Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/46

50 purer it becomes the more is it given to occasional volatilizing.

Now esoteric Shintō consists in compelling this spirit to circulate for particular ends. This is not a difficult matter, if it be properly undertaken. It is accomplished through self-purification. For the degree of purity determines the degree of possession. Possession is simply the entrance into one body of another body's spirit, and the simultaneous expulsion or subjugation of the spirit originally there.

This shift of spirit may take place between any two bodies in nature. Nor does such interchange differ in kind, no matter what the bodies be. But for the sake of psychology rather than religion, we may profitably consider it under the two aspects of god-possession of things and god-possession of people. The one gives rise to the miracles; the other to the incarnations. Both kinds of possession occurred spontaneously, that is, at the will of the gods, in olden times, and presumably so occur at the present day; but the gods have also graciously granted pure men the power to pray for them acceptedly.