"Occult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appearances had so occult a purpose that it has never been fathomed. At Daiquiri, for example, where the American troops landed in the late war, a native reported to the wondering community that while walking through the wood he met a tall, shaggy stranger, who ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... to talk over the rot with that little white thing down at the Brier Bush," Raymond declared one night to that self of his that stood off on inspection; "what's the harm? She's got the occult bug, and I'm keen about it just now. No one will be the worse for me having the talk—she's all right and that veil of hers leaves us a lot freer to speak out than face to face would." And then Raymond switched on the lights and read certain books that held him rigid until he ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... name, except Da Vinci's, carries the high associations of oracular and occult wisdom as far as Goethe's does. He hears the voices of "the Mothers" more clearly than other men and in heathen loneliness he "builds up ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... and with a pseudo-philosophic theory about spiritual communion with human beings. My wife, who is an enthusiastic student of electro-biology, is disposed to believe that Weatherley's mind, overweighted by the knowledge of his forgery, was in some occult manner, and unconsciously to himself, constrained to act upon my own senses. I prefer, however, simply to narrate the facts. I may or may not have my own theory about those facts. The reader is at perfect ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... to have entirely repented of her evil practices, renouncing from the day when Cornelius left for Paris her periodical invasion of the asparagus beds at the foot of the garden. But the vicar was too practical a man to waste time in speculating upon the occult relations of seemingly disconnected facts. He applied himself with diligence to the work of preparing John Short to compete for the minor scholarship. The labour was congenial. He had never taken a pupil so far before, and it was a genuine delight to him to bring his own ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... have presented, though they manifestly form but the merest fragment of the secret correspondence which passed between the chief conspirators, and of the written evidence recorded by them in various forms, then and afterwards, we have a substantial unmasking of the combined occult influences which presided over the initiatory steps of the great American Rebellion—its central council—the master wheel of its machinery—and the connecting relation which caused all its subordinate parts ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... confidence of the community by listening to the old ladies' symptoms three or four hours a day, regularly. Finally, they'll let me vaccinate the kids and the rest will be pitifully easy. Kids always like me, for some occult reason, and if the children cry for me, it won't be long till I've got your whole blooming job away from you. Never mind, though, dad—I'll be generous and whack up, as you've always ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... mind, in a good condition for taking castles, as far as not having a groat is a qualification for such exploits. She was also a glittering bait to divers young squires expectant (whose fathers were too well acquainted with the occult signification of mortgage), and even to one or two sprigs of nobility, who thought that the lining of a civic purse would superinduce a very passable factitious nap upon a thread-bare title. The young lady had received an expensive and complicated education, complete ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... entered the anteroom and sat shadowed among the great fragrant shrubs. A group already stood there, eating ices and gayly gossiping. Mr. Laudersdale and Mr. Manton sauntered in, their heads together, and muttering occult matters of business, whose tally was kept with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... spirits to Cousin Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed about me, and whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go abroad. Of the last—the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects—I had nevertheless an occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting my ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... and several of our own Countrymen see abundance of Fairies. In Asia this Credulity is strong; and the greatest Part of refined Learning there consists in the Knowledge of Amulets, Talismans, occult ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Michael Scott, had learned "the art of glammorie In Padua beyond the sea," and who is famous in the annals of Massachusetts, where he was at one time a resident, as the first man who dared petition the General Court for liberty of conscience. The full title of the book is Three Books of Occult Philosophy, by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Knight, Doctor of both Laws, Counsellor to Caesar's Sacred Majesty and Judge of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a magic in the shining name, A legacy that beauty yields to speech, Something more quick and subtle than her fame,— Who else had blown beyond our stunted reach. By what occult divining does the will Fashion the cryptic word whose sound and sense Evoke the trembling image, lovely still, Of something lost but ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... and limestones, and brought back with them in the evening, Ammonites and Gryphites enough to store a museum. Cromarty had been visited during the summer by geologists speaking a foreign tongue, but thoroughly conversant with the occult yet common language of the rocks, and deeply interested in the stories which the rocks told. The vessels in which the Crown Prince of Denmark voyaged to the Faroe Isles had been for some time in the bay; and the Danes, his companions, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... name of the Magi, what were these spells of theirs, so potent and occult? On all hands it was agreed, that they derived their greatest virtue from the fumes of certain compounds, whose ingredients—horrible to tell—were mostly obtained from the human heart; and that by variously mixing these ingredients, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... number; or, it is most probable that the most probable thing will happen. In the middle of the nineteenth century, when attention was first called to the solidarity and internal correlations of groups, especially if they were large and genetic, it was believed that occult and far-reaching laws had been discovered. That opinion has long been abandoned. If there are four dice in a box, each having from one to six dots on its faces, the chance of throwing four sixes is just the same as that of throwing four ones. