Talk:Crystal ball

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I moved the LARGER definition of scrying to the topic "Scrying" Brina700 05:14, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

There needs to be a reference that states crystal balls do not do anything.

In Burke, Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press et al., 1978, 1994, 1996; ISBN 1-85928-102-8), there's a statement that the "scrying" and fortune-telling of the early modern period was done primarily in a bowl of water -- the crystal ball was a later invention, more 19th-century than 16th. (You'll have to excuse my not having the page number -- the book's index is terrible.)

And it certainly wasn't Druidic: "'[The druid Dalan] made three wands of yew, and upon the wands he wrote an ogham; and by the keys of wisdom that he had, and by the ogham, it was revealed to him that Etain was in the fairy mound of Bri-Leith, ad that Midir had borne her thither.'" (Rolleston, T.W., Celtic Myths and Legends. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990; originally Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race, London: George G. Harrap & Company, revised ed., 1917; ISBN 0-486-26507-2.)

It might be useful to mention some link to divination in general here, too, and references to other methods -- casting of sand (the preferred method of Middle Eastern magicians, I think), examining the entrails of sacrificed animals, the Chinese "oracle bones," and so on. The article as it stands is rather decidedly unhistorical.

Well, apologies for drowning everyone in interminable book citations... :)

Also, marked this article as a stub. Is it me, or is the reference on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CRYSTAL#Wikipedia_is_not_a_crystal_ball mostly a joke? :) ExOttoyuhr 06:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk Page Vandal

I reverted some vandalism on your talk page. It's possibly related to this. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)