I have to say, I'm vastly amused. Given the predilection of the hokora gosaijin, and that it's my personal duty to shake the worlds of the complacent, I think I have succeeded well beyond any expectations... apparently I'm now the Anti-kami.

At least that seems to be the gist of a series of comments currently circulating on the internet. These contain unproven allegations, half-truths, misinformation, and outright character assassination. People are being warned to stay away from me, lest I "corrupt" the purity of their shintô.

Wow! I had no idea I were seen as such a threat. As far as we can tell, this apparently stems from a comment we made along the line of, "for many minzoku shintô practitioners a jinja is not required in order to practice shintô; yes it's an exciting option, but not it's a necessity."

Really people? Have you nothing better to spent your time on? Your time would be best used purifying the tsumi your own actions pollute you with; frankly you're only succeeding in driving the kami away from yourselves. Someone needs to seriously reexamine their values.

To be fair, this is coming from a very small minority of shintô practitioners. The vast majority of practitioners I have encountered have responded quite positively to my efforts.

Anyone who actually knows me, knows that over the past 50 years I've spent a great deal of time, effort and money working to better my local communities; and more recently to promote all forms of shintô in the area. I've always been upfront about who I am; and what, how and why I practice. And none of my many students over the years has complained about me, my teachings or my methods.

So once again... for those who would like to think of themselves at the Shinto Police:

1) I do not practice any of the many forms of jinja shintô; I practice minzoku NEO-shintô.

2) It does not require a jinja or a shinshoku to engage in minzoku shintô practices.

3) Like most shintô practitioners, I am not a member of the jinja honcho and as such am not in any way obligated to follow their standards of practice.

4) There is no central authority to determine who is or is not a shintô practitioner; that's up to each local community. And even then they only determine who will be included within that particular communal group.

5) The shintô I was introduced to was open to anyone who wanted to engage in shintô practices*, and certainly did not carry the caveat "as long as those practices are strictly limited to our offical set of practices".

* And by shintô practices they included: ancient practices; local customs; indigenous folk religions; folk magics; unoffical expressions of organized religions by lay people; and foreign Buddhist, Esoteric Buddhist, Hindu, Religious Daoist, Confucian, and Neo-Confucian practices and ideas.

Not to mention all the foreign ideas that are entering Japanese culture through books, music, manga, anime and movies.