Hajimeshūkyō (初め宗教, First Religion) is a major religious system of belief, philosophy and thought originating in Hanamura in the 5th century BCE.

Classified as a polytheistic and animistic religion, Hajimeshūkyō revolves around the worship of the Seishin, or Spirit that inhabits all living beings, from animals and plants to humans, in addition to important locations around the country. By communing with nature and living in harmony with it, practitioners — known as Hajimeshūkyists — believe that the Divine Spirit, Shinrei will bring favor to them in life. Most worship comes in the form of prayer at Kamidana, household shrines devoted to individual families, and at public shrines called Kōsha. Priests known as the Shisai care for the public shrines and accommodate the gifting of drink, food and money as offerings by practitioners as a way to curry favor from the Seishin worshipped at that particular shrine. Ritualistic dances called Gishikiodori are performed by priests at the Kōsha as a means of humoring the Seishin, and other ceremonies and festivals take place throughout the year as well. Unlke many animistic religions, there is an enshrined codex of beliefs and practices called the Seisho that practitioners hold to as the religion's holy book, and practitioners also hold to the belief in an afterlife where humans transcend into pure consciousness and become Seishin in death. There are approximately eleven million practitioners of Hajimehūkyō located in Hanamura today.

Hajimehūkyō dates back to the fifth century and the teachings of village priests that would spread the teachings to the common people. Though his historicity is widely debated in academic and archaeological circles, common mythology surrounding the religion traces its origins back to the hermit monk Chiba of Hara, who is purported to have lived on Mount Eido and communed with nature during the pre-Imperial period. Regardless, the faith system began widely accelerating in practitioners during the early and middle Imperial periods, with the religion competing almost exclusively with Senzojūshi as the dominant religious focus in ancient and medieval Hanamura. The religion played a major role in the Revolution period of Hanamurese history, with the Empress and the people’s armies using the faith as a point of commonality and a rallying cry for restorative justice against the feudal land barons. Following the Revolution, the religion began to see a slow but marked decline as atheistic beliefs began to accompany the new socialist government, though the Imperial family still devotes itself to the care of the shrine located at the Imperial Estate, Summer Blossom. Modern adherents are split equally amongst pious practitioners and atheist practitioners who view the religion as a philosophy and way of life more than a system of syncretic beliefs. Considered a cultural heritage of the Hanamurese people, the government today sponsors numerous museums dedicated to preserving the heritage and history of the face through interactive exhibits and demonstrations.

The Seisho is the revered holy book of Hajimeshūkyō, containing the accumulated wisdom of the many monks and priests that have conveyed the philosophical and religious meaning of the faith down to its adherents over the centuries. First began in the 2nd century BCE and considered canonically complete by the 1st century CE, the Seisho contains four major components: the Chie, the Kyōgi, the Shiki and the Sūhai. The Chie, or Wisdom is a collection of epistles and poetry teaching of the Shinrei, the Seishin, and how to live in harmony with the many spirits of the world. Canonically the first section of the Seisho completed and the final section to see additions in the 1st century CE, the Chie is roughly fifty percent of the total content in the Seisho. The Kyōgi, by contrast, is only ten percent of the total content in the Seisho and is devoted to teaching adherents how and when to pray, what to wear to shrines, and how to construct Kamidana and Kōsha. The Shiki, or Ceremony, denotes public festivals and holidays for special spirits, with the four spirits of the world (fire, soil, water and wind) each having their own unique holidays: Shikihi, Shikidojō, Shikimizu and Shikikaze held on the autumn, spring, summer and winter solstices respectively. Other ceremonies described in the Seisho includes the festival of light, or Hikarimatsuri on the first full moon of autumn and Seijitsu, the festival of Shinrei. Finally, the Sūhai, or Worship are poems worshipping various Seishin around the breadth of creation. More than four hundred short poems, many of them haiku, are contained in the pages of the Seisho, one of the best selling books in Hanamura.

Shinrei, the Divine Spirit that encapsulates all life in the world, is the principal deity of the faith and is a major theological component of the religion. Often depicted as a young woman wearing a mantle of feathers in the visage of a Valkyrie, the actual Shinrei is believed to lack a corporeal form like other spirit beings, instead permeating the whole of creation as a life force or energy that binds everything together. Ancient practitioners used to revere the sun as Shinrei, but this belief quickly fell out of practice as the country grew and evolved. Adherents to the faith do not worship Shinrei directly, feeling that no show of worship or piety could be deemed worthy of Shinrei; instead, through the worship and devotion to the various Seishin that inhabit places in te world, both natural and manmade, adherents believe that they could curry the favor of Shinrei in this manner. Somewhat contradictorily to this, Shinrei does have a festival day on the calendar in Hanamura; known as Seijitsu, the national holiday is treated as a time for prayerful remembrance and devotion to the Seishin of the world that permeate all things and watch over humanity. Seijitsu annually falls on the first full moon in the spring, usually in late March or early April.

