Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/188

170 VIII.

Perhaps the most curious phenomenon of the pure Shintō possession-cult is the Kwancho's kindergarten. This is a Sunday-school of a unique kind, held by the high-priest of the Shinshiu sect every other week-day throughout the year, vacations excepted. The instruction is eminently practical, for it consists in teaching nothing less than the art of temporarily becoming god. It is the most esoteric of all the possession practices. To its exercises I was never permitted to bring another foreigner, my own purity just sufficing to admit me.

The school is composed of two classes, a boys' class and a girls' class, made up of the most pious young people of the parish. The boys' class is held first. The pupils begin by taking post in a row at the farther end of the main temple room, while the high-priest faces the altar and conducts a service in which the pupils join. Then he seats himself on one side and nods to a boy to come forward. The boy advances, squats in a divine attitude before the altar, and closes his eyes. After some subdued prayer the priest rises,