The Art of Lying and The Philosophy of Spies

By Antony Cummins MA

 

Author of "The True Path of the Ninja"

 

 

The ninja, or shinobi as they were known in ancient Japan were not the pale image you see in the media today. In truth they were the harsh edge of Japanese warfare and represented the world of espionage, a world where lying, stress, death and the art of conversation produced a new look at the human mind and an investigation into the philosophies of the ninja. It is unknown whether the Chinese Kancho or spy was a direct antecedent to the ninja but it is certain that the ninja considered Sun Tzu’s work to be a major influence on their arts.

Out of the turmoil of ancient Japanese warfare came the ninja, a section of the warrior class that were experts in espionage and guerrilla warfare. The testing times of periods such as the Sengoku Era had forged ninja skills and produced individuals who could walk the highways of Japan in disguise, armed with multiple dialects and trained in an average 7 professions and their associated skills. Thus armed, the ninja walked the length and breadth of Japan as spies for their respective lords, entering into enemy territory and siphoning information along their way to aid the clan’s war effort. This constant need to maintain an alternative identity and regular mind games and information gathering helped create a system of philosophy or thinking that the ninja needed to be skilled in. This new way of thinking helped understand the art of lying and aided in identifying the difference between truth and falsehoods. All of these principles where based or influenced by Sun Tzu’s Art of War and his use of the Gokan or five types of spy.
Natori Masatake, a high ranking samurai and ninja master of the Kishu-Tokugawa clan sat down and penned the now legendary ninja manual in 1681 and its title can be translated as “True Path of the Ninja”. Divided into three major sections this manual deals with all aspects of ninjutsu, such as tools, disguises, infiltration, ritual magic and physiognomy. However, one third of the manual, the third scroll is dedicated to philosophy and the arts of truth & lies and the use of the Gokan spies.
Extract from Natori's Manual:

“In the chronicle of Zuo Zhuan左伝, these Chinese spies were called Chō長. Later, they were also called Saisaku 細作 and it is said that a retainer of King Tang 湯王, whose name was Yi Yin 伊尹, crept into the palace of King Jie of the Xia Dynasty and overthrew him. It is also said that Sun Tsu 孫武, who wrote the famous book, Art of War, who was also a retainer of King Helü 闔閭 of the state of Wu 呉, used the five types of spy to defeat his enemies.”

The manual then goes on to identify with and expand on Sun Tzu’s five types of spy. However, in the world of the ninja, three primary manuals exist: The Shoninki, the Ninpiden and the Bansenshukai, of these the Bansenshukai quotes Sun Tzu with regularity while the Ninpiden refers to him and his works as the basis of ninjutsu among others. Overall, there is a feeling of connection held between the works of Sun Tzu and the medieval ninja of Japan, as each manual draws on the expertise of this warlord and tactician.
What is interesting for any Sun Tzu researcher and enthusiast is the fact that this ninja manual takes the concept of using spies to a much more detailed level. By no means superior, the ninja manual takes its reader into the nitty gritty elements of the art of lying and gaining information through espionage, showing the high level of sophistication that the ninja had developed in their search for the art of lying.
The following skills are examples of Natori’s skills:
The ninja would be discreet in their information gathering and they tended to avoid infiltrating the upper echelons of samurai society. Instead of aiming high and getting vital secrets they would gather vast amounts of smaller or low level information and apply their stratagems to identifying the truths in the puzzle and then go on to put the jigsaw together. What made this a difficult task was the counter spies in place, there to feed travellers false information, the paranoid locals and the sure event of torture and death upon discovery. However, the ninja even had mind games to identify planted agents. One trick was to enter into talks with the local in question and to skip from topic to topic but bouncing around a central theme. In this way a ninja would get a feel for the intelligence level of the opponent and “pigeon hole” him and his mental capacity. Then, having “recorded” his capabilities the ninja would then switch the conversation to a line of questioning that he wanted. If the local responded with information, ideas and concepts above his normal level of talk, then the ninja would know that this was planted and was giving coached information and could thus regard it as false, also concluding that the local was a low level spy. The interesting point here is that the ninja manual warns you about situations were a ninja, will identify an enemy ninja and vice versa, giving you a situation where the two continue their visages while knowing the truth about each others identity, which leaves a mental hide and seek game, with discovery or escape as the prize.
The art of moving along similar paths: Once established that the contact that the ninja is talking to is not an enemy spy, he would start to talk along lines that were close to the theme of the investigation he was conducting. To prepare the person for this encounter the ninja would have fed his ego and bow to the targets “greater knowledge” on all subjects. If this was successful and if the contact had the information the ninja needed, sooner or later and after following similar themes, the contact would display his superior knowledge by displaying to the ninja his extensive understanding of the topic and its connecting areas. What this meant is that the target would divulge the information that the ninja needed which inflated his ego but unknown to him the ninja had set the topics from the start and that it was only a short leap to the vital facts the ninja needed and had now won. This is the art of moving along similar paths.
To counter the above investigation skills a ninja would jump from topic to topic. If the ninja felt that he was being probed and questioned he would swap topics every few moments and change the angle of speech to this way and that. The enemy would become confused and not be able to identify if this was a talkative traveller or a ninja and the more the ninja jumped topic the more then enemy would become flustered and try to steer the conversation back to the lines he wanted, a tell tale sign that he was a spy. By doing this the enemy spy had just given his identity away and had left the ninja with more information on the enemy spy network, yet he, the ninja had given nothing to the opposition. This reversal of skill and defensive mind game was a vital protection method and would often become a game of cat and mouse with each side not knowing who was which.
The art of forcing a response: A ninja would need to know the mind of his enemy and there is no better way than seeing an enemy under stress. To do this the ninja would set up a situation or event that would cause trouble or result in the enemy becoming stressed. From this the ninja would observe the enemy and his retainers and see the type of people they were and would then decide on the best strategy to outwit the enemy and gain control of any situation and get him to play into the hands of the ninja. Natori, the author of the ninja manual was a Buddhist and he used Buddhist teaching to help him understand the mind and its balance. The ninja believed that a human was born with 7 basic emotions:

