ABSTRACT
We shall find that two modes of entry into the sacred life are open to the medium and the ascetic in Japan. Either he is ‘called’, summoned by a deity in a dream or a possession to leave his old life and begin a new one, closer to the sacred world; or he may of his own volition, with no supernatural election or persuasion, decide that the life he has hitherto led is meaningless and insupportable, and that he must seek another kind of life for which new powers and gifts are needed. Whether the impulse comes from his own will, however, or from some apparently external spiritual being, whether he is what Hori calls the ‘quest type’ or the ‘Vocation type’, he can only acquire the special powers he needs to bridge the gap between the two worlds by certain ascetic practices.
