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Encyclopaedia of Ancient, Obscure and Esoteric East Asian Religious Practices

Monoimi

Overview

Section titled “Overview”

This canonical ID (28) currently groups 6 source layers with divergent titles. Milestone-1 migration preserves every layer below without inventing a single merged narrative. Status: needs-review.

Also attested under these titles

Section titled “Also attested under these titles”
  • Deity Yoga
  • Fu — Talismans
  • Saniwa
  • Kaihōgyō
  • Miko Kagura and Possession-Oracular Substrate

Research layers

Section titled “Research layers”

Layer 1: Deity Yoga

Section titled “Layer 1: Deity Yoga”

Source file: 01_Buddhism.md

Sanskrit: devatā-yoga; Tibetan lha’i rnal ’byor

Generation-stage pattern

Section titled “Generation-stage pattern”
  1. Refuge and bodhicitta.
  2. Dissolve ordinary appearance into emptiness.
  3. Arise or visualize the deity from seed syllable/mandala.
  4. Identify body, speech and mind with enlightened body, speech and mind.
  5. Recite mantra while maintaining visualization.
  6. Make offerings/praise.
  7. Dissolve deity and environment into emptiness.
  8. Re-emerge and dedicate.

Access: often empowerment-restricted.
Reliability: A/B.

Layer 2: Fu — Talismans

Section titled “Layer 2: Fu — Talismans”

Source file: 02_Daoism.md

Chinese: 符
Talismanic graphs are celestial credentials, commands, diagrams and spirit-writing forms rather than ordinary calligraphy.

Ritual life-cycle

Section titled “Ritual life-cycle”
  1. Practitioner possesses lineage authorization/register.
  2. Purify body, brush, paper, ink and space.
  3. Invoke relevant deity/general.
  4. Write/trance a prescribed graph with breaths, secret names or hand seals.
  5. Seal/activate it.
  6. Deploy by wearing, posting, burning, burying, placing by directions, or using its ashes in ritual water.
  7. Dispose/close according to rite.

Access: full efficacy traditionally depends on ordination/transmission.
Reliability: A/B.

Layer 3: Saniwa

Section titled “Layer 3: Saniwa”

Source file: 03_Shinto.md

Originally a purified ritual site and later an interpreter/assessor of divine revelation.

Ancient narratives pair musicians/officiants, possessed figures and the saniwa who judges or interprets the message.

Source: Encyclopedia of Shinto.
Reliability: A.

Layer 4: Kaihōgyō

Section titled “Layer 4: Kaihōgyō”

Source file: 04_Syncretic_Japan.md

Tendai “circling-the-mountain” ascetic practice on Mt Hiei involving long-distance pilgrimage over repeated cycles, liturgy and severe discipline.

Hazard: extreme endurance.
Access: monastic lineage.
Reliability: B.

Layer 5: Miko Kagura and Possession-Oracular Substrate

Section titled “Layer 5: Miko Kagura and Possession-Oracular Substrate”

Source file: 08_PRIMARY_SOURCE_PROCEDURE_UPGRADES_v1_7.md

Implements

Section titled “Implements”

Torimono can include:

  • bells;
  • folding fan;
  • bamboo fronds;
  • sakaki;
  • other lineage-specific sacred objects.

Historical ritual logic

Section titled “Historical ritual logic”
  1. Purify the miko and performance space.
  2. Establish the torimono as a potential yorishiro.
  3. Invite the kami.
  4. The miko takes up the torimono.
  5. Begin the transmitted dance/circumambulation.
  6. In older forms, reverse circumambulation could function as part of the induction of possession.
  7. Sound, movement and the inhabited torimono facilitate divine contact.
  8. The kami may be understood to inhabit the torimono and then the dancer.
  9. In possession-oriented forms, takusen/oracle follows.
  10. In modern refined mikomai, the possession component is often only symbolically retained.
  11. Conclude the dance and send off/stabilize the kami presence.

Learning

Section titled “Learning”

Learn from a specific shrine’s miko/kagura school. Do not use modern elegant mikomai choreography to claim reconstruction of an archaic possession rite unless the local tradition documents that continuity.

Layer 6: Monoimi

Section titled “Layer 6: Monoimi”

Source file: 13_FORBIDDEN_TABOO_RESTRICTED_INDEX_v2_1.md

Class: TEMPORARY ABSTINENCE
Possible restrictions vary by rite:

  • contact with death/pollution;
  • foods;
  • sex;
  • speech;
  • social contact;
  • travel;
  • particular activities.

Research rule

Section titled “Research rule”

Always record duration. A taboo without its calendrical duration is incomplete.