Personally, I don't think people can understand Shinto unless they experience it for themselves...I agree, but even with that there is a potential problem with people coloring their perceptions with notions of religion and/or spirituality that they already hold that may have little or nothing to do with the religious experience in other cultural settings. Of course, that is a common issue in a variety of contexts, and individuals that are aware of this potential pitfall has to deal with it as best they can...

Thanks for the pictures Yamazaki, very cool. For some reason, like Hakuzo, I couldn't view that image from the blog. It says 「画像が見つかりません。｣. The main blog site has an image that shows up like that too...

Hakuzo NightFox, I believe you are referring to what is sometimes called the nyoi houju 如意宝珠. If you ran a google image search using the kanji you'd find some pictures, but most of them will probably be from Buddhist art and iconography.
Anyway, you can find some artistic depictions of it at the following site:
If you just need to show some people some pics so they know what you're talking about, then I hope that helps.