The Japanese martial art bujinkan budō taijutsu (ninjutsu) was disseminated globally in the 1970s, becoming popularised in the early 1980s in conjunction with a surge of ninja films. The article uses the evolution of bujinkan in Sweden over the last fifty years as a case study of how spirituality, a key feature in the books by the art’s grandmaster Hatsumi Masaaki and some of his western disciples, is negotiated among practitioners. It draws on interviews with instructors and participant observation in several dōjō, as well as bujinkan books, magazines, and websites. The analysis focuses on nine themes: broad conceptions of spirituality and religion; dōjō paraphernalia and ceremonies; the use of kuji (mudras); notions of subtle energy and vibrations; extrasensory perception; views of the grandmaster’s abilities; photography as a means of cultivating the mysterious; bujinkan as a holistic body-mind practice; and understandings of secrecy and transmission. It is further argued that the early Euro-American reception of bujinkan was coloured by concerns in the contemporary holistic milieu, but that this dimension has gradually faded in importance, at least in Sweden.

The chapter details how Milton’s ambivalent depiction of Satan in Paradise Lost set off an admiration for the figure as a revolutionary hero. Growing into full maturity with romantics like Blake, Byron, and, especially, Shelley, the literary tradition of celebrating Satan immediately became intertwined with broader republican and secularist projects. By undermining the conventional understanding of Christian myth through drastic counter-readings, the bible’s function as a pillar of the established order-both political and religious-could be challenged. A similar approach was adopted by central anarchist thinkers like Godwin, Proudhon, and Bakunin. Other socialists perpetuated this radical tactic. In Sweden, it was employed by several leading social democrats around the year 1900, but eventually scrapped by mainline socialists when they decided to aim for parliamentary support and reforms rather than revolution. However, the symbolism of Satan as a noble eternal rebel has more recently resurfaced among West-German terrorists in the 1970s and North American secularist activists in the 2010s. 

Rhetoric about cultivating the self, mystical inner energy, and meditation permeates European discourse on East Asian martial arts. They have often functioned as a contact point with Buddhism, and contributed to a broader sacralisation of bodily exercises. However, few studies of them have been produced by scholars of religion. To analyse martial arts spirituality as a form of lived religion, participant observation, and interviews are necessary. Mapping the milieu through large-scale surveys is also important, as is analysing books, leaflets, and websites produced by participants. The broader popular culture that martial arts are embedded in constitutes a significant context, as does the discourse on martial arts in newspapers. Martial arts spirituality can be analysed as a sub-field of the new age/holistic/alternative spirituality milieu and need to be related to local processes of secularisation. As martial arts are products of dynamic borrowing between “East” and “West”, global history provides a further useful lens.

Cultural exchange between Sweden and East Asia began in earnest with the establishment of the Swedish East India Company in 1731. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Swedish missionary movement and Theosophy constituted important contexts for the way in which Swedes engaged with East Asian religious traditions. Today, Buddhism is relatively well-established, and the umbrella organisation The Swedish Buddhist Community serves more than 11,000 individuals. Several practices related to spirituality and alternative medicine with a connection to East Asia are widespread, including Traditional Chinese Medicine (primarily acupuncture), qigong and reiki-healing. Concepts like qi/ki also play a role in several systems of martial arts. Research on alternative spirituality is strong in Sweden, and some of these practices have been mapped from this perspective. However, scholarship on East Asian diasporic communities is limited.