Shintoism Shintoism or Shinto (神道; Shintō) is a native religion of Japan and was once its state religion. It involves the worship of kami, which can be translated to mean “sacred spirits which take the form of things and concepts important to life, such as wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers, and fertility.” Some kami are local and...
State Shinto State Shintō (国家神道 or 國家神道, Kokka Shintō) describes Imperial Japan‘s ideological use of the native folk traditions of Shintoism. The state strongly encouraged Shinto practices to emphasize the Emperor as a divine being, which was exercised through control of shrine finances and training regimes for priests. The State Shinto ideology emerged at the...
Japanese New Religions Japanese new religions are new religious movements established in Japan. In Japanese, they are called shinshūkyō (新宗教) or shinkō shūkyō (新興宗教). Japanese scholars classify all religious organizations founded since the middle of the 19th century as “new religions”; thus, the term refers to a great diversity and number of organizations....