Religious traditions are of course each unique, informed by the geography, culture,
history, competing tribes and nations, and other aspects of the society that gives birth to them.
For example: While many pantheons have a sun god as being a crucial leader, such as the
Japanese with Amaterasu and Hebrews with Yahweh, Viracoha came from the sea and Zeus was
the lord of the skies (Mills & Taylor, 1998, 39-50). There are marked variations in terms of how
these religions imagine the afterlife, the duties that the gods demand, the way that the gods and
goddesses intervene, and so on. However, there are also shared similarities and concepts. Shinto
mystical traditions, kotodama and others, have similarities with many cultures. From the
influence that Taoism and Buddhism would ultimately have upon onmyodo to the way that the
concepts of names in kotodama are similar to the naming magic of the Egyptians and other
cultures, Japanese mysticism and magic can be related to many world religions.
Kotodama as a concept in Shintoism centers on the ideas of sounds, names and language
having intrinsic mystical properties (Dang and Seiser, 2006, 15-16; Doniger, 1993, 266-270;
Teruyoshi, 2007). “Kotodama refers to the spiritual power that is contained within words, but
also refers to the conception that spiritual power can be manifested through the intonation of
words” (Teruyoshi, 2007). A combination of sounds and syllables, specifically “ka-ko-ku-ke-ki”
and “sa-so-su-se-si”, is used in many kinds of kotodama practice (Dang and Seiser, 2005, 15).
The venerated martial arts instructor and philosopher O'Sensei Morihei Ushiba, founder of the
Japanese martial art Aikido, used these words as a meditative practice out of the belief that “out
of stillness comes the resonance of Heaven and Earth... [which], when chanted, helps one
become aligned... with the vibratory resonance of the universe” (Dang and Seiser, 2005, 15).
Kotodama has a complex cosmology explaining it. One such concept is that the words
that were spoken to and spoken by gods were the sounds of kotodama, and that skillful use of
those words could be used for “spells and incantations... [with] the force of divine power”
(Teruyoshi, 2007; Doniger, 1993, 266-270). Another was the idea of the universe as being
amassing vital power that with the resonance of kotodama created reality (Dang and Seiser,
2006, 15). “Chanted prayers” or norito were examples of kotodama, as were certain taboo words
which could create “malediction[s]” and curses (Doniger, 1993, 267). This was in turn connected
to the concept of the soul in Shinto mythology, the tama which is a “vital spirit” (Doniger, 1993,
These words were originally viewed as having an elite province: Only the emperor and
Shinto priests could learn these words, as they were spoken by spirits or kami themselves to an
elite few (Doniger, 1993, 267). Thus, kotodama became a mechanism for preserving priestly
elite powers as well as an idea of the communication with the spirit world. But, over time, the
words began to themselves be viewed as powerful and spreading beyond the Shinto. With further
development, the underlying divine cosmology was changed, and “the efficacy was attribtued to
language in general” (Doniger, 1993, 267).
Kotodama's association with tama meant that the incantation of certain words would
serve not just funerary practices of communicating with ancestors but also healing practices
(Doniger, 1993, 269-270). Speaking words of health could be part of a practice of spiritual
healing called variously tamashizume (“to pacify the spirits”) or chinkonsai (“festival of the
pacification of the souls” (Doniger, 1993, 269).
In any case, no matter the era, kotodama was based on the idea that specific intonations,
timbres, tones and choices of words would create magical results. This idea was also seen in the
concepts of heka and akhu in Egyptian magic (von Dassow, 2008, 145-148). These concepts
were preserved in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, concerned with funerary rites and spells for
the dead to remember to use in the afterlife, but they were also based on the idea that words
themselves had power. Indeed, throughout the Mediterranean, the idea that names had power
was a crucial concept: For example, the prayers to Marduk involved chanting some of his divine
names, and it was imagined that if one knew all of the names of Bel Marduk one could control
even the gods (Oshima, 2011, 44-47). The idea that Thoth, the deity of writing and knowledge,
and Heka, the deity (and incarnation) of magic, had to keep the book of fate protected was also
an important idea: Even a mortal could with the divine intonations and the proper names of
things control the world. Egyptian folk magic would involve the usage of minor hexes and
charms, again based on the idea of glyphs and wards.
Further, the Egyptians and Babylonians shared with the Japanese the idea that the words
that were spoken had a divine origin and were somehow given to man by the gods. Heka in
certain versions of Egyptian cosmology was the first god after the creator deity made the world
(von Dassow, 2008, 145). Memphite Theology similarly had Ptah Tatenen create the world with
the written word (von Dassow, 2008, 145). The Egyptians and the Japanese Shinto therefore
share not just the idea that words had special power but that words were somehow part of the
fabric of reality.
