“Honor the Power Within”

Abstract

This chapter describes and analyzes the ways in which Japanese youth interest in onmyōji—particularly the disproportionate interest shown by young Japanese women—engages the social realities of contemporary Japanese life., where feelings of uncertainty and precariousness abound. By utilizing a variety of disciplinary approaches to culture—among them those of anthropology, gender theory, history, literary criticism, and religious studies—it seeks to produce a fresh look at how the onmyōji “boom,” now some thirty years in duration with apparently enduring appeal, is relevant to contemporary concerns about cultural authenticity and identity, gender and sexuality, and spirituality and religion in Japan.