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David Chart

Forests for Jingū

The Spring 2025 issue of The Imperial Family (皇室) had a substantial article on the forests from which the wood for the Shikinen Sengū (式年遷宮) at Isë Jingū (伊勢神宮) will be harvested. There will be a lot of articles in this magazine on the process, and they come with colour photographs. (On the other hand, most of the magazine is about, well, the Imperial Family. But if you are in Japan and want to get a subscription, they will be delighted — Jinja Honchō (神社本庁) often talks about the need… Read More »Forests for Jingū

Sacred Forests and Biodiversity

The May 12th issue of Jinja Shinpō had a substantial article on sacred forests and biodiversity. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, areas that are not formally protected can be officially recognised as “OECM” — Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures. (The “other” seems to mean “other than protected areas”, and “area-based” has vanished from the abbreviation.) This broadly means areas in which biodiversity is protected as a side-effect of other human activities. The Japanese government has introduced laws to formalise this status in the past, and a new law covering… Read More »Sacred Forests and Biodiversity

Cashless Offerings

Recently, there have been a couple of articles in Jinja Shinpō about the digital transformation, and specifically cashless offerings. The first, in the 5th May issue, reported a study group held by Saitama Prefectural Jinjachō. This group had four presentations, by a member of the Jinjachō staff, a tax accountant, and two priests at jinja that were already accepting cashless offerings. For the most part, they raised the issues that I have mentioned in earlier posts on this topic (see the tag). The tax accountant did confirm that simply using… Read More »Cashless Offerings

Conceptual Colonialism

As some readers may know, my academic background is in philosophy, and I have kept up my subscriptions to a couple of journals. I have recently read an interesting article in one of them, “Conceptual Decolonization, Conceptual Justice, and Religious Concepts”, by Mikel Burley (Mind 134:533 (2025) 60–84). The idea of “conceptual colonisation” is that the coloniser brings their own set of concepts for organising the world, and imposes them on the colonised. Thus, if the coloniser describes something as “superstition”, the colonised are unable to defend it, because how… Read More »Conceptual Colonialism

Yamaguchisai and Konomotosai

On May 2nd, the first two major matsuri of the 63rd Shikinen Sengū were held: the Yamaguchisai and the Konomotosai. Both of these matsuri are concerned with the timber that will be used in the rebuilding. Before the Yamaguchisai, at 8 am, everyone who would participate in the matsuri paid their respects at Kōtaijingū, the Inner Sanctuary enshrining Amaterasu Ōmikami, and then paid distant reverence to Aramatsuri-no-miya, the highest ranking associated sanctuary, which enshrines Amaterasu Ōmikami’s Aramitama. They then went to a building near the sanctuaries called the Gojōden, for… Read More »Yamaguchisai and Konomotosai

Grooving with Kami

A Shinto priestess based in Osaka has just started an English-language Substack, Grooving with Kami. At the time of writing, it only has one substantial post, from last week, but it looks as though it should be an interesting perspective on Shinto — the first post talks about her background. I do not know her personally, but one of my colleagues at Jinja Honchō does, and sent me the link to her site. For most people, having others read your work creates strong motivation to continue producing it, so I… Read More »Grooving with Kami