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relationship between Shugendō and Onmyōdō is deep, and it is diffi-
cult to study those two systems separately.
The Legend of Abe no Seimei and the Recent Onmyōdō Boom
Abe no Seimei was perhaps the most famous onmyōji, thanks to the
myths about him that began to circulate after his death. In Japanese,
the names of the historical Seimei and the legendary Seimei are writ-
ten with different characters. The present-day Onmyōdō resurgence
in Japan is largely centered in the interest surrounding the figure of
Abe no Seimei. The historical Seimei was born in 921 and died in
1005 and served as a low-level government official at the Onmyōryō,
in the Department of Astronomy. He took this job at the late age of
forty, when he became an assistant to the famous onmyōji Kamo no
Yasunori. After Yasunori’s death, the calendar became the
monopoly of the Kamo family, while the Abe family gained control of
divination matters. As can be seen in Heian-period diaries, Seimei’s
services were performed for the sake of the emperor and the Fujiwara
family, and included advice about auspicious days, divination to iden-
tify the cause of an illness, and rituals against evil spirits.
About a century after his death, legends concerning Seimei began to
appear, describing him as a wizard capable of resurrecting dead peo-
ple, seeing demons, and manipulating supernatural servants known as
shikigami. In fiction, Seimei is said to be the son of a fox and a
man, which explains his extraordinary powers. Astrologers and divin-
ers, in order to raise their prestige, claimed to be descendants from
Seimei. Diviners, wandering priests, shugenja, and other religious per-
sonalities spread the cult of Seimei throughout Japan.
During the Meiji Restoration Onmyōdō was banned as an evil
custom but it was revived in the second half of twentieth century.
Especially during the 1980s, mass-culture interest in monsters (yōkai
) lead to a boom in Seimei/Onmyōdō-related texts, which resulted
in the production of many novels, manga, TV series, and films, along
with many astrological guides bearing the name of Seimei. All these
works present Seimei as a superb magician and astrologer capable of
exorcising evil spirits or demons.