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Passing Bell
The ancient custom of tolling the passing-bell in the dead time of the night, when death happened at that dread season, in order, as was supposed to clear the air of demons, and give the devout an opportunity of praying for the soul's safe departure. This absurd custom was only abolished a little bit over one hundred years ago.
Also, the name given to the bell which is rung in the church when a person is near to death.
In the medieval period, bells were sometimes rung to destroy witches, as it was supposed that the sound of bells threw them off their night flight and rendered their diabolic magic ineffective. The tolling of these bells were also said to have the effect of frightening away the evil spirits which are ready to take the soul as it passes from the body.
See Divination, Haruspex, Fortean Phenomena, Astral Travel, Apparition, Altered State of Consciousness, ESP, Seance, Materialization, British Society for Psychical Research, Asport, Rappings, Automatic Writing, Findhorn, Glastonbury Scripts, Theosophy, Psychic Archaeology, Spiritualism, Poltergeist, Ghost, Parapsychology, Encyclopedia of Signs, Omens, and Superstitions (Library of the Mystic Arts), Casting Black Magic Spells, Commanding Spirits, The Tarot Store, The Chakra Store, Divination & Scrying Tools and Supplies and The Pyramid Collection.
Sources: (1) Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopedia of Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (2) Dictionary of the Occult, Caxton Publishing.
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 | | | | | Suggested Software:
|  | | Courses on New Age and Alternative Beliefs:
| | -- The Book Of Shadows CD-ROM.
-- The Totally New Complete Edgar Cayce Readings CD-ROM.
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Suggested Art prints and Posters:
-- Click HERE for more related art prints and posters. | | | Suggested Books: -- 101 American Superstitions.
-- 8,414 Strange and Fascinating Superstitions.
-- A Dictionary of Omens and Superstitions.
-- A Dictionary of Superstitions.
-- A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, and Pagans.
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-- Curses: What They Are and How to Break Them.
-- Don't Do It: A Dictionary of the Forbidden.
-- Do's and Taboos Around the World.
-- Encyclopedia of Signs, Omens, and Superstitions (Library of the Mystic Arts).
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-- Evil Eye in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature.
-- Forbidden Fruits: Taboos and Tabooism in Culture.
-- Golem.
-- Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague.
-- Gypsies.
-- Horror File Funfax: Evil Eye.
-- How to Avoid the Evil Eye.
-- Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians.
-- Irish Popular Superstitions.
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-- Magic and Superstition in Europe: A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present.
-- Mal'Uocchiu: Ambiguity, Evil Eye and the Language of Distress.
-- Melville, Shame, and the Evil Eye: A Psychoanalytic Reading.
-- Omens, Curses & Superstitions: How to Remove and Reverse Them.
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-- Superstition and Magic.
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-- Taboo (Methodology and History in Anthropology , Vol 3).
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-- The Book of Spells, Hexes, and Curses: True Tales from Around the World.
-- The Breaking of Curses.
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-- The Golem.
-- The Golem: A Version.
-- The Golem of Prague: A New Adaptation of the Documented Stories of the Golem of Prague.
-- The Gypsies (Peoples of Europe).
-- The Malevolent Eye: An Essay on the Evil Eye, Fertility and the Concept of Mana.
-- The Encyclopedia of Superstitions.
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-- Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics (Dover Thrift Editions).
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-- Click HERE for the best prices on top-selling book titles. |
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