Occult Japan

‘Occult Japan; or, The Way of the Gods: An Esoteric Study of Japanese Personality and Possession’ by Percival Lowell     US; Houghton-Mifflin, 1894 379 pages, medium size.  ISBN 0-89281-306-7

In a sense this is an amateur forerunner of Carmen Blacker’s ‘Catalpa Bow’.  It was written by the astronomer Percival Lowell (1855-1916), elder brother of the poet Amy Lowell, who is remembered for suggesting
there was life on Mars and for forecasting the discovery of Pluto.  Before star-gazing he spent time in the far east, and his books are said to have influenced Lafcadio Hearn’s decision to come to Japan.  Lowell’s fascination with Japanese shamanism followed a visit to the sacred mount of Ontake in Niigata, and his observations make a very engaging read. Laced with light-hearted humour and sceptical insight, the book describes in some detail esoteric mountain rites and various forms of possession. The value of these ‘eye-witness accounts’ is that many of the traditional ways have fallen away in the meantime. His was a time of religious fervour, fired by the notion of ‘pure Shinto’: ‘Probably at no time and among no people have pilgrimages been so popular as in this same nineteenth century in Japan,’ he claims.  As a scientist, he tries to understand and explain what he is seeing: he takes every opportunity, for instance, to stick pins into the mediums!  Only in the final sections of the book does the very dated nature of his ponderings become evident, as he leaves behind observation for speculation.  At this point the shrewd scientist gives way to sloppy stereotyping as he attributes the susceptibility to possession of Japanese to vacuity of mind and inability to reason.

Summary: Though dated, this is an entertaining read and full of first-hand observation of practices that have ceased to exist.  Lowell has an amateur enthusiasm as well as a keen intelligence.