Sorceresses and blind sorcerers are the intermediaries.
He calls the people to repentance, and he enforces the call by proclaiming the approach of Yahweh in judgment against Lhe sorcerers, the adulterers, the false swearers, the oppressors of the poor, the orphan and the stranger.
Rev. John Owen, 1885), and in his Philosophical Consideralions concerning the existence of Sorcerers and Sorcery (1666).
The close inter-relation which existed in primitive society between magic, priesthood and kingship has been indicated by Frazer in his Early History of the Kingship. His remarks throw some light on the early character of priesthood as well as kingship. " When once a special class of sorcerers has been segregated from the community and entrusted by it with the discharge of duties on which the public safety and welfare are believed to depend, these men gradually rise to wealth and power till their leaders blossom out into sacred kings."
His daughter Servilia, who was charged with having consulted the sorcerers, professedly in regard to her father's fate, but in reality with evil designs against the emperor, was involved in his downfall.
If a man dies without being wounded he is considered to be the victim of the sorcerers and the evil spirits with which they consort.
In many parts of the world sorcerers are credited with supernatural powers over a man by an attack on his shadow.
The older incantations, associated with Ea, were re-edited so as to give to Marduk the supreme power over demons, witches and sorcerers; the hymns and lamentations composed for the cult of Bel, Shamash and of Adad were transformed into paeans and appeals to Marduk, while the ancient myths arising in the various religious and political centres underwent a similar process of adaptation to changed conditions, and as a consequence their original meaning was obscured by the endeavour to assign all mighty deeds and acts, originally symbolical of the change of seasons or of occurrences in nature, to the patron deity of Babylon - the supreme head of the entire Babylonian pantheon.
At the close of the 19th century the fees annually paid to these persons were estimated at £150,000; there were in Seoul 1000 sorceresses, and very large sums are paid to the male sorcerers and geomancers.
Crevaux, in the Andes, found that the Indians believed that the beasts have piays (sorcerers and doctors) like themselves.
The sorcerers of Honduras (Bancroft, i.
Among the Bushmen 4 " sorcerers assume the form of beasts and jackals."
Dobrizhofer, a missionary in Paraguay (1717-1791), learned that " sorcerers arrogate to themselves the power of changing men into tigers " (Eng.
5 Among the Mayas of Central America sorcerers could transform themselves " into dogs, pigs and other animals; their glance was death to a victim " (Bancroft, ii.
Yehl's powers of metamorphosis and of flying into the air are the common accomplishments of sorcerers, and he is a rather crude form of first father, " culture-hero " and creator.2 Among the Karok Indians we find the great hero and divine benefactor in the shape of, not a raven, nor an eagle-hawk, nor a mantis insect, nor a spider, but a coyote.
Ancestor-worship is a great force in early religion, and the qualities of dead chiefs and sorcerers are freely attributed to gods, but it does not follow that each god was once a real man, as Sahagun supposes.
