Seeress

“ Ross Willis thanked “Princess Lalla” awkwardly and dropped from the platform to the grass-stubbled ground, entirely unaware that the marvelous seeress was little Sally Ford.
Confidence and mirth welled up in Sally. She began to believe in herself as “Princess Lalla,” just as she had always more than half-believed that she was the queen or the actress whom she had impersonated in the old days so recently ended forever, when she had “play-acted” for the other orphans. ”

“ It invariably happened when the crystal began to show a picture; and so powerful was its effect on the nerves of the watcher in this silent, perfumed room, as to give an illusion that she, too, could see dimly what the seeress saw forming in those transparent depths.
"A man is there," Madalena said in a low, measured voice, as if she were talking in her sleep. "He is shutting a door. It is the front door of a house like yours. Yes, it is yours. There is the number over the door, and I recognize the street. It is Portman Square. He puts a latchkey in his pocket. How could he have got the key? ”

“ I could not have imagined so wonderful a light as that which illuminated the great rose-window and filled the vast broken shell of the Abbey. It was as if the day had been poured out of a cup, and night was being slowly poured in—the dove-gray night of dreams. It was pale, yet not bright like the light of dawn. It was more like a light glimmering over a sheet of water, a light made of the water itself. Almost I expected to see the Heart rise up in the ebony and silver box, and the box opening.
"You look like a young seeress," my Knight said. ”

“ I'll draw into your circle the man who has got your husband lying helpless in his house—and who has got your pearls. Do you believe I am able to do this, or do you not?"
"I—can't say I quite believe," Juliet confessed. She might have been more definite, yet not have gone beyond the truth. She might have said, "What I think is, that you're a trickster. If there's anything in this at all beyond mere nonsense, you know where my husband is, and you're playing a deep game for money." But something warned the girl not to say this. She was afraid to say it—afraid to make the seeress afraid! ”

“ Carly shuddered, "don't tell me any more!"
"But the more is the best part of it," said Peter, smiling; "you see, mother was so upset by this direful news, that another gypsy took pity on her and amended my cruel fate. The second seeress declared that I must meet the destiny number one had dealt me, but that to mitigate the family grief, I would return afterwards."
"As a spook?" cried Carlotta, "how interesting!"
"Perhaps; but it doesn't interest me at present You see, this trip is not the fatal one——"
"How do you know?" from Julie. ”

“ They are invariably diseased people, mostly women, who fall into trances, have cataleptic attacks, or suffer of [Pg 266] even more painful maladies, and during the time of their affliction behold and converse with the inmates of another world. The most renowned of these seers was a Mrs. Hauffe, who has become well known to the reading world through Dr. J. Kerner's famous work, "The Seeress of Prevorst." A peculiar feature in her case was the fact that the visions she had were invariably announced to bystanders by peculiar sounds, heard by all who were present. ”

“ And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer.
8:14 And behold, the king of the people who are in the land of Zarahemla is the man that is commanded to do these things, and who has this high gift from God.
8:15 And the king said that a seer is greater than a prophet.
8:16 And Ammon said that a seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he should possess the power of God, which no man can; yet a man may have great power given him from God. ”

“ The danger at this supreme moment is that the seer will be surprised into full waking consciousness. During the process of abstraction which precedes every vision or series of visions, the consciousness of the seer is gradually and imperceptibly withdrawn from his surroundings. He forgets that he is seated in this or that room, that such a person is at his right hand, such another at his left. He forgets that he is gazing into the crystal. He hears nothing, sees nothing, save what is passing before the eyes of his soul. ”

“ These two types—of which there are many varieties—achieve their psychic development by quite opposite means. The positive seer works with effort, throwing out the soul-images by the power of his will, perceiving them with more or less accuracy, and thereafter turning them over in the mind, reasoning and questioning concerning their import and meaning. The passive seer, on the contrary, works not at all and makes no effort, the visions coming slowly, almost imperceptibly, and in most cases having a literal interpretation. ”

“ A seer can know the past and the future. Through a seer, all things are revealed, secret things are shown, and hidden things come to light. God has provided this method for a man, through faith, to work mighty miracles and become a great benefit to his fellow beings."
King Limhi was overjoyed at hearing this news. He thanked God by saying, "No doubt a great mystery is contained within these plates. These interpreters must have been prepared for the purpose of unfolding all such mysteries to all people. ”

“ It is important that all persons sitting in the same room as the seer should be at arm's length away from him—farther if possible. Silence should be uniformly observed by those present. A recorder should be at hand to set down everything the seer may give voice to. If any questions are addressed to the seer while the sitting is in progress, they should be spoken in an undertone and as nearly a monotone as may be so that the seer is not suddenly surprised into consciousness of his surroundings, and the psychic thread thereby broken. ”

“ Chiefs distinguished by these personal marks shall be the allies and neighbours of the last Seaforth; and when he looks around him and sees them, he may know that his sons are doomed to death, that his broad lands shall pass away to the stranger, and that his race shall come to an end.”
When the seer had ended this prediction, he threw his white stone into a small loch, and declared that whoever should find that stone would be similarly gifted. Then submitting to his fate, he was at once executed, and this wild and fearful doom ended his strange and uncanny life. ”

“ He is a true Seer, like his own ancient Zarathustra, like Lao-tse, like Buddha, and much more akin to Jesus, and Paul, and John, than to the fierce, relentless, one-sided Prophet of Arabia, whose barren religion he redeems from its mechanical inhumanity and quickens with the breath of a purer and Diviner love. ”

