Shinto festivals bring people together, regardless of race
A video called White Shamans, Plastic Medicine Men presents the debate about whether Native American religions can or should be practised by those of other ethnicities, particularly white cultures because of the power imbalance. It’s an issue known as Cultural Appropriation. There are those who argue the same charge applies equally to the transfer of Shinto to the West.
One of my students was shocked by the notion of non-Japanese practising Shinto. ‘Japan is kami no kuni (land of the gods),’ he declared. ‘It’s for Japanese people.’ His viewpoint is not uncommon. Many people think of Shinto as a tribal religion, similar to Judaism or the religions of Native Americans.
My own feeling is very strongly that while this may have been the case in the past, we stand at the brink of a new age. You cannot stop the spread of ideas in a borderless and global world. It’s tantamount to holding your hands up to stop the incoming tide. We live in a postmodern situation where people are able to choose from options different from those in which they were born, and it’s inevitable that customs will ‘jump’ from one culture to another. In Japanese terms we’ve seen this with Zen and Nichiren-shu already.
Making the jump: Hilo Daijingu in Hawaii
Now the time is clearly ripe for Shinto to make the jump to the West, which would by no means represent something unusual. Christianity provides an example of an ethnic faith that made the leap, since it was originally formulated by and for Jews. In more recent times shamanism has been adapted to New Age needs from a variety of ethnic religions in something known as ‘core shamanism’. It’s not going to go away; indeed, it’s likely to be an evolution of traditional practices for a new age. Nothing in nature is static, and neither should culture be.
In spreading to the West, Shinto will inevitably change its character. One such change will be the emperor-focus, and it’s interesting to note for instance that in Hawaii at least one of the shrines reveres George Washington as a deity and has wrapped itself in American patriotism. However, as Shinto is developed by non-Japanese with animist leanings, one suspects that worship of national leaders in such manner might be dropped altogether in favour of more balanced, environmentally friendly practice.
With the spread of Shinto to non-Japanese, it is more likely to develop as a spiritual pursuit rather than a communal way of life. Inevitably this will cause debate about what can legitimately be called ‘Shinto’ as self-appointed priests emerge. Trained priests will of course have a vested interest in preserving their status and defending ‘the purity’ of traditional Shinto. But should they have the right to stop others practising in their own way? Green Shinto thinks not.
Personally those of us who favour a nature-based religion look forward to the development of a ‘neo-Shinto’ movement, in the same way that neo-paganism has captured large sections of those escaping the confines of Christianity. Shinto has much to offer the West, and the potential is exciting. The future looks promising indeed –– like a new broom offering purification and a fresh start!
A non-Japanese future for Shinto?
Very interesting. I also hope that it will change and be more accessible to non-Japanese. While I do enjoy Shinto there are certain parts that I don’t agree with, like the emperor part for example which will probably go when it changes. I also learned something new! I knew Judaism was cultural but I didn’t know that it was that cultural to only a certain group of people. At least anyone can convert to it and it’s not close minded.
One should be careful what one wishes for;
the kami seem to have a strange sense of humor.
Two Midwestern Neo-Shintô shrines:
http://www.sacredcedarshrine.org/
http://www.shi-yaku-jin-no-hokora.org/
“Strange sense of humor”
Not to mention some of them are just freaking crazy! Didn’t one of Amateurasu’s brothers throw a horse into someone’s house?
Yes, a flayed horse…
I don’t see the reason to have a desire for a “neo-Shinto”. We should not have any expectations at all and let it grow organically, as it has for thousands of years. I don’t think that we need to abandon everything original about Shinto in order for westerners to adapt it. I’d rather point out that there is historical precedence for outsiders adopting the tradition. Keep in mind that originally Shinto was practiced by the Ainu people, and then taken on by the current population inhabiting Japan. It’s also a fact that many elements were adopted from Chinese Taoism. If Shinto is a racial faith, how can it take things from non-Japanese people all together? I think that there will be room for variation, as there has been historically with folk Shinto. We need not artificially create something different. The reason for neo-paganism is that these paths were dead all together in the west. There’s no need for neo-Shinto if Shinto has never been dead.
Thank you, Michael, for the input. You raise a number of interesting points, one of which is to do with the fact that Shinto has been constantly evolving. I think the idea here is that if it spreads to the West it is inevitable that it will be adapted and evolve further. Japanese baseball is said to be different from American (see ‘You gotta have Wa’), and Western Shinto would surely develop its own characteristics. I don’t think it’s a case of artificially creating something different, but of natural evolution…
“We live in a postmodern situation where people are able to choose from options beyond those in which they were born.” If one understand how religions and myths are born, he know this is not at all limited to postmodern times or anything like that.
Religions are born from heresy. All religions are sects at their begining. Syncretism and new interpretations of older beliefs nurture them.
It is known, yet, people don’t want to remember it, or taking it into account. That’s how even someone as famous and accomplished as Mircea Eliade is forgotten in libraries.
Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi and Excalibur are thought to have common middle-east roots, though common themes in the legends surrounding them. That’s whare myths are.
