A little guide to Shinto Part 2

When I embarked on this journey of trying to write a little post about Shintō (pronunciation is Shintou, but it is often written as Shinto as well and I’m not consistent about it lol), I had a pretty good idea of what it was, or so I thought. Living in Japan, of course I had been to matsuri, had been educated on various Shintō celebrations by my friends and school and seen my fair share of shrines. But oh boy was I wrong. It was one of these things you think you know until you start actually researching them and then you realise you never knew anything at all. Like nothing.

Definition

To fresh up your mind, here’s the Jinja Honcho’s definition of Shintō:

Foundations of Shinto

Let’s now finally discuss what Shintō actually is, at its core.

Kami 神

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I’ve mentioned them above and in other posts as well and I finally, finally want to talk about kami. The definition I gave at the very beginning actually captures the nature of kami quite well: they are anthropomorphized natural phenomena. And as such they can be anything, dwell in everything and represent anything, like the sun, or the wind, the ocean, trees rocks and even plants, animals or people.

“The Kojiki and Nihongi name Kayano-hime a parent kami of grasses (Kusano-oya), and Kayano-hime Kami as kami of grasses (Kusa-no-Kami), and Kukumuch Kami as the kami of trees”

Kami are a different order of being from ordinary humans, but some kami are the ancestors of humans and can live and die.

This is also where yōkai come in. Some argue they are kami that aren’t worshipped, or somehow “bad” kami (see: Introducing 妖怪 yōkai ). However, the very concept of “good” and “bad” is already a bit tricky. Because a kami isn’t a God in a western sense. They don’t actively serve humanity, they just exist. They reflect the “sacrality of the whole cosmos”, as Kitagawa calls it, and reflect the “common kami (sacred) nature shared by all beings within the world of nature”.

“Anything that inspired awe and sensitivity to ephemeral beauty (aware) was a kami.”

In that way, the term God for kami can be misleading, even though if you look it up in a dictionary the translation would be: god; deity; divinity; spirit; kami. The kanji 神 is actually most often used, in both Japanese and Chinese, related to words like spirit, mind or nerves and does not carry as much divinity as characters like 天 (tian) or 上帝 (shangdi). The term also reflects the “mysterious life force that brings about growth, fertility, and production.”(Kitagawa) As such kami don’t have moral judgement, even though they can get mad. There is a possibility to appease them however. There are also kami that were once people. There are even accounts of people being deified to appease them (see Michizane).

Shinkoku 神国 or kami no kuni

Japan is sometimes referred to as kami no kuni or Shinkoku. The land of the Gods. Kitagawa writes: “An old legend tells us that in the Land of Reed-Plains (an early name for Japan) “there were numerous [kami] which shone with a luster like that of fireflies, and evil [kami] which buzzed like flies. There were also trees and herbs all of which could speak.””

It is a concept that refers to the idea that Japan is a country protected by divine spirits (kami). This notion is historically vague. It encompasses a range of beliefs, from simple religious faith in divine protection to straight up nationalist doctrines.

Kuroda writes that it has had a lasting impact on Japanese national consciousness and has been intertwined with the development of state ideology, linking Shinto beliefs with imperial authority. Despite its religious roots, shinkoku also had sociopolitical function, influencing both national identity and international awareness. However, he notes that shinkoku thought often lacked concrete realism, which could lead to dangerous ideologies when associated with nationalism. (kuroda) Which is especially interesting to note considering this narrative was heavily used before the Second World War, and we all know how that ended.

The little magic of it all

This is what makes Shintō so important and fascinating. It needs to be understood from a political point of view, but at the same time its animistic nature provides a sort of magical backdrop to Japan.

Understanding this very deeply contained magic that Shintō implies is incredibly important to understanding Japan and Japanese story telling. Studio Ghibli, for example tends to embody this incredibly well. (But that’s a whole other story.)

There are thousands, or even millions of Kami, so below I added some honourable mentions:

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The creation of Japan

In both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, Japan’s creation and the emperors ancestry are explained.

The myth begins with the primordial deities who simply just pop up from a chaotic universe. After seven generations the siblings Izanagi and Izanami tasked with creating the islands of Japan.

“Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto stood on the Floating Bridge of Heaven and consulted with each other, saying: ‘Is there not a land below on the earth?’
Then they thrust the Heavenly Jewel Spear downwards, and as they stirred it about, they found the blue sea below. The seawater that dripped from the tip of the spear congealed and became an island, which was named Ono-goro-shima.
The two deities descended to this island and made it their home. Afterward, they wished to become husband and wife, and to create lands together.”

(This is an english translation of a German book telling the story of the Nihongi, if you’re interested: archive.org)

They have a bunch of children, with Amaterasu, the sun goddess, becoming the most revered, with everything culminating in the birth of Emperor Jimmu, who is considered a direct descendant of the sun goddess.

Attributes of Shintō

Shinto,[…]should be seen in the context of neutralization of Buddhist vocabulary and an embellishment of Confucianism, Taoism, and the five-agents theory.

Shintō has no holy scripture or any sort of codex other than the kojiki (record of ancient matters) and nihongi (or nihon shoki: Chronicles of Japan) between 1882 and 1945 State Shinto even prohibited preaching, which once again, doesn’t make any of this easier.

Shinto has priests (kannushi) and shrines maidens (miko). In the past shrine maidens and women connected to kami were actually incredibly important, which seems to be related to its shamanic tradition. A shintō priest “represents Shinto and its faith but […] has no symbolic quality; […] before the enshrined kami he is a connecting link expressing the feelings of the people to the kami.”

While I mentioned this before, I want to stress again, that Shinto is a big mix of things, so some people argue it’s not even a real religion.

Those who cite the prominence of the priesthood, liturgies, charms, amulets, and parish organisations emphasise the religious character of Shinto. The issue has in a sense been settled by the disestablishment of State Shinto and its transformation into Shrine Shinto (Jinja Shinto), which has been legally recognised as a religion […].
Kitagawa

If you’re now thinking: Being part of Shinto sounds fun, maybe I should convert? You can’t. Not because you have to be Japanese to practice Shinto or something the like. It is simply because you can’t convert to Shinto. Once again, there’s no real codex and kami mostly do not care, Shinto isn’t exclusive in that way.

Anyone is welcome to visit and pray at shrines (or at home) and you can also practice another religion alongside Shinto, or have none at all. Most Japanese actually consider themselves non-religious, but still participate in Shinto traditions.

Afterlife and Death

I want to take a quick look on the afterlife as well, because it is such a big deal for a lot of religions. In Japan, ideas about the afterlife are also very much a mix of things. The idea is that after death, a person’s soul wanders around for some time and then crosses the river Sanzu no kawa to become a buddha or kami. It was thought if people could become kami when they died, they could surely also become Buddhas (hotoke), which is a bit weird, considering in Buddhism usually enlightenment needs to be reached to become a Buddha. A Buddha is per definition someone who has achieved enlightenment, and so, upon their death, escapes from the cycle of life and death.

If the souls have an attachment to the world, or worse a grudge, they become ghosts, so called yūrei.

 A little guide to…Yūrei 

Wicked people fall into hell and are punished by the Great King Enma. In summer, the deceased return to visit their homes, which is celebrated as Obon. There’s also the idea that souls return to the mountains or go to Yomi, the Shintō land of the dead or to a paradise called Tokoyo.

These ideas, while mostly Buddhist, are distinctly Japanese. This is nicely reflected in funeral practices. Buddhism had no “real” funeral, because “the teaching of Buddha concentrates on the search for an understanding of the meaning in life and thus has little to do with death.”, as Iwasaka and Barren write.

On its way to Japan, Buddhism traveled over China. A country that, similarly to Japan, has a history of ancestor cults. So, Buddhism also started to involve “ancestor veneration” and Buddhist temples became important for the organisation of funerals. Back then, death and any sort of contact with it was seen as impure, which is why, in ancient Japan, the capital was changed as soon as the emperor died.

Place of worship

The place of worship of Shintō are shrines. They can be found at the summit of mountains and hills, under unusually formed trees or stones. Sometimes these stones and trees are also considered sacred and might be worshipped.

The most famous sacred rocks in the country are probably the two known as the Wedded Rocks at Futami-ura, Mie prefecture.

One of the most important aspects of shrines are torii. They have various forms, from simpler, unpainted styles to more elaborate buddhist-inspired brightly red-painted gates. The torii functions as a sort of barrier, a portal into another world. Stepping inside means entering the sacred space of the kami and the closer one gets to the main shrine, the holier the space gets.

