The Foot-Reading Cult of Japan

Ho-no-Hana-Sanpogyo was a Japanese new religious movement referred to as the “foot-reading cult” in the media. Its founder, Fukunaga Hogen, claimed to have divine authority and the ability to diagnose physical illness by studying the soles of an individual’s feet. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the history of Ho-no-Hana-Sanpogyo and Fukunaga’s practice of foot reading.