The Mystery of Things is a magic incantation that summons forth man's ancient fears of the strange and the unknown, of the night's darkness and the unseen perils that lurk even in the shadows of the day. The chilling immediacy of its seventeen evocations of the Japanse supernatural in words and pictures plunges us far deeper into the world of the occult than Lafcadio Hearn's quaint retellings of old Japanese ghost stories.