The Invention of a New Religion

"The Invention of a New Religion" presents research on the establishment of Shintoism in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century. The author of this book was a professor at the Tokyo Imperial University who happened to live and work in Japan in times of great political changes. In this book, he states that the Shinto cult was established in Japan to supplant Buddhist impulses. The new religion aimed to change the formerly free-willing people, accustomed to revolts against royal dynasties, into a society that became docile to vertical practices of power and was successfully used as a powerful political tool. The implanting of Shintoism coincided with the attacks on university scholars and intellectuals who denounced the new religion.