On Thursday evening, Japan's Emperor Naruhito will dress in pure white robes and be ushered into a dark wooden hall for his last major enthronement rite: spending the night with a goddess.
Centred on Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess from whom conservatives believe the emperor has descended, the "Daijosai" is the most overtly religious ceremony of the emperor's accession rituals after his father Akihito's abdication.
Although Naruhito's grandfather Hirohito, in whose name soldiers fought World War Two, was later stripped of his divinity, the ritual continues.