Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

CRYPTOMERIA, or JAPANESE CEDAR

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 568 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:

CRYPTOMERIA, or See also:JAPANESE See also:CEDAR , a genus of conifers, containing a single See also:species, C. japonica, native of See also:China and See also:Japan, which was introduced into See also:Great See also:Britain by the Royal Horticultural Society'in 1844. It is described as one of the finest trees in Japan, reaching a height of See also:rod or more feet, usually divested of branches along the See also:lower See also:part of the See also:trunk and crowned with a conical See also:head. The narrow, pointed leaves are spirally arranged and persist for four or five years; the cones are small, globose and See also:borne at the ends of the branchlets, the scales are thickened at the extremity and divided into sharply pointed lobes, three to five seeds are borne on each See also:scale. Cryptomeria is extensively used in Japan for reafforesting denuded lands, as it is a valuable See also:timber See also:tree; it is also planted to See also:form avenues along the public roads. In See also:Veitch's See also:Manual of Coniferae (ed. 2, 1900, p. 265) reference is made to " an See also:avenue of Cryptomerias 7 M. in extent near See also:Lake Hakone " in which " the trees are more than See also:ioo ft. high, with perfectly straight trunks crowned with conical heads of foliage." See also:Professor C. S. See also:Sargent, in his See also:Forest See also:Flora of Japan, says, " Japan owes much of the beauty of its groves and gardens to the Cry ptomeria. Nowhere is there a more See also:solemn and impressive See also:group of trees than that which surrounds the temples and tombs at See also:Nikko where they rise to a height of ioo to 125 ft.; it is a stately tree with no See also:rival except in the sequoias of See also:California." Many curious varieties have been obtained by Japanese horticulturists, including some See also:dwarf shrubby forms not exceeding a few feet in height. When grown in Great Britain Cryptomeria requires a deep, well-drained See also:soil with plenty of moisture, and See also:protection from See also:cold winds. CRYPTO-PORTICUS (Gr.

Kpv7rr6 , concealed, and See also:

Lat. porticus), an architectural See also:term for a concealed or covered passage, generally underground, though lighted and ventilated from the open See also:air. One of the best-known examples is the crypto-porticus under the palaces of the Caesars in See also:Rome. In See also:Hadrian's See also:villa in Rome they formed the See also:principal private intercommunication between the several buildings. CRYSTAL-GAZING, or SCRYING, the term commonly applied to the See also:induction of visual hallucinations by concentrating the gaze on any clear deep, such as a crystal or a See also:ball of polished See also:rock crystal. Some persons do not even find a clear deep necessary, and are content to gaze at the See also:palm of the See also:hand, for example, when hallucinatory pictures, as they declare, emerge. Among See also:objects used are a See also:pool of See also:ink in the hand (See also:Egypt), the See also:liver of an See also:animal (tribes of the See also:North-See also:West See also:Indian frontier), a hole filled with See also:water (See also:Polynesia), See also:quartz crystals (the Apaches and the Euahlayi tribe of New See also:South See also:Wales), a smooth slab of polished See also:black See also:stone (the Huille-che of South See also:America), water in a See also:vessel (Zulus and Siberians), a crystal (the Incas), a See also:mirror (classical See also:Greece and the See also:middle ages), the See also:finger-See also:nail, a See also:sword-blade, a See also:ring-stone, a See also:glass of See also:sherry, in fact almost anything. Much depends on what the " seer " is accustomed to use, and some persons who can "scry " in a glass ball or a glass water See also:bottle cannot " scry " in ink. The practice of inducing pictorial hallucinations by such methods as these has been traced among the natives of North and South America, See also:Asia, See also:Australia, See also:Africa, among the Maoris, who sometimes use a drop of See also:blood, and in Polynesia, and is thus practically of See also:world-wide See also:diffusion. This fact was not observed (that is, the collections of examples were not made) till recently, when experiments in private non-spiritualist circles See also:drew See also:attention. to .crystal-gazing, a practice always popular among peasants, and known historically to have survived through classical and See also:medieval times, and, as in the famous See also:case of Dr See also:Dee, after the See also:Reformation. The See also:early See also:church condemned specularii (mirror-gazers), and See also:Aubrey and the See also:Memoirs of See also:Saint-See also:Simon contain "scrying " anecdotes of the 17th and 18th centuries, while See also:Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott's See also:story, My Aunt See also:Margaret's Mirror, is based on a tradition of about 1750 in a See also:noble Scottish See also:family. The practice, in all times and countries, was used for purposes of See also:divination. The gazer detected unknown criminals, or described remote events, or even professed to foretell things future.

