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.

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.