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Shinto and the Japanese Kami

Expected online publication date:  09 November 2026

Tomoko Iwasawa
Affiliation:
Reitaku University (Japan)

Summary

This Element examines the Japanese experience of the divine through the concept of kami, understood not as transcendent authorities but as vital presences embedded in nature, community, and the human body. Rather than presenting Shinto as a fixed religion, it traces the historical formation of kami worship and its expression in myth, ritual, and festival. These practices reveal a psychosomatic mode of religiosity in which body and spirit are interwoven through processes of concealment, gestation, and renewal. Such processes situate the experience of the divine within the generative depths of existence, so that Japanese ritual life integrates chthonic dimensions through embodied participation. Philosophically, the study moves beyond the common characterization of Shinto as pantheistic, proposing instead a panentheistic framework as a more flexible interpretive lens. In this view, corporeality becomes the experiential medium through which kami are manifested. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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Shinto and the Japanese Kami
  • Tomoko Iwasawa, Reitaku University (Japan)
  • Online ISBN: 9781009465151
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
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Shinto and the Japanese Kami
  • Tomoko Iwasawa, Reitaku University (Japan)
  • Online ISBN: 9781009465151
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Shinto and the Japanese Kami
  • Tomoko Iwasawa, Reitaku University (Japan)
  • Online ISBN: 9781009465151
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
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