In the outer secular world is pollution and distress; within where the kami dwell is purity and brightness, symbolized by the torii
Shinto Symbols

There is also rope, the so-called shimenawa, which marks the space of a kami, so it can be often found here as well. Shide しで, the white paper strips, actually fulfill a similar purpose and might be found on torii, sacred staffs or in purification rituals.

The idea of purity, too, is quite important in Shintō, which is why you can usually find a place to clean your hands and mouth before a shrine.

If you want to have a more detailed description of shrines:

https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b05201

Conclusion

If you’re still here (and you’re not my Mom) I’m actually quite impressed. (If you are my Mom, I’m obviously still impressed.) This was auch a long thing to research and to wrap my head around and I hope I could give at least a somehow manageable overview.

What I want to stress once more, Shinto is such an interesting topic and there is so much more to this than I could ever write about. At the end of the day, I think Shinto (or kami worship) offers something, that sadly tends to get lost in our modern day era: Magic. The fact that Shinto is an animistic religion (or whatever you want to call it) makes it so easy to see a little glimpse of it wherever you go. The festivals, the little o-jiso, the small shrines (or hokora), that stand between skyscrapers, the furin during summer, it all makes Japan into a strange, fascinating and magical place. It’s the Japan I enjoy, it is so much more than Tokyo’s neon lights. In a way, this is what I want to write about, even though this particular post is more scientifically focused, but I think it’s a bit necessary as a sort of backdrop to a lot of other things I will get into.

So, thank you, I guess. If you have any more questions, please let me know!
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Sources

Teeuwen, Mark, and Bernhard Scheid. “Tracing Shinto in the History of Kami Worship: Editors’ Introduction.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 29, no. 3/4, 2002, pp. 195–207. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30233721. Accessed 7 July 2025.

Iwasaka, Michiko, and Barre Toelken. “Death Customs in Contemporary Japan.” Ghosts And The Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends, University Press of Colorado, 1994, pp. 13–42. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt46nrwv.6. Accessed 25 July 2025.

Kitagawa, Joseph M. “Some Remarks on Shintō.” History of Religions, vol. 27, no. 3, 1988, pp. 227–45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062277. Accessed 7 July 2025.

Teeuwen, Mark, and Bernhard Scheid. “Tracing Shinto in the History of Kami Worship: Editors’ Introduction.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 29, no. 3/4, 2002, pp. 195–207. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30233721. Accessed 7 July 2025.

Toshio, Kuroda, and Fabio Rambelli. “The Discourse on the ‘Land of Kami’ (Shinkoku) in Medieval Japan: National Consciousness and International Awareness.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 23, no. 3/4, 1996, pp. 353–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30233578. Accessed 21 July 2025.

“Shinto Symbols.” Contemporary Religions in Japan, vol. 7, no. 1, 1966, pp. 3–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30232983. Accessed 7 July 2025.

https://www.jinjahoncho.or.jp/shinto/jinja

https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/b09802

https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a02902/?pnum=2

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/confucianism_n?tab=meaning_and_use#1370964920

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_iOEpAAAAYAAJ/page/n23/mode/2up

Images

Unidentified. [Amaterasu and Attendants on Horse and Deer]. color woodcut, 1750 – 1850. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; San Francisco, California, USA; Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; 1964.141.518; http://www.thinker.org/, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.15050010. Accessed 21 July 2025.

engraver: Andō Hiroshige (Japanese, b. 1797, Edo (now Tokyo), Japan-d. 1858, Edo (now Tokyo), Japan), et al. 100 Views of Edo. Woodblock prints (facsimile album), 1856-58. Davis Museum at Wellesley College; Gift of Marguerite L. Bourdon in memory of Helen Goodwin (Class of 1911), JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.10562195. Accessed 21 July 2025.

Onseiken., and Satō, Shirōemon. Edo Zu Seihōkan. 1693. University of British Columbia Library – Rare Books and Special Collections, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.12728681. Accessed 21 July 2025.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_man_confronted_with_an_apparition_of_the_Fox_goddess.jpg

Kôshun, Japanese, 1315-1328. The Shinto Deity Hachiman in the Guise of a Buddhist Monk. Japanese cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) with polychrome and inlaid crystal; joined woodblock construction, dated 1328. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Artstor, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.16010261. Accessed 21 July 2025.