CARMEN KEPT A diary during much of her life, but there were many gaps of days, months and years when she did not record anything or the relevant diary has disappeared. Some of the entries are jottings and lack punctuation. The entries presented here have accordingly been lightly edited with added punctuation and explanations in square brackets or footnotes as appropriate.

Many of the entries that Carmen made were about events, travels and family and are not relevant to this volume, which aims to present Carmen's achievements as a scholar of Japan, especially of Japanese religion and folklore. The following extracts have been selected from her diaries and autobiographical wntings with this aim in mind. They show the development of her interest in Japan and reveal her scholarship, her sensitivity, her understanding of people and her powers of description.

Carmen was interested in all aspects of Japanese religion and folklore. She was attracted towards Zen Buddhism but also became involved in the study of Japanese new religions. Her studies brought her into fairly frequent contact with two sects. These were:

• 1. Ten-shō-kōtai-jingu-kyō was founded by Sayo Kitamura, known as Ōgami-sama. Her cult was also known as ‘The Dancing Religion’. The cult's disciplines included confession of sins and dancing practices. It was a Messianic religion, designed to seek salvation.

• 2. Ryūgū kazoku was founded by Furuta Himiko (name later changed to Fujita), known as Otohime-sama. Kawami Yoshihara was her follower, assistant. Otohime-sama had received a vision of Otome, the ‘Dragon Palace Princess’, and sought inspiration from Amaterasu. She founded her cult as a ‘World Renewed Religion’, seeing females as conveyors of spirituality, and concentrating on the energetic powers possessed by women that could enable a devotee to diagnose an illness and its causes and to expel, or exorcise, evil influences.

Carmen discussed the Ryūgū kazoku in ‘The Goddess Emerges from her Cave: Fujita Himiko and Her Dragon Family Palace’ which was included in her Collected Writings pp.146–153. Carmen accompanied Himiko on a number of visits to remote parts of Japan in her search for Heike villages.

A selection of her accounts of meetings with these goddesses and their followers are reproduced under vanous dates below (after 1972).