Shinto - Topics

Omamori from a shrine expire within a year and are returned to be burned Ujigami and chinju: how a Japanese shrine decided who belonged to a village How portable shrines get carried through a neighborhood at matsuri Where animist reverence for objects survives in modern Japan Whether Chinese and Japanese religious traditions belong in one East Asian category Why Shinto myth has no single first human couple Visitors clap twice and bow before a shrine's kami Torii gates mark where ordinary ground ends A Shinto shrine visit begins with purification at the temizuya What shrine maidens do in daily shrine life Shinto kami inhabit rocks and waterfalls — how does that shape land use? Gagaku and the ritual music of Shinto shrines Does Shinto have an afterlife at all? Why old wooden temples need periodic rebuilding Why rice and sake are offered to the kami Mount Fuji carries shrines and climbing rites up its slopes How hatsumode plays out at New Year shrines Yasukuni Shrine stays politically charged because of who is enshrined there Ise Shrine is rebuilt from scratch every twenty years on adjacent ground How a Shinto wedding ceremony proceeds What kegare is and how shrine visitors avoid it What misogi purification in cold water is for Japan's families often keep a Buddhist altar and a Shinto shelf — is that unusual? Why Shinto is one religion in surveys and many traditions to historians What a kami is and how one gets enshrined How Shinto is tied to Japanese identity and what that means for converts