniques actually produced opposite effects and served opposite purposes in the two practices.

He then compared the mental states in hypnosis and Zen. Okada defined hypnosis as “a mental state of no will and no thought in which all spontaneous mental activities come to a halt.” ⁸⁹ As for the state of Zenjō, Okada first stressed that it was impossible to experiment with Zenjō on oneself or others in the same manner as with hypnosis, because Zenjō was an esoteric and profound mental state that was very difficult to attain. It was beyond description and explanation, which was why Zen Buddhism had seldom provided an explanation of Zenjō and, even if it did, could only come up with some vague descriptions, such as “unspeakable” (gongodōdan), “unthinkable” (iryofudō), “manifest” (arawa), or “strike” (katsu) for the most profound experiences. ⁹⁰ However, Zenjō was by no means an “unconscious” state, Okada contended. What was called the “cessation of consciousness and thought” and “elimination of difference” in Zenjō actually meant becoming liberated from delusions through experiential understanding of the fact that all thoughts and judgments originated from the mind and were artificial. They should not be understood as “no mind,” “no difference,” or “unconscious” in a literal sense. Zenjō, Okada contended, was not an “inorganic,” mechanical state of “no thought” (bushiryō) but a state with “un-thought” (hishiryō), which was selfless, non-egoistic, and beyond prejudice. Zen practitioners attaining the state of Zenjō were fully conscious and carried on all mental processes. Zenjō, therefore, was not a hypnotic state but a state of awakening, awakening not only from ordinary sleep or drunkenness but also from the dream of life and ignorance to truth. Okada thus concluded that although hypnosis and Zenjō were similarly described as a state of “nothingness,” they differed in terms of the existence or nonexistence of consciousness, volition, and autonomy and were totally incomparable. ⁹¹

Psychologists opposing the comparison adopted a similar line of argument. They also narrowly defined hypnosis as a mental state devoid of consciousness and volitional control, regarding it as either an ordinary state like sleep or a pathological one like hysteria. As for Zen, they increasingly considered it beyond the scope of psychological experiment and tended to understand it independently of normal and abnormal psychology. This approach, however, was established only gradually. The distinction between ordinary and religious psychological experiences had remained vague for psychologists for most of the first decade of the twentieth century.

For example, Motora’s view on this issue changed over time. As mentioned above, Motora once practiced Zen in 1894. From his own experience, he concluded that Zen, in the language of psychology, was a mental state in which the mind did away with the manifest consciousness and activity, which were mainly intellectual in nature, and returned to the latent consciousness and activity, which comprised emotions and wills. ⁹² In the context of the 1890s, what he referred to as the latent consciousness and activity of emotions and wills was actually closely related to hypnosis. He made this point more clearly in another article on the experience of Zen enlightenment. Zen enlightenment, he held, was similar to the divine inspiration of Methodist meditation, both of which were the attainment of the unity of latent consciousness. In both cases, moreover, successive small enlightenments could lead to a major enlightenment. He posited that the effects of post-hypnotic suggestion could provide an explanation for how the experience of enlightenment brought about persistent and cumulative mental changes. ⁹³ Furthermore, he seemed to have been open to, if not persuaded by, the idea of the comparability of hypnosis and Zen put forward by Fukurai in his doctoral thesis, which was completed under his supervision.

However, much of this openness had disappeared by 1908, when Fukurai explicitly argued that hypnosis and Zen were the same mental states. Ono remembered that he once sought Motora’s support for this contention but received a disappointing reply. He quoted Motora as saying:

The mental life in Zen cultivation is full and perfect, consisting of consistent and coherent mental activities. By contrast, that in hypnosis is disconnected and localized, devoid of mental activities other than those related to suggestions and lacking judgment and differentiation abilities. ⁹⁴

A similar view was expressed by Iritani Tomosada in the mid-1910s. Under the supervision of Matsumoto Matatarō – a student of William Wundt and the successor to Motora at Tokyo Imperial University – Iritani, a student of psychology at the university, conducted a study on the psychology of Zen through questionnaire and text analysis. The work was later published as one of a series of books on psychology edited by Matsumoto. ⁹⁵ In this book, Iritani devoted a whole chapter to the comparison of Zen and hypnosis. He contended that although the two were both states of “no thought and no will,” they were completely different in terms of the “attitude of mind.” He pointed out that in the state of Zen, the mind, although unaffected by outside stimuli for being absolutely focused on the kōan, remained active and, once activated, would work in a coordinated way as it did in normal consciousness. By contrast, the mind was totally passive in hypnosis. It only acted according to suggestions, with some centers becoming hyperactive while others remaining inactive, which resulted in abnormal mental phenomena such as illusion, hallucination, and somnambulism. ⁹⁶

By that time, this view had become the dominant one in Japanese academic psychology, which, as many scholars point out, had developed in the direction of German experimental psychology since the early twentieth century, particularly after Matsumoto succeeded Motora to the professorship at Tokyo Imperial University in 1912 and Fukurai was forced to resign one year later. ⁹⁷ This trend was reflected in the change of Motora’s stance on this issue. An absolute distinction was drawn between hypnosis and Zen. Hypnosis was regarded as an ordinary, abnormal, or pathological mental state, which belonged to the domain of abnormal psychology. Zen, by contrast, was regarded as a mystical state incidentally attained through religious practices, which, as exemplified by Iritani’s research, had to be studied from the particular perspective of religious psychology.

