"Exorcism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... end your days. Decretis, reversis et desembarassis virgo potens, clemens, justitiae." Then write the same words on pieces of paper, fold them up, and place one of them under the door by which the rats are to go forth, and the other on the road which they are to take. This exorcism should be performed at sunrise. Some years ago an American farmer was reported to have written a civil letter to the rats, telling them that his crops were short, that he could not afford to keep them through the winter, that he had ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... found among the Epistles of Cyprian, to whom it is addressed. It is of importance in connection with the persecution of Maximinus, throwing light on the occasion and extent of the persecution and relating instances of strange fanaticism and exorcism. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... grotesque garb, by way of frightening us with the Devil Venus. On the finger of her statue a young man imprudently places a ring, which she clasps tight, guarding it like a bride, and going in the night to his couch, to assert her rights. He cannot rid himself of his infernal spouse without an exorcism. The same tale, foolishly applied to the Virgin, is found in the Fabliaux. If my memory does not mislead me, Luther also, in his "Table Talk," takes up the old story in a very coarse way, till you quite smell the body. The Spanish Del ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... they urged forward in approved Native fashion by driving the fingers into the base of the hindmost animal's spine; and after them wandered a Syed in a faded green silk robe and cap, carrying the inevitable peacock feather brush, which plays so large a part in exorcism and divination. Later in the day a Hindu lady-doctor hurried past on her way home, and four youths of the student-class, who had left their legal studies in the Fort to see what was toward in the northern portion of the Island. A Municipal sweeper ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... also had gone farther—but of this no one at the time knew but himself. He had gone into the stable on a certain evening, when his servant John Indian was off on an errand; and had pronounced a prayer over the possessed animal winding up with an exorcism which ought to have been sufficient to banish any reasonable devil, not only from the mare, but from the neighborhood. As he concluded, what seemed to be a huge creature, with outstretched wings, had buffeted him over the ears, and then disappeared through ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... ante-Reformation ages the Roman Church claimed, as I have said, a monopoly in orthodox magic. She could send a soul to hell, or by rites and exorcism she could save the sinner from his compact with Satan, as one sees in such legends as those of Merlin, of Tannhaeuser, of Robert the Devil, and of that Theophilus who was converted by flowers sent him from Paradise by the ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... communion of saints is not a bygone tale, for my saints, redeemed from every age and every nation under heaven, still live, and love, and help and intercede. The union of heaven and earth is not a barbaric myth; for I have still my miracles, my Host, my exorcism, my absolution. The present rule of God is still, as ever, a living reality; for I rule in His name, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... For if we may trust the witness of other sagas we find the trial by fire commuted to a symbolic act, as though men had begun to be revolted by the cruelty, even when committed only on a fairy who had been found out, but were unwilling to abandon their belief in the power of the exorcism. In the north-east of Scotland, for example, where a beggar, who had diagnosed a changeling, was allowed to try his hand at disposing of it, he made a large fire on the hearth and held a black hen over it till she struggled, and finally escaped from his grasp, flying out by the ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... suffereth degradation, even so a person by making an alliance with the Madrakas becometh fallen. As there is no friendship in the Madraka, so, O scorpion, thy poison is nought.' With these mantras of the Atharvan I have duly performed the rite of exorcism. Knowing this, O learned one, hold thy tongue, or listen to something further that I will say. Those women that, intoxicated by spirits, cast off their robes and dance, those women that are not attached (to particular individuals) in the matter of intercourse ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... cloud this lightning of the mind, But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, Which out of things familiar, undesigned, When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, - The cold—the changed—perchance the dead—anew, The mourned, the loved, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... father," she answered, and stood with folded hands and serene and smiling face whilst he went through those forms of exorcism and adjuration which, it is said, no evil spirit can endure without crying aloud, or causing that the person possessed should roll and grovel in agony upon the ground, or rush frantically forth ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... two of the three doctors got up again, danced and sung around the boy, and then once more assuming their kneeling positions, recommenced spitting and blowing, waving their bunches of reeds, and making the same curious noises, but louder than ever. Their exorcism