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... watch, on the point of setting his hand on the realisation of his dream, which always flew away. In reality, beneath his intractable realism lay the superstition of a nervous woman; he believed in occult and complex influences; everything, luck or ill-luck, must depend upon the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Lady Kew came to know this fact, whether her maid corresponded with Lady Anne's maid, what her ladyship's means of information were, avowed or occult, this biographer has never been able to ascertain. Very likely Ethel, who in these last three weeks had been made aware of that interesting circumstance, had announced it to Lady Kew in the course of a cross-examination, and there may have been a battle between the granddaughter and the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the very moment when it penetrated our subterraneous laboratories to enlighten our PREPARERS, to establish principles, to create methods and to unveil causes which had remained occult. ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... Brachman, and versed in all those mysterious Secrets which your European Philosopher, called Pythagoras, is said to have learned from our Fraternity. I had so ingratiated my self by my great Skill in the occult Sciences with a Daemon whom I used to converse with, that he promised to grant me whatever I should ask of him. I desired that my Soul might never pass into the Body of a brute Creature; but this he told ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... characteristics of finance heretofore has been the cult of silence, some of its rites have been almost those of an occult science. ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... that conspiracy were a subtle, so to say, occult propaganda to seduce a simple people to false convictions, to induce the creation of gigantic armaments, a secret service employing at a vast cost journalism, emissaries, and agencies, to gain partisans and allies ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... and looked at her in dumb wonder, as if she were some uncanny creature, possessed of occult powers. Then the significance of her words trickled through the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... quite honest and serious over the B—— affair. He assured me that he had written the letter to The Times without any advice or assistance, and that all he wrote was absolutely true. I gathered from him, indirectly, that before his B—— experience he knew nothing of ghosts, spiritualism, or any occult matter, and does not now. He was much astonished when I told him that the feeling which he describes as like walking into an ice-house was a common one under the circumstances. He said he omitted in his letter many small personal matters, such as the following:— ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... life; she had a keen scent for evil motives underlying simple actions. Thus when she perceived the intimacy which had newly arisen between the Fraeulein and Miss Palliser, she told herself that there must be some occult reason for the fact. Why did those two always walk together? What hidden charm had they discovered ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... according to subject, though not chronologically. He wrote novels of society, of history, of mystery, and of romance. In all he was successful, and perhaps felt as much interest in one as in another. In his own life the study of the occult played a part; he was familiar with the contemporary fads in mystery and acquainted with their professors. "Ancient" history also attracted him, and he even wrote a couple of volumes of a 'History of Athens.' In all his writing there is a tendency to lapse into a discussion of the "Ideal ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the courtyard, started when he caught sight of him, so transfigured did he appear. Under his thick, damp hair his eyes shone with quiet celestial joy, and the fleshless face, the colour of ivory, wore that expression of occult spirituality which flowed from the brushes of the Quattrocento. How could that face harmonise with peasant's attire? In his heart Don Clemente congratulated himself upon a thought which he had conceived ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... hope it is really true that there is an Influence in Hynds House? I do so greatly long to come in contact with the Occult and the Unknown! ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... movements directed by these men soon came to be infused with more serious and spiritual influences. The Lollardy of Wycliffe and his fellows in the fourteenth century had been severely repressed and driven into "occult conventicles," but had not been extinguished; the Bible in English, many times retouched after Wycliffe's days, and perfected by the refugees at Geneva from the Marian persecutions, had become a common household book; and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... are! Two ways have occurred to me of dealing with the matter," continued Dr. Cairn quietly. "One is to find that cavern and to kill, in the occult sense, by means of a stake, the vampire who lies there; the other which, I confess, might only result in the permanent 'possession' of Lady Lashmore—is to get at the power which controls ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... once powerfully aroused my curiosity, for I perceived that 'Ngaga was referring to those strange occult powers with which the witch doctors are credited by the white men who have been thrown into most intimate contact with the natives. I had heard many extraordinary and apparently well-authenticated stories told respecting the alleged power of the nyangas ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... favour among the townspeople; and knowing Henchard's nature now she had feared that Farfrae's days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement gave her little surprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge despite his words and her father's dismissal? His occult breathings to her might be solvable by his course in ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the sods We set the great enamels by, Wherein the occult odours lie, And play with children on ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... advanced on the supposition, that 'one mind' could command an unlimited direction over any given number of 'limbs', provided they were all connected by 'joint' and 'sinew'. But suppose, through some occult and inconceivable means, these limbs were dis-associated, as to all material connexion; suppose, for instance, one mind, with unlimited authority, governed the operations of 'two' separate persons, would not this, substantially, be only 'one person', ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... associated with pancakes. The pancake bell is still rung in many places, and for some occult reason it is the season for some wild football games in the streets and lanes of several towns and villages. At St. Ives on the Monday there is a grand hurling match, which resembles a Rugby football contest without the kicking of the ball, which is about the size of a cricket-ball, ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... a piano stood in Honora's drawing-room, and Miss Morrison sat before it in what may be termed occult draperies, making lovely music. Technically, perhaps, the music left something to be desired. Mrs. Barsaloux and Marna Cartan thought so, at any rate. But the habitues of Mrs. Dennison's near-home soon fell into the way of trailing ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... chamber where the Parliament is usually held, the seats and wainscot are made of wood, the growth of Ireland; said to have that occult quality, that all poisonous animals are driven away by it; and it is affirmed for certain, that in Ireland there