Mostly half-naked men with just white loincloth around their hips and several women in white robes joined the annual cold endurance ritual at the Kanda Myojin, a Shinto shrine in downtown Tokyo.

Shinto shrines abound in Japan, and most Japanese take part in one or another Shinto ceremony over the course of a year. Although Shinto is not a missionary religion, Shinto now has an international ...

Almost weekly Momo Nomura makes time to visit Shinto shrines. She performs the prescribed rituals — cleansing her hands, ringing a bell, bowing and clapping. But her main purpose is getting a ...

A rare Shinto "porridge ritual" to predict the state of society and harvests for the year was held from the night of Jan. 14 ...

In Tokyo, participants braved frigid conditions at the Kanda Myojin Shrine for a traditional Japanese ritual aimed at ...

The Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership was formed in 1969 as an affiliate of the Association of Shinto Shrines, an influential group representing about 80,000 shrines nationwide.

Dozens of people soaked and splashed themselves in painfully icy cold water in a pool at a Tokyo shrine, adhering to Japanese ...