Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/397

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NOUMENA.
375

This would seem to show that a sufficiently connective thought in one trance will pass over to become a part of the dominant idea in the next. A god may thus present his successor.

Somewhat analogous to this, though not similar, is the way in which the control of a trance medium has been known to change. But this, so far as I am aware, has rarely happened in the midst of any one trance. The spirits spoken to change with kaleidoscopic activity, but the control itself is a tolerably stable spirit.

Indifferentism to individuality crops out thus in the curious thread of impersonal god-head, mere god-head as such, upon which the several particular personalities are strung, because it is so fundamental a quality of the race that it forms of necessity part of their every idea.

The subject's dominant idea evidently consists not of the possession by any particular god, but rather of the prognostication of possession by deity in general. For were the idea of the individuality of the possessory god strong, it would not of itself yield possession of the premises to another. On