< Visions in Mirrors and Crystals (continued from page 7-57) >
may use the term. The crystal spirits of Dr. Dee, and those of the unknown crystallomancer of the time of William III. in the British Museum, say the same or similar things to those proclaimed by them in the reign of George III. and Queen Victoria. Nor do these spirits profess an undue superiority; they never declare themselves as final beings beyond whom there is no advance. Either by indirect statements or open assurance they proclaim that beyond their own sphere of action there are higher forms of intellectual life. They profess themselves bound by harmonic laws imposed by the Almighty Creator, and they maintain an unbroken fealty towards that Creator. Nor is their spiritual life spent solely in acts of adoration and reverence; it is replete with active duties towards others of a benevolent and educative character. They observe in their intercourse with mortals the ordinary conditions of punctuality in meeting and gradual communication of knowledge. They appear to have functions of the most varied character, and permeating the whole of their nature is a spirit of consistency and quiet belief, which finally loses itself in a brilliance of Divine glory, for which we mortals are evidently unprepared.
As the apparently physical universe is infinite, so the spiritual universe is unlimited; as punishment physically succeeds transgression on the natural plane, so suffering and purification are the necessary corollary on the spiritual plane. Everywhere the law of cause and effect is perceived in action, and everywhere acting mercifully towards the effacement of evil and the triumph of good.
Crystallomancy was evidently known in times of great antiquity. The Indian philosophers knew of it, and it formed a part of the Druidical system. The Hellenic and Roman worlds were in the practice of it, and the Egyptian priests held it among their most sacred treasures. The orb of beryl is perpetuated as a symbol of authority in our royal families to the present time in conjunction with the wand or sceptre. Other stones, as the works of Pliny Theophrastus and many others show, were regarded as possessing peculiar qualities, but the beryl or rock crystal, both in the oriental and occidental worlds, was considered emphatically royal; the Hebrews regarded it as being dedicated to the royal sign or constellation, Leo the Lion. That specific properties reside in particular kinds of stones, plants, and minerals has been long suspected, and that they have peculiar effects upon particular sensitives, both male and female, has been proved by Mr. John Enmore Jones, of Peckham, in a work on “Man,” published some twenty years ago, and that work I would earnestly recommend to your attention. But the beryl seems to have ever maintained its place as the most important of these natural objects. In the Louvre at Paris is preserved one, if not more, of these crystal orbs belonging to Chilperic, one of the ancient kings of France, and it in all respects resembles those in use at the present day for the evocation of spirits. But as insignia of authority do not, as history proves, appertain solely to one class of beings, we find it adopted by the magicians of the middle ages, by the physicians, astrologers, and occult students. Thus Paracelsus is said to have imprisoned within a beryl a familiar spirit who aided him in his cures, and Dr. Dee may have consulted his beryl in questions appertaining to health, although this would seem doubtful, inasmuch as his conferences with spirits scarcely ever turn upon subjects in any way to be construed into medical questions. Such was Dee’s faith in astrology that he preferred to consult the stars and the earth with its supply of simples for this purpose, reserving the crystal and the famous black stone for more exalted investigations. There is no time on the present occasion for an elaborate account of these proceedings, but they may be easily read in the folio published by Meric Casaubon. It is not to be wondered at that the volume should be rare in these days of insincere belief, but there can be little doubt that Dr. Dee fully believed and guided his conduct in great measure by the counsels of the crystal spirits. Although he may seem a dim figure to us now, he was no inconsiderable personage in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It is not to be contested that the number of inquirers into this form of occult science was at no time very large; but a chain of continuity appears to have been preserved and like methods adopted from the times of Dr. Dee to our own. There exist eight volumes of manuscript in the British Museum in which the same spirits evoked by Dee appear, and allowing for the change in human language, their expressions are very similar, their doctrines identical, and the same may be said of Dr. Rudd’s series of Rosicrucian reveries. This chain of continuity has remained intact to the present time, and by like methods those who prefer this mode of spirit communion obtain their various results. This naturally conducts me to the main purport of this night’s paper, viz., my own personal experience and the views which I have been led to entertain.
