This book is a translation of a text based on my doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology in 2010 under the title Kindai Nihon no shūkyō gensetsu to sono keifu: Shūkyō, kokka, shintō (The Genealogy of Religious Discourse in Modern Japan: Religion, State, Shintō); some revi-sions have been added.…