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The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World
The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World
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The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World

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A cold reading can be a good way to see if a psychic really can pick up relevant information that can help you. Be aware, though, that some psychics are very skilled at getting information about you without you even knowing it. They may be experts in observation, using every movement of your body and every expression on your face to verify information they give you; even a slight hesitation on your part can speak volumes. They may repeat information that you unconsciously already gave. Another technique is to make general statements or questions that could apply to anyone and to watch your reaction to pick up clues about what you are looking for in the reading. Be sure to recognize this approach – it is not how genuine psychics work.

COLLEGE OF PSYCHIC STUDIES

Founded in 1884 as the London Spiritualist Alliance, the college changed its name in 1955 to the College of Psychic Science, and in 1970 it became the College of Psychic Studies. The college is now a non-profit organization, based in South Kensington, London, which explores psychic phenomena and other spiritual matters such as healing. The college seeks ‘to promote spiritual values and a greater understanding of the wider areas of human consciousness, welcoming the truths of all spiritual traditions and, equally, each and every individual.’ An extensive library, materials and courses in psychic development, spiritual healing and mediumship are offered to the general public and to psychical researchers. The college also has a website where useful information can be accessed: www.collegeofpsychicstudies.co.uk.

COLOURS

Every colour is believed to vibrate with its own energy and to have specific effects on individuals. Seven colours in particular – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, the colours of the rainbow – have carried religious, occult, mystical and healing meanings since ancient times.

Red, which has the longest wavelength, typically represents the physical and material, while violet, the shortest wavelength, represents spirituality and enlightenment. White, the combination of all colours, is usually associated with divinity and purity, while black, the absence of all colour, is associated by some people with evil but by others with protection and comfort, like the warm darkness of a summer night. Traditionally, the body is associated with red, the mind with yellow and the spirit with blue.

Healing with colour has a long tradition dating back to ancient times. The Pythagoreans believed that white light, the Godhead, contains all sound and colour and that the seven colours of the spectrum correspond to the seven planets and the eight notes of the musical scale (both the first and the eighth notes are red).

Despite the fact that colour healing has been in use for centuries, it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that it began to receive attention in the West. In 1878 Edwin Babbitt published The Principles of Light and Colour, reaffirming the Pythagorean correspondences of music, colour and sound, and by so doing drew attention to the potential of colour healing. In the 1930s Dinshah Ghadiali proposed that imbalances are created by too much or too little of particular colours, and that balance can be restored with the use of coloured lights. Today modern colour therapy or healing is a controversial but popular alternative medicine technique involving the use of coloured lamps as well as coloured foods and drinks in coloured containers.

Modern science is able to provide evidence for some of the ancient claims about colour. In the 1970s and 1980s it was shown that coloured light triggers biochemical reactions in the body. Later research confirmed that blues and greens have a soothing effect and help lower stress, brain-wave activity and blood pressure. Warm colours such as orange and red have been shown to have a stimulating effect. Pink has been shown to have a relaxing effect in the short term, although in the longer term it can trigger irritability.

Each colour is associated with a specific vibrational frequency, so when there is a predominance of one or two colours in the environment that vibrational frequency – and the characteristics or qualities associated with that frequency – will tend to influence the activities conducted in that environment and the attitude of those in it. It is small wonder, then, that many psychologists use colour to produce beneficial effects in the home, workplace and in hospitals, and in visualization techniques patients are asked to imagine themselves bathed in a particular colour to encourage healing in mind, body and spirit.

COMMITTEE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLAIMS OF THE PARANORMAL

A non-profit scientific and educational organization, started in 1976 and based in Buffalo, New York, to ‘encourage the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminate factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public’. It also aims to promote science and scientific enquiry, critical thinking, science education and the use of reason in examining important issues. The organization maintains a network of people who critically examine paranormal claims and sponsors research into such claims.

The group originated as an offshoot of the American Humanist Association following a disagreement over the claims made by astrologers. It soon gathered a following of committed sceptics, including scientists, academics and science writers such as Isaac Asimov, Philip Klass, Ray Hyman, Sidney Hook, and others. The Skeptical Inquirer is the society’s official journal, and its aim is to explore and expose public gullibility about the paranormal.

