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Notes on Kami Worship

To: alt.magick,alt.lucky.w,alt.magick.tyagi
From: catherine yronwode 
Subject: Re: Notes on Kami Worship
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 01:44:18 GMT

Buttsex Optimus wrote:
> 
> I ran across this post in the luckymojo archives:
> http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/religion/shinto/cy200008kamiworship.txt
> 
> ...and have some uppity additions to make, for those who are
> interested in these things.
> 
> > ... Shinto, she said, is the official state religion of Japan  
> > and holds as a tenet that the Emperor is descended from the  
> > Sun Goddess. Kami worship, on the other hand, does not hold  
> > this as a tenet.
> 
> This is a bit more of a schism than a case of two entirely 
> different religions. IIRC around the time that Japan shifted 
> from being tribal to imperial - the Yamato period [around the 
> third century AD], then culminating in the establishment of 
> the Imperial capital in Nara (during the Nara period, 600 
> and environs AD) - the imperial family took steps to consolidate 
> its power on all fronts. One of these fronts was the theological; 
> it was during this period that the  imperial family declared 
> that all kami are inferior to the sun kami, or the Sun Goddess 
> Amaterasu Omikami, and that the emperor is a descendent of the 
> Sun Goddess.
> 
> (The fun part is that around the Meiji period there was an
> overwhelming drive to establish the geneology as lineal through 
> the male line. Recently the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan 
> had their first and to date only child: a girl. And the mother 
> is 37 or so, and there is a question about whether she can have 
> another child, and so Japan might have a ruling Empress some day 
> despite the efforts of the past!)
> 
> > ... She was a Kami worshipper, 
> > she said, and expressed some distate for Shinto. Strangely, 
> > she, like many Japanese people, also "prayed and bought
> > incense" in Buddhist temples (not Zen Buddhist temples, just 
> > regular Buddhist temples) on the major Buddhist  festival days.
> 
> This is also an unusual part of Japanese culture, which has from
> ancient times despised death in all its forms - a principle of
> vitalism. Even the records of kings reflect this; when a king 
> becomes a kami, there is no reference ever made to his dying. The
> life-annihilating aspects of Buddism have always butted heads with 
> the Japanese religious undercurrent of vitalism. Homes with Shinto 
> and Buddhist shrines have *separate* shrines for this very reason.
> 
> There is some noteable anthropologist or historian who described
> Buddhism as the religion of the *mind* of the Japanese, but
> kami-worship was the religion of its heart. (To be taken with as 
> much salt as any quote for which I can't dig up the source.)
> 
> > Basically, as
> > she explained it, the priests function as blessers and mediators
> > between the Kami and the people for those festivals held in 
> > temples, but there are also folk-festivals in which the populace 
> > deals directly with the Kami by making offerings at home.
> 
> Historically the priests were chieftans of the tribes, and when the
> imperial family was consolidating power - well, you know how that
> went. So the kami-priests are one of the last great representatives 
> of Japan's tribal past.
> 
> Kami worship shares a few qualities with classical Greek paganism -
> there seems to be a kami for everything - but it's unique in that 
> many of these kami are manifestations of *awe* at particular natural 
> events or objects: great trees, mighty kings and warriors, things 
> like this, as well as the more obvious sun, ocean, moon, and so 
> forth. Appealing to these kami is an indigenous folk-magick in 
> Japan.
> 
> ("Indigenous" is important - incredible amounts of Japanese custom 
> and religion and politics and metaphysics and so forth were imported
> wholesale from China and Korea (and from China through Korea.))

Thanks for a great post! You filled in a lot of blanks for me.

cat yronwode 

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From: tight@helpmejebus.WHOREScom (Buttsex Optimus)
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Subject: Re: Notes on Kami Worship
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On Sat, 22 Dec 2001 01:44:18 GMT, catherine yronwode
 wrote:

>Buttsex Optimus wrote:
 
>> This is a bit more of a schism than a case of two entirely 
>> different religions. IIRC around the time that Japan shifted 
>> from being tribal to imperial - the Yamato period [around the 
>> third century AD], then culminating in the establishment of 
>> the Imperial capital in Nara (during the Nara period, 600 
>> and environs AD) -

Whoops. 

Asuka period was around late 500s to 710 or so, and 710-79x was Nara.
Much of the concentration of power was during Asuka, but actual
Imperatoring, to neologize, was the Nara thing.

>Thanks for a great post! You filled in a lot of blanks for me.

Not at all. As long as I've got your attention, I've been
spellchecking and reformatting the copy of _Chuangtse, Mystic and
Humorist_ I found at your site (the Lin Yutang translation, which is
happily my favorite [there's a translation by Clae Waldham which just
isn't as graceful, IMO.]) I intend to post it to alt.binaries.e-book
when I'm done; I don't suppose you would want a copy as well? I'll be
compiling plaintext and HTML versions and I'd be happy to email the
files to you or let you know when I've posted to ABEB. 
--
Why don't you hold off on calling me a fuckhead for three
fucking minutes?

http://www.metaaid.com        * http://www.thehungersite.com  
http://www.quickdonations.com * http://www.ecologyfund.com

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