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29-450: A palantír ( IPA: [paˈlanˌtiːr] ; pl.   palantíri ) is one of several indestructible crystal balls from J. R. R. Tolkien 's epic-fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings . The word comes from Quenya palan 'far', and tir 'watch over'. The palantírs were used for communication and to see events in other parts of Arda , or in the past. The palantírs were made by

58-608: A Sauron-like power to observe the whole of Middle-earth. The sequence ends fittingly, in her opinion, with Mordor and the Eye of Sauron , bringing the viewer, like Saruman, to meet the Enemy's gaze. As a consequence of Jackson's exclusion of The Scouring of the Shire , Saruman is killed by Wormtongue much earlier (at the beginning of the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of

87-467: A frame suggesting an ornamental object. It has been pointed out that these mounts are identical to those of later globes also believed to be used for magic or divination, indicating that these crystal globes may have been used for crystallomancy . John Dee was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I . He devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy, of which

116-798: A rushed exit of the army of Minas Morgul , thus letting the hobbits through the pass of Cirith Ungol with the One Ring, and so on until the quest to destroy the ring succeeds against all odds. The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance writes that Saruman's sin, in Christian terms, is to seek Godlike knowledge by gazing in a short-sighted way into the Orthanc palantír in the hope of rivalling Sauron. She quotes Tolkien's description in The Two Towers , which states that Saruman explored "all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom". She explains that he

145-458: Is in this way giving up actual wisdom for "mere knowledge", imagining the arts were his own but in fact coming from Sauron. This prideful self-aggrandisement leads to his fall. She notes that it is ironic in this context that palantír means "far-sighted". Joseph Pearce compares Sauron's use of the seeing stones to "broadcast propaganda and sow the seeds of despair among his enemies" with the communications technologies used to spread propaganda in

174-497: Is that while the stones show real objects or events, those using the stones had to "possess great strength of will and of mind" to direct the stone's gaze to its full capability. The stones were an unreliable guide to action, since what was not shown could be more important than what was selectively presented. A risk lay in the fact that users with sufficient power could choose what to show and what to conceal to other stones: in The Lord of

203-752: The Elves of Valinor in the First Age , as told in The Silmarillion . By the time of The Lord of the Rings at the end of the Third Age , a few palantírs remained in use. They are used in some climactic scenes by major characters: Sauron , Saruman , Denethor the Steward of Gondor , and two members of the Company of the Ring : Aragorn and Pippin . A major theme of palantír usage

232-524: The Lowell Observatory , using a main mirror with spherical curvature , has the acronym PALANTIR. This stands for Precision Array of Large-Aperture New Telescopes for Image Reconstruction, and is meant to reference the "far-seeing stones in [The] Lord of the Rings ". Crystal ball By the fifth century AD, scrying using crystal balls was widespread within the Roman Empire and was condemned by

261-669: The Second Age were saved by his son Elendil ; he took them with him to Middle-earth , while at least the Master-stone remained behind. Four were taken to Gondor , while three stayed in Arnor. Originally, the stones of Arnor were at Elostirion in the Tower Hills, Amon Sul (Weathertop), and Annuminas: the Elostirion stone, Elendil's own, looked only Westwards from Middle-earth across the ocean to

290-561: The Second World War and then the Cold War , when Tolkien was writing. A palantír appears in the film director Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings films. The Tolkien critic Allison Harl compares Jackson to Saruman, and his camera to a palantír, writing that "Jackson chooses to look through the perilous lens, putting his camera to use to exert control over the [original Tolkien] text." Harl cites Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and

319-800: The early Christian Church as heretical (magic had been condemned since the Apostolic Era with e.g. Chapter 2 of the Didache ). The tomb of Childeric I , a fifth-century king of the Franks , contained a 3.8 cm (1½ inch) diameter transparent beryl globe. The object is similar to other globes that were later found in tombs from the Merovingian period in Gaul and the Saxon period in England . Some of these were complete with

