Percival Lowell

Name: Occult Japan — Ontaké
Author: Percival Lowell

Summary

“Occult Japan — Ontaké”, published in 1894, is a work by Percival Lowell. It explores elements such as foreigners, peak and Japan.

Quotes from Occult Japan — Ontaké (Percival Lowell)

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ Active once, it has been inactive now beyond the memory of man. Yet its form lets one divine what it must have been in its day. For upon its summit are the crumbling walls of eight successive craters, piled in parapet up into the sky.
It is not dead; it slumbers. For on its western face a single solfatara sends heavenward long, slender filaments of vapor, faint breath of what now sleeps beneath; a volcano sunk in trance.
Almost unknown to foreigners, it is well known to the Japanese. For it is perhaps the most sacred of Japan's many sacred peaks. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ The fact is that Japan is still very much of an undiscovered country to us. It is not simply that the language proves so difficult that but few foreigners pass this threshold of acquaintance; but that the farther the foreigner goes, the more he perceives the ideas in the two hemispheres to be fundamentally diverse. What he expects to find does not exist, and what exists he would never dream of looking for. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ We stood face to face with the gods.
The fathoming of this unexpected revelation resulted in the discovery of a world of esoteric practices as significant as they were widespread. By way of introduction to them, I cannot do more simply than to give my own. Set as the scene of it was upon the summit of that slumbering volcano sunk in trance itself, a presentation to the gods could hardly have been more dramatic. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ Our fear of parting with our young god-friends proved quite groundless. For on returning to the summit-hut after a climb round the crater rim, the first thing to catch our eyes amid its dim religious gloom was the sight of the pious trio once more in the full throes of possession. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ Japan is scientifically an undiscovered country even to the Japanese, as a study of these possessions will disclose. For their importance is twofold: archaeologic no less than psychic. They are other-world manifestations in two senses, and the one sense helps accentuate the other. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ Truly the gods were gracious thus to descend so many times; and truly devout their devotees to crave so much communion. Doubtless an inordinate desire for their society is gratifying to the gods, but the frequency of the talks fairly took our breath away, though it had no perceptible effect on the young men's nor on the god's, even at that altitude. The god possessed his devotees with comparative ease; which was edifying but exhausting; for to let another inhabit one's house always proves hard on the furniture. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ However, with one man after another, offishness thawed, until, getting upon terms of cordiality with deity, it was not long before I was holding divine receptions in my own drawing-room. Exalted and exclusive as this best of all society unquestionably was, it proved intellectually, like more mundane society we agree to call the best, undeniably dull. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ At last the exorcist paused in his performance, and taking the gohei-wand from beside him on the bench, placed it between the other's hands, clenched one above the other. Then he resumed his incantation, the motionless one as motionless as ever. So it continued for some time, when all at once the hands holding the wand began to twitch convulsively; the twitching rapidly increased to a spasmodic throe which momentarily grew more violent till suddenly it broke forth into the full fury of a seemingly superhuman paroxysm. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Percival Lowell, Occult Japan — Ontaké (1894)

“ N the heart of Japan, withdrawn alike by distance and by height from the commonplaces of the every-day world, rises a mountain known as Ontaké or the Honorable Peak. It is a fine volcanic mass, sundered by deep valley-clefts from the great Hida-Shinshiu range, amidst which it stands dignifiedly aloof. ”

Percival Lowell

Summary

Quotes from Occult Japan — Ontaké (Percival Lowell)

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