Kurita Hidehiko

Kurita Hidehiko is a Ph.D candidate in religious studies, Tohoku University, Japan. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the formation and development of Okada Torajiro’s method of still-sitting. This method, a type of exercise for meditation developed by Okada Torajirō (1872-1920), was very popular especially in the Taishō period and influenced other Japanese mind cure and spiritual movements. Moreover, it was developing while being influenced by western religious or spiritual ideas and movements as well as Japanese ones. By throwing new light on such religious genealogies, he hopes to clarify the social and ideological background in modern Japan in which it formed and developed. As a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Kurita is examining how Okada, who went to the United States for studying before making his method, was affected by American spiritual ideas including R. W. Emerson and New Thought.