"Occult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse us, or to appeal to our feelings, but to compel us to reflect, and to understand the occult and deeper meaning of events. By dint of seeing and meditating he has come to regard the world, facts, men, and things in a way peculiar to himself, which is the outcome of the sum total of his studious observation. It is this personal ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... of his stern duties, reveals to the scorn of future ages some of the occult practices which discredit the march of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... transported far from that world of which my newly born desires were furiously besieging the entrance. Nevertheless I answered 'Yes' when I wished to say 'No,' though all within me protested against the violence done to my soul by my tongue. Some occult power seemed to force the words from my throat against my will. Thus it is, perhaps, that so many young girls walk to the altar firmly resolved to refuse in a startling manner the husband imposed upon them, and that yet not one ever fulfils her intention. Thus it is, doubtless, ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... It was Sunday and the whole ship was curiously quiet. But as I lay in my little shelter I was presently disturbed by Pondicherry (that was what he was called by everyone), who came where I was to fetch away a plate full of some occult mystery which he had secreted there. He nodded to me brightly, and then for the first time it occurred to me that if he came from his nameplace he might know a little French. I knew remarkably little ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... M. d'Aiglemont was modest. Instinctively he felt that his wife, young though she was, was his superior; and out of this involuntary respect there grew an occult power which the Marquise was obliged to wield in spite of all her efforts to shake off the burden. She became her husband's adviser, the director of his actions and his fortunes. It was an unnatural position; she ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... of peace, so must the true reflection of it in the labour of the landscape gardener create not merely an impression of beauty, but a mood in the soul. The grand old landscape gardeners, those Buddhist monks who first introduced the art into Japan, and subsequently developed it into an almost occult science, carried their theory yet farther than this. They held it possible to express moral lessons in the design of a garden, and abstract ideas, such as Chastity, Faith, Piety, Content, Calm, and Connubial Bliss. Therefore were gardens contrived according to the ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... consequences. I argue from this fact that the gang numbers persons of respectability—outward, of course, and merely outward, as the robbery proves. But I argue, second, that we must have been observed at Franchard itself by some occult observer, and dogged throughout the day with a skill and patience that I venture to qualify as consummate. No ordinary man, no occasional criminal, would have shown himself capable of this combination. We have in our neighbourhood, it is far from improbable, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... concealed their indifference in religious matters than they did their diversity of political opinions, royalist doubtless, but of divers grades; that no one was more tolerant than the King; finally, that if an occult power, the existence of which I do not deny, but the force of which has been exaggerated, acted on the mind of the King, it had not its seat in ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... must take its place among things to be investigated, the evidence is too convincing to be pooh-poohed. Science and philosophy are now boldly entering the dim regions of the occult in search of its laws; on the battlefield Tommy Atkins is already there thinking over weird things and he comes to conclusions, finding the lights by which ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... followed the course of the spark along the thread, but in this case, no! I sprang unexpectedly, without warning, without even having suspected that I was so carefully sapped. Nor was it a clap of thunder, unless I admit that a clap of thunder can, be occult and silent, strange and gentle. And this again would be untrue, for sudden disorder of the soul almost always follows a misfortune or a crime, an act of ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... indicate, unless it be that kind and degree of pride in human skill, which seems scarce compatible with reverential dependence upon the power above? Try to rid my mind of it as I may, yet still these chemical practitioners with their tinctures, and fumes, and braziers, and occult incantations, seem to me like Pharaoh's vain sorcerers, trying to beat down the will of heaven. Day and night, in all charity, I intercede for them, that heaven may not, in its own language, be provoked to anger with their inventions; may not take vengeance of their inventions. A thousand ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... by this affirmation of absolute reality independent of the conditions of the process of knowing? Do we mean to ... affirm, in language savouring strongly of scholasticism, that beneath the phenomena which we call subjective there is an occult substratum Mind, and beneath the phenomena which we call objective there is an occult substratum Matter? Our conclusion cannot be stated in any such form.... Our conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phenomena, ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... helpful chiefly to the better state when we can act without reference to them. And there's no measuring the poisoned influence of that notion of future reward on the mind of Christian Europe, in the early ages. Half the monastic