Many local branches of the group are scattered across the US. Members include academics and scientists as well as magicians, many holding religious views, such as atheism, that are not in accord with belief in the paranormal. Although the group has debunked many claims of the paranormal, from hauntings to ESP to faith healing, there are some who believe it goes too far in its attempt to debunk from a scientific point of view. Nonetheless, it does provide a valuable counterbalance to paranormal claims.

CONSTELLATION, USS

The USS Constellation, floating in the harbour of Baltimore, is perhaps one of the most haunted ships in America.

The ship was commissioned by the US navy and first launched as a 36-gun frigate in 1797. Commodore Thomas Truxton was the first captain, and he set a bloody precedent. In 1799, after the Americans had won a battle against the French, the captain learned that seaman Neil Harvey had fallen asleep while on watch. The captain ordered another sailor to run a sword through the sleeping man and then had Harvey’s body tied to a cannon and blown to pieces in order to warn the other sailors. Many visitors to the ship report seeing Neil Harvey’s ghost wandering on deck, and it is said that some people even mistake him for a costumed tour guide.

During the nineteenth century the warship was damaged in battles, and the original ship was broken up in 1853. The Constellation was reborn in 1855 as a sloop, and served the US navy until 1933, when it was decommissioned and sat quietly in harbour. In 1955 it was brought home to Baltimore to await repairs, and this is when stories of ghosts began to be told. Sailors standing night watch on nearby ships said they heard odd noises and reported seeing ghosts walking on its deck.

To this day reports of sightings of spirits continue to occur. Captain Truxton has been seen, and cries and moans have been heard in the hold. An anonymous seaman has been spotted sadly wandering around the gun deck. He is believed to be a sailor who became overwhelmed by the harsh life at sea and hung himself.

The USS Constellation is docked at Pier 1 in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and is open to the public for tours.

CONTROL

A discarnate entity or spirit of the dead that is thought to communicate through a trance medium. The term is derived from the notion that a control is the entity that generally controls the trance state and decides which spirits will communicate and how they will communicate to the living through the medium. The term control would have been a familiar one during the height of spiritualism, but today it isn’t widely used and mediums prefer to use terms such as spirit helpers, gatekeepers or friends instead.

A control manifests during a trance state and generally takes over a medium’s body and consciousness, communicating through the medium.

According to various controls that have been questioned, controls are separate entities from the medium, and during trance, when the control takes over, the medium’s consciousness is displaced out of body or transported to the spirit world. In some case a medium may not be aware of the control until told by others who have witnessed the manifestation. A medium typically has one control, as was the case with Mina Crandon and her spirit control, Walter, but some may have more than one.

There are many who believe that controls are secondary personalities of the medium rather than spirits of the dead. Even prominent mediums like Eileen Garrett concluded that her control might have been a construct drawn from her own unconscious. Most controls do reflect aspects of the medium’s personality, and it is logical to conclude that they are secondary personalities of the medium. However, if controls are secondary personalities, they are unusual in that they do not interrupt and intrude during waking life, as secondary personalities do in multiple personality disorders.

COOK, FLORENCE [1856–1904]

Florence Cook is best remembered as the medium who was able to produce the full spirit materialization of her controls. She said she first noticed her psychic powers as a child when she heard angel voices and experienced her first trance state at the age of 14. At the age of 15 she lost her job as a teacher due to poltergeist phenomena and from then on devoted herself to her development as a medium.

Cook’s most prominent control spirit was called Katie King. Cook would retire into a cabinet and be tied to a chair with rope, the knots sealed with wax. After a few minutes King, who could not speak but only nod and smile, would emerge in front of the cabinet. After the spirit disappeared, the sitters waited for Cook’s instructions to release her, and they always found her in the cabinet still clothed and tied and exhausted from the experience.

Cook was not reluctant to allow the press in, and a reporter from the Daily Telegraph attended several of her séances. On the first occasion, he saw faces, and the following year he witnessed the materialization of Katie King and took photographs of her. In view of the precautions taken, such as Cook being bound with seals, ‘he was baffled’.

Cook’s abilities led to various prominent persons attending her séances, and in 1872 she begun to receive financial support from the businessman and spiritualist Charles Blackburn. She also attracted the attention of spiritualist investigators, including the British scientist Sir William Crookes.

