The Study of Mysteries

A moving stick, a thread emerging from the hand, a dream that seems to foresee a death: Inoue Enryō begins with the wonders people actually report and asks how they arise.

These lectures move through fox possession, charms, faith healing, hypnotism, dreams, and divination. The argument follows the changing relationship between body and mind, from unconscious muscular movement to the associations hidden in everyday language and custom.

Enryō, a Buddhist philosopher and educator, presents the study of mysteries as applied psychology. His inquiry preserves the texture of late nineteenth-century Japan while revealing how expectation and incomplete knowledge shape extraordinary experiences.