Secrecy’s Power: Covert Shin Buddhists in Japan and Contradictions of Concealment (Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture, 26) Hardcover – July 31, 2014

Informative and well researched.This study offers insight into any sect or group that cherishes secrets that can not only offer a kind of protection from unwanted eyes and a "structure" for belief, but conversely can become a trap, a self-sealing strategy that fears possible exposure to disconfirming information. Secrets can make insiders feel special and that in itself can become an elitist position that may have no grounds for belief. Chilson does not avoid evidence that persecution may have driven some Pure Land Buddhist sects to secrecy in pre-modern times, but it appears that secrecy now serves a different, often uhealthy purpose when persecution is practically nil.