The appearances of Katie King were investigated many times, with sitters regularly reporting that they were able to see Katie and Cook at the same time, for the cabinet would be opened and Cook would be visible in the back while Katie appeared out front. Many sitters also reported that Katie King and Florence Cook were very similar in appearance, and some charged that Cook and Katie were, in fact, the same person.

Cook was caught at least twice in fraud. On one occasion a sitter grabbed a spirit hand and found he had grabbed Cook. On another occasion in 1880, Sir George Sitwell noticed that King was wearing corsets. He seized her and pulled aside the curtain to reveal an empty chair and the ropes untied.

Sir William Crookes vigorously investigated the case, taking photographs, witnessing both Cook and Katie at the same time and even attaching Cook to a galvanometer to record Cook’s movements while Katie appeared. Despite allegations of fraud, Sir William and other supporters remained convinced that Florence Cook was a genuine medium.

In 1874 Katie King departed. Afterwards first Leila, and then a French girl calling herself Marie became Cook’s controls. Marie remained her control until shortly before Florence Cook’s death in 1904. A photograph was taken of her at a séance in about 1902, which later appeared in Psychic Science (January 1927); one of the sitters made the important observation that those present ‘saw the form of the tall slim young woman that appears in the picture; Mrs Corner [Florence Cook] being short, rather stout, and of darker complexion’.

COOKE, GRACE [1892–1979]

Grace Cooke, born in London in 1892, became a spiritualist medium in 1913. Unlike most mediums of the day, intent on communicating with the dead, Cooke focused on spiritual development, which she felt the world badly needed.

From an early age Cooke experienced psychic visions of a Native American spirit guide called White Eagle, who told her they would accomplish great spiritual work together. In 1936 White Eagle instructed Cooke to form a church for people ready to be light bearers and to practise brotherhood and sisterhood. After several false starts, the White Eagle Lodge was established in Hampshire in 1945. It soon grew into an international organization publishing tracts and books.

Until her death in 1979 Cooke emphasized living by the light of love and healing. In her later years she experienced vivid memories of previous lives, and the stories of these past lives are recorded in her book The Illuminated Ones.

CORPSE CANDLES

According to British folklore, corpse candles are mysterious candles that float through the air by night and hover near locations where death is imminent. They are said to vanish when approached and warn of death to those who see them or of the death of a loved one. In Welsh folklore a pale bluish corpse candle is said to presage the death of a child, a bigger candle the death of an adult and multiple candles a multiple loss.

Although corpse candles have been witnessed all over the British Isles, their origin is supposed to date back to fifthcentury Wales. Legend says that St David, the patron saint of Wales, was concerned that the people he served were always unprepared for death, so he prayed that they might have some kind of warning. He received a vision in which he was told that the Welsh people would always be forewarned of a death by the dim light of mysterious candles.

CORPSE LIGHTS

Corpse lights are similar to corpse candles in that they are seen at night and are believed to be death omens. They are believed to be phosphorescent lights in white, red, or blue that can appear almost anywhere, inside or outside a house, on the ground, on the roof or over a person’s chest. They are also known as jack-o’-lanterns, ignis fatuus, corposant, fetch-candles and fetch lights. It is possible they are produced by atmospheric gas, but in folklore there are many reports of their seemingly mysterious and supernatural appearance.

COTTAGE CITY POLTERGEIST

A fascinating and curious case that was the inspiration behind the 1971 best-selling book by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist. In the book, later made into a film, a young girl is possessed by the devil and subject to exorcism by a Roman Catholic priest, but in the original 1949 case that inspired the book, the subject was a 13-year-old boy.

The case began in Cottage City, Maryland. The family of a young boy, called in some newspaper reports ‘Roland Doe’, began to experience poltergeist activity. It started with scratching noises from the house walls, and then the boy’s bed began shaking and moving on its own, with similar events occurring at school.

A psychiatrist was called in to examine the boy but could find nothing wrong with him. The family called in a minister who believed that a ghost, perhaps the spirit of the dead aunt, might be involved. Some reports say that a Lutheran minister performed an exorcism or a series of exorcisms, while other reports say exorcisms were performed by a pair of Jesuit priests.

