Category: Book Reviews (Page 6 of 8)

‘Korean Impact on Japanese Culture: Japan’s hidden history’ by Dr. Jon Carter and Alan Covell
US: Hollym, 1984  115 pages, large size and richly illustrated.  ISBN 0-930878-34-5 

This book sparked quite a controversy, though after thirty years there are many … Read the rest

‘Occult Japan; or, The Way of the Gods: An Esoteric Study of Japanese Personality and Possession’ by Percival Lowell     US; Houghton-Mifflin, 1894 379 pages, medium size.  ISBN 0-89281-306-7

In a sense this is an amateur forerunner of Carmen Blacker’s ‘Catalpa … Read the rest

‘Shinto – A Short History’ ed. Inoue Nobutaka   tr. and adapted by Mark Teeuwen and John Breen
London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003  223 pages, medium size.  ISBN 0-415-31913-7 approx. $30

Given the amorphous nature of Shinto, this collection of articles does not … Read the rest

‘Shinto Norito; A book of prayers’ by Ann Llewelyn Evans     Canada: Tenchi Press/Trafford Publishing, 2001    138 pages small size  ISBN:155369138-5 $17.00

This is a book of ancient Shinto prayers, translated into English with kanji on the facing page. There is … Read the rest

The Catalpa Bow: A study of shamanistic practices in Japan by Carmen Blacker
UK: Allen and Unwin, 1975; RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.  384 pages, medium size.  ISBN1-873410-85-9

This is a very inspiring book.  It’s written by a University of Cambridge academic in … Read the rest

‘Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth’ by Stuart D.B. Picken                                                                 Berkeley, Ca: Stone Bridge Press, 2002 128 pages, small size. ISBN 1-880656-66-3 $9.71

This is one of only two ‘crossover books’ that I know of that provides practical material for … Read the rest

‘Norito; A translation of the ancient Japanese ritual prayers’ by Donald L. Philippi   US: Princeton Univ. Press, 1990 96 pages, small size. ISBN 0-691-01489-2 $19.95

This is a reprint of a 1959 edition and remains the only widely available translation … Read the rest