Shintoism Books

The Essence of Shinto: Japan's Spiritual Heart

Motohisa Yamakage

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Clear Exposition of the Essence of Shinto 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 8 people found this review helpful.

The clear exposition of Shinto in this book has an authentic feel of a genuine transmission. Many books give bits and pieces of Shinto philosophy but do not hit the heart. The translation into English is clear and succinct. Due to the clarity of the understanding that is transmitted, I can easily adopt a 'Shinto perspective' to my own spiritual practice.

Editorial Review:

In The Essence of Shinto, revered Shinto master Motohisa Yamakage explains the core values of Shinto and explores both basic tenets and its more esoteric points in terms readily accessible to the modern Western reader. He shows how the long history of Shintoism is deeply woven into the fabric of Japanese spirituality and mythology--indeed, it is regarded as Japan's very spiritual roots--and discusses its role in modern Japan and the world. He also carefully analyzes the relationship of the spirit and the soul, which will provide informed and invaluable insight into how spirituality affects our daily existence. Through the author's emphasis on the universality of Shinto and its prevalence in the natural world, the book will appeal to all readers with an appreciation of humanity's place in nature and the individual's role in the larger society.

Shinto Norito: A Book of Prayers

Ann Llewellyn Evans

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This book presents, for the first time, a collection of ancient Japanese Shinto prayers in a format where English speaking readers can both understand the deep meaning of the translated text and can also pronounce the original Japanese words.
Shinto is an ancient spiritual tradition, primarily practiced in Japan, which is now spreading its traditions to the western world. Its primordial rituals and traditions touch a deep chord within one's spiritual self. Shinto's focus on divinity of all beings and of all creation, on living with gratitude and humility, and on purification and lustration of one's self and environment will bring light and joy to any reader.
The purpose of prayer and ritual as practiced in the Shinto tradition, is to reinsert ourselves into a divine state of being, not as a new position, but as an acknowledgement and reinforcement of what already exists. Ritual restores sensitive awareness to our relationship to the universe. Through purification and removal of impurities and blockages, we return to our innate internal brightness and cultivate a demeanor of gratitude and joy.
Shinto rituals and prayers were created by ancient man over 2,000 years ago in a time when mankind was more intuitive about his relationship to this world. Because of this, the rites are archetypal and invoke deep emotion within the participants.
This book of prayers will introduce the western reader to the deep spirituality of Shinto, providing explanation of the spiritual tradition and practice and providing a collection of 22 prayers for use in personal meditation and devotions.

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A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine

John K. Nelson

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

What we today call Shinto has been at the heart of Japanese culture for almost as long as there has been a political entity distinguishing itself as Japan. "A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine" describes the ritual cycle at Suwa Shrine, Nagasaki's major Shinto shrine. Conversations with priests, other shrine personnel, and people attending shrine functions supplement John K. Nelson's observations of over fifty shrine rituals and festivals. He elicits their views on the meaning and personal relevance of the religious events and the place of Shinto and Suwa Shrine in Japanese society, culture, and politics. Nelson focuses on the very human side of an ancient institution and provides a detailed look at beliefs and practices that, although grounded in natural cycles, are nonetheless meaningful in late-twentieth-century Japanese society.Nelson explains the history of Suwa Shrine, basic Shinto concepts, and the Shinto worldview, including a discussion of the Kami, supernatural forces that pervade the universe. He explores the meaning of ritual in Japanese culture and society and examines the symbols, gestures, dances, and meanings of a typical shrine ceremony. He then describes the cycle of activities at the shrine during a calendar year: the seasonal rituals and festivals and the petitionary, propitiary, and rite-of-passage ceremonies performed for individuals and specific groups. Among them are the Dolls' Day festival, in which young women participate in a procession and worship service wearing Heian period costumes; the autumn Okunchi festival, which attracts participants from all over Japan and even brings emigrants home for a visit; the ritual invoking the blessing of the Kami for young children; and the ritual sanctifying the earth before a building is constructed.The author also describes the many roles women play in Shinto and includes an interview with a female priest. Shinto has always been attentive to the protection of communities from unpredictable human and divine forces and has imbued its ritual practices with techniques and strategies to aid human life. By observing the Nagasaki shrine's traditions and rituals, the people who make it work, and their interactions with the community at large, the author shows that cosmologies from the past are still very much a part of the cultural codes utilized by the nation and its people to meet the challenges of today.

