These cult recruiters sure are friendly

Last week, while out shopping at my local 100 yen store, I came to queue to pay and a small older Japanese lady told me "oh, I'm not in the queue, you can go ahead of me." Nice, thanks! And that would have been the end of the story, except this particular small older Japanese lady was part of a very special kind of group here in Japan! 

As I was walking home I noticed that her and her friend were both coming the same way, a little behind me. About halfway to my house I stopped to wait for a traffic light to turn green, and the two approached me to make some small talk, asking where I'm from, whether I live nearby, etc. At some point they pulled a flier out of their bag with a photo of Mt Fuji and a bunch of difficult kanji on it and asked me if I'd seen it before. "Nope, but I can't read any of this." They didn't seem to mind, and asked if I'd like to meet up with them next week to get tea together with them. I've been pretty lonely and wanting to practice my Japanese and make Japanese friends, so sure, why not! I gave my Line to one of them and we agreed to meet back at the same store the following Sunday at 2pm. After we'd traded info, the two of them turned around and walked back the way they'd come from. Huh, so they'd been following me home? Seems a bit odd. And inviting me to tea out of nowhere, after asking if I'm here alone and wanting to know where I live? This whole thing smells super fishy.

After getting home I mentioned the encounter to a group chat of foreigners living here in Japan. One person responded, "Oh, someone from that group was at my door today with the same poster. They left me alone when they realised I couldn't speak any Japanese." Another friend piped up, "That's the cult that approached me at a train station and made me go chant with them at one of their houses! They haven't left me alone since! Don't respond to them and absolutely don't meet up with them!"

Well. At this point I was faced with two choices, one of them sensible and the other one potentially way more interesting. 

--- ONE WEEK LATER ---

"You're seriously going to meet up with them?"

"I mean, yeah? I'm too curious not to. I'll share my live location with you before I go so you can keep an eye on my location the whole time, in case I don't come back. Does this outfit look alright? If my corpse is on the news I don't want it looking lame."

"Uh, yeah it looks fine... I'll drive you there so I can see what they look like."

"Thank you~!"

At the appointed time, my friend and I approached the designated meeting spot. One of the women from last week stood up and pointed me out to her friend, and I waved goodbye to my friend as she disappeared before the two could get a good look at her. I'd had plenty of time to think over whether or not to meet up with them and had decided that, ultimately, I'd have regretted not going and been left wondering what would have happened. I don't value myself very highly and so an interesting story outweighs personal safety in my mind. I know that's a bad thing and something I should work on changing, especially since I hate to make other people worry about me, but I'd done some research on this group over the week and they sounded mostly harmless. It would probably all be fine. Besides, I still don't even know if these two are members of that particular cult! They might have just been friendly neighbours wanting to get to know me! Best to be open-minded, right? I shouldn't be suspicious of everyone I meet!

After this point, all the conversation was in Japanese. Some of it was slightly over my head, so my interpretation of the conversation might've been a little incorrect, but I'll do my best to relay it as I understood it.

"Our car's parked just over this way."

"Oh, are we driving somewhere? I thought we were just getting tea. Where are we going?" 

I fully understood that I was probably going to be taken somewhere weird, I was just enjoying pretending to be clueless about what was going on. I asked a few times where we were going, but didn't get a straight answer. I tried to get a photo of the car's licence plate to send to my friend but didn't get a chance to do since they were keen to get me into the front seat. Oh well, in I got!

As we drove along we made ordinary small talk to begin with. Talked about what I think of Japan so far, what sort of work we all do, I asked how the two of them knew each other and how long they'd been friends for, we all moaned about how hot it is lately. It was nice, and fun Japanese practice for me. We stopped off to go to the bathroom and I realised that, huh, they're taking me pretty far! While we were walking to use the toilet of a big department store I was getting stared at by a bunch of people and they commented on how much I stand out as a tall white foreigner. I explained that I don't like it since I'm pretty shy, and they sympathised. I asked if the two of them were married and they told me they're both single, I told them I'm the same.

"What do you think of Japanese men?"

"Eh... I'm not interested."

"Hahaha, are UK men better?"

"I'm not interested in them either! There is someone I like, but it's one-sided."

"Ahhh, I see, I see. That's too bad!"

At this point, the lady in the back seat fished out the flier she'd shown me last week.

"Have you seen this before?"

"Oh yeah, you showed me this last week! I don't know what it is, though."

