Who Decides?
Who gets to decide whether someone may practise Shinto, and whether they are doing it right? This is, it turns out, a really hard question. The obvious answer might well be “Jinja Honchō”. It is, after all, the largest Shinto organisation in Japan, representing the overwhelming majority of mainstream jinja. There are two problems with this answer. The first is that Jinja Honchō avoids, as a matter of policy, deciding either of those issues. I have been told, on several occasions, to phrase things more indirectly because they do not… Read More »Who Decides?