are neither serpents, toads, nor any other venomous creature to ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... witchcraft and its demonstrations centered in the claim of power to produce certain effects, "things beyond the course of nature," from supernatural causes, and under this general term all its occult manifestations were classified with magic and sorcery, until the time came when the Devil was identified and acknowledged both in church and state as the originator and sponsor of the mystery, sin and crime—the ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... greater than men. He concluded that society ought to belong wholly to those distinguished beings who, to natural intelligence, acquired wisdom, and fortune, add a fanaticism hot enough to fuse into one casting these different forces. That done, their occult power, vast in action and in intensity, against which the social order would be helpless, would cast down all obstacles, blast all other wills, and give to each the devilish power of all. This world apart within the world, hostile to the world, admitting none of the world's ideas, not ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... faces the languid countess was breathing the inspiration of her smile. Enigmatic as was the latter, it was as simple as an infant's compared to the occult character of her glance. A wealth of complexities lay enfolded in the deep eyes, rimmed with their mystic darkened circlet—that circle in which the Parisienne frames her experience, and through which she ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Windygates on the heels of the returning servant. Among the long list of human weaknesses, a passion for poultry seems to have its practical advantages (in the shape of eggs) as compared with the more occult frenzies for collecting snuff-boxes and fiddles, and amassing autographs and old postage-stamps. When the mistress of Craig Fernie was duly announced to the mistress of Windygates, Lady Lundie developed a sense of humor for the first time in her life. Her ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... and, by some occult process, the fact of their presence soon became known to the entire slave population of the neighborhood, who came flocking in throughout the day. Such an important occasion would have been incomplete without a prayer-meeting, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... trying ordeal. I tremble for the consequences! I am now so happy, that in the very selfishness of my love for you, I may shatter your ideal. To disappoint you; would be to forfeit my paradise! In times of trial, I shall appeal to you as the noblest and best of wives, to use your highest gifts of occult power to assist me in retaining your respect, admiration and love. Meanwhile, my dear wife! I shall cherish in my heart, the memory of your tribute, as a talisman, as a perpetual inspiration to live up to my highest ideal! Whatever ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... only means of knowledge and that a fragment of reality sometimes reaches the intelligence in other ways. . . . Because a fact is rare is no reason that it does not exist. Because a study is difficult, is that a reason for not understanding it? . . . Those who have railed at metaphysics as an occult science will be as ashamed of themselves as those who railed at chemistry on the ground that pursuit of the philosopher's stone was illusory. . . . In the matter of principles there are only those of Lavoisier, Claude Bernard, and Pasteur-the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... cannot help thinking that the stories of miracles, prophecies, charms, etc., are but distorted accounts of the extraordinary effects produced by certain latent forces, or, as was formerly said, by occult powers. Our science is still so brutal and unfair; our professors exhibit so much impertinence with so little knowledge; they deny so impudently facts which embarrass them, in order to protect the opinions which they champion,—that I distrust strong minds equally with superstitious ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... used ingredients in witches' cauldrons were the vervain and the rue. "The former probably derived its notoriety from the fact of its being sacred to Thor, an honor which marked it out, like other lightning plants, as peculiarly adapted for occult uses," says Mr. Thiselton Dyer in his "Folk-lore of Plants." "Although vervain, therefore, as the enchanter's plant, was gathered by witches to do mischief in their incantations, yet, as Aubrey says, it 'hinders witches from their will,' a circumstance to which Drayton further refers when he ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... the breath of the Goddess of Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,—whether a woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she exhales,—these and other questions which relate to occult influences exercised by certain women, we will not now discuss. It is enough that Mr. Bernard was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to him, nor unprecedented in the history of human experience, but always a revelation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... those who never in the racing of horses felt any concern could not help but take in the outcome of this one a curious interest. The audacity of the prophecy, the very absurdity of it, presupposing, as it did, occult power, was in itself amusing. And when the curtain rose on the Suburban it was evident that to thousands what the Man Who Could Not Lose had foretold was a serious and ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... discoloured with age. It looked a small house from the street, five windows in front, if I remember right, but it deepened into a single long chamber at the back. It was here that Dacre had that singular library of occult literature, and the fantastic curiosities which served as a hobby for himself, and an amusement for his friends. A wealthy man of refined and eccentric tastes, he had spent much of his life and fortune in gathering together what was said ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... face, very pale and still but with every sign of suffering stoically repressed. He was conscious as I stood for a moment at his side. It was not a time to speak even a word, but I hoped he might feel through some occult influence that a Harvard brother was there at hand, full of sympathy for him. He afterwards recovered in part, and, with unconquerable will, though he was only a fragment of a man, went in again and was still again ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... company of Odilon Redon, of whom he had never heard, in his feeling for the almost occult presence emanating from everything he encountered everywhere, and his simple letters to his friends hold touches of the same beauty his drawings and paintings and ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... a Catalogue of Curious Books; containing numerous Works on the Occult Sciences, America, Asia, Books of Prints, curious Quarto Tracts, English Black Letter, Early Printed Works, Proverbs, Facetiae, &c. &c. May be had on application, or by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... perhaps saying a little too much. Four men and three women, so that when they broke up there was one dame always attended by two cavaliers: strange to say, Fan was always the favoured one. For some occult reason no