The trailblazing Megan Manson has written of the similarity of fairies and kami on her Shinto Pagan website. She writes excellent book reviews, and one of her top recommendations of books in 2016 was on Fairycraft. ‘It is … Read the rest
Category: Lafcadio Hearn (Page 3 of 4)
It can prove difficult to find accounts of how Shinto shaped the nature of Buddhism in Japan, though once again it seems the pioneering Lafcadio Hearn actually covered this subject over a hundred years ago.
In his writings on Buddhism, … Read the rest
Lafcadio Hearn had a remarkable instinctive understanding of Shinto, the first Westerner to get at the essence of the religion. Whereas his great contemporaries like Satow, Chamberlain and Aston were much more proficient in Japanese, they looked to written accounts … Read the rest
For the next two days, Japan will be celebrating the fun festival of Setsubun. Green Shinto has reported on the events in Kyoto on a number of previous occasions: see here, or here, or here. The event … Read the rest
Judging by the popularity of Inari among non-Japanese Shinto sympathisers, it would seem that fox guardians have a special appeal. There’s certainly something about the liminal creatures that appeals to the imagination. Perhaps it helps explain why Inari shrines and … Read the rest
Christmas day in Japan, falling on a Sunday this year, seems an opportune time to consider the relative lack of Christianity in the country. This is despite some 150 years of Westernisation, yet only 1.5% of the population are Christian, … Read the rest
‘Of all Shinkoku [land of the gods] the most holy ground is the land of Izumo.’
So wrote Hearn in the early days of his infatuation with Japan when he was resident in Matsue and an unabashed admirer of the … Read the rest