Shamanism in Japan survives today mainly in three living threads: the itako, blind female mediums who summon the dead to speak at Mount Osore, the miko who serve at Shinto shrines, and the yamabushi, mountain ascetics who practise Shugendo. None of these call themselves shamans, and Shinto itself is not a shamanic religion. But underneath all three sits the same old idea, kamigakari: that a god or spirit can descend into a human body and speak through it directly.
I write this as an outside observer. My own training is in Mongolian, Siberian and core shamanic lineages, not in any Japanese tradition. What follows is a respectful account of practices that are, in one important case, genuinely disappearing, and deserve to be understood accurately rather than romanticised.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Ko-Shinto | “Old Shinto”, the animist, pre-institutional layer underneath organised Shinto |
| Kamigakari | Possession by a kami (god or spirit), the concept underneath itako, miko and Shugendo trance |
| Itako | Blind or visually impaired female mediums, based around Mount Osore, who channel the dead |
| Miko | Shrine maidens, historically oracular mediums, today mostly ritual assistants |
| Shugendo | A mountain ascetic path blending Shinto nature worship with esoteric Buddhism |
| Yamabushi | The practitioners of Shugendo: “those who lie down in the mountains” |
What is Ko-Shinto, and how does it relate to shamanism?
Ko-Shinto, literally “old Shinto”, is the animist substrate underneath Japan’s organised religion: a world in which mountains, rivers, trees and ancestors are all kami, living presences rather than symbols. Before Shinto had shrines, priests and a bureaucracy, communities related to these presences through direct, often ecstatic contact rather than fixed liturgy.
This matters for a simple reason: Shinto as it is practised today, with its calendar of festivals and its priesthood, is not a shamanic religion. But it carries shamanic-type elements inside it, inherited from that older layer, and the clearest of these is the belief that a kami can enter a person and speak. That single belief, kamigakari, is the thread that connects everything else in this article.
Who are the itako, and why is the tradition dying out?
The itako are blind or visually impaired women, traditionally from the Tohoku region in northern Japan, trained from childhood by an older itako to perform kuchiyose, literally “mouth-summoning”: calling a dead person’s spirit into their own body so the spirit can speak, in its own voice and manner, to grieving relatives.
Their best-known stage is the Osorezan Taisai, an annual festival held in July at Mount Osore in Aomori Prefecture, a volcanic landscape of sulphurous vents and pale ash that has been understood for centuries as a gateway to the afterlife. Families queue for hours to sit in front of an itako and hear a message from a parent, a child or a spouse who has died, often including details and turns of phrase the itako could not plausibly know in advance.
I want to be honest about where this tradition actually stands, because many articles online quietly skip over it: the itako are dying out. Historically, blindness in rural Tohoku pushed girls toward this one respected, financially viable path, apprenticed for years to a senior itako. That social pattern has largely disappeared, along with the apprenticeship structure that depended on it. The practising itako left today are elderly, their numbers are small, and almost no one is training to replace them. Within a generation, the role as it has existed for centuries may simply end. That is not a dramatic flourish. It is the plain demographic reality reported by the handful of researchers and journalists who have gone to Mount Osore in recent years and asked.
What do miko do today, and how is that different from their historical role?
A miko today is almost always a young shrine assistant: she sells charms, performs ceremonial dances called miko mai, and helps priests run rituals. This is a largely ceremonial, non-trance role, and it is worth being precise about that, because the historical miko was something considerably more dramatic.
In ancient and medieval Japan, miko were oracular mediums who entered trance and let a kami speak through them directly, advising rulers, diagnosing illness and settling disputes with the god’s own words. Japan’s early chronicles describe shamanic queens and priestesses acting in exactly this capacity. Over centuries, as Shinto became institutionalised under state control, the miko’s role was steadily narrowed from active channel to ceremonial attendant. The modern miko you see at a shrine today, in white and red robes, selling omikuji fortune slips, is the quiet, secularised descendant of a figure who once spoke with a god’s voice in front of an emperor.
What is Shugendo, and what do yamabushi actually do?
Shugendo is a mountain ascetic path, traditionally founded by the semi-legendary En no Gyoja in the seventh century, that fuses Shinto reverence for sacred mountains with esoteric Buddhist practice. Its practitioners, the yamabushi, literally “those who lie down in the mountains”, pursue power and purification through deliberate physical hardship: long pilgrimages along routes such as the Kumano Kodo, standing under freezing waterfalls, fasting, and night walks through remote terrain.
The logic is close to shamanic practice in one important respect: the yamabushi does not read about transformation, he puts his body through it directly, and comes back changed, carrying something he can offer to others, blessings, protection rituals, exorcism. The method is austerity rather than drumming or possession, but the underlying shape, deliberately altering the body and mind in order to bring something useful back for the community, is recognisably the same pattern found in shamanic traditions worldwide.
Is Shinto itself a shamanic religion?
No, not as it is practised today. Shinto has priests, shrines, a liturgical calendar and no single founder or doctrine in the way a Western religion does, but it functions as an organised, communal religion rather than a shamanic practice built around individual trance and journeying. What it does have, inherited from the older Ko-Shinto layer and still visible at its edges, is a genuine comfort with the idea that gods speak through people directly. The itako, the historical miko and the yamabushi are where that older belief is still being lived out, each in a different form.
Where this sits next to the practice I teach
What strikes me most about Japan’s shamanic-type traditions is how little they resemble each other even within one small country: kuchiyose is possession, miko mai is now mostly dance and ceremony, Shugendo is austerity rather than trance at all. It is a useful reminder, one I come back to often, that shamanism was never one thing, even within a single culture.
If it is the drum-led journey rather than possession or austerity that draws you, that is the doorway I actually teach. You can read about the method itself in what shamanism is, and start learning it directly in the Elements of Shamanism training.
Frequently asked questions about shamanism in Japan
Yes, a small number still perform kuchiyose, most visibly at the annual Osorezan Taisai festival at Mount Osore. But the tradition is genuinely dying out: the practising itako are elderly, and the apprenticeship system that once trained young blind women into the role has largely disappeared.
Not today. The historical miko of ancient and medieval Japan was an oracular medium who entered trance and spoke as a kami. The modern miko working at a shrine is a ceremonial assistant, performing ritual dance and shrine duties, with no active trance practice.
Yamabushi follow Shugendo, a mountain ascetic path combining Shinto mountain worship with esoteric Buddhism. Their practice centres on deliberate physical austerity, pilgrimage, fasting and standing under waterfalls, undertaken to purify and transform the practitioner rather than to induce possession.
No. Shinto today is an organised religion with priests, shrines and a ritual calendar, not a shamanic practice. It carries shamanic-type elements, particularly the belief in kamigakari, spirit possession, inherited from the older, pre-institutional Ko-Shinto layer beneath it.
Kamigakari means a kami, a god or spirit, descending into and speaking through a human being. It is the underlying concept behind kuchiyose, the historical trance role of the miko, and much of Japanese folk religion’s dealings with spirit possession more broadly.
About the author. Carolin Mallmann is a shamanic practitioner and teacher and the founder of One Shamanism. She trained in Mongolian and Siberian lineages and in Core Shamanism with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, and teaches practitioners internationally.
Shamanic work supports, but does not replace, medical or psychological treatment.
