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The Shikoku pilgrimage has, until very recently, seen significant growth in pilgrim numbers and appears, as such, to provide a counter-example to the general trend evident in surveys and studies of declining engagement in religious practices in Japan. However, two caveats are needed here: numbers have started to fall in the last decade, and those doing the pilgrimage have often in recent times viewed their pilgrimages as journeys of self-discovery in which identity is paramount and faith is irrelevant or explicitly denied. In addition, the pilgrimage has been promoted by secular authorities as a signifier of regional and national cultural identity in order to develop Shikoku as a tourist destination, and boost the local economy. In this article, I explore these issues, drawing on fieldwork in Shikoku between 1984 and 2019 and on interviews with people—from pilgrims on foot to temple priests to regional government officials—involved in various ways with the pilgrimage. In discussing how identity construction is both a major factor in the motives of pilgrims and an aim of secular agencies seeking to promote the pilgrimage for nonreligious reasons, I examine what this means for studies of religion today through highlighting recent Japanese theoretical examinations of religion, pilgrimage, and tourism while discussing how the Shikoku example both fits with and provides critical counterarguments to their studies.

Aum’s activities have had a global impact on counterterrorism thinking. Its use of chemical and biological weapons caught the attention of policy makers and security forces globally, and Aum became a seminal influence on the way security and government agencies, especially in the United States, conceptualized the future of terrorism to be chemical, religious, and apocalyptic in nature. Such perceptions conditioned counterterrorism policies in the years prior to 11 September 2001, and strategic studies specialists now debate whether this led the usa in particular to underestimate threats from other more conventional modes of terrorist violence. Even after 9/11, Aum continues to feature in counterterrorism discourses and military training manuals, and continues to represent, for security services and policy makers, the “public face” of chemical and biologically oriented terrorism. This article examines these issues and shows how the Aum Affair was not simply restricted to Japan but had a global impact and profile.

Pilgrimage is a widely recognized aspect of religious behavior, found almost universally in religious cultures across the world，and often