at last was effectual, the evil spirit, in the shape of a sharp stone, was extracted from the limb, and driven into the ground; but it was too dark they said to see it. As soon as this agreeable news was announced, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... or without much Dictionary-meaning; but go on repeating it, as is usual in such cases, till the meaning of it becomes almost magical, fit to designate all mystery of Iniquity; and Federaliste has grown a word of Exorcism and Apage-Satanas. But furthermore, consider what 'poisoning of public opinion' in the Departments, by these Brissot, Gorsas, Caritat-Condorcet Newspapers! And then also what counter-poisoning, still feller in quality, by a Pere Duchesne of Hebert, brutallest Newspaper ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... good wine, death, the devil, &c., and the place enjoying moreover the reputation of being haunted, his imagination magnified and multiplied the seven fugitives into a legion of devils, with horns, tails, and fiery breath complete. Under this impression he began to thunder forth a Latin form of exorcism: "In nomine sanctae Trinitatis et purissimae Virginis, exorcizo vos! Apage, Satana! Vade retro, diabole!" &c. &c. in such abominably bad Latin, that a devil or a ghost of the least classical taste would have ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... had his wits sharpened by his own originality and a sheath knife, the headman promptly discovered that the ceremony of exorcism could not be performed because the local wizard had departed with every ounce of magic for the front. Still there were obstinate and fearful persons who wished that Birnier should send a message to the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... satisfied that it was a supernatural being. One called upon Ali, another upon Hossein, and a third invoked the Prophet and the twelve Imams. None seemed inclined to approach it, but every one suggested some new mode of exorcism. 'Untie the string of your trousers,' said an old Iraki, 'that's the way we treat our ghols, in the desert near Ispahan, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... who had been called away previous to the feast, to administer extreme unction to a dying man in the neighborhood. He was a priest of uncommon sanctity, beloved in the family, and respected in the neighborhood, where he had displayed uncommon taste and talents for exorcism;—in fact, this was the good Father's forte, and he piqued himself on it accordingly. The devil never fell into worse hands than Father Olavida's, for when he was so contumacious as to resist Latin, and even the first verses of the Gospel of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... scolded Hodeken, who in revenge squeezed toads all over the meat that was being cooked for the bishop, and then took the cook himself and tumbled him over the drawbridge into the moat. Then the bishop got angry, and took bell, and book, and candle, and banished Hodeken by the form of exorcism ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... had been quite broken up of late. Even the medical lectures and the hospital classes had been neglected. So Aeschylus could not be much of a consolatory amusement in the blank which follows all exorcism. But Cupples felt that if no good spirit came into the empty house, sweeping and garnishing would only entice the seven to take the place of the one. So he tried to interest his pupil once again in his old studies; and by frequent changes ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... lock, had been uttered, he was sure, in no voice known to him; nay more, in no voice of human intonation. How could he explain them? How account for them save in one way? How defend his cowardice save on one ground? He shuddered, gazing at the house, and murmuring now a prayer, and now a word of exorcism. But the day had come, the sky was red, and the sun was near its rising before he took courage and dared to ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... like a disturbing dream. Hermione herself laughed the notion to scorn: and a ready opportunity for such effective exorcism of an evil spirit was supplied ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... into a death-like trance. With a last great effort I drove off the black clouds; but feeling them to be the only shapes I should see without passing into a trance, and having no great love for them, I asked for lights, and after the needful exorcism returned to ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... Dr. Galbraith replied. "Only I am quite sure that if there is any exorcism to be done, the Heavenly Twins will accomplish ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... once more into the warp of daily life. They could visit one another, exchanging domestic experiences, or reminiscences of spiritual struggles of their own or of fellow Pilgrims, and old-time hand occupations would be a mutual lullaby and an exorcism ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... the smell never wholly passed away. Not that any had ever smelt the smell again, for none had; it was only an opinion, like that other—and lacked bones, you see. I know that the creature was there before the exorcism, but whether it was there afterward or not is a thing which I cannot ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... small fact that Pain, though he comes with the highest literary recommendations is really not the wisest teacher of all in such matters—all of which helped the constant nervous and psychological strain on both as little as a Latin exorcism would help a fever. For