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Green breakthrough

July 9, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

Shimogamo Jinja's sacred grove

The Greening of Shinto

Last weekend I went to a talk on Sacred Landscapes in Britain by Martin Palmer who runs an organisation called ARC (Alliance of Religions in Conservation). There were many fascinating aspects, but the most striking in Shinto terms was that ancient Long Barrows in Britain served as ritual sites for ancestor worship. More of that, later.

Martin Palmer’s organisation works with sacred forests worldwide, and he himself has worked a lot in China where Daoism and Buddhism are beginning to claw back some of the influence lost under Communism. I took the opportunity to ask him about Japan and Shinto, in response to which he told me of conversations he’d had with representatives of Jinja Honcho (Association of Shrines).

When they first asked to join the organisation around 2000, he asked them whether they were concerned only with kami in Japan or with kami everywhere. When they responded that there were only kami in Japan, he told them that it was impossible for them to join because the organisation was predicated on a global and universal basis. There could be no narrow nationalistic concern for sacred landscapes in one country only.

The rejection apparently came as a shock to Jinja Honcho and led to eighteen months of internal discussions, following which the representatives came back and said that kami must exist overseas as well and that therefore they were concerned with sacred landscapes worldwide. Membership of ARC duly followed.

Since that time Jinja Honcho has thrown themselves into the activities of ARC and are involved with projects that concern the management of forests in overseas countries. For progressives, this is a great leap forward in the internationalisation of Shinto and a welcome sign of the slow but steady opening up of the religion to the wider world.

One day the tribal may truly become global.

The path to globalisation?

A first for foreigners (Wiltschko)

July 9, 2012 / John D. / 3 Comments

Willchiko Florian at Ueno Tenmangu in Nagoya (photographer unknown)

OPENING UP

One of the burning issues of contemporary Shinto is insularity versus internationalisation. Is Shinto a religion of and for the Japanese? Is it, as many maintain, not even a religion at all but synonymous with Japanese lifestyle? While organisations like the Assocation of Shrines and ISF (International Shinto Foundation) press for greater understanding of Shinto internationally, they are ambivalent about the spread to non-Japanese.

This is what makes the achievement of Willchiko Florian so remarkable. Though Green Shinto heard of him some time ago, we were reluctant to broadcast his story since the young Austrian wished to keep a low profile. Consequently information about him is hard to come by.

From what can be gathered, he’s about 23 years of age. As a child he was struck by a photo of shrine priests in one of his father’s books. The fascination led him to pursue the matter further, particularly though the English homepage of Ueno Tenmangu Shrine in Nagoya (a very recommendable resource). His many questions impressed one of the priests there, Hirata sensei, and over six years they developed a master-pupil relationship.

In 2001 Florian visited Japan for the first time with his father, when he was in his early teens. Six years later, at Hirata sensei’s suggestion, he took up the opportunity of an apprenticeship at Tenmangu and was able to pass the practical test. Thereafter he was able to take and pass the official Jinja Honcho examinations and gain a nationally accepted priest’s license. It was an historical moment, for he was the first non-Japanese ever to do so.

How exactly he managed all this while also graduating from Vienna University is unclear – so anyone in the know, please enlighten us. It’s not clear either what Florian is planning to do with his priest’s licence, though rumour has it that he has returned to Austria.

So if Willchiko Florian is reading this, maybe he could get in touch and tell us his story so that others could follow in his footsteps. Reluctant though he might be, he’s a hero of our times.

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Click for outreach by Ueno Tenmangu.

For Ueno Tenmangu as a Nagoya power spot, click here.

Higgs Boson and Phalli

July 9, 2012 / John D. / 0 Comments

Two intriguing links that appeared in my Inbox today, one in prose and the other in photos…

The first is a short article summarising the religious import of the Higgs Boson particle:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-clayton-phd/relationship-between-scie_b_1653976.html

The other is from the wonderful blog of Jake Davis who has been exploring offbeat parts of Japan and came across a ‘plethora of phalli’ at a site that counts itself a Shinto shrine:
see here

From ultra-modern to mankind’s earliest preoccupations, Shinto covers them all !

