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Necromancy   /nˈɛkrəmˌænsi/   Listen
Necromancy

noun
1.
The belief in magical spells that harness occult forces or evil spirits to produce unnatural effects in the world.  Synonyms: black art, black magic, sorcery.
2.
Conjuring up the dead, especially for prophesying.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Necromancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... life, while the Bedouins of Arabia and Syria (kindred peoples) may have instilled the less scientific rites of Fetishism. It is in the early accounts of that people that sorcery, whatever its character and profession, with the allied arts of divination, necromancy, incantations, &c., appears most flourishing. The Mosaic penalty, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' and the comprehensive injunction, 'There shall not be found among you that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... and opportunities to embody them, it seemed to be no longer the same high and mysterious faculty that so ruled the tides of the feelings of others. He then appeared a more ordinary poet—— a skilful verse-maker. The necromancy which held the reader spellbound became ineffectual; and the charm and the glory which interested so intensely, and shone so radiantly on his configurations from realities, all failed and faded; for his genius dealt not with airy fancies, but had its power and dominion amid ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... the hut of the Bee-man a Junior Sorcerer. This young person, who was a student of magic, necromancy, and the kindred arts, was much interested in the Bee-man, whom he had frequently noticed in his wanderings, and he considered him an admirable subject for study. He had got a great deal of useful practice by endeavoring to find out, ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton

... speaking, incapable (except just at the moment of real death) of communicating scio motu with mankind, though not wholly beyond the possible reach of the higher forms of the "Accursed Science," Necromancy. The question is a profoundly abstruse one; it would be impossible to explain within the brief space still remaining to us, how the conditions immediately after death differ so entirely as they do in the case (1) of ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant

... his old love by some practice of a necromantic order, wherein she doubted not that the scholar must be a thorough adept; which idea she imparted to her mistress. The lady, being none too well furnished with sense, never thinking that, if the scholar had been an adept in necromancy, he would have made use of it in his own behoof, gave heed to what her maid said, and forthwith bade her learn of the scholar whether he would place his skill at her service, and assure him that, if he so did, she, in guerdon thereof, would do his pleasure. ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... lord of the realms of fancy, The bright dreams flocked to his call Like sprites that the necromancy Of a Prospero ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis

... contempt for the later Neoplatonism, the theurgic and theosophic apparatus of Iamblichus and his friends. I have said nothing yet about the extraordinary development of magic in all its branches, astrology, necromancy, table-rapping, and other kinds of divination, charms and amulets and witchcraft, which brought ridicule upon the last struggles of paganism. These aberrations of Nature-Mysticism will be dealt with in their later developments in my seventh Lecture. St. Augustine, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... thou shalt have it: for I love the bold adventurer that trusts himself hardily upon the great deep;" answered the unabashed Pippo. "My first lessons in necromancy were received on the mole of Napoli, amid burly Inglesi, straight-nosed Greeks, swarthy Sicilians, and Maltese with spirits as fine as the gold of their own chains. This was the school in which I learned to know my art, and an apt scholar I proved ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... reach these vessels from the vast regions beyond the Great Lakes? Those thousands of settlers who poured into the Northwest had cargoes ready to fill every manner of craft in so short a space of time that it seems as if they must have resorted to arts of necromancy. It was not magic, however, but perseverance that had triumphed. The story of the creating of the main lakeward-reaching canals is long and involved. A period of agitation and campaigning preceded every such undertaking; and ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... What—how much did Maitresse Aimable know? By what necromancy had this fat, silent fisher-wife learned the secret which was the heart of her life, the soul of her being—which was Philip? She was frightened, but danger made ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... came and unbuckled their arms and cast a shining cloak upon each; which was hardly done when a lady came towards them out of the throng, and though she was truly the Queen Morgan le Fay, they knew her not at all, for by her necromancy ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... be medically examined further, to the revealing of my terrible past, my perturbed present, and pacific future. The result of which necromancy I shall duly report. I am afraid that they will not find that an operation will do good, if so I shall truly despair. And if they decide for the knife, I shall go to the guillotine like the gayest Marquis of the ancient regime. Yes, I should do better for I have my chance, and ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... proofs of sorcery in that, after all, but there was still enough smoke to warrant a surmise of fire, and the archdeacon bore a tolerably formidable reputation. We ought to mention however, that the sciences of Egypt, that necromancy and magic, even the whitest, even the most innocent, had no more envenomed enemy, no more pitiless denunciator before the gentlemen of the officialty of Notre-Dame. Whether this was sincere horror, or the game played by the thief who shouts, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... is