Reverberations of the debate

The debate subsided after 1912 without really being resolved. Neither side was persuaded to change its stance. By assigning hypnosis and Zen to the radically different categories of abnormal or pathological and spiritual mental experiences, psychology and Buddhism defended their respective boundaries against all kinds of “unorthodox” doctrines and practices. Psychology no longer held that religious experiences were founded on the same principles as normal and abnormal mental lives, regarding them as particular subjective experiences to be investigated and explained, rather than as a window into the inner psyche. Buddhism took a similar approach. It became more cautious about psychological interpretations of its thoughts and practices and tried to ensure its roles in modern society by drawing a clear distinction between itself and science.

At the same time, those who argued for the similarity between hypnosis and Zen stood their ground, but increasingly pursued the comparison in a mystical direction. Starting from around 1910, Japanese hypnotism developed largely in the direction of occult reijutsu, and most of those who continued to take an interest in hypnosis mainly concerned themselves with the psychic powers of the mind. ⁹⁸ Even Fukurai had devoted himself to psychic and mystical research and was forced to resign from his post at Tokyo Imperial University for his adamant position on the reality of psychic powers. ⁹⁹ The popularity of reijutsu in the 1910s and 1920s reflected a persistent desire to bridge the gap between science and religion. Its perspectives, however, were much less diverse than in the first decade of the twentieth century, with the more naturalistic approaches adopted by the earlier Fukurai, Ono, and Murakami largely abandoned. Although some reijutsu masters still claimed that hypnosis and Zen were the same mental states, there was no serious attempt to explore the unconscious mental life by comparing Zen and hypnosis in the restructured mental world in which psychology, Buddhism, and reijutsu each played a distinct and separate role.

This, however, does not mean that psychotherapy in Japan ceased to draw inspiration from Buddhism. Although psychoanalysis appears to have dominated discussions about the unconscious in academic and literary circles since the 1920s, only a few people had actually experienced psychoanalysis in Japan before 1945. ¹⁰⁰ Some of them also drew on Buddhism to understand psychoanalytic experiences and conceived the attainment of psychoanalytic insight as some kind of intuitive experience akin to Buddhist sudden enlightenment. ¹⁰¹ Moreover, this period saw the emergence of several indigenous forms of psychotherapy, such as Morita therapy and Naikan therapy, which were as popular and influential as psychoanalysis, if not more so. Many of them claimed or were thought to have their roots in Buddhism and placed great emphasis on attaining a transcendental state of mind through intuitive introspection. ¹⁰² These psychotherapies share many common features with the Zen-hypnosis discussed in this article. They differ from psychoanalysis in that while psychoanalysis places emphasis on objective observation and verbalization of inner experience and explores the mind through discursive analysis, they dismiss the importance of words and provide a way to directly experience and confirm the fundamental state of mind through intuitive introspection. Therefore, starting from the Zen-hypnosis, we may write a Japanese history of dynamic psychiatry and psychology that is rather different from the Western ones. After all, hypnosis occupied a significant place in the history of dynamic psychiatry for being constructed as a controlled altered state of consciousness that provided a gateway into the unconscious world. It could be developed into a variety of exceptional mental states, among which the talkative state of free association was just one possibility.

Conclusion

Additional to its significance to the Japanese history of dynamic psychiatry, there are two important features in the debate that are worth noting. First, one can find that, in this debate, “orthodox” psychologists and religious leaders, such as Motora, Sōyen and Okada, respected and supported each other’s authority in their respective field. They shared many views and interests in common, and complemented each other to draw an absolute distinction between religious mystical experiences and normal and pathological mental states. They all held that hypnosis was merely an abnormal or pathological mental state whose only counterpart in religion was superstition, and that psychology had no access to the core of belief, but could (and should) only study the external appearance of religious experiences. In this case, there was more consensus and collaboration than conflict between psychology and religion. They shared a common epistemological and methodological framework for understanding mental life, and mutually shaped and reinforced each other’s stance. To uphold this framework, they had to denounce other frameworks trying to integrate varied levels of mental experiences. Their principal targets of attack, respectively, were those “heresies” within their own fields, such as Fukurai for psychology, and new religions for organized Buddhism. However, as shown by the popularity of the Zen-hypnosis, reijutsu, and other indigenous forms of psychotherapy, this framework was far from being strongly dominant and secure, but needed to be continually defended, maintained, and adjusted.

The other feature concerns the cultural, social, and historical construction of psychological states. In this debate, one can easily notice that there was not only one, but many hypnotic states. Fukurai, Ono, and Murakami conceived of, and their clients experienced, a hypnotic state that was different from the Western hypnotic states in many important respects: its induction method consisted of the traditional techniques of sitting, breathing, and meditation; its essence was that a hypnotized person could consciously and intentionally halt the flow of consciousness and return to the original state of mind or the unconscious; the unconscious was not a split and rudimentary consciousness, but a full consciousness that was intellectually, morally, and spiritually superior to ordinary consciousness; people who were hypnotized could thus achieve more comprehensive and deeper self-reflection and self-understanding than they could in a waking state; and this extraordinary state, moreover, was not the privilege of few people with singular constitutions but could be achieved by anyone through hypnosis or self-cultivation. Obviously, this hypnotic state was modeled on Zen. However, instead of saying that it was invented by a few theorists with religious concerns, and then became a more general psychological reality through imitation, suggestion, or any other similar mechanisms, we may say that it was natural that hypnosis was experienced in this way in Japan, where Buddhist concepts, such as nothingness and samadhi, had become part of everyday language and integral to people’s self-understanding. There were also other factors that might have contributed to the construction of this psychological state: the anxiety about modernity and cultural nationalism, to name the most obvious. The versatility and plasticity of hypnosis may have caused it to be disqualified by psychology as a legitimate object of scientific study. They, nonetheless, provide significant and valuable information on the deep psyche and its relations with the outside world.