Though the visage of Shinrei plays a major part in the practice of Hajimeshūkyō, those adherents who are atheistic have largely downplayed the importance of the deity in the practice of the faith. For those who view the religion as a philosophical movement more than a system of divine worship, Shinrei has come to denote the universal energy that exists between beings, a concept devolved from the scientific concept of energy and matter. For these practitioners, Shinrei is not revered as a deity, but is instead respected as the nature of creation itself and an ideal through which universal balance and harmony can be achieved. Culturally speaking, Shinrei is a popular image or likeness for the broader Hanamurese culture, with the deity appearing in many forms of media over the centuries, including film, literature, poetry and theater. The most watched Hanamurese television series of all time, the eponymous Shinrei starring Yumiko Tanaka, depicts the being as the first human, fighting against evil spirits in order to propagate the species. First aired in 1976, the television miniseries was watched on its debut by approximately 25 million people in the country, or roughly 95% of the households in the country with a television set at that time.

When boiled down to the crux of the religion, Hajimeshūkyō is primarily about the worship of spirits, or Seishin that inhabit animals, objects, people, plants and trees. Virtually anything within creation is thought to have a Seishin attached to it, with the spirits within people given the highest precedence in the natural order, followed by the spirits within animals, then the spirits in nature, followed last by the various buildings and objects attached to spirits. The Seishin of nature exist immaterially within the Divine Spirit until such time as they enter a person, animal, plant or object upon their creation, existing within them until such time as the physical manifestation of the spirit (the corporeal presence) is destroyed by death or time, at which point the spirit returns to the Divine Spirit’s energy. The Seishin within people, called the Tamashī are sometimes equated with the concept of the soul, and are thought to give the distinctive characteristics of each person through their inherent natures. Those who do good in the world are said to have positive or happy Tamashī within them; conversely, those who do ill in the world are said to have angry or sad Tamashī dwelling inside. The same principle applies to the spirits in animals, Tōbutsu, with animal attacks and deaths attributed within the religion to people having offended the spirits of the animals prior to their being injured or killed. To offend the spirits of creation is a grave sin in the faith, and adherents are known to spend lavishly on offerings to priests and shrines to curry better favor from Shinrei, the Divine Spirit before they die. To live in harmony and balance with nature is considered to be key.

The Shisai are the male and female priests that man the grottoes, monasteries and shrines of the Hajimeshūkyō faith. Originally, only men were allowed to be priests and monks cloistered in monasteries, though this changed in the early-Imperial period with the advent of female priests appearing on the scene. Besides being the caretakers of the faith, priests, monks and nuns are responsible for the maintenance of the holy sites of Hajimeshūkyō, tending to them day in and day out for their entire lives. Priests, monks (called Inja) and nuns (called Shūdō) are all chaste and do not marry in their lifetimes, instead considering themselves married to the Seishin they protect and preserve at the shrine sites. The Seisho class in Hanamura is considered one of the “honored professions” for their cultural significance to the larger public and the work that they do to keep some of the country’s most important heritage sites clean and orderly. There is no central hierarchy to the faith’s priestly class, with monasteries and schools instead teaching new converts how to become members of the order. Most Seisho begin as young children sent by their parents to become priests, monks and nuns, though some people convert later in life as well. The public ceremonies and festivals associated with the religion are often manned by the Seisho, who will open the temple shrines for worship and will lead the festivities surrounding each specific festival. Seisho do not receive a salary for their work, instead living off a stipend from the government and the donations sent by practitioners upon their visits to the monasteries and shrines of Hajimeshūkyō.

Private shines (sometimes referred to as indoor shrines or house shrines) called Kamidana are the most widely used spaces for worship in Hajimeshūkyō, with virtually all major businesses and households of practitioners having them in some form or fashion. Kamidana can vary greatly in size and scope, with some shrines small enough to fit on end tables, while others are large enough to take up entire rooms. The main differentiation between Kamidana and the more widely known public shines is that no priest mans a Kamidana; they are instead devoted to household spirits or other important deities to the family or business, and they are always kept indoors out of the elements as a sign of respect to the spirits being worshipped. Each Kamidana is comprised of a base plate holding a bundle of incense sticks known as kaori on either side of the depiction of the spirit being worshipped, or the Gazō. Larger Kamidana can take up entire rooms, with much larger incense cauldrons and Gazō resembling statures of animals, objects and even people. Some people pay as much as a million maku or more for elaborate Kamidana in their home and businesses. Both the Imperial Palace in Miyamura and the Imperial Estate have Kamidana within.

Public shrines, or Kōsha, are more elaborate than their smaller interior counterparts, ranging from small grottos in the wilderness to vast temples in the cities designed to hold thousands of adherents and priests. Though there is vast architectural differences between individual Kōsha, all public shines have some commonalities that define their existence and differentiate them from Kamidana. In particular, there are three main components that all Kōsha have: the saidan, the shōchō and the yanekabā. The saidan, or altar is the massive foundation upon which the emblem, or shōchō rests – typically a large metal bowl with incense that is burned each day by the priests of the Kōsha, with a totem depicting the visage of a Seishin that the grotto or temple is designed to embody. Surrounding the altar and emblem is the physical shell of the grotto or temple, the yanekabā, which can range from a vast pagoda to a simple thatched roof for the smaller grottoes. Each Kōsha is manned by at least one Shisai, with the larger temples sometimes hosting dozens of priests performing various ceremonial duties around the saidan. Public ceremonies held throughout the year called Matsuri are popular national holidays in Hanamura fpr practitioners.