gly. It is a
purely professional performance, being carried through publicly before
some altar in a temple, and payment made for the response. The question
is written down on a piece of paper, which is burnt at the altar
apparently before any one could gather knowledge of its contents; and
the answer from the god is forthwith traced on a tray of sand, word by
word, each word being obliterated to make room for the next, by two men,
supposed to be ignorant of the question, who hold the ends of a V-shaped
instrument from the point of which a little wooden pencil projects at
right angles.

Another method of extracting information from the spirits of the unseen
world is nothing more or less than hypnotism, which has long been known
to the Chinese, and is mentioned in literature so far back as the
middle of the seventeenth century. With all the paraphernalia of altar,
candles, incense, etc., a medium is thrown into a hypnotic condition,
during which his body is supposed to be possessed by a spirit, and
every word he may utter to be divinely inspired. An amusing instance
is recorded of a medium who, while under hypnotic influence, not only
blurted out the pecuniary defalcations of certain men who had been
collecting in aid of temple restoration, but went so far as to admit
that he had had some of the money himself.

This same influence is also used in cases of serious illness, but
always secretly, for such practices, as well as dark _seances_ for
communicating with spirits, are strictly forbidden by the Chinese
authorities, who regard the employment of occult means as more likely to
be subversive of morality than to do any good whatever to a sick person,
or to any one else. All secret societies of any sort or kind are equally
under the ban of the law, the assumption--a very justifiable one--being
that the aim of these societies is to upset the existing order of
political and social life. The Heaven-and-Earth Society is among the
most famous, and the most dreaded, partly perhaps because it has never
been entirely suppressed. The lodges of this fraternity, the oath
of fidelity, and the ceremonial of admission, remind one forcibly of
Masonry in the West; but the points of conduct are merely coincidences,
and there does not appear to be any real connexion.

Among the most curious of all these institutions is the Golden Orchid
Society, the girl-members of which swear never to marry, and not only
threaten, but positively commit s