Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/205

Rh are of either sex. This follows from the fact that in Japan sex suffers no social restrictions among the gods, as in olden times it suffered none among men. Goddesses are both numerous and influential. Practically the highest god in the Shintō pantheon is a lady, the Sun-Goddess Ama-terasu-o-mikami. The earth deity worshiped as the principal god at the second Ise shrine is also a goddess. For in Shintō is realized the idea of the advanced woman's right's wife, who, on sending her husband shopping one day to match a piece of ribbon, said to him, as a parting injunction, "If you are in doubt, pray to God, and She will help you."

Woman continued a power after she had ceased to be divine. Japanese history boasts of several empresses who, chivalry apart, have played on the whole its most prominent parts. The Empress Jingo is perhaps the most striking figure in the imperial line, not excluding her son, who was canonized as the god of war.

When it comes to possession it is there fore not surprising that femininity should be found to have a hand in it. In the olden