Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/140

124. Nevertheless, for fifty days more he kept on with but little addition to his meagre diet, washing lavishly the while. At the close of this second period he relaxed somewhat and ate, as he expressed it, in moderation, that is, immoderately little; which ameliorated treatment of himself he kept up for the next three years. He was twenty when he went through his novitiate, and sixty-three when he told me of it; for the intervening forty-three years he had dieted and douched daily.

No very definite sensation, follows, he says, the exercise of the austerities. He simply feels an increase in virtue, whatever that may mean. Fortunately it would seem to show itself in a practical form. For as he continues in the regimen he gets to know, he says, good and evil spontaneously. When a bit of good luck is coming to him or his family, or a misfortune about to befall them, he feels it beforehand by a certain mental light-heartedness, or a corresponding oppression of spirit. Finally he arrives at being able to predict everything. Whether he can always avert what he is able to foretell may be open to doubt. For consequent upon this