After the movie appeared, new reports surfaced of a detailed diary kept by one of the Jesuit priests of the entire exorcism process. The diary says that the exorcism took place in a hospital, the boy’s reactions to the exorcism were violent and that it took four months for the ‘demon’ to be expelled. Afterwards the boy remembered nothing and the case was quietly buried. The room at the hospital where the exorcism took place was rumoured to be haunted in the years following. Many people who worked near the room continued to report cold waves of air and unusual noises coming from inside the room.

What truly happened in the case remains a mystery. Were there natural or psychological explanations for what occurred in the case? Or was this simply the story of an attention-starved boy tricking the adults around him into believing he was possessed by the devil?

COTTINGLEY FAIRIES

In July 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 10-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths claimed they could see fairies in the small wooded creek behind Elsie’s house in Cottingley, West Yorkshire. Elsie’s father dismissed their claims, and so one day the girls borrowed his camera to take a picture of them.

The picture, when developed, showed Elsie with a group of fairies dancing in front of her. A month later the girls took a picture of Elsie with a gnome. Elsie’s parents were startled by the photographs, but her father remained unconvinced. Her mother, however, took the pictures to a Theosophist meeting one evening, and soon the photos were published. The girls’ most famous supporter became Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle printed the first two pictures in Strand Magazine in 1920 and three more photos a couple of years later. He then expanded his articles into a book, The Coming of the Fairies. Shortly after, Frances’s family moved away from Elsie’s, and the girls stopped seeing fairies.

In the decades that followed, the photographs were widely circulated and deemed false, and even Conan Doyle himself finally admitted that he may have been the victim of a hoax. It wasn’t until the 1980s, though, that Frances and Elsie admitted that they had faked the photographs to get back at the adults who had told them off for believing in fairies. They said that when Conan Doyle had got involved they didn’t want to embarrass him by admitting that the photos were faked. They also said that as young girls they had actually seen fairies, but that the fairies didn’t like to be photographed.

CRANDON, MINA STINSON [1888–1941]

This Boston medium, also known as Margery, left a controversial legacy behind her. Opinion is divided as to whether she was one of the greatest mediums of her day or a complete fraud.

Unusually for mediums, Crandon’s early life did not offer any hints of her future psychic power. It wasn’t until her divorce in 1918 and second marriage to prominent surgeon Le Roi Goddard Crandon, who had an interest in the paranormal and set up a psychic home circle, that her abilities began to surface. Soon she was demonstrating remarkable abilities as a medium managed by her control, Walter. Walter was in fact Mina’s brother who had died five years earlier, with whom she had been very close.

Several investigations of Crandon’s power were put together by prominent academics and psychical investigators, including Harry Houdini the magician, who was utterly convinced that she was a fraud. Despite causing bitter controversy, Crandon had many supporters at the American Society for Psychical Research, and a book published in 1925, Margery the Medium by Malcolm Bird, editor of the Scientific American, was very favourable to her.

Mina Crandon appeared to enjoy all the attention she received from press and public alike. By all accounts it wasn’t just her psychic powers that her supporters admired. She was a vivacious and charismatic person who was not adverse to holding séances in the nude and to having extramarital affairs with more than one of her investigators.

When asked on her deathbed if fraud had taken place, she refused to set the record straight. With the hint of a smile and a twinkle in her eye, she is said to have replied, ‘Why don’t you guess? You’ll all be guessing for the rest of your lives.’

CREWE CIRCLE

The Crewe Circle was a group of spirit photographers based in Crewe, England, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Led by William Hope, the circle claimed to be able to photograph the souls of the dead. Many psychical research organizations investigated the claims, but the most documented are those sponsored by the Royal Photographic Society and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Conan Doyle was so intrigued by the Crewe Circle that he wrote a book about it entitled The Case for Spirit Photography (1922).

Over the years the spirit photographs taken by the members of the Crewe Circle have come under detailed examination, and have been dismissed as fraudulent by many, but so far none has been proven conclusively to be a hoax. It is possible that the photos could be spontaneous images of spirits captured on the film plates.

CROISET, GERARD [1909–1980]

Born in the Netherlands, Croiset grew up to become an internationally renowned clairvoyant, highly regarded as a police psychic for his ability to find missing people, animals and objects.