to be reputed the most foolish which deals with the belief in Necromancy, the sister of Alchemy, which gives birth to simple and natural things. But it is all the more worthy of reprehension than alchemy, because it brings forth nothing but what is like itself, that is, lies; this does not happen in Alchemy which deals with simple ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... like, have been to their parents. So Faustus having godly parents, who seeing him to be of a toward wit, were desirous to bring him up in those virtuous studies, namely, of Divinity; but he gave himself secretly to necromancy, and conjuration, insomuch that few or none could perceive ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... imitated Seneca, in representing necromancy as the last resort of Tiresias, after all milder modes of augury ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... of two kinds,—the dark and evil, appertaining to witchcraft or necromancy; the pure and beneficent, which is but philosophy, applied to certain mysteries in Nature remote from the beaten tracks of science, but which deepened the wisdom of ancient sages, and can yet unriddle the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... length, so that it is not easy to know how their reasoning really sped. Her charges were his authorship of the "Monstrous Regiment of Women"; that he caused great sedition and slaughter in England; and that he was accused of doing what he did by necromancy. The rest ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... without noticing the Scarecrow's remarks. "Fifty years ago—after your Extreme Highness had defeated in battle the King of the Golden Islands—a magician entered the realm. This magician, in the employ of this wicked king, entered a room in the palace where your Highness lay sleeping and by an act of necromancy changed ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... the tired imagination of those pleasure-seekers was tickled by his talk of black art. Some even asserted that the blasphemous ceremonies of the Black Mass had been celebrated in the house of a Polish Prince. People babbled of satanism and of necromancy. Haddo was thought to be immersed in occult studies for the performance of a magical operation; and some said that he was occupied with the Magnum Opus, the greatest and most fantastic of alchemical experiments. Gradually these stories were narrowed down to the monstrous assertion that he was attempting ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... around him. Ivan started in open-mouthed astonishment. Standing before him was a girl more lovely—ten thousand times more lovely—than any woman he had hitherto seen. To the magic of a beautiful form in woman—the necromancy of female grace—there was no more ready and willing subject than Ivan; and here, at last, he had found grace personified, incarnate, the highest ideal of all his wildest and most cherished dreams. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... hidden on the sensitive surface from the eye, but they are ready to make their appearance as soon as proper developers are resorted to. A spectre is concealed on a silver or glassy surface until, by our necromancy, we make it come forth into the visible world. Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out and our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... the Springtime, I am sitting here, your guest. Nay—I think it is a vision, or a fancy - Part of dreamland Necromancy; And I question: is it true That the great warm hearts of you, Heard the winging of that singing in the West, Heard the chiming of my rhyming From the farmhouse ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... so fortunate," he said, "to have tact, to be able to play upon the peculiar talents and specialities, the cosmopolitanism of the grocer and the world-old necromancy of the chemist. Where ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... great point of difference was with regard to spiritualism. Browning did not dislike spiritualism; he disliked spiritualists. The difference is tremendous. Unfortunately many of the interpreters of spiritualism have degraded it into a kind of blatant necromancy which is in no way dignified or useful. It is entirely opposed to proper ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... the public found its chief outlet in various systems of faith-healing and in the time-honoured pretensions of priest-craft. But the devastation which the war has brought into countless loving families has turned the current of superstition strongly towards necromancy. The 'will to believe,' no longer inhibited and suspected as a reason for doubt, has been allowed to create its own logic. A few highly educated men, who have long been playing with occultism and gratifying ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... was asked to talk about "potato substitutes" and expected to exercise some necromancy whereby that which was not a potato might become a potato. Now, the Nutrition Expert was very imperturbable—not at all disturbed by the calamity which had befallen our tables. That unfeeling person saw potatoes, not ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose

... was beyond her. But she breathed the beauty of it. Bacchus, and Pandora and Psyche—talismans to conjure with! But alas! the necromancy was her mother's. Strange, meaningless words that meant so much! Her marvelous mother had known their meaning. Saxon spelled the three words aloud, letter by letter, for she did not dare their pronunciation; and in her consciousness glimmered august connotations, profound and unthinkable. