Humans, who think of themselves as on the highest level, are unaware that they are being manipulated by gods and many other spirits. Haven't you had a strange feeling in your mind when you lose your temper even while trying to suppress your anger, just as you burst into laughter, even when you try to suppress it, in spite of bearing in mind that it is not a good etiquette to laugh in the presence of others who do not know why you are laughing?

On the last Sunday of one year, I said to the visitors here to the Tengenkyoh church, "I promise to grant any of your wishes if you do not get angry and quarrel in your families from midnight of the first day to midnight of the third day of the coming New Year. It must be such an easy condition for you, because you can pass the test if only you can repress your anger for the first three days of New Year. I'll send some gods to preside over 'anger' in your homes who will try to make you get angry during this period, so you must be careful so as not to yield to their temptation." But, all of them were caught in a net of Hohriki (Heavenly power) and had quarrels during this period. Some of them even upset the wonderful dishes for the New Year in a blaze of passion. Thus, none of them could pass the test.

Do not have any bad traits such as obstinacy, stubbornness, selfishness, and egotism? Your bodies are made like corals from a great number of amoebas to whom a spermatozoon and an egg cell in your parents combined with each other to give birth. Even your blood consists of amoebas, and if they disappear, your bodies will be disabled. If white blood corpuscles disappear from your bodies, your bodies will be eaten away by other amoebas, and on the other hand, if they are too numerous, your bodies will be ruined. If you continue such weaknesses, you will be deserted by gods, and the smell vapor from your bodies will turn bad, and you will gradually be disliked by many souls. When things come to this point, however hard you strive, you will be in for a spell of bad luck, because all the souls dislike bad smell.

For instance, two shops operate under the same conditions-both are Situated on the same side of the road and seem equal in all things-one is doing well in business, so that the master's face may be beaming and smiling, but the other is not. What is the meaning of all this? And, a person having a fine presence as well as being blessed with both good health and wisdom is often employed by another person who does not have a fine presence nor a knowledge of many words.
Generally speaking, it is proper that the former should be a more conspicuous figure than the latter, but the reverse is true in this case. Do not you feel something is unreasonable or strange about this? Some are blessed with good health and good fortune, while others are suffering from illness and poverty. However deeply we may think of this difference, we can not believe that 'man' consists of mere materials.

If a man were an article or a thing of 'man', all men would be equal, and therefore, no differences in fortunes would appear. Is it not that differences result from what kind of wishes you have and the way you express them, that is, from the most inner part of your minds? In other words, your fortune depends on how your minds and hearts are liked by other souls.

Every thing has its own center, which changes its position when pressed by any external force.
In the same way, your mind, in other words, 'your center' is influenced into various changes by the will-waves that you and other spirit original souls give out.

As I think that you may confuse 'spirit' with 'heart', I'll explain them here.
'Spirit' is a general term of soul, spirit soul, and spirit original soul, and 'heart' is the degree of nobility of the way a spirit gives forth its will (wishes and etc.) or, as said, in common talk, nature.

There is no distinction between good and bad in the bodies themselves such as physical bodies, soul bodies, and spirit soul bodies, but there is a distinction between right and wrong about the way the bodies work on the basis of the wishes which spirit original souls give out. In English, the heart, the degree of its nobility depends on the way wishes are given out as described before, the way the spirit original soul of himself acts, that is, on the way a spirit original soul gives out his will. It is impossible for you to improve your own soul bodies but possible to improve your heart by trying to get rid of the will-waves which interfere with your right Gyohs (disciplines) by means of your strong will, that is, it depends on what kind of will-waves you (spirit original souls) give out whether your heart can be improved or not. In case of a thing, its quality depends upon the one of Shoh (Intermediaries between atoms and ether. Atoms are filled with Shohs which serve as a kind of adhesive cement to fuse all elements. Ref. page 14). On the other hand, as to heart, the degree of its nobility depends on the way wishes are given out as described before, and it is often brought into your ordinary conversation as the word 'good heart' or 'bad heart'.

