Japan has often been acknowledged as a major example of successful cultural, in particular religious, syncretism and has, in modern times, projected this positive self-image to the outside world. In a long process of mutual accommodation, several religious and value systems from China have permeated Japanese culture to be amalgamated with indigenous ritual practices and idea systems. This has led to the coexistence of Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and a plethora of New Religions, as well as folk-religious practices. Each of these has been allocated a specific position in the life-trajectory of the individual, as well as a niche in the social domain of different forms of community organization. By testing some hypotheses about the historical trajectory of religious coexistence against the present-day example of the New Religions, the paper explores some of the preconditions for such coexistence in the future. It also examines the different forms which the syncretistic mixing of ritual practices may take, and the correlates in the value-system—and in the type of community—the diverse religious forms seem to engender or attempt to satisfy. The Japanese case seems to raise some important theoretical questions as to the distinction between syncretism and pluralism in the framework of exclusioity and inclustity for processes of cultural diffusion. Therefore, the paper concludes with some general observations on the reflexive dimensions of self-identity and otherness in Japanese discourse and their relevance for post-modern theories of cultural hybridity.