Sacred Knots

Forthcoming, January 2027

Japan is known for its secular culture of understated aesthetics, imaginative digital projects, and cutting-edge technologies. No wonder then that foreign observers are puzzled by an apparently arbitrary display of Buddhist traditions and picturesque Shinto shrines, while many Japanese people, like the state itself, claim not to be “religious” at all. However, the reality is both more subtle and more obstinate. There is in fact an underlying pattern of shared religious assumptions and values that escape official definitions and yet are universally recognized and remarkably persistent. Sacred space, structured time, festivities of life, and the stages of individual existence –all are integrated under the keen watch of the ancestors and tied together with simple rites of transaction. This “primal religion” is the bedrock in which more particular religions are rooted. It is understood and frequently used even by those who claim not to be religious at all. Much of it, such as the observance of New Year, is socially inescapable and indeed the interwoven network of karmic affinity (en) and sacred knots (musubi) is effectively life-sustaining. Closely related is the equally influential pattern of civil religion.

Based on years of observation, Sacred Knots presents the key features of Japan’s primal religion in a systematic but transparently accessible work that is expected to shape the discussion for a long time to come.