system rose out of that, acting on the occult pride and ambition of good people (as the other half of it came of their follies and misfortunes). There is always a considerable quantity of pride, to begin with, in what is called "giving one's self to God." As if one had ever ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... mystic philosophy, amongst whom we must reckon many of the medical practitioners, endeavoured to explain the phenomenon, by referring to the secret power of sympathy, which even Bacon did not venture to dispute. To this occult agency was imputed the cure of wounds, effected by applying salves and powders, not to the wound itself, but to the sword or dagger, by which it had been inflicted; a course of treatment, which, wonderful as it may at first ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... Personality Chastity Zorastrianism on the Septenary Constitution of Man Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principle in Man The Septenary Principle in Esotericism Personal and Impersonal God Prakriti and Parusha Morality and Pantheism Occult Study Some Inquiries Suggested by Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism" Sakya Muni's Place in History Inscriptions Discovered by General A. Cunningham Discrimination of Spirit and Not-Spirit Was Writing Known ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... The occult properties of this stone are described by Solinus, c. xl, and by Boccaccio, in his humorous tale of Calandrino. Decam. G. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the superstitious awe with which it was regarded by the early explorers of the South Seas. To them, as well as to those who listened in rapt wonder to their tales, the "Coal-sack'' seemed to possess some occult connection with the mystic "Cross.'' In the eyes of the sailors it was not a vacancy so much as a sable reality in the sky, and as, shuddering, they stared at it, they piously crossed themselves. It was another of the magical wonders of the unknown ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... made so that the Finn MacCool, the champion of the giants, could take a running jump over to Scotland and he going deer-hunting in the forests of Argyll. So the country folk said, but wee Shane thought different, knew different. The Druids had made it for their own occult designs, the Druids, that terrible, powerful clan with their magic batons, and their sinister cursing-stones, and their ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of great self-interests. If a few words in favor of Baudoyer were obtained by the importunity of the curate of Saint-Paul's and the Abbe Gaudron, they would have been withdrawn immediately at a suggestion from the minister. The occult power of the Congregation of Jesus (admissible certainly as confronting the bold society of the "Doctrine," entitled "Help yourself and heaven will help you,") was formidable only through the imaginary force conferred on ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... is not the enunciation of any special philosophy or doctrine, but rather is to give to the students a statement of the Truth that will serve to reconcile the many bits of occult knowledge that they may have acquired, but which are apparently opposed to each other and which often serve to discourage and disgust the beginner in the study. Our intent is not to erect a new Temple of Knowledge, but rather to place in the hands of the ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... years. He then returned to Madaura; but soon growing discontented determined to indulge his restless craving for travel and acquiring knowledge. He therefore set out for Egypt, the nurse of all occult wisdom, and the centre of attraction for all curious spirits. On his way he fell ill and was detained at Oea, where he met a rich widow named Pudentilla, whom in course of time he married. Her two sons had not been averse to the match, indeed Apuleius says they ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, And bibe the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... are necessary for the purpose of exhibiting distinctly some phases in the life of this dangerous and implacable woman who, by her affiliation with the Order of Jesuits, had acquired an occult and formidable power. For there is something even more menacing than a Jesuit: it is a Jesuits; and, when one has seen certain circles, it becomes evident that there exist, unhappily, many of those affiliated, who, more or less, uniformly dress (for the lay members of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... alone, in the centre of the ballroom—with outstretched arms revolving in an occult, weird, dreamy, mystic, druidical, cabalistic circle. They now for the first time perceived the meaning of those strange wands which appeared to be attached to the many folds of her diaphanous skirts and involved her in a fleecy, ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... to the blaze that crackles near, I turn a tired and pensive ear, And Nature conquering bids me sigh For love's soft accents whispering nigh; O teach me, on that heavenly road, That leads to Truth's occult abode, To wrap my soul in dreams sublime, Till earth and care no more be mine. Let bless'd Philosophy impart Her soothing measures to my heart; And while with Plato's ravish'd ears I list the music of the spheres, Or on the mystic symbols pore, That hide ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... wounds must not be omitted. A doctor is, with them, a person of importance and esteem, but his province seems rather to charm away occult diseases than to act the surgeon's part, which, as a subordinate science, is exercised indiscriminately. Their excellent habit of body*, the effect of drinking water only, speedily heals wounds without ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... droll to see how this "meek and gentle" fellow met blackbird impudence. If one of the sable gentry came down too near a dove, the latter gave a little hop and rustled his feathers, but did not move one step away. For some occult reason the blackbird seemed to respect this mild protest, and did ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... 