Rock crystal, that is, clear colourless quartz, is perhaps the stone that more than any other gave its name to the whole family of crystals. Its perfect clarity, like that of water or ice, has struck the imagination of every age. It was believed to be eternal ice, worked into vessels for caliphs and reliquaries for cathedrals, and finally turned into the most famous object of divination: the crystal ball.
The ice that never melts
The word "crystal" comes from the Greek krystallos, which originally simply meant "ice". The ancients truly believed that transparent quartz was water frozen for so long and so intensely that it could no longer melt. Pliny the Elder reports this conviction and observes that crystal is found mainly in mountainous regions where snow is most abundant, such as the Alps.
This idea is wrong from a natural point of view, but deeply meaningful on the symbolic plane. Crystal becomes the image of water transformed into something permanent: what is fluid and changeable is fixed into a pure and incorruptible form.
Crystal in Roman culture
In Rome vessels of rock crystal were among the most prized luxury objects. Pliny relates that Nero, when he learned that all was lost, smashed two crystal cups in a fit of rage, as if to prevent anyone else from drinking from them after him. The gesture shows the enormous value of these objects, considered almost part of the ruler's person.
The crystals of the caliphs
In the medieval Islamic world, and particularly in Fatimid Egypt between the tenth and eleventh centuries, the working of rock crystal reached extraordinary perfection. Craftsmen hollowed ewers and vases from a single block of quartz, decorating them with animals, palmettes and inscriptions. Some of these ewers, having reached Europe, are still preserved today in church treasuries, such as that of the basilica of San Marco in Venice.
Crystal in reliquaries
In the Christian Middle Ages rock crystal was used abundantly for reliquaries. The reason is also symbolic. Crystal allows one to see what it contains without touching it: it protects and reveals at the same time. It thus becomes the image of the purity and transparency of the spirit, of a body that hides nothing.
Some Christian authors compared crystal to Christ himself or to the Virgin: just as light passes through crystal without breaking it, so the divine nature was said to have passed through matter without altering it. In Ezekiel's vision a firmament "like crystal" stretches above the four living creatures, and in Revelation there is a transparent sea like crystal before the throne.
The crystal ball
The object that has most tied crystal to the esoteric tradition is the sphere. The practice of gazing at a clear surface, water, a mirror or a transparent stone, to gather images and intuitions is ancient and widespread in many cultures. It is called crystallomancy when it makes use of a crystal.
In the modern era the best-known example is that of John Dee, a scholar at the Elizabethan court, who together with his associate Edward Kelley held long sessions of contemplation before a stone called a shew-stone, the "stone that shows". Some objects associated with Dee, including a crystal ball, are kept at the British Museum.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the crystal ball became the stereotyped image of the fortune-teller, so much so that it almost entirely lost its seriousness. But its traditional meaning remains interesting: the sphere does not contain the images; it offers a clear surface on which the mind, slowed by gazing, can recognise contents that would otherwise remain submerged.
Symbolic meanings
- Purity: crystal is transparent and flawless, a symbol of the clear soul.
- Permanence: as "eternal ice", it represents what is changeable fixed into a lasting form.
- Revelation: it shows what it contains, like reliquaries that protect and display.
- Light: crossed by the sun, it splits or concentrates it, an image of the spirit that receives and transmits.
- Vision: the sphere is the support of contemplation and of the inner gaze.
The hexagonal form
Quartz crystallises spontaneously into six-sided prisms ending in a point. This natural geometry, so regular that it seems constructed, has always fascinated observers. For those who read nature as a book of symbols, crystal shows that matter itself tends towards order and form, and that geometric perfection is not merely an invention of the human mind.
In short
- The word "crystal" comes from the Greek krystallos, "ice": the ancients believed it was water frozen forever.
- It was a luxury material in Rome and in Fatimid Egypt, then for medieval reliquaries, which protect and display.
- The crystal ball, used also by John Dee, is the traditional support for visual contemplation.
- It symbolises purity, permanence, revelation and natural order.
