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Updated: May 26, 2025
Yet if any one shall pretend that this science is founded not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the direct experience and observation of past ages, and therefore not to be examined by physical reasons, as the Chaldæans boasted, he may at the same time bring back divination, auguries, soothsaying, and give in to all kinds of fables; for these also were said to descend from long experience.
At once the name of the Conqueror caused the demon to depart; but the owner of the slave girl, enraged at the loss of her soothsaying powers, accused the Apostle and his friend to the magistrates, and, without examination, they were thrown into prison.
In the course of time, Marjory Cockburn recovered slightly from the effects of these terrible visitations, and often she expressed her surprise that Lailoken's prophecy about the elm tree had not been proved by the events of that night; but some people thought that King James, who knew the prophecy well, wished to reduce the credit of soothsaying, and therefore hanged Cockburn on the buttress of the Tower, instead of the tree.
Not infrequently competitions were arranged by the rulers between priests of the different religious systems, and the rulers often competed for the possession of monks who were particularly skilled in magic or soothsaying. But what was the position of the "official" religion? Were the aliens to hold to their own worship of heaven, or were they to take over the official Chinese cult, or what else?
According to Xenophon Socrates believed in and approved divination. Plato held that it was a gift of the gods, and that official persons so gifted were to be held in high esteem. +932+. In Rome, in accordance with the genius of the nation, soothsaying was at a comparatively early period organized and taken in charge by the State.
Then, when Melissa, to change the subject, asked why the public were forbidden to approach the Serapeum, her companion told her that since his return from the Circus Caesar had been devoting himself to astrology, soothsaying, and other abstruse matters, and that the noise of the city disturbed him.
But, worst of all, the chariots with giddy or thoughtful pagans hastening to the academy of Hypatia, to hear those questions discussed which have never yet been answered, "Where am I?" "What am I?" "What can I know?" to hear discourses on antenatal existence, or, as the vulgar asserted, to find out the future by the aid of the black art, soothsaying by Chaldee talismans engraved on precious stones, by incantations with a glass and water, by moonshine on the walls, by the magic mirror, the reflection of a sapphire, a sieve, or cymbals; fortune-telling by the veins of the hand, or consultations with the stars.
Their prevailing characteristics are a gloomy and withal tiresome mysticism, ringing the changes on numbers, soothsaying, and that solemn enthroning of pure absurdity which at all times finds its own circle of devotees.
Consider its range in ancient, medieval and modern thought as shown in some of its definitions: Magic, sorcery, soothsaying, necromancy, astrology, wizardry, mysticism, occultism, and conjuring, of the early and middle ages; compacts with Satan, consorting with evil spirits, and familiarity with the Devil, of later times; all at last ripening into an epidemic demonopathy with its countless victims of fanaticism and error, malevolence and terror, of persecution and ruthless sacrifices.
Under the auspices of the Empress Julia Domna, in a biographical composition, Philostratus had the audacity to institute a parallel between this man and our Saviour. He was a miracle-worker, given to soothsaying and prophesying, led the life of an ascetic, his raiment and food being of the poorest.
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