It is necessary to premise that I came to the subject in perhaps the best state of mind for the purpose, that of perfect ignorance. I had never been troubled about any state of future existence, but such training as I had received had filled me with a certainty, not to this moment shaken, in the power of my mysterious Creator to provide according to wise laws of moral compensation, for my future well-being in an ultramundane condition. I have never, therefore, felt any fear of death; to me it has ever been a corollary of life, but if, at any time, low spirits led me to the consideration of the legality of suicide, I rose strong enough to repel them. For, I argued to myself, that same mysterious Author of my life is able to direct in His own way the course of the being He has ordered to be created. Suicide, therefore, would be a perversion of His laws, not to be entertained by a thinking creature. About this time, by a strange accident, commencing in a bookbinder’s shop, I became acquainted with a gentleman who was in possession of this secret of communication, and, my interest once excited, I eagerly availed myself of his experience. A new world of beauty opened upon me as I proceeded. Here, in the inmost heart of an English home, was revealed to me in an orderly and reasonable manner, according to methods of respectable authenticity, the secrets of that world to come to which so many eagerly look forward. Need I say that, to a young and ardent mind, the opportunity would not be neglected? Imagine a quiet room with ordinary furniture, the fact that a gentleman for whom I have ever entertained the highest respect and regard should draw towards him some writing materials, and equally quietly a young lady of about nineteen should seat herself in a darkened corner of the room, with her eyes fixed upon a silvered mirror—a few words emphatically and sincerely spoken constituted the whole of the magical charm—when the seeress would presently say:—The mirror is clouded, now there is light—now a form appears—describing it accurately—it is so and so. Then a gentle question would be put in a tone indicating respect and affection, desiring to know what should be the order of proceeding. Then below the figure in the mirror would appear a series of words and sentences (at once written down), prescribing the question of the night, and in this manner for perhaps two hours at a time, a conversation would take place upon subjects as sacred as any in the experience of any form of religionists. Or, it might be, another spirit would appear and the course of inquiry be altered, the freest communication intellectually prevailing. This was not a question under which worldly wealth could be won. The seeress had not any idea of monetary advantage, nor could it be otherwise than a sincere service of love, for there was this peculiarity about it, that the seeress, a young lady of average education, had a marked antipathy to these mirror evenings—they affected her health, gave headaches, and many troubles. One of these evenings is sufficient to describe the general characteristics of them all. I will, therefore, add to this only, that I found myself free to prepare the abstrusest questions at my leisure, to be solved on these occasions, which soon assumed a periodical character, and the result has been many volumes of. closely written manuscript upon almost every subject of mental interest. I have had more than 25,000 answers from the seeress. Nay, more than this, I found others possessing the same faculty of spiritual sight, but in different degrees, and I was able to avail myself of their assistance. The only sadness about this state of things was, however, that I, like my esteemed instructor, could not myself see. It was, however, promised that, after a time, this obstacle should disappear, and it certainly, in a partial degree, has done so, yet not in the way I anticipated. But as these experiences form no part of what I have to speak of to-night, I will omit them.
By means of this crystal mirror and water vessel system, views of distant places on the earth, with events actually transpiring, have been obtained, future events have been accurately predicted, books of many pages have been actually dictated, and serious dangers averted. In illustration of this, I may mention a curious circumstance, authenticated by a well-known and eminently truthful man, I mean the famous Captain Richard F. Burton. While h6 was away on his memorable expedition to Mecca, a friend of his desired to have some knowledge of his whereabouts, and had recourse to a mirror, with the excellent seeress I have named above. A vision presented itself of an Oriental character, with a camp-fire burning, and the seeress recognised Captain Burton in an Eastern dress, but smoking; to him entered another Oriental, to whom he offered the pipe, which the new-comer refused' angrily, and apparently an altercation ensued, finally settled by a show of appeal to pistols, after which the vision faded. On the return of Captain Burton this vision that had taken place in England was shown to him, and he immediately wrote an attestation that it was absolutely true, and was, in fact, almost the only squabble he had had during his journey, stating that he had been travelling near to a Wahabee tribe, a sect holding tobacco in abhorrence, whereas those with himself smoked. They therefore pitched their camps as far as possible from each other at all times; but being once in a very narrow wadi, or valley, the confines of the two camps touched, and the scene witnessed in the box mirror, as it was called, actually took place as described. I am uncertain, however, whether the time corresponded, but I have little doubt that the fact could be ascertained. In my own case future events have been predicted. In the year 1858 I was informed by a seeress, in my own mirror, that I was observed in a large hall on a platform addressing a crowded audience, and that the year was 1865. This event took place as predicted, for in that year, as our friend Dr. Carter Blake knows, I very unexpectedly attended the British Association at Birmingham, and spoke in the hall of the Midland Institute. As to books being dictated, the same gentleman of whom I spoke as first teaching me anything on this peculiar phase of the subject, had several essays dictated through crystals and mirrors, one of them being very lengthy, and of remarkable philosophic interest. Dangers have been averted. I have on many occasions been warned not to do certain things I was about to do, and by this warning have been several times spared troubles, in which others were involved in consequence of their ignorance. I was informed by the mirror spirits of events concerning my own life in conjunction with my astrological figure, which have been strictly, although quite unexpectedly, verified, and their evolution to a great extent is still in the future. I think, therefore, that I have a right, having thus “tried the spirits,” to testify to the truth of what they have communicated. It is not, however, undesirable to maintain a watchful guard over what is thus learnt. People are too often apt to overlook many failures when they exaggerate one or two fortunate hits. It is not a proper spirit to surrender belief upon a surprising series of coincidences; out of twenty-five hits in 500 we may have 475 utter failures. But there is unquestionably an element not to be neglected, and that is the entirely negative interest the seers have in the circumstances, and I had this illustrated on one occasion in a very remarkable way. A lady whom I have known all my life, and to whom crystal and mirror were alike unknown, visited our house, and without telling her what the virtues of the crystal were, I was desirous of learning whether she could see. I handed to her the crystal without remark, and asked what she thought of it; could she see anything? “Why, yes, of course,” was the reply, somewhat to my surprise; “how very pretty!” “What do you see?” “Why, you know what I see—a picture of a little child by a stream <... continues on page 7-59 >