1. Delight
2. Anger
3. Sorrow
4. Pleasure
5. Love
6. Evil
7. Greed

These states were given in unequal measures but everyone gained some of each. The closer to equilibrium that a person had these states the closer to perfection he was. Alongside this it was the trails of life that shaped the balance of these states. So, once a ninja had set up a situation for the enemy he could watch which emotion was strongest in his enemy, as the strongest emotions come out in times of “truth”. With this information he would know how to manipulate future events to unbalance the mind of his enemy and hopefully the ninja would achieve his aim. Shinobi no jutsu is sometimes known as ninjutsu and can be translated as “the arts of the ninja” and can be the subdivided into two basic sections, infiltration by night and infiltration by disguise. The above example of forcing a response is from the section connected with open disguise. Interestingly the ninja could also apply this concept to night time infiltration and they did it in two ways. First they would sneak into a house or castle in the dead of night and hide, next they would shout the alarm and call out “intruder!” the ninja would then wait to see the response of the castle guard from the inside, which would give him all the information he needed and his own lord could attack with samurai at the most vital and weakest points. The second approach was to set fire to a house in a village and see how the village responded and to wait in the shadows, from there a ninja could see which emotions came out and plan for the future and decide on how to manipulate them the best.
In the end though, the ninja concentrated on inner philosophy and a conditioning of the mind itself, the highest stage of ninjutsu is the dignity of flying birds, that is to be like a hawk in flight, showing no aggression the hawk is feared above all others without any move for power, all others cower at the strength of your mind. All this training and strength had to be hidden deep inside and outwardly, a ninja had to look stupid and see everything.
Over all the ninja had a selection of tricks that helped them trap an enemy in a muddle of mind games. They would flirt from village to village, hide in the bushes and listen to the word on the byways and highways, learn from temples and the idle chat there, con locals, steal wares and tokens, prepare maps and battle plans and much more.
The following section is taken from the author’s translation of the ninja manual in question and deals with the concept of understanding the difference between truths and constructed lies that are born from intelligence and how to use them to your own benefit.

道理と利口と知るべき事

DŌRI TO RIKŌ TO SHIRUBEKI KOTO

KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REASON AND CLEVERNESS

“Primarily, “reasoning” cannot be wrong nor can it be tangible; it doesn’t change no matter when or where it is said. Cleverness on the other hand is interesting to hear, but may go through transformation. True reasoning is vast and extensive; it is somehow humble and unpretentious but also very explicit when heard. Be warned, cleverness has no advantage over reason in any way but people would like to hear cleverness as it is pleasant to the ear and they will be attracted to its intelligence.
Figuratively speaking, reason is like listening to a sound with your ears. You have little difficulty hearing sound even with a barrier in place. For example, you will hear a bell even through a screen. Cleverness, on the other hand, is like seeing. Even with a simple piece of paper in front of you, you can’t see through it and cleverness becomes useless. A good point about reason is it doesn’t change even if transmitted over a million miles, while cleverness will not be as good as it once was when you heard it in person. Therefore, you should be aware that anything that changes easily is always cleverness and is not reason.
If you use reason to see through situations, and then use cleverness in your plots to beguile people, whilst also keeping your true intentions covertly deep inside and hidden, then you’ll know that your conversation skills will achieve wonders without any effort, and you will be a very skilful ninja. However, if you talk with a half-hearted mind, the opponent will take advantage of you and your reason will be bent immediately, which will leave little possibility of your aim to be fulfilled. If that is the case then you should be fully aware that you are under skilled in this area.
The ninja of Japan and their manuals are a great resource for any Sun Tzu enthusiast, as they take his concepts and establish the reality of using his techniques and display them in an obtainable and “new” way, a deeper explanation based on battlefield tested agents.

About the author: Antony Cummins MA of Manchester England has a degree in Ancient History and Archaeology and a Masters Degree in Archaeology, both of which were obtained at the Victoria University of Manchester. Antony is a published author, historian, artist, illustrator, and martial artist. You can learn more about him here: http://www.natori.co.uk/natori%20biography.html

“True Path of the Ninja” By Antony Cummins & Yoshie Minami. The book will be released on March 10, 2011, published by Tuttle Publishing.