Diagram from Crystal Gazing And The Wonders Of Clairvoyance by John Melville, 1896, that’s supposed to represent a “naturally” adept practitioner, unfortunately referencing phrenology. A reminder that occult sciences are not immune to the insidious effects of white supremacy. Source: archive.org
The hypnotist Walford Bodie claimed he could hypnotize animals as well as humans, and tells of an demonstration at the Dundee, Oregon zoo where he supposedly hypnotized wolves and hyenas. While the incident did make it into the local paper, many regarded him as a charlatan. Image: The Bodie Book, 1905, Wellcome Library
The Apparatus of Ceremonial Cystallomancy is a white-magic divination tool that you gaze into, similar to the Mirror of Solomon. The crystal is mounted in a frame, made of polished ebony, ivory, or boxwood. The engraved candlesticks must be brass. From The Book of Black Magic and Pacts, A.E. Waite, 1910. Source: Embassy of the Free Mind
The Prognosticon, or The Divining Disc of Pergamon, is a bronze amulet, found in Asia Minor in 1899CE, that was used by ancient magicians of Pergamon to tell the future. The disc seems to use a combination of magic systems, bearing characters from King Solomon amulets, Greek letters, Egyptian hieroglyphs and planetary symbols.
While the Prognosticon’s divination system is unknown, one theory is that the user was meant to gaze into it’s design, in order to enter an altered state of consciousness for divination. Some believe, that by merely possessing an amulet with its symbol, your insight, intuition, and imagination will be enhanced, and replicas of the artifact have been made for consumers. Image: Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, CC-BY-NC-SA
Advertisements from Occult and Spiritualist magazines, popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
