Word: shinto
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...white-robed Shinto priests performed intricate purification ceremonies, a potbellied turboprop transport rolled out of a hangar at Nagoya's Komaki Airport, taxied down a runway and roared aloft. An hour later, when the plane set back down at Komaki, a waiting throng of businessmen and Japanese air force brass broke into exultant banzais. The YS 11, first Japanese-designed commercial transport to be built since World War II, had completed its maiden flight...
...Because Shinto taught that the Emperor was the descendant of the gods who had created Japan, the religion was made a patriotic duty for all Japanese by the country's prewar nationalistic leaders. Shrines received state support, and priests became government officials. The ancient Shinto slogan, Hakko ichiu, meaning "the world under one roof." became the doctrinal justification for Japan's aggressive expansion...
...Gods. The hordes of New-Year worshipers will accurately measure the striking comeback made by one of the world's oldest-and at one time most ominous-religions. Vaguely animistic. Shinto (which means "the way of the gods") is based on a belief in the divine efficacy of Kami (deities). By worshiping the Kami -which include everything from a believer's ancestors to the wind and the trees...
...faithful Shintoist gets spiritual guidance and protection in his own way of life. Shinto has no known founder, no Bible, no dogma, no regular churchgoing. Japan's only major home-grown religion, it tolerates and even welcomes joint membership by Buddhists (who number 47,275,000 in Japan) and Christians (605,000), counts its own numbers vaguely a's 13,600,000 "parishioner households...
...roof fell in on Shinto after the war. On Dec. 15. 1945, General Douglas MacArthur's occupation government cut all ties between Shinto and the state, forbade teaching of its doctrines in public schools. On New Year's Day 1946. Emperor Hirohito publicly told his people that the story of his descent from the gods was only "myth and legend." In the shock that followed disestablishment, priests cast off their symbolic white robes to become black marketeers; shrines rented out space to small businesses, or served as places of assignation for prostitutes...