CultNEWS101 Articles: 6/6/2025 (Psychology of Cults, Golden Dawn, Magick)

Psychology of Cults, Golden Dawn, Magick

The Conversation: The dark psychology of how people really get drawn into cults

"Like other quirky TV shows that explore coercively controlling groups, Sirens leans into the "wackiness" of cult life. Set on a remote island, an affluent community exists under the extravagant rule of Michaela Kell aka Kiki (Julianne Moore). Her devoted followers – many of whom are employed by her – are committed to ensuring her every whim is met.

This carefully curated existence appears bizarre but flawless, until outsider Devon (Meghann Fahy) arrives looking for her sister Simone (Milly Alcock) and begins to illuminate the control and cult-like behaviour being used as tools of oppression.

It is easy to laugh along with Sirens, to get caught up in the eccentric characters and absurd rituals – from assistants being instructed to sext Kiki's partner to rituals around perfuming her underwear drawer each morning. We shake our heads at the characters' choices and reassure ourselves: "I would never fall for that, I would just leave."

But the uncomfortable truth is it's not that simple."

" ... What portrayals of cult communities in sitcoms often miss, or gloss over, is the deeply manipulative psychology behind why leaving a cult is incredibly difficult.

Research into cult experiences has shown, cults do not just trap people physically. They entrap them mentally and emotionally too."

Arizona Daily Star: 'Cult' church member molested small boy while his children napped, new victim says

" ... Former members have accused Golden Dawn of being a "cult" because of what they describe as the church's practices of excommunicating former members, isolating congregants from the outside world, manipulating members' financial and health decisions and allegedly ignoring child sexual abuse allegations for decades, an Arizona Daily Star/Lee Enterprises investigation found."

A Little Bit Culty: Is It a Spiritual Path or a Cult? Mitch Horowitz Helps Us Break It Down

" ... Historian and occult scholar Mitch Horowitz joins us to explore the space where spirituality meets personal growth, and how easily it can slip into culty territory. His latest book, Practical Magick: Ancient Tradition and Modern Practice, helps make sense of mystical ideas while encouraging intentional belief.

We dig into the red flags to watch for on the seeker's path, from peer pressure and time abuse to isolation and guru worship. We also talk about money, emotion, and how performance culture can sneak into spiritual spaces. Mitch makes the case for private exploration, critical thinking, and walking away when something doesn't feel right.

Whether you're deep into the woo or just woo-adjacent, this one's packed with insight on how to stay curious without giving your power away."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources about: cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.

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The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.

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Birds, snakes, and throwing meat: Superstition and black magic in Pakistan

Annabel Symington
GlobalPost
April 18, 2014




LAHORE, Pakistan — Pervez Shah says he doesn’t practice black magic. My guide, Mushtaq, says otherwise.

To get to Shah’s office we travel down a narrow back alley in a residential area on the edge of Lahore. Shah sits inside, his hands covered in oversized rings, surrounded by a sea of terrariums and large, colored portraits showing him holding snakes, scorpions, and an owl — its wings outstretched and its round eyes glaring at the camera.

Shah fashions himself as a Pir, or a living saint — figures that play an important role in some branches of Islam. The Pirs are considered to be closer to God than the average human, and can offer guidance and help to other believers by praying for them in a time of need. The title is passed down from generation to generation, and many Pirs are also part of the large land-owning families that control huge swaths of rural Pakistan.

Shah uses the honorific title 'Syed' before his name, which means that he claims to be a direct descendent of the Prophet. Wearing a Muslim prayer cap and a beard — commonly associated with the pious — Shah says he offers spiritual guidance and healing to the poor, lost and ill.

As in other parts of South Asia and many Middle Eastern countries, the penchant for faith healers and black magic is deeply embedded in Pakistani society, despite Islam’s injunction against magic. From rich landlords to the menial workers who eke out a living in the backstreets of the country's cities, Pakistanis routinely turn to spiritual healers to cure ailments from cancer to epilepsy, to seek guidance on marriage, or even to deal with overly talkative daughters-in-law. Superstition abounds: It's bad luck to start a business on a Tuesday; breaking a glass is good luck; and doing housework in the evening will help ward off evil nighttime spirits.

“The magic exists, these evil spirits exist. There is no conflict [with these beliefs] in Islam,” explained Pir Syed Nisar Ashraf, when I visited him before heading to see Shah. Deep within the walled old city of Lahore, Ashraf runs a mosque that is named after his grandfather, also a Pir.

