Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/384

362 peeps over the threshold of consciousness, but merely stands by to usher other ideas in. It gives them their pass, without which they would be refused admittance. In the spirit-possessed, action is spontaneous. There, the dominant idea actually takes possession of the otherwise vacated apartments of the mind and runs the establishment of its own motion, incidentally permitting no idea to come in that has not somehow business with it. Its energy, therefore, passes over of itself from the potential kinetic form. Its energy, also, is much the greater of the two. For to initiate action of itself shows more activity inherent in the idea than merely to respond to a shove from without. This explains the apathy of the general hypnotic state on the one hand, and the throe and subsequent quiver of the possessory trance on the other.

If the energy of the idea be not kept up by appropriate stimulation, it gradually falls, as is shown by the lapsing of the subject, when left alone, into a state of coma. But the aptitude of the idea to act remains relatively the same. For, on renewed incantation, the dominant idea again rises to a point of action before the rest of the brain.