A seven-month-old baby, who had been suffering from atopic dermatitis, died of sepsis. His parents did not put him under medical treatment because of the religious faith of the group, Seimei-kyo where they belong. They were arrested due to medical neglect. In this paper, we aim to clarify the religious teachings that they believed in and consider the reason why they did not take their baby to the hospital. According to the religious teachings by Seimei-kyo, the spiritual healing called “Johrei no waza”, which is like a therapeutic touch, is believed to heal the sick without medications. Using medications are believed to have negative effects on their body.
Katsumi Takizawa, philosopher and theologist, did receive this spiritual healing and his age-related macular degeneration was almost cured. Because of this, he examined the teachings of the religion and he found out that these religious teachings provide important ideas on the role of spiritual healings in religion. However, at the same time, they got confused between the absolute relationship of God to man and the relative relationship of the mind/spirit to body. This confusion led to absolute reliance on their spiritual healing, “Johrei no waza” and the believers are likely to reject medical treatments.
It is easy for us to scoff off the parents and the religious teachings, but in order to avoid this miserable affair/event from happening again, we need to reflect deeply on the religious teachings that they have. We should also reflect on how the religion and medicine should be related to each other to improve the well-being of people.