Misogi and baptism

July 2, 2012 / John D. / 0 Comments

Container used for pagan purificaiton rites

Water immersion

It’s well-known how much religions have in common and how often they replicate each other, but a visit to Ravenna brought home to me how central the notion of purification by water has been in differing cultures.

Brought up in the Anglican tradition, I’ve been accustomed to think of baptism as splashing babies with drops of water. Ravenna’s churches, though, with origins as far back as the fifth century, have large stone baths for carrying out the ritual. This is more serious stuff than a symbolic sprinkling.

The Baptistry Neoniano is a church built in the early fifth century on the site of Roman baths, from which it takes its decorative theme with pillars and portraits of Romans in tunics. At its centre is a large round baptismal bath, and on the dome above a painting of Christ standing up to his middle in the River Jordan with John the Baptist pouring water over him.

Pagan purification and Christian baptism side by side

Two things struck me about the Baptistry. One was that proudly on display was a large marble container, which according to the accompanying sign ‘probably was used for the purification in pagan nuptials’. (See picture above.) Here was a striking example of the way that the Church appropriated pagan elements for its own use.

The second feature concerned the painting on the dome. Not only was Jesus openly displaying his human aspect, so to speak, but to his left was an eerie figure described by an explanatory notice as ‘the personification of the River Jordan’. Isn’t that similar in concept to a Shinto kami?

The artist’s conception seemed to be that immersion in the cold and life-giving waters involved an encounter with the spirit of nature… Suddenly I had a revelation: Behold ‘misogi’ in Biblical garb!!

Dome painting of Jesus being baptised by John the Baptist, with the personification of the River Jordan emerging from the waters

Summer solstice

June 21, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

Sunrise salutation by the shrine priest

For the summer solstice celebration last year I went to the Meoto rocks near Ise where I participated in the morning misogi done in the Pacific. It is timed to coincide with sunrise on the year’s longest day, and is organised by Okitama Jinja on the shore next to the rocks.

You have to apply in advance for the event, as it is popular and numbers are limited. Participants dress in white, and though I was expecting everyone to be kitted out in the same outfit, people came in quite a variety as you can see in the photos on my flickr site …
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80862581@N00/

Prayer to the sun rising between Meoto rocks

The event starts in the dark before sunrise, and there were about 150 people in all crowded onto the shrine forecourt by the sea. After the opening ritual, there were warmup exercises before entering the sea where prayers were recited. At this stage the water only came up to knee or thigh height, but at a signal people lowered themselves into the water and then sung the national anthem.

The water was not too cold, helped by a spell of hot humid weather, and the sunrise was perfect (I was told that it’s often shrouded in cloud). To my surprise, many took it rather casually and some chatted or posed for photos. I even noticed one participant with a mobile phone!

On the other hand, when the sun came up the woman next to me was so moved that she burst into tears. And amongst the chatter afterwards, I heard several people say how glad they were to have attended and how profound an experience it was.

Later in the day I was lucky to get a guided tour around Ise, and through a previous contact was able to talk with one of the priests there. The most interesting thing I learnt was that after the goshintai (Amaterasu’s mirror) is moved in the Shikinen Sengu ceremony next year, one of the priests crows three times…

Quite a contrast with the Christian tradition!

Entering the sea in a long procession

Here comes the sun, right between the rocks...

Emerging from the water, refreshed and purified

MacArthur’s Catholic drive

June 16, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

MacArthur towers over Hirohito at the end of WW2: the way seemed open to civilising the country with Christianity

What makes Japan so resistant to Christianity? It’s an intriguing question I tried to tackle in my book In Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians… Part of the answer, I believe, has to do with the nature of traditional beliefs found in Shinto and the security they offer Japanese… something Endo Shusaku referred to as a ‘mudswamp’. It’s interesting therefore to see what happened when State Shinto collapsed and a sustained attempt was made by MacArthur to Christianise the country…

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Huffington Post: Did MacArthur Flood Japan With Religion?
By Suzanne McGee
c. 2011 Religion News Service

(RNS/ENInews) A new book on post-war Japan says Gen. Douglas MacArthur sought to fill the country’s “spiritual vacuum” with religious and quasi-religious beliefs, from Christianity to Freemasonry, as an antidote to communism.

