Japan's "Happiness Party" Floods Election

New political party based on religious cult floods Japanese election

The new religious movement Happy Science started a political party in May called the “Happiness Realization Party”, or HRP for short. Today the Japanese government announced figures which showed that Happiness fielded the most candidates of any party in the 2009 government elections. These figures are likely to be translated by American reporters sometime this evening or tomorrow.

On this blog I previously covered the religious party New Komeito, managed by Nichirenist splinter group Soka Gakkai. New Komeito claims that it dissociated itself from Soka Gakkai in the early 1990s, although everyone knows this is not true. The HRP does not even attempt this sort of obfuscation. The party leader is Kyouko Ookawa, the wife of Happy Science founder Ryuuhou Ookawa, who is by the way not only the Cosmic Buddha but also God incarnate.

Happy Science is by far the funniest of Japan’s new religions. Adherents believe that historical figures like Thomas Edison and Florence Nightingale, as well as Toyota founder Sakichi Toyoda, were actually angels descended from Heaven to save humankind, a concept they equate with the bodhisattva.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY...