ABSTRACT
Prior research on Japanese adoption of Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theories has focused on the uses and effects of anti-Semitism. This chapter aims to broaden the discussion to examine the prehistory of the concepts of secret society and global conspiracy, and the uses of global conspiracy theory beyond anti-Semitism. I show that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other Judeo-Masonic conspiracy texts gave new meaning to the category of secret society, which Japanese authorities initially associated with grassroots socialist and anarchist radicalism. The religious group Oomoto remixed and reconstituted the conspiracy into their own Japan-centric apocalypse, and a pseudohistorical forgery called the Takenouchi Documents supplemented the Protocols by arguing for the existence of an ancient global empire centred in Japan. Even Japan’s most influential anti-Semitic organisation ended up endorsing these grand, religious visions, remixing and reconstituting the conspiracy to fit local beliefs. After the war, another group, Hikari Kyōkai, dropped the language of Jews and Judaism entirely and reframed the global conspiracy as a Manichaean battle between the spiritual forces of Japan and foreignness.
