Where, playing with him at bo-peep
He solved all problems ne’er so deep.
In his experiments in crystal-gazing, Dr. Dee evidently used more than one crystal, and did not indeed confine the operations of his scryer or scryers to brilliant spheres. In the collection of Horace Walpole, at Strawberry Hill, was a polished slab of black stone, obsidian, from Mexico. This came into the possession of Mr. Smythe Piggott and later (1853) into that of Lord Londesborough; it is now in the collection of Prince Alexis Soltykoff. Horace Walpole wrote a label for the stone, in which he says that it had long been owned by the Mordaunts, Earls of Peterborough, and was described in the catalogue of their collection as the black stone into which Dr. Dee used to call his spirits. Later it was owned by John Campbell, Duke of Argyle, who gave it to Horace Walpole.[294] Undoubtedly any polished surface, whether flat or convex, might serve the purpose of the scryer almost equally well; the possible advantage of a convex or a spherical form consists in the multiplying of the reflections and light points so that the sight is induced to wander from point to point, and that forms and even motions are suggested by the superposition and combination of the various reflections. Often, too, a light point visible to one eye will not be so to the other, this sometimes provoking the phenomenon of binocular vision, which asserts itself for a moment or two, when the diverse images coalesce again, though imperfectly, giving an impression of movement. For one gifted with imagination and the natural quality of visualizing brain-pictures, these shifting light-points and the more or less definite and repeated reflections of surrounding objects offer abundant material out of which to construct lifelike pictures apparently seen in the crystal. That the brain-pictures thus thrown out, so to speak, upon the crystal, may or may not have a peculiar psychic value, other than their value as mere phenomena, depends upon the significance we are inclined to attribute to the processes of the subconscious intelligence; of its existence, indeed, there can be no doubt, and many of our best thinkers incline to the belief that through it the narrow limits of our personality are occasionally transcended.
1, 2, 3. Rock-crystal spheres having portions of the surface ground so that they are rendered partially opaque.
4. Natural cross of rock-crystal. On dolomite, Ossining, New York.
The following history and description of a crystal ball is given by John Aubrey (1626-1697):
I have here set down the figure of a consecrated Beryl—now in the possession of Sir Edward Harley, Knight of the Bath, which he keeps in his closet at Brampton Bryan in Herefordshire amongst his Cimelia, which I saw there. It came first from Norfolk; a minister had it there, and a call was to be made with it. Afterwards a miller had it and he did work great cures with it (if curable), and in the Beryl they did see, either the receipt in writing, or else the herb. To this minister, the spirits or angels would appear openly, and because the miller (who was his familiar friend) one day happened to see them, he gave him the aforesaid Beryl and Call; by these angels the minister was forewarned of his death. This account I had from Mr. Ashmole. Afterwards this Beryl came into somebody’s hand in London who did tell strange things by it; insomuch that at last he was questioned for it, and it was taken away by authority (it was about 1645). This Beryl is a perfect sphere, the diameter of it I guess to be something more than an inch; it is set in a ring, or circle, of silver, resembling the meridian of a globe; the stem of it is about ten inches high, all gilt. At the four quarters of it are the names of four angels, viz: Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel. On the top is a cross patee.[295]
In his “Saducismus Triumphatus,” Joseph Glanvil writes that “one Compton of Summersetshire, who practised Physick, and pretends to strange Matters,” demonstrated his power to evoke the image of a distant person on the surface of a mirror. Glanvil relates that Compton offered to show to a Mr. Hill any one the latter wished to see. Hill “had no great confidence in his talk,” but replied that he desired to see his wife who was many miles distant. “Upon this, Compton took up a Looking-glass that was in the Room, and setting it down again, bid my Friend look in it, which he did, and then, as he most solemnly and seriously professeth, he saw the exact Image of his Wife, in that Habit which she then wore and working at her Needle in such a part of the Room (then represented also) in which and about which time she really was, as he found upon enquiry when he came home. The Gentleman himself averred this to me, and he is a very sober, intelligent, and credible Person. Compton had no knowledge of him before, and was an utter stranger to the Person of his Wife. He was by all accounts a very odd Person.”[296]