CRYSTAL BALL DIVINATION

Scrying means seeing magical images in a reflective medium, such as a crystal ball. What you see can shed light on the present and guide future action. The word ‘scry’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘descry’, which means to see.

Scrying in shiny surfaces has been practised in every culture and time, not only by mystics and magicians, but every girl who has gazed into a mirror and performed rituals to see her lover’s face, or by any man who has sought wisdom in moonlit water.

Crystallomancy differs from other forms of scrying such as tea leaves, because the images are not formed by the medium itself, but from within your psyche.

People sometimes feel that they cannot use a crystal ball or a mirror successfully because there are no concrete images on which to work. For this reason, scryers can become anxious and actually block the natural and very vivid images cast on to the glass by the mind’s eye.

The Origins of Crystallomancy

The Maya used the crystal which was sacred to the Sun God Tezcatlipoca and his temple walls were lined with mirrors.

Apaches gazed into crystals, not only to discover if an expedition would be successful but to find the location of property and ponies stolen by other tribes.

Crystal ball divination became popular in Europe in the fifteenth century when it was believed that spirits or angels would appear in the glass. Rituals were long and complex. One in a sixteenth century manuscript included purification rituals as well as invoking protection from God and the good angels: ‘First say one Paternoster, one Ave Maria, one Creed, then say Vobiscum Spiritu, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God Of Jacob,God of Elias . . . who hast given virtues to stones, woods and herbs, consecrate this stone.’

One of the most famous scryers was Sir John Dee (1527-1608) who was astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I.  On November 21, 1582, he bought a crystal ‘as big as an egg, most bryght, clere and glorious’ and through this sphere he communicated with his angels. These not only gave him all kinds of knowledge, but, he believed, protected both the Queen and England. He called his crystal his ‘shew-stone’. It was not a clear crystal, but an obsidian, a stone through which light can be seen when held to the sun. It is said that this crystal provided forewarning of the Spanish Armada.

Although the crystal ball is the most mystical of all divinatory forms, it is quite accessible, whether you use a conventional sphere of deep blue or yellow beryl or clear crystal quartz, a household mirror or a clear glass, paperweight or even a large spherical glass such as a brandy glass.