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... and now with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper across the table. "In extremis my brother did more than confess. He signed,—your Majesty," said Gloucester. The Duke on a sudden flung out his hands, like a wizard whose necromancy fails, and the palms were bloodied where his nails ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... was a hunchback, vehemently suspected of dealings in necromancy, and of riding to nocturnal orgies on a broomstick, according to the custom of witches. Certain persons had seen her putting the harness on her broom in the stable, which, as everyone knows is on the housetops. To tell the truth, she possessed certain medical secrets, and was of such great ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... persons who are there interred are seen to rise; that we should see them as well by day as by night, were it not for the excess of light which prevents us even from seeing the stars. He adds that by this means we might behold the idea, and represent by a lawful and natural necromancy the figure or phantom of all the great men of antiquity, our friends and our ancestors, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... to watch little Miss Banks at her necromancy. She takes it so earnestly, literally wrenching the future's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... an't please your worship; I am a young beginner, and am building Of a new shop, an't like your worship, just At corner of a street:—Here is the plot on't— And I would know by art, sir, of your worship, Which way I should make my door, by necromancy, And where my shelves; and which should be for boxes, And which for pots. I would be glad to thrive, sir: And I was wish'd to your worship by a gentleman, One captain Face, that says you know men's planets, And their good angels, ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... of any necromancy at work upon his daughter. He smoked his pipe, made notes in his field-book, directing an occasional remark toward his apprentice, enjoying in his tranquil, middle-age way the beauty and serenity of ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... enterprise. He is the Janus of the Romans, and the Guianesa of the Indians, and it is remarkable that Yanus and Guianes are homonymous. In short it appears that these books are the source of all that has been transmitted to us by the Greeks and Latins in every science, even in alchymy, necromancy, etc. What is most to be regretted in their loss is that part which related to the principles of medicine and diet, in which the Egyptians appear to have made a considerable progress, and to ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... treated this and other pseudo-sciences nearly always with toleration; and showed itself actually hostile even to genuine science only when a charge of heresy together with necromancy was also in question—which certainly was often the case. A point which it would be interesting to decide is this: whether and in what cases the Dominican (and also the Franciscan) Inquisitors in Italy were conscious of the falsehood of the charges, and yet condemned ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... upon his information several of these persons were taken into custody. After previous examination, on the 25th of July 1441, Bolingbroke was placed upon a scaffold before the cross of St Paul's, with a chair curiously painted, which was supposed to be one of his implements of necromancy, and dressed in mystical attire, and there, before the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal of Winchester, and several other bishops, made abjuration of all ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... another word, Mr. Forbes," he said gravely, "let me tell you that in my efforts to trace your whereabouts I also called up Fortescue Square. Miss Forbes came to the telephone. She said you had gone to the Home Office. By some feminine necromancy, too, she divined the link which binds you with the death of Mrs. Lester. She was distressed on your account, and I was hard put to it to extricate myself from the risk of saying something ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... disappeared, like a witch from the stage, in blasts of sulphur fire and rumbling thunder, under the management of those effective scene-shifters, the quarrymen. A government contract, more potent than the necromancy of the famed wizard Michael Scott, lifted this massive rock from its base, and, flying with it full two hundred miles, buried it fathoms below the surface of the Atlantic, at the Rip Raps, near Hampton Roads; and thus it happens that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, a charlatan and a wretched dabbler in necromancy and something of an alchemist, who has lately written the life of another Pope's son—Cesare Borgia, who lived nigh upon half a century ago, and who did more than any man to consolidate the States of the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... would be lit with the fire of magic. Words of destiny like blood-hued rubies; words fraught with ominous opal warning; words that glittered with the biting brilliance of diamonds—they were his to link together with thought: he was their master. The necromancy of language was his to ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... write himself. And these were not a few. On all subjects known to man, from the Thirty-nine Articles of our English church down to pyrotechnics, legerdemain, magic, both black and white, thaumaturgy, and necromancy, he favored the world (which world was the nursery where I lived amongst my sisters) with his select opinions. On this last subject especially—of necromancy—he was very great: witness his profound work, though but a fragment, and, unfortunately, long since departed ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... is susceptible of a division into several classes or sections: Religious Cults, Necromancy, Magic, Second Sight, Divination, Astrology, Palmistry, of which all have their special literatures and bibliographies. Major Irwin recently sold an extensive series of works on these and kindred topics. Cornelius Agrippa, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... centuries, and especially those of the 18th century, might have benefitted mankind much earlier and much more largely, but for the foolish belief in witchcraft and the shocking ferocity exhibited against those suspected of necromancy. After quoting a large number of cases of trial and punishment for witchcraft from official records in Scotland, J. M. Robertson says: "The people seem to have passed from cruelty to cruelty precisely as they became more and more fanatical, more ...
