Kotodama

Kotodama (言 霊Japanese, literally word soul) referred to in the Japanese language, words that spoke a magical effect is attributed. In antiquity appear word magical incantations in the Shinto practice, in the norito, as well as in Kotodama songs of Japanese annals or about the Man'yōshū.

Overview

From a linguistic point of view, words by Ferdinand de Saussure arbitrary, ie arbitrary and without apparent relation to the designated object. A distinction is therefore the signified (about one thing ) from the sign ( the word). The kotodama concept does away with this dichotomy between signified and signifier. By pronouncing the words in mantras is philosophically about the ontological content of the matter referred to the word. This creates an id - entity over which the speaker can have. Colloquially, one might say, the soul of a specific item shall pass to the spoken word about, so it is also an instrument of power, as it makes things in the Word available. The Japanese language is this especially true since it has a large number of homophones, homonyms words. As an example, the two words :事, thing, thing and言, ​​word are, the reading is in both cases koto. If koto pronounced, can not decide what it is meant to - a thing or a word - word and thing thus coincide. Only the transcript as Kanji provides uniqueness.

This evocative practice is however already lost in the Heian period and is only rediscovered by the Kokugaku, the National Philology of the Edo period. It is Kamo Mabuchi who calls the country's " blooming word soul " in the essay Goiko Japan.

The idea is then included in the modern age by the religious movement Oomoto that develops under the slightly modified term kototama own syllable magic of the 50 - lute - board. It was Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido, who established himself as a follower of Onisaburo Deguchi this kototama concept proposed by him martial arts.

In the present, is also a unique form of medicine that " Kotodama - Inochi medicine" emerged, which goes back to Koji Ogasawara and was made by Thomas Duckworth known in America.