the very reason that they wished to be true in their love, they said things in their letters that a spoken word or a gesture would have explained in an instant but that no printed alphabet could; and so they often hurt each other while ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... there was to be any exercise whatever of unlawful power, the obligations of the sacred office with which he was invested would not permit him to be present or connive thereat. The marquis merrily insisted that it was a case of exorcism; that the devil was in the castle, and out he must go; that if Satan assisted in the detection of the guilty and the purging of the innocent, then was he divided against himself, and what could be better ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... that era. In the time of Calmet, cases of demoniacal possession, and instances of returns from the world of spirits, were reputed to be of no uncommon occurrence. The church was continually called on to exert her powers of exorcism; and the instances gathered by Calmet, and related in this work, may be taken as fair specimens of the rest. It is then, first, as a storehouse of facts, or reputed facts, that Calmet compiled the work now ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... must have anagrammatised one of them, for over the letters, Pomerania, figures were scratched 356412789 —thus—Pomerania—giving the terrible meaning, rape omnia (rob all); and many said that this must have been the very coin which the devil took that time he rent the oblation-table, at the exorcism of the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... half veil, half turban, binding her hair and falling on her shoulders, she made him think, in her inappropriateness and splendour, of her own Bouddha, who, in his glimmering shrine, lifted his hand as if in a gesture of bland exorcism before which the mirage of a vulgar and trivial age must presently fade away. The Bouddha looked permanent and the room looked transient; the only thing in it that could stand up against him, as it were, was Karen. To her husband's eye, newly aware of aesthetic discriminations, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... already been invented, they would have been invented here, for there was no road they would not have followed in their wickedness. The most unnatural vices flourished among them, and even such rare sins as necromancy, magic, and exorcism were familiar to them, for there were many who hoped to obtain from the powers of evil the protection which heaven had ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... remained regarding each other without speaking. The suddenness and the nature of the surprise had nearly proved too much for—we will not say the philosophy—but for the pitch and resolution of David. He fumbled for his pitch-pipe, and arose with a confused intention of attempting a musical exorcism. ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... very little without suffering in his temper and manners; and who, besides, had a certain shrewd suspicion as to the person who still sat in the dark end of the room, possibly because the entrance of Mr. Lammie had interrupted the exorcism. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... up the Spirit of calculation with his wand; and he had nothing to do, but to conjure him down again with his story, and in this form of Exorcism, most un-ecclesiastically did ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... accomplishes the exorcism of the rats, which may be seen running towards him from every part of the town and precipitating themselves into the river. Unhappily, Wulf, standing in a recess, has seen and heard all and coming forward to threaten Hunold, the latter hurls his dagger ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... reply," said my good master, "that I believe of demons all that is reported of them in the Scriptures, and that I reject as error and superstition all and every belief in spells, charms and exorcism. Saint Augustine teaches that when the Scriptures exhort us to resist the demons, it requires us to resist our passions and intemperate appetites. Nothing is more detestable than the deviltries wherewith the Capuchins ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... Vespasian, a compatriot cured soldiers who were demoniacal. We know from the New Testament that the belief in possession by demons was widespread among the vulgar in the first century of the common era, and the Essenes specialized in the science of exorcism. As the belief was invested with respectability by the patronage which the Flavian court extended to all sorts of magic and witchcraft, Josephus enlarges on it. Solomon is therefore represented as a thaumaturgist, and while not a single ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... first stroke of the Angelus rang from the little tower. The first stroke of that bell before whose magic exorcism all human passions fled, the peaceful bell that had for fifty years lulled the little fold of San Carmel to prayer and rest, came to his throbbing ear. His trembling hands groped for the crucifix, carried ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... 'possessed' are made so or kept so by the priests themselves, who are thus assured of subjects and accomplices, especially in the convents. All kinds of murderous and sadistic follies can be covered with the antique and pious mantle of exorcism." ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... mysteries of wisdom. He instructed men in the art of writing, with paper and ink, by means of which, the author remarks, many fall into sin, even to the present day. Kaodeja, another evil angel, taught the human race all the wicked practices of spirits and demons, and also magic and exorcism. The offspring of the fallen angels and of the daughters of men, were giants whose height was 3,000 ells, of these are the demons working evil upon earth. Azayel taught men various arts, the making of bracelets and ornaments, the use of cosmetics, the way to ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... remedy? It was indeed difficult to prescribe for such complicated cases. Temple charms, however, were always efficacious. The old woman gave the names of some of the shrines which specialized in exorcism. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... thick that they quite hid the grass. This circle I fortified by the usual signs employed, as Benvenuto Cellini tells us, in the conjuration of evil spirits. I then proceeded to utter one of the common forms of exorcism. Instantly the myriad houris assumed the forms of irritated demons; the smoke from the uncounted narghiles burned thick and black; the cries of the frustrated ginns, who were no better than they should be, rang wildly in our ears; the palm-trees shook beneath a mighty ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... and Mencius, only one work has survived. it consists of eighty-four essays on such topics as the nature of things, destiny, divination, death, ghosts, poisons, miracles, criticisms of Confucius and Mencius, exaggeration, sacrifice and exorcism. According to Wang Ch'ung, man, endowed at birth sometimes with a good and sometimes with an evil nature, is informed with a vital fluid, which resides in the blood and is nourished by eating and drinking, its two functions being ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... of Siam and Lord of the White Elephant,' exclaimed the accuser, giving the monarch his strange but august title, 'I declare to thee that the chief bonze has doomed the country to destruction. Taking advantage of the language in which the exorcism is pronounced, he has done what never the greatest prince under thee would dare to do. This man, the head of our order, has spoken words which will make the people scorn thee and this ceremony, if his command comes to pass. Yu Chan, the traitor, has ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... exorcise the Invader, Milly had lost no time in beginning the exorcism. And she did believe that somehow it would; not because the doctor said so, but because she could not believe God would let a child's mother be changed in that way, at any rate while she was bearing it. To do so would be to make it more motherless than any little living ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... and election' you have chosen has always seemed to me so pre-eminently pure and lofty, that I should condemn ray own feelings even more than I do, were I to allow the twin forces of pessimism and despair to possess me utterly without an attempt to bring them under your sane and healthful exorcism, the more so, as you know all my personal history and life- long sorrow. And this brings me to the main point of my letter which is, that I should much like to see you, if you can spare me two or three days ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... once firmly established on ground of her own tilling, and she was immune. And this led her to a consideration of those she knew who had been flayed. They were not few, and a surfeit of publicity is a sufficient reason for not enumerating them here. And during this process of exorcism Notoriety became a bogey, too: he had been powerless to hurt them. It must be true what Chiltern had said that the world was changing. The tragic and the ridiculous here joining hands, she remembered that Reggie Farwell had told her that he had recently made a trip to western New York to inspect ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... devil, fiend, Mara. Associated Words: demoniac, demonocracy, pandemonium, demonology, sabbat, demonophobia, polydemonism, demonism, exorcise, exorcism, exorcist. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... are believed to be able and willing to do harm.[278] At the other extreme of life, when the child comes into the world, mother and child must be guarded against hostile demonic influences.[279] When a demon is known to have entered into a human being, producing sickness or madness, exorcism must be resorted to; magicians, prophets, and saints are able by ceremonies or by prayer to expel the intruder and restore the afflicted to health. Ritual taint (which is supernatural), incurred, for example, by touching a dead ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... witchcraft, and the treatment which is resorted to aims rather at breaking the spell which has been cast on the sick man than at curing his malady by the application of physical remedies. In short the remedy is exorcism rather than physic. Now the enchantment under which the patient is supposed to be labouring is often, though not always, ascribed to the malignant arts of the spirits of the dead, or the mos, as the natives of Tumleo call them. In such a case the ghosts are thought to be clinging ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... briefly to a valuable and amusing book (brought under my notice in Shetland) that furnishes details of the life of Mr. Mill, minister of Dunrossness from 1742 till 1805. Mr. Mill's special talent was his unrivalled power of exorcism: he was a strenuous foe to the devil in every shape and form, and his life was one long battle with the Prince of Darkness. The