The ecology of a Japanese religious movement in Senegal. From healing to environmental management according to Sukyo Mahikari

// ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH: Sukyo Mahikari is a Japanese prophetic religious movement established in 1959, whose theories are based on a purification ritual (okiyome) and a system of meaning borrowed from Shintoism. The movement's Senegalese followers are attracted by its therapeutic aspects, which teach them that their well-being is related to the purification of the body. The movement's ideology incorporates the body, the universe, invisible entities such as spirits, ancestors and divinities, as well as nature, in an interacting world. Purification of the body leads to purification of the environment and vice versa, and conditions the advent of paradise on earth awaited by the believers. This paper shows how a religious movement that offers physical therapy has got into environmental management, legitimized by the state, by getting its followers to carry out ecological activities in natural urban space (cleaning up public areas, reforestation, restoring botanical gardens, local gardening activities) according to their religious precepts. Reprinted by permission of Éditions de l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales