Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/284

262 Among every people divine trances have taken place, but to make of the accidental and fortuitous the certain and the regular, to develop the casual communion into a systematic cult, shows a degree of familiarity with the subject peculiarly Japanese.

The word kami, which appears both in the ancient and modern expressions, is highly suggestive. For kami refers exclusively to Shintō gods; Buddhist gods being always known as hotoke. Kami originally meant, and in certain uses still means, "top," or "above," and therefore was applied to the supreme beings. It is the same kami that figures in kami the hair of the head or topknot, and that appears in the expression o kami san, your wife, lit. Mrs. Upper, used when addressing the middle classes. Even its sinico-Japanese equivalent shin shows the same significance. For it never referred in China to the Buddhist gods. The two characteristics of which it is composed mean "declare, say;" whereas the character for hotoke a Buddhist god, means simply "not man." Whether trance-revelation lies hidden in this "declare, say," is another matter.

Another word in the bibles is worth a