one contested the curate's right to have Constance all to himself on such occasions; for what right had he, a religious man, to monopolise this pretty infidel? Then, too, she was a widow, entitled by prescription to the largest share of attention; nevertheless, the curate ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... word. The shepherd who was like all thinkers, a man of hidden sense, was quite aware that sometimes old men have strange crotchets, converse with the essence of occult things, and mumble to themselves discourses concerning matters not under consideration; so that, from reverence and great respect for the secret meditations of the canon, he went and sat down at a distance, and waited the termination of these dreams; noticing, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... had the peculiar gift, which developed into ever-increasing perfection as her hair grew whiter, of being able to express ideas by means of words which had no relation to them at all. Within three minutes, by three different remarks whose occult message no stranger could have understood but which forced itself with unpleasant clearness upon Edwin, Mrs Hamps had conveyed, "Janet Orgreave only cultivates Maggie because Maggie is the sister of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... at a very low level; small joy either for the maker or the user. Pure art, a fine-spun specialty, a process carried on by an elect few who openly despise the unappreciative many. Art has become an occult profession requiring a long special education even to enjoy, and evolving a jargon of criticism which ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... mistook the date. He helped me enormously, and I miss him.... Well, the truest charity should be anything but formal, I think, and I saw at a glance that your case was exceptional, and that you also were Occult——" ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... converts who rigorously attended the spiritual ministrations of the Mission, and ate the temporal provisions of the reverend fathers—he deputed the functions of the first mass to a coadjutor, and, breviary in hand, sought the orchard of venerable pear trees. Whether there was any occult sympathy in his reflections with the contemplation of their gnarled, twisted, gouty, and knotty limbs, still bearing gracious and goodly fruit, I know not, but it was his private retreat, and under one of the most rheumatic and misshapen trunks ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... aloud to the family he had revened from the grave. He had no occult persuasions. He just sat in his rocker and smoked hard and imagined hard. He imagined the lives of his family not only as they might have been, but as they ought to have been. He was like a spectator at a play, mingling belief ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... lurks beyond the NOW; Could we but see what the dim future hides; Had we some power occult that would us show The joy and sorrow which in THEN abides; Would life be happier,—or less fraught with woe, Did ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... about this knowledge. To a high-bred dog, every human of his acquaintance has a distinctive scent; which cannot be mistaken. Lad used no occult power inn returning to the rightful owner any article he chanced to find on lawn ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... so we'll make ourselves into a society. We'll have a star with seven rays for our secret sign. It has a nice occult kind of smack about it. When we chalk that mark upon anybody's desk, it means we've got to reform her, whether she likes it or ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... offspring. Their choice of the proper season, their contracts of marriage, and the regularity with which they construct their nests, have in all ages excited the admiration of naturalists; and have always been attributed to the power of instinct, which, like the occult qualities of the antient philosophers, prevented all further enquiry. We shall consider them in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... day.... The strategy one must sometimes employ in traveling through a hostile country is based upon the principle of deception.... It was the work of Maria too, who had evidently been reading up on certain occult works of the Eastern magicians and brought them into play at a moment when we were surrounded by a band of marauders in the company of my 'Hindu' friend.... To explain: There is a certain kind of little animal held sacred among these strolling outlaws.... The possession of one of these animals ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... the dynamo, next to the steam-engine, was the most familiar of exhibits. For Adams's objects its value lay chiefly in its occult mechanism. Between the dynamo in the gallery of machines and the engine-house outside, the break of continuity amounted to abysmal fracture for a historian's objects. No more relation could he discover between the steam and ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... was no longer talking at random, but slowly, with his eyes on the collar he held in his hand, like a scholar in his closet, perusing the occult pages of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... satisfaction to the full. But the place, for all its ingenuities of comfort, was oddly cold and unwelcoming. He couldn't have said why, and could only suppose that Mr. Lavington's intense personality—intensely negative, but intense all the same—must, in some occult way, have penetrated every corner of his dwelling. Perhaps, though, it was merely that Faxon himself was tired and hungry, more deeply chilled than he had known till he came in from the cold, and unutterably sick of ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... macadamized road, and here were more autos, and more dust, and more racing. Now and then they crossed a trolley or a railroad track, and here was always a warning sign; but Oliver must have had some occult way of knowing that the track was clear, for he never seemed to slow up. Now and then they came to villages, and did reduce speed; but from the pace at which they went through, the villagers could not ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... towards him as will enable them to receive the li. In the family, he is the father; in the state, he is the king. In very truth, this is the Doctrine of the Golden Age, and proof of the profound occult wisdom of Confucius: even the (comparatively) little of it that was ever made practical lifted China to the grand height she has held. It is hinted at in the Bhagavad-Gita:—"whatsoever is practised by ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... keep secrets, I might turn out something.' said Mrs. Coningsby. 