Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/314

292 knows nothing of all those states of consciousness which alone are he. Except as an outsider, it neither knows him, nor he it.

It does not, of course, follow from the undeniable fact of its distinct psychical existence that it is either a god or a devil. To jump to this conclusion is a quite unwarrantable assumption of divinity. But the immateriality of the god does not invalidate the actuality of the so-called spirit. Because Smith may erroneously be called Jones, does not jeopardize the existence of Smith, though it may considerably imperil the existence of Jones.

The reconciliation of these two separate selves consists, as we shall see later, in a certain denial of self altogether.

Now, besides revealing so much, common to all manifestations, these Shintō ones reveal indirectly considerably more. In the first place, they disclose the fact that the Japanese race is very easily possessed. They do this, first, by their amount, and secondly, as significantly, by their character.

Their quantity we have seen to be something enormous. It is safe to say that no other nation of forty millions of people has