The Aokigahara Forest

Hello everyone, I am John Dodson and welcome to the Season One Finally of The Secret Sits, I can’t even believe it, and so today I am bringing you another story from the mysterious land of Japan.  On this episode we are going to look into the Aokigahara forest, or as many may know it better, Japan’s Suicide Forest.

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Transcript

Hello everyone, I am John Dodson and welcome to the Season One Finally of The Secret Sits, I can’t even believe it, and so today I am bringing you another story from the mysterious land of Japan.  On this episode we are going to look into the Aokigahara forest, or as many may know it better, Japan’s Suicide Forest.

Kobayashi Issa, better knows as simply Issa is regarded as one of the four haiku masters in Japan during the edo period.  One of Issa’s most famous haiku poems is about mt fuji, I will read it to you now, translated into English.

O snail

Climb Mount Fuji,

But slowly, slowly!

If I could possibly describe Mount Fuji in one word it would be Shinboru, or a symbol, because Fuji is way more than a mountain.  It contributes to Japan’s physical, cultural and spiritual geography. The mountain stands at 12,380 feet and it is the tallest mountain in Japan.  Mount Fuji is located 62 miles from Tokyo and on a beautifully clear day, you can just see the elusive giant while riding on the train in and around Tokyo.  The last time Fuji awoke, the volcanic ash fell all the way to Tokyo, this was in 1707.  Fuji is also the most popular tourist site in all of Japan and this is for both Japanese or Nehon go and foreign tourists, gaikoku gine.  Over 200,000 people climb the mountain each year.  And once they reach the peak, they wait to watch the sunrise because on top of Mount Fuji the sunrise has a special name, it is called Goraiko. Thunder Tiger.

Fuji has been a sacred site for those who practice Shinto, all the way back to the 7th century.  Shinto is polytheistic and revolves around the kami, which are supernatural entities believed to inhabit all things, animate and inanimate. The link between the kami and the natural world has led to Shinto being considered animistic, which simply put means that every object has a distinct spiritual essence. The kami are worshiped at kamidana which are household shrines, as well as family shrines, and jinja public shrines.  The kami of Mount Fuji is Princess Konohanasakuyamwho’s symbol is the Sakura, or cherry blossoms.

Found at the base of this mystical mountain is the Aokigahara forest.  This forest is approximately a two-hour drive from Tokyo.  The Sea of Trees, as it is also known, because this is exactly what it looks like, a sea of trees, so tightly packed that even in the middle of a cloudless day, when standing in the depths of the forest, it almost looks like night time, light scarcely penetrates the thick woodland.

As you approach Aokigahara it is simply a place of unparalleled beauty.  Just looking at this majestic forest can calm your anxiety and bring you clarity.  The woods are also a great place to go on a hike, although it can be quite a difficult hike as you wind your way through dense thickets of trees, brambles and knotted roots that stick up from the ground, just looking for toes to catch.  And sometimes children will come on field trips to visit the ice caves which can be found all around this area.
 One of the most memorable aspects of this forest, is the deafening silence all around you.  There is just stillness, the forest floor is constructed of volcanic rock, formed from flowing rivers of lava, pouring from the mountain in 864, and cooled through the ages.  The stone which covers the forest floor is porous and all of the tiny holes, eat up all of the noise.  Just the innocuous breath you take in, sounds like a loin’s roar. 
 The forest floor being made up of mostly volcanic rock is the actual reason behind rumors that compasses go haywire in the forest.  Because of heavy deposits of metal in the hardened lava, if you place a traditional compass directly on the ground, the needle will point to the highest concentration of metal around it, but if you just use your compass like a normal person and hold it at a normal height, it will work just fine.
 Such a place is bound to be the subject of many myths and legends including the ubasute.  In feudal times in Japan, when food was scarce and there were just too many mouths to feed, a family would take an elderly and typically female family member into a remote location and they would leave them to die, sacrificing one for the good of the whole. Ubasute literally means, the abandoned.  But there is much skepticism about weather this actually took place, or if it was more Japanese folklore which simply made its way into old Japanese songs and poetry. 
 
