Jul 25, 2025

This week, conspiracism takes a new twist in Japan, from paranoid worries about Christianity to paranoid beliefs in "Western encirclement". How did this new form of conspiracism help drive Japan's descent into fascism, empire, and eventually the self-destructive decisions of the Second World War?

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Jul 11, 2025

This week, we explore the "Christian conspiracies" of Edo Period Japan. Working backwards from the Osaka Incident of 1827, when a group of supposed Christian spirit mediums were uncovered as a part of a fraud investigation, we'll look at how Christianity was transformed from an actual religion into an evil spiritual...

Jul 4, 2025

Japan's "Christian Century" is the source of many fascinating aspects of Japanese history, from modern firearms to tenpura. But there's one more way that the century from 1543-1639 shaped Japan--as the source of its first conspiracist moment!

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