T was my privilege in June 1952 to spend three weeks in Japan in an intensive study of Japanese religions as I found them affected by war and communism. I did it almost wholly through personal interviews with religious leaders to whom I had an unusual approach, since my visit was made a definite inter-faith project by the Japan Religions League. This organization is a delegated body made up of representatives of the National Buddhist Federation, The Japan Christian Council, The National Shrine Association, The Sectarian Shinto Association, and the National New Religions Organization. I was thus granted an entree into the religious life of Japan that would be very difficult to get in any other way. I am reporting in a book, War, Communism, and World Religions, to be published by Harper & Brothers, on my specific study, but at the editor's suggestion I am bringing together here some information of a more general nature and some general impressions I received from my contacts with not only many religious leaders, but others in the educational, journalistic and political fields with whom I was able to talk. First let me write of Shinto. I was, I confess, somewhat surprised to discover as I talked with Shinto leaders, the degree to which they have recovered from the extremely devastating effects of the war and the resultant disestablishment of Shinto as the national faith. I recognize that they had not regarded the state ceremonial as religion, technically, but there is little doubt that as Holtom and others argued, it was effectively, at least in the minds of the people, a definite religious faith. An interesting statement I found in a pamphlet published by a committee which is raising an enormous sum for the re-building of the Grand Shrine at Ise refers to the pretext that the Shrine ceremonial was not a religion. . Note the word pretext, which was actually used, by persons so intimately associated with the Grand Shrine as to be getting out propaganda material for raising funds. There is no question that now it is regarded as religious, though the only significant change that has occurred is that the shrines no longer receive any government subsidy, and that no government official may, qua official, participate in the ceremonial. And the shrines are at very definite pains to let it be known that they are religious. There is no other excuse now for their existence, nor will they get the support of the people unless they are performing a religious function, for the national function is no longer legally to be served. I was surprised to discover what perhaps I should have known, that government support in a financial way was not a very important factor in many shrines. Some got less than 1% of their support thus, though a few were heavily subsidized. These latter are having a hard time to recoup their losses. Many have quite recovered financially, for * CHARLES S. BRADEN is head of the Department of the History and Literature of Religion in Northwestern University. He was the 1952 president of N.A.B.I.