For others, visiting a Shinto shrine is simply a matter of tradition or national pride. Entanglement with politics Shinto has a long and complex history of entanglement with politics and the state.

As recently as World War II, a special brand of state-sanctioned Shinto was the ideological foundation upon which Japan's emperor-worshipping military machine was built.

Shinto, once an unwritten tradition rooted in nature, shrines, and ancestral worship, wasn’t always classified as a “religion.” This video traces how Japan’s native spiritual practice was reshaped ...

State Shinto State Shinto When Shinto was reconstructed in 1868 the Imperial legend was moved centre stage, and Amaterasu - who until then was only revered in parts of Japan - was promoted to be ...

None of the two dozen people interviewed wanted a return to state Shinto, and few said the festival held religious significance for them, although some would say it held spiritual meaning.

Shinto is the native religious tradition of Japan. I think it's easy to see visual signs of it throughout Japan, from the shrines (jinja) to the gates (torii). But what I was interested in finding out ...

There have been attempts to separate them, including a big push during the 19th-century Meiji Restoration, when the Japanese government established State Shinto (later abolished, after World War II).

Shinto priests attend a ritual for the Chichibu Night Festival in Chichibu, north of Tokyo, Japan. Shinto is Japan’s indigenous religion that goes back centuries.

Shinto is Japan’s indigenous religion that goes back centuries. It is an animism that believes there are thousands of kami, or spirits, inhabiting nature, such as forests, rivers and mountains.