The Hidden New World Religion - ROBERT SEPEHR

I'm starting to speak now. Well, they can't all be winners, but that's life. Things don't always go our way, and the important thing is to not give up, to persevere, and even if we stand alone against great odds, to not be afraid to try again. Remain focused and give it another shot. There we go. Okay, now we can eat. I've been asked to give the names of restaurants that I go to, and today it's called Katsuya, and I was happy to see that they carry a Robert roll. I have no idea what's in it. This is what it looks like. It has avocado and was good enough to share my name with. The location of the restaurant is Encino, California, which is in the San Fernando Valley just north of Los Angeles, and if you're ever in the neighborhood, check it out, but I know sushi is not for everybody. That said, today's episode takes us to Tokyo, Japan. Shibuya is a special ward in Tokyo with a total area of about six square miles with an estimated population of 220,000. Its population density is almost 40,000 people per square mile. This area is known as one of the fashion centers of Japan, particularly for young people and as a major nightlife area. Shibuya was historically the site of a castle in which the Shibuya family resided from the the Edo period, or Tokugawa period, and that's between 1600 and 1868 in the history of Japan, which was characterized by economic growth, social stability, and a blossoming of art and culture. It was a period of isolationist foreign policies, Christianity was eradicated, and except for some commercial exceptions, Europeans who landed on Japanese shores were put to death without trial. This period is defined by a high degree of cultural identity and ethnic homogeny. The Japanese still often think of themselves as a homogenous society, with a strong sense of group and national identity, and little or no ethnic or racial diversity. That said, Japan has not actually been a homogenous country with one race, culture, and ethnicity. Throughout its history, the country of Japan has been rather a diverse cultural and ethnic region. The Ainu are the largest indigenous population of Japan. They descended, at least partially according to genetics, from the first people on the Japanese archipelago, commonly referred to as the Jaman, which goes back to the Pleistocene or Ice Age. In Ainu shamanism, spiritual leaders provided divination and healing through ceremonies that often lasted all night and involved the entire local community, during which participants danced, played musical instruments, and chanted to produce an altered state of consciousness. It's during these altered states that Ainu shaman claim to be able to communicate to the spirit world and believe to be possessed by the spirits willingly, and in most cases they do not remember what they utter or do during their possession. The phrases in Ainu music are layered on top of each other. All kinds of factors contribute to a trance-like state. It gradually becomes less and less clear who's singing which part. I start to wonder where I am. Am I singing the right part? Do I really sing here? Sometimes it feels that way. In the old days, this singing expressed the voice of nature, and that voice was thought to be the voice of the divine. We used to pay such close attention to nature. There are many stories about gods of the greenery. I hear or tell those stories, and it makes me feel our worldview is not the same as that of Japan. A lot of the names of wild plants in Hokkaido are Ainu names. They don't have names in Japanese. The Japanese kept the Ainu name. We want people to listen to our music and feel happy. It's fun for us too. There are things all around us that we can't see. Above all, we want those things to hear us. Fire is essential to the lives of the Ainu. Essential for cooking and warmth. Fire is really the most important deity. When you pray, you always light a fire, and you say a prayer to the spirit of the fire. It is one of the most important deities. In Isawaka, very few others are trying to conserve our culture. Our goal is to pass things on. We want to see a cultural revival among the Ainu, and so we need to remember every tradition we can. That's our hope. Well, that was a very delicious sushi. I approve of the Robert roll. There's an interesting debate as to the origins of sushi, which is obviously a Japanese cuisine and practically an art form. But some say that the delicacy originated in the rice fields of China, and others attribute the origins to early inhabitants of Japan that used to fish before the arrival of the modern Japanese around the 4th century BC. While it's hard to say for sure, one thing that really amazes me about ancient fishing techniques, which can still be seen in different parts of Asia, are through the use of birds, which have been trained to catch fish alongside the fishermen. There are only nine sushi fishermen left in Japan who utilize the ancient practice of yukai. There are no rods, no bait, and no nets. Instead, the fishermen employ seafaring birds to catch ayu for them as the fish migrate downstream each summer. Bound to the boats, the trained birds dive for the sleepy ayu in the dead of night, illuminated by a small fire hanging from the front of the fishermen's wooden boat. Because the birds' razor-sharp beaks kill the fish instantly, they're said to taste fresher than ayu caught by other means. While there are attempts made to keep this and other traditions alive, there's also a push to globalize ancient Asian civilizations by eradicating the old ways in favor of a multicultural civilization that goes so far as to not only deny ethnic and cultural traditions, but to eradicate the concept of race altogether, along with gender and any political resistance brought about by strong, stable, and traditional family units. In fact, this phenomenon can now be seen worldwide, and it's hard to believe that opposing viewpoints from not too long ago even ever existed. I, in my mind, want black boys and black girls marrying their white sons and daughters, and in return introducing their grandchildren as half-brown, kinky-haired black people. And I'm sure... I wouldn't object to that. Well, you wouldn't, but a lot of them would. Well, I'm sure a lot of people would. No, it's just that... What I'm trying to say is this. You don't have it. You say