Mimusubi

At the moment, there is something of a boom for goshuin in Japan. A goshuin is a vermilion stamp that you can receive at a jinja or Buddhist temple to record the fact that you visited there and paid your respects. They were originally Buddhist, and recorded the fact that you had copied and offered a sutra. I am not sure how they work at Buddhist temples these days, but at jinja they are a record of your sanpai: visiting and paying your respects to the kami. In theory, you… Read More »The Fate of Goshuinchō

The big project I was working on with Jinja Honchō has just been completed. The big project was a small booklet called “Jinja: Heart of Japan”. This is an English booklet, intended to introduce jinja and Shinto to foreign visitors. Long-time readers of this blog may spot a bit of overlap with the purpose of Mimusubi. The booklet itself is intended to be distributed at jinja and information centres for tourists, and is not, at the moment, available online to the general public. I don’t know whether that will change… Read More »Jinja: Heart of Japan

One question I am often asked, and indeed was recently asked by one of my patrons on Patreon, is “What first prompted your interest in Shinto?”. This is a reasonable question. After all, when I was growing up in England, there was not much Shinto around. And, oddly, it is not that easy to answer. I have been interested in Japan for as long as I can remember. Indeed, I was interested in Japan before I knew I was interested in Japan, because two of my favourite TV shows when… Read More »Coming to Shinto

As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, Jinja Honchō and jinja in Japan are responding. Jinja have closed their museums, had staff wear face masks, and put restrictions on activities. For example, Ōkunitama Jinja in Tokyo is, for the moment, not writing goshuin directly into people’s goshuin books, but rather handing out pieces of paper with the goshuin already on. This is, presumably, to avoid the risk of infection from the book, and also to discourage people from coming to get a goshuin if they can delay it a… Read More »Matsuri for COVID-19

This is a quick follow-up to my last post, because I have now read about Jinja Honchō’s official response to covid-19. This is broadly along the lines of the editorial in Jinja Shinpō, which is not surprising, as those editorials are written by people who are influential in the Shinto world, and thus tend to share opinions with the people making decisions at Jinja Honchō. (They are not, however, the same, and do occasionally disagree.) Most of the advice is the sensible standards — clean and disinfect, follow the procedures… Read More »Jinja Honchō and Covid-19

A couple of weeks ago, Jinja Shinpō ran an editorial about the way jinja were responding to Covid-19. The first thing mentioned was special matsuri at which priests were praying for a speedy end to the spread of the disease, and the writer noted that such prayers were the first duty of priests. It went on to discuss miko and priests wearing face masks and using hand sanitiser, and explaining this to visitors as not only for their own sake, but also to prevent the spread of infection to others.… Read More »Jinja and Covid-19