A coincidence: Went to Lidl this morning and on the way back decided to stop in the Folklore Centre for coffee, they had hardly opened and I had to wait whilst the coffee machine warmed up. Whilst waiting I picked up a couple of Fortean magazines to read. This magazine is the home of strange phenomena, aliens, UFOs and portents of things to come. It is very readable but again not my kind of thing. But as I flipped through the pages I found an article about a Japanese stone, (a killing stone) and also reference to Erwin Balz, the German doctor who went over to Japan just like my love and he stayed there for 30 years.
It is funny how Japan seems a strange and wonderful place to quite a lot of people. I note through You Tube that many people are buying the old country houses vacated by their inhabitants and inherited by the families who do not know what to do with them. So foreigners come along and settle down, working from home helps of course.
But .....................
In 2014 we went to Germany to take 6 scrolls back to the museum they belonged to at Bietigheim - Bissingen. They had been completed for years but the museum never recalled them. Above you can see Paul explaining to a party of people the conservation work done.
The scrolls belonged to a German doctor called Erwin Balz (1814 to 1913)who had spent 30 years in Japan practising Western medicine.
In the museum in the town, which is very charming, there is a room devoted to Balz, though apparently much of the things he collected went to Stuttgart museum. But I did take some photos of the room and of the little garden dedicated to him.
It was freezing cold in Germany but the mayor gave us a special tour and the people from the museum were also generous with their time.
Holly thought the coincidence very striking, but of course it made me sad but there again it brought back memories.
As for the article - Fox on the Rocks, Cursed Stone and Vulpine Spirits, this is what Balz wrote..
Possession by foxes (kitsuni-tsuki) is a form of nervous disorder or delusion not uncommonly observed in Japan. Having entered the human being, sometimes through the breast, more often through the space between the finger nails and the flesh, the fox lives a life of his own, apart from the proper self of the person who is harbouring him. There thus results a sort of double entity or double consciousness.
The person possessed hears and understands that the fox inside says or thinks, and the two often engage in a loud and violent dispute. The fox speaking in a voice altogether different from that which is natural to the individual.
As for the killing stone - beware, it cracked open on 7th March 2022 and its evil spirit trapped for a 1000 years is now at liberty!
Wow, that is a weird coincidence. Your Paul was certainly a talented and interesting man, Thelma.
ReplyDeleteYes Ellen, I miss him very much, but it was a weird coincidence.
Deletewe all need to embrace our inner foxes!!
ReplyDeleteI never knew we all had one, though yours is more self evident.
DeleteThat is a strange coincidence. Had you picked up another magazine, you'd have never seen it! I find it interesting that a Western Doctor would have written so about a delusion. It makes you wonder what he had witnessed over the course of his 30 years there.
ReplyDeleteWell I suppose we would have a proper term for it now. In fact the fox inside you was a different personality Debby. Can't remember the name of the illness though.
ReplyDeleteDisassociative Identity Disorder? That's how I framed what I was reading, but I just found his description interesting. From a cultural view, I get it. From a medical view, it just seems to be a peculiar way for a doctor to describe DID. Just something that sort of caught my 'ear'.
ReplyDeleteYes Debby I had read it like that and in fact looked it up. But mental illness wasn't so explored in that time, you normally ended up in an asylum. Needs another worm hole to go down as to what the Japanese answer was.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a late thought, we always need explanations to frame things we do not understand so a fox that has entered your body was part of the storytelling for madness.