Spiritual Legitimacy in Contemporary Japan: A Case Study of the Power Spot Phenomenon and the Haruna Shrine, Gunma

Since the 2000s, Japanese internet media as well as mass media, including magazines, television and newspapers, have promoted the concept of a "power spot" as part of the spirituality movement in the country. This emerging social environment for the power spot phenomenon has developed a new form of religiosity, which can be called "spiritual legitimacy," according to the transformation of religious legitimacy embedded in Japanese society. This paper, therefore, examined the emergence of a new form of spiritual legitimacy utilizing a case study of the power spot phenomenon in the Haruna Shrine, Gunma Prefecture, in Japan. The development of the power spot phenomenon in the Haruna Shrine indicates that consumption of spiritual narratives has strongly promoted the construction of a social context of spiritual legitimacy, such as through shared images and symbols related to the narratives in the sacred site. As a result, this paper clarifies that this new form of spiritual legitimacy embodies stakeholders' social consensus on spiritual narratives, which people have struggled to construct a social context for spiritual legitimacy to ensure hot authentication of their individual narratives and experiences.