Even words and sounds have also their own hearts. Some sounds fascinate spirit original souls and the others are contrary. I wish you to know that even sounds and words can exercise a big influence upon your fortune. Whether a heart is good or evil depends upon whether the will which a spirit original soul gives out is useful or not for true peaceful paradise and production of good smell vapor for spirits. Gods inquire into this point with special care, allotting you their praise and blame impartially. Therefore, you must be greatly concerned about the way your heart should be, that is, about its nobility. Rewards and punishments from gods aren't given to your bodies, but to spirit original souls (yourselves) who manage them, and consequently you sometimes receive blessings, and sometimes suffer various bitter trials.

You have come into existence with your consent but under control of the gods in order to fulfill your duties ordered by gods while correcting the bad faults you had in the spirit world. As long as you have not corrected your faults, there is very little hope of achieving the duties laid down before your birth, and at the same time, kept secret from you from the moment you were born, Most people are deserted and lose their way at the moment they die because they fail in their assigned duties. If you do not correct the bad parts of the nature you had in the spirit world, one misfortune will follow another until you have corrected them. As for bad traits, you must know two kinds: one is a natural bad trait, and the others are the natures distorted as punishment for your sins, and of bad will-waves given out from other places. Many people, due to punishment, can not move physical bodies (including spirit soul bodies, spirit bodies) at their own will which they should operate by themselves. You must know that this is not only due to punishment, but also due to some interfering will-wave given out from other places.

As a result of judgement because of the sins of their predecessors, parents, and families, people often have undutiful sons who eat them out of house and home. Many such undutiful persons can not usually mend their deplorable conduct though they know their conduct is wrong.
They can not change though they know that their anger will involve a big loss, or drinking will lead them into a strained circumstance. Just as an electric wave suffers some change in its shape when it is disturbed by another wave, the waves of your wishes are affected when disturbed by the will-waves given out by other spirit original souls. It is attributable to this that you are always short of your expectations in spite of there being only two ways, success and failure in the world. For you to be successful, there are no other ways but to cling to many righteous gods who have great power, while you are always trying not to commit sins, studying about your past sins and those of your family through divine revelations, and consequently, about cutting off the causes of your sufferings by using the Tengen's Rules in our teachings.

Each living thing soul has come into existence charged with its own duty, in a given shaped body belonging to a certain rank gifted from Uppers in order that it may get a higher rank as that of a spirit. Therefore, the moment that souls get into physical bodies, they are completely cut off from the spirit world, and they forget their own duties and the rules about their duties. This is the reason why Gyohs are always severe. If a Gyoh is the one through which they can get a higher rank of spirit, it will be well worth doing it, but if it ends in nothing but expiation of the sins committed during their Gyohs, it won't be worth while to even have been born. They are entirely free as to how they do their duties, while gods are watching in silence over their wishes, words, and actions, and have been recording them in the Heavenly world. So with you, in this record, all of your individual generations and even courses of any rebirth are all recorded just like the films or the tapes of this world, and which rewards and punishments will be justly administered.

It is not mysterious but quite reasonable for me to be able to tell you accurately about your past. I tell them to you putting the Heavenly records which are invisible to you, before me, and looking into them. Some of you are afraid of me, but you do not have to be, for no one has stronger affection for you than I. I administer justly rewards and punishments, and give them to you so that you may reflect upon your various wrong points. It may be more instructive for you to avoid your sufferings by knowing the truth, and reforming yourselves after you become aware of what is beyond human control through all the hardships, that is, after you admit the limitation of your own ability as humans. It seems to me that it must be at this time that you are willing to reform yourselves and therefore, it is better for you to suffer much in order to become right-hearted persons. It can be said that the more serious troubles a man has on his mind, the deeper are the sins he commits. For instance, in case of all the parents in the world who worry about their prodigals, as long as the former does not try to abandon its evil mind, the follies of the latter will not stop.

As to family troubles, it is best that the one who has the most serious troubles in his family first recognizes his bad traits and reforms himself.

You have the same transmitting and receiving apparatus as I have. Your receiving apparatus has been insensitive due to one sin after another being committed by you. Careful observation of children's sensitivity will make you aware of this. If you had believed in and clung to many great gods since your childhood, the way to fortune would have been laid before you to lead you to possibly discharge your duties steadily during the years. Yet, you need not view your future with gloom. Reform yourselves. Even now it is not too late to believe in really great gods and to reform yourselves, for your Gyohs exist in eternity through all generations.

