Scrying
Crystal gazing, or to scry in a crystal ball, has long been a popular motive for western caricature artists and joke artists. The first drawing was published over eighty years ago. It was an imago of a poster, and the drawing had the following text attached to it: ‘parlor for crystal gazing and palm reading.’ And: ‘Closed because of unforeseen circumstances.’
It’s isn’t surprising that crystal balls have been the object of jokes and jests through the years. There is undeniably something comical about the sight of a person who sits and stares into what looks like nothing but a polished glass ball.
Scrying in crystal balls and other objects, whether it’s water bowls, shiny black mirrors or other things, nevertheless originated from thousands of years back in time. It’s an art of divination that is far older than both tarot and numerology. There’s reason to believe that shamans (wise men and psychic priests in primitive societies) used methods that involved trance and clairvoyance long before the written word was invented. These methods are identical to the ones used by crystal gazers and occultists today.
A real crystal ball – a polished sphere of a semi-precious mineral known as clear quartz – is an expensive luxury item, especially if it’s flawless. Most of the so-called crystal balls that can be bought today aren’t even made from crystal but from cast glass. Even these have a tendency to be very expensive, and all who want to try scrying in objects, are therefore not advised to start with a crystal ball, but rather object that almost cost nothing.
This can, for example, be a wine glass filled to the rim with pure water, a flat or convex, black painted piece of glass or, the simplest of all, a stiff white piece of cardboard or regular black ink.
To find out if you’re one of the very few who have an innate to scry in objects, it’s best to have some knowledge of what kind of results it’s claimed that a seer can achieve with such methods. Most important is maybe that you’re aware that there’s nothing occult or supernatural about the objects used. Even the most expensive crystal ball is nothing but a means to an end. The goal can be called either a ‘visionary experience’ or ‘a voluntary separation of consciousness’ if you prefer to use an expression from psychology.