Volume Overview:

Published on February 21, 1901, this monumental volume stands as the absolute first modern, commercially printed book on Ninjutsu ever published. It represents the precise historical turning point where secret feudal traditions transitioned from hand-copied martial scrolls into the mass-market public sphere.

The text acts as an elite technical synthesis, breaking down the spiritual focus, traditional combat postures, and historical lineage transmissions of the school. Rather than utilizing a standard textbook format, this specific manual was printed exclusively as a pocket-sized (bunko-ban) artifact, making it the foundational seed for how the ninja entered modern global pop culture and a highly prized holy grail for international martial arts historians and rare publication collectors alike.

Rare & Unusual Facts About the Author and Book:

The “Hermit of the Purple Moon” Pseudonym: The author’s name, Doshi Shigetsu (指月道士), wasn’t a standard name, but an elite, secretive pen name. “Doshi” (Taoist ascetic master) combined with “Shigetsu” (pointing at the moon) allowed the true creator to disseminate hidden esoteric systems to the Meiji public while avoiding personal exposure. Top modern Japanese ninja historians suspect that Doshi Shigetsu might actually be an early, top-secret pen name used by Gingetsu Itoh (伊藤銀月), universally considered the grandfather of modern ninja research.

The Meiji Print House Giant: The printer, Shueisha (秀英舎), wasn’t a standard local printer, but a historic typographic powerhouse. Over a century before their corporate lineage became the global epicenter for modern fictional ninja pop culture through titles like Naruto, their early twentieth-century movable-type printing presses were physically stamping out some of Japan’s very first authentic ninja reference manuals.

The Fine Art Connection: The publisher, Kinjiro Okumura (奥村金次郎), was an active publisher whose household fostered supreme artistic mastery. His son, Okumura Togyu, went on to become one of the most celebrated, elite master painters of modern Japanese fine art (Nihonga), utilizing the disciplined environment of a publishing family to achieve supreme cultural status.

The Pre-Boom Pioneer Secret: While later library databases record the massive public “ninja boom” as starting closer to 1915, this manual indicates that clandestine tactical publishers were already operating in 1901. Selling for a mere 10 Sen, it stands as an elite, ultra-early specimen that commercialized secret martial scroll traditions for the modern literate public decades ahead of its time.

The Publisher’s Occult Ecosystem: The promotional catalog bound into the back of this volume reveals that Raigaido Shoho was not a standard fiction distributor, but a specialized hub for late Meiji-era esoteric, occult, and psychological sciences. Directly adjacent to Senjutsu to Ninjutsu, the publisher advertised titles covering western stage hypnotism (Psychological Magic), traditional Japanese spiritual ascents, and specialized Taoist manual series. This indicates that modern Ninjutsu literature was initially commercialized not as a military martial art, but as a sister branch to the turn-of-the-century spiritualism boom taking Tokyo by storm.

The Master’s Core Philosophy:

Translated from the introductory pages of the text, the author sets the parameters of the tradition for the reader:

“When unwavering mental resolve is joined with true spiritual alignment, the practitioner will naturally witness unusual phenomena manifest directly before them.”

“It is absolutely vital to deeply cultivate the mindset that one must never allow others to look upon their physical body while performing these arts.”

“The core method is not merely a collection of simple physical tricks; it is a total manifestation of the foundational disciplines laid down by the ancestral masters.”