Mokichi Okada

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Mokichi Okada (岡田茂吉 Okada Mokichi, 1882-1955) was the founder of the Church of World Messianity, in which he is known under the honorific title Meishū-sama (明主様, lit. "Lord of Light"). According to his official biography^[1], Okada was born to a poor family in Tokyo and, after many trials and tribulations, eventually made his fortune in the jewelry business.

Initially a follower of Shinto offshoot Oomoto^[2], Okada claimed to have received a special revelation from God in 1926, leading him to found a new religion in 1935 to spread the teachings. Okada soon expanded to open a rehabilitation center centering around the healing powers of light, but it was shut down in 1936 as a violation of the Medical Practitioners' Law (医師法違反).^[3]

In June 1972 he founded an Ikebana school called Sangetsu. The Mokichi Okada Association (MOA) was established in 1980 to continue his work "toward the creation of a new civilization to be undertaken without confining Okada's principles and their implementation within a religious framework" (MOA acquired a status of a legal entity as Limited Liability Intermediary Corporation in 2005). Much of Okada's extensive art collection is now housed in the MOA Museum of Art in Atami, Japan.