The Western Gate

Crystal Gazing ~ A Study in the History, Distribution, Theory and Practice of Scrying
Theodore Besterman
Troy Publishing

Header Image (Edit from)~ The Crystal Ball- John William waterhouse (1902)

It reminds me of Time Life’s Collector’s Library of the Unknown, a collection of obscure titles, some worthy, some not so, but still compelling.
This volume, from Troy Books, with it’s lengthy title, seeking perhaps to differentiate it from the ‘penny dreadful’ kitsch type books, pulp non-fiction.
I’ve come across Theodore Besterman before, he became fascinated with Voltaire, “Cursed and damn the infamous” … something like that, though I’d rather curse and damn the famous to be honest.
In this medium/slender book, we have to hand reference and notes on practice of all things scrying. Crystal Ball, Obsidian disc, Smartphone with its perfectly suited black screen.

Scanning and copying antiquarian books has its flaws, it sees the word burn and bum as the same, which gives interesting material if the book is not proof-read diligently, viz;-

To Bum a Book, or bum a candle,
Canst though not Bum a Bell?
Thrice be bummed, a Scandal !!

In as much as I can review, its all fair game in here, we read where scrying was adopted, pretty much anywhere and everywhere, potted examples, snippets of the application as endeavoured by such luminaires as Count Cagliostro, John Dee Etc.
Brief notes on regional use. It’s all a bit of a morsel mish-mash, like those awful American Documentaries that blitz the mind with bite sized pieces, – adverts, repeat and add a little bit more info, adverts, repeat and rephrase what’s already been said, then add a tease, adverts, repeat, accentuate the teaser but don’t reveal, adverts, repeat everything that’s been said, teaser reveal… after the adverts etc.
Ok, this book doesn’t have adverts, and doesn’t repeat, in fact my example has nothing to do with the book, my mind digressed and wandered off, and that’s what I found as I read this book, maybe that’s the point…, to allow the mind to wander and drift off. I care not for a myriad of bite-sized facts. It’s not that it’s boring, but fidgety reading, flicking over a few pages to see what’s coming up, anything more interesting before returning where you, yawn, left off. Scrying in Greece, Scrying in Australia, Scrying in the middle ages, Scrying in the Lupinair brothel of Pompeii,! c’mon wake up… I made that one up.
Th.Besterman, in the preface declares this work, (“seminal”~ later authorities have described it) to be akin “to the only other decent book on the subject, namely Crystal Gazing by N.W.Thomas, (Which i’ve reviewed previously)”, and gives us a list of “unscientific” books which he sets out in the footnotes below, and they all sound fascinating, albeit without the, yawn, scientific and scholarly history. Here’s ‘half’ the list;-

Crystal Vision through Crystal Gazing ~ Frater Achad 1923.

Practical Psychomancy and Crystal Gazing ~ W.W. Atkinson 1908

Crystal Gazing and the wonders of Clairvoyance ~ J.Melville (1905)

How to Read the crystal ~ “Sepharial” (1922)

As a lucid dreamer, I’ve tried to replicate dreams via crystal, but it doesn’t work so much, daydream, where you consciously ‘switch off’ and allow images to arise. I have found images but they do not seem to follow a narrative. They are perhaps more snippets of remote viewing. It’s borderline voyeurism. Because my mind is engaged in the waking world, though I can shift to a meditative state, gazing into the crystal deliberately instils ‘procedure’ into the drifting mindset, and it snaps between, seeing a glass globe and defining it, seeing reflections, focusing into reflections until they blur, eyes shift back to glass globe- eyes define it, etc. I try looking beyond the globe as if I were looking through it at a point beyond, much like the 3d artwork popular, once upon a time. This did yield some results.
I then asked an inner ‘guide’ – in lucid dream how best to crystal gaze. “Look at the crystal ball via its reflection in an obsidian mirror.”, to cut a longish discourse short. In effect, look into the obsidian mirror and see the reflection of the Ball which is placed obviously in front of the disc, and in that reflection, will, allegedly arise images. And they did. Whether that’s subjective because I had prepared myself that this would work who knows? Theodore Besterman would want to conduct scientific experiments at the Society for psychical research. I went so far as to set up a camera to see if, by chance, I could record the images, which of course, and I knew, I couldn’t. All that appeared was the camera reflection and my warped magnified face.
By what means then, in daylight~waking, do I see those images, are they projected onto the crystal ball from my optic nerve i.e. not on the ball at all, or are they emanating from the crystal ball but only perceived by the mind, for a camera wont reveal them.
If I set up a second station with the exact same method, am I able to communicate with it, can I create a wormhole between one station and the next. I cant complete this part of the experiment because I’m a lonely wanderer in this field, and everyone I know would rather watch a proper film, or gig or football match.

Scientifically we could say;- Prolonged focus on an unchanging, ambiguous stimulus (like a crystal) induces the Troxler effect, where peripheral vision fades, and the brain fills the void with entoptic phenomena—internal visual artefacts produced by the eye itself, like a lofi glitch guitar effects pedal. These include phosphenes (light patterns caused by optic nerve activity) or pareidolia (the tendency to perceive meaningful images in random stimuli)~ We fill in the missing parts. This would be done and dusted and the case file closed. But. what if I saw in the crystal a person, doing a certain thing, ringing them up and asking if that’s what they were doing, and they were?
Besterman gives examples of a few such cases that chill the old mystery bone including the dubious and perhaps urban myth of the poor soul who, saw in the crystal ball himself commit suicide, which he followed exactly some days later. Of course.
Further we learn of an experiment where an image was seen in a crystal ball and a magnifying glass placed near the crystal ball expanded the view, such that Besterman leaves us to conclude the image arises from within the crystal?

The perfect scryer according to one un-named source that Besterman quotes is a “pallid, anaemic girl , with large mysterious eyes, hollow cheeks, untidy hair and a strong aversion to exercise in open air ?” Besterman refuted this with examples of people who didn’t fit that bill, though I wish the source was revealed. The book does state at the beginning that some views may cause offence, and fair play, Troy havent edited it, they have released it, a few errors aside as was printed.
In all, although I found it a sluggish read at commencement, by the end, I found the whole read quite enjoyable, a bit like a Shakespeare play, you, and I’m talking about us philistines here, start by moaning how boring it is and kick yourself for coming, by halfway you’re engrossed and by the end you don’t want it to finish.
Finally, yes a few errors, here an example, unfortunate, and still amusing for my puerile and immature brain….

---

The full PDF of the original book is also available from ;-

Crystal Gazing ~ A Study in the History, Distribution, Theory and Practice of Scrying