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 enchantress of ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... that there is magic in a mirror, a weird atmosphere imprisoned, between the metal and the glass, borrowing the occult powers of the gulf of space, and returning to us our own wraith and apparition at any hour of the day or night when we smite it with a ray of light,—reaching with its searching power into the dark places where we have hidden ourselves, and seizing and projecting them in open sight? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... compensation of evils in an equitable administration. In the present instance there can be no compensation, for the acts of injustice are committed against different classes. It is the trading classes which enjoy the means, from the occult nature of their gains, of evading by fallacious returns the income tax. The honest and honourable pay it to the last farthing: it is the dishonest who escape. The persons upon whom the levying the income tax in its present form operates with the most cruel severity are the professional ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... The power of reason is no occult power: it is simply the capacity for finding and establishing systems of means for the attainment of ends; or it may be defined as the power of acquiring experience and of self-applying this experience in ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... prescribed by Newton; it bears every mark of a veil woven by philosophical conceit, to hide the ignorance of philosophers even from themselves. They borrow the threads of its texture from the anthropomorphism of the vulgar. Words have been used by sophists for the same purposes, from the occult qualities of the peripatetics to the effluvium of Boyle and the crinities or nebulae of Herschel. God is represented as infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; He is contained under every predicate in non that the logic of ignorance could fabricate. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the living rooms and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult and powerful personage who must be described in a few words, for he well deserves the parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole time that this particular administration lasted, the position of private ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... Nature and set at defiance her most secret and subtle laws. Such, however, is the natural outcropping of an ignorant teaching and vulgar prejudice that feeds and clothes the charlatan and ascribes to savage and uncultured races an occult familiarity with pathological, physiological, and remedial effect unattainable by the most advanced sciences; and whereby the Negro, Malay, Hindoo, South Sea Islander, and red man are granted an innate ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... Lawrence (still designated as the "Baroness" by her stepdaughter and by old acquaintances) to whom Preston owed the constant reminder of his dependence upon the purse of his father-in- law. In those subtle, occult ways known only to a jealous and designing nature, the Baroness found it possible to make Preston's life a torture, without revealing her weapons of warfare to her husband; indeed, without allowing him to even smell the powder, ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... feature. Even 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 ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... of Nettesheim (1487-1535) by his writings increased the prevailing fascination for occult knowledge and pushed this particular line of speculation into an acute stage. He was a man of large learning and of heroic temper, and, possessed as he was of undoubted gifts, in a different period and in a different environment he would, no doubt, have played a notable part in the development ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... this inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible light on her own character as would reveal her to be something greater in the occult world than ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... no slightest material interest in the nationality or the place of residence of those who conduct this traffic; though all the facts go to say that in some puzzle-headed way the common man commonly persuades himself that it does make some occult sort of difference to him; so that he is commonly willing to pay something substantial toward subsidising businessmen of his own nationality, in the way of a ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... its mysteries, with its uncertain spellings and capital-icings such as belong to even the Eighteenth Century's early part, with its quaint phrases and sly observations (all the time sticking strictly close to business), it has a literary character, as well as me occult, ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... said Sir Lucien coolly, "we are men of the world—and we do not look for consistency in womenfolk. Mrs. Irvin has decided to consult a palmist or a hypnotist or some such occult authority before dining with you this evening. Doubtless she seeks to learn if the play to which you propose to take her is an ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... well-informed gentleman, Sir John thought him) had certainly helped so greatly in bringing about the presidential tour that he began to think that there was something in the faint whispers hinting at the immense occult influence of the Gould Concession. What was currently whispered was this—that the San Tome