you don't. You don't have it. You really ain't gonna have it. You're on the show, and you gotta say that. No, that's not true. Why would you want to do that? Because I don't think I'm any different from you, you see. Yeah, we're much different. I mean, I think society's made us different. You know we're different. We're all together different. Society's made us different. No, not society. God made us different. No, no, we're just human beings. He made all of us. We all... Listen. Bluebirds fly with bluebirds. Redbirds want to be with redbirds. Listen. Tell me when I'm wrong. Pigeons want to be with pigeons. Tell me when I'm wrong. But we have intelligence. We have an intellectual. They don't have. Well, we should have... They don't have intelligence, but yet they stay together. We should have more intelligence than them, right? Buzzards are with buzzards. Bluebirds are with bluebirds. They all are birds, but they've got different cultures. The eagles like to hang out in the mountains. The buzzards like to fly around the desert. The bluebird like to fly around the trees in the grass. There'd be certain problems a buzzard mating with a sparrow, wouldn't there? What? There'd be certain... Right. And we have the problems too. I don't see... I don't see no black and white couples in England or America walking around proud holding their children. I understand. I think it's... I think it's sad that... It ain't sad because I want my child to look like me. Every intelligent person wants his child to look like him. I'm sad because I want to blight out my race and lose my beautiful identity. Chinese love Chinese. They love the little slanted-eyed, pretty brown-skinned babies. Pakistanis love their culture. Jewish people love their culture. A lot of Catholics, they want to marry a number of Catholics. They want the religion to stay the same. Who want to spot up yourself and kill your race? You a hater of your people if you don't want to stay who you are. You shame what God made you. God didn't make no mistake when he made us all like we were. I think that's a philosophy of despair. Despair? I really do. It ain't no despair. It's just nature. You can do what you want, but it's nature to want to be with your own. I want to be with my own. I love my people. While this topic is considered somewhat controversial by the modern mainstream media, it is the same media that is almost silent about the two million ethnic Uyghurs confined to communist Chinese concentration camps or re-education camps, forcing the native Muslims of China to eat pork and disavow their culture and ethnic identity. Of course, communism did the same in Bolshevik Russia, with the vast majority of the current Russian population unaware of their own cultural roots and historic origins. In South Africa, Afrocentric communism is accused by some to be carrying out a literal genocide against the European minority that established agricultural civilization there 500 years ago. While the South African Boer population is the current minority, this wasn't the case when they arrived, as South Africa was scarcely populated and the 40 million Bantu that comprise 90% of the current demographic arrived mostly this century from 5,000 miles to the north, taking the land from the farmers and in many cases also taking their lives. Of course, in Europe and America, where the freedom of speech is allegedly a constitutional right, social engineering is not as overt as it is in the communist nations and is carried out covertly by the media, international corporations, and the government officials that they financially sponsor. Just like the ancient shamans of Japan, it seems that nature worship and the community rituals and trance-like states of consciousness achieved during astrologically defined gatherings were widespread in antiquity, from Neolithic Europe to the Americas to the Indian subcontinent and even to the most remote parts of Africa. Prior to the rise of the political structure attributed to modern Abrahamic religions, spirituality consisted of a direct connection to the divine, which was guided by shamans that provided rhythmic music to dance to and oftentimes hallucinogenic substances which would sometimes be consumed, but there was no requirement of a priest class to grant permission to commune with nature, the spirit world, or deceased ancestors. In fact, the original forms of monotheism, whether it be the singular worship of the Sun by Akhenaten and the Amarna dynasty, or what sprang forth after it in the form of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, seem to be very different today when compared to their early scriptures. All of the Abrahamic religions started off with some degree of Gnostic principles, and by that I mean a method of establishing a direct relationship with God, whether it be parallels with early Christianity to the Essenes, or similarities with early Islam with certain Sufi traditions, or the mystical aspects of Judaism, such as contained in the Kabbalah and Zohar. The modern versions of these religions have adopted a strict hierarchical power structure with priests, rabbis, and imams filling in or stepping into the role once occupied by nature and ancient techniques of turning inward, replaced with external rituals which are veiled in symbolism, which seem to be more like going through the motions than actually helping people get in touch with themselves, their environments, or their God. While there will be those that interpret my analysis as an attack on their religion, ask yourself if this is the same religion today as when it started out, and if not, am I really being critical of a religious faith or of a global power structure that has taken it over in an attempt to usher in a new global political agenda rather than a traditional spiritual one? The sushi earlier was good, but not very filling, so I'm stopping by the Spicy Lime Thai Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in Encino, which is great if you can handle spicy food, like the pad kee mao, which is spicy flat noodles with shrimp. Enjoy. My name is Robert Sepper. I'm an anthropologist. My published work is available on Amazon as well as through various other major book outlets. As always, I look forward to reading your comments, so please leave me your thoughts below. Please have a wonderful weekend, and I hope to see you again soon.