A crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball commonly used in fortune-telling. It is generally associated with the performance of clairvoyance and scrying. Used since Antiquity, crystal balls have had a broad reputation with witchcraft, including modern times with charlatan acts and amusements at circus venues, festivals, etc. Other names for the thing include crystal sphere, orbuculum, scrying ball, shew/show(ing) stone, and more variants by dialect.
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By the fifth century AD, scrying using crystal balls was widespread within the Roman Empire and was condemned by the early Christian Church as heretical (magic had been condemned since the Apostolic Era with e.g. Chapter 2 of the Didache). [1] [2]
The tomb of Childeric I, a fifth-century king of the Franks, contained a 3.8 cm (1½ inch) diameter transparent beryl globe. [3] The object is similar to other globes that were later found in tombs from the Merovingian period in Gaul and the Saxon period in England. Some of these were complete with a frame suggesting an ornamental object. [4] It has been pointed out that these mounts are identical to those of later globes also believed to be used for magic or divination, indicating that these crystal globes may have been used for crystallomancy . [4] [5]
John Dee was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy, of which the use of crystal balls was often included. [6]
Crystal gazing was a popular pastime in the Victorian era, and was claimed to work best when the Sun is at its northernmost declination. Immediately before the appearance of a vision, the ball was said to mist up from within. [1]
The use of crystal balls for divination also has a long history with the Romani people. [7] Fortune tellers, known as drabardi, [8] traditionally use crystal balls as well as cards to seek knowledge about future events. [9]
The process of scrying often involves the use of crystals, especially crystal balls, in an attempt to predict the future or otherwise divine hidden information. [10] Crystal ball scrying is commonly used to seek supernatural guidance while making difficult decisions in one's life (e.g., matters of love or finances). [11] [12]
When the technique of scrying is used with crystals, or any transparent body, it is known as crystallomancy or crystal gazing.
Crystal balls are popular props used in mentalism acts by stage magicians. Such routines, in which the performer answers audience questions by means of various ruses, are known as crystal gazing acts. One of the most famous performers of the 20th century, Claude Alexander, was often billed as "Alexander the Crystal Seer". [13]
Optically, a crystal ball is a ball lens. For typical materials such as quartz and glass, it forms an image of distant objects slightly beyond the surface of the sphere, on the opposite side. Unlike conventional lenses, the image-forming properties are omnidirectional (independent of the direction being imaged)
This omnidirectional focusing can cause a crystal ball to act as a burning glass when it is brought into full sunlight. The image of the sun formed by a large crystal ball will burn a hand that is holding it, and can ignite dark-coloured flammable material placed near it. [14]
A crystal ball was among the grave-goods of the Merovingian King, Childeric I (c. 437–481 AD). [15] The grave-goods were discovered in 1653. In 1831, they were stolen from the royal library in France where they were being kept. Few items were ever recovered. The crystal ball was not among them.
The Sceptre of Scotland has a crystal ball in its finial, honoring the tradition of their use by pagan druids. [16] It was made in Italy in the 15th century, and was a gift to James IV from Pope Alexander VI.
The Penn Museum in Philadelphia displays the third-largest crystal ball as the central object in its Chinese Rotunda. [17] Weighing 49 pounds (22 kg), the sphere is made of quartz crystal from Burma and was shaped through years of constant rotation in a semi-cylindrical container filled with emery, garnet powder, and water. The ornamental treasure was purportedly made for the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) during the Qing dynasty in the 19th century, but no evidence as to its actual origins exists. The crystal ball and an ancient Egyptian statuette [18] which depicted the god Osiris were stolen in 1988. [19] They were recovered three years later with no damage done to either object.
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with supernatural agencies such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the "will of the universe".
Fortune telling is the unproven spiritual practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination. The difference is that divination is the term used for predictions considered part of a religious ritual, invoking deities or spirits, while the term fortune telling implies a less serious or formal setting, even one of popular culture, where belief in occult workings behind the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or practical advisory or affirmation.
The Magic 8 Ball is a plastic sphere, made to look like an oversized eight ball, that is used for fortune-telling or seeking advice. It was invented in 1946 by Albert C. Carter and Abe Bookman and is manufactured by Mattel. The user asks a yes–no question to the ball, then turns it over to reveal an answer that floats up into a window.
Crystal gazing or crystallomancy is a method for seeing visions achieved through trance induction by means of gazing at a crystal. Traditionally, it has been seen as a form of divination or scrying, with visions of the future and of the divine, though research into the content of crystal-visions suggest the visions are related to the expectations and thoughts of the seer.
Contact manipulation is a form of object manipulation that focuses on the movement of objects such as balls in contact with the body. Although often used in conjunction with "toss juggling", it differs in that it involves the rolling of one or more objects without releasing them into the air.
