CREED AND CASTE
the purpose of tormenting the injurer or the enemy. Such phenomena were not necessarily preceded by the liberation of the divine element from its mortal prison; they might take place during life, and even without the knowledge of the person exercising the telepathic influence. Nor were they confined to the rough spirit. The gentle spirit also, under strongly emotional circumstances, became capable of defying the restraints of time and space.[1] The permanent existence of evil gods, however, constituted an article of the faith. Shintō did not propound to its disciples the inscrutable problem of an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-merciful deity creating beings foredoomed to eternal torture, and licensing a Satan to ply the trade of tempter and perverter. It adopted the simpler theory that the malign demons were the outcome of a fault of creation. Born of the corruption contracted by Izanagi during his visit to the land of the shades, these wicked spirits, who "glittered like fireflies and were as disorderly as spring insects; who gave voices to rocks, tree-stumps, leaves, and the foam of the green sea,"[2] had been expelled from the terrestrial region but not annihilated: they continued to interfere mischievously in human affairs, and it was necessary to propitiate them with offerings, music, and dancing. Their doings did not, however, seriously perturb the even tenor of daily life. There never was any tendency to regard
119
