The Americas are not the only place where prophecies of a New Age have appeared. In 19^th century Japan, Nao Deguchi prophesied that divine power would sweep away the present world order in a great cleansing that would precede a reign of peace on Earth.

Nao was a most unlikely prophet. She was born in 1837, and although notable for her grace, refinement and equanimity, lived a life of unspeakable poverty and hardship. In 1892, when she was 56 years old and working as a rag-picker, she fell into a deep trance for two weeks, and began to feel the presence of Kami – the ultimate deity, what we call God – moving within her.

Kami told her that because of his deep compassion for the suffering of humanity, he was now ready to manifest himself through Nao. She understood that her own lifelong suffering had been a cleansing of her spirit in preparation for this great service, and she freely surrendered her life to Kami’s will. Although illiterate, on Kami’s orders she began to take down his messages as automatic writing. She wrote many thousands of pages, which revealed Kami’s design to save humanity from a broken world. Not able to read what she wrote, Nao had to ask others to read back to her what she had written.

These writings became the scriptures of Oomoto, a new religion which Nao eventually founded with her son-in-law, Onisaburo Deguchi. Contained within these scriptures are harsh criticisms of the evils of the contemporary world, and they repeatedly stress the profound importance of living a spiritual life.  Kami directs that people return to the sacred, create new structures of social justice, and rediscover a value system compatible with the survival of humanity. He also warns that humanity and God are inter-dependent and that humans must actively participate in the reconstruction of the world.

Kami spoke through Nao so that the world might be saved.

Along with messages about the necessary changes that humanity must make, Nao revealed predictions for the near future of Japan. She predicted the First Sino-Japanese war, and that Japan would win it. She also predicted the Russo-Japanese war, the two World Wars and Japan’s defeat in World War II. Amazingly, every one of these prophecies came to pass.

But the prophecy that we are focused on here is much more sweeping, speaking to the larger future of the entire world. As with most other prophecies about the world’s future, it speaks of the current dark age of the reign of the animal soul, the rigorous purification on the horizon, and the eventual emergence of an age of peace and harmony.

Here are Kami’s words:

The Great World shall burst into full bloom as plum blossoms, at winter’s end. I, (Kami) have come to reign at last. Know ye, this present world is a world of beasts, the stronger preying upon the weaker, the work of the devil. Alas, ye world of beasts. Evil holds you in such thrall that your eyes are blinded to its wickedness – a dark age, indeed. If allowed to go on this way, society will soon lose the last vestiges of harmony and order. Therefore, by a manifestation of Divine Power, the Greater World shall undergo reconstruction, and change into an entirely new creation. The old world shall suffer a most rigorous purification that it may become the Kingdom of Heaven, where peace will reign through all ages to come. Prepare yourselves for this Age of Peace … hold yourselves in readiness! For the word of God is never-failing …

Kami’s words have a fierce and urgent tone, telling us in no uncertain terms that we are utterly enslaved by the forces of spiritual blindness. He tells us in brutally forceful language that the current world order is not sustainable, and will inevitably bring about its own collapse. This collapse, terrible as it may be, will constitute the necessary cleansing of the old, dark ways. This planet-wide purification will allow an entirely new world to emerge, a world of harmony and peace, truly the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

This stunning prophecy alone would have been sufficient to spur us into action. But in later writings, Nao received further elaboration of the prophecy.

While describing the ‘world of beasts’, Kami points out that humans are so blind that they let the most arrogant men in the world hold the reins of power, men who look down contemptuously on God. These men ignore the miseries of the world while engaging in struggles for land and territory that mercilessly sacrifice the youth of the world. Kami points out the utter futility of such conflicts – the territories taken over at such terrible cost will never be their own, because the world is created by God, and all is in his hands.

Kami says that as long as money rules the world there will be no peace. The reconstruction he calls for implies a fundamental transformation away from materialism and towards spiritual values, principles and actions. This will result in the total reorientation of individuals, and through them the reorientation of society’s value systems. He tells us that this is the minimal condition for the survival of the human race.

He warns humans that the world is at its end in its present form, and on the brink of collapsing into muddy desolation and widespread extinction. He says in no uncertain terms that if humanity does not mend its ways, conditions could become so extreme that eighty percent of the world will become ‘blackened’, and as little as three percent of the population survive.

However, despite the evil in the world, Kami also declares that human nature is basically good. He tells us that the dark powers that enslave us come from the outside, not from our original nature, and that we must purify ourselves from these powers. He also says that within our original nature is humanity’s ultimate vocation, which is to reconstruct society in alignment with spiritual values.

We hold within our deepest selves the blueprint for the new world, which is our final spiritual destiny.

Kami reveals himself to be the Universal God to whom all humans are equal, regardless of class, race or creed, because all are his children. He tells us that he is present in every human heart, regardless of outer appearance, and that the heart comes first. He says that all divisions and classes are delusional and sinful, and to realize this is actually to reconstruct our world.

He proclaims that people are the shapers of their own lives through the quality of their awareness, and if they can release the hidden potentials of their own nature, they can live constructively with Kami and each other. Kami tells us he is not omnipotent, but interdependent with humanity, which must cooperate with him for the saving of the planet. It will truly be a co-created world.

As Kami tells us through his servant Nao, the annihilation of the world of evil and suffering is both essential and inevitable. However, terrible as it may be, it marks the reconstruction of the world and the birth of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

Sources

Frederick Franck, An Encounter with Oomoto 

https://www.oomoto.or.jp/English/index-en.html