Nagoshi no Harae: The summer Shinto ritual that most Japanese people don't even know about
We are now at the halfway point of 2025, and it certainly has been… a year. But did you know there's a special Shinto ritual that lets you purify all of the bad energy you've accumulated in the first half of the year?
Chances are you haven't because according to a survey, about 80 percent of Japanese people have never even heard of it and an additional 14 percent only have a vague notion of it. It's called Nagoshi no Harae and on this day some Shinto shrines set up a large ring made of straw called a chinowa near the entrance of the shrine. Walking through it is said to have a purifying effect.
Another custom is the hitogata. This is a paper doll meant to give a human form to the divine. By writing your name and age on the doll and then wiping it on yourself and/or blowing on it, it picks up the negative spirits from you. You then leave it with the shrine, which will dispose of both the doll and the bad energy it received.
▼ A chinowa (left) and hitogata (right)
This all works on the Shinto concept of kegare which is a kind of negative energy or spiritual impurity that people can acquire not only through doing bad deeds but through things beyond their control, like going to a funeral. It's pretty hard to go through life without picking up a little kegare here and there, and if enough of it builds up inside you, it can manifest as bad luck.
So, it's considered good practice to regularly clear out your kegare and thus ward off the bad luck that comes with it. One such way is the Nagoshi no Harae ritual but that's only one day a year, and since it's on a Monday this year, it can be hard for a lot of people to fit it into their schedules.
As luck would have it, this information comes to us from Takami Kato, a fortune teller and author of "Money Luck Yearbook: 365 Days of Money Attracting Behavior Manga Manual." He's basically just applying harmless Shinto philosophies as a purported way to improve your luck.
Kato himself was once a very successful businessman but as a result of his own hubris he began to alienate others which led to a spiral into depression and massive debt. After hitting rock bottom, he changed his outlook on life to helping others by sharing his experiences and suddenly found that his luck in both personal happiness and finances also improved.
So, even if you can't make it to a shrine in time for Nagoshi no Harae, Kato suggests lots of other ways to purify yourself of kegare. The first and easiest way is plain old salt. It's not just for sumo wrestlers anymore, and you can pretty much use it any way you want whether it's kept in a neat little pile, added to your bath, kept in your pocket, or even just eaten, so go ahead and have those pretzels because the coarser the salt the better.
Another way is simply by saying 'I'm sorry' for any transgressions you might have had. It doesn't necessarily have to be to anyone directly, but you at least get some of it off your chest because harbored guilt is a breeding ground for kegare. In a similar vein, you can also say 'thank you,' but say it to yourself for making it through the past six months and just surviving, which is good enough.
That's the gist of it really, it's mostly the idea of positive thinking and generally good advice whether you believe in kegare or not. Just be careful about your salt intake because all the Shinto purification rituals in the world won't wash away high blood pressure or kidney stones.
Source, images: PR Times
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