I Met a Japanese Meteorite Dealer Who Believes in Space Healing

Hachiro Kageyama claims to have the largest meteorite collection in the world. Tucked away in an antiques shop overflowing with Buddha statues, ornaments and meteorite shards in Tokyo, he promotes the supposed magical powers of the space rock to all that pay him a visit. "You can use the meteorites in my shop to make a wish and for healing purposes. If you make a wish from the heart, it comes true," Kageyama, a sprightly senior decked out in a colorful mosaic shirt and cowboy hat, told me.

The meteorite dealer has long enjoyed minor celebrity status in Japan for his love of collecting space rocks, and has been interviewed by several Japanese newspapers. In recent months, his appeal peaked when he appeared on infamous Japanese presenter Takeshi Kitano's TV show Paranormal Phenomenon (Choujou Genshou X File) with Keisyu Kamiya, a Shinto priestess from Komitake temple near Mount Fuji.

I decided to visit Kageyama's shop after a colleague at VICE Japan told me about him. The 78-year-old has the vibe of a bohemian painter crossed with an impish old man out of a Japanese fairy tale. For the past several decades, he has made a living by selling antiques and meteorites in a shop dubbed "Space Village" (Uchumura). Here, Kageyama imagines what lies beyond Earth (he draws pictures of aliens glimpsed using telepathy) and imparts his love of space to others while peddling his wares. I couldn't verify if Kageyama possessed the largest meteorite collection in the world, but he insisted that his was the largest "unofficial" collection. Kageyama claims to have around three and a half tonnes of meteorite pieces in his shop. He sells everything from tiny fragments of Gibeon meteorites to chunky Imilac meteorites weighing as much as 925 kilograms and measuring about a meter across. He provides details on their origin on his website. There are also stacks of star stickers and waters infused with what he dubs "meteorite power"—a phrase he coined 20 years ago when he "discovered" how owning and wishing on a meteorite could change your luck, health, and happiness.

Kageyama's interest in space was sparked when he was a kid. He explained that, back in the post-World War II years, toilets were found in gardens rather than inside people's homes in Japan. This meant his parents took him to the toilet in the middle of the night, and en route, he'd gaze up at the dark expanse above his head in awe.

"As a child, I always wondered why the Milky Way, known in Japan as 'Ama no kawa' (fisherman's river), didn't drip onto us," recalled Kageyama, whose parents explained that it was composed of stars and not water. That piqued young Kageyama's curiosity and he cobbled together some lenses and cardboard to create a basic DIY telescope. "That's how I learned about the stars," he said.

Hooked on what he saw up in the night sky, Kageyama built a larger telescope in his teens and twenties, and even constructed a 25-meter wooden rocket, which people could climb into. A screen with models of the planets like Venus, Jupiter and Mars, made it seem like you were "up in space," he recounted with a grin. In his 20s, Kageyama travelled around Japan letting people peer up at the night sky using his telescope. In the aftermath of WWII, Japan was steeped in poverty, and according to Kageyama, people were enchanted by what they glimpsed through the contraption.

While Kageyama constructed DIY telescopes that let him examine the stars, and conjured the illusion of being in space with his rocket, something else gripped his imagination.

"When I was a teenager, my neighbour in the countryside showed me a meteorite," recalled Kageyama. "He told me that I could buy it for 100,000 yen ($845), but I couldn't afford it back then."

Kageyama shelved thoughts of possessing a meteorite, continuing to support his astronomy research by buying and selling antiques. But his fortunes soured, causing his funds to dry up.

"I was deceived and sold a whole bunch of fake antiques and ran up a huge debt as they didn't sell," he explained. Kageyama—whose family also happens to own Shimoda castle in Shizuoka prefecture in central Japan—returned home with his tail between his legs, and consulted his father.

"My father told me to buy a meteorite and make a wish on it," said Kageyama, who borrowed some money from him in order to buy and make a wish on a space rock. "After all, they're shooting stars," he added. His luck changed.

"My antiques started selling and the money came pouring in," said Kageyama. "I knew then I'd discovered 'meteorite power.'"

Back in the cluttered antiques shop, Kageyama reaches over and gives a young Japanese woman a small glass of water infused with both meteorite power and drops of three-thousand-year old sea water. The visiting woman, who wished to remain anonymous, learned of Kageyama's shop on television, and came seeking a cure for her illness.

"That water usually costs 5,000 yen ($42), but I'm giving it to you for free," chuckled Kageyama, feigning disbelief when the woman asked him if his meteorite power-infused stickers could also help ease pain. "Of course it can, you can also make a wish on them too, silly!" he responded.

When I visited Kageyama's shop, Keisyu Kamiya, a Shinto priestess clad in black, was o on hand to explain how she'd benefited from Kageyama's meteorite collection. Pulling out an array of papers, she explained how Kageyama had found that holding a meteorite increased alpha waves in the brain, leading to higher levels of health and happiness Though Kageyama has never had the opportunity to leave Earth, he claims to use telepathy to envision and draw aliens. The results are a bunch of endearing sketches of bug-like creatures sometimes wearing what looks to be a Japanese straw hat.

"There are countless stars in the universe so I definitely think aliens exist. They'd be much more intelligent than us too," said Kageyama.

Before, I leave Kageyama's shop, the old man strikes his iconic pose in front of his altar area, before gifting me some meteorite power infused stickers and a meteorite shard. He gripped my hand in a surprisingly strong clasp for someone so frail-looking. "Come and visit again, but you better make sure you buy something," he chuckled. Cool Japan is a column about the quirky and serious happenings in the Japanese scientific, technological and cultural realms. It covers the unknown, the mainstream, and the otherwise interesting developments in Japan.