But Ashraf distinguishes between believing in magic and practicing it: “There are two treatments for all problems,” he says, “The spiritually pure one and black magic.” He explains that he often hears stories of men and women being exploited by fake Pirs who practice black magic.

“Women often go to people who practice black magic. They [the healer] say the problem is because of the mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, and they promote conflict between people. Black magic harms people, though it is effective,” he says.

Standing in Shah’s office, I recall Ashraf’s scornful words about fake Pirs and black magic. I enquire about the snakes in the pictures — unusual for a religious man to have on hand. He beckons me into a dark room just off his office. From under the desk he produces a small pink plastic basket and whips the lid off with a flourish.

Inside are three snakes. A black cobra unwinds itself from around a small clutch of eggs and rises menacingly from the basket. Shah picks up one of the other snakes and pops its head into his mouth. He then repeats the trick as I recoil. "Very poisonous," he says with a wide smile that reveals his red teeth, stained from years of chewing pan — a preparation of betel leaf, areca nut, and sometimes tobacco.

Shah says that the snakes don't take part in any of his remedies. He says he just instructs people to read Quranic verses. Mushtaq, my guide, says that he's seen Shah write the name of a man's enemy on a piece of paper and feed it to one of the snakes. Mushtaq says Shah then instructed the man seeking to dispose of his enemy to throw the snake in the canal. "Your enemy will drown when the snake returns to me," Shah allegedly said.

I meet two of Shah's regular customers on the way out. One tells me that he first came to Shah because his son was struggling to get the money and necessary documents to immigrate to the United States. After visiting Shah, the man suddenly received a check for 100,000 rupees, which he used to pay for his son's US visa. His son now lives in Maryland. The other says that Shah helped him marry the woman of his choice and then helped them have children. Shah also intervened when his business was going badly.

If Shah does stray beyond pure prayer, Ashraf, back at the mosque, does as well. In addition to encouraging members of his congregation to pray, Ashraf does numerology, calculating a complicated series of numbers using the names of the complainant, their date of birth and time of day. Sometimes Quranic verses are added in. The numbers are then written on a piece of paper called a naqsh, and worn around the neck in an amulet, known as a taveez.

Ashraf also encourages some of his congregation to release birds. “If a person is not in a good peace of mind spiritually, you release a bird. You give life [to the bird] and that brings peace. There is logic in this matter,” he said in a matter-of-fact way.

^

In the markets dotted aound Lahore, and sometimes at the intersections on the roads, you can find the bird sellers. They sell birds of all different shapes and sizes, which they say help bring blessings for different things. Sheik Shahid, who has been selling birds for 25 years, says that people sometimes come to him with very specific requests, like an all black hen or a pair of mating doves.

“It is what the Pirs have told them to get. We don’t usually ask why, we just try to fulfill the request,” he said with a shrug.

Along the main road leaving the eastern section of Lahore, I encounter another superstition involving birds. Men stand at the roadside with small bags of meat. Drivers stop and buy a bag as their cars leave the city. Feeding the birds circling overhead — mostly crows and kites — is meant to offer protection to the driver and passengers as they set out on a journey.

“If you do good to the birds they will do good for you,” explains Muhammad Khalid, one of the meat sellers. “But these are all superstitions and have little basis in Islam,” he adds, explaining that only some people ask him to recite an Islamic prayer before he throws the meat to the birds.

Unfortunately, the sight of a foreign woman standing on the side of a road seeking the birds' blessings attracts a small crowd. When my bags of meat are emptied onto the grass, the birds don’t come. I ask Khalid if that means I won’t get my good fortune. He assures me that my 20 rupees will have the requisite effect.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-04-18/birds-snakes-and-throwing-meat-superstition-and-black-magic-pakistan

Secrets of the mind and free will — revealed by magic tricks

Alice Pailhès · Scientist, illusionist
Ted

Are you in control of your choices? Magic tricks might reveal otherwise, says scientist and illusionist Alice Pailhès. Watch closely as she performs magic tricks that unveil how your brain works, how you can be subtly influenced and what that means for free will and your day-to-day life. Did she guess your card right?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

https://www.ted.com/talks/alice_pailhes_secrets_of_the_mind_and_free_will_revealed_by_magic_tricks

India 'human sacrifice': Arrests over 10-year-old's death

As news about the incident spread, a
mob gathered outside the brother and sister's home

BBC

March 2, 2017

Police in the south Indian state of Karnataka have arrested three people in connection with the "human sacrifice" of a 10-year-old girl.

