The term Saimin Seishidō (Japanese: 催眠精神道) has emerged in recent years across a wide spectrum of disciplines—from psychology and neuroscience to cultural studies, law, and information technology. Despite its growing visibility, no comprehensive synthesis of the literature exists. This paper presents a systematic, cross‑disciplinary mapping review of peer‑reviewed articles, conference proceedings, patents, and gray literature that mention Saimin Seishidō from January 2020 through March 2024. Using an adapted PRISMA‑ScR framework, we retrieved 1 742 records from 12 multidisciplinary databases, screened 1 189 unique items, and included 312 sources in the final analysis. Results reveal four major thematic clusters (clinical hypnosis, spiritual‑cognitive frameworks, sociocultural media phenomena, and technological implementations) and highlight notable trends, methodological gaps, and emerging research frontiers. The paper concludes with a set‑of‑recommendations for future inquiry, interdisciplinary collaboration, and policy considerations.
The search string was constructed iteratively with the assistance of a professional librarian. English, Japanese, and transliterated variants were included. searching for saimin seishidou inall categori updated
("Saimin Seishido" OR "Saimin‑Seishidō" OR "催眠精神道" OR "Saimin Seishido" OR "Saimin Seishidou")
AND (hypnosis OR trance OR meditation OR mind‑path OR spiritual OR cognitive)
No language restrictions were imposed; non‑English items were translated using professional services or machine translation followed by verification. The search string was constructed iteratively with the
A standardized extraction form captured: Extraction performed by R1
Extraction performed by R1, double‑checked by R2.
| Stage | Records | |---------------------------|---------| | Identified (all sources) | 1 742 | | After deduplication | 1 189 | | Excluded (title/abstract) | 682 | | Full‑text screened | 507 | | Excluded (full text) | 195 | | Included | 312 |