According to Kierkegaard, it is the work of imagination that makes us transform ourselves. This paper attempts to reconstruct Kierkegaard's understanding of the human being by looking at his concept of imagination.

The former part provides an overview of Kierkegaard's understanding of imagination with reference to Arne Grøn's research. The latter part examines the relationship between the human being and the image of Christ, which appears in the imagination, and the fact that it was Kierkegaard's main task in his literary works to draw the “image” of the ideal Christian.

Finally, after confirming that while Kierkegaard understood the human being with reference to the image of God, he nevertheless realized the limitations of the theological human nature theory, I will make a few observations on the relationship between imagination and faith in Kierkegaard's thought.

This contribution discusses the historical background of the dialogue-text, Schwester Katrei, written in Middle High German in the early fourteenth century in Strasbourg. The fictive dialogue presents a long conversation between the two central characters―a lay woman who is probably a beguine, and a Dominican priest who gives her spiritual direction―and their spiritual growth until their arrival at the union with God. Due to its bold mystical character, this text has been studied mainly within the scholarship on medieval heretics (especially the so-called “Free Spirits”) and on Meister Eckhart's reception in folk religious literature. However, given that this anonymous text makes almost no reference to any proper names nor historical events, little is known about the origins of this text. This paper analyzes the descriptions of the two figures in the dialogue, and, by looking at a number of historical sources, attempts to discover a link between those descriptions and the beguine movement in fourteenth-century Strasbourg under the persecution by the church authorities of the city. It is within this context that the paper also examines how the Dominicans tried to defend the legitimacy of this lay spiritual movement and, by so doing, to retrieve the founding ideals of their own order.

In the ancestral rite known as śrāddha, performed in the Hindu sacred place Gayā in northern India, a special set of mantras called “sixteen for men and women (purusa-sodaśī and strī-sodaśī)” is recited for the salvation of the unknown dead. After providing a Japanese translation of the mantras, which are described in the Gayāmāhātmya (about tenth to eleventh centuries CE), this paper analyzes them using the Japanese Buddhist concept of muen kuyō, which is defined as spiritual aid for the suffering dead who no longer have any living relatives to provide offerings for them. Muen kuyō also implies treating the unknown dead equally and without limitations. The mantras enumerate people who died unnaturally as well as whose suffering can be attributed to a lack of funeral rites (especially cremation). The mantras also provide aid for the dead who are in hells or are reborn in bad forms in this world because of their bad attitudes in their lifetimes. Additionally, the mantras describe the various relationships between the dead and the ritual performer, which indicate the effort not to fail to provide the necessary aid for the unknown dead, and to recite the mantras without discriminating.

This paper describes how funeral customs changed in a local community in the process of social change in post-war Japan. It elucidates the factors that changed funerals and the mechanism that advanced those changes by focusing on the case of keiyaku kō (mutual aid organizations for funerals) in Mogami, Yamagata. Several dozen keiyaku kō in an urban area of Mogami have gradually discontinued operations after the construction of a crematorium powered by heavy oil. This new establishment had a major impact on the transformation of keiyaku kō, yet was an achievement for which the leaders of each keiyaku kō united their organizations and negotiated with the local government. Behind this measure lay not only the financial situation of the town but also the activities of the leaders, who took advantage of the social trend of community development and certain slogans from the New Life Movement. After that, a local funeral company opened business there, but its impact was secondary. While previous studies have explained changes in funerals as mainly being caused by industrialization, my results indicate that traditional funeral cultures were not unilaterally negatively affected by industrialization, but rather, local residents took the initiative in actively reorganizing them.

Sengensha (浅間社) is a facility for the devotion to Mt. Fuji, but as the diversity of Mt. Fuji worship might suggest, there are actually various gods enshrined. In this paper, I will present various characteristics of Sengensha, followed by a model for understanding the propagation and acceptance of Mt. Fuji worship based on three aspects: Mt. Fuji itself, the metropolitan cultural areas that primarily accepted the Fuji worship, and other surrounding, secondary areas, where local beliefs and customs related to Mt. Fuji emerged independently. The various facets of Sengensha explored in this paper concern the devotion and support of Sengensha by medieval forts, fujizuka (富士塚/藤塚), or mounds representing Mt. Fuji in the Chubu region, and shrines that have “Fuji” as part of their name, whether they worshiped Mt. Fuji or not. In particular, there has been a scholarly debate about the definition of fujizuka that I would like to address by questioning the debate's validity.

This paper defines the actions of Buddhist temples in the political situation of the late Edo period as “survival strategies.” It examines the cases of Myōhō-in (Tendai sect) and Chishaku-in (Shingon sect). Both temples were designated as jinsho, or military posts by the Tosa Domain. I also explore Nishi Honganji (Jōdo Shinshū sect) for a comparison with these cases. Myōhō-in accepted the role of jinsho positively, because of financial difficulties and the absence of monzeki, who were Buddhist priests of aristocratic or imperial lineage. By contrast, Chishaku-in resisted its role as jinsho, because the priests at Chishaku-in considered it more important to sustain their school. The differences in the survival strategies of the two temples were caused by their social relations and the structure of their sects in the Edo period. In other words, the gap in the organizational capability of each temple/sect at the end of the Edo period resulted in their rejection or acceptance of their role as military posts. In comparison with Myōhō-in and Chishaku-in, Nishi-Honganji was able to demonstrate leadership, because the monzeki of Nishi Honganji was the chief priest of both the temple and the sect. An original system complemented both the doctrinal and religious authorities within the sect. Nishi Hoganji's strategy was founded in strong organizational capabilities that smoothened the temple's and sect's decision-making process, which made it relatively easy for clergy to implement these decisions.

The Ministry of Education issued the Instruction No. 12 of August 3, 1899, which prohibited religious education and ceremonies in all government and public schools and private schools whose curricula were regulated by provisions of law, even outside the regular course of study. Thus far, scholarship has generally agreed that the Ministry took a hardline stance to implement the prohibition and drafted the Instruction to enforce it, which was later eased as a compromise with the other governmental organs. However, this paper reconsiders those assessments on the basis of new-found materials, such as the minutes of the Code Investigation Commission, and argues that the Ministry had almost realized its plans to prepare for the enforcement of the revised treaties and to supervise all “religious schools” as “private schools” in the face of the opposition of the Ministry of Home Affairs. This paper will be helpful to understand more accurately the process of making a fundamental policy that restructured and stipulated the relationships between school education and religion in modern Japan.

In recent years, many Japanese shrines and temples have become popular tourist attractions. While this phenomenon has previously been discussed as the process of representation, this study will focus on the material side of religion and tourism. The subject of the study, Seimei Shrine, is a shrine dedicated to the sorcerer Abe no Seimei (921-1005), who is frequently featured in popular culture. In the 2000s the shrine became a tourist attraction for the fans of the novel series Onmyōji (1988-) and the movie adaptation (2001). Due to the increase in visitor numbers, the shrine started improving its premises and changing its image by placing bronze statues and other objects realizing the legends of Abe no Seimei. The visitors, with their various interests and motivations, interact with these objects in different ways―not only through the common rituals but also more improvisational performances. In these performances, the statues and other paraphernalia are not only the objects of action but can be seen as actors that attract various actions and responses. Using the approaches of performance studies and material religion, this paper sheds light on the interaction between people, objects, and the environment in shrine tourism.