Part 15: Kato Genchi and "Mikadoism" in A Study of Shinto: The Religion of the Japanese Nation

Banner for Part 16 Kato Genchi and Mikadoism in A Study of Shinto The Religion of the Japanese Nation

This is part 15 of my series on Shinto as a civil religion, you can find the rest of the series here.

Kato Genchi was one of the most prominent Shinto scholars of the 20th century. In 1921, he was appointed as a lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University, where he taught Shinto studies. Later, in 1931, he became a professor at Kokugakuin University, specializing in Shinto and comparative religion. In 1926, he published A Study of Shinto: The Religion of the Japanese Nation, a book aimed at explaining Shinto to an English-speaking audience, including the global community and the English-literate elite in Japan.

In the book, Genchi identified Shinto with what he called Mikadoism, or emperor worship. He stated that Shinto had culminated in the worship of the Japanese emperor as a divine being, both during his lifetime and after his death:

“Shinto… has culminated in Mikadoism or the worship of the […] Japanese Emperor as a divinity, during his lifetime as well as after his death.”

Genchi also linked Shinto directly to Japanese national identity:

“[…] Shinto, inseparably connected with the national ideals of the Japanese people.”

He argued that the Japanese people willingly sacrificed everything for their divine emperor, describing this as an expression of their religious consciousness:

“[…] it is the lofty self-denying enthusiastic sentiment of the Japanese people toward their august Ruler, believed to be something divine, rendering them capable of offering up anything and everything, all dearest to them, willingly, […] All this is nothing but the actual manifestation of the religious consciousness of the Japanese people.”

If this description is accurate, it reflects a radical shift between the end of The Great Promulgation Campaign in 1873 and the situation in 1926. During this time, the emperor’s authority expanded from being rooted in Shinto and the constitution to including the devotion and worship of the Japanese people themselves. This complete consolidation of authority remained intact until January 1, 1946, when the emperor renounced his divine status in a public address under the supervision of the American occupation following World War II.

Based on Genchi’s observations, by 1926, the cult surrounding the emperor had become deeply embedded within Shinto, indicating that the civil religion centered on him had been successfully established. Shinto had become not just a religious system but a cornerstone of Japanese national identity, transforming into emperor worship.

The national ideals Genchi described were likely those promoted during The Great Promulgation Campaign, which were rooted in kokugaku (national learning) and kokutai (national identity). Although the campaign initially struggled to gain widespread acceptance, these ideals appear to have become fully integrated into the national consciousness by the 1920s, making the emperor a central figure in Japan’s religious and cultural life.

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