Shinto: The Way Home (Dimensions of Asian Spirituality)

Thomas P. Kasulis

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Nine out of ten Japanese claim some affiliation with Shinto, but in the West the religion remains the least studied of the major Asian spiritual traditions. It is so interlaced with Japanese cultural values and practices that scholarly studies usually focus on only one of its dimensions: Shinto as a "nature religion," an "imperial state religion," a "primal religion," or a "folk amalgam of practices and beliefs." Thomas Kasulis' fresh approach to Shinto explains with clarity and economy how these different aspects interrelate. As a philosopher of religion, he first analyzes the experiential aspect of Shinto spirituality underlying its various ideas and practices. Second, as a historian of Japanese thought, he sketches several major developments in Shinto doctrines and institutions from prehistory to the present, showing how its interactions with Buddhism, Confucianism, and nationalism influenced its expression in different times and contexts. In Shinto's idiosyncratic history, Kasulis finds the explicit interplay between two forms of spirituality: the "existential" and the "essentialist." Although the dynamic between the two is particularly striking and accessible in the study of Shinto, he concludes that a similar dynamic may be found in the history of other religions as well. Two decades ago, Kasulis' Zen Action/Zen Person brought an innovative understanding to the ideas and practices of Zen Buddhism, an understanding influential in the ensuing decades of philosophical Zen studies. Shinto: The Way Home promises to do the same for future Shinto studies.

Shinto the Kami Way

Sokyo Ono, William P. Woodard

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An informative and visually appealing guide to the Shinto religion 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

"Shinto: The Kami Way," by Sokyo Ono, is an overview of Shinto, which the author defines as "the indigenous faith of the Japanese people." William P. Woodard is given an "in collaboration with" credit on the title page, and also contributes a preface. The book also features illustrations by Sadao Sakamoto, who is identified on the title page as a Priest of the Yasukuni Shrine. The title page and back cover offer some information on author Ono, who is identified as a Professor at Kokogakuin University, a Shinto university in Tokyo, and as a Lecturer for the Association of Shinto Shrines.

The foreword by Hideo Kishimoto notes that this book was first published in 1960; the copyright page notes further that the Tuttle edition has a copyright date of 1962, and has gone through 30 printings as of 2003. The book is generously illustrated not only with Sakamoto's drawings, but also with many black-and-white photographs. The book is relatively short (116 plus xii pages), and the main text is divided into five chapters: "The Kami Way," "Shrines," "Worship and Festivals," "Political and Social Characteristics," and "Some Spiritual Characteristics." The text covers many Shinto topics: mythology, important historic texts, the use of symbolic artifacts, the distinctive gateways known as torii, shrine architecture, the priesthood, home worship, sacred dances, Shinto's centuries-old relationship with Japanese Buddhism, emperor worship, tree worship, sacred mountains, ethics and more.

Ono also discusses the kami, which he describes as "the objects of worship in Shinto." In his preface, Woodard states that translating the word "kami" as "god" is misleading, and suggests that the word "kami," rather than being subject to a problematic translation, should simply be incorporated into the English language. Ono concludes the book by noting that while Shinto is an ethnic faith specific to the Japanese people, "it possesses a universality which can enrich the lives of all people everywhere." This is a fascinating and well-written book, and the text is well complemented by the many illustrations. I especially enjoyed the photos of the serene-looking Shinto temples. In a relatively small space Ono conveys a sense of the epic history and evolution of Shinto, as well as its enduring power and appeal. I found the book not only educational, but also inspiring in a subtle yet satisfying way.

Yasukuni, the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan's Past (Columbia/Hurst)

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Editorial Review:

Located in the heart of Tokyo, Yasukuni is a controversial shrine dedicated to the Japanese war dead. It holds the remains of twelve convicted and two suspected Class A war criminals, and its museum features an account of Japan's involvement in the Second World War that many would describe as revisionist. Visits to Yasukuni by cabinet members often spark protests in Japan and abroad, especially in China, Korea, and Taiwan, and the shrine's existence continues to foster a sense of mistrust between the Chinese and Japanese governments.

As the first authoritative volume in English on Yasukuni, John Breen has edited a book that neither commends nor condemns the monument. Instead it renders more complex an issue that, in the media at least, has been portrayed in starkly simplistic terms. Breen presents authoritative yet divergent views on the shrine and its place in postwar Japanese diplomacy, ideology, and history. Critical contributions are written by leading Yasukuni and anti-Yasukuni Japanese intellectuals, as well as Chinese and Western commentators. Yasukuni is a provocative symbol of Japan's nationalist past. With this book, English-speaking readers can now access a full portrait of the shrine's significance and its unique position in the highly contested history of Japan.

The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship

Karen Ann Smyers

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Inari and Jung by "Kitsune-Onnna" (Fox Woman) 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Well, I have been familiar with Inari, sort of "Fox God", since I was born and raised in Japan. However, after I read this book, I noticed that I had not known what Inari really means! Why do we have so many "Fox God shrines" in Japan? What is the relationship beteen Shinto and Inari? What about Inari and Buddhisim?

I have not seen a book like this, even in Japanese, which ambitiously tries to investigate for these complicated, but culturally fascinating issues. The author lived in Japan for a couple of years, at two major Inari Shrines (Fushimi and Toyokawa), and conuducted a thorough field study. In fact, the author could not solve all the intricated miteries of Inari, but, most importantly, she found out that even many priests and monks working at Fushimi or Toyokawa do not know histories of their shrines, nor understand what Inari really means! In that sense, Inari is not purely religion, but sort of a popular culture and practice. So, we may say this is a great book of anthropology of Japanese culture.