Anyway, I’m quite shocked someone like Washington is worshipped as a god, just because he was the first president of the currently strongest country on Earth, despite being a complete failure as traitor to his king and an ambitious politician. And yet, that is also how religions and myths are born.
I think you make a fair point in the assertion that religions are deeply rooted in their context and are new interpretations or adaptations. That’s what make the current situation regarding Shinto so fascinating, as we are able to witness the process unfurling as the faith is adopted and adapted outside Japan…
My own personal thoughts on the Tenno/Mkado mythos can be found in this article:
http://www.greenshinto.com/2011/08/12/the-mystery-of-himiko/
I am actually in agreement with having a sacred queen/king/empress/emperor, & I also LOVE it that both King Kamehameha I, & George Washington have been enshrined as Kami in Hawaii!!
But yes, I ALSO agree with you all that other nationalities/ethnicities should be able to practice Shinto, (&/or any spiritualityspiritualities that they wish)!!
Personally I’m an Eclectic Pagan!!
I have been a Shintoist for the last 18 years of my life. I follow my (Irish)ancestral Kami as well as nature Kami. After a pilgrimage in japan every shrine I visited the priest made me feel like an outsider, and yet I felt the Kami welcome me.
people wish to hold on to their culture, and that’s understandable. Just keep in mind Amaterasu shrines on every one equally.
It is definitely time to spread to the world, I know the kami has made me a better person. It giving me far greater connection to this world.
18 years is a long time! It would be interesting to hear more of how you are combining your Irish and Shinto practice. There are a number of other people now forging a new path by integrating Shinto practice with neo-paganism, and it’s a topic I would like to explore more. If you were able to write a post for Green Shinto about your spiritual path, I’m sure it would be of great interest to a lot of people…
Yes, I am interested. If this article has already been published, can you please link me to it? TIA.
Hi Amos, there isn’t any article that I’m aware of, though I suggest scrolling through the posts in the International section under Categories I the righthand column for other articles on this subject…
In this article lies the assumption that a “Shinto” outcropping in the West would put such Westerners in some type of communal relationship with the Japanese within which they would exert influence over the Japanese practice of Shinto.
I don’t see it that way.
Due to the nature of Shinto, non-intermarrying westerners can not have a true major influence over the tribal practice of Shinto in Japan. Nor should they aspire to such an arrogant and absolutely pointless goal.
Instead, they should look to Shinto as a living model upon which they can rebuild what they lost from the violent incursion of non-European religion primarily propagated to facilitate imperial rule (Christianity as incubated and mandated by the Roman Empire).
Shinto, for instance, can inform and verify reconstructionist efforts that also build on what can be verified in the fragments of pre-Christian animist-ancestor cultures in Europe.
However, it’s absolutely nonsensical if not destructive to aspire to believe in the exact same spirits that the Japanese do, eventually demanding a modification of Japanese belief to accommodate the spiritual interlopers. Ainu heritage, or not. The Ainu shared their religion, or from another perspective other cultures shared wit with the Ainu, across the arctic circle to Europe.
It’s about all people having the opportunity to get back to a religion that wasn’t invented for geopolitical purposes, not about feeling good because one facilitated ecumenical participation or increased inclusion.
The second that you compromise the spirituality, you compromise the spirituality.
Thank you for taking the time to write in, though you might want to moderate your language if you wish for a considered response. Otherwise you will find you’re just alienating people…
I have always admired the Japanese take on spirituality. However, when it comes to Shinto, I always felt that it was ‘too Japanese’ to get into. The very creation myth deals with the creation of the Japanese Isles and everything kinda flows from there. So I guess my question is, how can a Greek, an Irishman or anyone with an ancestral religion particular to their own sociocultural and historical experience find anything ‘for them’ in Shinto? The motifs, the language, the deities, the cosmogony, are very exclusive of any non Japanese.
Excellent point! It’s something I’ve been struggling with over the past decade or more, and my feelings are deeply ambiguous. On the one hand, there’s an animist religion with a universal calling. On the other hand, there’s an ancestral religion with a particularist appeal to Japanese. One might presume people overseas would take the first but not the second, though there are foreigners (usually ultra-conservatives) who pledge allegiance to the Japanese emperor, support Yasukuni, and see their role as supporting Japanese ends. What is happening at the moment is that foreigners overseas, often with neo-pagan tendencies, are adopting Shinto as a nature religion, meaning that it will take a very different form from that of the indigenous religion in Japan. It may well parallel the spread of early Christianity, which under Paul moved beyond being a racial Jewish religion to being one that gentiles could embrace with universal appeal.
I just was wondering, isn’t Shinto more or less a form of animism or animistic religion, with rituals which have to be performed?
In that case I do not really see the need for Westerners to adopt it. Shinto should inspire Westerners to explore their own local customs. European and Russian folklore is full of spirits and rituals which come also more or less from an animistic view of the world. It might seem ridiculous, but a Brownies and Hobgoblins and so on are in facts the heirs of former household deities.
No offense, anybody can do what he or she wants and Shinto is stunning beautifull, but I’m just wondering why people ignore more local customs. I just don’t think that Shinto is a universal Religion. On the other hand, I believe that all the spirits are the same, just by other names: Japanese call them Kami, old Romans called them genius or lares and in modern folklore they have many other names.