Sometimes the supposed magician or See also:

medicine See also:man himself did the scrying; occasionally he enabled his client to see for himself; often a See also:child was selected as the scryer. The See also:process was usually explained as the result of the See also:action of a spirit, See also:angel or See also:devil, and many unessential formulae, invocations, " calls," written charms with cabbalistic signs, and fumigations, were employed. These things may have had some effect by way of See also:suggestion; the scryer may have been brought by them into an appropriate See also:frame of mind; but, as a whole, they are tedious and superfluous. A See also:person can either induce the pictorial hallucinations (he may discover his capacity by See also:accident, like See also:George See also:Sand, as she tells in her Memoirs—and other cases are known), or he cannot induce them, though he stare till his eyes water. It is almost universally found, in cases of successful experiment, that the glass ball, for example, takes a milky or misty aspect, that it then grows black, reflections disappearing, and that then the pictures emerge. Some See also:people arrive at seeing the glass ball milky or misty, and can go no further. Others see pictures of persons or landscapes, only in black and See also:white, and motionless. Others see in the glass coloured figures of men, See also:women and animals in See also:motion; while in rarer cases the ball disappears from view, and the scryer finds himself apparently looking at an actual See also:scene. In a few attested cases two persons have shared the same See also:vision. In experiments with magnifying glasses, and through spars, the See also:ordinary effects of magnifying and of alteration of view are sometimes produced; sometimes they are not. The See also:evidence, of course, is necessarily only that of the scryers themselves, but repeated experiments by persons of probity, and unfamiliar with the topic, combined with the world-wide existence of the practice, prove that hallucinatory pictures are really induced. It has not been found possible to determine, before experiment, whether any given man or woman will prove capable of the hallucinatory experiences.

Many subjects with strong See also:

powers of " visualization," or seeing things " in the mind's See also:eye," cannot scry; others are successful in various degrees. We might expect persons who have experienced spontaneous visual hallucinations, of the See also:kind vulgarly styled " ghosts " or " wraiths," to succeed in inducing pictures in a glass ball. As a See also:matter of fact such persons sometimes can and sometimes cannot see pictures in the way of crystal-gazing; while many who can see in the crystal have had no spontaneous hallucinations. It is useless to make experiments with hysterical and visionary people, " whose wordno man relies on "; they may have the hallucinatory experi. ences, but they would say that they had in any case. The nearest See also:analogy to crystal visions, as described, is the See also:common experience of " hypnagogic illusions " (cf. See also:Alfred See also:Maury. See also:Les eves et le sommeil). With closed eyes, between sleeping and waking, many people see faces, landscapes and other things flash upon their view, pictures often brilliant, but of very brief duration and rapid mutation. Sometimes the subject opens his eyes to get rid of an unpleasant vision of this kind. People who cannot scry may have these hypnagogic illusions, and, so far, may partly understand the experience of the scryer who is wide awake. But the visions of the scryer often endure for a considerable See also:time. He or she may put. the glass down and See also:con-See also:verse, and may find the picture still there when the ball is taken up again.