— Humanity's Gain from Unbelief - Reprinted from the "North American Review" of March, 1889 • Charles Bradlaugh

... stone is the entrance to a cave which only waits for the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy, that will make the earth shake. All the dates imported come from the same tree as that unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the genie's invisible son. All olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit, concerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens

... we cannot tell whether he shapes her movements or merely falls in with them; that is, whether his art stands in submission or command. His sorcery indeed is the sorcery of knowledge, his magic the magic of virtue. For what so marvellous as the inward, vital necromancy of good which transmutes the wrongs that are done him into motives of beneficence, and is so far from being hurt by the powers of Evil, that it turns their assaults into new sources of strength against them? And with what a smooth tranquillity of spirit he everywhere ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... the victim of Obi.[Footnote: 'The victim of Obi.'—It seems worthy of notice, that this magical fascination is generally called Obi, and the magicians Obeah men, throughout Guinea, Negroland, &c.; whilst the Hebrew or Syriac word for the rites of necromancy, was Ob or Obh, at least when ventriloquism was concerned.] As a Greek word, which it was, the name imported no ill; but for a Roman to say Ibo Epidamnum, was in effect saying, though in a hybrid dialect, half-Greek half-Roman, 'I will go to ruin.' The name was ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... standeth in the air, By necromancy placed there, That it no tempest needs to fear, Which way soe'er it blow it: And somewhat southward tow'rd the noon, Whence lies a way up to the moon, And thence the fairy can as soon Pass to the earth below it. The walls of spiders' legs are made, Well morticed and finely laid: He was the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... of fear for his ancient host, had in vain sought an opportunity to address a few words of exhortation to him to forbear all necromancy, and to abstain from all perilous distinctions between the power of Edward IV. and that of his damnable Nature and Science; but Catesby watched him with so feline a vigilance, that he was unable to slip in more than—"Ah, Master Warner, for our ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... true—in contemplation of my own ill-luck. How little did these two women care for me, who had freely conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of my heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible injustice, seemed to have brought them ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... morning away went I and my fellows to the chase. Their conversation turned on my necromancy, and the manner in which I could envelope myself in a cloud, or make myself bullet-proof. "What is that you are talking about?" said I.—"Some of these unbelieving folks," answered my huntsman, "affirm your honour is unable to ward off balls."—"Well, then," said I, "fire away, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... chivalry. Necromancer, lit. one who by magical power can commune with the dead (Gk. nekros, a corpse); hence a sorcerer. From confusion of the first syllable with that of the Lat. niger, black, the art of necromancy came to be called "the ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... second work, is founded upon a fantastic Russian legend of magic and necromancy. It has not the national and patriotic interest of 'Life for the Czar,' but as music it deserves to rank higher. Berlioz thought very highly of it. Nevertheless it may be doubted whether, at this time of day, there is any likelihood of Glinka becoming popular in Western Europe. Glinka ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... hazy notions of these sectaries there was mingled a suspicion of necromancy, and a weird freemasonry, that inspired something of ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... manner of one suddenly roused from sleep, know myself ungrateful. These silvery-laughing folk who now toddle along beside me upon their noisy little clogs, stepping very fast to get a peep at my foreign face, these but a moment ago were visions of archaic grace, illusions of necromancy, delightful phantoms; and I feel a vague resentment against them for thus ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... hoping that it would bring my father up from the fields. I blew and blew and listened for that familiar halloo of his. When I paused for a drink of water at the well my aunt came and seized the horn and said it was no wonder they were dead. She knew nothing of the sublime bit of necromancy she had ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... dead-wall opposite the windows of Van Twiller's sleeping-room there appeared, as if by necromancy, an aggressive poster with Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski on it in letters at least a foot high. This thing stared him in the face when he woke up, one morning. It gave him a sensation as if she had called on him overnight, ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... malevolence—Judar's brothers—a feature that links it with the stories of Abdullah bin Fazil [451] and Abu Sir and Abu Kir. [452] Very striking is the account of the Mahrabis whom Judar pushed into the lake, and who appeared with the soles of their feet above the water and none can forget the sights which the necromancy of the third Maghrabi put before the eyes of Judar. "Oh, Judar, fear not," said the Moor, "for they are semblances without life." The long and bloody romance of Gharib and Ajib is followed by thirteen storyettes, all apparently historical, and then ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... are far more complicated and numerous than of yore; and in the play of the passions, and in the devices of creative spirits, that have thus a proportionately greater sphere for their action, there are spells of social sorcery more potent than all the necromancy of Merlin or ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... "this girl was reared in the executioner's house. And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secrets of necromancy, it is not known where. I would see this Duke's Justicer. Does he dwell near by? What! In that very tower? It is of good omen. Let ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... sleeping patient and joined me in the corridor. On my explanation she brought water and sal-volatile and returned with me to the drawing-room. It was a night of stupefying surprises. The quartier would have called it abracadabrant and they would not have been far wrong. There was necromancy in the air. I felt it, as I followed the nurse across the threshold. I anticipated something odd, some grotesque development. In the atmosphere of those I loved in those days I was ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... thus spoke, he unloosed the clasps of the young chief's hauberk, in the simple belief that he could thus break the meshes which fear and necromancy had twined ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... old is this fact? As old as the race. At one time it was called necromancy, at another witchcraft, at another the inspiration of God, at a subsequent time animal magnetism, at another called after one of its more modern discoverers,—mesmerism—now hypnotism—which is only another name for magnetic sleep—if anybody knows what that is—or ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various

... then must arise, and the true point of inquiry is, whether our constitution meant that they should be finally settled, or whether they are to remain suspended between heaven and earth, until they are compelled to make their appearance by the necromancy of legal subtlety, or occasionally ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... to her place and Patricia turned her attention to the laughable parodies and excellent dances and necromancy that filled the first half of the program. It was all hugely diverting, and she laughed and applauded with the rest, but all the while at the back of her mind there was a little uneasiness, a sense of insecurity and ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... and of necromancy were the learning of the period, and Sir Kenneth heard his companion's confession of diabolical descent without any disbelief, and without much wonder; yet not without a secret shudder at finding himself in this fearful place, in the company of one who avouched himself to belong to such a lineage. ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... approached us, as I have before said, with the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy—for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like a duck, nor wings like the seashell which is blown along in the manner of a vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head and its tail were shaped precisely ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... from their seats in affright, To see if the warner has told them aright, As they flatter themselves that it may be mere fancy, Or put little faith in the toad's necromancy; They find he speaks truly, the storm is approaching, Dark clouds o'er the beautiful blue are encroaching, The tempest lays low the tall grass in the field, To the furious blasts even forest-trees yield; All is silent at first, then the ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.

