Before we talk about what’s actually inside the museum and why it’s worth the visit – on a mountaintop in Shiga Prefecture – let’s take a step back.
First, let’s start with the museum’s name: Miho.
If you’ve asked yourself what exactly Miho is – it’s a name. Someone’s name. Not just anyone, someone who was one of the wealthiest women in Japan. Miho is actually an abbreviation of her full name, which is Mihoko Koyama.
Koyama (who died in 2003) was the head of the religious group Shumei (Shinji Shumeikai) which she founded in 1970. The Shumei creed is, in short, a philosophy of life based on three pillars:
– Spiritual purification by passing divine light over the patient (an exercise called Jōrei),
– Physical purification through natural agriculture, and
– Mental purification through art appreciation and patronage.
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