New figures may join the figure first seen, as when one enters a See also:

room. In these respects, and in the awakeness of the scryer, crystal pictures differ from hypnagogic illusions. In other ways the experiences coincide, the pictures are either fanciful, like illustrations of some unread See also:history or See also:romance, or are revivals of remembered places and faces. Occasionally, in hypnagogic illusions, the observer can see the_ picture develop rapidly out of a blot of See also:light or See also:colour, beheld by the closed eyes. One or two scryers think that they, too, can trace the picture as it develops on the suggestion of some. passage of light, colour or See also:shadow in the glass or crystal. But, as a See also:rule, the scryer cannot detect any process of development from such points de mire; though this may be the actual process. On the whole there seems little doubt that successful crystal gazing is the exertion of a not uncommon though far from universal See also:faculty, like those of " See also:chromatic audition "—the vivid association of certain sounds with certain colours—and the See also:mental seeing of figures arranged in coloured diagrams (See also:Galion, Inquiry into Human Faculty, pp. 114-154). The experience of hypnagogic illusions also seems far more rare than ordinary dreaming in See also:sleep. Unfortunately, while these phenomena have been carefully studied by officially scientific characters, in See also:England orthodox savants have disdained to observe crystal-gazing, while in See also:France psychologists have too commonly experimented with subjects professionally hysterical and quite untrustworthy. Our remarks are therefore based mainly on considerable See also:personal study of " scrying " among normal See also:British subjects of both sexes, to whom the topic was previously unknown. The superstitious associations of crystal-gazing, as of See also:hypnotism, appear to See also:bar the way to See also:official scientific investigation, and the fluctuating proficiency of the seers, who cannot command' success, or determine the causes and conditions of success and failure, tends in the same direction.

The existence, too, of paid professionals who See also:

lead astray See also:silly women, encourages the natural scientific contempt for the study of the faculty. The seeing of the pictures, as far as we have spoken of it, appears to be a thing unusual, but in no way abnormal, any more than dreams or hypnagogic illusions are abnormal. Crystal pictures, however, are commonly dismissed as See also:mere results of " See also:imagination," a theory which, of course, is of no real assistance to See also:psychology. Persons of recognized " imaginativeness," such as novelists and artists, do not seem more or less capable of the hallucinatory experiences than their sober neighbours; while persons not otherwise recognizably " imaginative " (we could quote a singularly accurate historian) are capable of the experiences. It is unfortunate, as it awakens See also:prejudice, but in the See also:present writer's See also:opinion it is true, that crystal-gazing sometimes is rewarded with results which may be styled " supra-normal." In addition to the presentation of revived memories, and of " objectivation of ideas or images consciously or unconsciously in the mind of the percipient," there occur " visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying acquirement of knowledge by supra-normal means." 1 A number .of examples occurring during experiments made by the present writer and by his acquaintances in 1897 were carefully recorded and attested by the signatures of all concerned i Proceedings of the Society for Psychical See also:Research, v. 486. The cases, or rather a selection of the cases, are printed in A. See also:Lang's See also:book, The Making of ,See also:Religion (2nd ed., See also:London, 1902, pp. 87-104). Others are chronicled in A. Lang's Introduction to Mr N. W.

See also:

Thomas's See also:work, Crystal Gazing (1905). The experiments took this form: any person might ask the scryer (a See also:lady who had never previously heard of crystal-gazing) " to see what he was thinking of." The scryer, who was a stranger in a See also:place which she had not visited before, gave, in a See also:long See also:series of cases, a description of the person or place on which the inquirer's thoughts were fixed. The descriptions, though three or four entire failures occurred, were of remarkable accuracy as a rule, and contained facts and incidents unknown to the inquirers, but confirmed as accurate. In fact, some See also:Oriental scenes and descriptions of incidents were corroborated by a See also:letter from See also:India which arrived just after the experiment; and the same thing happened when the events described were occurring in places less remote. On one occasion a curious set of incidents were described, which happened to be vividly present to the mind of a sceptical stranger who chanced to be in the room during the experiment; events unknown to the inquirer in this instance. As an example of the minuteness of description, an inquirer, thinking of a See also:brother in India, an officer in the See also:army, whose See also:hair had suffered in an encounter with a See also:tiger, had described to her an officer in undress See also:uniform, with bald scars through the hair on his temples, such as he really See also:bore. The number and proportion of successes was too high to admit of explanation by See also:chance coincidence, but success was not invariable. On one occasion the scryer could see nothing, " the crystal preserved its natural diaphaneity," as Dr Dee says; and there were failures with two or three inquirers. On the other hand no See also:record was kept in several cases of success. Whoever can believe that the successes were numerous and that descriptions were given correctly—not only of facts present to the minds of inquirers, and of other persons present who were not consciously taking a See also:share in the experiments, but also of facts necessarily unknown to all concerned—must of course be most impressed by the latter kind of success. If the process commonly styled " See also:telepathy " exists (see TELEPATHY), that may See also:account for the scryer's See also:power of seeing facts which are in the mind of the inquirer. But when the scryers see details of various sorts, which are unknown to the inquirer, but are verified on inquiry, then telepathy perhaps fails to provide an explanation.