'I am the depositary of so much that is occult-joys, sorrows, plots, and scrapes; but I always tell Harry, and he always betrays me. Well, you must guess a ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... at all, so fur as we could see. What material wrought out of the Occult World wuz piled ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... evening, my friends," the one Pash was saying, "a very remarkable lady—if I may use so democratic a term in the connection—to whom the limits of Time and Space are empty words, and before whose supreme Will the most portentous Forces of Occult Nature mutely confess themselves her attending slaves—" But at that moment the rolling drums of Kiang-ti's thunder drowned his words, although he subsequently raised his voice above it to entreat that any knives or other articles ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... An; and her will being also more resolute than his, and will being essential to the direction of the vril force, she can bring to bear upon him, more potently than he on herself, the mystical agency which art can extract from the occult properties of nature. Therefore all that our female philosophers above ground contend for as to rights of women, is conceded as a matter of course in this happy commonwealth. Besides such physical powers, the Gy-ei have (at least ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... occult wisdom—had long since foretold this year as the first of the epoch of regeneration, and ever since the shrill ram's horn had heralded its birth, the souls of Sabbatai Zevi's disciples had been tense for the great moment. Surely it was to announce himself at last that he had summoned them, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... good fellow withal, and would willingly do any kind action that did not seriously interfere with his comfort, or make too heavy a draft upon his pocket. His self-indulgence, which was quite blameless, unless surfeit is a fault, was the basis of an interest in occult themes, which was the means of even higher diversion to Minver. He liked to have Rulledge approach Wanhope from this side, in the invincible persuasion that the psychologist would be interested in these themes ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... wondered if the occult prompting which had dragged him out of his chair on the Brentwcod porch saw to it that he walked upon the strip of matting in the tile-paved corridor and so made his approach noiseless. Also, if the same silent monitor bade him stop short of ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... face had been subjected to transmutation? Why not? Needed there a greater motive than the speculation of his future exhibition? According to all appearance, industrious manipulators of children had worked upon his face. It seemed evident that a mysterious and probably occult science, which was to surgery what alchemy was to chemistry, had chiselled his flesh, evidently at a very tender age, and manufactured his countenance with premeditation. That science, clever with the knife, skilled in obtusions and ligatures, had enlarged the mouth, cut away the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... great moment to the race are thus projected to the earth, and spiritual Adepts in occult laws will again revive the "Wisdom Religion" upon earth in all its beauty and grandeur as the western race becomes fitted intellectually and ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... states was soon apparent. Most of Braid's experiments were repeated, and in the main his results were confirmed. His explanation of hypnotism, or artificial somnambulism, as a self-induced state, independent of any occult or supersensible influence, soon gained general credence. His belief that the initial stages are due to fatigue of nervous centres, usually from excessive stimulation, has not been supplanted, though supplemented by notions growing ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... their heads being adorned with elder flowers, as his substitute, as if they were Tolgom, as say our fathers of yore, oh my children. In this manner we obtained power with the Zotzil Tukuches, by knowledge and occult science, by power and majesty; thus did our fathers and ancestors, we the Cakchiquels, lift our heads above others, nor our ancestors lower their glory ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... plunged in. But scarcely had it taken two steps and reached the depth of its knees, when, from the intenser cold, or from coming sharply against a submerged stone, or from indignation at the fiddler's prod, or from the occult cause known as pure devilment, it shied up its back legs, and tossed down its tousled head, and pitched the musician head-foremost into ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... these men from the east offering gifts to Herod in his palace; they did, however, impart of their treasure to the lowly Infant, in whom they recognized the King they had come to seek. The tendency to ascribe occult significance to even trifling details mentioned in scripture, and particularly as regards the life of Christ, has led to many fanciful suggestions concerning the gold and frankincense and myrrh specified in this incident. Some have supposed a half-hidden symbolism therein—gold a tribute ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... content. It is certain that there are in man two occult powers engaged in a death struggle: the one, clear-sighted and cold, is concerned with reality, calculation, weight, and judges the past; the other is thirsty for the future and eager for the unknown. When passion sways man, reason follows him weeping and warning him of his danger; but when ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... of causes. It may be due to a lack of poetic appreciation on the part of the teacher, leading to poor judgment in selecting and presenting poetry. It may be due to the feeling that there is something occult and mysterious about poetry that puts it outside the range of common interests, or to the idea that the technique of verse must in some way be emphasized. The first step in using poetry successfully with children is to brush away all these and other ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... together. It was perfectly true that Isabel, who was keen almost to the point of brilliance in the application of mathematics to such practical matters as finance and real life, had never academically been anything but a hopeless dunce, while Helen, who had penetrated so far into the upper occult that the mind shuddered to follow, was notoriously incapable of making her personal accounts balance within fifty per cent. It was an understood situation ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... around dwellings, conditions which, when neglected, had led to the outbreaks of epidemic disease from the days of Moses to the present time. But while the results had been patent, it was only in recent years that a clew had been obtained to the occult conditions in air and water to enable their comparative healthful purity ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... mention that for some occult reason (which I have entirely forgotten) I trusted fervently that a Hungarian or Polish name might be given after the satisfactory "Yes" had been spelt out, but, alas! ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... the Astrologer Royal had not been authorised to employ his occult skill in producing any objects but the self-supplying dinner-tables, though it was rumoured that his industry was not entirely confined to these. He certainly sold the Crown Prince a sword with which he could face undismayed the fiercest ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... and fairy tales devoted to the cat, of which there are many, are based on an understanding, although often superficial, of cat traits. But the moderns, speaking generally, have not been able to do justice, in the novel or the short story, to this occult and lovable little beast. