Welcome to the Archive of the Sealed Gods. The purpose of this project is to explore and document the esoteric in Touhou Project games and the associated media.
The worldbuilding of this well-beloved doujin media empire is full of refrences to real life mythology, religion, esoteric traditions, paranormal, occult and fringe science ideas.
These ideas strongly root the games and their associated print works in to the more numinous, magical and mysterious side of reality.
This no doubt greatly contributes to what people refer to when they say Touhou is "souled".
However, this project poses a bold statement based on 6+ years of research into paranormal and occult topics as well multiple individual's (including my own) experiences:
Touhou is "souled" in a literal sense
Touhou is greatly influenced by real-life mythologies and beliefs from three religions: Shinto, Buddhism and Taoism
Touhou is also influenced by some ideas from Western esoteric tradition and paranormal research
Inspiration rooted in real life spirituality gives Touhou exceptional spiritual potency that explains it's enduring popularity
The fierce adoration roused by it's spiritual potency has at least turned Touhou into an egregore
However, there are indications that there are spirits of non-human origin within Touhou
Gensokyo is at the very least heavily inspired by real-life locations in Nagano, Japan
The various entities within Touhou represent spirits tied to Shinto, Buddhism, Taoism and certain Western beliefs
Spirits have taken many different manifestations over time, and the way they are represented in Touhou is continuation of this
It is possible to reach out to these spirits and to contact them and multiple people have done so
The spirits of Gensokyo are capable of supernatural feats and can offer guidance
The most powerful of these spirits are genuine deities and are most worthy of reverence
It's possible to radically change your relationship with Touhou, yourself and the world at large by taking the spirits of Gensokyo as your mentors.
You are warmly welcome to never view Touhou the same way as you did before.
Please wait warmly...this site is incomplete
This site is meant to be an evolving, living text, a dialogue and not a monologue. However, I intend to eventually produce downloadable texts based on the contents of this site.
Please check this site from time to time if you become interested in the topic.
I am currently working on practical advice for contacting the spirits of Gensokyo among other things.
I also have several ideas for texts that do not quite fit the linear structure of this site, and will eventually put them in a subsection of their own.
The site will also be updated as new relevant information is found.
Please note that there are some texts dealing with mature topics related to the Touhou Project and spirituality here. Please leave if you are not an adult.
History of the Archive
02.10.2024: Unplanned mini update in honor of the eclipse: Added general study of religion subsection to external sources (not sure why I didn't do this earlier). Fixed a typo and an image glitch related to html caching. The site has now over 5000 views!
01.10.2024: Pre-eclipse update: Added a lot of headers into the texts for improved readability [debatable]. Minor additions and structural changes in Part 1. Major expansion of ZUN Moon Rising and Shifting Through The Layers, Passing Into Fantasy sections. Added a mention of Youkai Mountain being the "original form" of Yatsugatake mountains in Gensokyo Is A Place On Earth? Fixed some typos, added a link or two, probably made some changes I already forgot about.
22.09.2024: Autumn equinox update: Added more external sources, small updates to Shinto and Hifuu Club sections. Site has reached over 4000 views.
11.09.2024: Extensive update to External Sources section. The archive has passed 3333 views...where have all of you come from!?
09.09.2024: In honor of Cirno Day, the index page has been made more descriptive and useful.
04.09.2024: Small updates to Taoism, Buddhism, Hifuu Club sections, bigger update to the Supernature section where I added ZUN's quote about him being surprised by the depth of his own characters and how some of the "seemed to move on their own".
14.08.2024: Made this to look a bit more like an actual web page [debatable]
13.08.2024: Added some images and the "...Touhou?" section.
11.08.2024: First version of the site is published.