Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/116

100 condescend to come wherever due preparation is made for them. It is the host's house, not the host that they visit; the presence of the host himself being graciously dispensed with. The man's mind must have been vacated of all meaner lodgers, including himself, before the god will deign to habit it, but who the man is, is immaterial. Such humble folk as barbers and fishmongers are among the most favored entertainers of divinity.

But though the social standing of the man be immaterial, the social standing of the god, on the other hand, is a most material point in the matter. For mere association with the supernatural is not in Japan necessarily a question of piety or even of impiety. Often it is pure accident. To become possessed by a devil, of which bewitchment by a fox is the commonest form, may be so purely an act of the devil that no blame beyond carelessness attaches to the unfortunate victim. 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