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2021

Hatsumōdë Under COVID

In normal years, hatsumōdë mainly happens in the first three days of the year, and they are over, so we are starting to hear how that period was different this year. And it was different. To start with the least surprising one, reports say that Meiji Jingū in Tokyo has had about 20% of its normal visitors. It normally has about three million, so that’s still a lot, but the jinja is also pretty big. I hear from someone who was there that the precincts felt empty on the first.… Read More »Hatsumōdë Under COVID

More Back Issues

I have made some more back issues available for purchase. This includes a very, very recent back issue, as last month’s essay is now available on Amazon. The two issues available there, in Explaining Shinto, cover the reasons why it is difficult to explain Shinto, particularly in English. The first problem is that Shinto does not have an “essence”; there is nothing that one can point to as the heart of Shinto, and that unifies all the detailed explanations. The first essay looks into that situation, and suggests why it… Read More »More Back Issues

The Purpose of Jinja

What are jinja for? This is a question that members of Jinja Honchō’s Oversight Council have raised recently, and that has been addressed in editorials in Jinja Shinpō, but I do not think that there is an official answer. Here are some of the options that seem to be popular in the Shinto world — they could all be true at the same time. Jinja are places to venerate the kami. This is the most purely religious answer, and probably the closest to the original purpose of jinja. However, it… Read More »The Purpose of Jinja

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I hope 2021 is a lot better for everyone than 2020 was. Traditionally, millions of people across Japan would be visiting jinja today, often returning from the cities to their hometowns to do so. This season, however, has seen the government actively discouraging that. In a few weeks, when the reports start coming in, we will see what sort of impact this has had on jinja. I hope that it will be fairly minor. I have a Patreon, where people subscribe to receive in-depth essays on various… Read More »Happy New Year