Crystal Ball & Stand Surprise ~ Vintage

Description

This beautiful crystal ball comes with a 1960-90’s vintage metal stand. Crystal gazing or Crystalomancy was a popular pastime in the Victorian era. It was claimed to work best when the Sun is at its northernmost declination. Immediately before the appearance of a vision, the ball was said to mist up from within. A crystal ball, also known as an orbuculum, is a crystal or glass ball and common fortune telling object. It is generally associated with the performance of clairvoyance and scrying in particular.

The earliest use of a crystal ball can be first attributed to the Celtic Druids. They would divine omens and the future with beryl balls. In the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder describes the use of crystal balls by soothsayers. (“Crystallum orbis”, later written in Medieval Latin by scribes as orbuculum). By the 5th century AD, scrying was widespread within the Roman Empire and condemned by the early medieval Christian Church as heretical. Dr. John Dee was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I, devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy, of which the use of crystal balls was often included.

WARNING // When not in use keep out of sunlight and cover the crystal ball with a cloth as it can be a potential fire hazard. The clear crystal ball will act like a magnifying glass and can start a fire.

1275 grams – 4 in crystal ball + random vintage stand