"Lately there've been lots of earthquakes in Japan, right? It's been getting worse. In Yokohama, if there's a big earthquake there'll also be a big tsunami! I've been asking the Buddha (Hotoke-sama) to help. By saying some certain words to him, you can ask him for anything you like!"

"I see!"

"You could ask him to help with your one-sided love, or for anything!"

"Anything is fine, huh?"

"Yes! Actually, there's a place near here that we sometimes go to worship. Kind of like a temple, but it's a bit different. Is it alright if we go see, just quickly? We can show it to you! We won't ask for money, just some words! Then we'll go for tea afterwards!"

"That's fine, yeah! Sounds interesting."

Heck yeah, things are starting to get good! I was wondering how long it would take for the weirdness to start. They held it together for a while and kept it all under wraps, but it seems like it's time for the real show to start. I'm glad I knew what to expect though, if I'd been innocently going along expecting just a trip to some tea place I'd have been pretty freaked out by this point. We must have been driving for at least half an hour. I tried pointing out "hey, there's tea places right by where we met up" just to see what their response would be, but... it was about as you'd expect. I had no idea where we were and no idea which way we were heading, but damn it I was looking forward to finding out.

After a little more driving we pulled into some middle-of-nowhere looking residential estate and the lady driving the car phoned her "friend" to ask where to park. They seemed a bit lost.

"Have you two been here before?"

"No, it's our first time too."

Ok! I was expecting some kind of meeting hall, but we pull up into the driveway of an ordinary looking house that someone else was just leaving from. In the driveway stands a huge, stern looking Japanese guy. As we get out of the car I greet him but he doesn't respond. We follow him into the house, and he locks the door behind us. Oh boy. This must be where the magic happens!

The entranceway was full of pairs of shoes, and beyond that had multiple folds of grey curtains hanging from the ceiling. I take my shoes off and follow one of the women through the curtains as the other stays behind me the entire time. I'm led into a small room with tatami flooring and a large shrine in the centre, surrounded by plants and candles, with some kind of script inside it. It looked a bit like:

They bowed as they entered the room and motioned for me to kneel down on the ground in front of the shrine, and fished some prayer beads out of their bag and handed them to me while showing me how to hold them. Next, they put a little printed booklet of words in front of me.

One of the women rings a bowl-gong thing, and now the chanting starts. They show me where to read from, and chant along with me. I have no idea what any of these words mean, but I do my best to read along with them in a slow, droning voice to match their pace. Yes. This is the experience I've been hoping for. At some point the words stop changing and we just repeat "nanmyouhourengekyou" over and over for 5 minutes. My legs are going to sleep underneath me. Nanmyouhourengekyou. The room is stuffy and smelly. Nanmyouhourengekyou. The women are chanting the word more and more slowly each time, to the point that I'm having to gasp for breath between each repetition. Nanmyouhourengekyou. The absurdity of the situation starts to overwhelm me, and I'm doing my best to hold back laughter. Nanmyouhourengekyou. I am immensely grateful for the face mask I'm wearing, for hiding most of my expression from them. Nanmyouhourengekyou. I'm sure they'd be offended if they could see how close I am to laughing out loud. Nanmyouhourengekyou.  Occasionally it slips out a bit, but I disguise it as a gasp for breath before the next chant. Nannnnnmyooouuuuhooouuureennnnngeeeekyoooouuuuu. This goes on for what felt like at least 40 minutes, although my sense of time was fairly distorted in that room. How did my life lead to this point? Nanmyouhourengekyou. Will this ever end? Nanmyouhourengekyou. So, this is what tatami mats smell like. Nanmyouhourengekyou. My feet are really starting to hurt, kneeling down like this. Nanmyouhourengekyou. Needless to say, my mind did not drift to any spiritually enlightened place. Listening to our voices all droning on in unison was actually kinda cool though, even if I occasionally messed up the rhythm. At some point they stopped chanting and both turned to face me as they read something out from a laminated sheet. This was all in Japanese rather than chant-speak but I couldn't follow along with much of it other than it being about me being a new person to watch over, but they stared very intently at me for a while as they read it out. Then... more chanting. 

Finally, they told me it was over. I can move again. My legs have completely gone to sleep, and as I shift my position the pins and needles kick in.

"What does nanmyouhourengekyou mean?"

"That's the Buddha's true name!"

"Ooh. Can I take a picture of the shrine?"

"No, that's forbidden."

Damn. I should have been sneaky while they were busy chanting. Oh well.

On the way out, they sign what looks like a guestbook. 

"Are these names all people who have come here to do this chant?"

