led Lord Bacon to declare
superstition to be the more repulsive on account of its similitude to
religion, "even as it addeth deformity to an ape to be so like a man."
In the prayers offered by the Romans to their deities, the choice of apt
phrases was considered to be of greater importance than the mental
attitude of the petitioner, because of the prevalent belief in the
efficacy of appropriate words _per se_.

Hence, we are told, when prayers for the welfare of the State were
publicly recited by a magistrate, it was customary for a high-priest to
dictate suitable expressions, lest an unhappy selection of words provoke
divine anger.[126:1] Popular credence attributed to the classic writer
Marcus Varro (B. C. 116-28), sometimes called "the most learned of the
Romans," the faculty of curing tumors by the direct expression of mental
force, namely, by means of words.[126:2]

The Romans believed that the magical power of prayers was enhanced if
they were uttered with a loud voice. Hence a saying attributed to
Seneca: "So speak to God as though all men heard your prayers." Of great
repute among the healing-spells of antiquity was the cabalistic word
_Abracadabra_, which occurs first in a medical treatise entitled
"Praecepta de Medicina," by the Roman writer Quintus Serenus Samonicus,
who flourished in the second century. An inverted triangular figure,
formed by writing this word in the manner hereinafter described, was
much valued as an antidote against fevers; cloth or parchment being the
material originally used for the inscription.

Thou shalt on paper write the spell divine,
_Abracadabra_ called, on many a line,
Each under each in even order place,
But the last letter in each line efface;
As by degrees the elements grow few,
Still take away, but fix the residue,
Till at the last one letter stands alone,
And the whole dwindles to a tapering cone.
Tie this about the neck with flaxen string,
Mighty the good 't will to the patient bring.
Its wondrous potency shall guard his bed,
And drive disease and death far from his head.[127:1]

Another favorite therapeutic spell, no less venerable than Abracadabra,
was the mystical word _Abraxas_, which was first used by Basilides, a
leader of the Egyptian Gnostics in the second century. This word,
engraved on an antique precious stone, sometimes accompanied by a
magical emblem and meaningless inscription, was commonly u