work for jinja honcho

Regular readers of this blog probably know that I am not a Shinto priest, even though I work (part-time) for Jinja Honchō. I thought that you might be interested in the reason. The immediate reason is that I have never sought training as a Shinto priest. Jinja Honchō does not license people without their consent, and so I am not licensed. Of course, there is a follow-up question to that, but before I give the answer, there are a couple of things that are not the answer. It is not… Read More »Why I Am Not a Priest

Jinja Honchō has released the second “Tales of Sacred Forests” video on its YouTube channel. The matsuri introduced in this video is an example of the way in which traditions are being adapted to changing circumstances. My impression is that this is a fairly typical example — which is probably one reason why it was chosen for the video. As before, comments are turned off on the video, but not here. My revisions to the description text to make it easy to reuse also seem to have worked. I have… Read More »Tales of Sacred Forests: Gosho Jinja

The Cry for Peace is the English name of a meeting held in Rome last week by the Community of Sant’Egidio. As you might guess from the fact that I am writing about it, Jinja Honchō sent a delegation, and I went along as the interpreter. This event also had a heavyweight guest list, including the Pope (who was also at the meeting in Kazakhstan) and the presidents of both Italy and France, and booked the Colosseum for the closing ceremony. It certainly has a bit more gravitas than your… Read More »The Cry for Peace

The Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions is held once every three years in Astana Nursultan* (*soon to be renamed Astana), the capital of Kazakhstan. The first congress was held in 2003, so this year was the seventh. Jinja Honchō has sent a delegate to all (or almost all) of the full Congresses, and to most of the meetings of the Secretariat, which are held every year. This year, once again, they sent a delegate: Revd Fujië, one of the Executive Directors. (The date clashed with a… Read More »The Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions

Over the past few years, Jinja Honchō has produced a number of short (under five minute) videos introducing “ordinary” jinja around Japan, under the title “Chinju no Mori no Monogatari”, or “Tales of Sacred Forests”. They are more about the jinja and the matsuri than the forests as such, but “mori” is Japanese for the sacred space of a kami as well as for a woodland, so that is fair. They were made with a Japanese satellite television company, and broadcast in Japan. Jinja Honchō is now making them available… Read More »“Tales of Sacred Forests”