Ise
Ise Shinto Temple, Geku Outer Shrine, Shinto priests at entrance to shrine
Since ancient times, the Japanese people have lived in accordance with nature. All over Japan, there are consecrated rocks and ever-green trees in which Kami (supernatural beings) reside, as well as sanctuaries, generally called jinja, in which Kami are enshrined and which usually consist of a building surrounded by a grove of trees. Ac-cording to Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, Kami are wor-shipped in matsuri, which include solemn ceremonial occasions as well as festivals at the local level.
There are more than 100,000 Shinto sanctuaries in Japan, which are at the center of spiritual life of the country. Historically, Jingu, the Grand Shrine of Ise, has held the most honored place among all the Shinto temples. It is considered to be the spiritual home of the Japa-nese people, most of whom wish to make a pilgrimage to Jingu at least once during their lifetime. In fact, more than six million pilgrims and worshippers come to Jingu every year.
Ise, Geku Outer Shrine
Popularly known as “O-Ise-san” or officially as Jingu, Ise Jingu is prin-cipally composed of the Naiku and Geku shrines, where the supreme deity Amaterasu Omikami and the great deity Toyouke Omikami are worshiped, respectively. Both the Naiku and Geku shrines are set amidst ancient forest groves with hundreds of towering Cryptomeria trees. In addition, Jingu also includes fourteen auxiliary sanctuaries, as well as one hundred and nine lesser sanctuaries.
Access to both the Naiku and Geku shrines is strictly limited to certain high ranking priests and priestesses and members of the royal family, with the common public allowed to see little more than the thatched roofs of the central structures, hidden behind four tall wooden fences. The High Priest or Priestess of Jingu shrine complex must come from the Japanese Imperial Family, and is responsible for watching over the Shrines.
Ise, Naiku Inner Shrine, pilgrims at Kotaijinge main shrine
It is believed that the Jingu shrines of Naiku and Geku were first con-structed in the fifth century A.D. Since the seventh century A.D., the Naiku, Geku, and their respective auxiliary sanctuaries have been re-built every twenty years and the symbols of the Kami they enshrine have been ceremoniously transferred in solemn nocturnal ceremonies from the old sanctuary buildings to newly reconstructed buildings in their adjoining sanctuaries. This ceremonial system, referred to as Shikinen Sengu, is thought of as an elaborate Kannamesai (Offering of the First Fruits) ceremony. It involves the reconstruction of the sanctuary buildings as well as the renewal of the sacred apparel and treasures, which are carried to the new sanctuary buildings along with the symbol of the Kami on the occasion of the Sengyo (Transfer) cer-emony. By performing the Shikinen Sengu every twenty years, the Japanese people receive renewed blessings from their Kami and pray for peace in the world.
The hills beyond Jingu are part of the sacred grounds of Naiku and until the Middle Ages, all of the timber used in the reconstruction of the sanctuaries of Jingu, on the occasion of the Shikinen Sengu, was obtained from these forests. Since that time, however, the 13,500 trees necessary for the Shikinen Sengu have been obtained from forests in other regions of the country. During the Shikinen Sengu, the former sanctuary buildings are deconstructed. Their materials, which are considered sacred, are distributed to other sanctuaries in the Ise region and elsewhere in Japan to be used in construction and recon-struction of other temple buildings.
Ise, Naiku Inner Shrine, pilgrims at Kotaijinge main shrine
In the lead-up to the rebuilding of the shrines, a number of festivals are held to mark special events. The Okihiki Festival is held in the spring over two consecutive years and involves people from surround-ing towns dragging huge wooden logs through the streets of Ise to Naiku and Geku. The present buildings, dating from 1993, are the 61st iteration to date and are scheduled for rebuilding in 2013.
The most important annual festival held at Ise Shrine is the Kannamesai Festival. Held in October each year, this ritual makes of-ferings of the first harvest of crops for the season to Amaterasu. An imperial envoy carries the offering of rice harvested by the Emperor himself to Ise, as well as five-colored silk cloth and other materials, called heihaku.
Approximately fifteen kilometers east of the city of Ise, and directly on the seacoast, is the small shrine of Futami Okitama. Two rocks rising from the sea about one-hundred meters from the shrine are known as Meotoiwa. The Meotoiwa, which comprises the 9 meter-high Male Rock and the 4 meter-high Female Rock connected together with an enormous rope, has been a famous symbol of matchmaking as well as a place of worship since ancient times. The site is considered aus-picious for married or courting couples.
