After Michizane's death, the capital was struck by a series of disasters: his chief enemies died, the imperial palace was repeatedly hit by lightning and fire, and plague and drought followed. These calamities were widely interpreted as the work of Michizane's angry, unquiet spirit, an onryo or vengeful ghost, taking revenge for the injustice done to him. To appease and quiet this dangerous spirit, the court posthumously restored and even raised his rank, cleared his name, and enshrined him as a deity, building the great shrines of Kitano Tenmangu in Kyoto and Dazaifu Tenmangu near the place of his death. Pacified and honoured, the wronged official was transformed into the benevolent god Tenjin.
Because Michizane had in life been the supreme scholar of his generation, Tenjin became above all the god of scholarship, learning and calligraphy, and to this day he is the deity to whom Japanese students turn, praying at his shrines and hanging up votive tablets for success in their examinations. The plum blossom, which Michizane loved and wrote of, is his emblem. Tenjin's story is the outstanding example of the Japanese belief in goryo, the angry spirits of those who died wronged, and of the ritual means by which such a spirit could be transformed from a source of disaster into a protecting and beneficent god.