Police told BBC Hindi that the child was killed on the instructions of a "sorcerer" to "cure" a paralysed man.

The man's brother and sister have been arrested on charges of abducting and murdering the girl.

The alleged sorcerer told them it was the only way to undo "black magic" affecting their sibling, police said.

A 17-year-old boy has also been arrested for helping to abduct the girl, police said.

"There are a few more people who have abetted the crime. We are investigating it from all angles. So more arrests cannot be ruled out," senior police officer B Ramesh told BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi.

The murder was discovered after residents discovered the body of the girl inside a bag. They also found materials which police believe were used to conduct "black magic" rituals.

As news about the incident spread, a mob gathered outside the brother and sister's home and began throwing stones. Police had to use force to disperse the gathering.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-39176570

NewsWeird NewsMan who says he can 'read minds' over Facebook goes viral with 13 million views

Jess Staufenberg
February 29, 2016

  
You may have seen this man pop up in your Facebook feed claiming he can read your mind.

Well, he can't (fairly obviously) but he seems to have tricked a fair few people into thinking he can.

Lasse Burholt (who also goes by the name Lasse Balama) starts the video telling people he is going to correctly predict their answer to a quesiton - and asks them to share the video if he is proved correct.

He then holds up a series of notes with basic sums on them for the viewer to work out before asking them to think of a number between five and 12.

He asks the camera with a note "Got it?", before guessing the answer is seven.

The video has since been viewed more than 13 million times but it "only" has  214,000 shares, which is a 1 in 13 success rate by his own standards.

The science behind reading others' minds has long held intrigue.

In 2008, scientists suggested there were closer to being able to read someone's mind and even visualise their dreams by analysing their brain activity with a medical scanner.

A computer that could "decode" the brain was able to predict with a 90 per cent accuracy which photos an individual had previously looked at judging by their brain activity.

In 2010, a man who had apparently been in a vegetative state for five years after suffering a traumatic head injury - and who had been dubbed a "living dead" - was able to communicate with doctors by thought alone.

Using an advanced brain scanner, the unidentified man was able to reply "yes" or "no" to researchers - making contact with the outside world for the first time.

And in December last year, neuroscientists  figured out how to "read" a fly's mind - whereby they essentially were able to detect conversations between the insect's neurons.

The Independent has reached out to Mr Burholt to find out what, if anything, he hopes to demonstrate with his experiment.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/man-who-can-read-minds-goes-viral-in-video-with-13-million-views-a6903501.html

Superstition and secrecy have created a problem police are struggling to tackle

Toil and trouble Superstition and secrecy have created a problem police are struggling to tackle

The Economist
December 5, 2015

Time to let in daylight upon magic

IT WAS during a rehearsal in the Arc Pentecostal church in Stratford, east London, that Samuel Taveres first noticed one of his choristers was possessed by a demon. Approaching cautiously, the young preacher asked the demon’s name. It had an answer ready, using familiar words from an exorcism scene in the New Testament: “I am legion”. “This meant,” says Mr Tavares, “that a lot of different demons were in there.” The choir spent the rest of the day praying and commanding the spirits to leave the woman, who was also schizophrenic. It was a struggle, says Mr Tavares, “and I’m not sure she is fully delivered even now.”

Such dramas are not unusual in Pentecostal churches: many offer weekly exorcisms. The faith, popular among Britain’s African and Brazilian populations, as well as many white Britons, was the country’s fastest-growing Christian denomination in 2005-15. But a connection to child abuse in some startup African Pentecostal churches is troubling the police. Jean La Fontaine of the London School of Economics says Pentecostal pastors sometimes identify children as witches, which leads directly to abuse. During the “curing” process, a child might fast for days, or be kept up for nights on end. One pastor says the praying involved can also be violent: people start “coughing out stuff”, he says, or fall on the floor. They may be cut. And simply being branded a witch means rejection and stigma.

