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Occult Japan: Shinto, Shamanism and the Way of the Gods
"Shinto, or The Way of the Gods, is the oldest religious faith of the Japanese people. Based on the aboriginal worship of nature and ancestors, it is a religion of innumberable deities and rituals." " Percival Lowell... drew these descriptions from his own observations and experiences during his travels throughout Japan at the end of the nineteenth century." -- Cover description.
379 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1895
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 12, 2025
bro was insane
April 15, 2017
Available here (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:...) at Wikisource.
A longer read than is pleasurable. Sometimes funny, such as describing the French as monkeys with cringe-worthy sansculotte (pants-less) institutions. Within are details of ritual possession (which the author concludes are entirely real), the childhood development of the attitude, the dominant religions & their quarrels, the powers of possession, the pilgrim troop, journey & destination, the analogue of business cards that the pilgrims distribute, and so on. There was a momentary surprise to find an author so implicitly derisive of the Japanese culture & people to be aware of the Christian tendency to baptise any tradition to strong to be dismissed or daemonised.
The author appears sincere in investigating the psyche of the Japanese nation. Indeed he believes himself to have determined the origin of the possession ritual, as well as locating prehistoric religion / attitudes passed down through generations and lost to the confusion between Shintō, Buddhism and Ryobū. A confusion locals could only overcome by leaning on the author's own strong, Western personality, to make explicit a certain ugliness of this book.
At times it reads as a tourist travel guide, it begins with the author climbing the Ontaké mountain peak, witnessing a three-wheeling possession of monks. It discusses various attractions, with a tilt towards those favoured by locals instead of those most accessible by foreigners. & of course it mentions the cherry blossoms.
The last 100 pages or so are not worth the paper. I'd rather wipe with them to be honest. If you are interested in reading my words about his words about someone else discussing the mental processes behind difficulty in getting out of bed, you are a strange breed of ape. It is in these later pages where the authors racial pride really shows itself. I feel it has degraded my soul to read so many pages denigrating the Japanese. [To be clear, I believe there are inherited traits and do not favour a total Blank-Slate theory of human nature. A complex interplay of nature and nurture exists, of which this Mr. Lowell is occasionally aware.]
A longer read than is pleasurable. Sometimes funny, such as describing the French as monkeys with cringe-worthy sansculotte (pants-less) institutions. Within are details of ritual possession (which the author concludes are entirely real), the childhood development of the attitude, the dominant religions & their quarrels, the powers of possession, the pilgrim troop, journey & destination, the analogue of business cards that the pilgrims distribute, and so on. There was a momentary surprise to find an author so implicitly derisive of the Japanese culture & people to be aware of the Christian tendency to baptise any tradition to strong to be dismissed or daemonised.
The author appears sincere in investigating the psyche of the Japanese nation. Indeed he believes himself to have determined the origin of the possession ritual, as well as locating prehistoric religion / attitudes passed down through generations and lost to the confusion between Shintō, Buddhism and Ryobū. A confusion locals could only overcome by leaning on the author's own strong, Western personality, to make explicit a certain ugliness of this book.
At times it reads as a tourist travel guide, it begins with the author climbing the Ontaké mountain peak, witnessing a three-wheeling possession of monks. It discusses various attractions, with a tilt towards those favoured by locals instead of those most accessible by foreigners. & of course it mentions the cherry blossoms.
The last 100 pages or so are not worth the paper. I'd rather wipe with them to be honest. If you are interested in reading my words about his words about someone else discussing the mental processes behind difficulty in getting out of bed, you are a strange breed of ape. It is in these later pages where the authors racial pride really shows itself. I feel it has degraded my soul to read so many pages denigrating the Japanese. [To be clear, I believe there are inherited traits and do not favour a total Blank-Slate theory of human nature. A complex interplay of nature and nurture exists, of which this Mr. Lowell is occasionally aware.]
August 1, 2021
What a weird book.
The good:
It has a lot of good first hand accounts of events that he describes neatly and understandably and with good physical descriptive methods. In this sense, the book is a gold mine for English speakers on the aspects of Occult Japan and Shinto-isms in general. That is mostly because so few people write on that topic in a readily accessible way.
The bad:
His writing style and attitude are very influenced by his general time and place of existence. It's very western, very prideful of ancestry and ideologies, etc... That means, yes: racism, sexism, the works. Not an overwhelming amount, but it finds its way in there often enough.
At the moment it is well worth the accounts of cultural events held within.
The good:
It has a lot of good first hand accounts of events that he describes neatly and understandably and with good physical descriptive methods. In this sense, the book is a gold mine for English speakers on the aspects of Occult Japan and Shinto-isms in general. That is mostly because so few people write on that topic in a readily accessible way.
The bad:
His writing style and attitude are very influenced by his general time and place of existence. It's very western, very prideful of ancestry and ideologies, etc... That means, yes: racism, sexism, the works. Not an overwhelming amount, but it finds its way in there often enough.
At the moment it is well worth the accounts of cultural events held within.
March 21, 2010
A surprisingly easy read for a 120 year old book. And surprisingly light on the racism, but still with a little sexism.
It's easy to forget that this is about a Japan that no longer exists.
It's easy to forget that this is about a Japan that no longer exists.
Want to read
December 4, 2017otimo
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews