Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/203

Rh detect the reality. To a sufficiently incredulous eye the sham very rarely masquerades successfully, while the genuine article, if very perfect, often seems too good to be true. Especially is this the case with woman. One doubts her divinity at the time only to realize afterward that he has done the lady an injustice.

Though the god in these incarnations is thus born, not made, he has after birth to go through a natural process of development to reach his full capabilities.

His gradual self-education would be interesting to witness did it not take so long. The history of a boy about ten and a half years old whom I was privileged to observe in the course of his divine education will give some idea of the laboriousness of the process. He began practicing to be possessed on July 17; that is he was then first set in the nakaza's seat, and the gohei-wand put into his hands while he shut his eyes and tried to make his mind as blank as possible. This performance he went through five times every day from that time on, twice in the morning and three times at night. It was at the end of August when the god at last