I wonder, have you interacted with una voce there? I have a number of friends among the Japanese Catholic traditionalist. Possible we know some of the same folks.
A great piece and very well argued, and I appreciate your calling out the "reenchanted Christians" for continuing to look down on New Agers who never allowed themselves to become disenchanted in the first place.
Unfortunately I still think Christianity is fundamentally incapable of something like this. Its first great project in Europe was to eradicate the local gods and spirits, and it simply is not possible for Christianity to build a relationship with these gods and spirits without first – at the very least – apologising to them. For one thing, I don't see any Christians offering to make this apology, not even the kookiest reenchantment enjoyers. For another, I don't see how any Christian church could make such an apology without undermining the very deepest bedrock of its doctrine and alienating all of its most sincere believers.
You can blame industrial postmodernity if you want, but Japan wasn't the only country to modernise without disenchanting itself. A Chinese tech entrepreneur just opened an enormous Taoist university teaching alchemy and divination, and the average Saudi cybersecurity engineer is a devout Muslim who still maintains an effortless, unthinking relationship with the djinn. It's not so much that the Shinto world is uniquely resistant to disenchantment, but that Christendom is uniquely vulnerable to it.
There are the true hierarchy of spirits united to the Will of God in Nature, the false ones of ancient poetic speculation, and then the one from the pit of Hell. A Catholic seeking a life of Liturgical Realism (aka reenchantment) has no need of apology to a false or ursurpatory species and genus of spirits.
Even if you did apologise, it wouldn't mean anything until the Church itself apologised – and even *that* would only be the bare minimum, the beginning of a centuries-long process of making amends. Obviously none of this is ever going to happen. But by all means enjoy your worldbuilding, and I look forward to hearing the next term you come up with once "Liturgical Realism" falls out of fashion.
Pardon, I meant the Catholic Church has no need to apologize to spirits that either don’t exist, are a case of mistaken identity (meaning through ancient poetic speculation they mistook a true or ursurpatory entity to be something they arbitrarily assigned an identity to), or are demonic.
The pagans were the worldbuilders and idol-makers. Christ’s instauration of all things will continue unapologetically and without y’all’s permission.
I would benefit greatly from a clarification of what is meant by “animism” in this piece. Only because it doesn’t seem to have a univocal meaning. Do you mean it in a philosophical or ethnological sense?
By contrast the multi-various animistic traditions are based on the premise that everything and everyone are inter-connected and to one degree or another informed/sustained by various forms/practices of contemplation and ecstasy
Interesting stuff. I used to live in Japan, and from what I observed and the people I talked to, it did really seem like their culture is perhaps the only one truly deserving of the phrase "spiritual but not religious." As you say, this is obvious in the ubiquity of their shrines and temples, their customs and rites (I partial to the practice of hurling beans at demons during Setsubun) and even in their media (Ghibli films are replete with animism).
I'm not sure, however, how much this backdrop is noticed, let alone reverenced, by your average Japanese person. Maybe you're calling for something a bit different, but we did have cultural Christianity once - the feast days, the processions, etc. - but for many it eventually became an exercise in going through the motions rather than an expression of real piety. Japanese people similarly do their first shrine visit of the year, etc. but don't appear to place much stock in it beyond regarding it as a neat family outing. I think there's a legitimate argument that can be made for ethnic homogeneity playing a bigger role than the belief system in what makes Japan what it is, but that's a discussion for a different time.
Great to find someone phrasing what I have been working on. This is the only answer to the AI current. We can even see a foreshadow in the collective unconscius with star wars where westerners are living in an understanding of life force energy and in unity with the "aliens" elemental beings.
Paracelsus is a great read for this he was talking about them in great length within a christian framework.
“Shinto is precisely the complete and organic expression of total Japaneseness throughout every sphere of society…” If it is, I think this is only a recent development, particularly via State Shinto in the Meiji era from the 19th c. onwards.
Prior to this, I’d suggest Shinto is local and regional. Moreover the borders between Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism in all their numerous schools and developments are fairly loose until then.
Great article! Some years ago I wrote similarly about how Shinto could help us navigate the current times. I had not thought about writing it so as to argue for an animist Christianity, although I do mention it: https://elvengast.substack.com/p/the-way-of-the-kami
Or go further back. You mention neo-Platonism, but that's already kind of too much enmeshed with the human (Socrates tells us in the Phaedrus that he doesn't get out of Athens much; he's not used to being in the fields) - which of course, along with immaterial souls, was part of what made it acceptable to Christianity. Stoicism, with its focus on creative Nature, and 'living according to nature,' offers many of us what I think you portray here.
My people were drilled out of this by the Chinese Rites controversy about this kind of synthesis did happen in Latin America. I'm really envious of cultures that got to do this. That's why I'm straight up dual faith Chinese polytheist and Evangelical Protestant.
Welcoming the full experience of Life Force in all its forms seems best.
Wonderful. This will reward re-reading. We should meet!
Certainly, are you in the U.K.?
Until mid-May, when I return to Japan.
I have sent you a DM
I wonder, have you interacted with una voce there? I have a number of friends among the Japanese Catholic traditionalist. Possible we know some of the same folks.
Excellent essay - I spent a brief time staying at the home of a Shinto priest when I was in Japan, and am a Christian.
Beautiful and seductive writing and I’m only on the second paragraph. Is it safe to go further?