latter was constantly bringing into play all manner of gins, traps, and wiles to confound the uncompromising clergyman; but, on a calm review ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... heard no News a long Time of their Men at Arms. This Man, at the Entreaty of these People, (being held to be a great Sorcerer amongst 'em) went to know what Posture their fighting Men were in. His Exorcism was carry'd on thus: He dress'd himself in a clean white dress'd Deer-Skin; a great Fire being made in the Middle of the Plantation, the Indians sitting all round it, the Conjurer was blind-folded, then he surrounded the Fire several Times, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... found assisting Angela in a tableau, where a pen-wiper doll in nun's costume was enacting the exorcism of the said bat, in a cave built of ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The gods and other supernatural powers in answer to prayer were thought to signify their will by omens, and also by the following methods: the ordeal, in which the innocence or guilt of a person was shown by the way the god permitted him to endure fire or other torture; exorcism, the driving out of demons by saying mysterious words or names over them. Becoming skilled in interpreting the will of the gods, the Druids came ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... the immediate reintroduction of abolished ceremonies, such as exorcism and other ceremonies of Baptism, confirmation by bishops, auricular confession, extreme unction, episcopal ordination, and the like. We read: "That repentance, confession, and absolution, and what pertains thereto, be diligently taught and preached; ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... worshipped when the occasion arises; and in being served from feelings of attachment and trust, and not like the spirits from fear. When gods appear, some writers hold, then and not till then does religion begin; before that point is reached magic and exorcism are the forms used for addressing the unseen beings, but when it is reached we have worship; intercourse is deliberately sought with beings who hold regular relations with man. The word Animism is best employed to denote ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... presence) must have laughed at his own effigy! Then there is Grim Death, too, a creation of the Dark Ages, for in no age of light could this horror have been ever conceived. Unlike the other, against him no exorcism avails.... As if the soul about to be launched on the dim sea Eternity, after all lights and forms of the loved shore have become indistinct, must be cut loose from her moorings by this phantom. The idea that 'Death comes to set us free,' would hardly make us 'meet ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... certain evils inherent in youth, especially at the critical age of puberty; and when they picture to themselves the evils in a personal form as dangerous spirits or demons, the ceremony of their expulsion may in the strict sense be termed an exorcism. This certainly appears to be the interpretation which the Banivas of the Orinoco put upon the cruel scourgings which they inflict on girls at puberty. At her first menstruation a Baniva girl must pass several days and nights in her hammock, almost motionless and getting ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... gives the version of Sleidan, a notably Protestant version. Wierus is famous for his spirited and valuable defence of the poor women then so frequently burned as witches. He either does, or pretends to believe in devils, diabolical possession, and exorcism, but the exorcist, to be respectable, must be Protestant. Probably Wierus was not so credulous as he assumes to be, and a point of irony frequently peeps out. The story as told by Sleidan differs from that in the official record. In this document Adam Fumee counsellor ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... persistent hate looked by the side of so much unwearied goodness! Even Mrs. Birkett, who pitied the poor child, thought her tenacity too morbid, too dreadful; and the rector honestly held her as one possessed, and regretted in his own mind that the Church had no formula for efficient exorcism. Believing, as he did, in the actuality of Satan, the theory of demoniacal possession came easy as the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... good reason to believe that a great many diseases which doctors pronounce incurable are so so far as their powers are concerned, and yet can be cured by exorcism. Doctors do not believe in possession by the devil, and of course have no means of curing diseases of that nature. They accordingly pronounce some diseases incurable. Yet these diseases are not incurable by persons who understand the nature of them, and that they are spiritual ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... stifle under a load of theology and ritual, had vanished into nothing at the touch of Young Italy. All the unhealthy fancies born of loneliness and sick-room watching had passed away, and the doubts against which he used to pray had gone without the need of exorcism. With the awakening of a new enthusiasm, a clearer, fresher religious ideal (for it was more in this light than in that of a political development that the students' movement had appeared to him), had come a sense of rest and completeness, of peace ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... of his own cowardice, the idea still haunted and tormented him. Sometimes, in the effort to rid himself of the persistence of his own imagination, he would try to exorcise