Crystal gazing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crystal gazing is a way to get into trance, where you stare at a shiny object for a longer period of time. If done right, the person will receive visions of various nature.
The trance can be achieved with any shiny object. In popular media, a crystal ball is often used, typically by an old gypsy woman.
If you are using a crystal, or a ball of polished rock crystal it is called crystallomancy.
If you use water instead, it is called Hydromancy.
Some people believe that crystal gazing can be used as a method of divination of distant or future events. Others think that the visions merely comes from the subconscious.
Among objects used are a pool of ink in the hand (Egypt), the liver of an animal (tribes of the North-West Indian frontier), a hole filled with water (Polynesia), quartz crystals (the Apaches and the Euahlayi tribe of New South Wales), a smooth slab of polished black stone (the Huille-che of South America), water in a vessel (Zulus and Siberians), a crystal (the Incas), a mirror (classical Greece and the Middle Ages), a fingernail, a swordblade, a ring-stone, and a glass of sherry.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Andrew Lang, Crystal visions, savage and civilised, The Making of Religion, Chapter V, Longmans, Green, and C°, London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp. 83-104.
- http://skepdic.com/scrying.html
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