... shone as a moral paragon when contrasted with her name-sake and successor, the sister of King Ladislaus. Of this second Queen, tradition more or less accurate relates a host of stories, none of them to her credit; how she dabbled in necromancy and was immersed in love intrigues, the most celebrated of which was her amour with the handsome "Ser. Gianni," Giovanni Caracciolo, head of an eminent family that has figured prominently in Neapolitan history ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... case," remarked Craig, leaning back, his hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling. "Hello, here's Leslie! What did you find, Doctor?" The coroner had entered with a look of awe on his face, as if Kennedy had directed him by some sort of necromancy. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... Tuatha Dedannans, so called, says Keating, from their skill in necromancy, for which some were so famous as ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... be a power in necromancy that he yet dreamed not of? Was it possible that even now those old enchanters held their meetings here, and would question his right to force ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... theme, I bade him think Of Auerbach's cellar, and that wassail night Whole centuries ago: and then in phrase, Better than that which cometh to me now I likened it—the necromancy which Drew richest vintage from the rugged boards— Unto the spell wherewith he'd bound himself— The spell by which he drew from simplest things Conceptions beautiful, as Faust drew wine From the rude table; for this friend of ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... fashion Of fairer maids, who love, or think they do. 'Tis not the man they love, but what he seems; A bright Hyperion, moving stately through The rosy ether of exalted dreams. Alas! that love, the purest and most real, Clusters forever round some form ideal; And martial things have some strange necromancy To captivate romantic maiden fancy. The very word "Lieutenant" hath a charm, E'en coupled with a vulgar face and form, A shriveled heart and microscopic wit, Scarce for a coachman or a barber fit; His untried sword, his title, are to her Better than genius, wealth, or high renown; His uniform ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... except the intolerant, though he would not promote to high offices those who disbelieved in the immortality of the soul. Plato has not advanced quite so far as this in the path of toleration. But in judging of his enlightenment, we must remember that the evils of necromancy and divination were far greater than those of intolerance in the ancient world. Human nature is always having recourse to the first; but only when organized into some form of priesthood falls into the other; ...
— Laws • Plato

... sins had not already been invented, they would have been invented here, for there was no road they would not have followed in their wickedness. The most unnatural vices flourished among them, and even such rare sins as necromancy, magic, and exorcism were familiar to them, for there were many who hoped to obtain from the powers of evil the protection which heaven had not ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... the old dame, "report saith that with him went his leman, who, having some art in necromancy, transformed her beauty to the semblance of a witch and provided her own dowry by the sale, to certain addle-pated wenches, of charms for which her lover ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various

... marvellously painted hands are among the Louvre drawings. The very Self of the man—the lean, strong, thinking countenance,—the elusive smile, shrewd, ironical, yet kindly, stealing out on his lips,—is alive here by some necromancy of art. ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... be developed for ten years to come, according to Nucingen, the Napoleon of finance; commerce by which a man can grasp the totality of fractions, and skim the profits before there are any. Gigantic idea! one way of pouring hope into pint cups,—in short, a new necromancy! So far, we have only got ten or a dozen hard heads initiated into the cabalistic secrets of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... knew what little chance he had, and envy filled him, and bitter doubt, for he knew Ootah's prowess, his strength of limb, and braveness of heart. However, he put out with quick powerful strokes, and with a sense of anticipated triumph, for he was confident that the magician by his necromancy had created in the depths of the sea a tupilak, or artificial walrus, which should attack Ootah. He knew it might upset Ootah's kayak and cause him to be drowned. The probabilities were, however, that it would permit itself to be harpooned, in which ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... fairies; of the influence of stars on human actions, miracles wrought by the bones of saints, the flights of ominous birds, the predictions from the bowels of dying animals, expounders of dreams, fortune-tellers, conjurors, modern prophets, necromancy, cheiromancy, animal magnetism, with endless variety of folly? These they have disbelieved and despised, but have ever bowed their hoary heads to ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... to start any question about belief; I only wanted to suppose necromancy for the moment a fact, and put it at its best: suppose the magician could do for you all he professed, what would it amount to?—Only this—to bring before your eyes a shadowy resemblance of the form of flesh and blood, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... this point of view, which is of course largely foreign to our minds to-day. The ordinary Englishman is not a great believer in devils or spirits of evil: though he does in some instances believe in ghosts, and is inclined to the practice of what in former ages was called necromancy—the attempt to establish an illicit connexion with the spirits of the departed—under the modern name of psychical research. There are, no doubt, some forms of psychical research which are genuinely scientific and legitimate. It is probable enough that there exists a considerable area of what ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... to have all dried off already; mine are soaked through," he exclaimed in surprise. "What necromancy is this?" ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... how goes it, Since you've taken you a mate?