gender

The 3rd July issue of Jinja Shinpō includes a short article about a meeting of ujiko and sōdai in a region of Saitama Prefecture (just to the north of Tokyo). Such reports are a standard feature of Jinja Shinpō, and they are not normally of any interest to the readers of this blog. This one is, because the meeting was addressed by a woman born in Ukraine, on the subject of the Russian invasion. It was sensible to invite her because she is a priest at one of the jinja… Read More »Ukrainian-Born Priestess

People who have been reading this blog for a while may remember that there was a scandal a while back when the Shintō Seiji Renmei, the political campaigning organisation closely linked to Jinja Honchō, distributed a leaflet to members of the Diet that included a summary of a speech saying that LGBTQ people were mentally ill. The January 30th issue of Jinja Shinpō includes an article on a couple of training sessions held online by the Osaka Prefecture Shinto Youth Association and Prefectural Shintō Seiji Renmei. One was on SDGs,… Read More »LGBTQ Course

The September 26th issue of Jinja Shinpō included a short article from Kanzaki Noritakë, a priest and folklorist who writes regularly for the “Mori ni Omofu” (“Thoughts in the Forest”) column. His columns are always interesting, and this was no exception. It was about Konsei-sama, also known as Konsei-kami (or Konsei-no-kami), Konsei Daimyōjin, Kinmaro-sama, Kanamaro-sama, or Kanamara-sama. There are signs of the veneration of Konsei-sama all across Japan, and the practice survives widely today, particularly, he says, in the area of Okayama Prefecture where he lives — he was able… Read More »Konsei-sama

At the end of August the Shinto Youth Association, a grouping of priests under 40ish, held a training session in Tokyo, which was reported in the September 12th issue of Jinja Shinpō. There were three presentations, one of which appears to have been a conventional motivational speech by a businessman, and of little interest to us. The others were interesting, and I will write about them here, in one post each. The first was about female priests. This was a panel discussion, with a (male) moderator and two female priests.… Read More »The Future of Female Priests