Many people picture a fortune-teller with a crystal ball and a black cat by her side. What can such a fortune-teller see in the crystal ball? Where do the images of future events appear – inside the ball, or in the seer’s own subconscious?
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The fortune-teller has usually been imagined as a woman with dark hair and an olive complexion, strong features, a broad forehead and a piercing gaze. She is pictured wearing a headscarf, a shawl and gold earrings, with a crystal ball and other divination tools. This image comes from Romani fortune-tellers, who brought it to Europe. According to the mystic Jon Melville, the fortune-teller’s crystal ball should be 3.8 cm in diameter, or at least the size of a small orange. Leaning over the ball, the fortune-teller moves her right hand over it for several minutes in order to magnetise its surface. To use a crystal ball you need paranormal, clairvoyant abilities. The crystal ball is meant to be a helpful tool for seeing the future, just as Tarot cards are. Such a ball is supposed to stimulate the subconscious to receive images of the future.
The ball’s task is to increase the reader’s concentration so that she can infer future events from the images passing through her mind.
The ball should be spotlessly clean. It should be washed regularly with water and vinegar or mild soap, and polished with velvet from time to time.
No one but its owner should touch it, especially during a reading. The room where the session takes place should be discreetly lit, but bright enough to read in comfortably. The fortune-teller should sit at arm’s length from the other people present.
Gazing into a crystal ball is an empirical method of increasing cryptaesthesia – the ability to see clairvoyantly.
In the Middle Ages, this method of divination was regarded as the devil’s seed. In the mid-12th century crystal ball reading became fashionable in much of Europe and in the Middle East, winning favour among ordinary people. The Church, however, condemned not only crystal gazing but also astrology and other tools of divination, such as cards.
Partly because of the Church’s opposition, and partly because of dishonesty and the many charlatans, crystal ball reading began to give way to other methods of foretelling the future.
In the old days, the art of predicting the future with a crystal ball was suppressed as coming from the devil. This was the conclusion reached in 1398 by members of the theology faculty in Paris, who saw no difference between the crystal ball and the equally widespread onyx mirrors used by women suspected of witchcraft.
It has long been known that crystal not only allows a glimpse of the future but also enables contact with the cosmos.
In the mid-12th century, divination with a crystal ball became fashionable in much of Europe and almost all of the Middle East. It won the approval of ordinary people while at the same time meeting with the Church’s condemnation.
In England the Church wanted to stamp out crystal gazing, but people paid little attention. Yet 300 years later, during a routine court hearing, a peasant admitted to using a crystal ball to find stolen goods, and he was charged with heresy.
He was convicted and made to walk through York Minster with a burning torch in one hand and his magic books in the other, and a placard hung around his neck proclaiming that he was a soothsayer and a conjurer of spirits.
Partly because of the Church’s opposition, partly because of dishonest tricksters, and also under the influence of a general disillusionment with such practices, crystal ball reading gradually gave way to other methods of predicting the future.
Crystallomancy enjoyed a revival in the 19th century, when Lord Lytton openly admitted that he owned a crystal ball which he used to foretell the future.
In general, the 19th century brought renewed interest in old methods of predicting the future, including the crystal ball.
First published (Polish original): 24 June 2011. Written by astrologers and esoteric specialists working with our editorial team; edited and translated for HOROSCOP.SPACE. © All rights reserved.
