digital world

The December 12th issue of Jinja Shinpō had an interesting front-page article about cashless payment systems and the implications for jinja. It turns out that introducing such facilities at jinja is not at all straightforward. First, there are four different types of cashless payment in Japan, and they are covered by different laws. These are pre-paid systems, funds transfer systems, direct bank payment systems, and credit systems. The law for pre-paid systems does not allow them to be used for charitable donations, as they must be used to pay for… Read More »Cashless Systems

When I posted about the process of writing out norito at Jingū a couple of weeks ago, I had a comment about the possibilities for digitalisation. That very topic, complete with a reference to the article that inspired my blog post, was taken up in a book review in the October 3rd issue of Jinja Shinpō. The review was of a collection of norito for regular matsuri written by the chief priest of Akasaka Hië Jinja in Tokyo, and the comments were inspired by the fact that the book includes… Read More »Digitising Norito

The second interesting presentation at the Shinto Youth Association training session (first one here), as reported in the September 12th edition of Jinja Shinpō, was about cashless payments. I have mentioned before that the (belated) spread of cashless payments in Japan is an issue for jinja, both for practical reasons, and because the physical offerings have religious significance. At the training session, further issues were raised. Omamori and ofuda are not bought and sold at jinja. This is because of the religious significance of the items: omamori and ofuda are… Read More »Cashless Payments