Crystal Gazing

Crystal Gazing

Crystal gazing (also called Scrying) where divination of distant or future events based on visions seen in a ball of rock crystal is thousands of years old.

Divination was based on an analysis of reflections in water, on polished metal, or on precious stones was practiced by early humans, who probably interpreted these phenomena as a vision of the spirit world. Scrying became widespread by the 5th century AD and was condemned by the medieval Christian church as the work of the devil.

Crystal gazing was a popular pastime in the Victorian era, together with palmistry and astrology, and it involved elaborate rituals for cleaning the crystal ball and for conducting crystal-gazing sessions, which are said to work best when the Sun is at its northernmost declination. Immediately before the appearance of a vision (which may be realistic or a mere wispy swirl), the globe is said to mist up from within.

Crystal gazing may be a method of inducing self hypnosis, resulting in a very light trance, under which a latent psi faculty is brought into play. While looking into the crystal, the glass appears to cloud over, after which the cloud disappears and seer sees pictorially in the ball whatever it is for he is searching, whether it be character-reading, or revelations of the past or foretelling of the future or the location of something lost. It is not always a glass bowl that is used, sometimes it is a bowl of water or a small pool.

In Egypt, the seer gets a young boy and pours into the palm of his hand an ink like liquid which sometimes, the seer but more usually the gazes into until the cloud forms and then disperses revealing the relevant picture.

Water also serves as an instrument that reveals and judges. Reflections in the water led to a whole series of oracles originating from an alleged prophetic or divinatory power of water. A visionary look into the water surface was believed to reveal the future as well as past misdeeds. The custom of water divination is found in ancient Europe, North Africa, the Near East (e.g., Babylonian fortune telling by means of cups), eastern and northern Asia (where the use of metal mirrors by the shamans often replaces the water as a divining means), and in Southeast Asia and Polynesia. Where such means of divination were severely repressed, as in sub-Saharan Africa, these methods of mirror and water gazing were changed into manipulated water ordeals.

Water is also used as a judging element: in ordeals believed to demonstrate the judgment of the gods, water ordeals (e.g., immersion in water), as well as the more frequent fire ordeals, appear. Here also the purifying character of the water plays a role.