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Bridging an analysis at both microscopic and mesoscopic scales, this article sheds light on the construction of the syncretic doctrine of Deguchi Onisaburō—co-founder of the new religious movement Ōmoto— in the 1920s. It explores the issues and limits of this syncretism in an imperial context. Despite a universal ambition and the constitution of a transnational network based on the idea of international religious harmony, the leader’s syncretic discourse was nonetheless based on a particularist postulate that placed Japan at the top of the world hierarchy and emphasized the universal messiah status of the co-founder, holder of the divine truth transmitted by the Shintō deities. Ōmoto’s creed thus appears as a strategic syncretism acting as a veritable spiritual colonialism capable of supporting the imperialist enterprise of modern Japan.