A day's Gyoh (discipline) in the human world is equivalent to three years' Gyoh in the spirit world. If you can not be reclaimed from a sinful life in this world, you cannot be reclaimed in the spirit world, for you will naturally lose your way and suffer at the moment of death. My believers know well from various experiences how many people lose their way at the moment of their death, and are left alone to writhe in agony in the spirit world. When the Hotokes (dead person-souls) that lost their way come to cling to or possess you, you feel heavy in the legs or want to drink large quantities of water or tea. One of these days, you may catch a slight cold or get ill. For instance, if the Hotokes come to cling to you, and if they died of a lung trouble, you will become ill with it, or if they died of a brain disease, you will become ill with it. This is the reason why those who dream of Hotokes too often become sick easily. A really interesting phenomenon can be seen. If you and your family come to like the same food that the Hotokes liked before death, one of these days, you will become ill with the same diseases they had. If the Hotokes died bearing someone a grudge, he will be liable to be deranged, and often behave unreasonably without shame.

There live many unfortunate people who have very fine appearances, but who are not given important positions. We have a saying "Beauty is often inconsistent with luck." or "Lady's man has neither money nor power." What does it mean? These phenomena are caused by Renbo and Omoi (When A yearns after B, B is subject to the influence of A's will-waves. All the phenomena that happen on B's side we call 'Omoi', and on the other hand, 'Renbo' all the reactionary phenomena that happen on A's side. Ref. Chapt. 20 and 21). Have not you ever been so absentminded that you did not hear, even when you were called, until someone patted you on the shoulder to recall you to reality? Have not you been in an unconscious condition even while you were walking along the road? And, in that interval, did you imagine your past lover in your mind?

That is the interval in which you were gone away from your physical body to get into the lover's body or the lover's wife's (or husband's), where you were doing what you liked. In other words, you left your own physical body under the control of the gods who presided over human bodies, while leaving the management of your own physical body unattended, and doing what you pleased. If such a thing is oft-repeated, there is a danger that your physical body may get hurt, or will be occupied by other souls. If your body is occupied, you will look entirely different in your family's eyes, and they will be stricken and sadden by the sudden great change in your character, though you (soul) will not be in the body at that time, and therefore, the body will not be any concern of yours. You can not come back into your own physical body again, but you are tried on a charge of such selfish behavior and are treated as a sinful soul losing your way. Even though you look still alive in human's eyes because your body is in motion, you must have already left this world and gone into the other world, where you must suffer on. Even for a moment, you should not imagine such pleasure that you put aside your body and go for an outing forgetting the duties of managing your body. You would be wiser to give up hopeless and illicit love, and escape with the help of our Hohs (a general term of the Heavenly rules to secure safety; law and order) from the disasters with which you will meet sooner or later as a result of the Omoi and the Renbo.

It is by amoebas that you are most helped in various ways, and it is also by amoebas that your lives are cut short. When you break a divine law, and are punished, various amoebas are sent to you, and your lives are sometimes cut off. Even though you are haunted by an earth-worm soul, you will often have a fever, or will be afflicted with incurable diseases such as eye-diseases, sexual insanity (erotomania), and other ailments, or children's privates will be often bleared, that is, you will suffer from illnesses of the eyes, noses, ears, and other moist parts.

Try to set an earthworm free to go back into the earth after you take him in your hand and wash his body for him in clear water while saying "Please forgive me for my having dashed filth on you.", and you will often recover very quickly from any obstinate disease, if the disease is caused by the earth-worm souls.

The followings are a few examples of symptoms which can be seen when you are possessed by animal-souls.

Slugs and snails:
You suffer from paralysis and slobbering, or your limbs will feel heavy and painful.

Wall lizards:
Your limbs will get a discharge like leprosy, or your child will often cry for a long time at night.

Spiders:
You come to dislike a bath, or you will suffer from an epidemic or palsy.

Ants:
You will develop a 'sweet tooth' and will crave sweets, or become a man of sickly constitution and a bed-wetter.

Whales:
You have violent purging like a jet of water.

Fish:
You come to suffer from nettle rash.

Crabs and hairy caterpillars:
You will develop an itch on all parts of your body.

