Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/190

172 of the furniture. A pupil will sometimes turn thus some seventy somersaults in the the course of one trance. Against the wall stands a ladder, up which the entranced next climbs to the cornice, clinging to which he makes the circuit of the room. Not infrequently he wanders by the same means round all the neighboring apartments. After descending again by the ladder, he performs upon a horizontal bar.

Or he stands on his head up against the wall, first in one corner of the room, and then in another, until he has made the circuit of it, interpolating between times somersaults at his own sweet will. The curriculum varies with the pupil. Though of the same general character for all, it differs in detail for each. But each pupil repeats his own performance exactly, night after night, improving on it through a gradual course of trance-development.

With the girls the action is fittingly less violent. They do not journey along the cornice, but they do turn somersaults over the floor. Their specialty, however, consists in dancing dervish-like round and round the room. The waltzing they keep up indefinitely until stopped by the priest.