Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/136

120 appear to be somewhat better able to look after themselves—with molecular minuteness. Each breath as it passes out is thus subjected to the spirit's picket challenge. By giving his whole mind in this manner to the mere method of existence, he effectually prevents any ideas from stealing into that mind unawares. After prolonged duty of the sort, consciousness, like all really good sentinels, nods at her post; in which, unlike the good sentinels, lies the virtue of the deed, though unsuspected of the doer. For divine possession in Japan, like other Japanese things, is not a science but an art. The reason given by religion for this inspection of one's breathing is that by prayerful concentration upon the source of spirit one's evil spirit may be expelled and a good afflatus drawn in. One of the truly pious when quantitively questioned told me that he had thus kept watch on himself for three weeks at a time, only pausing in the pursuit unavoidably to eat and sleep. It is saddening to think to what farther tenuities he might not have attained had he not been thus grossly shackled to the flesh.

Ablutions and abstinence are thus the two