SHINTO, or the Way of the Gods, is the name of the oldest religious belief of the Japanese people. The belief itself indefinitely antedates its name, for it has come down to us from a time when sole possession of the field precluded denomination.
It knew no christening till Buddhism was adopted from China in the sixth century of our era, and was then first called Shinto, or the Way of the Gods, to distinguish it from Butsudd, or the Way of Buddha.
If it thus acquired a name, it largely lost local habitation. For Buddhism proceeded to appropriate its possessions, temporal and spiritual. It had been both church and state. Buddhism became the state, and assumed the greater part of the churches ; paying Shinto the compliment of incorporating, without acknowledgment, such as it fancied of the Shinto rites, and of kindly recognizing the more popular Shinto gods for lower avatars of its own.
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CONTENTS.
PAGE
Ontake I
Shinto i6
Miracles 36
Incarnations 97
Pilgrimages and the Pilgrim Clubs . . . 193
The Gohei 230
The Shrines of Ise 270
Noumena :
Self 278
Selfhood a Force 285
Possession 290
Will 298
Self as Ideas 304
Ideas a Mode of Motion .... 307
Ideas a Force 317
Individuality 320
The Japanese Character .... 323
Dreams 33^
Hypnotic Trances . . . . . 343
Possession Trances 355
The Shinto Gods • • • . . 368
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
A Possession by the Gods upon Ontake
Frontispiece
A Buddhist Divine Possession . . . .162
The Leader of a Pilgrim Band blessing the
Holy Water 216
A Pilgrim Club ascending Ontaki . . .224
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