In Ghostly Japan: Now Available!

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This is an excellent compilation of folk tales and proverbs and miscellany related to Japan, written by the famous Lafcadio Hearn at the tale end of the 19th century. It has the value of being not only academically intriguing but interesting in the sense of the tales it compiles; the tradition of floating lamps out to sea for the deceased, the use of incense as a parlor game, and bizarre, macabre stories of ghosts, vengeful spirits, and superstitions of many types. I highly recommend this particular text for its fantastic content.

144 pages.

Shinto: The Ancient Religion of Japan: Now Available!

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This short work is a compilation of religious lore mainly of a historical background. The primordial Japanese religion of Shinto is quite complex, but the linguistic content here is secondary and much of it is a description of the different types and usages of deities and rituals. It is worth noting that Astons' study coincides with the rise of Japan as a power in the world and the analysis herein is not so much tainted as colored by that.

56 pages.

Occult Japan: Now Available!

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The topic of Shinto is one I haven't really studied much of before; I waited for years to finally attain a proper copy of this book that could reasonably be edited from and was finally able to do so fairly recently. Its author needs little introduction since he wasn't just an avid studier of Asian religion but also an astronomer of considerable fame who proclaimed Mars to be covered in artificial canals.

The work is almost more notable for its time period and cultural significance than for its strictly religious content since it was written from a western perspective in the very center of the Meiji period- the rapidly shifting cultural ethos of Japan is thus overlapped seamlessly with age-old ritual customs and spiritual lore in this work, acting almost as a time capsule. Highly recommended.

208 pages.