Snakes:
Small reddish stigmata appear on your skin, which becomes itchy. Your movements become slow as a snake in low temperatures.

Cats:
You become exceedingly sensitive to the cold. Finger-diseases (finger tips, and finger nails). You become asthmatic. You have a great hunger for fish.

Plants:
Your movements become slow, and the joints of your hands, arms, legs, and others become rigid. This is usually attended with pain.

Badgers:
You become heavy drinkers, lustful persons or come to like gamble even when in financial difficulty. Or, you have a habit of throwing your weight about, being often angry, and talking big. Whatever unfavorable happens, you look on it with an unconcerned air. Thus, you are very selfish, think only of yourselves, and cause trouble to people around you. You become animal like humans.

Strange to say, you humans, even though you are in the highest rank of all living things, are afraid of hairy caterpillars or snakes, or you are made puppets of their will even if you are possessed with animal-souls, of which you are unaware. whatever misfortunes you encounter, you may make light of the fact, by saying "How can it be." I do not think that I want you to believe the fact, for I think that persons who believe it have only to be saved and that I will not interrupt you in the bitter disciplines given to you. With a help of the Kuyoh-Hoh in our teachings, you are sure to get well very quickly. You can not know all until you have had this experience.

Haven't you dreamed of the dead? These kinds of dreams are the notice that the souls who are losing their ways have come to beg your help. If you are unaware of this, or are neglectful, you will meet with various disasters periodically (every odd day, month, and year). Just inquire into what diseases caused their death, and you see that there must be some one in your family suffering from the same disease.

Haven't you ever yearned for someone of the opposite sex, or stolen another's heart? And, since then have you lived all your married life with the same person? Did not you offer up a prayer to gods for union with that person? Just remind yourselves of your past. If you have not married that person but married someone else, just try to remember the date you were married, and check up the Nenki (oddly periodical manner of the lapse of full one, three, five, seven-days, months, years...containing a half year, ten years, thirty years-) every odd year since you married. I am sure that some trouble must have come to you. In case that you were deeply yearned for by someone in the past, you and your family will get ill with some serious disease, you may lose your riches, fail in some undertaking, become insane, or either the husband or wife may die before the normal span of life is completed. This happens on the Nenki, every odd year after you married another. When you have been intensely desired by women other than wives, your wives will precede you in death before their own normal span of life is completed, and on the other hand, when you (wives) have been desired by men other than your husbands, they will precede you in death. You, if you have been yearned for by someone intensively, you will catch some serious disease which will yield to no medical treatment. However, you can study the cause and effect, and escape from the disasters with the help of the Kuyoh-Hoh in our teachings.

Haven't you ever fallen in love with someone? Affection is different from love. If you could not marry that person in spite of having absolutely lost your heart, aren't you a long way off from that person? Or, don't you or your children feel itchy about your privates, or isn't there something wrong with your sexual organ? If both man and wife have dealings with Renbo and Omoi (When A yearns after B, B is subject to the influence of A's will-waves. All the phenomena that happen on B's side we call 'Omoi', and on the other hand, 'Renbo' all the phenomena that happen on A's side. Ref. Chapt. 21 and 22), there will be constant coldness and trouble between them. Haven't your children suffered from inflammation of the middle ear? If so, this is an evidence that some one of the other sex had a love attachment for you. Haven't you ever offered up a prayer to some god for a union with someone? In spite of the prayer, if you marry another, you will have a miscarriage or an aborted child, or will have no children because your sexual organs get out of order or abort. The gods' plan about your marriage in this world has already been decided, so that two others can not help continuing single all their life if the gods hear your prayer. Therefore, the gods delay the marriage till your next birth or its next. On the other hand, once you offer a prayer to gods for union with some one, you ought to remain unmarried in this life waiting for the time you can be united. While, it is natural that four bachelors could be produced in this world, and that you should not be absolved from the sin. How selfish of you to marry another in spite of your having offered up a prayer to gods for union with a particular person! If a chance acquaintance such as a loan of an umbrella leads to marriage, you will be faced with the misfortune of divorce. There are two kinds of bonds of wedlock, the long term one and the short term one, and some people can tie a true nuptial knot only after several divorces. You should find your true life companion at the beginning.