A great piece and very well argued, and I appreciate your calling out the "reenchanted Christians" for continuing to look down on New Agers who never allowed themselves to become disenchanted in the first place.
Unfortunately I still think Christianity is fundamentally incapable of something like this. Its first great project in Europe was to eradicate the local gods and spirits, and it simply is not possible for Christianity to build a relationship with these gods and spirits without first – at the very least – apologising to them. For one thing, I don't see any Christians offering to make this apology, not even the kookiest reenchantment enjoyers. For another, I don't see how any Christian church could make such an apology without undermining the very deepest bedrock of its doctrine and alienating all of its most sincere believers.
You can blame industrial postmodernity if you want, but Japan wasn't the only country to modernise without disenchanting itself. A Chinese tech entrepreneur just opened an enormous Taoist university teaching alchemy and divination, and the average Saudi cybersecurity engineer is a devout Muslim who still maintains an effortless, unthinking relationship with the djinn. It's not so much that the Shinto world is uniquely resistant to disenchantment, but that Christendom is uniquely vulnerable to it.
There are the true hierarchy of spirits united to the Will of God in Nature, the false ones of ancient poetic speculation, and then the one from the pit of Hell. A Catholic seeking a life of Liturgical Realism (aka reenchantment) has no need of apology to a false or ursurpatory species and genus of spirits.
Even if you did apologise, it wouldn't mean anything until the Church itself apologised – and even *that* would only be the bare minimum, the beginning of a centuries-long process of making amends. Obviously none of this is ever going to happen. But by all means enjoy your worldbuilding, and I look forward to hearing the next term you come up with once "Liturgical Realism" falls out of fashion.
Pardon, I meant the Catholic Church has no need to apologize to spirits that either don’t exist, are a case of mistaken identity (meaning through ancient poetic speculation they mistook a true or ursurpatory entity to be something they arbitrarily assigned an identity to), or are demonic.
The pagans were the worldbuilders and idol-makers. Christ’s instauration of all things will continue unapologetically and without y’all’s permission.
I would benefit greatly from a clarification of what is meant by “animism” in this piece. Only because it doesn’t seem to have a univocal meaning. Do you mean it in a philosophical or ethnological sense?
Western culture (in particular) including its religion is based on three destructive premises.
We are intrinsically separate from God, nature and each other.
http://beezone.com/current/three_great_myths.html
There is also a prohibition against anyone becoming to "mystical" and having anything to do with higher (yogic) forms of knowledge & Realization
http://www.dabase.org/up-1-3.htm
By contrast the multi-various animistic traditions are based on the premise that everything and everyone are inter-connected and to one degree or another informed/sustained by various forms/practices of contemplation and ecstasy
http://www.fnmzoo.org/wisdom-teaching/a-contemplative-state-of-exaltation
http://beezone.com/current/cultureofecstasy.html
Interesting stuff. I used to live in Japan, and from what I observed and the people I talked to, it did really seem like their culture is perhaps the only one truly deserving of the phrase "spiritual but not religious." As you say, this is obvious in the ubiquity of their shrines and temples, their customs and rites (I partial to the practice of hurling beans at demons during Setsubun) and even in their media (Ghibli films are replete with animism).
I'm not sure, however, how much this backdrop is noticed, let alone reverenced, by your average Japanese person. Maybe you're calling for something a bit different, but we did have cultural Christianity once - the feast days, the processions, etc. - but for many it eventually became an exercise in going through the motions rather than an expression of real piety. Japanese people similarly do their first shrine visit of the year, etc. but don't appear to place much stock in it beyond regarding it as a neat family outing. I think there's a legitimate argument that can be made for ethnic homogeneity playing a bigger role than the belief system in what makes Japan what it is, but that's a discussion for a different time.
Great to find someone phrasing what I have been working on. This is the only answer to the AI current. We can even see a foreshadow in the collective unconscius with star wars where westerners are living in an understanding of life force energy and in unity with the "aliens" elemental beings.
Paracelsus is a great read for this he was talking about them in great length within a christian framework.
Would love to connect about this.
“Shinto is precisely the complete and organic expression of total Japaneseness throughout every sphere of society…” If it is, I think this is only a recent development, particularly via State Shinto in the Meiji era from the 19th c. onwards.
Prior to this, I’d suggest Shinto is local and regional. Moreover the borders between Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism in all their numerous schools and developments are fairly loose until then.
Great article! Some years ago I wrote similarly about how Shinto could help us navigate the current times. I had not thought about writing it so as to argue for an animist Christianity, although I do mention it: https://elvengast.substack.com/p/the-way-of-the-kami
Or go further back. You mention neo-Platonism, but that's already kind of too much enmeshed with the human (Socrates tells us in the Phaedrus that he doesn't get out of Athens much; he's not used to being in the fields) - which of course, along with immaterial souls, was part of what made it acceptable to Christianity. Stoicism, with its focus on creative Nature, and 'living according to nature,' offers many of us what I think you portray here.
My people were drilled out of this by the Chinese Rites controversy about this kind of synthesis did happen in Latin America. I'm really envious of cultures that got to do this. That's why I'm straight up dual faith Chinese polytheist and Evangelical Protestant.
Have you read anything by Dom Pier Celestine Lu or John Wu? You might enjoy them.
I'm going to check them out thanks
Well done!
Repent.