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156
OCCULT JAPAN.

or O-yama-zumi-no-mikoto, Fukan Gyōja, and Hakkai San.

The last example of the Ryōbu form shall be one typical of the average unpretentious trance, the participants being all simpleminded farmers of the suburbs of Tōkyō. There were five of them, all members of the Five Cardinal Virtues Pilgrim Club. The shrine was the simplest possible, and so was the banquet offered the god. No picture was hung in the recess, and the pyre was not elaborate.

The maeza and nakaza had both been up Ontake more than once; the other three were as yet ascensionless, but hopeful the lot to go might soon fall upon them, their finances having up to date only permitted them to travel so far in fancy.

Purification prayers and purification songs—the misogi no harai, the rokkon shōjō no harai, and the nakatomi no harai—were duly intoned, the nakaza in this case being specially active, because otherwise the leading spirit of the company. All five were clad in their Ontaké ascension robes, although the greater number were simply, as has been said, piously anticipating that event.