I just think it is animism.
But please, no offense.
Greetings
Thank you for the contribution, and it’s a fair point. Personally I don’t happen to share it, and it’s a subject which opens up a lot of areas which would take a long time to discuss. But to keep things as simple as possible, Shinto is not simply animist it’s also ancestral, which ties it to the Japanese past. But many people in the West are looking for new types of spirituality linked to ecology, and they see in the animist side of Shinto a living tradition which they believe (wrongly in my opinion) to be about nature worship and sanctifying the environment. Since we live in a global age, this has more meaning to them than reviving a dead religion of their own country, which no longer carries any force.
As an internationalist, I’m wary of those who advocate people should explore ‘their own local customs’. We don’t live in that kind of world any more. We live in a global age where borders and boundaries no longer contain people, culture or artifacts. It’s an inevitable part of the process of history, and trying to resist it is like trying to stop a river flowing towards the sea. Sure, there are losses and gains. In becoming a global religion, Shinto will be changed, just as Christianity was when it spread from being a Jewish religion to being adopted by non-Jews. Why not embrace change instead of trying to stop the inevitable? Those who resist history are doomed to fail…
I’m not sure if anyone else pays attention to this thread or not, but I have been to Japan and have experienced the practices of Shinto while visiting the shrines (particularly Fushimi Imari). I have a friend who was the manager of the hotel I stayed at, and he told me that Shinto is not a religion. I believe this is what causes Westerners to ask these questions. He told me that Shinto is a way of life—the way the Japanese hold onto and practice the historical Japan. He also said that while Shinto has its own Kami (which was created a long time ago and a very long story), the Chinese introduced Buddhism to tie in with Shinto because it is in fact, not a religion but a historical practice. Therefore, because the Japanese do not take religion as serious in the West when it comes to firm beliefs on a particular god, they tend to either claim Buddhism when asked, or possibly say Shinto because they go to the shrines as routine. Shinto, however, was actually created through the messages and witnessing of Christianity, through the 12 tribes of Judah. I did some research and in fact, Shinto has A LOT of Christianity in it including the practices, symbolism, and architecture compared to the temples in Israel. However, it’s own god was created somewhere down the line. He told me that a westerner can claim to be Shinto because,again, it is a way of life through prayer, but as far as hardcore shrine visits and practices goes, it’s unobtaibable over here. This is how I am understanding it, and definitely what he told me. I highly recommend researching how Shinto ties in with Israel; you’ll be amazed. Best reguards everyone!
Thank you for telling us your experience. There is no definitive definition of Shinto, and people have very different ways of looking at it, even those who practice it. Whether one considers it a religion or not can depend on the agenda involved. As for Israel and Christianity, there are some fanciful ideas about the ties available on the internet. One of the motivations is the Japanese desire to be somehow tied to the West/European tradition. This goes along with a dislike for being seen as part of the East Asian heritage, tying them to Korea and China. The claim that there are elements of Christianity in Shinto can be seen as a simple wish to deny the roots of the religion in East Asian shamanism and animism.
An interesting viewpoint. What I was wondering about is the impact of Shinto upon the environmental/naturalistic views of the Japanese population. Western religion, to me, isolated man in a hierarchical relationship with our natural world. And, while not spiritual myself, and as I read and understand some of the relationship of Kami with the natural world, it leaves me wondering that if one internalizes some of the Shinto regard for our world how that influences society.
Especially at this time in America I am aghast at the disdain people have for our natural world and wonder if honoring nature through spirituality would be better.
Your thoughts?
Thank you for the input and question. Certainly I would say that a spiritual relationship with nature would foster greater sensitivity to degradation of the environment. This may well have been a feature of traditional life in Japan, but since the Meiji Restoration of 1868 the country has been sold on a course of modernisation that has involved rampant materialism. You may have noticed the Pope the other day castigated Japan for its pursuit of consumerism, and the country has sadly become in the words of Alex Kerr ‘a Concrete State’ run by vested corporate interests whose prime motive is profit. Sadly Shinto has shown itself flexible enough to adapt to this, by blessing nuclear plants for instance and following the path of the ruling regime rather than the path of nature. As I’ve suggested in several posts on Green Shinto, nationalism trumps naturalism (in the sense of harmony with nature).
This has been a rather informative read, both article and comments. That said, I’ve still some questions as far as learning how to adopt Shinto. In case it becomes relevant, I plan to live in Japan myself and particularly favor Inari Okami, but wish to adopt what practices (domestic?) I can in America to sort of get a headstart.
Following is what I practice when I can so far, though I would not mind elaboration in case I had missed something about it.
– Leaving shoes by the door upon entering a home.
– A prayer before each meal (people often confuse me for being Catholic)
It’s not yet much, but everything starts small and I’m looking to learn as much as I can.
Thank you for the contact. You can find a facebook group dedicated to the Inari deity, and there is also a shrine in Los Angeles.You can find both by a google search, or you can look on this site under the Inari category. Good luck in your search!