We seem to be confronted with actual See also:

clairvoyance (q.v.), or vue d distance. It would be vain to form hypotheses as to the conditions or faculties which make vue a distance possible. This way See also:lie See also:metaphysics, with See also:Hegel's theory of the Sensitive Soul, or See also:Myers' theory of the Subliminal Self. " The intuitive soul," says Hegel, " oversteps the conditions of time and space; it beholds things remote, things long past, and things to come." 1 What we need, if any progress is to be made in knowledge of the subject, is not a metaphysical See also:hypothesis, but a large, carefully tested, and well-recorded collection of examples, made by savants of recognized See also:standing. At present we are where we were in See also:electrical See also:science, when See also:Newton produced curious See also:sparks while rubbing glass with See also:paper. By way of facts, we have only a large See also:body of unattested anecdotes of supra-normal successes in crystal-gazing, in many lands and ages; and the scanty records of See also:modern See also:amateur investigators, like the present writer. Even from these, if the honesty of all concerned be granted (and, even See also:clever dishonesty could not have produced many of the results), it would appear that we are investigating a See also:strange and important human faculty. The writer is acquainted with no experiments in which it was attempted to discern the future (except in trivial cases as to events on the See also:turf, when chance coincidence might explain the successes), and only with two or three cases in which there was an See also:attempt to help See also:historical science and discern the past by aid of psychical methods. The results were interesting and difficult to explain, but the experiments were few. Ordinary scryers of See also:fancy pictures are common enough, but scryers capable of apparently supra-normal successes 1 " Philosophie der Geistes," Hegel's Werke, vii. 179, 406, 408 (See also:Berlin, 1845). Cf.

See also:

Wallace's See also:translation (See also:Oxford, 1894).are apparently rare. Perhaps something depends on the inquirer as well as the scryer. The method of scrying, as generally practised, is See also:simple. It is usual to place a glass ball on a dark ground, to sit with the back to the light, to See also:focus the gaze on the ball (disregarding reflections, if these cannot be excluded), and to await results. Perhaps from five to ten minutes is a long enough time for the experiment. The scryer may let his consciousness See also:play freely, but should not be disturbed by lookers-on. As a rule, if a person has the faculty he " See also:sees " at the first attempt; if he fails in the first three or four efforts he need not persevere. Solitude is advisable at first, but few people can find time amounting to ten minutes for solitary studies of this sort, so busy and so gregarious is mankind. The writer has no experience of See also:trance, sleep or auto-hypnotization produced in such experiments; scryers have always seemed to retain their full normal consciousness.. As regards See also:scepticism concerning the faculty we may quote what Mr See also:Galton says about the faculty of visualization: " Scientific men as a class have feeble power of visual See also:reproduction. ...

End of Article: CRYPTOMERIA, or JAPANESE CEDAR

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
CRYPTOGRAPHY (from Gr. Kpurrros, hidden, and ypItOa... 		[next]
CRYSTAL PALACE, THE

Site © 2006 - Net Industries