How to Read the Crystal

"The Crystal itself is a clear pellucid piece of quartz or beryl, sometimes oval in shape, but more generally spheroidal. It is accredited by Reichenbach and other researchers with highly magnetic qualities capable of producing in a suitable subject a state analogous to the ordinary waking trance of the hypnotists. It is believed that all bodies convey, or are the vehicles of, a certain universal magnetic property, variously called Od, Odyle, etc., which is regarded as an inert and passive substance underlying the more active forces familiar to us in kinetic, calorific, and electrical phenomena. In this respect it bears a position analogous to the Argon of the atmosphere. It is capable of taking up, sympathetically, the vibrations of those bodies or elements to which it is temporarily related. But of itself it has no activity, although in its still, well-like, and calm depths it holds the potentiality of all magnetic forces. This Odyle, then, is particularly potent in the quartz or beryl, when brought into activity by the intention of the seer. It produces and retains more readily in that form the various images communicated to it from the soul of man. And the soul, in this connection, must be regarded as the repository of all that complex mass of emotions, thoughts, impressions, perceptions, feelings, etc., included in the inner life of man.

The Crystal exerts a very definite and sensible effect upon the nervous system of a certain order of subjects. It does not affect all alike, nor act in exactly the same way on those whom it does so affect. Where its action is more or less rapid and remarkable, the quartz or beryl Crystal may be taken as the most effective medium for producing the vision."