2. Doppelgangers

  　If you met someone who exactly resembles you or met yourself, you would turn white with fear and could say nothing. You may have heard the word doppelganger. Doppelganger means double walker in German. From the above, doppelganger is used as the word referring to the phenomenon that the third party see yourself at the place where you were not, a man see another himself or the supernatural being that is almost identical to a man living. And generally seeing own doppelganger is sign of his unfortunate or death.

 

fig.1

    It may be unbelievable that there is a lot of great man who met his doppelganger from ancient times. For example, Aristotle saw his counterpart walking ahead of him. Goethe, age twenty-one, passed himself wearing a gorgeous cloth on the road, eight years later when he went down the same road he found that he wore the cloth that he saw. So he met his future figure. Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa told he saw his doppelganger and he was especially attracted the story about doppelganger; Illness of Shadow, written in Edo Era. Many writers, such as Hoffmann, Poe, Dostoevsky, Chamisso, Wild, Maupassant and Musset picked up this phenomenon in their books. The noteworthy fact is that most of them were artists having some kind of mental problems.

                                         fig.2

     In psychology, seeing alter ego is called heautoscopy. Heautoscopy is defined as the phenomenon that own mind is projected onto the outside. In psychosomatic medicine, the first time when heautoscopy was picked up is in 1488 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. They told they saw own alter ego lying by the side of him. However the systematic study started after the 19^th century. Heautoscopy can appear not only mental patient but also ordinary person when he is tired or he is going to sleep. Fear, sadness, sleepiness or strictly self-hate can cause ordinary person to see their alter ego. Except for the occasion that heautoscopy appears to ordinary person, heautoscopy is caused by the factor such as the influence of alcohol or some kind of drugs, a high fever, mental disease or having an epileptic seizure. By the way we can give a dream as the thing being similar to heautoscopy. We see own appearance as if the man who can be seen original in a dream. And the feeling that an infant first see himself in a mirror is said to resemble heautoscopy.

     Because heautoscopy resembles a type of pain associated with an amputated limb, called phantom limb, we can give an explanation heautoscopy with an idea of body image. Each of us has an image of the whole body in their heart. It is not mere perception but a pile of the sort of the perceptions and the image of spatial　relationship between each of the parts. It is cold body image. So heautoscopy can be explained as the result of the projectile from own body image by some kind of causes.

  reference 泉鏡花　芸術と病理（吉村博任）

　　　　　　　　東西不思議物語（澁澤龍彦） 

1. The tengu -天狗-

The tengu is one of the most famous monsters in Japan. They have red face and long nose. They fly and sometimes kidnap a child being lost in the mountain. But the first time the tengu is completely different from the image that is believed today.

The first time the tengu appeared in Japanese history is 638 A.D when Emperor-Jomei ruled. A big comet appeared above the capital growling like a thunder. Then priest-Min who had just back to Japan from China said “That is the tengu, not meteor! Their cry is like a thunder.” The tengu writes “天狗”. “天” means the sky and “狗” means a fox. The ancient Chinese people could consider the trail which comet left to a fox’s tail. In brief, the tengu came from Chinese legend and that is a sing of disaster. But thereafter the tengu didn’t appear in Japanese history for more than 200 years.

The tengu appear in the middle of Heian Period again. Around this time the relationship the tengu and a mountain ascetic began to be strong. First, the tengu was treated like a fairly as the cause of the echo. And they came to use magic that they change man to women, women to man. Moreover they came to curse the nobles who tried to build the house in the mountain of the tengu. In this way the teng penetrated as a popular belief. However the tengu was not more popular than the ogre, the vengeful spirit, dragons and foxes that deceive the people.

The Japanese Warrior Society started, the tengu gained the power. They love the war because they are originally sign of disaster. There are a lot of tales which were written in this age about the tengu and samurai. In fact, around this time, mountain ascetic’s status was established. More and more people began to be a mountain ascetic. They must want to be like the tengu using magical powers and being liberty. So it is natural that many legends about the tengu rose among the people. In this way, the tengu became a one of the most famous monsters in Japan.

Unfortunately, today a lot of people don’t believe the tengu. I don’t say that we should warship the tengu, but it is sad that so many people live in the city that the relationship between people and nature, such as forest and mountain, is being weak. If you go to the mountain having a legend about the tengu, you will find the reason why many people believed the tengu.

reference   天狗考(知切光蔵)
                    天狗の研究(知切光蔵)

All about Kosuke

        Hello, everyone. My name is Kosuke and I am from Japan. As a part of English class, I am going to write this blog. This is my first blog in my life. My hometown is Saitama prefecture. It is the next to Tokyo. Now I live in Tsukuba in Ibaraki prefecture because I entered the University of Tsukuba.  When I start to live in Tsukuba in this April, I felt it was so windy and cold that two weeks later I caught a cold. I had a really hard time then. But I was happy to live alone because I wanted to do for a long time. Tsukuba is convenience for me because if I want to back to my parent’s house, it takes only one and a half hours via TX. “TX” is a shortened form of the Tsukuba Express. It is very fast and looks cool but expensive, so I usually use express buses when I am not so busy. Either way, I can go back to home easily.

University of Tsukuba is very vast. First month from I came Tsukuba, I often got lost in my university. I couldn’t get my classroom without map of my university. If you come there, you will find how important map is. And university of Tsukuba is almost surrounded by dense woods. It is funny that though there are too many woods in my university, the university’s policy is “Plant trees on the campus!” I think the day when deer across the street on the college comes soon.

I am majoring engineering and my favorite subjects are mathematics and physics because of its rationality and regularity. Though you may think it is contradictory, I am very interesting in various kinds of wonders for example UFO, ghosts, ancient legends, mythologies and so on. Those stories can look like nonsense, but I like to connect those with reality and cultural backgrounds. I think occult is similar to fantasy. I cannot help being excited at those stories.

One of my dreams is visiting foreign countries by oneself while I am a student. But I hadn’t cared about overseas until I became 17 years old. Then I was studying for the entrance examinations and I started watching TV programs about a world heritage every weeks. I moved the beautiful scenery and the atmosphere of different culture. Watching them made a pleasant. I would like to visit many countries and know how different from each cultures. To do this, I have to get knowledge about own country because I think it is shameful if I cannot explain about own country. And it is the most serious point; I need to improve my English skill. I’ll stick it out!

There will be sentences that are not clear and obscure in my blog because of my poor English. What is worse, I’m not good at using a computer. But it is a good opportunity for me to gain new experience. We would appreciate your thoughts and opinions. If I can entertain you, I should be happy!