I met Karen, the author, at the Jung Institute in Zurich. Karen introduced herself, in Japanese, as "Kitsune-Onna", Fox-woman. She was so brave that she quit a tenure position in an American college, and decided to become an Jungian analyst. Karen, I look forward to seeing you again, and to see what comes out from the combination of your American nativeness, deep insight of Japanese culture, and Jungian psychology.

Editorial Review:

This book describes the rich complexity of Inari worship in contemporary Japan. It explores questions of institutional and popular power in religion, demonstrates the ways people make religious figures personally meaningful, and documents the kinds of communicative styles that preserve the appearance of homogeneity in the face of astonishing factionalism.

Immortal Wishes: Labor and Transcendence on a Japanese Sacred Mountain

Ellen Schattschneider

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Editorial Review:

Immortal Wishes is a powerful ethnographic rendering of religious experiences of landscape, healing, and self-fashioning on a northern Japanese sacred mountain. Working at the intersection of anthropology, religion, and Japan studies, Ellen Schattschneider focuses on Akakura Mountain Shrine, a popular Shinto institution founded by a rural woman in the 1920s. For decades, local spirit mediums and worshipers, predominantly women, have undertaken extended periods of shugyo (ascetic discipline) within the shrine and on the mountain's slopes. Schattschneider argues that their elaborate, transforming repertoire of ritual practice and ascetic discipline has been generated by complex social and historical tensions largely emerging out of the uneasy status of the surrounding area within the modern nation's industrial and postindustrial economies.

Schattschneider shows how, through dedicated work at the shrine including demanding ascents up the sacred mountain, the worshipers come to associate the rugged mountain landscape with their personal biographies, the life histories of certain exemplary predecessors and ancestors, and the collective biography of the extended congregation. She contends that this body of ritual practice presents worshipers with fields of imaginative possibilities through which they may dramatize or reflect upon the nature of their relations with loved ones, ancestors, and divinities. In some cases, worshipers significantly redress traumas in their own lives or in those of their families. In other instances, these ritualized processes lead to deepening crises of the self, the accelerated fragmentation of local households, and apprehension of possession by demons or ancestral forces. Immortal Wishes reveals how these varied practices and outcomes have over time been incorporated into the changing organization of ritual, space, and time on the mountainscape.

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Shinto: Origins, Rituals, Festivals, Spirits, Sacred Places

C. Scott Littleton

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Japan, two religions predominate--Buddhism and Shintoism--and the Japanese people see no contradiction in practicing both: worshipping Buddha even as they revere the kami, the divine beings that populate the country and define the indigenous faith of Shintoism.
In Shintoism and the Religions of Japan, C. Scott Littleton illuminates this unusual spiritual pluralism and shows how it has fertilized a vast and varied religious landscape. Littleton describes the origins and development of Shinto (or Kami no Michi, "Way of the Gods"), the introduction of Buddhism a millennium and a half ago, the rise of various sects of Buddhism (some indigenous to Japan), and the role of the imperial court and the shogunate in the nation's religious life. Here too is a clear and succinct summary of Shintoism's teeming pantheon of spiritual figures, the holy writings of Shintoism, and the islands' landscape of holy sanctuaries. Littleton explains how Buddhism has been reinterpreted in light of Japan's indigenous traditions (some monumental statues of the Buddha are worshipped as manifestations of kami), and describes the "new religions" that flourished during the Meiji period of the late nineteenth century, after Japan once again opened up to the outside world. Writing with grace and clarity, he captures the essential features of Japanese religious life, including the countless local festivals and rituals, the importance of harmony and enlightenment, and concepts of death and salvation.
Lavishly illustrated with some thirty color photographs, sprinkled with boxed features that focus on fascinating issues, this volume offers a marvelous tour of Japan's distinctive spiritual experience.

Japanese Mythology: Hermeneutics on Scripture (Religion in Culture: Studies in Social Contest & Construction)

Jun'ichi Isomae

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Editorial Review:

The notion of Japanese mythology was invented in the modern era under the influence of Westernization. Before the modern era, only the notion history existed in Japan. Mythological events were considered historical moments rather than mythology. In this volume, Professor Isomae argues that Japanese mythology finds its uniqueness in the persistence of the interpretation of two specific scriptures: Kojik (Tale of Old Age, written in 712 A.D.) and Nihonshoki (Chronicle of Japanese History, written in 720 A.D.). Under the political banner of Japan, both the Imperial Court and the general public have searched for the origin of their identity in Kojiki and Nihonshoki. In this sense, Japanese mythology, whether it was considered mythology or history, has functioned as scripture. Through the act of commentary and interpretation, the sacred books serve to connect interpreters to their historical origins, authenticating where they came from, the emergence of the Japanese archipelago, and the uniqueness of the Japanese people. This book explores the history of the interpretation of Japanese mythology, the Japanese attraction to this act of historical grounding, and the varying identities that emerged during different historical periods. National and personal identity has always depended on the hermeneutic of scripture, namely Kojiki and Nihonshoki. Consequently, this work makes it evident that there exists no clear and unified substance of Japanese mythology, but rather a nostalgic desire to go back to historical origins and authenticate identity through the interpretation of scripture.