Some sorcerer, employed by the friends of the deceased for that purpose, pretends by his incantations to discover the guilty individual or family, or at any rate to indicate the quarter where they dwell.
The remedial virtue of verbal charms and incantations is derived from the human imagination, and upon this principle is founded the art of mental therapeutics.
Hence apparently the gradual evolution of a mass of incantations for use in every conceivable exigency or emergency of life.
The forms of words embodied in charms and incantations were originally intended to be sung, and usually contained some rhyme, jingle, or alliterative verses.
The Chaldean magi also employed many formulas and incantations for repelling evil spirits and for the cure of disease.
The Irish physicians of old had a keen appreciation of the healing influences of incantations upon the minds of their patients, and the latter had moreover a strong faith in the ancient Druidic charms and invocations.
Medieval practitioners, while utilizing material remedies to some extent, relied more on the resources of occult science, whether in the form of incantations or the revelations of astrology.
In the popular belief of the ancient Babylonians, illnesses were caused by the entrance into the body of divers aerial spirits, and incantations were the chief means employed for their expulsion.
Incantations against the spirits of disease were usually recited by the priests, who were supposed, by reason of their education and training, to be specially expert in the choice of the most efficient formulas.
Among the ancient Aryan peoples, incantations were an important factor in therapeutics, and naturally the use of the same methods persisted among their descendants, after their dispersion and settlement in different parts of the world.
Metamorphoses," wrote these lines: "By means of incantations I break in twain the viper's jaws.
They buried them withincantations and exorcisings in order that Death by Violence might be kept from a further visitation to their land.
Before she began her incantations the medium had requested everyone present not to cross their feet, and to try to assist her to bring the spirits before them.
There were incense burnings andincantations galore.
I did not hear you utter any incantations or magic words.
Virulent smallpox was a feature of the plague, and the pious offices of priests and the incantations of the medicine-men alike proved unavailing.
To them all diseases of the body called for much the same treatment, varied only in the proportion of vehemence allowed in their incantations and at medicine-feasts.
The incantations by which these acts were severally accompanied were so powerful that the god spoke and ate, lived and heard, and could use his limbs as freely as though he had never been steeped in the bath of the embalmer.
The incantations of which the Leyden Papyrus published by Pleyte is full are directed against dead men or dead women who entered into one of the living to give him the migraine, and violent headaches.
This flotilla was placed within the vault on the day of the funeral, and was set in motion by means of incantations recited over it during one of the first nights of the year, at the annual feast of the dead.
I will commit your members to such a sepulchre; I will burn your form with such wood, and will chaunt such a charm over your funeral pyre, that all incantations shall thereafter assail you in vain.
In many parts of England charms or incantationsare employed to prevent a Thorn from festering in the flesh.
Probably on account of this peculiarity it has been selected to play an important part in several rustic incantations and charms.
The composition of philtres, and the working of spells and incantations to induce love, are amongst the most highly prized of witches' functions, investing them with a power which they delight to wield, and leading to much pecuniary profit.
The usual incantations are gone through, after which the colored sands of the painting are applied to the corresponding parts of the patient’s body, then gathered up and carried off to the north.
Next comes Hasché̆lapai, who performs the same incantations with the kĕdán.
Be assured these things cannot happen without diverse love-charms and incantations and magic wheels.
When the drum had ceased and they sat in impressive silence, Bakahenzie, squatting motionless on the threshold of his hut, began to mutter incantations and to rock from side to side.
Faint blue vapour swirled around the scarlet feather above Bakahenzie’s graven face as he muttered incantations and stirred the cauldron.
Can the spirits of the souls of the twigs be summoned without the incantations by the Keeper of Fires?
Marufa, observing that the arrow was still in the air, took to his non-committal incantations again.
Squatted in the prescribed order they eyed the figure of Bakahenzie in his red and green feathers mumbling incantations with doubt and disfavour.
Marufa, appreciating the shrewdness of this move, immediately abandoned his incantations to reassume his allegiance to the cause of Bakahenzie.
Marufa, former close ally of Bakahenzie, but lacking his active principle, continued to mutter incantations most impressively by himself, waiting cautiously to see which side of the river the arrow fell.
Here they performed theirincantations and administered at their altars.
In these incantations there is no plea for forgiveness; the possible causes for the suffering are enumerated simply because the mention of the real cause is supposed to go a long way towards expelling the evil.
Thus prayer may be a religious duty also on account of the magic efficacy ascribed to it, and the same is the case with incantations directed against evil spirits.
Plato speaks of persons who with magical arts and incantations bound the gods, as they said, to execute their will.
So also Assyrian incantations are often dressed in the robe of supplication, and end with the formula, "Do so and so, and I shall gladden thine heart and worship thee in humility.
Among the Aztecs of ancient Mexico anybody who employed sorcery or incantations for the purpose of doing harm to the community or to individuals was sacrificed to the gods.
He strove, it was said, by magical incantations to recall her spirit from the shades, and, as if to drive from his mind the intolerable recollection of her loss, commanded his attendants always to speak of her as one alive.
See to what a condition they have reduced me by their incantations and witchcraft; upon which he laid bare his arm all shrivelled and decayed.
An intelligent white man has left it on record that it required two years to learn one of these incantations of only a few lines.
As the Catholic priest, by Bible incantations or scriptural magic, exorcises devils and charms cattle or sore throats, disowning the darker magic of older days, so the Shaman acts against the real wizard.
Here the goddess poured her poisonous mixture, and muttered over itincantations of mighty power.
The incantations of Medea will remind the reader of those of the witches in "Macbeth.
She took plants of poisonous powers and mixed them together, with incantations and charms.
She put Gwion Bach the son of Gwreang of Llanfair to stir the cauldron, and a blind man named Morda to keep the fire going, and she made incantations over it and put in magical herbs from time to time as Feryllt's book directed.
The wild dancers, spurred on by the continued incantations of the weird-looking old medicine man, and their own desire to show off before their people, seemed to be vying with one another in the endeavor to excel in grotesque acts.
Do I not know [every being having] incantationsunto whose words I listen?
In their Book of the Dead is a full series of prayers, songs, and incantations to be employed at funerals, and by the individual in his journey beyond the tomb.
By her incantations and mysterious ceremonies she stops blood, cures all manner of diseases, and is, in short, regarded as almost a miracle-worker.
I had to make the gnomes raise the treasure to the surface of the earth at the very spot on which my incantations would be performed.
But I cannot help saying that the preference given by your devils to the exorcism of that handsome monk over the incantations of the ugly Capuchin is likely to give birth to remarks rather detrimental to your honour.
Nisi se centum lustraverit ovis"); and hence in incantations and fortune-telling.
Præcantare is applied to singing magic hymns and incantations by the bed of one sick, to charm away the disease.
With that anxiety which clings to life, he endeavoured to defeat the demon whom he served, and by repeated incantations constructed this magic casque, which he vainly deemed invulnerable.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "incantations" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