Croiset was raised in foster homes and orphanages and began to experience clairvoyance at the age of six. He dropped out of school at 13 and drifted into unskilled work. The turning point in his life came in 1935 when he was introduced to a group of local spiritualists, and over the next few years his reputation as a psychic and healer grew. In 1945 Croiset volunteered to be a test subject for the parapsychologist Willem Tenhaef from the University of Utrecht. Tenhaef was so impressed by Croiset’s ability that he began to mentor him, and introduced him to police work. In the years that followed Croiset became famous for his help in solving crimes all over the world. His passion was finding missing children.

Croiset never accepted payment for his psychic readings, but he did accept donations for his healing clinic where he treated thousands of clients. He was able to diagnose a person instantly on seeing them. Perhaps his most famous contribution to the field of parapsychology was to popularize the chair test. In this test, chairs in a room would be numbered, and Croiset was able to predict successfully who would sit in a selected chair a month or so before a meeting took place.

CROOKES, SIR WILLIAM [1832–1919]

Sir William Crookes is perhaps best known as a ground-breaking chemist and physicist who discovered X rays and explored the existence of subatomic particles such as the electron. For much of his life he was also deeply committed to spiritualism. He served as president of the Ghost Club of London for a while and took a great interest in the cases investigated by this organization. During his own investigations Crookes believed that many times he did in fact witness the materialization of human forms, and he also studied and photographed teleplasm and ectoplasm.

Published posthumously in 1926, Crookes’s work, Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, is still considered required reading for any serious student of the subject.

CROSS CORRESPONDENCES

A method used extensively in the early twentieth century to test the powers of mediums. The correspondences were made up of the same or similar information allegedly from discarnate entities delivered to mediums while they were in a trance or through automatic writing.

It is difficult to explain how these messages occur, and many psychical researchers believe they provide good evidence to support the case for life after death. Others believe that the mediums draw the information from their own unconscious or from others using telepathy or clairvoyance.

Between 1900 and 1932, cross correspondences were studied intensively by the Society for Psychical Research, in particular, by Frederick Myers. Myers believed that human life might continue after death and that finding evidence for it required the help of the dead – in fact, the dead would have the best idea for how the living could discover this evidence. He stated that producing this evidence would require a group effort on the part of several spirits rather than just contact with one spirit.

Cross correspondences were produced during Myers’ lifetime by several mediums. Words spoken under trance and written during automatic writing sessions by mediums sitting at the same time but in different locations showed similarities to one another. But it was after Myers’ death in 1901 that cross correspondences became more frequent; a message delivered to one medium would be undecipherable until combined with a message from another.

By 1918 the Society for Psychical Research concluded that cross correspondences did form large, interlinked groups and were evidence for survival after death. However others, such as another of the Society’s founding members, Frank Podmore, believed they were the result of telepathic communication among the living.

Interest in cross correspondences faded in the 1930s, and although they do appear now and again in psychical research, today they are not studied with great interest.

CROSSROAD GHOSTS

Crossroads – the meeting and parting of ways – have long been regarded as likely places for ghosts or other spirit activity to take place. Crossroad superstitions can be found in Europe, India, Japan and among Native Americans, perhaps because in some parts of the world murderers, sorcerers and suicides were buried at crossroads with a stake or nail driven through the corpse, an act known as ‘nailing down the ghost’ to prevent the ghost’s return. Or perhaps the cross shape of the intersection mimicked the consecrated ground of a churchyard, a burial place denied to murderers and suicides. Or perhaps crossroads were places where territories, routes or villages collided, and they therefore became regarded as meeting places between the spirit realm and earth.

Crossroads are believed to be haunted by spirits who take delight in leading travellers astray. In German folklore a ghostly rider is believed to haunt a crossroads in Schleswig; the neck of his horse stretches across the path and prevents people passing. In European lore the dead are said to appear at crossroads, and in Welsh legend every crossroad is thought to be inhabited by spirits of the dead on Allhallows Eve. In modern evolutions of the tradition, crossroads in the rural Mississippi Delta area are reportedly frequented by either Lucifer or his minions; wandering musicians and minstrels seeking to bargain their immortal souls for success in their musical endeavours know to go to crossroads to meet with the Devil.

