Kyōha Shintō

Kyōha Shintō (Jap., ‘sectarian Shinto’). A group of independent Shinto sects which began their activities in the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods. When the government created State Shinto (kokka shintō), which embraced most of the Shinto shrines, it did not wish to incorporate these new groups but created the special category of Kyōha Shintō so that it could regard them as private religious organizations. These thirteen sects originated in close relation to peasant movements, devotional associations, magico-religious practices, and ideas about changing the world through religious practices. The thirteen traditional Shinto sects can be classified in several different groupings: pure Shinto sects (Shintō Taikyō, Shinrikyō, and Izumo Ōyashirokyō), Confucianistic Shinto sects (Shintō Shūseiha and Shintō Taiseikyō), purification sects (Shinshūkyō and Misogikyō), mountain-worship sects (Jikkōkyō, Fusōkyō, and Ontakekyō), and faith-healing sects (Kurozumikyō, Konkōkyō, and Tenrikyō). The Sect Shinto groups remain active with large numbers of adherents today. In addition, some forty-eight new Shinto sects that have sprung up since the war, with 2 million followers, are generally tabulated as ‘New Sect Shinto’ (Shin Kyōha Shintō).