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... book which claims to give us the key of the whole problem of human destiny—a book containing some assertions regarding occult science, belief in which must remain suspended in our minds, and some points in cosmogony which conflict with our Christian convictions—yet a book making statements about human history which, though in the highest degree startling, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... see Fates they cannot avert in some figure occult, He foresaw in a moment each evil result Of the quarrel now imminent. There, face to face, 'Mid the ruins and tombs of a long-perish'd race, With, for witness, the stern Autumn Sky overhead, And beneath them, unnoticed, the graves, and the dead, Those two men ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... develop the quadrature of the eight diagrams of Feuh-hi." I hope readers will not ask me to explain this, for I have not the slightest idea what it means. Yet I am persuaded that for ages the symbol has had occult and probably mathematical ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... he soon took to, when Leila's whistle called them,—a wild troop, never allowed beyond the porch or in the house. For some occult reason Mrs. Ann disliked dogs and liked cats, which roamed the house at will and were at deadly feud with the stable canines. No rough weather ever disturbed Leila's out-of-door habits, but when for two days a lazy rain fell and froze on the snow, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... to the mountain grotto, devoted himself to the study of the occult principles of the 'Old Philosopher' until the material elements of his mortal frame were gradually evaporated or sublimated, and without having passed through the change which men call death, he became an immortal spirit returning whence ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... master, who started in spite of all his self-control. This Franchet was at the climax of his celebrity, and exercised the mysterious function of Director-General of the Police. He owed his elevation solely to the Society of Jesus. This occult power, whose ramifications extended all over France, was mysterious and tremendous in its workings. No one could expect any favor if he did not first render this ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... among the great number of books on occult science and all forms of divination which have been published in the English language there should be none dealing exclusively with the Tea-cup Reading and the Art of Telling Fortunes by the Tea-leaves: notwithstanding that it is one of the most common forms of divination practised by the ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... be fairly transcribed, and copies of them to be preserved in several libraries of his order."[461] But they did not usually pay so much attention to the duties of transcribing. The Dominicans were fond of the physical sciences, and have been accused of too much partiality for occult philosophy. Leland tells us that Robert Perserutatur, a Dominican, was over solicitous in prying into the secrets of philosophy,[462] and lays the ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... all about them was aquiver, and her vague eyes met his through the magic, acquiescent under a sorcery for which she had no name—then, when all things occult breathed silence—then he had ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... amount of occult symbolism in this section is enormous, and the key of it is the name of the letter I, which is IVD, Yod. This is a trinity of letters, and their numerical value is I 10, V 6, D 4, total 20, equivalent ...
— Hebrew Literature
... continuous and permanent, though its interactions with matter are discontinuous and temporary; and I conjecture that it is subject to a law of evolution—that a linear advance is open to it—whether it be in its phenomenal or in its occult state. ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... too dull to suspect. The truth, when it came home, smote him like a blow; his hatred for the author, which had been momentarily forgotten—momentarily lost in his admiration of the artist—rose up anew, and he recognized this occult spell which had held him breathless as the thrall of a vital reality, not, after all, the result of inspired acting. Instantly he saw past the make-believe, into the real, and what he saw caused him to utter ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... place among the caricaturists of the age, Robert Dozyphrase, the expatriated American novelist, now of London, whose latest volume of sketches, entitled Intricacies, has been equally the delight of his followers and the despair of students of the occult; and, what is more to the purpose of our story, Major-General Carrington Cox, U.S.A., retired. These gentlemen, with others of equal distinction whom I have not the space to name, were discussing with some degree of ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... privileged cafe waiter inquired about him from gay, noisy parties entering some old haunt of his. Mr. Desmond, of art gallery and roulette notoriety, whose business is not to forget, was politely regretful at his absence from certain occult ceremonies which he had at irregular intervals graced with votive offerings. And the list ended there—almost, not quite; for there were two people who had not forgotten Siward: Howard Quarrier and Beverly Plank; and one other, a third, who could not yet forget ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... Scotland recalls the fact that an unusual number of eclipses happen to have been visible in that country, and the occult bent natural to the Scottish character has traditionalised a few of them in such terms as the "Black Hour" (an eclipse of 1433), "Black Saturday" (the eclipse of 1598 which has been alluded to above), and "Mirk Monday" (1652). The track of the last-named also passed over ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... sprung from the doctor Sahib, who was thereby the most unpopular sahib that had ever been put in charge of the sanitation of a District. He was cursed by the ignorant in the Muktiarbad bazaar and at Panipara village itself, but so far his person had been respected, as it was known by some occult means that he secretly carried firearms ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... to the untutored red Indian beside the Mississippi, has the question, "is there an existence after death," been approached with the most earnest hopes to solve as one of the greatest mysteries. Shelley devoted a vast amount of energy to the elucidation of this occult, yet overt, truth; ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... illumination she had recognized him, too, and she bent impulsively toward him. In his coming just now as though in answer to her thoughts there seemed something almost occult. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... each act imputed." But secret sinners must not be disclosed, for, once the blush of shame is set aside, they will indulge the more in sin, as Augustine says (De Verbis. Dom.; cf. Serm. lxxxii). Consequently, Christ's body is not to be given to occult sinners, even if they ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... carried him off, if he had not been shot?" There was evidently one jury man who didn't want to waste life, and was willing to stake a general average, as the jury always does in a civil case, deciding not according to the evidence but reaching the verdict by some occult mental process. