Percival Lowell

“ Then, spreading pieces of paper in a sort of Greek cross upon the mats where the bowl had been, he seated himself upon them in the nakaza's place, facing out from the shrine and prefacing his act by a short prayer, took the gohei-wand in both hands and shut his eyes. After some minutes of hushed suspense the wand suddenly twitched; the twitching grew to convulsions, the wand striking the man first on the forehead with quite irresponsible violence, and then with like frenzy on the floor. ”

“ Shintō possessions are remarkable for the multiplicity of gods that deign to descend in one and the same trance. Such divine copartnership is of course successive, since otherwise it would not be personal possession at all, but a mere composite blur of divinity, quite unrecognizable for anybody in particular. The communistic character of the possession is as singular as the constituents to it are many. Rarely does one god monopolize the trance. ”

“ Standing on one's head in the corner with one's legs straight up against the wall implies possession by the spirit of a climbing plant.
Before one pupil has finished, a second is started on his career, and then sometimes a third, which, considering the violence of their actions, very decidedly peoples the apartment. The girls are as decent as dervishes, but as to the boys, dancing dervishes are orderly, intelligent members of society by comparison. It is irresponsibility let loose. For they hurl themselves about the apartment with as utter a disregard of others as of themselves. ”

“ At that dead of night, when every sound is hushed, and even the plants, they say, lie locked in sleep, the gods can the better hear. And this, oddly enough, in spite of their being very much engaged with their own spatterings and sputterings, for the gods themselves are then taking their baths,—the gods of the mountains under their waterfalls, and the gods of the plain in the rivers thereof. In Japan, even the gods wash and are clean, and, like their human poor relations, apparently make of the bath a time of social reunion and merriment. ”

“ Religion claims no monopoly of intercourse with the unseen. What religion does claim is the ability to admit one to the very best heavenly society. For, to say nothing of mere animal spirits, there are all grades in gods, good gods and bad gods, great gods and little ones. Access to the most desirable divinities is the privilege to which the church holds the keys.
Capability to commune is thus in a general way endemic, much as salvation is held to be in some places, or infant damnation in others. And to Japanese thought the gods are very close at hand. ”

“ At this unearthly hour the poor creature must wake himself up, stagger half asleep to the waterfall or bathroom, souse himself with a dipper or be soused by the fall, while his teeth chatter a prayer and his fingers twist themselves into cabalistic knots, he himself shivering the while from top to toe ”

“ The subdued chanting by rote over and over again of words to which any thought has long since bade good-by tends in a twofold manner to mental vacuity. There is just enough mental action going on to keep the mind from thinking of anything else, and yet it is so ineffably uninteresting that attention, do what it will, inevitably nods. It is a mistake to suppose that the soothing effects of church are wholly due to sound sleep during the sermon. Any auditory routine is competent to compel it. Rhythmic monotone is as potent a lullaby as more consecrated cradlesong. ”

“ Divine possession is not limited in its applications to the curing of disease. Naturally the divine opinion is quite as valuable on other subjects as on medicine, and is consequently quite as much in demand. From the nature of the gods themselves to the weather of the coming month, anything a man may want to know is thus inquired about of deity. Due care only must be exercised to grade the importance of the question to the importance of the gods. For gods of high rank stand as much on their dignity as men, both in the matter of coming and in the matter of talking after they have come. ”

“ Shams there are, of course, which is scarcely surprising when we consider the great vogue the act of possession enjoys. But such are easily exploded. An unexpected pin in a tender part of the possessed's body instantly does the business. For a god is sublimely superior to being made a pin-cushion of, while a mere man invariably objects to it. ”

“ From the moment the nakaza takes the gohei-wand into his hands, at which time it will be remembered he closes his eyes, he makes his mind as much of a blank as he can.
The ability to think of nothing—not the simple matter even to the innately empty-headed it might be imagined—has been increased by the previous etherealizing process of the austerities. The routine ritual indulged in just prior to the act, or rather the non-act, furthers this pious result. The repeating of the purification prayers has become so purely mechanical a process that saying them is tantamount to not thinking. ”

“ The lay brethren, on the other hand, practice such possession only as an outside calling, each having his more mundane trade to boot. The above-mentioned barber, for example, besides industriously shaving man, woman, and child,—this detail of the toilet being universally indulged in, in Japan,—was able to carry on a very lucrative business as a popular otherworld physician. But he made no analogue of the European barber-surgeon of times gone by. No particular pursuit has privilege of the divine practice, barbers being no better than other folk in the eyes of the god. ”

