Category: Shinto
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A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine
Here we have another example of a book that does what it says on the cover; a recounting of one year’s festivals and activities at a Shinto shrine, together with comments from various of the priests on matters connected to Shinto, Japan, and the shrine’s operation. The writing is clear and lively, and it gives,…
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The Fox and the Jewel
This book, subtitled “Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship”, is the product of extensive research into the Inari cult in contemporary (early 1990s) Japan. The author spent a year at Fushimi Inari Taisha, the oldest Inari shrine and still, in some sense, the centre of the cult, and a further year at…
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Shinto Controversies Course — 10th Lecture
Today was the last of this year’s Shinto lectures at Kokugakuin. The theme was the origins of Yoshida Shinto, particularly the activities of Kanetomo Yoshida. (Kanetomo is his given name.) Right at the beginning of the lecture, Professor Okada said that he didn’t generally like to criticise historical figures, because you shouldn’t speak ill of…
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Shinto Controversies Course — 9th Lecture
Today was the ninth lecture of the Shinto Controversies course at Kokugakuin University. Today’s topic was Ise Shinto, a variety of Shinto developed at the Grand Shrines of Ise, as you might have guessed. However, it was mainly promoted and developed by the priests of the Outer Shrine, not those of the Inner Shrine. The…
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Shinto: The Way Home, by Thomas P. Kasulis
The author of this book on Shinto is primarily a philosopher of religion, not a historian, and thus he approaches Shinto from a philosophical perspective. One result is that this book is not really a very good introduction to Shinto. It is easy to read, and assumes no background knowledge (as far as I can…
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Shinto Controversies Course — 8th Lecture
The eighth lecture of the Shinto Controversies course at Kokugakuin University was held on Wednesday. This time, Professor Okada started by saying that it wasn’t a very interesting subject, and there were more than the normal number of digressions in the course of the lecture. Clearly, this is a topic that is somewhat outside Professor…
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Shinto Controversies Course — 7th Lecture
Today, the Kokugakuin Shinto controversies course restarted after the summer break. Today’s lecture had two main parts, and an introduction. The introduction was Professor Okada telling us about his summer holidays. One of the things he did was visit an archaeological dig in Hamamatsu (I think), where a number of festival-related items had been unearthed.…
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Shinto, by Ian Reader
This book, in the series Simple Guides, is, as you would expect, a simple guide to Shinto. It is very short, and took me about an hour to read, and thus can only hope to cover a basic outline of Shinto. However, if you know nothing about the religion, that’s exactly what you need to…
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Okunitamajinja
The second of the Kokugakuin shrine visits on the 5th was to Okunitamajinja. This is the Soja for Musashi no Kuni. The Soja was a shrine set up near the seat of government with the kami of the most important shrines in the province (or kuni) so that the provincial governor could easily honour the…
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Shinto Controversies Course — 6th Lecture
The sixth lecture of the Shinto Controversies course at Kokugakuin was held yesterday. This time, Professor Okada only barely got on to the controversy part, because explaining the background took most of the lecture. Fortunately, the controversies involved are easy to understand once you understand the background, so while it would have been nice had…