Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/197

Rh possessed remember afterwards nothing. One man indeed said that it was like dreaming, only more vague,—the dream of a dream, which certainly is very vague, indeed. Even here I think he mistook the feelings fringing the trance state for the trance state itself. For certainly the average good nakaza is quite emphatic on the point, and this particular man was not a specially able specimen.

All agree in the sense of oppression which is their last bit of consciousness before going off and their first on coming to. It is for this the maeza slaps the nakaza repeatedly on the back at and after the moment of waking. The throat is so throttled that unless this were done the water could not be swallowed. As for the water itself, it is taken for much the same reason that some people take it when about to swallow a pill, to overcome, that is, the involuntary contraction of the glottis.

Possession begins, they, say, at the gohei. The hands that hold it are the first parts of the man to be possessed. In the incipient cases they are all that are visibly affected. As the control deepens the cataleptic