journal of shinto studies

Issue 279 of the Journal of Shintō Studies (神道宗教) reported on the annual meeting held in 2024. As always, there are a few longer articles based on presentations in the main symposium, and dozens of short pieces reporting on the research of different members of the scholarly association that hosts it, and publishes the journal. As normal, I would like to write about several of the articles, spread over a few posts. First, I want to pick up one talk from the symposium. The theme was “The Media and Religion”,… Read More »The Origins of Shinto Weddings

Another research report in Issue 277 of Shintō Shūkyō was about jinja and kami in the digital world: “The Metaverse and Shrines: The Case of Torikai Hachiman Shrine in Fukuoka Prefecture”, by Takeda Atsushi. In 2023, Torikai Hachimangū (鳥飼八幡宮) created a digital version of the jinja in Zepeto, a virtual world. In-world avatars can (or could — I am not sure whether it is still active and do not have time right now to find out) enter the jinja, purify themselves at the purification font, and pay their respects in… Read More »Virtual Jinja

Issue 277 of Shintō Shūkyō includes a research report entitled “Hiroike Chikurō’s “Shrine-Centrism” at the End of the Meiji Period”, by Hashimoto Tomitaro (I think that should probably be “Tomitarō”, but it is written without the macron in the English contents page of the journal). “Shrine-Centrism” was the idea, pushed in the late Meiji and early Taishō eras (roughly 1900-1920), that jinja should be at the centre of regional communities, leading the improvement of local society. The priests should be good examples, and guide the local people into being better… Read More »Jinja at the Centre

Issue 277 of Shintō Shūkyō included thirty short reports on research presentations made at the conference. I am not going to write about all of them here, but there are four that I want to pick up and introduce. The first is “The Characteristics of the Dead in Ancient Times”, by Kobayashi Norihiko. That is the official English title, but the Japanese title is explicit that the report is about the spirits of the dead. Dr Kobayashi argues that in ancient times, which means the eighth and ninth centuries AD… Read More »Spirits of the Dead

Issue 277 of Shintō Shūkyō reported on the annual meeting of the academic society that publishes the journal, and contained several interesting articles. The first I want to write about is “Mikoshi Parades in the Bōsō Peninsula”, by Kobayashi Hiromi. The Bōsō peninsula is part of Chiba Prefecture, which is immediately to the east of Tokyo and part of the Kantō metropolis. While that metropolis is no longer officially the largest city in the world (the UN changed its definitions), it is still number 3, but the Bōsō peninsula stretches… Read More »Hamaori