As time goes on, you will meet with greater disasters, so that you should seriously reflect on yourselves, and should expiate the sins you committed in the past. Have you ever born a grudge against anyone, or ever been resented? Calamities come about when grudges are given up and forgotten. This also applies to the cases between man and wife, or among parents and brothers. The partners you had grudges against will meet with some disaster when you have forgotten them, after which you will be judged by the gods. Haven't you ever been envied or praised highly? Man has a green-eyed monster in him. You have to know that the envy sometimes hurts your business. Haven't you ever seen an intense grudge between man and wife, or an intense jealousy? In this case, cancers or tumors grow inside your partner's body. If the partner should die, you must be in agony. A certain woman having a fine appearance came to me and with great sincerity said that her husband had developed a cancer, which was utterly beyond any remedies at that time, and asked for my help. Then, I asked her if she would really forgive him, and said that it was caused by her past grudge against him, so to speak, the cancer was what she caused because she had been praying for his death, and it was wrong of her to ask me to cure him of the cancer without forgiving him. She replied that there was no need of apology between her and him as their relation was one of man and wife. This reply is quite unreasonable. When you tell gods or me anything, you had better do it carefully with a knowledge of the literal meaning you express.

Gods and I take you at your words, the literal meaning of words, without taking your reverse words into consideration. What an ill-hearted wife she was, not to say clearly that she forgave her husband, and to leave her past grudges behind. Her way made it impossible for me to help her. I could only punish her. I wondered why she could not bring herself to offer her sincere apology for her grudges against him and to forgive him. I am surprised that there are many people like her in the world. I wonder why they can not accept the blame and forgive. I wonder if they know that they will come to the end of their luck if they do not forgive. I never say that I'll forgive you if you say this or that, or if you do so and so, because I never do show any preference for any one of you, and because I think you should find the truths by yourselves.

Did you dispose of the afterbirth and the hot water of the first ten days' cleaning baths somewhere other than on your grounds? I think you disposed of them within your grounds.
You should dispose them away from your grounds. Have you preserved your babies' lanugo, navelstrings (umbilical cords), and first nail parings? Though you may be unconscious of them, you will meet with severe and unexpected trials if you deal carelessly with them. As a child, have not you been cross with your friends? You will meet with some trials about the time you arrive at puberty (reach a marriageable age). Do you keep your grounds clean? According to the position of your refuse boxes or heaps within the grounds, you are often attacked with fever, neuralgia, bloody noses, irregular menstruation, and so on. Even if furnishing of houses, driving of piles, wood-chopping within your grounds, driving and extracting nails without your begging eight Kohjins (the gods protecting premises Ref. Chapt. 17) for their permission, and having dead nails (the nails piled on the pillars to be used but now discarded), you will be punished by becoming ill or by a slump in your business. If you enshrine failure-gods, some one in your family will come to show a fantastic and abnormal jealousy. A couple of failure-gods are punished for failing in their duty by being parted from each other, and the mere existence of the shrine where only a female god is enshrined makes many boys who were born near it phimosis (a kind of man's abnormal sexual organ) even after they grow up. This is an interesting phenomenon. When there stands only a big tree (a kind of tree which is divided into male and female, such as gingyo and other trees), either male or female, near your house, you often meet with disasterous jealousy from the tree-soul. If it is a female tree only, or a male tree only, you will live in widowerhood or widowhood. Some ladies and gentlemen do not feel inclined to marry at all on the ground that each of them is yearned for by some tree-soul. You should plant a couple, female and male, by the time a pistillate tree bears fruit.

Haven't you ever washed filthy things other than food, flat-wares, and so forth at the side of a well or on a sink in the kitchen? Do you have a drainage by a well? You should have it about two meters away from the well. Isn't your sink left unclean on its top and under-side? Doesn't your drain become obstructed? This brings a disease and a long run of ill-luck upon you. Haven't you ever poured boiling water in the sink? Suijin(water-gods, Ref.Chapt. 13), whose soul bodies are scalded by it, get angry and punish you, and you suffer from water blisters, erysipelas, abdominal dropsy, hydrothorax, and other diseases. Haven't you ever put vessels on the sink that were so hot that you get scalded if you touch them? Haven't you ever been splashed with boiling oil when frying something to eat? If so, your children will have their skin inflamed.

