"Exorcist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the behest of a devilish superstition, while the less fanatical laymen shrink from such inhumanity. The only devil in this story is the devil of fearful ignorance and misbelief in Brother Martin. He it was who needed the exorcist, although the truth would have greatly surprised him. Carlyle may use his snarling muscles at the "apothecary's apprentice" who is able to give a scientific explanation of Luther's visions; but, after all, the unfortunate persons whom Luther would have ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... by the learned how to raise ghosts and evil spirits. To raise the ghost of one who had hanged himself, the exorcist was to provide himself with a straight hazel wand, and bind the head of an owl with a bunch of St. John's-wort to the end thereof. This done, he was to repair to a place where a miserable wretch had strangled himself, and at twelve o'clock ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... and for each he has a new teaching suited to its needs. Thus in Tibet, where the older religion consisted of defensive warfare against the attacks of evil spirits,[916] he assumes the congenial character of a victorious exorcist, and in his triumphant progress subdues local demons as methodically as if he were suppressing the guerilla warfare of native tribes. He has new revelations called Terma which he hides in caves to ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... attention to him; but when public curiosity had no other aliment, he became an object of general interest. Weary of so many strange scenes, the inhabitants looked upon him with some exasperation, and whispered to one another, asking whether this was another exorcist come among them. Feeling that it was time to take a decided course, he advanced with his attendants, hat in hand, toward the group in black of whom we have spoken, and addressing him who appeared its chief member, said, "Monsieur, where can I ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "exorcist," born at Bludenz, in the Tyrol; while a Catholic priest at Kloesterle he gained a wide celebrity by professing to "cast out devils" and to work cures on the sick by means simply of prayer; he was deposed as an impostor, but the bishop of Ratisbon, who ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... doctrine. For you must choose the horn of your dilemma, either the current theory was true or it was not. If you say true, you must allow that the same theory is true for all similar stages of culture, [but not for the later stages,] and therefore that the most successful exorcist is Science, albeit Science works not by faith in the theory, but by rejection of it. Observe, the diseases are so well described by the record, that there is no possibility of mistaking them. Hence you must suppose that they were due to devils in A.D. 30, and to nervous disorders ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... respectful state which his celebrity demanded. Epimenides complied with the prayer of the Athenians he arrived at Athens, and completed the necessary expiation in a manner somewhat simple for so notable an exorcist. He ordered several sheep, some black and some white, to be turned loose in the Areopagus, directed them to be followed, and wherever they lay down, a sacrifice was ordained in honour of some one of the gods. "Hence," says the historian of the philosophers, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their Gods, Deserv'd their vengeances severest Rods: Wrath he deserv'd, and had the Vial full, To lay those Devils had possest his Soul. His silenc'd Fiends from his wrung Neck they twist; Whilst his kind Murd'rer's but his Exorcist. Here draw, bold Painter, (if thy Pencil dare Unshaking write, what Israel quak'd to hear,) A Royal Altar pregnant with a Load Of Humane Bones beneath a Breaden God. Altars so rich not Molocks Temples show; 'Twas Heaven above, and Golgotha below. ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... them as they go away because the second husband is regarded in the light of a robber. Sometimes they stop by a stream on the way home, and, taking off the woman's clothes and bangles, bury them by the side of the stream. An exorcist may also be called in, who will confine the late husband's spirit in a horn by putting in some grains of wheat, and after sealing up the horn deposit it with the clothes. When a widower or widow marries a second time and is afterwards attacked by illness, it is ascribed to the illwill of their ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... necromancer; and a train of fire leapt suddenly across the room. A groan of irrepressible terror ran through the company; but the exorcist, with a look of reprehension for their disobedience, betook himself again to his ejaculations. Retiring backwards a few paces to a corner of the room, he gave three audible knocks upon the floor, which, to the astonishment and dismay of the assembly, were distinctly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... witches in the following classes: "1. The diviner, gypsy, or fortune-telling witch; 2. The astrologian, star-gazing, planetary, prognosticating witch; 3. The chanting, canting, or calculating witch, who works by signs and numbers; 4. The venefical, or poisoning witch; 5. The exorcist, or conjuring witch; 6. The gastronomic witch; 7. The magical, speculative, sciential, or arted witch; 8. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... thy sword Failed at Rome's gates, and blood seemed vainly poured Where, in Christ's name, the crowned infidel Of France wrought murder with the arms of hell On that sad mountain slope whose ghostly dead, Unmindful of the gray exorcist's ban, Walk, unappeased, the chambered Vatican, And draw the curtains of Napoleon's bed! God's providence is not blind, but, full of eyes, It searches all the refuges of lies; And in His time and way, the accursed things Before whose evil feet thy battle-gage ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the cause of all bodily afflictions the chief function of the person who battles for the health of the afflicted is that of the exorcist, rather ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... before his coming, The wild-cat glared, the viper hissed; And died the long day's insect-drumming. Where things of night began their humming, And witchly phantoms went to tryst, Was Herman exorcist. ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend |
