Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/357

Rh dreams to a deeper spiritual insight and a keener emotional sensibility to divine influences than in their waking moments. Those who have had such experiences do not speak lightly of them. At the present time science is not in a position to deal adequately with this matter. Shinto helps us nothing.

Ordeal is a species of divination. Under the date A.D. 277 the Nihongi has the following:—

"The Emperor forthwith questioned Takechi no Sukune along with Umashi no Sukune, upon which these two men were each obstinate, and wrangled with one another, so that it was impossible to ascertain the right and the wrong. The Emperor then gave orders to ask of the Gods of Heaven and Earth the ordeal by boiling water. Hereupon Takechi no Sukune and Umashi no Sukune went out together to the bank of the Shiki river, and underwent the ordeal of boiling water. Takechi no Sukune was victorious. Taking his cross-sword, he threw down Umashi no Sukune, and was at length about to slay him, when the Emperor ordered him to let him go. So he gave him to the ancestor of the Atahe of Kiï."

The same authority informs us that in A.D. 415 the Mikado, in consequence of the great confusion caused by the assumption of false names and titles, commanded the people of the various houses and surnames to wash themselves and practise abstinence.

"Then let them, each calling upon the Gods to witness, plunge their hands in boiling water. Hereupon every one put on straps of tree-fibre, and coming to the caldrons, plunged their hands in the boiling water, when those who were true remained naturally uninjured, and all those who were false were harmed. Therefore those who had falsified [their titles] were afraid, and, slipping away beforehand, did not come forward. From this time forward the Houses and surnames were spontaneously ordered, and there was no longer any one who falsified them."