“ Then they went on into the seventh country which was ruled over by three brothers who had married three sisters, the daughters of a witch.
They made their way to the front of the royal palace, where the seer said to his man: “Do you stay here while I go in and find out whether the kings are at home. It is they who stole the flaming horse and the youngest brother rides him.”
Then the seer transformed himself into a green bird and flew up to the window of the eldest queen and flitted about and pecked until she opened the window and let him into her chamber. ”

“ Like the wide, deep ocean, that pulsates into every bay and creek and blesses the distant isles with its dew and rain, so God's heart throbs and pulsates unto the uttermost parts of the universe, having a parent's sympathy for His children who suffer.
Indeed, the seer ranges through all nature searching out images for interpreting His all-comprehending gentleness. "Even the bruised reed he will not break." Lifting itself high in the air, a mere lead pencil for size, weighted with a heavy top, a very little injury shatters a reed. ”

“ For is not strength assimilated food? And in the Struggle for Existence will not She, requiring less food, and being therefore Fittest, survive? So that, with Seer’s eye, I seem to behold the day when my sex, excluded from every avocation, shall perish from off the face of that earth over which we have so long and so haughtily lorded. ”

“ One{33} who listens to the song of life knows nothing of age or change. So it is that the boy John never slipped away from Burroughs, the man. So it is that the Seer of Woodchuck Lodge is eighty years young.
Do you know what it means to be a seer? A seer is one who has seeing eyes which clearly note and comprehend what most people pass a hundred times nor care to see. He looks, too, through the outer shell or appearance of things, and learns to read something of their hidden meaning. ”

“ The so-called Seer can “enjoy” as harmlessly and as uselessly as a boy who idly swims in the lagoon, where he gains no knowledge and may end his sport in death. Even so is the one who swims, cuts capers, in the astral light, and becomes lost in something strange which surpasses all his comprehension. The difference between such a Seer and19 the ordinary sensualist, is, that the first indulges both his astral and physical senses to excess, while the latter his physical senses only. ”

“ It does not do away with a man of God to pelt him with nicknames and opprobrious epithets. Persecution may end his earthly career, but it cannot confute his claim nor invalidate his testimony. The name of the martyred modern Seer, despite the clouds of calumny enveloping it, shines out from amidst the darkness that comprehended him not. His glorious Lord and Master, crucified as an imposter, put to death for maintaining that he was more than the world believed him to be, gave the only Name given under heaven whereby men can be saved. ”

“ And as, from natural causes, they must still be receiving fresh accessions of strength in every country in which they have taken root, and which remains unvisited by the arts, the testimony of the heathen fathers regarding them is confirmed by what is deemed the experience of the Christian children. The visions of the seer are as distinct as ever, the witch as malignant, the spectre as terrible. Enthusiasm and superstition go hand in hand together as before, and under the supposed sanction of a surer creed. The one works miracles, the other inspires a belief in them ”

“ One morning, the accounts being rather more favourable, the household began to rejoice, and a friend in the neighbourhood, who was visiting the chief, came down after breakfast full of the good news, and gladly imparted it to the old family piper, whom he met in front of the Castle. The aged retainer shook his head and sighed—“Na, na,” said he, “he’ll never recover. It’s decreed that Seaforth must outlive all his four sons.” This he said in allusion to the seer’s prophecy ”

“ It was reported that one having second-sight saw in vision a young man with three women standing at his left side, and in course of time each became his wife in the order in which they were seen standing. These seers could often foretell coming visitors to a family months before they came, and even point out places where houses would be built years before the buildings were erected. The seer could not communicate the gift to any other person, not even to those of his own family, as he possessed it without any conscious act on his part ”

“ Then where was Cesare? Cesare, her husband, was with a woman! And jealousy began to gnaw her heart. With a woman; that was certain. The truth burned her soul. He could be nowhere else than with a woman. ”

“ Sears was above in his study working on Dante. He would finish canto twelve to-night, and she would finish the sock. How deathly still is a house in spring when the wind nuzzles the doors, begging to get in. She raised her violet-shadowed eyes reproachfully towards the rattling panes beyond the nimbus of the couch. 'You wouldn't like it, wind,' she said, 'if I should open a window and let you in. Go a long way off, out to sea, or down on the Cape. Concord is not the place for you.' But the wind snuffed like a hound. ”

“ A special kind of divination, which has at times been evidenced in certain parts of Europe, and is not unknown to our North-western Indians, consists in the perception of contemporaneous or future events, during a brief trance. Generally the seer looks with painfully raised eyelids, fixedly into space, evidently utterly unconscious of all around him, and engaged in watching a distant occurrence. ”

“ The housekeeper, agitated and mystified, fairly let herself go. "Heaven preserve us, Miss! It's your great-uncle's picture come to life."
"I'm not mistaken then," said Miss Searle--"we must be distantly related." She had the air of the shyest of women, for whom it was almost anguish to make an advance without help. Searle eyed her with gentle wonder from head to foot, and I could easily read his thoughts. This then was his maiden-cousin, prospective mistress of these hereditary treasures. ”

“ Nothing in the world was more unlikely to happen, to all appearance, than what the Seer predicted, and Coinneach was universally ridiculed for having given utterance to what was apparently so nonsensical; but this abuse and ridicule the Seer bore with the [52] patient self-satisfied air of one who was fully convinced of the truth of what he uttered. Years passed by, but no sign of the fulfilment of the prophecy. The Seer, the Laird of Fairburn, and the whole of that generation were gathered to their fathers, and still no signs of the curious prediction being realised. ”