Sorei - Ancestral Spirits
The collective spirits of the ancestors who protect and guide their descendants.
Sorei refers to ancestral spirits who, after the individual identity fades through generations of memorial observances, merge into a collective protective presence. These spirits watch over the family line and receive veneration as a unified ancestral force.
The sorei of countless generations stand behind us, their combined strength our foundation.
Sorei represents the integration of individual ancestors into a unified spiritual presence.
Folk traditions
Written about in
- What Shinto says about family and ancestors
After enough generations the individual dead stop being remembered separately and merge into the sorei, a collective ancestral presence. Losing the name is not the same as losing the ancestor.