Administration had, in part, at least, financed the last revolution, which had brought into a five-year dictatorship Don Vincente Ribiera, a man of culture and of unblemished character, invested ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Milbanke that was) is, I believe, in London with her father. A Mrs. C. (now a kind of housekeeper and spy of Lady N.'s) who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be—by the learned—very much the occult cause ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... melioration of the tyranny of the medicine-man seems to have been found in rivalry amongst members of the craft itself. Oppressed beyond endurance by one practitioner, allegiance would be transferred to some new claimant of occult powers, and the breaking of the monopoly of magic would be followed by a temporary lightening of the burdens. Some of the most lurid of Alaskan legends deal with the thaumaturgic contests of rival medicine-men, and one judges that sleight of hand and even ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... obtain upon occult phenomena, Wallace found that there was such a mass of testimony by men of the highest character and ability in every department of human learning that he thought it would be useful to bring this together in a connected sketch ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... one evening when his watch was done sauntered Con. His professional curiosity had been stirred by these occult bartenders at whose bar none drank, and who daily drew upon Kenealy's store of liquors to follow their ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... 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, ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... other productions of their profound parents, but were a band of robust, active youngsters unburdened with brains, excepting Ptolemy of soup plate fame. Not that he betrayed any tendencies toward a learned line, but he was possessed of an occult, uncanny, wizard-like wisdom that was disconcerting. His contemplative eyes seemed to search my soul and read ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... sisters; none so fair. He whom I wed receives my sceptre rare. Wisdom occult my mother will impart. Granting his slightest wish, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... imagination alone is in good condition, but the intellect is defective, we have statesmen, lawgivers, magicians, dreamers of true dreams and occult artists. These men are so confused sometimes by visions and reveries that they think they have the gift ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... a means of moral culture, I do not wish to make an overstatement, nor to claim for such study any occult or exclusive power. It is not for us to say, so much nature in the schools, so much virtue in the scholars. The character of the teacher is a factor which must always be counted in. But the best teacher is the one that comes nearest to nature, the ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... now?" Upon my thanking her and saying I would wait, she relapsed into silence, but still keeping her eyes on me. I was growing nervous under this phlegmatic inspection, and idly investing it with some occult and sinister significance, when she broke ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... 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 portals ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... its occult abode In all things scatter'd from great Beauty's hand; And evermore the deepest words of God Are yet the easiest ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... flower, and fish, the bird, the brute, Of every kind occult or known (Each exquisitely form'd to suit Its humble lot, and that alone), Through ocean, earth, and air fulfil Unconsciously ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... adherent of the occult, vowed that he had been visited by some eternal being of the spirit ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... this mystery, Giacomo Leopardi was the echo in the solitude of his thought and his pain. His skepticism announced the dissolution of this theologico-metaphysical world, and inaugurated the reign of the arid True, of the Real. His songs are the most profound and occult voices of that laborious transition called the nineteenth century. That which has importance is not the brilliant exterior of that century of progress, and it is not without irony that he speaks of the progressive destinies of mankind. That which ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... victor's return, the countess said, she came to advise her, in consideration of what had passed in the chapel before the regent's departure, not to submit herself to the observation of so many eyes. Not suspecting the occult devices which worked in her stepmother's heart, Helen meekly acquiesced, with the reply, "I shall obey." But she inwardly thought, "I, who know the heroism of his soul, need not pageants nor acclamations of the multitude to tell me what he is. He is already too bring for my senses to support, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... protect them from the force or perfidy of General Bonaparte; without consulting any thing but her own correct judgment, and well-intentioned heart, she contrived to procure, from some being of a superior order, sylph, fairy, magician, or other person skilled in the occult sciences, as many in Naples, as well as elsewhere, positively profess themselves to be, a small association of talismanic characters, fraught with such magical and potential influence, in favour of the possessor, that the slightest glance of this mystic ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... he said. "And now people doubt astrology, which was revered in antiquity. Also in the Middle Ages, when it was almost sacred. For instance, messieurs, look at the portal