Hifuu Club's Fringe Activities

The stories and lore that are associated with the Hifuu Club are yet another part of the world of Touhou. The activities of the Hifuu (Secret Sealing) Club cover two ages and two mediums. First is the world of the Hifuu Club CD's. It depicts a far-future world where two women, Maribel Hearn and Usami Renko interact with inhabitants of Gensokyo and the Moon. The two of them are both university students. Renko studies ”super unified physics”, apparently related to some kind of a theory of everything based on string theory. Maribel studies ”relative psychology”, and she has the ability to go into other realms, at first in her dreams, then in the physical world. ZUN has used Hifuu Club to explore some more sci-fi oriented themes. In particular he has referenced some pop fringe science ideas related to physics and the nature of the paranormal.

The other part of Hifuu Club is the activities of Usami Sumireko, who runs her own one-woman Hifuu Club in the far away fantastical world of...literally right now, right here. She is a young woman from the outside world who becomes aware of the existence of Gensokyo and enters there using her psychic powers. She is described as being a chuunibuyo who laments the loss of magic in the outside world. Sumireko makes her appearance in several games and print media outside of the mainline Touhou games.

It's quite interesting that ZUN has felt the need to create a strange metanarrative where people from the outside world stumble upon the reality of Gensokyo and Lunar Capital by bumping against the edges of human knowledge. While the current canon status of the PC-98 games are in question, it should be noted that one of the games features a scientist from the future trying to prove the existence of magic using a ”Probability Space Hypervessel” - an idea highly reminiscent of the way Lunarians traveled to the Moon.

Sumireko's appearances have explored ways how modern ideas like AI and urban legends could interact with the otherworlds. In some way, urban legends are a modern form of mythology, and as such would be expected to eventually interact with Gensokyo. Sumireko also mildly refers to some real life parapsychological research. Her design incorporates the Zener Cards which are tools used in parapsychology experiments. Over time Sumireko grows to deeply respect the inhabitants of Gensokyo and regards them as her friends and mentors, a thought that might be worth keeping in mind for later.

ZUN has used the world of Maribel and Renko to explore a slightly different but related set of ideas. Maribel's ability to travel into other worlds in her dreams is based on a multitude of ideas on the occult significance of dreams. In some traditions they are viewed as ways to contact spirits or even as a way to go into other realms. Heightened dream activity is associated with people undergoing spiritual or paranormal experiences. At worst these can be persistent nightmares and sleep paralysis experiences.

Renko is more logical and science-oriented, but she is also very much interested in the paranormal and magical. Implicitly this comes from the fact that by her time physics has hit a dead-end. In the story of Magical Astronomy Renko tells how physics has become more like philosophy as the energies required to produce experimental proof for theories have become impossible to attain.

Superstrings and otherworlds

This plot element of physics hitting a dead end is based on a very real idea. The superstring theory postulates that all particles are in fact simply certain frequencies of energetic resonance on tiny strings that make up the universe. The energy needed to produce an observation of such a structure is so immense that humanity is unlikely to ever produce such amounts, let alone for a single experiment. Thus if superstrings truly offered a theory of everything, it would paradoxically condemn physics into a realm of philosophy and mathematics as experimental proof would not be forthcoming. In our world superstring theory has in fact been at times criticized as philosophy or even as pseudoscience, yet it remains a field of investigation within mainstream physics.

ZUN also refers to branes, a concept from superstring theory in Dr. Latency's Freak Report, where they are mentioned in the form of ”brane worlds”. Branes are essentially various types of structures that would be formed by superstrings. They don't quite carry the idea of ”other worlds” as he implies – as far as we know.

This otherworld sucks!!!

Perhaps more of interest in that story is the idea that other worlds are in immediate proximity to ours. There are entities within this unseen parallel world that are normally invisible but under the right conditions and in certain areas they can become manifest. They are called ”youkai” in this story (and by extension all of Touhou), but Renko also states that ”you could call them angels or devils or phantoms or cryptids, whatever's fine.”

This mirrors two ideas frequently found within the paranormal scene. First is the idea that there are ”other worlds” or ”dimensions” that are close to us, and that their inhabitants, often called ”ultraterrestials” (not youkai, sadly) can become visible in the right conditions. The second is the idea that these ”ultraterrestials” are capable of taking many forms. Sometimes they are seen as discrete entities, sometimes they are seen as being on a spectrum or having different manifestations. Sometimes it's thought they can willingly take different forms. Sometimes it's thought that human perception projects an exact appearance upon the incomprehensible upon attempting to perceive it.

Fluctuations and other quantum phenomena

It's of note that ZUN calls youkai ”fluctuations” in this story. This is very fascinating and not the last time he has used a sound-related metaphor for supernatural phenomena. The penchant for sound-related metaphors comes probably from two sources. First is ZUN's background as a musician, the second is Kukai's ideas about the power of sound and speech. As you might recall, Kukai was the founder of Shingon Buddhism. He believed that any sound could represent the ultimate reality, and therefore held potential for vast power. These ideas can be traced to Indian ideas about the universe being made out of sound.

An example of ZUN's sound metaphor can be found in Unconnected Marketeers where one of the Ability Cards describes danmaku being as ”waves” and that loud enough sounds can disrupt them. In Taboo Japan Disentanglement it's described how everything is made up of ”interference of waves”. While this is probably a reference to quantum interference, it should be noted that interference is also a phenomena of sound and other systems where waves exist.

Quantum interference resembles optical interference which resembles sound interference which resembles...

References to popular understanding of quantum mechanics are indeed peppered throughout the Hifuu Club narrative and Touhou in general. As has been stated, the Lunarians reached Moon by manipulating probabilities. Another idea related to quantum probabilities that has been presented is the thought that as long as there is greater than 0% chance of something happening, it will happen. This has been used as an explanation for supernatural phenomena in Touhou.

These reflects how quantum phenomena used to be, still are to some extent, a popular attempt at explaining paranormal phenomena in more scientific terms. This derives from the idea that observing a system collapses it into a single state, but observation doesn't have to be a conscious observation as far as I know (quantum physics is still immensely weird). As far as my understanding goes, ”observation” means something more like ”interaction with a macroscopic stable structure”.

There however have been some interesting developments regarding the quantum world and human consciousness. Roger Penrose, a physicist who worked with black holes, also formulated theories of consciousness as a quantum phenomena. His ideas were seen as unlikely for a long time as biological systems are too ”hot, wet and noisy” for coherent quantum phenomena to manifest. However, very recently it was discovered that networks of tryptophan, a biological compound found in human brains, exhibits coherent quantum phenomena at body temperature.

While this is not proof of quantum consciousness (yet), I would personally not be surprised if this leads to the discovery of other biological quantum phenomena. There have also been some rather persistent and very vexing indications that human consciousness is to some extent able to influence random number generators working on quantum principles. Maybe there is something to this after all..?

Other fringe ideas

The Hifuu Club lore also contains scattered references to the idea of power spots. These are locations of spiritual power where it's thought one will feel more in tune with the surrounding nature and elements. While the idea of power spots as such is tied to Japanese culture, it's a very widespread idea in the paranormal community that there are sites of spiritual power and areas that are hotspots for paranormal activity. Many different kinds of phenomena tend to cluster around areas that have also a long history of such activity. In the United States these places include places like Brown Mountain, Mt. Shasta and Jersey Pine Barrens. While there is no single unifying characteristic for these places, being between the 36th and 38th parallel and having the presence of caves, magnetic anomalies and certain types of quartz seem to be indicators for heightened paranormal activity. Certain types of old forests and places considered either sacred or cursed in folklore seem to also be hotspots for paranormal activity.

One can also find all kinds of other scattered references within the Hifuu Club lore. A kind of fun one is a reference to the notorious Japan paleolithic hoax, where stone age findings were fabricated. ZUN pushed this to the extreme by presenting millenia old, genuinely kami-made artefacts called Izanagi Objects.

Overall, it appears that ZUN is quite familiar with various ideas from the paranormal and spiritual scenes. This is only fitting for a self-described chuunibuyo. A particular idea of note that is not explicitly brought out but that is related to both ”youkai” being invisible entities from parallel realms and certain elements of the plot of Undefined Fantastical Object is the ultraterrestrial hypothesis. First formulated in Jacques Vallee's book Passport to Magonia, it essentially states that supernatural phenomena have over time manifested in various ways, possibly in order to steer human culture. There are remarkable similarities between reports of encounters with fairies, demons and monsters and modern day UFO encounters. The titular Magonia is a place in medieval French mythology, a realm above clouds from which...flying ships would occasionally come down to Earth.

Certain other bits from Undefined Fantastic Object, such as Nue's ability to cause things appearance to become ”unknown” being the cause for the UFO sightings mirror these ideas so closely that I have to wonder if ZUN was familiar with this book? Did Vallee's book have a cultural impact in Japan? Did ZUN somehow collate it from various bits of other ideas? Or did he, perhaps quite troublingly, somehow independently discover similar ideas...? In Symposium of Post Mysticism, it's even described that Nue at one point takes on the apperance of the Flatwoods Monster, a notorious and baffling case of an encounter with an ”ufonaut”.