Helen Hardacre offers for the first time in any language a sweeping, comprehensive history of Shinto, the tradition that is practiced by some 80% of the Japanese people and underlies the institution of the Emperor.

Explores church/state question in Japan. Focuses on the ordinary people whose lives are affected by the ongoing struggle of the Japanese to define their national character and policy.

The description for this book, Kurozumikyo and the New Religions of Japan, will be forthcoming.

Abortion has been practiced throughout Japanese history and, since its postwar legalization, has come to be widely accepted. Its legal status is not under attack. Contemporary religious groups do not mobilize against it, nor do political parties compose their platforms around the issue. Yet in the 1970s religious entrepreneurs across all doctrinal boundaries mounted a surprisingly successful tabloid campaign to popularize a religious ritual for aborted fetuses called mizuko kuyo. Using images derived from fetal photography, they published frightening accounts of fetal wrath and spiritual attacks, prompting many women to seek ritual atonement for abortions performed even decades earlier.

This 1988 book is a multidisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the legend that has evolved around the figure of Maitreya.

Emerging from a conference on Communities in Question: Religion and Authority in East and Southeast Asia, held in Hua Hin, Thailand, May 1989, this volume examines some of the tensions and conflicts between states and religious communities over the scope of religious views of the communities, the