of Notre Dame. The three doors which archeologists—not initiated into the symbolism of Christianity and the occult—designate by the names of the door of Judgment, the door of the Virgin, and the door of Saint Marcel or Saint Anne, really represent Mysticism, Astrology, and Alchemy, the three great sciences of the Middle Ages. Today you find people ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... none to explore Your winding labyrinths occult, None to delve your ore Of strange virtue, or do Your magical business, you Were there, never old nor new, Veined in the world and alive:— Before the Planets, Seven; Before these ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... take him completely by surprise. He looked as if he suspected me of some occult medical design on Miss Verinder! "Might I presume to ask," he said, "what my young lady and the medicine-chest have got to do with ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... arose. He was patient in all disputes, yielding in small matters, but he was as the granite rocks of the mountain above him when many matches were at stake. With solemnity he invoked the name of Hoy-lee, the mysterious person who had fixed immutably the tapus of pokaree. He made an occult sign with his thumb against his nose, and that settled it. If any one persisted in challenging this tiki he added his other thumb to the little finger of his first symbol, and said, "Got-am-to-hellee!" As a last recourse, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... itself, it pierces in upon its own essence, and is resolved into its pervading original; becoming a thing constituent of the all embracing deific; whereby we mortals become part and parcel of the gods; our souls to them as thoughts; and we privy to all things occult, ineffable, and sublime? Then, Yoomy, is thy song nothing worth. Alla Mollolla saith, 'That is no true, vital breath, which leaves no moisture behind.' I mistrust thee, minstrel! that thou hast not yet been impregnated by the arcane mysteries; that thou dost not sufficiently ponder ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... picked his way to his lodgings on the north of the park, he was thinking about Laurie Baxter. That this boy possessed in an unusual degree what he would have called "occult powers" was very evident to him. That these powers involved a certain risk was evident too. He proposed, therefore, to take all reasonable precautions. All the catastrophes he had witnessed in ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... conception of the character and costume of his subject. A writer might, with the same sinister, short-sighted shrewdness, be accused of Heathenism for talking of Flora and Ceres in a poem on the Seasons! What are produced as the exclusive badges and occult proofs of Catholic bigotry, are nothing but the adventitious ornaments and external symbols, the gross and sensible language, in a word, the poetry of Christianity in general. What indeed shews the frivolousness of the whole inference is that Deckar, who is asserted ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... life with a single-minded devotion to the science of experimental chemistry, very surprising in a young and handsome man with a brilliant future before him. A profound knowledge of the occult sciences has persuaded the Baron that it is possible to solve the famous problem called the "Philosopher's Stone." His own pecuniary resources have long since been exhausted by his costly experiments. His sister ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... I 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
... 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 liberty to form one of his own if he so pleases. I may mention that Dr. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... and elephants and camels and fakirs and palm trees. Oh, Jonesville yarn! you never expected to be knit amid seens like this. I can knit and admire scenery first rate, and my blue and white yarn seemed to connect me with Jonesville in some occult way, and then I knew Josiah would need his socks before we ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... 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
... a certain extent salutary; he was conscious of being involved in an affair not altogether reputable, and for many years afterwards he clung bravely to the commonplace, and rejected all occasions of occult investigation. Indeed, on some homeopathic principle, he for some time attended the seances of distinguished mediums, hoping that the clumsy tricks of these gentlemen would make him altogether disgusted with mysticism of every kind, but the remedy, though caustic, was not efficacious. ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... time—all in good time," said Marvin, with that faith in some occult power, seemingly the Government and Providence working in conjunction, to which parsons and many women confide their worldly affairs and sit ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the multitude of beliefs left in Egypt by degenerate traditions, there were found some which hinted, more or less clearly, at occult truths, and which might have perpetuated or generalised this practice. It was supposed, according to Servius, that the transmigrations[112] began only when the magnetic bond between the soul and its remains had been broken by the complete disintegration ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... the courage of the twins. Even the charms of the gingerbread and their new plaid dresses could scarcely compensate for the terrors of that occult something concerning whose mysteries the minister would ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... and emperors, which signifies "august aspect," "sacred presence," etc.... No literal rendering can suggest the effect, in the fifth line, of the latter reading. Kag['e] signifies "shadow," "aspect," and "power"—especially occult power; the honorific prefix mi, attached to names and attributes of ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... his tongue raised itself to shape words, but the silent one before him gave unuttered command for silence. The conflict was on. Not a conflict of gleaming blades; not a conflict of cunning, neither of Senatorial oratory, nor contention of the wise gone mad. In the arena of the occult was the conflict on between such forces as move constellations and give birth to worlds. And the one force was white and the one was black. The one was the will of God leading by way of man's reason to Liberty ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... 