David Chart

Continuing the theme of jinja tours, there have been several articles in Jinja Shinpō recently about groups of jinja getting together to create programs on which people visit all of them, acquiring something at each jinja so that you complete a set if you go all the way around. These are normally generated by the priests themselves, sometimes with external help. In the June 10th issue, there was an article about three jinja in Hamamatsu, in Shizuoka Prefecture, that have got together to offer magatama (curved jewel) omamori based on… Read More »Multi-Jinja Pilgrimages

The June 10th issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article that was of particular interest to me, in the “Mori ni Omofu” (“Thoughts in the Forest”) column section. It was by Suzue, who is a singer/songwriter and Shinto priest, and it concerned the various people who act as intermediaries between people and the kami. The main topic was people who divine which jinja is your ubusunagami (“personal kami”, I guess, although originally it was the jinja covering the place where you were born), and apparently there are people who make… Read More »Jinja Tours

I recently finished reading an English-language academic book about Shinto. (Yes, yes, that may have had something to do with the last two posts.) The book is Overseas Shinto Shrines by Karli Shimizu, and I highly recommend it. You can buy it directly from the Bloomsbury website, but if that’s difficult for you, it is also available on Amazon (that one is an affiliate link). The title is slightly misleading, because the first chapter is about Kashihara Jingū, in central Japan, and the second is about jinja in Hokkaidō, which… Read More »Overseas Shinto Shrines

The second problem (the first problem is here) that I have with English-language studies of Shinto is that they tend to overgeneralise from a limited range of evidence. This problem is certainly not limited to Shinto studies — I read a very interesting book on the “immigrant experience in Japan” that was based on a handful of group sessions with a few dozen people, recruited through about three different groups. My personal experience of the immigrant experience in Japan is broader and deeper than that. However, it is particularly relevant… Read More »Academic Overgeneralisation

I read quite a lot of English academic books and articles about Shinto. Not all of them, but a high proportion (there aren’t that many…). I often find them irritating, and I have been thinking about the reasons. It is not usually because they are poorly researched or badly written — neither of those is normally a problem. (Yes, there are occasional exceptions, but that is rare.) At the moment, I think there are two main reasons. One of these is a problem that I would like to see the… Read More »Shinto Denial