Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/142

126 chronicling. Still there is no doubt that times have changed for the worse with gyōja, as my gyōja averred. Even pecuniarily so much is evident. In the good old days they supported themselves in peace and plenty from the offerings of grateful patients; now alas, as he said pathetically, these gratuities do not suffice, and many a worthy soul is forced to eke out a slender subsistence by secular work in secret. Making toothpicks was the industry he affectingly instanced, when pressed to be more explicit. To be driven to such extremity must seem indeed pitiable, even to the undevout.

Thus, then, do the pious get themselves into a general potentiality of possession. Before possession becomes a fact, however, a short renewal of extreme austerities must be undergone; like the slight shake that crystallizes the solution. On notice of a case to be cured the practitioner enters again the rigors of the washing and the fast, and keeps them up for a week if he be very thorough, two or three days if that will suffice. The amount of abstinence depends upon the gravity of the case. There is something highly satisfactory in this dieting of