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! nothing ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... looked us over, as if, by same sort of occult intuition of woman, she were reading our souls. Then, instinctively almost, she turned to Kennedy. Kennedy seemed to recognize her need. Norton and I retired, ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... inhabitants of Ireland and Egypt had originally migrated from Atlantis, carrying its language, and ways and customs with them? Moreover, since the Atlanteans were so deeply versed in magic and everything appertaining to the occult, this migration would account for the mysticism that has always been so closely associated with Egypt and Ireland, and for the psychic faculty so strongly observable in the inhabitants of these ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... liberality on the part of the officials (all paid for), and both Raleigh and Percy had each a garden to cultivate and walk in, and a still-room or laboratory in which to study and perform their ' magic.' Hariot was the master of both in these occult sciences. The ' furnace ' and the ' still' were at first Raleigh's chief amusement and study. Assaying and transfusing metals, distilling simples and compounds, concocting medicines, and testing antidotes, with exercises in chemistry and alchemy, were the studies of both Raleigh ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... acquaintance of Madame Virubova, the favorite lady-in-waiting of the czarina. With the credulity of a superstitious woman of her class, the czarina was a patroness of many occult cults and had a firm belief in the influence of invisible spirits. Rasputin was presented to her by the lady-in-waiting as an occult healer and a person of great mystic powers. Immediately he was asked to show his powers on the young czarevitch, Alexis, heir to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... RARE BOOKS. Just published, a small Catalogue of old Books: will be forwarded on receipt of a postage stamp; or various Catalogues containing numerous Works on the Occult Sciences, Facetiae, &c. may be had on application, or by forwarding six postage stamps, to ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... is, in some ways, crucial. I have spoken with Jesuits and Plymouth Brethren, mathematicians and poets, dogmatic republicans and dear old gentlemen in bird's- eye neckcloths; and each understood the word "facts" in an occult sense of his own. Try as I might, I could get no nearer the principle of their division. What was essential to them, seemed to me trivial or untrue. We could come to no compromise as to what was, or what was not, important in the life of man. Turn as we pleased, we all stood back to back in ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... religious community, first that she might have scope for her calling—that of a midwife, which in London would probably be straightened towards that of mere monthly nurse—and next that thereby she might have good chances for the finding of certain weeds of occult power that spring mostly in walled gardens, and are rare on the roadside—poisonous things mostly, called ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... other regions, and through which the female population is resolved into what might be termed, in the parlance of the place, a committee of the whole on "calling." This etiquette rules the wives of important functionaries with a rod of iron. By some occult method of reasoning they have reached the conclusion that their husbands' popularity, and consequent lease of power, depend upon their own faithful performance of what is considered to be social duty, and they devote themselves to it with a zeal worthy of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... The interior of the shrine was inlaid with metal work. There were various figures, Buddha being in the centre, and framed "portraits" of Mahatmas Koothoomi and Moria. Each portrait was about seven inches high, and if drawn, as I understood, by astral art, it may be hoped the process will remain occult. Koothoomi, who somewhat resembled an old London portrait I have of Rammohun Roy, holds a small barrel-shaped praying-machine ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... accomplice to secure an "elixir of life" which his own failing strength demands. His mysterious mesmeric or hypnotic influence over Mrs. Fenwick had in former days been marked; and on the basis of this undeniable fact, he has endeavored to show that his own welfare and Mrs. Fenwick's are, in some occult fashion, knit together, and that only by aiding him in some extraordinary experiment can the physician snatch his beloved Lilian from ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... three definite aims: (1) To establish a brotherhood over the world irrespective of race, creed, caste, or sex; (2) to encourage the study of comparative philosophy, religion, and science; and (3) to investigate the occult secrets of nature and the latent possibilities of man. The principal books in exposition of it are, "The Secret Doctrine," "Isis Unveiled," "The Key to Theosophy," by Mme. Blavatsky; "Esoteric Buddhism," "The Occult World," &c., by