Chizuko Mifune (御船千鶴子, ''Mifune Chizuko'', 17 July 1886 – 19 January 1911) was a self-proclaimed

clairvoyant Clairvoyance (; ) is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to ...

during the late

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Early years

Mifune was born in

Kumamoto Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Kumamoto Prefecture has a population of 1,748,134 () and has a geographic area of . Kumamoto Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the north, Ōita Prefecture t ...

into a family of

folk medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) refers to the knowledge, skills, and practices rooted in the cultural beliefs of various societies, especially Indigenous groups, used for maintaining health and treatin ...

practitioners. It has been stated that she was deeply religious. In 1908, at the age of 22, she married an army lieutenant and moved in with her parents-in-law. She was introduced to

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychological ...

by her brother-in-law, and allegedly developed her powers at the age of 24 by practicing breathing and meditation exercises.

Fukurai

Tomokichi Fukurai, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

, was deeply interested in the

supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...

and desired to validate

extra-sensory perception Extrasensory perception (ESP), also known as a sixth sense, or cryptaesthesia, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was ado ...

. Fukarai's supernatural interests were heavily criticized by his colleagues, but he was convinced Mifune's powers were genuine when he privately tested her in April 1910. A second, public test was conducted by Tokyo University president Baron

Yamakawa Kenjirō was a Japanese samurai, politician, physicist, academic administrator, and author of several histories of the Boshin War. He served as president of Tokyo Imperial University, Kyushu Imperial University, and Kyoto Imperial University. He also ...

on 15 September 1910. She appeared to read messages written inside hidden envelopes, however, when these messages turned out to be not from Yamakawa but from Fukurai, she was widely seen as a charlatan and heavily criticized by the press. A modern researcher, Rodger Anderson has noted that the experiments were not properly controlled as Mifune "was often left alone with the test envelope, or insisted on turning her back to witnesses when attempting to psychically probe its contents."Anderson, Rodger. (2006). ''Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules: A Biographical Dictionary with Bibliographies''. McFarland & Company. p. 65.

Death

Four months later, on 19 January 1911, Mifune committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

at the age of 24 by ingesting poison.

Influences

Japanese horror Japanese horror, also known as J-horror, is horror fiction derived from popular culture in Japan, generally noted for its unique thematic and conventional treatment of the horror genre differing from the traditional Western representation of horr ...

filmmakers of '' Yogen'' and '' Ringu'' reportedly used Mifune as the inspiration behind the character Shizuko Yamamura, the mother of ''Ringu'' antagonist

Sadako Yamamura is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Koji Suzuki's ''Ring'' novel series and its eponymous film series. Her backstory varies between continuities, but all depict her as the vengeful ghost of a young psychic who was murdered and ...

References

External links

Factual Basis Behind ''The Ring''Ringworld.com
''accessed'' February 23, 2006

Factual Basis Behind ''The Ring''
Curse of the Ring
accessed June 26, 2012

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mifune, Chizuko 1886 births 1911 suicides Clairvoyants Japanese psychics Telekinetics People from Kumamoto Prefecture Suicides by poison in Japan 1911 deaths Academic staff of the University of Tokyo