the demon who had got hold of him, and this exorcism consisted in despoiling the image of his temptress of the veil of virginal purity with which his admiration had first invested her. Who could assure him, after all, that this girl, with her independent ways, living alone at her farm, running through the woods ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The exorcism of morbiferous demons was the chief principle of primitive therapeutics, and as a means to this end, the written or spoken word has always been thought to exert a very great influence. Possibly indeed in remote antiquity the art of writing was first applied in inscribing mystic ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... through agencies and methods of its own, to cure disease. It is impossible to follow through in detail the long story though it all bears upon the line we are following through its massive testimony to the power of mind over body. Since the Church believed in demon possession it sought to cure by exorcism and there are in the ritual of the Church, as the ritual has finally taken form, offices growing out of this long, long battle against evil spirits which have now little suggestion of their original purpose. The sign of the Cross was supposed to have commanding power, the invocation of the ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... savage peoples it was the general practice to use exorcism by means of magic formulas and incantations, combined with the noise of rude instruments; this was part of the pathology, meteorology, and demonology which dated from the beginning of speech, and the first rude ideas of fetishes ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... they came close to the hillock where the shepherd's bonnet lay,—he affected to stumble, fell upon his bonnet, which he immediately seized, clapping it on his head, when the whole troop instantly vanished. This exorcism was produced by the talismanic power of a Catechism containing the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, which the shepherd most fortunately recollected was deposited in the crown ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... "Stop yer ticklin', Jock," and his bread was invariably below par. But this cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like a gun-shot, flings the liquid "doughshifter" over the lake in a devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers as they tend their charges, and the lake has become a parchment-coloured morass. For five pounds a month this man toils from four a.m. to eight p.m., and his wife can find nothing better to do than present ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... with a plate of salt—which condiment the devil is said to abhor, and which is held to be a symbol of immortality and of eternity; in that, being itself incorruptible, it preserves all else from corruption,—and, with the customary Romish formula of prayer and exorcism, the priest thrice mingled the crystal particles with the pure fluid; after which, taking the ring in his hand with much solemnity, he sprinkled it with a few drops of the water which he had blessed; made the sign of the cross upon the golden ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... peculation, which they hid in a bow-pot for security. Now, when an assembly of divines, aided by the most strict religious characters in the neighbourhood of Woodstock, were assembled to conjure down the supposed demon, Trusty Joe had contrived a firework, which he let off in the midst of the exorcism, and which destroyed the bow-pot; and, to the shame and confusion of the Commissioners, threw their secret indenture into the midst of the assembled ghost-seers, who became thus acquainted with their ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... renewed wakefulness and activity. The instruments used for this purpose were anti-slavery meetings and the sharp goad of his Liberator editorials. The city was possessed with the demon of slavery, and its foaming at the mouth was the best of all signs that the Abolition exorcism was working effectively. So, in between the glittering teeth and the terrible paws was thrust the maddening goad, and up sprang the ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... possibly the Prince's stare, which we have already seen was at times powerfully magnetic, filled him with aversion and resentment; certain it is he raised his head, showing a face full of abhorrence, and at the same time waved the crucifix as if in exorcism. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... by sickness or otherwise deprived of his reason, or when subject to convulsion fits, they imagine him possessed by an evil spirit, and their ceremony of exorcism is performed by putting the unfortunate wretch into a hut, which they set fire to about his ears, suffering him to make his escape through the flames in the best manner he can. The fright, which would go nigh to destroy the intellects of a reasonable man, may perhaps ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... parents to increase and multiply. This parliament held it to be sinful to wear amulets to preserve from witchcraft; and that this practice might not be continued within its jurisdiction, drew up a form of exorcism, which would more effectually defeat the agents of the devil, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... banish them, from their new shelter. There is no need, then, to invent justifications for Christ's destroying the herd, for He did not destroy it. No doubt, keeping swine was a breach of Jewish law; no doubt the two demoniacs and the bystanders would