— Your smile, though, plainly shows it Is a very happy state! Dan Cupid's necromancy! You must sit you down and dine, And lubricate your fancy With a glass or two ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... Mr. Bultitude took it in his hand; there was no kindly hand to hold him back, no warning voice to hint that there might possibly be sleeping within that small marble block the pent-up energy of long-forgotten Eastern necromancy, just as ready as ever to awake into action at the first words which had power ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... astrologers the arts of healing, thaumaturgy and necromancy, and teaching them in their school, the professors of the Jewish college of Alexandria assumed the title of Essenes, or Therapeutae, the Egyptian and Greek words signifying Doctors, Healers or Wonder Workers. Possessed of the sad and gloomy ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... overflowed, and gasping and shaken by his cough he burst forth with: "It will soon be over—I feel it within me, and yet I am no nearer to the goal. All the elements of nature I have called to my aid—all the spirits 'twixt Heaven and Earth over whom necromancy has any power have I made subject to my will and have commanded them to help me—to what end? There stands the elixir and is hardly more valuable than the small beer with which the servant down-stairs ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... disembodied spirits of dead men who make the communications, the Bible reader is at once aware of a conflict of claims. In times when the Bible was written, there were practices among men which went under the names of "enchantment," "sorcery," "witchcraft," "necromancy," "divination," "consulting with familiar spirits," etc. These practices were all more or less related, but some of them bear an unmistakable meaning. Thus, "necromancy" is defined to mean "a pretended communication with the ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... extremely doubtful whether he was ever guilty of the charges brought against him, was Henry Cornelius Agrippa, who was born at Cologne in 1486, a man of noble birth and learned in Medicine, Law, and Theology. His supposed devotion to necromancy and his adventurous career have made his story a favourite one for romance-writers. We find him in early life fighting in the Italian war under the Emperor Maximilian, whose private secretary he was. The honour of knighthood conferred upon him ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... professed knight-errantry. The world was then ignorant and credulous and passionately fond of wonderful adventures and deeds of valor. They believed in giants, dwarfs, dragons, enchanted castles, and every imaginable species of necromancy. These form the materials of the old romance. The knight-errant was described as courteous, religious, valiant, adventurous, and temperate. Some enchanters befriended and others opposed him. To do his ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... temples, by smoking their pipes, and taking refreshments, and even by gambling, within the consecrated precincts. The priests are shameless impostors. They practise the mountebank sciences of astrology, divination, necromancy, and animal magnetism, and keep for sale a liquid, which, they pretend, will confer immortality on ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... construction is not less oddly attractive than in form,—and this especially because of the fine use made of antique green tiles in the polychromatic roofing. Surely the august Spirit of Kwammu Tenno might well rejoice in this charming evocation of the past by architectural necromancy! ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... everywhere for courage. There was the town of Hvitaby (now Whitby, in Yorkshire, England), which many great warriors had attacked, their father among them, but all had been driven back by the power of magic or necromancy. If they could take this stronghold it would give them infinite honor, said Iwar, and to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... necromancy, and have their conjurers, who do much harm, and are our chief opponents, as we weaken their influence, and consequently their profits. If cattle are stolen, they are referred to. If a chief is sick, they are sent for to know who has bewitched him; ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... battle in which the slain revive each night and renew the fight daily, as occurring in the wanderings of the Tuatha De Danann before they reached Ireland. According to Keating, they learnt the art of necromancy in the East, and taught it ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday

... the interposition of Christ. Ordinary miracles, indeed, could be tested by the senses, but the essence of transubstantiation was that it eluded the senses. Thus nothing could be more convenient to the government than to make this invisible and intangible necromancy a test in capital cases for heresy-Hence Wycliffe had no alternative but to deny transubstantiation, for nothing could be more insulting to the intelligence than to adore a morsel of bread which a priest held in his hand. The ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... denying it. But, on the other hand, at the inquest, there had been long and bitter discussion as to the nature of the dead man's wounds. One of the surgeons called in had spoken of marks that looked like bites. The suggestion of witchcraft was revived, and the opposing lawyers hurled tomes of necromancy at each other. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... the parts of Hungary, in the land which is called the "Seven Castles," a certain rich nobleman, worth 3000 marks a year, a philosopher, practised from his youth in secular literature, but nevertheless learned in the sciences of Necromancy and Astronomy. This master Klingsohr was sent for by the Prince to judge between the songs of these knights aforesaid. Who, before he was introduced to the Landgrave, sitting one night in Eisenach, ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... seventh and final stage you will be given the complete mastery of every art and science—including astrology, astronomy, necromancy, etc.; and for this stage is reserved the greatest power of all—namely, the complete dominion over woman's will and affections. The powers of creating life, and of extending life beyond the now natural limit, and of avoiding accidents, will never be conferred on you. Neither shall you ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... magnanimities. Well may the influence of music seem inexplicable to the man who idly dreams that his life began less than a hundred years ago! But the