"Yes, lots of people come!"

"Wow, it's pretty popular huh?"

From what I saw of the book, it had hundreds of names in it. Pages and pages of names. I wonder if they're all people tricking foreigners into coming along and chanting at this one scary dude's house.

After we were done we slipped back out of his house and drove around until we found a Starbucks to sit in for a while. They bought me coffee and cake! I offered to pay for it myself but they insisted on treating me, since they'd been the ones to invite me out. While we were there they explained to me that as a foreigner in Japan I'd likely be invited to go chant with lots of other people too, but now that I'd gone along to chant with the two of them, I wasn't allowed to accept anyone else's invitation to do so. Also, today was special, and I wouldn't be able to chant in front of the shrines every time. They told me they'd give me my own set of prayer beads and a chant book for me to take home and asked me to practice chanting from my own apartment. But, if I wanted to invite anyone else to come with us next time, then that would be great! I should tell everyone at work and all of my friends about all the wishes that the Buddha has granted for me and how wonderful he is, so that they'll want to come with me!

I asked them, "What did the two of you ask him for?"

"I asked him to keep Japan safe from earthquakes so that there won't be a tsunami. Did you ask for help with your unrequited love?"

"Haha, nah. That's not gonna happen. I asked for him to keep the black people in America safe." (I didn't really ask for anything, but I was curious what kind of response this would get)

"Oh, Nem, that's good but the Buddha will only grant things in the countries where people worship him. He looks after Japan first, and then China and parts of Asia. You should ask for things here, not for in other countries." 

"Ah, I understand. How long have you been doing this chanting for now?"

"Hmm, for 10 years I think. I've had lots of wishes granted now!"

These two are in pretty deep! 10 years, huh? She told me about how she used to have lots of difficulties with interpersonal relationships and human interaction, but since she began chanting she's been granted power by the Buddha and now she can talk to people just fine, and she wants to share that happiness with others by introducing them to the chants and helping them have their own wishes granted, since other people's happiness is her own happiness, and isn't that great? She told me she was pretty nervous during the chanting, because she was in front of the Buddha himself and being watched by him. 

Honestly, at this point I was starting to quite like these two women. They were obviously both pretty lonely and not very happy and had sought out a source of fulfillment and comfort that worked for them. It didn't seem like they really wanted anything from me, they were just happy to share their source of happiness with me. I felt a bit sorry for them. If not for the crazy chanting nonsense, I'd have wanted to be friends with them. I told them about how I used to be a recluse as well, and how I still find it scary to stand in front of a class full of people, but I've spent the last few years trying to practice talking to people through various jobs. I felt like we were similar kinds of people, but while they'd turned to a cult for their comfort I'd turned to MMORPGs and online nerd culture, which can be fairly cultish in its own way.

As they drove me home they were asking where I lived so that they could drop me off directly at my house, but I told them I still had some shopping I needed to do so asked them to drop me at the nearby mall. They said they could drop me at my home after that but I pretended not to know the way by road, since I always walked there, and said that I couldn't remember my address at the moment but that I'd message it to them later. I didn't want them to have my real name or address since I knew they'd probably never leave me alone if they had that. I felt a little bad lying to them though, since I'd started to relate to them by this point. They asked if we could all hang out at my apartment next time and I told them that yeah, that'd be fun, but obviously I have no intention of doing so. 

"Thanks for today, it's been really nice!"

"You'll come with us again, won't you?"

"Yeah, of course!"

"Great! See you soon!"

As I walked away from the car and off by myself, I finally burst out into the laughter I'd been holding in for the past few hours.

"That was interesting!!"

After doing some online research I worked out that the group's name is Fuji Taiseki-ji Kenshōkai. Since I got home they've been messaging me asking me to give them my address and details about the building I live in. My amusement at the situation has mostly turned into pity by this point. I thought they were trying to take advantage of me to rope me into some shady cult, but I feel like I've taken advantage of their kindness too. I'm glad I got to have such a unique and entertaining experience, but I'm left feeling sad for the people who are taken in by groups like this and wondering what kind of mindset they must have been in to allow themselves to become a part of it. I still don't really understand what they hoped to gain by introducing me to it, since they didn't ask for any money or anything this time. Maybe that comes later? All they seemed to want was for me to tell other people how wonderful the group is and to introduce more people to it, and let them come pray at my apartment in the future. There must be more to it that I'm missing, but I guess I won't get to find out what it is. I suppose we're all just taking advantage of each other in the end, in one way or another.