 The Yurei, a form of Japanese ghosts were said to appear in the Aokigahara forest.  When visitors to the forest saw these yurei, they assumed that they were resentful spirits of those who had been abandoned by their families and left to the elements, left to die.  The Japanese believe that if a person dies with a deep sense of hatred, anger, sadness or urning for revenge, their souls cannot leave this world and they continue to wander.  These souls are the yurei and unlike western versions of ghosts, who want something specific to be resolved so they can rest, yurie, want nothing, they just need their curse to be removed or their past conflicts resolved.

And then in the 1960’s the forest changed from being a place of solace and quiet reflection and it began it’s long affair and twisted history of becoming The Suicide Forest.  Today the people of Japan see the yurei in Aokigahara as the sad and despondent remnants of all the lost souls who took their final breath amongst the giant trees. 

As you walk up to the trail head you will see several signs, there are signs in both Japanese and English.  One reads, “Your life is something precious that was given to you by your parents” and another states, “Meditate on your parents, siblings and your children once more.  Do not be troubled alone.”

It is widely believed that the surge of suicides in the forest, which began in the 1960’s is due, in large part, to a famous novel released at the time by Japanese author Seicho Matsumoto called Kuroi Jukai which translates to Black Sea of Trees. The novel ends romantically with the lovers committing suicide together in the forest.  However, the forest had been producing bodies of those who committed suicide at least since the 50’s.

Aside from Kuroi Jukai, another book is quite often found around people who have committed suicide in the forest.  Wataru Tsutumui’s 1993 book titled, The Complete Suicide Manual, describes many ways to end one’s own life and in this book, he clearly suggests Aokigahara as an opportune and perfect place to end your own life.  

As you first hit the trail head, you will see the signs, as I have described and then you immediately walk into the dimly lit forest.  The silence is all around you, there are not even the sounds of animals, as the forest is largely uninhabited by wildlife.  You walk a little further in and it is like a door closes behind you, the light you have just left seems further and further away.

Look around, this is a beautiful, peaceful place and the quiet allows you to meditate so peacefully.  But as you continue to look around, you may start to notice some personal items strewn about, or you may happen upon a small number of personal belongings piled together neatly.  Something bright and colorful catches your eye, just in your periphery.  It is some colorful string and then you may notice, many different colorful strings.  This is another common practice for those entering the forest intending on ending their lives.  People will bring a bundle of colorful yarn and they will tie it to a tree and then loop it along the path they take through the woods.  This string will serve a couple of different purposes, if a person commits suicide, park rangers can follow the colorful string and find the person’s body.  Conversely, if the person decides to not commit suicide, sometimes they can never find their way back out of the woods, so the string also acts as breadcrumbs and they can retrace their way out of the forest and return home.

When the forest rangers find a body, they must remove it from the forest.  The body is then taken to the closest police station to the forest and the body is placed in a room just off to the side.  The belief in the yurei is still alive today and part of those beliefs is that, if the body is left alone, the yurie will try to escape and will wail and moan in the small room, so the park rangers play a game of rock, paper or scissors to determine who amongst them will have to spend the night with the body, in that small room.

Aokigahara is the world’s second most popular location to commit suicide, just behind the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California.  And I guess that leads us to one of the most fascinating parts about this story, why is the number of suicides in Japan so high?  In fact, Japan and South Korea have the highest number of suicides each year amongst all G7 countries.  As of 2020 the leading motive for suicide in Japan was because of “Health Issues”, however; there is no distinguishing between physical health and mental health in this study.  The second most common reason was for “Financial related issues”, third was “Household Issues” such as disagreements with family and fourth was “Workplace Issues”.  Most suicides in Japan are committed by men from 20 – 44 years in age on average.  Women in Japan who commit suicide typically average from 15 – 29 years in age.  

We also have to remember that the cultural attitude toward suicide in Japan and some other Asian countries is completely different than in the United States of America, where our social attitudes are largely based on Christian ideas which condemn suicide as a mortal sin. In Japan the general attitude is tolerant, for a lack of a better word.  Some view suicide as a morally responsible action, depending on the circumstances which surround the act.  These beliefs and views are largely based on the historical function of suicide used in the Japanese military.  In feudal Japan, that being a war-torn Japan around 1185 AD, honorable and formal suicides were performed called Seppuku among the samurai as a response to failure or inevitable defeat in battle.  Samurai would perform this seppuku by slashing one’s own stomach open with a sword, this would release the samurai’s spirit upon his enemy and thus avoiding a dishonorable defeat. Today this type of suicide still takes place, but now it is called hara-kiri, which literally means, belly cutting.  Also, in Japanese culture there is a unique concept of amae, this is the need to be dependent on and accepted by others.  In Japan acceptance by others and conformity to society are valued above individuality.  Because of amae, one’s worth is directly linked to how you are perceived by those around you.  This can lead to a fragile self-concept and feelings of alienation increase the chances suicide.

