The American occupation forces (GHQ) determined that Shinto was a militaristic and ultra-nationalistic religion. Therefore, the GHQ issued the Directive entitled "Abolition of Governmental Sponsorship, Support, Perpetuation, Control, Dissemination of State Shinto (Kokka Shinto, Jinja Shinto) = henceforth the "Shinto-Directive" against the Japanese government on 15 December 1945. The point of the "Shinto-Directive" is to implement the "Separation of Religion and State" established in Article 20, Clause 3 of the present Japanese Constitution. By the way, the primary purpose of this study is to demonstrate the fundamental characteristics of Shinto as a "World Religion" in order to aid a fundamental study of the "Separation of Religion and State" specified in the Japanese Constitution. The content of this study is as follows: 1. The relationship between the "Shinto-Directive" and the "Separation of Religion and State" in the Japanese Constitution, 2. What kind of a religion is Shinto?, 3. Several characteristics of Shinto viewed from the standpoint of comparative religious studies (1) natural religious characteristics, (2) native religious characteristics, (3) pantheistic characteristics, (4) theanthropic religious characteristics, (5) characteristics of tolerance, (6) characteristics of universal morality, (7) characteristics of scientific rationality, (8) characteristics of quasi-national religion, 4. The term of "Kokutai-Shinto" and its characteristics, 5. Definition of "World Religion" and its characteristics, 6. Conclusion. The greatest point which I would like to emphasize in this study is that Shinto is the most excellent religion in the world and a "Treasure of mankind" as J. W. T. Mason (1879- 1941, American journalist) described in his books.

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