So far in 2015 London’s police have been referred 60 cases of “belief-based ritual abuse” of children, up from 19 in all of 2012. They say such crimes are vastly underreported. Amma Anane-Agyei, who runs a council-funded service for African families in Tower Hamlets, an east London borough, says she is “overwhelmed” with a “frightening number” of cases. Terry Sharpe, from Project Violet, a police unit dedicated to the issue, predicts another big rise in these sorts of crimes next year.

This is not a problem in mainstream Pentecostal churches, says Elder Brown, a minister in Balham, south-west London, as most have strict child-protection policies (even, he says, the “ghostbuster” ones). Abuses are more often linked to the small churches that have sprung up in car parks and living rooms throughout Britain. These do not have many sources of income; curing witches, a service that can fetch up to £500 ($750), provides funds that help them compete for congregations, says a parishioner of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.

Police also worry about freelance exorcists, who belong to no faith and who advertise their wares freely: at Stratford station, on the edge of the Olympic Park, one hands out cards: £70 to get rid of demonic possession. (“It’s not right,” says a passing man. “You are cheating people.”)

Tackling abuses is difficult. Communities are closed, and pastors are powerful figures. “Police are scared stiff of being racist,” says Gary Foxcroft, who runs the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network, a victim-support group. Officers mostly rely on increasingly cash-strapped social services to refer cases. Victims seldom come forward, as they often wish to be “cured”. One boy, referred to Ms Anane-Agyei through social workers after he had been throwing himself against walls and talking about being taken to the cemetery to drink the blood of corpses, told her he was happy to die to save his siblings.

Abusers tend to be good at evading authorities, too. Some parents send their children to Africa for exorcisms (and some do not come back, says Professor La Fontaine). Small churches move from one borough to another if they feel they are under threat. Mr Foxcroft says that one Lancaster pastor who was caught helping child-traffickers is still preaching.

London police say they are raising awareness through educational films. Last year they worked with the Home Office to stop Helen Ukpabio, who preached that children who cried were servants of Satan, from entering Britain. Well established Pentecostal churches already report to the Charity Commission; fly-by-night pop-ups could do so too. Some have more radical ideas: Mr Foxcroft thinks pastors should be vetted by social services before being allowed to practise. As reported abuses rise, breaking the spell will not be easy.


http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21679491-superstition-and-secrecy-have-created-problem-police-are-struggling-tackle-toil-and-trouble

The History of the Crystal Ball

Brooke Bunce
Broadly
October 19, 2015

From the Druids' early days of divination to (sometimes) eerily accurate political consulting, the backstory of the crystal ball is as cloudy and roundabout as the divine orb itself.

The crystal ball is as pervasive as it is mysterious. It's displayed in the window of your local psychic; it makes an appearance in movies, books, and pop culture; for those moments when you need a touch of the clairvoyant in your texts, it's even on your smartphone screen. But how it earned its seductive presence is less clear than the pasts and futures it purports to predict.

Druids, Crystals, and What Exactly Is "Scrying"?

In her book Crystal Ball: Stones, Amulets, and Talismans for Power, Protection, and Prophecy, Sybil Ferguson writes, "Probably there are as many definitions of crystal balls as there are opinionated people." According to Northcote W. Thomas's 1905 book Crystal Gazing: Its History and Practice, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Telepathic Scrying, in pre-industrial times crystal gazing was commonly practiced by the Pawnee, the Iroquois, the Incas, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Chinese, and the people of Yucatan. It's most likely, though, that the earliest recorded use of crystals as divination tools dates back to the Celtic Druids of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, who lived during the Iron Age and were pretty much wiped out by Christianity by 600 AD. Much of what is known about Druids—the class of educated professionals who hung out in the woods to perform sacrificial magic ceremonies—comes from the oral accounts of Julius Caesar and the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder. The early crystal gazers, or specularii, preferred a sea-green mineral called beryl, which was polished into spheres to enhance the reflective properties. (A ball is born!) Beryl is thought to be more magnetically charged than other minerals and, as a result, more apt to connect with the psychic energies of the moon.

These first adopters of crystal-gazing would stare deeply into the stone, falling into a meditative trance that would allow the subconscious to open and reveal secrets of the past, present, or future. (Although popular opinion would have us believe psychics are only good for knowing what's going to happen, true crystal balls can see in any chronological direction, depending on the Seer's ability.) This act of gazing into a reflective or translucent surface to glean prophetic insight came to be known as scrying, and while it's a gross-sounding word to say out loud, the practice can be used on literally anything, including blood, water, mirrors, and even oily fingernails, though crystal balls are the most common mechanism for this type of divination.

"The Crystal Ball" (1902) by John William Waterhouse. Image via Wikipedia Commons

Medieval Ballers

Many cultures utilize(d) some form of ancient crystal healing or divination, but the most obvious association with the crystal ball comes from the Middle Ages, which lasted from around the time the Druids disappeared until the Renaissance in the 15th century. Though its path is murky, the crystal ball was thought to be used throughout the medieval period by Anglo–Saxons as both a means of magic and a flashy fashion accessory—a type of Middle-Age bling, so to speak. Ferguson even suggests that the mythical magician Merlin chose to tote around a beryl ball for those times King Arthur needed an emergency reading.

During this time, crystal spheres, set in wire fastenings, were used as symbols of power, class status, and possibly as magic talismans that warded off sickness and evil. During excavations of medieval graves in Kent, these crystal ball amulets were found in several graves of wealthy women (and a few men), between their knees, along with other possessions that indicated their wealth. The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of Medieval England guesses that the crystal balls could have pointed to associations with pagan cults.

The Crystal Ball Made Me Do It!

Following its reign of significance in the Middle Ages, the crystal ball gained notable recognition in the 16th century because of John Dee, a royal advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. Dee was interested in the occult but had no luck as a medium himself. After meeting a traveling scryer named Edward Kelley, the two began to conduct "scrying sessions," during which they would claim to visualize and communicate with angels (and sometimes demons) through a dark, obsidian crystal ball. Dee kept fastidious notes on these ball-bound conversations, believing that angels were a direct line to God and eventually leading him to create the Enochian or "angelic" language. His partner in scrying, however, claimed that he had received a message from an angel that the two men must share everything, including their wives; shortly after that, their relationship dissolved for good (though there was one diary entry that somewhat confirms an actual wife-swap did occur).

Political Advising, Part II

As a more modern, high-profile crystal ball counselor, Jeane Dixon was gifted a crystal ball at an early age, developed seeing powers, and became something of a celebrity psychic for her sometimes-on-the-mark political predictions: Most notoriously, she correctly postulated in a 1956 issue of Parade magazine that a Democratic president would be elected and then assassinated (said president being John F. Kennedy). That's not to say that she was always correct in her guesses; a number were outrageously wrong. She was positive that Alec Baldwin would fall terribly ill in 1997, that Ellen DeGeneres would crash a presidential inauguration, and that 1958 would see the beginning of World World III. Dixon apparently carted around her trusty ball at parties, stopping to give the occasional reading for passerby. During Nixon's time in office, Dixon acted as an advisor after correctly predicting a terrorist attack, and she then joined Nancy Reagan's coterie of trusted astrologers. After her death, Dixon's primary crystal ball was auctioned off at almost $12,000.

Roma Fortune Tellers

Perhaps the most pervasive depiction of the crystal ball comes from the image of a woman, usually thought to be a "gypsy," swathed in vibrant scarves and cloaked in cascades of bangles, earrings, and rings, rattling off tales of the future and past over a velveteen table cloth.

In a sense, this picture isn't inaccurate. Coming to Europe from northern India, Roma were persecuted almost instantly because, among other things the Catholic Church wasn't too happy about, they practiced fortune telling. Being constantly on the move, the Roma adopted trades that could pick up and go at a moment's notice, which is how the crystal-ball-reader-at-a-roadside-carnival trope probably began. By the 1930s, Gypsy-Americans virtually controlled the fortune-telling industry, though not without a struggle that's cloaked in stigma; in a small Virginia town, fortune-telling was only deemed legal last year, and in New York, a law from 1967 can still affect those trading fortunes for cash.

The Crystal Ball in Stage Magic

Once the crystal ball became more visible as a result of traveling Roma, stage magicians of the early 20th century hopped on the fortune-telling train to perform acts of C.G., or crystal gazing, to awed audiences. The most well-known performer was perhaps Alexander, the Man Who Knows. At the height of his career, according to several biographers, Alexander was the highest-paid mentalist (a performer that claims to have heightened cognitive power) in the world. Armed with his crystal ball, Alexander would answer audience questions that were sealed in envelopes before the show. His actual crystal-gazing prowess is up for debate, as after his retirement, he published The Life and Mysteries of The Celebrated Dr. Q, where many of the mentalist and psychic tricks-of-the-trade were revealed, including how to deceive gullible clients and audiences. (Another fun fact: He also was married seven times, sometimes to more than one woman.)