In 1945 Under the Shadow of the Occupation: The Ashlar and The Cross, Japanese investigative journalist Eiichiro Tokumoto documents MacArthur’s efforts to persuade missionaries to intensify their efforts, even encouraging mass conversions to Catholicism.

“There was a complete collapse of faith in Japan in 1945 — in our invincible military, in the emperor, in the religion that had become known as ‘state Shinto,”‘ Tokumoto writes.

A number of documents Tokumoto used for research were declassified only recently, including accounts of a 1946 meeting between MacArthur and two U.S. Catholic bishops.

“General MacArthur asked us to urge the sending of thousands of Catholic missionaries — at once,” Bishops John F. O’Hara and Michael J. Ready later reported to the Vatican. MacArthur told them that they had a year to help fill the “spiritual vacuum” created by the defeat.

Based on his experience in the Philippines, MacArthur believed the Catholic Church could find particular appeal because the tradition of seeking absolution for one’s mistakes or misdeeds “appeals to the Oriental,” they reported.

In the wake of the missionaries’ efforts, the Bible became a best-seller in Japan, while the number of Catholics climbed about 19 percent between 1948 and 1950, Tokumoto said.

The missionaries’ success, however, was short-lived. Relatively few of the 2,000 or so who flooded into Japan could speak Japanese, and the 1960s saw a student backlash against perceived “elite” Christians who ran several major universities.

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Postscript: Even now, despite all the resources thrown at it by the West, and despite over a century of fervid Westernisation, Christians in Japan number something like 1% of the population, a percentage that ranks among the lowest in the world.

Meanwhile, a primal religion, that is to say Shinto in its nature-worshipping aspect, continues to provide a spiritual outlet for the nation as a whole. A triumph of the Sun over the Son, you could say. It gives pause for thought….

Miko, veiled in mystery

June 10, 2012 / John D. / 1 Comment

Costumed miko at the biennial Sanno Festival in Tokyo (photo by AP in today’s Japan Today)

JNTO (Japan National Tourism Organization) has this to say about the festival:

Dates: June 9th-16th
Place: Hie-jinja Shrine
City: Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

The Sanno Matsuri is famous as a festival permitted by the Shogun to enter the grounds of Edo Castle during the Edo Period (1603-1867), along with the Kanda Matsuri. It was also one of the three largest festivals of Japan. The main procession called jinkosai takes place in the middle of June in every other year according to the Western calendar.

About 300 people dressed in ancient costumes parade through the heart of Tokyo including Tokyo Station, Ginza, and in front of the Diet Building. Consisting of mikoshi (portable shrines) adorned with a phoenix on the roof, dashi floats, people carrying drums, people on horseback, the procession extends over a length of 600 meters. You will also see people dressed as the legendary goblin called Tengu, characterized by a red face and a long nose, and believed to possess supernatural powers. The procession which departs from Hie-jinja Shrine at 8 o’clock in the morning does not return to the shrine until early in the evening.

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The Japan Times today also carries an article with a slideshow/video which can be seen here.

Although the Sanno Festival occurs annually, the Shinkosai procession happens only on even-numbered years. Dating back to the times of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Shinkosai was to welcome three sacred mikoshi (sacred shrines) into the Edo Castle, each believed to be carrying a god. The Sanno Matsuri itself is considered one of Edo’s three major festivals.

Overpasses put an end to the towering floats in 1885, but the pageantry has not faded. Blessed by fine weather, the large procession of people dressed in period costume began its journey at 8 a.m. at Hie Shrine in Nagatacho, Chiyoda Ward. Accompanied by gagaku (imperial court music) throughout, the parade snaked its way through central Tokyo, passing by the Imperial Palace and through famous districts of Ginza and Marunouchi, before returning to its starting place at 5 p.m.

Halfway, the procession paused in front of the Japanese National Theater for a sacred ritual involving Hie Shrine maidens and katana swords.

The Sanno Matsuri continues over the weekend and ends on Sunday, June 9.