Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/131

Rh deal better to be thorough, and not for the sake of the flesh to shirk what shall etherealize the soul. A little more bathing can do no harm—unless it kill, which is beside the point.

Extras, that is baths at odd hours, are to be taken ad libitum by all. The rule is: When in doubt, douche.

This extreme lavatory exercise lasts indefinitely—as long as the devotee can stand it. And in diminishing doses it is kept up through life. To those who perform it in all its rigor under the waterfalls in the hills, the gods graciously show signs of accepted favor. For round the head of the holy, as he stands beneath the fall, the sunlight glancing through the spray rims a halo which all men may see and the reverent recognize as proof of sanctity. The skeptic may possibly ascribe it to a different cause, having perchance seen the like around the shadow of his own head cast, as he sat in the saddle, upon the clipped grass of a polo field. He will certainly do so when he perceives similar halos about the heads of his godless friends. Yet that abandoned character, Benvenuto Cellini, on suddenly remarking one