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... the same velocity as the other, and then giving it up, what shall we do? shall we say the foreigner beats him by his blood, or by the force and power of his tendons? or can we, without reproaching our own reason and understanding, impute that to be the effect of occult and hidden causes in the one of these instances and not in the other? both of which are demonstrated with certainty, and reduced to facts by the knowledge of anatomy and ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... She had not spoken one word since the disappearance of the sonnet—that sonnet which would have told her of her future; for had not Marescotti, by some occult power, read her secret? Alas! too, was she not about to reenter her gloomy home without catching so much as a glimpse of Nobili? Count Marescotti had no opportunity of saying a word to Enrica that was not audible to all. He did venture to ask her if ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... We are to believe that while the pure blood of English gentlemen in Virginia has produced not only the gentlemanly vices of pride, treachery, and falsehood in the leaders, but the ignoble faults of crime and debasement in the 'poor trash'—that some occult influence of climate has advanced an entire community at the North far above the position of its progenitors—that while the gentle Cavalier has been overcome by the seductive charms of luxury and repose, the ignoble Puritan has thrown off his degrading ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... made up from papers published in "The Athenaeum," with additions by the author. Soon after opening it we come to names with which we are familiar, the first of these, that of Cornelius Agrippa, being connected with the occult and mystic doctrines dealt with by many of De Morgan's correspondents. But the name most likely to arrest us is that of Giordano Bruno, the same philosopher, heretic, and martyr whose statue has recently ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... with the flying rags and tatters of a storm, and Valentin regarded it with a wistfulness unusual in such scientific natures as his. Perhaps such scientific natures have some psychic prevision of the most tremendous problem of their lives. From any such occult mood, at least, he quickly recovered, for he knew he was late, and that his guests had already begun to arrive. A glance at his drawing-room when he entered it was enough to make certain that his principal guest was not there, at any rate. ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... with the impulse which proceeds from their sympathy with the energies of the living system. Could we recover the hand from the Cross, or from the custody of the Black Douglas, I would be pleased to observe this wonderful operation of occult sympathies. But, I fear me, one might as safely go to wrest the joint from the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... as ever, and fortified by the exact sciences, took refuge from the occult under his covering of profound stupidity. He had a secret understanding with Dr. Gardner on the subject. His spirit no longer searched for Dr. Gardner's across the welter of his wife's drawing-room, knowing that it would find it ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... absurd and offensive nonsense as that which this celebrated rhetorician made use of in attacking it? Would not the adopted daughter of Montaigne have better defended the rights of citizens in France, in 1614, than the Councillor Courtin, who was a believer in magic and occult powers? Was not the Princesse des Ursins superior to Chamillard? Could not the Marquise de Chatelet have written equally as well as M. Rouille? Would Mme. de Lambert have made laws as absurd and as barbarous as those of the "garde des Sceaux," ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet
... begun to be a power in Apex, and fat years had followed on the lean. Ralph Marvell was too little versed in affairs to read between the lines of Mrs. Spragg's untutored narrative, and he understood no more than she the occult connection between Mr. Spragg's domestic misfortunes and his business triumph. Mr. Spragg had "helped out" his ruined father-in-law, and had vowed on his children's graves that no Apex child should ever again drink poisoned ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... complex character of a mythic, heroic, and Christian poem, and, at the same time, constitutes the unity of its parts. The ancients, whose representative types I introduce, knew and appreciated but two kinds of power, brute or physical, and spiritual, including all occult and supernatural efficacy, and strength of intellect and will. Virtue, triumphant by the aid of adventitious force, or relying upon unconquerable pride and disdain to resist it, was the highest reach of their dynamic conceptions. Moral power is properly a Christian ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... The occult quality in the air did not depart with the coming of night, though the winds no longer alternated, the warm blasts ceasing to blow, while the cold came steadily and with increasing fierceness. Yet it was warm and close in the cave, and the two went outside for air, wandering up ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fascinating foreign noblemen who are becoming so invaluable to writers of fiction, either in narrative or dramatic form. Shortly after the marriage her husband is arrested for a terrible murder committed some years before in Russia, under the evil influence of occult magic and mesmerism. The crime was done in a hypnotic state, and, as described by Violet Fane, seems much more probable than the actual hypnotic experiments recorded in scientific publications. This is the supreme advantage that fiction possesses over fact. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... man!" She leaned forward, her eyes deep- lit pools of mirth and mockery and some more occult feeling that he could not interpret. "Would it scare you quite out of your poor, queer wits if I were to HUG you? Don't call for help. I'm not really going ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... research that we particularly discussed. Van Maarden was the greatest scholar in the Mystic, the Occult, the Spiritualistic that I have ever met. He claimed to be able to go out of the body at will and see what any friend was up to at any time, in any ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the suggestions made in this little book come from my own memories of early school life; and my own experience since of the methods used in Occult training has shown me how much happier boys' lives might be made than they usually are. I have myself experienced both the right way of teaching and the wrong way, and therefore I want to help others towards the right ...
— Education as Service • J. Krishnamurti
