With the exception of thus occasionally addressing them and of tapping the table or the wall, he does not direct their movements in the least. Such half-way stage between hypnotic and possessed action is an interesting thing in itself.
The subject's pulse is accelerated and weakened, so far as I could discover by feeling it immediately afterward.
Though adepts quickly fall into the state, it takes practice to attain to pious proficiency, several sittings being necessary before the pupil is possessed at all.
IX.
We now come to the subjective side of the trance, the first point being the getting into it; the cause, that is, as distinguished from its occasion. Entrance is effected, in fact, in the simplest possible manner. It consists in shutting the eyes and thinking of nothing. From the moment the nakaza takes the gohei-wand into his hands, at which time it will be remembered he closes his eyes, he makes his mind as much of a blank as he can.
The ability to think of nothing—not the simple matter even to the innately empty-
