scrying - The Skeptic's Dictionary (original) (raw)

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Scrying is a type of divination. To scry or descry is to spy out or discover by the eye objects at a distance. In occult literature, the term is used to describe the act of gazing at a shiny stone or mirror or into a crystal ball (anything which reflects will do), to see things past and future. (When a crystal is used, scrying is known as catoptromancy or crystallomancy.) Occultists claim that if one concentrates hard enough while gazing, one can conjure up the dead because scrying allegedly clears out the consciousness and opens a direct line to the other world.

See also Raymond Moody.

further reading

de Givry, Grillot. Witchcraft, Magic & Alchemy (New York: Dover Books, 1971), republication of the 1931 Houghton Mifflin Company edition, Book II, chapter viii, "the Divinatory Arts".

Randi, James. An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural (N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1995).

Last updated 15-Mar-2011