Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/139

Rh Buddhism from the other. The mosquito ordeal, for example, is quite Buddhist, while abnormal ablutions are not. The significance of these two parallelisms will appear later on.

What the Japanese sensations are during the process may be gathered from the personally narrated experience of a certain believer, who sufficiently expresses the type. The given individual was first minded to become a practitioner in consequence of the surprising cure, through god-possession, of his master's sick son. He was at the time apprenticed to a dyer, and was away on a journey when the cure was wrought. Much impressed by what he heard on his return, he determined to seek out the holy man who had effected the miraculous result, and, by following in his footsteps, to attain to proficiency himself. The gyōja received him cordially, and kindly indulged him in his desire by putting him to the washing (suigyō) and the fasting (danjiki) austerities in all their rigor for three weeks. At the end of that time he was so used up that he could hardly stand. One bowl of rice and a dish of greens a day are little enough to help one through such a course of ablutionary