is to float some object on the water's surface,
predicting the future in accordance with the course that object takes;
but I believe future events are just as often foretold by means of the
water only.

Many people believe that especially successful results in
fortune-telling may be obtained by means of water only, on All-Hallows
E'en or New Year's Eve.

On the former night, the method of divining the future is as
follows:--Place a bowl of clear spring water on your lap at midnight,
and gaze into it. If you are to be married, you will see the face of
your future husband (or bride) reflected in the water; if you are to
remain single all your life, you will see nothing; and if you are to die
within the year, the water will become muddy. On New Year's Eve a
tumbler of water should be placed at midnight before the looking-glass,
when any person, or persons, destined to play a very important role in
your life within the coming year, will suddenly appear and sip the
water. Should you be doomed to die within that period, the tumbler will
be thrown on the ground and dashed to pieces.

The conditions during the trial of both these methods are that you
should be alone in the room, with only one candle burning.

_The Crystal_

I often practise crystal-gazing, and the results are strangely
inconsistent. I see with startling vividness events that actually come
to pass, and sometimes with equal perspicuity events that, as far as I
know, are never fulfilled. And this I feel sure must be the case with
all crystal-gazers, if they would but admit it. My method is very
simple. As I cannot concentrate unless I have absolute quiet, I wait
till the house is very still, and I then sit alone in my room with my
back to the light, in such a position that the light pours over my
shoulders on to the crystal, which I have set on the table before me.
Sometimes I sit for a long time before I see anything, and sometimes,
after a lengthy sitting, I see nothing at all; but when a tableau does
come, it is always with the most startling vividness. When I want to be
initiated into what is happening to certain of my friends, I concentrate
my whole mind on those friends--I think of nothing but them--their
faces, forms, mannerisms, and surroundings--and then, suddenly, I see
them in the crystal! Visions are sometimes of the future, sometimes of
the present, sometimes of the past, and sometimes of neither, but of
what never actually transpires--and the