mystery lightens for whomsoever learns that the substance of Self is older than the sun. He finds that music is a Necromancy;—he feels that to every ripple of melody, to every billow of harmony, there answers within him, out of the Sea of Death and Birth, some eddying immeasurable of ancient ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... now seated together at table eating and talking so, when I asked him whether he had a reputation for sanctity and whether the people brought him food. He answered with a little hesitation that he had a reputation, he thought, for necromancy rather than anything else, and that upon this account it was not always easy to persuade a messenger to bring him the books in French and English which he ordered from below, though these were innocent enough, being, as a rule, novels written by women or academicians, records ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... scientific truths, the psychical manifestations of the unseen world. A typical answer is given to that appeal by a distinguished writer, Doctor Inge, Dean of St. Paul's, London, who declares: "If this kind of after-life were true, this portrayed in the pitiable revival of necromancy in which many desolate hearts have sought spurious satisfaction, it would, indeed, be a melancholy postponement or negation of all we hope ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... eye of fancy, Physics will grasp imagination's wings, Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, The workshop hammer where ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... had every reason to believe from after experience, an astral body subject to a free will and an active intelligence. With that astral body, space ceased to exist. The vast distance between London and Aswan became as naught; and whatever power of necromancy the Sorceress had might have been exercised over the dead mother, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... exclaimed, "is too good: it will not last." Among his pets were a porcupine trained to prick the legs of his guests under the table "so that they drew them in quickly"; a raven that spoke like a human being; an eagle, and many snakes. He also studied necromancy, the better to frighten his apprentices. He left Florence in 1528, after the Medici expulsion, and, like Leonardo, took service with Francis the First. He died at the age ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... thousand lines (making five books) of "Aurora Leigh "; but she planned at least two more books to complete the poem, which must needs be ready by June; and when, by the author's calendar, it is February, by some necromancy June is apt to come in the next morning. The Brownings made it an invariable rule to receive no visitors till after four, but the days had still a trick of vanishing like the fleet angel who departs before he leaves his blessing. At all events, the last days of May came before ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... of singular accidents that I became intimate with a Sicilian priest, who was a man of very elevated genius and well instructed in both Latin and Greek letters. In the course of conversation one day we were led to talk about the art of necromancy; apropos of which I said: "Throughout my whole life I have had the most intense desire to see or learn something of this art." Thereto the priest replied: "A stout soul and a steadfast must the man have who sets himself to such an enterprise." I answered that of strength and steadfastness ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... you are the poet, and so you want Something—what is it?—a theme, a fancy? Something or other the Muse won't grant To your old poetical necromancy; Why, one half you poets—you can't deny— Don't know the Muse when you chance to meet her, But sit in your attics and mope and sigh For a faineant goddess to drop from the sky, When flesh and blood may be standing by Quite at your service, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... sweetly disturbing visions. MacRae seemed to see with remarkable clarity and sureness that he would be penalized for yielding to that bewitching fancy. By what magic had she so suddenly made herself a shining figure in a golden dream? Some necromancy of the spirit, invisible but wonderfully potent? Or was it purely physical,—the soft reddish-brown of her hair; her frank gray eyes, very like his own; the marvelous, smooth clearness and coloring of her skin; her voice, that ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... ornament and use. The good gossips slyly peep into the covers of Matthew Henry, and regard their retiring pastor as a more learned man than they had suspected, while the black letter-press of Lorenzo Dow, and John Bunyan, and Fox's "Book of Martyrs" touches them like so much necromancy. The faithful old clock, whose disorders are crises in our humdrum pastoral year, is stopped and disjointed, much to our marvel, and all the spare straw in the barn is brought to protect the large gilt-edged ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... more pernicious than useful to his people. Orat. Fest. de Vitae Immort. Spe., &c., auct. Ph. Alb. Stapfer, p. 12 13, 20. Berne, 1787. ——Moses, as well from the intimations scattered in his writings, the passage relating to the translation of Enoch, (Gen. v. 24,) the prohibition of necromancy, (Michaelis believes him to be the author of the Book of Job though this opinion is in general rejected; other learned writers consider this Book to be coeval with and known to Moses,) as from his long residence in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... appears surprised at the "Duenna Cousin," whoever she may have been, "in whose meagre hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young hearts was, from the first, faintly approved of." We, even at such distance, can explain it without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer this one question: What figure, at that period, was a Mrs. Teufelsdrockh likely to make in polished society? Could she have driven so much as a brass-bound Gig, or even a simple iron-spring one? Thou foolish "absolved Auscultator," before ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... Michell starved his body to buy from Jews or other furtive dealers in unusual wares. The titles in his library comprehended the names of more charlatans than bishops. He could define the distinctions between necromancy, sorcery, and magic. The marvelous calculations of the Pythagoreans engaged him, and the ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... spring the housemaid's fancy Lightly turns from pot and pan To the greater necromancy Of a young unmarried man. You can hold her through the winter, And she'll work around and sing, But it's just as good as certain She will marry in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... were destroyed without distinction: the volumes of divinity from the council books, suffered for their rich binding: those of literature were condemned as useless: those of geometry and astronomy were supposed to contain nothing but necromancy.