Identity
The History of the Crystal Ball
From the Druids' early days of divination to (sometimes) eerily accurate political consulting, the backstory of the crystal ball is as cloudy and roundabout as the divine orb itself.
Brooke Bunce
By Brooke Bunce
October 19, 2015, 10:40am
The crystal ball is as pervasive as it is mysterious. It's displayed in the window of your local psychic; it makes an appearance in movies, books, and pop culture; for those moments when you need a touch of the clairvoyant in your texts, it's even on your smartphone screen. But how it earned its seductive presence is less clear than the pasts and futures it purports to predict.
In her book Crystal Ball: Stones, Amulets, and Talismans for Power, Protection, and Prophecy, Sybil Ferguson writes, "Probably there are as many definitions of crystal balls as there are opinionated people." According to Northcote W. Thomas's 1905 book Crystal Gazing: Its History and Practice, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Telepathic Scrying, in pre-industrial times crystal gazing was commonly practiced by the Pawnee, the Iroquois, the Incas, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Chinese, and the people of Yucatan. It's most likely, though, that the earliest recorded use of crystals as divination tools dates back to the Celtic Druids of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, who lived during the Iron Age and were pretty much wiped out by Christianity by 600 AD. Much of what is known about Druids—the class of educated professionals who hung out in the woods to perform sacrificial magic ceremonies—comes from the oral accounts of Julius Caesar and the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder. The early crystal gazers, or specularii, preferred a sea-green mineral called beryl, which was polished into spheres to enhance the reflective properties. (A ball is born!) Beryl is thought to be more magnetically charged than other minerals and, as a result, more apt to connect with the psychic energies of the moon These first adopters of crystal-gazing would stare deeply into the stone, falling into a meditative trance that would allow the subconscious to open and reveal secrets of the past, present, or future. (Although popular opinion would have us believe psychics are only good for knowing what's going to happen, true crystal balls can see in any chronological direction, depending on the Seer's ability.) This act of gazing into a reflective or translucent surface to glean prophetic insight came to be known as scrying, and while it's a gross-sounding word to say out loud, the practice can be used on literally anything, including blood, water, mirrors, and even oily fingernails, though crystal balls are the most common mechanism for this type of divination.
"THE CRYSTAL BALL" (1902) BY JOHN WILLIAM WATERHOUSE.
Medieval Ballers
Many cultures utilize(d) some form of ancient crystal healing or divination, but the most obvious association with the crystal ball comes from the Middle Ages, which lasted from around the time the Druids disappeared until the Renaissance in the 15th century. Though its path is murky, the crystal ball was thought to be used throughout the medieval period by Anglo–Saxons as both a means of magic and a flashy fashion accessory—a type of Middle-Age bling, so to speak. Ferguson even suggests that the mythical magician Merlin chose to tote around a beryl ball for those times King Arthur needed an emergency reading.
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During this time, crystal spheres, set in wire fastenings, were used as symbols of power, class status, and possibly as magic talismans that warded off sickness and evil. During excavations of medieval graves in Kent, these crystal ball amulets were found in several graves of wealthy women (and a few men), between their knees, along with other possessions that indicated their wealth. The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of Medieval England guesses that the crystal balls could have pointed to associations with pagan cults.
