Green Shinto friend, the Amsterdam priest Paul de Leeuw, was in Kyoto recently and attended the Aoi Matsuri at Shimogamo Shrine. Paul is in all probability the first racially non-Japanese priest ever, and in 2011 celebrated 30 years of … Read the rest
An article in today’s Japan Times raises the important point of whether terms like kami, matsuri and jinja should be translated when writing in English, or should they be left as they are as technical terms. There are valid … Read the rest
Hinduism and Shinto seem to share a lot in common. They’re pre-Buddhist, animist and polytheist. The sun enjoys a special place in their pantheon. Their spirit-gods have animal familiars, and they need to be honoured and entertained. The religions are … Read the rest
Details are emerging now of the breakthrough Austrian priest, who has been appointed through Jinja Honcho to a position at a shrine in Shibuya.
The 25 year old is from Linz in Austria, and first became interested in Japan and … Read the rest
There was a feature on the television two days ago about foreigners who are more Japanese than the Japanese, and one of the items focussed on a non-Japanese priest appointed by Jinja Honcho (Association of Shinto Shrines).
This ground-breaking development … Read the rest
One of the attractions of Shinto for Westerners – perhaps ‘the’ attraction, indeed – is the sense of a divine creation. We do not need to yearn for Eden: we’re already living in it! Shinto is not much interested in … Read the rest
Green Shinto friend Anuradha Gupta has started an excellent blog introducing Hinduism, from which it is clear how much it shares with Shnto. Indeed, as A.J. Dickinson pointed out, there may even have been direct links through the early trading … Read the rest
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