Natori treats written oaths not as metaphysical bindings but as evidence and performance. An oath is a public declaration of intent that creates social obligation through visibility. Breaking an oath in public is dishonorable because it proves unreliability. But the oath itself has no supernatural power. It is a linguistic and social performance, not a binding contract with the divine.
This is radical skepticism from a 17th-century text. Natori explicitly teaches that oaths are made "on the assumption that there is no intention to break the promise or commit a wrong deed."1 This means the oath depends on the character of the person making it. A person who breaks oaths easily will not be constrained by making another oath. The oath works only if the person already intends to keep it.
The Seven-Sheet Oath (Shichimai no Seiyaku) Multiple documents signed with personal seal or blood-mark, creating redundant evidence of commitment. The multiple sheets serve a practical function: if one sheet is lost or damaged, others remain as evidence.
The Sacred Oath (Shin no Seiyaku) Oaths made before religious sites or involving sacred objects (reliquaries, shrine papers). These serve a psychological function — the person taking the oath in a sacred space is engaging both intellectual commitment and emotional/spiritual reinforcement.
The Sealed Oath (Inkan no Seiyaku) Oaths sealed with official stamps or personal seals. The seal creates an identity-based verification — the seal proves that the person making the oath is the person whose seal appears on the document.
This is Natori's most dangerous and honest teaching: experienced practitioners can break oaths while maintaining psychological coherence. The teaching is: what the conscious mind commits to, a deeper layer of mind can deny.
The Mechanism: A person makes an oath sincerely at the moment of commitment. But if circumstances change sufficiently, or if pressure becomes sufficient, that same person can compartmentalize. The conscious mind maintains the oath on the surface (for social reputation), while a deeper layer of consciousness recognizes the oath as no longer binding.
This is not hypocrisy. It is the recognition that human commitment is layered. We are not unified beings with unified intentions. Different parts of ourselves want different things.
The implication: oaths can be broken by skilled practitioners without the person experiencing themselves as oath-breakers. They experience it as adaptation to new circumstances. Their oath was sincere when made. It became irrelevant when conditions changed.
If oaths can be broken by skilled practitioners, then the wise person uses oaths strategically:
Natori teaches that the lord who demands oaths but then violates them himself has lost authority. The lord who keeps his own oaths while being forgiving when others break theirs has more authority than the lord who demands absolute oath-keeping.
Natori explicitly teaches when oath-breaking is appropriate:
The person breaking the oath in these circumstances does not bear shame because the oath was never valid (made under coercion) or the circumstances that made it binding no longer exist.
This prevents the samurai from being bound by oaths made under duress or threat. The lord who forces an oath through coercion is creating a false binding that the samurai can legitimately abandon.
History & Behavioral Mechanics: Commitment as Performance vs. Commitment as Internal State
Natori's teaching on oaths reveals that commitment has two distinct dimensions: the public performance (the oath witnessed by others) and the internal state (what the person actually intends). Behavioral mechanics explains why the public performance is more powerful: it creates social cost for breaking the commitment. History documents samurai who broke oaths publicly (losing honor) vs. those who broke oaths secretly (maintaining public reputation while violating the oath). The mechanism: public commitment constrains behavior because others are watching; private commitment can be abandoned because no one knows.
History & Psychology: Compartmentalization and Cognitive Dissonance
The doctrine of "stratification of minds" is essentially Natori's description of compartmentalization — the psychological capacity to hold contradictory beliefs or commitments simultaneously without experiencing cognitive dissonance. Psychology explains the mechanism: the mind can compartmentalize competing commitments to reduce psychological tension. History documents samurai who maintained public loyalty while secretly negotiating with enemies, or who made oaths to different lords (each oath was sincere at the moment, but when circumstances changed, the earlier oath became abandoned). The integration: Natori treats compartmentalization as a skill that can be developed through practice, not as a pathology.
The Sharpest Implication
If oaths can be broken by skilled practitioners, then all commitments are ultimately conditional. The person bound by oath is only bound if they genuinely believe the oath constrains them and if they lack the skill to compartmentalize. This means power flows to the person who can make and break oaths while maintaining social reputation — because they are actually free while their opponents believe themselves bound. The warrior with "stratification of minds" can commit to anything because he knows he can abandon it if needed, while his opponent commits sincerely and feels bound by the commitment.
Generative Questions