Haven't you disposed of saliva, phlegm, cigarette stubs, vomit, nose-bleed, blood after childbirth, and so on, except urine and feces, menses, toilet-paper or cotton-pat used for them, broken needles, nail parings, or antiseptic solutions into the chamber pots? You come to suffer from hemorrhoids, ozena (empyema - a kind of nose-disease), sick stomach, abnormal menstruation, and other ailments. It is dangerous to dispose of the hot water used for baby's first cleaning bath in the pot. When the baby arrives at puberty, it will suffer from serious chest trouble or other illnesses. If you repair or take down chamber-pots, kitchen ranges, portable cooking ranges, or other things without previous notice to the Kohjins (the gods protecting premises), you and your families will meet with some disaster every odd year.

If you have studied history, I think you are aware of how you ought to do with an aspect of house, a person's ashes, a grave-yard, a grave-stone, a Butsudan (a house or altar where Hotokes are enshrined and worshipped by families), and other, and I'm sure you know what punishment you will have for the sin of opening a grave. Even when moving your residence, you had better take care, for you are subject to the influence of the sunrays and the revolution of the earth. If you read histories, you will understand this. If you possess articles, paintings, writings, curios, mirrors, gems, swords, and other things to which someone has been previously deeply attached, they will bring terrible consequences upon you.

You will find with careful observation that even your visitors and customers on any given day have some influence, great or small, upon your fortune of that day, and in the same way you will feel more relieved or more pain according to who the visitors or customers are. You need to try and think of what has passed between you and them in the past. Some of your visitors or customers, though they have often come to you before, will not come suddenly when you reform yourselves in accordance with the teachings of Tengen and have your sins revoked so that fortune may be ready to smile a sweet smile upon you. The visitors and the customers who reduce you to ruin, or the others who help you succeed-whom do you choose? Yet, you can not recognize the distinction between them when you are sinful. There live gods and other spirits, good and bad, behind you. You always have something to do with them. Sometimes a husband does not come home on the particular day when his wife gets his favorite dish ready for him and wait for him to return home. Such a singular or strange thing happens in the world. This is an instance of the phenomena caused by the Nenryoh (all the phenomena caused by the will-waves of grudge, envy, stinginess, jealousy, anxiety, and others. Ref. Chapt. 24) by the person who knows what his favorite dish is. Yet, right after the Nenryoh is cleaned away, he comes straight home with some favorite of his.

To a great degree, what is kept in a mother's heart reveals itself directly in her children's behavior. It is necessary that she should first reform herself before trying to reform her children by scolding them. If she always scolds them without trying to reform herself, they will be cross-grained. On the other hand, a father's nature reveals itself in their characters. His cranky nature leads his children to be nasty characters. You must not scold your children with rage in your heart. If you do so, they will become so disobedient that they will neglect their filial duties. You must know that your rage results in a loss and in your defeat in every case. Even though you feel angry, you must not express it through words and actions but smile a sweet smile and inquire into the cause and have it cleared away, and you will be sure to win the upper hand. Though everyone knows not only does his rage result in losing but it puts him in ill humor, he often gets angry. You need to try to think of whether your anger comes from your own wish or someone else's wish, for some other's will-waves directed toward you makes you a puppet and you get angry in many cases. Your constant anger will make your physical bodies get out of order, so that you will be unable to produce good smell vapor. If that is the case, both you and your bodies will be disliked by many other souls, so that various kinds of raw materials for smell vapor will no longer be brought to you by them. Also, the allotment of raw materials supplied from gods will be reduced, and in the end you will find it hard to make a living. Suppose you make some product, could you become interested in and depend on the machines that can produce nothing but waste, and would you put valuable raw materials into such machines to keep on producing waste? I am sure you will scrap such machines.

If what you have done is wrong, even if done thoughtlessly or in spite of yourselves, you will be punished, sooner or later, in some regular odd term. The worldly things are all controlled by gods, and are moving just as my expressions. You are often placed in the position that you are at your wit's end and are bound to go to war much against your will. If you become right-hearted, I'll put an end to your wars. I'11 wait for the day to come when you become aware that you are wrong and reform yourselves, even after you suffer agony.