Meotoiwa, Okitama Shrine, painting of sacred rocks at entrance of shrine
Meotoiwa, Okitama Shrine
Meotoiwa-iwa rocks, Okitama Shrine
Planet Earth is an enormously complex entity experiencing multiple energetic phenomena that interact with human beings in both known and unknown ways. Atmospheric conditions, temperature variations and sunlight intensity are examples of such energy phenomena that profoundly affect humans both physically and psychologically. The same is true of various geophysical phenomena such as magnetism, radioactivity, gravity, the presence of subsurface water, the presence of concentrated mineral ores, volcanic activity, earthquakes, tremors, and other seismic activity, ultrasound, ionization, earth lights phenom-ena and other geophysical anomalies. Research has shown that many ancient sacred sites are located directly upon or in close proximity to areas known to have unusual levels of these various kinds of geo-physical phenomena. Paul Devereux comments that,
In Iceland, for example, the main national site, the tenth-century AD Althing, was built not merely on a fault, but on the rift formed between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates – an extension of the mid-Atlantic ridge. In Ohio, in the United States, the 2,000-year old Serpent Mound, an inexplicable earthwork a quarter of a mile long, was built over a geological site unique in that country: due to volcanic action or meteoric impact it is a highly compressed area of intensive faulting….The greatest megalithic complex in the world, around Car-nac in Brittany, France, is hemmed in by fault systems, and occupies France’s most volatile tectonic region….In England and Wales all stone circles are situated within a mile of a surface fault or an associ-ated tectonic intrusion….Clearly, the association of such important sites with such distinctive geological features would not have hap-pened by chance. (2)
Devereux also writes,
If we are not dealing with some bizarre coincidence, what could the ancients have been seeking at fault zones? The first, obvious answer is that these parts of the Earth’s crust have been subjected to consid-erable tectonic forces; they are natural “energy zones”. Faults tend to have high mineralization around them affecting local electric and magnetic fields, and to be points of weakness where stress and strain in the crust can manifest, causing energy effects within and above the ground. (3)
In nearly every region of the world ancient people revered particular rock outcroppings, springs, caves and forest groves. Energy-monitoring studies have revealed that many of these sites do indeed have unusual geophysical energy anomalies relative to the surround-ing countryside. Not having scientific devices to measure the high-energy fields of these sites, how did prehistoric people determine their precise locations? Perhaps an answer may be found in the human faculty of sensing; ancient people somehow felt the energies of the sites. While this idea may at first seem preposterous, it gains credibil-ity when we learn that neuroscientists estimate contemporary human beings use no more than 5-15 percent of their inherent mental facul-ties. Perhaps prehistoric people used, consciously or unconsciously, other parts of the brain that allowed them to sense the energy fields of the sacred sites. It is common knowledge that human beings develop skills and understandings uniquely appropriate to the place and time in which they live. Ancient people, living in harmony with the Earth and dependent upon its bounty for all their needs, may have developed skills that modern people no longer use, cultivate or even recognize. Therefore, in the same way any of us today can sense variations in temperature – simply a change in the thermal energy field – prehistoric people could perhaps sense subtle geophysical energies at particular places on the land.
To give further credibility to this hypothesis, consider the ability of var-ious animal species to travel with unerring accuracy across great dis-tances. Pigeons are able to home from hundreds of miles away, salm-on return to their birthplace after swimming halfway around the world and swallows return to a previous year’s nesting place after journeys of 10,000 miles. How is this possible? Unable to explain the phenom-enon, scientists have suggested that these animals have some kind of brain mechanism that gives them the ability to navigate by sensing the electromagnetic fields that crisscross the planet. In other words, these species have a “turned on” brain and sensing faculty in relation to the energetic environment in which they live. Is it not conceivable that the species Homo sapiens, with its enormously complex brain, has a simi-lar (though currently mostly unused) sensing faculty? Possessing such a faculty does not necessarily imply having a conscious awareness or understanding of the sensing process. A bird can return to its nesting place without having (as far as we know) any conscious mental awareness of the behavior. Prehistoric people could likewise have been attracted to the power places on the Earth without even being aware of the attraction.
The ancients sensed the places of power but how then would they ex-plain them? Not having the scientific knowledge to understand the ge-ological causes of their felt experiences of power place energies, pre-historic people might have sought to explain those energies with myths and legends about spirits, deities, gods and goddesses, and magical powers. The sacred sites of antiquity were those places where spirits entered from otherworldly realms. In order to more fully understand the powers of these places, it is important that we study the connection between the existence of localized geophysical anomalies and the so-called paranormal phenomena spoken of in the miracles and legends of holy places.
Martin Gray
My career as a photographer of sacred architecture and pilgrimage sites began when I was a young boy. My father was in the US diplomatic service and because of this I was privileged to travel widely around the world.