[*] The university had not power to oppose these barbarous violences: they were in danger of losing their own revenues; and expected every moment to be swallowed up by the earl ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... defiance at the throng around him. So silently had he come on his errand of vengeance it was difficult to believe he was a reality, and not some clever piece of stageplay, some vision conjured up by Martian necromancy. ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... not,' said Sir Owen. 'I seek my dear wife and her dominions, and have been seeking them these many months. But I fear me some evil necromancy hath been reared against me, so that I may not find her again, and she must be in much sorrow and misery in my absence. And if I never see my lady in life again, yet must I seek for her until ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... under another, pure philanthropy; under another, monastic communion; under another, high morality; under another, a variety of materialistic philosophy; under another, simple demonology; under another, a mere farrago of superstitions, including necromancy, witchcraft, idolatry, and fetishism. In some form or other it may be held with almost any religion, and embraces something ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... undervalued through a superior regard to a different mode of revelation, and we should live, as it were, among the tombs. A morbid state of feeling would pervade our minds, and the world would be full of enchantments, necromancy, and cunning craftiness. Blessed be God for the silence of the dead! We are glad that our weak and foolish hearts, so prone to love the creature more than the Creator, are broken off, by the impenetrable veil of death, from all ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... of a lovely form in woman—the necromancy of female gracefulness—was always a power which I had found it impossible to resist, but here was grace personified, incarnate, the beau ideal of my wildest and most enthusiastic visions. The figure, almost all of which the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Emperor, 'but it is so. Slave! throw up now the doors of all thy vaults, and let us see whether both lions and tigers be not too much for this new necromancy. If it be the gods who interpose, they can shut the mouths of thousands as ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... much better acquainted with the lives, true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, than is warranted by our own sacred writ; and not content with Adam, they have a biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and Mahomet. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife; and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in their language. It is, therefore, no violation of costume to put the names of Cain, or Noah, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... the tools he is to work with, and he stops at nothing that leads to his ambition; nor has he done all that lies in the power of man only, to set all France yet in a flame, but he calls up the very devils from hell to his aid, and there is no man famed for necromancy, to whom he does not apply himself; which, indeed, is done by the advice of Hermione, who is very much affected with those sort of people, and puts a great trust and confidence in them. She sent at great expense, for a German conjurer, who arrived the other day, and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... and so forth, these, like Marchen, or nursery tales, will survive obscurely among peasants and the illiterate generally. In an age of fatigued scepticism and rigid physical science, the imaginative longings of men will fall back on the savage or peasant necromancy, which will be revived perhaps in some obscure American village, and be run after by the credulous and half-witted. Then the wished-for phenomena will be supplied by the dexterity of charlatans. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... nearly every man thinks himself wise, such a decision would not have deterred suitors, and she would have been compelled, in the end, to choose among the few unwise. But wisdom, in those times of fable and necromancy, had a wider meaning than we give it. A wise king was one who had control of the powers of earth and air, who could call the genii to his aid by incantations, and perform supernatural deeds. Hence it was that the suitors fell off from the maiden like leaves from an autumn bough, leaving but ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... had no scruples. He had a strong belief in necromancy, and had never heard that there was sin in its practice. He was still Romanist enough at heart to look upon the confessional as an easy and pleasant way of getting rid of the burden of an uneasy conscience. His mind was very open to conviction and impression in religious ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... questioning the infallibility of any individual healer or any sect, whether homeopath, allopath, eclectic, osteopath, or scientist. Yet to this day most of us surround the medical profession or the healing art with an atmosphere of necromancy. Even after we have given up faith in drugs or after belief is denied in the reality of disease and pain, we revere the calling that concerns itself, whether gratuitously or for pay, with conquering ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... the character of Dr. Holcomb that gives the latter. He was a great man and a splendid thinker. That he should have been led into a maze of cheap necromancy is, on the face, improbable. He had a wonderful mind. For years he had been battering down the scepticism that had ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint



Words linked to "Necromancy" :   necromantical, necromancer, foretelling, magic, enchantment, divination, Satanism, diabolism, witchery, witchcraft, soothsaying, thaumaturgy, demonism, sorcery, bewitchment, fortune telling, black magic, necromantic, obiism



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