August 2017

The book collecting Rei Torii’s art has an official English title: The Shinto Art Work. I was given a copy by one of my students, so I’ve been able to look through it. I still like the art a great deal, and even the “Dances of the Land of Eternal Youth” series, which is in a very different style from the others, has grown on me. There is a significant amount of Japanese commentary, explaining the background to the pictures, and saying something about Mr Torii’s artistic development, but even… Read More »The Shinto Art Work

Kanda Myōjin is an old jinja in Tokyo. It claims to date back to the eighth century, and thus predate the city by about nine centuries. It may well be that old; it is certainly known to have existed before the Tokugawa shoguns moved their capital to Edo and turned it into a city. It claims to be the general tutelary jinja for the city of Tokyo as a whole, with a focus on the people who live there, rather than on the government. That is, it is a popular… Read More »Kanda Myōjin

I have just released a new essay funded by my Patreon. This one is about the types of people associated with jinja, from priests and miko to casual visitors. What do you have to do to become a priest? What sort of people become priests? What is a sōdai, and why do they play an important role? It answers all these questions, and more. If you have missed this essay, don’t worry. You can get back numbers.