It is vital, however, to note that while the concept of words as being divine and connected
to the universe were similar, the Egyptians did not share the animistic world view of the Shinto
(Doniger, 1993, 270). It was not just natural objects that had a spirit that was their own, but also
man-made artifacts. Rocks, mountains, streams and rivers, animals, “swords, jewels... branches
of the sacred tree” and numerous other physical objects had a spirit: Indeed, everything could be
said to have a spirit (Doniger, 1993, 270).The “vital energy” that was in people was in these
inanimate objects as well.
Another aspect of Shinto which should be understood carefully is onmyodo (Lunning,
2008, 33-37). Onmyodo is a concept that begins with Taoist inspiration: It borrows from the I
Ching and its trigrams, the Chinese concept of the elements and of astrology, Chinese deities, the
Yin and Yang and wu xing (Lunning, 2008, 33). Buddhism further influenced the concept of
onmyodo (Kitagawa, 1987, 267).
Onmyodo represents a key part of Japanese religion in general and Shinto in specific: It is
deeply “syncretic” (Kitagawa, 1987, 267). It's hard to tell with any Japanese tradition where
Shinto and native Japanese practices begin and Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese cultural
practices end. Buddhist sutras and the recitation of the nembetsu, for example, were used in both
written and spoken form as spells, and were believed to be able to dispel demons; similarly,
Buddha statues were believed to have intrinsic magical properties (Kitagawa, 1987, 267). This
idea of magic is certainly not native to Buddhism (though esoteric Buddhism certainly had such
concepts) but is a unique part of the interaction with the Shinto culture in Japan. Moreover, like
any mystical tradition, onmyodo has changed over time, being more or less formal, etc.
Onmyodo involved many elements, from fortunetelling (which involved to some extent a
telescoping of a host of Chinese Taoist practices into one element) to magic, but ultimately
onmyodo represented a belief system that had heavily animistic elements.
In any case, even putting aside the obvious and well-explained parallels between
onmyodo on the one hand and various Chinese and Korean mystical practices on the other,
onmyodo can also be compared to certain shamanic forms in other cultures such as the Hopi and
even Voodoo (Wilby, 2005). Shamans in cultures across the world believed that they could heal
the sick by correcting spiritual imbalances in the soul and exorcising negative spirits, keep away
spirit invaders which could be viewed as demonic or malevolent, exorcise ghosts of the human
dead, and enter the spirit world. These ideas are all present in onmyodo to some extent.
The distinction between onmyodo and these other spiritual practices may lie to some
degree in the formality that Chinese culture brought. Just as the Taoists took an esoteric and
simple idea of the flowing nature of reality inherent in the philosophical concept of the Tao to a
highly complicated blend of science, alchemy, divination, and other tools, so too do the onmyodo
(with influences still seen today with Japanese fortunetellers remaining a very real part of
Japanese culture) take the complicated and syncretic cosmology of the Japanese religion and use
a highly complicated system as a result.
However, these distinctions, though real, are not strong enough to prevent even Japanese
cultural creators from noticing these remarkable similarities (Dawson, 2010, 165-175). For
example: The Japanese manga and anime series Shaman King likens the practices of Native
American shamans, onmyodo, Dr. Faust and Western magic, Chinese spiritual magic, and
numerous other concepts into one mythology. The series predicates its cosmology on the strong
similarities between Native American and Japanese ideas of conjuring and controlling spirits,
creating fetishistic weapons and devices (whether it be the sword of a samurai or a ghost dance
shirt), etc. The idea of shikigami in the show and in onmyodo is especially comparable to various
animistic practices.
It is clear, then, that many aspects of Shinto can be compared to other cultures that the
Japanese had no direct contact with. Onmyodo can be compared to a host of shamanic practices,
especially those derived from contact with the Americas, and kotodama can be compared to
Egyptian magic. The fact that Japanese mysticism was so deeply ingrained into all of the
spiritual traditions in the country and can be compared to such wildly different foreign traditions
is a truly remarkable fact about the culture.
Works Cited
Dang, P.T. and Seiser, L. (2006). Advanced Aikido. Tuttle Publishing.
Dawson, A. (2010). Summoning the Spirits. I.B. Tauris Press.
Doniger, W. (1993). Asian Mythologies. University of Chicago Press.
Kitagawa, J. (1987). On Understanding Japanese Religion. Princeton University Press.
Lunning, F. (2008). Limits of the Human. University of Minnesota Press.
Mills, K.R. and Taylor, W.B. (1998). Colonial Spanish America. Rowman & Littlefield: New
York, NY.
Oshima, T. (2011). Babylonian Prayers to Marduk. Mohr Siebeck.
Teruyoshi, Y. (2007). Kotodama. Encyclopedia of Shinto.
von Dassow, E. (2008). The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Chronicle Books.
Wilby, E. (2005). Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. Sussex Academic Press: United Kingdom.