be more convinced of the reality of the exorcism by the fate of the swine, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... precedes such a period. The nation resembled the demoniac in the New Testament. The Puritans boasted that the unclean spirit was cast out. The house was empty, swept, and garnished; and for a time the expelled tenant wandered through dry places seeking rest and finding none. But the force of the exorcism was spent. The fiend returned to his abode; and returned not alone. He took to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. They entered in, and dwelt together: and the second possession ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.) Go, go, go, I conjure you, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Northern Asia, are addicted to Shamanism. The shaman combines the double function of priest and doctor, ministering to the physical and spiritual being at the same time. When a man is taken sick he is supposed to be attacked by an evil spirit and the shaman is called to practice exorcism. There is a distinct spirit for every disease and he must be propitiated in a particular manner. While practicing his profession the shaman contorts his body and dances like one insane, and howls worse than a dozen Kamchadale dogs. He is dressed in a fantastic ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... attributed his conduct to motives low and unworthy, and as groundless as they are injurious. I do not affect to be frightened with this proposition, as if some hideous spectre had started from hell, which was to be sent back again by every form of exorcism and every kind of incantation. I invoke no Acheron to overwhelm him in the whirlpools of its muddy gulf. I do not tell the respectable mover and seconder, by a perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition halts between ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... spiritual advisers, who judged that the unhappy lady was losing her reason, and, perchance, her soul. Her condition became so critical that in April 1587 the Tuscan ambassador in Rome applied to the Pope for permission for the chaplain of the convent to celebrate a Mass for the exorcism of the poor lady! ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... a violin stole across the water,—an exorcism of the spell that had fallen on Kaskaskia. As the boat reached the tavern corner, this thread of melody was easily followed to the ballroom on the second floor of the tavern, where the Assembly balls were danced. A slave, who had nothing but his daily bread ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the world, so that belief in them is commendable faith, while belief in the rest is reprehensible credulity? "The fact is, however, that the Gospel miracles were preceded and accompanied by others of the same type; and we may here merely mention exorcism of demons, and the miraculous cure of disease, as popular instances; they were also followed by a long succession of others, quite as well authenticated, whose occurrence only became less frequent in proportion as the diffusion of knowledge dispelled popular credulity. ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... clock struck half-past eleven, they heard steps near the chapel, whereupon the police director and the young Latitudinarian went to the window, in order to watch the beginning of the exorcism, and as the chapel was in total darkness, they thought that they should be able to see, without being seen; but matters turned out differently ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... is a naming of the name of Christ magically, and after the manner of exorcism, or, conjuration; as we read in the Acts of the apostles. vagabond Jews, the exorcists, there say, 'We adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preacheth.' (Acts 19:13-15) Thus they called over them that had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus. But what if these should clothe ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... which destroys him, he would be divided against himself, as Jesus Christ said. If God favoured the doctrine which destroys the Church, He would be divided against Himself. Omne regnum divisum.[325] For Jesus Christ wrought against the devil, and destroyed his power over the heart, of which exorcism is the symbolisation, in order to establish the kingdom of God. And thus He adds, Si in digito Dei ... regnum ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... ministry, the curing of the blind, deaf, or dumb was regarded as among the greatest possible achievements of medical science or spiritual treatment; and the subjection or casting out of demons was ranked among the attainments impossible to rabbinical exorcism. Demonstrations of the Lord's power to heal and restore, even in cases universally considered as incurable, had the effect of intensifying the hostility of the sacerdotal classes; and they, represented by the Pharisaic party, evolved the wholly inconsistent ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... thaumaturgy[obs3]; demonology, demonomy[obs3], demonship[obs3]; diablerie[Fr], bedevilment; witchcraft, witchery; glamor; fetishism, fetichism, feticism[obs3]; ghost dance, hoodoo; obi, obiism[obs3]; voodoo, voodooism; Shamanism [Esquimaux], vampirism; conjuration; bewitchery, exorcism, enchantment, mysticism, second sight, mesmerism, animal magnetism; od force, odylic force[obs3]; electrobiology[obs3], clairvoyance; spiritualism, spirit ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and black, breastless, protruding in stomach and navel, and feet turned back. This last is the real test of a churel, even in her beautiful transformation. A detailed account of the churel and beliefs in her and the methods of exorcism will be found in the Calcutta Review, No. ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... such burial-places, are not infrequently disturbed by strange noises, and the manifestations, when materialised, usually take one or other of these forms. In cases of this kind I have found that exorcism has little or no effect; or, if any, it is that the phenomena ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... ever been surprised, it was the people who heard these words. They could not figure out where they were coming from. The chaplain of the vessel recited the exorcism prayers, the sailors swore, and the philosophers of the vessel constructed systems; but no matter what systems they came up with, they could not figure out who was talking. The dwarf from Saturn, who had a softer voice than Micromegas, told them in a few words what ...
— Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas • Voltaire
... a firmly held doctrine, attribute their infirmities to satanic influence. We are in the true line of descent. To-day we have with us every one of the phenomena on which the satanic theory rested, but they are described, and prescribed for, in medical works instead of manuals of exorcism. The supernaturalist theory gives way to that of the expert neurologist. The exorcist is replaced by the physician. Instead of expelling an intruding demon, we have to repair a deranged system. We cannot argue that while these affections remain constant ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... truly—once a year, when the botte was emptied, came four of the spiritual fathers of the college above, with a table and chairs, and played a certain game of cards, which was one of their simple amusements. Whether this meeting was intended as an exorcism of any evil influences which might threaten the new must about to be put in, or a mild bacchanalian tribute to the empty space from which they had drawn so much comfort and cheerfulness during the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... have met cockneys in my day, and some of the most offensive varieties at that, but this spook absolutely outcocknifies them all, and the worst of it is I can't seem to rid myself of him. He has pursued me like an avenging angel for quite six months, and every plan of exorcism that I have tried so far has failed, including the receipt given me by my friend Peters, who, next to myself, knows more about ghosts that any man living. It was in London that I first encountered the vulgar little creature who has made my life a sore trial ever since, and ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... against witchcraft. 106. The origin of the incubus and succubus. 107. Mooncalves. 108. Division of opinion amongst Reformers regarding devils. Giordano Bruno. Bullinger's opinion about Sadducees and Epicures. 109. Emancipation a gradual process. Exorcism in Edward VI.'s Prayer-book. 110. The author hopes he has been reverent in his treatment of the subject. Any sincere belief entitled to respect. Our pet beliefs may some day appear as ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... is commonly attributed to possession by evil TOH, and exorcism is practised among some of the tribes, but very little by the Kayans, who generally content themselves with confining any troublesome ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Stefanone abstained from interfering, as he had at first been inclined to do, and entering the laboratory, with the support of the parish priest, a basin of holy water, and a loaded gun—all three of which he considered necessary for an exorcism; and little by little, Sor Tommaso, the doctor, persuaded him that Dalrymple was a worthy young man, deeply engaged in profound studies, and should be ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... there he stood gazing at me for a minute, at least, without uttering a syllable. Suddenly, however, he protruded a spare skinny hand from the cloak in which it had hitherto been enveloped, and pointed with a short staff, tipped with metal, in the direction of my face, as it he were commencing an exorcism. He appeared to be about to speak, but his words, if he intended any, were stifled in their birth by a sudden sternutation which escaped him, and which was so violent that the hostess started back, exclaiming, "Ave Maria purissima!" and nearly ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... archaic thought which disorganized the emerging society until it seemingly had no cohesion. To the French emigrant on the Rhine that society appeared like a vile phantom which had but to be exorcised to vanish. And the exorcism to which he had recourse was threats of vengeance, threats which before had terrified, because they had behind them a force which made them good. Torture had been an integral part of the old law. The peasant expected it were he insubordinate. Death alone ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... Saxon ancestors the treatment of the insane was a curious compound of pharmacy, superstition, and castigation. Demoniacal possession was fully believed to be the frequent cause of insanity, and, as is well known, exorcism was practised by the Church as a recognized ordinance. We meet with some interesting particulars in regard to treatment, in what may be called its medico-ecclesiastical aspect, in a work of the early part of the tenth century, by an unknown author, entitled "Leechdoms, ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke |
