Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/264

242 into it, and it quivers yet as passing through it he slips on into the body of the man. Without its mediation possession would not take place. The gohei is thus a sort of spirit lightning-rod to conduct the divine spirit into the human one. It is not, therefore, without a certain poetic fitness that it should look so like lightning.

Another case of its visible possessions, one where it plays a more autonomous part, is its christening power. A very curious custom this, and so far as I know one quite unknown to foreigners; so much so that more than one of my acquaintance who has had children by a Japanese wife have stoutly maintained that no such custom exists. It is a fact, nevertheless.

There are three methods of naming children in vogue among Shintōists. One, the most obvious and the least devout, is for the father to name the child himself. The next in an ascending scale of piety is for the father to select several suitable names and then submit the choice among them to the god. The way the god shows his choice is as follows: The father brings the child to the temple, and with him slips of paper