The crystal gazer is strongly advised by some to limit the duration of his experiment at first to five minutes, during which he is to avoid thinking of anything in particular while keeping his eyes fixed intently upon the ball, but without any undue straining of attention. Should the eyes “water” after the test is concluded, this is to be regarded as an indication that the gazer has persisted too long; for brain-fag is to be strictly avoided, as such a state depresses instead of arousing the hidden and higher psychic faculties. Even after considerable practice, the scrying should not be carried on for more than a few minutes at a time. The faculty of visualization plays a most important part in crystal-gazing. The image thought to be seen on, before, or behind the surface of the crystal, is in its essence a fancied projection of a purely mental image conceived in the brain; such an image as is present to the consciousness of many when they call to mind a scene of some vivid past experience, or the face of someone they have known, and see it as an element of consciousness. When it is possible to externalize this interior vision, then we have at least a beginning of successful scrying. That it may go far beyond this, that it may reveal to the gazer events happening in some distant place, or even events yet to transpire in the dim future, is often claimed. An acceptance of this claim must depend largely upon our attitude toward premonitions and prophecies in general. Here, as in the simple picture evolved by an image of the past, the crystal is merely the background upon which are cast the mind-pictures or soul-pictures arising within our being.[321] A use of crystal gazing to aid literary composition has been reported in the case of an English authoress of note, who, if she lost the thread of the story she was writing, would resort to her crystal, and would see mirrored therein the scenes and personages of her tale, the latter carrying on the plot in dramatic action. Aided by this suggestion she was able to resume her composition and successfully terminate her story. [Illustration: CRYSTAL BALL, SUPPORTED BY BRONZE DRAGON. JAPANESE.] In Japan the smaller rock-crystals were believed to be the congealed breath of the White Dragon, while the larger and more brilliant ones were said to be the saliva of the Violet Dragon. As the dragon was emblematic of the highest powers of creation, this indicates the esteem in which the substance was held by the Japanese, who probably derived their appreciation of it from the Chinese. The name _suisho_, used both in China and Japan to designate rock-crystal, reflects the idea current in ancient times, and repeated even by seventeenth century writers, that rock-crystal was ice which had been so long congealed that it could not be liquefied.