Sinnett; "The Ancient ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... rather remarkably handsome, when you considered how frequently his love-affairs had left disastrous souvenirs: yes, for a man in middle life so often patched up by quack doctors, Ormskirk looked wholesome enough, said Mr. Bulmer. He may have had his occult purposes, this poor cousin, but of Ormskirk he undoubtedly spoke with engaging candor. Here was no parasite cringingly praising his patron to the skies. The Duke's career was touched on, with its grimy ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... she uttered those bewildering sweet words, I caught sight of something in her belt, the corner of a little note thrust sidewise into it; but I did not need that indication to tell me that Tullia's fantastic conduct was referable to occult causes. Woman, in my opinion, is the most logical of created beings, the child alone excepted. In both we behold a sublime phenomenon, the unvarying triumph of one dominant, all-excluding thought. ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... jealous fury which told Irving Francis the story he had been 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
... Wise (1221-1284), united the crowns of Leon and Castile, and attracted to his court many of the philosophers and learned men of the East. He was a poet closely connected with the Provencal troubadours of his time, and so skilled in astronomy and the occult sciences that his fame spread throughout Europe. He had more political, philosophical, and elegant learning than any man of his age, and made further advances in some of the exact sciences. At one period his consideration was so great, that he was elected Emperor of Germany; ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... station they were kept waiting in a pouring rain for something to happen, they knew not what. The R. T. O., a young Imperial officer, blase with his ten months of war in England, had some occult reason for delaying their departure. So, while the night grew every moment wetter and darker, the men sat on their kit-bags or found such shelter as they could in the tiny station, or in the lee of the "goods trains" blocking ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... Incurred 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 such is my indulgence ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... all, the light emitted by the circle, as well as by the designs round it, increased to a steady glow, casting their radiance upwards with the weirdest possible effect upon his features. Slowly, by the power of his voice, behind which lay undoubtedly a genuine knowledge of the occult manipulation of sound, this man dominated the forces that had escaped from their proper sphere, until at length the room was reduced to ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... in no hurry to reply. He was busy taking in a variety of pleasant impressions. Notwithstanding the severely cut riding habit and the hard little hat, he decided that he had never looked into a more attractively feminine face. For some occult reason, unconnected, he was sure, with the use of any skin food or face cream, this young woman who had the reputation of living out of doors, winter and summer, had a complexion which, notwithstanding its faint shade of tan, would have passed ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... laws apply to music. No art has a greater and more insinuating influence. The very songs with which the mother sings the baby to sleep have an occult influence which is later revealed and made plain. Such songs, then, should be simple. They may be nothing but improvisations, the mother's mind and heart making music, but they should not be melodramatic songs of the music-hall ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... by some occult magnetic property in this wand that you have exercised so demoniac an influence over a creature so pure as ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... though of a Roman family related to the imperial house of the Theodosiuses. From his childhood he served God in continual watching, fasting, and prayer, in imitation of St. John the Baptist; and for the relief of the necessitous he gave away immense occult alms. The time which was not employed in these charities, he spent in holy retirement and prayer. In the reign of the emperor Marcian, Anatolius the archbishop, offering violence to the saint's humility, ordained him priest. In this new state the saint saw himself ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... This allusion was too occult for Mrs. Graham. She smiled the smile of assent without apprehension, and asked if Flint had been at Bar Harbor this summer. He should have been; it was so pleasant. The young man felt a wild desire to set forth the rival charms of Nepaug, and urge her to ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... 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
... him the practice of magic lore. She drew magic circles, saw visions of people in a glass, possessed numerous charms and incantations, and, above all, kept a wonderful magic book. She attempted to find lost money, to tell the future, and to cure disease; indeed, she had a varied repertoire of occult performances. ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... when she read this. Josie was a girl of her own age, but she was the daughter of one of the most celebrated secret service men in the employ of the United States government, and John O'Gorman had trained Josie from babyhood in all the occult details of his artful profession. It was his ambition that some day this daughter would become a famous female detective, but he refused to allow her to assume professional duties until she had become thoroughly qualified to excel. He did not wish her to be ordinary, ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum |
