A contemporary record recites that when a certain Sir Marmaduke Langdale (of the seventeenth century) was in Italy, he went to a sorcerer and was shown in a glass his own figure kneeling before a crucifix. Though a Protestant at this time, he shortly after became a Catholic.[297] If we exclude all idea of trickery, it is likely enough that the idea of becoming a Catholic was already present to the scryer’s mind and called up this picture before him.
The celebrated Cagliostro, a Sicilian whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo, among his other arts to excite curiosity and play upon the superstition of his contemporaries, had recourse to a species of crystal-gazing. In the only authentic biography of this extraordinary impostor occurs the following passage, which we give in Carlyle’s version:[298]
Cagliostro brought a little Boy into the Lodge, son of a nobleman there. He placed him on his knees before a table, whereon stood a Bottle of pure water, and behind this some lighted candles: he made an exorcism round the boy, put his hand on his head and both, in this attitude, addressed their prayers to God for the happy accomplishment of the work. Having bid the child look into the Bottle, directly the child cried that he saw a garden. Knowing hereby that Heaven assisted him, Cagliostro took courage, and bade the child ask of God the grace to see the angel Michael. At first the child said: “I see something white; I know not what it is.” Then he began jumping, stamping like a possessed creature, and cried: “There now! I see a child like myself, that seems to have something angelical.” All the assembly, and Cagliostro himself, remained speechless with emotion.... The child being anew exorcised with the hand of the Venerable on his head, and the customary prayer addressed to Heaven, he looked into the Bottle, and said he saw his sister at that moment coming down stairs, and embracing one of her brothers. That appeared impossible, the brother in question being then hundreds of miles off; however, Cagliostro felt not disconcerted; said they might send to the country-house where the sister was, and see.
Taken all in all this experiment does not seem very satisfactory; but we have in it all the essential phases of crystal-gazing. Excitement and expectation produced their usual effect upon an impressionable child, and suggestion did the rest; the final vision may have been corroborated in some way, or, if not, it would be explained so as to convince those present at the experiment that the child had really seen a representation of some actual happening.
During the Terror, among those upon whom fell the suspicions of the Jacobins was General Marlière. He knew that a trial and quite probably a condemnation awaited him. A few days before the date fixed for his appearance before his judges, he met a colonel in the French army, who had served in the American Revolutionary War, and who was a firm believer in the truth of the visions seen in crystal balls. In the course of the conversation this subject was alluded to, and the general immediately declared that he was eager to put the matter to the test, and learn, if possible, what fate was in store for him. The colonel was at first very unwilling to undertake the experiment, probably he thought that General Marlière’s doom was sealed, and, believing as he did in the revelations of the crystal, he dreaded the results; however, the general insisted and the experiment took place. As usual, the medium was an “innocent child.” In the crystal appeared a man wearing a private’s uniform of the National Guard struggling with one wearing a general’s uniform. The child was much excited and terrified by the sight, exclaiming that the general’s assailant had thrown him down and was beheading him. That the vision portended the general’s execution was clear enough, but the peculiar dress of the executioner was a mystery to those present at the test, for the official garb bore no resemblance whatever to a soldier’s uniform. The prediction was, however, fulfilled to the letter. General Marlière was tried, found guilty, and guillotined. This in itself did not mean much in view of the innumerable executions in the time of the Terror; but, on the day of this execution, Samson, the official executioner, desiring to gratify his personal vanity and to attract the gaze of the spectators, dressed himself in the uniform of a national guardsman.[299] That this altogether unusual circumstance, which could scarcely have been known to any of those who assisted at the crystal-gazing, should have been revealed in the crystal, is certainly very mysterious. If we had positive assurance that the events narrated happened exactly in the way they are said to have happened, this would be one of the few instances in which the vision seen in the crystal reproduced something entirely unknown to the scryer.
Many extraordinary visions are said to have been seen in crystal balls by a French scryer whose grandmother had clairvoyant powers and was sometimes consulted by Napoleon I. It is claimed that the grandson has enjoyed the patronage of many royal personages, and had predicted, in a more or less definite way, the assassination of King Humbert of Italy, and the attempted assassination of Alfonso XIII and of his young bride, when they were returning to the palace after the conclusion of the marriage ceremony. This French scryer has stated that he is powerfully affected when he is consulted by any one destined to die a violent death; on such occasions he feels, in his own organism, a modified form of the particular kind of suffering they are fated to experience. This exceptional sensitiveness to occult influences was also shown when the crystal-gazer went to the Boulaq Museum in Cairo, and gazed upon the rows of mummies exhibited there; he immediately felt, as intensely as though it were a personal experience, the mingled sorrow and rage of the disembodied spirits at seeing their embalmed bodies exposed to the view of the idle crowd, when they should have been permitted to rest in their tombs until the hour of the Resurrection.
In England all those who attempted, with a greater or less degree of success, to reveal the hidden secrets of the future, were expressly designated as rogues and vagabonds according to the terms of an act passed June 21, 1824.[300] Such offenders, on being duly convicted before the Justice of the Peace, could be committed to the House of Correction, “there to be kept at hard Labour for any time not exceeding Three Calendar Months.” This class of undesirable citizens comprised all using “any subtle Craft, Means, or Device, by Palmistry or otherwise” for the deception of his Majesty’s subjects.
The h’men, or diviner, of Yucatan, places great reliance upon his zaztun, or “clear stone.” This may be a quartz crystal, or else some other translucent stone; but in order to serve for divining purposes it must be sanctified according to special rites, gum-copal being burned before it, and certain magic formulas recited, which have been transmitted from generation to generation in an archaic dialect. When thus rendered fit for use, the diviner claims to be able to see in the depths of the crystal the whereabouts of lost articles, and also what absent persons are doing at the time he makes his observation. Not only this, but the future is also laid bare before his eyes. As these stones are supposed to possess such miraculous powers we need not be surprised that one of them should be found in almost every village in Yucatan.[301]
The Apache medicine-men are also fully persuaded that crystals possess the virtue of inducing visions, and they have used them for the purpose of finding lost property. To aid in the recovery of stolen ponies is one of the most important tasks of the Apache medicine-man, and to this end his crystal offers great assistance. Capt. John G. Burke relates that he made a great friend of a medicine-man named Na-a-che by giving him a large crystal of denticulated spar, much superior to the crystal he had been in the habit of using for his visions. That this was thoroughly satisfactory to the medicine-man at least, is shown by his statement to Capt. Burke that by looking into his crystal he could see everything he wanted to see. Of the way this came about he did not attempt any explanation.[302]
The magic power supposed to dwell within rock-crystal has been recognized in a peculiar way by some natives of New South Wales. They have the barbarous custom of knocking out one or more of the front teeth of their boys at the obligatory initiation ceremonies, and on one occasion Dr. Howitt was entrusted with the care of a number of these teeth, which are believed to preserve a certain undefined connection with the health and fortunes of their former possessors, and on this account great fear was expressed lest the custodian should place the precious teeth in the same bag with some rock-crystals, for the natives thought that the magic power of these crystals would injuriously affect the teeth, and through them the boys, from whose jaws they had been broken.[303]