are
subject. The hallucinations perceived, and described, have for their
subject-matter only those things which are within the conscious, or the
unconscious memory of the gazer; and any anxious enquirer is as little
likely to gain from them any hint of facts which lie outside the
gazer's knowledge as to learn the future from the incoherent,
stammering utterances of a drunken person.
When
Crystal was used formerly for the engraving thereupon of intaglios, and
cameos, the artist could sometimes conceal any flaws, or defects in the
stone, amongst the strokes of his work ; but when the Crystal was to be
formed into cups or vases, this could not be done ; and for such a
purpose only the purest pieces, of a complete integrity, could be
employed.
The
remarkable effects which follow contact with certain Crystals upon
persons of specially sensitive nervous temperament, have been most
carefully investigated, and accurately recorded (as we have already
told) by the famous Professor Karl Baron von Reichenbach, in his Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, etc., in Relation to the Vital Force. This
erudite book was translated, at the express desire of the author, by
Dr. Wm. Gregory, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh,
1856. Reichenbach, by his conclusive experiments, established the
indisputable fact that a " polar " force resides in Crystals which they
possess in common with Magnets. But this polar force, while exercising
a peculiar action on animal nerves, both in the healthy and in the
diseased subject, is not identical with, the magnetic force.
Summarising the results of his patient scientific enquiries into this occult question, Von Reichenbach