The cross shape of crossroads is in some traditions protection against the spirits that are said to haunt it. For example, in Irish folklore humans who have been kidnapped by fairies are thought to be able to gain their freedom at crossroads. One German superstition holds that if you are chased by a ghost or demon, you should head to a crossroads for protection. On reaching the crossroads the spirits will vanish with an unearthly shriek.

CROWE, CATHERINE [c.1800–c.1870]

The author of The Night Side of Nature, which is one of the earliest and most important studies of apparitions, Catherine Crowe used a scientific approach to study ghosts. Some contend that her fascination with apparitions may have been brought about by a brief period of insanity, but this does not take away from the fact that her work has often been cited as the model for subsequent investigations of the paranormal.

CRYPTOMNESIA

Information that is forgotten or repressed but which comes to the surface in mediumship or contact with spirits of the dead.

Forgetting information and storing it in the subconscious mind are essential if the conscious mind is to function efficiently and stay uncluttered. However, during trance or altered states of consciousness, forgotten or repressed information may break free from the subconscious and surface again, where it appears as new information to the medium. Psychical researchers always consider the possibility of cryptomnesia when investigating mediums and cases of past-life recall.

The earliest recorded case of cryptomnesia was in 1874 when English medium William Moses was said to have contacted the spirits of two young brothers who had died in India. The deaths were verified; however, six days before the séance it was discovered that an obituary to the brothers had appeared in the newspaper. Moses’s information about the brothers was similar to that in the obituary, and psychical researchers concluded that Moses must have read the obituary and had forgotten that he had done so.

It is not known how long the brain can store information and how much information it can store without taking conscious note of it, so it is difficult to rule out cryptomnesia in cases of memories of afterlife and reincarnation. In one famous cryptomnesia case, a woman identified as Ms C communicated under hypnosis with a woman called Blanche from the court of Richard II. The period details were uncannily accurate, but when asked under trance what books she had read about Richard II, Ms C acknowledged that when she was 12 she had read an Emily Holt novel, Countess Maud, which contained the same material as Blanche had given.

The only time cyrptomnesia may possibly be ruled out is when the information received by the medium goes beyond accessible records to facts that can only be verified by other persons or in personal accounts. However, even then other explanations such as ESP and telepathy can’t be entirely ruled out.

CRYSTAL BALL

A tool used to help diviners go into a psychic trance, the crystal ball is perhaps the classic and best-known method of divination. Most people assume it is the ball that has the power, but it is not. The secret is not the ball but the technique of scrying, which involves keeping your eyes open while staring into a shiny, reflective surface to induce a form of meditation or self-hypnosis – the prime state for opening awareness to clairvoyance and psychic insight.

Crystal gazing exercise

Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed and, holding your crystal in your hand, begin slow rhythmic breathing. Focus on what the problem is or on what you want to know about. As you hold the crystal, feel it coming to life. Imagine the electrical energy within it growing stronger, helping to stimulate your psychic vision. Hold the crystal so you can look into it easily. Don’t stare intently into it, just look at it with a soft gaze – the kind of stare you have when daydreaming. Stay relaxed, and as you look into the crystal pay attention to its formation. Turn your crystal slowly in your hand so you can see how the light plays through it in different ways. As images begin to form, ask yourself what they mean to you. Pay attention to the emotions you feel, and trust them. When you are ready, close your eyes, take some deep breaths and come back to the here and now.

Crystal gazing takes time and practice, but in time you will probably see clouds appearing and disappearing and images becoming clearer. Eventually detailed scenarios may even start to appear in your crystal, leading to great psychic vision.

Scrying and crystal gazing practitioners were found in ancient times throughout Mesopotamia, among the Druids and other peoples of Europe and in China. Modern scryers most commonly use crystal balls that are usually three to six inches in diameter. The ideal crystal ball is made of quartz, not glass, because quartz crystal is thought to increase psychic energy.

CURSES

Associated with black magic and intended to cause someone harm, curses are deliberately malevolent or vengeful oaths, spells or invocations of spirits directed against another person by psychic means.

See also Psychic attack.

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DAGG POLTERGEIST

Poltergeist activity that eventually manifested itself as a speaking entity in 1889 on a farm in Quebec owned by George Dagg.