... into the love-scene itself—the scene in which the miracle of love is solemnized and celebrated. I thought that of all miracles, the miracle which had occurred that night, and was even then occurring, might be counted among the most wondrous. What occult forces, what secret influences of soul on soul, what courage on his part, what sublime immodesty and unworldliness on mine had brought it about! In what dreadful disaster would it not end! ... I cared not in that marvellous hectic hour how ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... a weird and strange story that interests and fascinates the reader, with its occult fancies and marvellous experiences.... It may be added, in conclusion, that it is a book well worth reading, and will ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... law did not await the discharge of the thunderbolt. As Mr Dean expressed it, he was too 'cute for that. By some occult means, known only to legal men, he discovered what was in the air, took time by the forelock, and retired into privacy—perhaps to the back settlements of Peru—with all the available cash that he could righteously, or otherwise, scrape together. By so doing, however, he delivered ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... "perhaps next Easter!" Next Easter was an aching desolation. The blinds of Burnmore House remained drawn; the place was empty except for three old servants on board-wages. The Christians went instead to the Canary Isles, following some occult impulse of Lady Ladislaw's. Lord Ladislaw spent ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... characteristic manners, the Oneidas eating like gentlemen and talking together in their low and musical voices; the Wyandotte gobbling and stuffing his cheeks like a chipmunk. The Stockbridge Mole, noiseless and mum as the occult and furry animal which gave to him his name, nibbled sparingly all alone by himself, and read in his ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... had been able to follow, Mrs. Veda Blair's story had dealt mostly with a Professor and Madame Rapport and something she called the "Red Lodge" of the "Temple of the Occult." ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... iron rule of Nicholas, there were, many years after the St. Petersburg insurrection of 1825, still some faint traces of Secret Societies, in which the spirit of Pestel and Murawieff was continued. One of these occult Leagues was that of Petrascheski, detected in 1849, whose members were sentenced to forced labour and to banishment to Siberia. A nearer approach to the plebeian element than was observable in the Conspiracies of 1817-25, characterized this later ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... and go, here and there, now from crag, now from coppice, and now from moor, all over the sultry stillness of the clouded landscape? Have you listened among mountains to the voice of streams, till you heard them prophesying change? Have you so mastered the occult science of mists, as that you can foretell each proud or fair Emergency, and the hour when grove, precipice, or plain, shall in sudden revelation be clothed with the pomp of sunshine? Are all Bewick's birds, and beasts, and fishes visible to your eyes in the woods, wastes, and waves of the clouds? ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... November 1912 Miss Isabel Newton, the Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research, and I attended the demonstration given by Yoga [sic] Rama of his alleged occult powers ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... defects or limitations of this story, I can assure my readers that it is largely based on truth. Many of the incidents, including the dual personality phenomena, were suggested by actual happenings known to me. The doctor who accomplishes cures by occult methods is a friend of mine, who lives and practises in New York City. Seraphine, the medium, is also a real person. The episode that is explained by waves of terror passing from one apartment to another and separately affecting three unsuspecting ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... the conquered. Still, to this day, the two nations dwell in the same land, but not united. Still each member of each race learns as his first lesson to which of the two he belongs, and recognizes, by some occult, but well-known tokens, the race and creed of every man with whom he has dealings. Religious differences, of course, have come in to swell the tide of mistrust, and to nullify the most strenuous efforts of the Anglo-Irish to gain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... to catch it. There some evil fiend persuaded my father to go and consult a doctor about his illness, for Newcastle has produced some well-known names in medicine. Thus, while I waited at the hotel to start, my father became persuaded that he had some occult disease of the liver, and must remain in Newcastle for treatment. I, however, happened to be treasurer of the voyage, and for the first time asserting my professional powers, insisted that I was family physician for the time, and turned up in the evening ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the desperate displeasure Of his serene and raging highness: Whether he twitched his most revered And sacred beard, Or had intruded on the shyness Of the seraglio, or let fly An epigram at royalty, None knows: his sin was an occult one, But records tell us that the Sultan, Meaning to terrify he knave, Exclaimed, "'Tis time to stop that breath: Thy doom is sealed, presumptuous slave! Thou stand'st condemned to certain death: Silence, base rebel! no replying! But ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... bringing about the tragical termination of the loves of Adrienne and Djalma. But what excited to an incredible degree the admiration of Faringhea, was what he knew of the Society of Jesus. This immense, occult power, which undermined the world by its subterraneous ramifications, and reached its ends by diabolical means, had inspired the half-caste with a wild enthusiasm. And if anything in the world surpassed his fanatical ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the mountain tops, than Sabra repaired to the Champion's pavilion, and presented him with a diamond ring of inestimable value, which she prayed him to wear on his finger, not only as an ornament, but because it was endued with many excellent and occult virtues. ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... hierophant," the admission of the female sex to the most exalted positions and the most esoteric degrees being a remarkable feature of this great secret society (413. 33). Indeed, Aztec tradition, like that of Honduras, speaks of an ancient sorceress, mother of the occult sciences, and some of the legends of the Nagualists trace much of their art to a mighty ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... But it was no occult "bearing down" that led him to order her admitted the instant her card came. He liked her; he wished to see her again; he felt that it was the decent thing, and somehow not difficult gently but clearly to convey to her the truth. On her side she, who had looked forward ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... did not play again immediately. He watched the wheel with a quiet intentness, as if he were establishing some subtle, occult influence over it. Then the white hand was quietly extended, and a gold piece glittered where it had touched. Again the ball declared itself ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... These vagabonds gave out that they were exiles from Lower Egypt, and pretended to know the art of predicting coming events. It was soon found out that they were much less versed in divination and in the occult sciences than in the arts of plundering, roguery, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix |
