Orbuculum

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The Origins Of The Crystal Ball

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Everyone knows what a crystal ball is. They see it in the windows of psychic shops or used as a popular Halloween decoration. As we see it now, it’s little more than the dramatic centerpiece for someone to sell a fake fortune. But the crystal ball has a long, rich history that demands more credit than is given. Its connection to the divine and human spirituality is centuries old.

We can trace the use of a crystal ball as far back as the 3rd century BCE to the Ancient Celtic druids, who used them to perform a type of divination called scrying, although the practice of scrying was not unique to the Celtic culture. The druids believed that staring into any reflective surface could allow them to fall into a meditative trance and see the future, past, or even the present. The most common material to be made into a crystal ball was a mineral called Beryl. It’s not what we typically picture when we think of a crystal ball, but it is what the druids had access to and found to be most effective. 

The first turn in the story of the crystal ball came at the same time Christianity did. The Romans eradicated the Druids, their beliefs, and their traditions. They transformed the Celtic nations from pagans to Christians and the practice of scrying, or any other sort of divination for that matter, was condemned. But that didn’t stop the people of the Middle Ages from using them as a status symbol. Rather than divination tools, the crystal ball was placed in a sling made of some kind of metal and worn at the hip. Many women of means from medieval times have been found buried with crystal balls. Despite the denouement of the Church, some people still viewed them superstitiously as an object that could ward off evil and illness. 

The Roma people were also a large contributing factor making sure that the crystal ball maintained its relevance. Many Roma migrated from Nothern India to Europe between the 9th and 14th centuries. Due to their non-Christian beliefs and nomadic lifestyle, they were immediately at odds with the Church, which did everything in its power to keep the Roma from integrating with Christian society. Unfortunately, the ostracization only made them turn to telling fortunes to get by. Fortunes, often told by way of crystal balls, became a reassurance in high demand for the desperate. Crystal balls became the best friend of the Roma because Europeans already understood, to some degree, their power and because it was portable. The Roma people alone kept the use of the crystal ball alive until the Renaissance, where it made a frequent appearance in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. 

One of Queen Elizabeth’s advisors, John Dee, was a particular proponent of crystal balls. He claimed that his ‘magical crystal’ had been bestowed upon him by an angel named Uriel, who many Christians would recognize as an archangel. Dee used his crystal ball to protect the Queen from illness, help her plan important events, recover lost items, and communicate with the angels. Dee was assisted by a man named Edward Kelley, supposedly skilled as a scryer where Dee was not. Their exploits lead Dee to create an ‘angelic’ language he called Enochian. 

After gaining the Queen’s stamp of approval, the crystal ball had found its way back into the good graces of its native lands; however, its popularity during the 16th century was nothing compared to the heights it reached during the Victorian era. The occult and spiritualism were all the rage with the Victorians. Many people, particularly women, from all classes would engage in crystal gazing and elaborate divination rituals. For them, attempting to look into the future was an integral part of regular life, just as trying to commune with their deceased loved ones was. The Victorians had a morbid fascination with the line between life and death; they desired to know the unknown beyond all else. It was their burning desire that has made the crystal ball the iconic symbol we know today. 

The crystal ball has continued to be used by people in power such as president Richard Nixon. It has been seen on the stage, used by magicians, and it’s a common prop in films, one of the most famous being The Wizard of Oz. There are crystal ball machines now that will give you a fortune for a dollar. Of course, many people still use it for its original purpose and offer customers a glimpse into the future that we are all desperate for. It is perhaps the best-known and widest-spread symbol of mysticism that we still use today.