At the end of a very sick year our thoughts turn to healing.
“Genji, who was suffering from a recurrent fever, had all sorts of spells cast and healing rites done, but to no avail.”
“Naturally,” we say today. “Of what avail can spells and rites possibly be?” We look to doctors and scientists for cures. We would have seemed very strange to the Japanese of the Heian Period (794-1185). Healing divorced from Taoist lore and Buddhist prayer would have drawn as much scorn from them as their invocations and exorcisms do from us.
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