Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/347

Rh Mikado, Jimmu, invented magical formulae for the dissipation of evil influences. Of course, there are many formulae of this kind which stand on a different footing. When, at the present day, a Japanese calls out ''Kuhabara! Kuhabara!'' (mulberry-grove) during a thunderstorm, it is no doubt with the idea of suggesting to the Thunder-God that the place is a mulberry grove, which, it is believed, is never struck by lightning. Charms often consist of a ticket with the name of the God (usually the ubusuna) and a statement that the bearer is under his protection.

Magic and Shinto.—The treatment of magic by Shinto is not uniform. We have seen that it lends its sanction to some practices of this kind by affirming that they were taught or practised by Gods, or by deifying the objects used in them. But there are others which it condemns, including them in the offences against the Gods enumerated in the Oho-harahi. It is, however, for their malicious purpose that they are reprobated. There is no trace in the old records of any scepticism as to their efficacy. A scientific knowledge sufficient to arouse doubts of the power of magic did not then exist, and would have been equally fatal to much in Shinto itself. Even in modern times such highly educated men as Bakin and Hirata had an implicit belief in the efficacy of this art. The latter complains that there is a tendency among physicians of the Chinese school to neglect it. Some diseases, he says, are caused by evil spirits and some by minute insects (microbes?). Magic and medicine should therefore, in his opinion, be combined.

The decay of magic in modern Japan is not owing to religious but to scientific progress. It is due to China, whose philosophy, imperfect as it is, taught far truer views of the limitations of man's powers than anything Japan was able to discover for herself.

Divination.—Divination (in Japanese uranahi) is magic which has a special object, namely, the revelation of the