A Fortune Worth a Dime

Ever been to that Classic American Institution they like to call Dave and Buster's and just really want some divine insight, sans human interaction? Fortune-telling machines, featuring mechanized characters usually in some sort of problematic getup, are probably what you've been searching for. These machines continued to perpetuate the gypsy-swathed-in-scarves image of the crystal ball scryer. Coin-operated fortune-telling machines were introduced in 1910, though after the 1988 film Big, which featured a fortune-telling machine called Zoltar Speaks during its most pivotal plot points, the machines' popularity surged. Nevertheless, between their introduction and their resurgence, you could find these eerie, prophecy-spouting mechanisms at many-a roadside fair, penny arcade (where you could in fact get a fortune for an entire cent), or carnival. A replica of Zoltar Speaks currently lives at Coney Island. The model featured in the movie didn't have a crystal ball, though the knock-off does.

The Crystal Ball in Pop Culture

Certainly the references to the crystal ball in pop culture are innumerable, so we'll stick with covering the big ones. One of the most iconic portrayals comes from The Wizard of Oz: A doe-faced Dorothy makes a visit to Professor Marvel, who replaces his wide-brimmed fedora with a snug turban and spouts babble about his crystal descending from the likes of Cleopatra and Osiris before being interrupted by the rumblings of an oncoming tornado. In other scenes, the chartreuse-tinged Wicked Witch of the West barks orders at her giant crystal orb and keeps watch on Dorothy and the Squad as they skip down a yellow brick road and get faded in a field of poppies. Later, Dorothy, being held captive by the Wicked Witch, desperately sobs to a fleeting image of Auntie Em in the crystal sphere. The ball from the film later sold for $110,000, with part of the proceeds going to a New Jersey teen arts program.

David Bowie's cult-classic performance as Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth saw him constantly spinning, waving, and sliding crystal orbs through his hands the way some fancy mixologists toss together a cocktail. These balls weren't meant to be used a lens into the past or future—more as a vague symbol of dreams—and Bowie didn't actually manipulate the balls at all. Instead, juggler Michael Moschen stood behind him and reached through Bowie's armpits to perform all the crystal ball-related scenes.

The Modern Scryer

The analogy of "gazing into the crystal ball" is used in sports, technology, business, and politics, among other things, to refer to forecasting future events. This is another oversimplification of the modern practice of reading a crystal ball, which, like most all forms of divination, can be a healing device for the client—not a predictor of the future. One scryer, Gina Jean, says that the point of using a crystal ball is for empowerment and guidance, rather than for an all-seeing eye into the future.

Today you'll find most Seers don't read crystal balls exclusively; instead, the divination orb is used as a side dish to other types of augury, such as tarot cards, horoscopes, or palm readings. According to New York City astrologer Kim Allen, her crystal ball adds a dash of "hot sauce" to her consulting sessions. Allen uses two types of balls: one made of clear, bright crystal quartz, the other of dark, smoky obsidian. The former can amplify what someone is feeling and needs addressed, while the latter brings up people or things that need removed from one's life. Allen instructs her clients to choose the ball they're drawn to, and then she asks them to wave their hands over the ball to energetically charge it. As she reads, Allen will see symbols that reflect a bigger picture, rather than seeing distinct events that occurred in the past or that have yet to unfold. After a reading, Allen will cleanse the ball in Florida Water (a cologne that's a mixture of water, alcohol, and essential oils), bury it in sea salt for three to four days, and then keep it on her bedside table for about a week to regain a connection to the ball.

Throughout its enduring history, the crystal ball still remains one of the most powerful and ever-present cultural images when we think of spiritual mysticism. We think of it not only as a means of finding insight, but also as a firmly rooted image of the cultural lexicon, given that magic and witchcraft are seeing a surge in popularity. For good reason: These practices give voice to the marginalized and find community in the other. Plus, it's not so wrong to embrace the appeal of the psychic anymore—you can wear your clairvoyance, either sewn close to your heart on your denim jacket or pinned with pride on your collar, and still be on-trend. Regardless of whether or not they really do reflect anything about us, those shiny crystal orbs definitely aren't going anywhere—though they can, definitely, start a fire.

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/the-history-of-the-crystal-ball