CEVAP:

It is the natural religion of Japan and was once its national religion. It includes the worship of kami or spirits. Some kami are local, and the spirit is of a particular place – like Amaterasu, the Sun goddess, or Mount Fuji. This religion has no established dogma or unique book, no holiest place, no person or kami viewed as the most sacred, and no well-defined customary prayers. As an alternative, Shinto offers worshippers an assortment of rituals and methods intended to control the relations between living people and the spirits. The key leitmotif in the Shinto religion is love and reverence for ordinary artifacts and processes. So, a waterfall or a rock might arise to be observed as a spirit (kami) of that place, and abstract things represent development and fertility. Sacred objects, such as rocks or trees, can be documented by the individual ropes and white paper strips dedicated to them. People enter shrines by passing through a distinguishing gate (torii). These gates are symbolic fences separating the living people from their spiritual-driven worlds. There are often two guardian animals on each side of the gate, defending the entrance.