One of the most prolific sources of error in Divination has ever been the variety of means employed for the purpose of causing the preparatory state of trance. It is well known in our day that the mind may be most strangely affected by innumerable agencies which are apparently purely mechanical, and often utterly absurd. Such are an intent gazing at highly-polished surfaces of metal, or into the bright inside of a gold cup, at the shining sides of a crystal, or the varying hues of a glass globe; now vessels filled with pure water, and now ink poured into the hand of a child, answer the same purpose. Fortune-telling from the lines of the hand or the chance combinations of playing-cards are, in this aspect, on a par with the prophecies of astrologers drawn from the constellations in the heavens. It need hardly be added that this almost infinite variety of more or less absurd measures has nothing at all to do with the awaking of magic power, and continues in use only from the prestige which some of the means, like the cup of Joseph and the mirror of Varro, derive from their antiquity. Their sole purpose is uniformly to withdraw the seer's attention from all outward objects, and to make him, by steadily gazing at one and the same object, concentrate his thoughts and feelings exclusively upon his own self. Experience has taught that such efforts, long continued, result finally in utter loss of feeling, in unconsciousness, and frequently even in catalepsy. It is generally only under such peculiarly painful circumstances that the unusual powers of our being can become visible and begin to operate. While these results may be obtained, as recent experiments have proved, even by mere continued squinting, barbarous nations employ the most violent means for the same purpose--the whirling of dervishes, the drumming and dancing of northern shamans, the deafening music of the Moors, are all means of the same kind to excite the rude and fierce nature of savages to a state of excessive excitement. In all cases, however, we must notice the comparative sterility of such divination, and the penalty which has to be paid for most meagre results by injuries inflicted upon the body, and by troubles caused in the mind, which, if they do not become fatal to life, are invariably so to happiness and peace. That the sad privilege may have to be paid for with life itself, we learn already from Plutarch's account of a priestess who became so furious while prophesying, that not only the strangers but the priests themselves fled in dismay, while she herself expired a few hours later (II. p. 438).