First, reports on yōkai from contributors all over Japan (462 Second, research from local fieldwork on phenomena such Third, observations and collected anecdotes from all over Ja-cases) as table-turning, hypnotism, sorcery, and mythical white foxes, etc. (several dozen cases) pan, from Hokkaidō to Kyūshū (from thirty-two prefectures) In May 1887 Enryō published Mysterious Tales of Enigmas: Volume One, Table-Turning Séances. At that time table-turning séances, which had been imported from the West and had taken on a unique Japa-nese flavor, were becoming so popular that people referred to the ghostly spirit of the practice as Lord Table-Turning. (Both the West-ern and Japanese variants involved calling upon spirits to divine the future. By searching for “狐狗狸” we can find videos online today showing how these rituals used to be conducted). Enryō explored this phenomenon, and through literature, collecting information, and conducting experiments, he explained that the true nature of Lord Table-Turning was not the spirit of a kitsune fox, a tengu goblin, or a tanuki raccoon dog. Rather, it was “the mind and body of a human being.” Following that Enryō went on to become famous as an ec-centric “yōkai researcher” who dealt with enigmatic phenomena. In November 1893 Enryō systematized the results of his ten-plus years of research and published the collected contents of his lectures as “On Mystery Studies” in the Philosophy Academy Lecture Records (sev-enth academic year). The following are the materials related to yōkai that were used as the basis for these lecture records. 100
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