A new religion has appeared in Melbourne, Australia. Called “Happy Science,” it was founded in the 1980s by a Japanese man named Ryuho Okawa, who says he is able to receive spiritual help from Jesus, Gandhi, Moses and Zeus.

            Happy Science wants to make sure that every spiritual base is covered, and it recognizes the existence of many gods. Okawa claims that he is able to channel more than 500 “high spirits” — people who have had an impact on world history. Guidance comes to him, he says, from Confucius, Socrates, William Shakespeare, Thomas Edison, Margaret Thatcher and even Walt Disney.

            Such claims are rejected by cult watchers, but criticism has not stopped Happy Science from expanding and attracting big donations. Okawa’s message is growing in popularity, as is his mission to bring happiness and salvation to the earth. Happy Science claims to have 12 million followers around the world.

            According to an Australian newspaper called The Age, Okawa predicts that much of the United States will sink at the beginning of the 24^th century. He has also written that Martin Luther “will be reincarnated as a Japanese school teacher and help usher in a new religious movement.”¹

Strange new religions

            Although we might laugh at a spiritual leader who claims to receive guidance from Walt Disney, all new religions seem strange when they first appear. Even Christianity seemed odd and offbeat when it arose as a Jewish sect back in the first century. It seemed as strange to the people of Judea as Happy Science does to us, and no one did more to shock and surprise people than the man named John the Baptist.

            John announced the

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