Scrying, also referred to as "seeing" or "peeping," is a practice rooted in divination and fortune-telling. It involves gazing into a medium, hoping to receive significant messages or visions that could offer personal guidance, prophecy, revelation, or inspiration. The practice lacks a definitive distinction from other forms of clairvoyance or divination but generally relies on visions within the chosen medium. Unlike augury, which interprets observable events, or divination, which follows standardized rituals, scrying's impressions arise within the medium itself.
The Cup of Jamshid is a cup of divination, which in Persian mythology was long possessed by the rulers of ancient Greater Iran. Its name is associated with Jamshid, a mythological figure of Greater Iranian culture and tradition. The cup has also been called Jam-e Jahan nama, Jam-e Jahan Ara, Jam-e Giti nama, and Jam-e Kei-khosrow. The latter refers to Kaei Husravah in the Avesta, and Sushrava in the Vedas.
Hydromancy is a method of divination by means of water, including the color, ebb and flow, or ripples produced by pebbles dropped in a pool.
A witch ball is a hollow sphere of glass. Witch balls were hung in cottage windows in 17th- and 18th-century England to ward off evil spirits, witches, evil spells, ill fortune and bad spirits.
A garden ornament or lawn ornament is a non-plant item used for garden, landscape, and park enhancement and decoration.
Methods of divination can be found around the world, and many cultures practice the same methods under different names. During the Middle Ages, scholars coined terms for many of these methods—some of which had hitherto been unnamed—in Medieval Latin, very often utilizing the suffix -mantia when the art seemed more mystical and the suffix -scopia when the art seemed more scientific. Names like drimimantia, nigromantia, and horoscopia arose, along with other pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy.
A yard globe is a mirrored sphere displayed as a lawn ornament, typically atop a conical ceramic or wrought iron stand. Sizes ranges from 1 in (25 mm) up to 10 m (33 ft) in diameter, with the most popular gazing ball being 12 in (300 mm). Gazing balls were originally made of glass, but may now be made of stainless steel, acrylic, ceramic, or stained glass.
George Frederick Kunz was an American mineralogist and mineral collector.
Catoptromancy, also known as captromancy or enoptromancy, is divination using a mirror.
Onychomancy or onymancy is an ancient form of divination using fingernails as a "crystal ball" or "scrying mirror" and is considered a subdivision of palmistry. As with palmistry, the contradictions between different interpretations and the lack of evidence for the predictions have led onychomancy to be viewed as a pseudoscience by academics.
A psychic reading is a specific attempt to discern information through the use of heightened perceptive abilities; or natural extensions of the basic human senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and instinct. These natural extensions are claimed to be clairvoyance (vision), clairsentience (feeling), claircognisance and clairaudience (hearing) and the resulting statements made during such an attempt. The term is commonly associated with paranormal-based consultation given for a fee in such settings as over the phone, in a home, or at psychic fairs. Though psychic readings are controversial and a focus of skeptical inquiry, a popular interest in them persists. Extensive experimentation to replicate psychic results in laboratory conditions have failed to find any precognitive phenomena in humans. A cold reading technique allows psychics to produce seemingly specific information about an individual from social cues and broad statements.
Claude Alexander Conlin, also known as Alexander, C. Alexander, Alexander the Crystal Seer, and Alexander the Man Who Knows, was an American spiritual author, vaudeville magician who specialized in mentalism and psychic reading acts, dressed in Oriental style robes and a feathered turban, and often used a crystal ball as a prop. In addition to performing, he also worked privately for clients, giving readings. He was the author of several pitch books, New Thought pamphlets, and psychology books, as well as texts for stage performers. His stage name was "Alexander," and as an author he wrote under the name "C. Alexander."
Carved stone balls are petrospheres dated from the late Neolithic, to possibly as late as the Iron Age, mainly found in Scotland, but also elsewhere in Britain and Ireland. They are usually round and rarely oval, and of fairly uniform size at around 2+3⁄4 inches or 7 cm across, with anything between 3 and 160 protruding knobs on the surface. They range from having no ornamentation to extensive and highly varied engraved patterns. A wide range of theories has been produced to explain their use or significance, with none gaining very wide acceptance.
Julius and Agnes Zancig were stage magicians and authors on occultism who performed a spectacularly successful two-person mentalism act during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Julius Zancig (1857–1929) – born Julius Jörgensen in Copenhagen, Denmark – and his wife Agnes Claussen Jörgensen – also born in Copenhagen, and known as Agnes Zancig – were the originators of the routine.
Media related to crystal balls at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of crystal ball at Wiktionary