Stealing in - What?

...work in progress...

I bet this is what this "thinking chimpanzee" from Wikipedia is thinking about. Is Ninjutsu a real thing?

Since they have at least one manual published on paper and on internet, and dojos accross the US, it must be real.

But let's first try to analyze two different expressions from Japanese language. 忍者 = shinobi no mono (ninja) and 神心神眼 = shin shin shin gan.

Here is the common translation of these expressions with Google Translate. And here is the answer to a lucky google search which will let me to later pass to the second one. The syntagm 忍者 can be read or pronounced in two different ways. Shinobi no mono and ninja. In the two expressions the transliteration shin or shinobi appears 3 times represented with 3 different kanji and having 3 different meanings each time. Trying to emphasize here the closenes of pronounciation of the kanji 忍 (shinobi), 神 (shin = God or deity) and 心 (shin = heart which separately pronounces kokoro, note a strange resemblance with some latin languages).

I've been also lucky enough to find and "steal in" an online pdf version of the Bansenshukai, the manual i was talking about. Title is translated as "The Book of Ninja". In the manual the expression "steal in" appears 14 times. The expression "stealing in" appears 5 times and the word oral (from kuden or oral traditions appears 247 times).

At page 31 of the pdf in the Introductory Notes of this book there is a reference to Chapter I, Correct Mind that says "a soft and weak person will become hard and strong, an evil-minded person will become loyal and a stupid person will become wise. With justice, courage and wisdom, there is no way you cannot ‘steal in’.

Beyond the obvious contradiction within the phrase itself, this is a good example of what ninjutsu is all about. "Stealing in", or infiltrating. But there is also a whole chapter named "Art of lock picking" which actually teaches you the old art of entering and breaking or physical stealing, mostly documents and other important objects.

Since i'm here i also should mention, by looking at the Content of the book, the existence of three chapters about "open disguise" which are believe are at the basis of what we see today about all public persons in all countries being actually ninja and also 5 chapters on infiltration.

I lost most of the day and all the inspiration trying to find a workaround about a bug or a protection within the pdf file so i can put links to pages (could not link to comments) and i've also been lucky to find that by chance.

There are a number of active school of ninjutsu. Of them one is Togakure-ryū (School of the Hidden Door, the name is suggestive, i think by personal experiences, no door can stand between you and yout guarding ninjas). One of the main purposes declared in the Wikipedia page of this school of ninja is achieving 神心神眼 = shin shin shin gan, literally God's eye and mind.

What is that. From the same personal experiences, is a way of picking your opponent's or subject's emotions, from a distance or from behind a wall and with combining with knowing his actions in every minute learn to know him so intimately that at some point you can actually know him better than himself and/or predict and/or heavily influence his thoughts and actions. I think it can go all the way to a point where i believe we can start calling this... Stealing one's mind. For what purpose. Obviously for using him for stealing others' minds.

...to be continued...