Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/134

118 flesh. To wash this next to nothing down cold water is allowed him, if his external applications have not already given him enough of it.

Not unnaturally a diet of such subtraction speedily reduces him to his lowest mental terms, a state which he still further simplifies by purely mental means.

To start with, the general character of his existence conduces to that end. Whether he be living an actual anchorite among the mountains or only a would-be one in town, solitude complete or partial tends by well-known laws to convert him into either a maniac or a simpleton. To a species of the latter it is his ambition to attain.

To this end untold repetitions of elementary prayers admirably conduce. It would be hard indeed to overestimate the efficacy of such process for producing utter blankness of mind. 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