Happy Science

Happy Science
Kōfuku no Kagaku

Happy Science logo
Formation	1986
Founders	Ryuho Okawa
Type	Religious movement
Headquarters	1-2-38 Higashi Gotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-0022, Japan
Membership	over 11 million (2009)
Master	Ryuho Okawa
Website	happy-science.org
Formerly called	The Institute for Research in Human Happiness

Happy Science (幸福の科学, Kōfuku-no-Kagaku^?) is a controversial new religious and spiritual movement, founded in Japan on 6 October 1986 by Ryuho Okawa, that is widely criticized as a cult.

In the 1980s, Ryuho Okawa read a series of books by Shinji Takahashi, founder of the new religious group God Light Association (GLA). In 1986, he resigned from a position at a prestigious trading corporation to found his own religion. Happy Science became an official religious organization and approved by the Japanese government in Japan 7 March 1991. In the USA, Happy Science has been a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization since 1994.

In February 2008, the official English name for the group was changed from the Romanized Japanese Kofuku-no-Kagaku (literal translation "science of happiness") to the English rendering "Happy Science". Their former English name was "IRH - The Institute for Research in Human Happiness" which is still the name for their publishing company "IRH Press".

Okawa claims to channel the spirits of Muhammad, Christ, Buddha and Confucius (among many other beings) and claims to be the incarnation of the supreme spiritual being called El Cantare (エル・カンターレ). Happy Science claims that El Cantare is the true hidden name of the Heavenly Father in the Old Testament, Elohim, known in the Middle East as the God of creation (El) and in other ancient cultures of the world as the Cosmic Tree of Life and the World Tree. Okawa also claims to have direct communication with the "Guardian Spirits" of political figures, with whom he conducts interviews published in the organization's newsletter The Liberty and in book form. He also claimed to have prophesied Brexit in 1990.