The dates and the frequencies of these services vary widely depending on the region of Japan.
[3] A special belief connected with sorei is the notion that the memorial services result in the ancestral spirit successively losing its individuality, eventually becoming an entirely deindividualized part of the collective of sorei.
[1] However, depending on the region, people may think that these services are merely aimed at properly disposing or pacifying the ancestral spirit.
[2] The folklorist Yanagita Kunio has asserted that the rituals and ideas around sorei could be fitted into a general scheme whereby ancestors become not only protectors, but kami or ujigami.
However, while it is possible that in the distant past such a development with regard to certain ancestors has occurred, according to other scholars that cannot be proven.