“ Then all the others join in chant, and watch for the advent of the god.
For a few minutes, the time varying with the particular nakaza, the man remains perfectly motionless. Then suddenly the wand begins to quiver; the quiver gains till all at once the man is seized with a convulsive throe—the throe, as we say in truth, of one possessed. In some trances the eyes then open, the eyeballs being rolled up half out of sight; in others the eyes remain shut. Then the throe subsides again to a permanent quiver, the eyes, if open, fixed in the trance look. The man has now become the god. ”

“ Washing is the most obvious kind of purification the world over. Cleanliness, we say, is next to godliness; though at times in individual specimens the two would seem not to have made each other's acquaintance. But in Japan cleanliness very nearly is godliness. This charming compatibility is due possibly to the godliness being less, but certainly chiefly to the cleanliness being more.
Even secularly the Japanese are supernaturally cleanly. Every day of their lives forty millions of folk parboil like one. Nor do they hurry themselves in the act. ”

“ Purity is the one prerequisite to divine possession, and though to acquire sufficient purity be an art, it is an art patent rather in the older unindividualized sense of the word. Any one who is pure may give lodgment to a god, just as any plutocrat may entertain modern royalty. The gods, like latter day princes, are no respecters of persons. ”

“ For godpossession is no perquisite of the priests. It is open to all the sufficiently pure. The reason for this lack of exclusiveness is to be sought in the essentially every-day family character of Shintō. Everybody is a descendant of the gods, and therefore intrinsically no less holy than his neighbor. Indeed, if ease of intercourse be any proof of kinship, the Japanese people certainly make good their claim to divine descent. ”

“ For matrimony and self-consecration to the gods do not, it appears, conflict. In spite of the great advantage that accrues to piety from never looking upon a woman's face, mentioned above, mere matrimony would seem innocuous. Either femininity in repeated doses loses its intoxicating effect, or acquired sanctity renders the believer superior to it. Perhaps, as one of my married friends suggested to me, marriage is sufficient austerity itself.
However that may be, certain it is that nowadays even gyōja wed without detriment to their souls. ”

“ Gyōja, translated, means "a man of austerities;" and heaven is witness that he is. Short of actual martyrdom, I can imagine few thornier paths to perfection. He would seem to need a cast-iron constitution to stand the strain he cheerfully puts upon it. Even to be a shinja necessitates a regimen that strikes the unregenerate with awe. Though shinja means simply "a believer," the amount of works this simple believer must perform before his faith is enough to be accepted would appall most people. ”

“ Like a talk at a telephone, the half that is heard conjures up of itself the half that is inaudible. And their uncanniness clothes these conjurings with the character of the supernatural. You almost think to see both the devils and the gods. ”

“ Unjogged by suggestion, the average mind lapses into a comatose condition, till the man comes eventually to exist upon the borderland of trance. But as it is not convenient for everybody to retire to the hills for three years at a time, even for this sublime purpose, it has been found possible to combine purity enough for vacuity with a tolerably secular existence. ”

“ To be driven to such extremity must seem indeed pitiable, even to the undevout.
Thus, then, do the pious get themselves into a general potentiality of possession. Before possession becomes a fact, however, a short renewal of extreme austerities must be undergone; like the slight shake that crystallizes the solution. On notice of a case to be cured the practitioner enters again the rigors of the washing and the fast, and keeps them up for a week if he be very thorough, two or three days if that will suffice. ”

“ Beside opening or not-opening his eyes in the trance, dependent upon the habit of his club, the subsequent action of the possessed is otherwise conventional. The behavior of one god bears a striking family likeness to that of another. Each begins by brandishing maniacally the gohei-wand, and after sufficient flourish brings it down to the commanding holding before the brow which betokens that he is ready to be interviewed. ”

“ To drench one's self with scalding water or to saunter unconcernedly across several yards of scorching coals are not in themselves feats that lead particularly to heaven, difficult as they may be to do. Esoterically regarded, they are rather tests of the proficiency already attained in the Way of the Gods than portions of that way needing actually to be traversed. The real burning question is whether the believer be pure enough to perform them pleasurably. ”

“ For in an emotional sense it is the very essence of what makes far-eastern life so fine. Mere outline of a faith as Shintō at first sight seems to be, on closer study it proves to be something little less than grand in its very simplicity. Truly it needs no formal priesthood, no elaborate service, no costly shrine, for it has as visibly about it something better than all these—its very gods. To Shintō they are always there ”

“ All others must be purified. These may be of two kinds: temples, public or private,—for most houses have what is called a gods'-shelf, (kamidana) , which does them for family shrine,—and ordinary rooms. The first are kept perpetually purified; the second are specially purified for the occasion.
If there be no permanent shrine, a temporary one is constructed. Its central motif is a gohei upon a wand, stood upright on a pedestal. By the side of the gohei are lighted candles, and flanking these, sprigs of sakaki, the sacred tree of Shintō. In front of the gohei is set out a feast for the god. ”