Even though common suicides are built into the moral and societal norms in Japan, the rapid increase of the suicide rates since the 1990’s has caused increased public concern about the matter.  The rise of internet usage and social media apps have caused a catastrophic rise in suicide attempts by adolescents and young adults. 

Overall, modern public concern about Japan's increasing suicide rate has tended to focus on suicide as a social issue rather than a public health concern. The distinction here is that Japanese culture emphasizes the inability to adjust into society and social factors as playing a larger role in an individual's decision to commit suicide, than an individual psychopathology that is biological in nature. In more lay terms, Japanese culture says, not fitting in would cause suicide more than mental health issues. Furthermore, stigma surrounding mental health care still exists in Japan to this day. Thus, there has been more emphasis on reforming social programs that contribute to economic stability like welfare rather than creating specific mental health services.

Hopefully I have explained some of the smallest amount of minutia around Suicide in Japan and we can get back to the forest.  In an attempt to understand why individuals, choose to come to the Aokigahara forest to die, a Japanese psychiatrist interviewed a handful of people who had attempted suicide in the forest, but had survived.  Dr Yoshitomo Takahashi stated that these people felt the forest would allow them to die successfully without being noticed.  The notoriety of the location has also played a part, said the doctor, some of these people just wanted to share the same place with others and belong to the same group.  So, their suicide in this suicide forest was their last hope of belong to a group.  Nakamura said it best, he said “Many people have committed suicide at Aokigahara; thus, you won’t die alone.”

In 2002 a record number of bodies were found in the forest, 78 in total.  Just one year later that number would be outdone when 105 bodies would be recovered from the forest and these are just the bodies which have been found, many more could be hidden in caves or in the thick forest, parts of which are almost impossible to search.  In 2010, police recorded over 230 suicide attempts in the woods, luckily only 54 of those were able to bring their suicide to fruition. The number of suicides increase a lot in March, which is the end of the fiscal year in Japan.  Businessmen, who feel shame for their company’s failings take this burden on themselves and try to release their humiliation.  

In recent years, local officials have stopped publicizing the numbers of bodies removed from the forest in an attempt to decrease Aokigahara's association with suicide.

I will say, I do not want to focus on the Logan Paul controversy during this episode too much, but I know people will ask about it, so here is a brief summery and you can google it if you want to know more.  Logan Paul is a YouTube, let’s call it, personality and in 2017, he traveled to the Aokigahara Forest and filmed a segment for his YouTube channel.  In the video, they do happen upon a deceased Japanese man who had hung himself in the forest.  In the video Logan is seen and heard laughing and the man’s body is hanging face forward in the background, and they continued filming even as they contacted the police.  Yes, it is real, yes, it is disgusting that he posted this video on his channel, it has now been taken down and he is being sued for millions of dollars because of companies pulling ad revenue from projects he was attached to, whatever, it was disgusting and he deserves whatever happens.  But I hope that he has learned a lesson and he emerges from this situation a better and more compassionate person. And that is all I have to say about that. 

I love Japan! Nihon ga daisukidesu and I have spent a lot of time there.  It holds a very special place in my heart.  The audio engineer of this podcast, and my amazing husband, Gabriel Dodson has spent years working in Japan and we have even talked about moving there permanently at some point in our lives.  This has been the season one finally of The Secret Sits.  We will be taking some time off in preparations for some amazing things coming your way in season 2 of The Secret Sits.  Please don’t forget to follow us on our social media which you can find in the show notes. And also keep a look out for a couple of bonus episodes to drop before season 2 starts.

I’ve been your Host; John Dodson and we will be back real soon.

The Secret Sits is written and researched by my, John Dodson.  Audio Engineering by Gabriel Dodson.  Original Podcast Artwork provided by Tony Lay.