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348-626: The Black Fleet approaching Gondor, without telling him that the ships are crewed by Aragorn 's troops, coming to Gondor's rescue. Shippey suggests that this consistent pattern is Tolkien's way of telling the reader that one should not "speculate" – the word meaning both to try to double-guess the future, and to look into a mirror ( Latin : speculum 'glass or mirror') or crystal ball – but should trust in one's luck and make one's own mind up, courageously facing one's duty in each situation. The English literature scholar Paul Kocher similarly noted

377-570: The King ), while Gandalf acquires the Orthanc palantír after Pippin retrieves it from Saruman's corpse, instead of having Wormtongue throw it from a window of the tower. Further, Sauron uses the Palantír to show Aragorn a dying Arwen , (a scene from the future) in the hope of weakening his resolve. The software data-collection company Palantir Technologies was named by its founder, Peter Thiel , after Tolkien's seeing stones. An astronomical telescope at

406-577: The Master-stone at the Tower of Avallonë upon Eressëa , an island off Valinor. The stones of Gondor were in Orthanc , Minas Tirith , Osgiliath , and Minas Ithil . By the time of The Lord of the Rings , the stone of Orthanc was in the hands of the wizard Saruman , while the stone of Minas Ithil, (by then Minas Morgul , the city of the Nazgûl ), had been taken by the dark lord Sauron . That of Minas Tirith remained in

435-598: The Narrative Cinema" which describes "scopophilia", the voyeuristic pleasure of looking, based on Sigmund Freud 's writings on sexuality. Harl gives as an example the sequence in The Two Towers where Jackson's camera "like the Evil Eye of Sauron" travels towards Saruman's tower, Isengard and "zooms into the dangerous palantír", in her opinion giving the cinema viewer "an omniscient and privileged perspective" consisting of

464-506: The Rings , a palantír has fallen into the Enemy's hands, making the usefulness of all other existing stones questionable. Commentators such as the Tolkien scholar Paul Kocher note the hand of providence in their usage, while Joseph Pearce compares Sauron's use of the stones to broadcast wartime propaganda . Tom Shippey suggests that the message is that "speculation", looking into any sort of magic mirror (Latin: speculum ) or stone to see

493-512: The future, rather than trusting in providence, leads to error. In Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings , the palantírs were made by the Elves of Valinor in the Uttermost West, by the Noldor , apparently by Fëanor himself from silima , "that which shines". The number that he made is not stated, but there were at least eight of them. Seven of the stones given to Amandil of Númenor during

522-408: The hand of providence: Wormtongue 's throwing of the stone providentially leads to Pippin's foolish look into the stone, which deceives Sauron; and it allows Aragorn to claim the stone and use it to deceive Sauron further. This leads him to assume that Aragorn has the One Ring. That in turn provokes Sauron into a whole series of what turn out to be disastrous actions: a premature attack on Minas Tirith;

551-616: The hands of the Steward of Gondor, Denethor . The stone of Osgiliath had been lost in the Anduin when the city was sacked. Gandalf names two of these as the Orthanc-stone and the Ithil-stone . A single palantír enabled its user to see places far off, or events in the past. A person could look into a palantír to communicate with anyone looking into another palantír. They could then see "visions of

580-435: The opposite side. Unlike conventional lenses, the image-forming properties are omnidirectional (independent of the direction being imaged) This omnidirectional focusing can cause a crystal ball to act as a burning glass when it is brought into full sunlight. The image of the sun formed by a large crystal ball will burn a hand that is holding it, and can ignite dark-coloured flammable material placed near it. A crystal ball

609-466: The performer answers audience questions by means of various ruses, are known as crystal gazing acts. One of the most famous performers of the 20th century, Claude Alexander , was often billed as "Alexander the Crystal Seer". Optically, a crystal ball is a ball lens . For typical materials such as quartz and glass, it forms an image of distant objects slightly beyond the surface of the sphere, on

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638-461: The things in the mind" of the person looking into the other stone. The stones were made of a dark crystal, indestructible by any normal means, except perhaps the fire of Orodruin . They ranged in size from a diameter of about a foot (30 cm) to much larger stones that could not be lifted by one person. The Stone of Osgiliath had power over other stones including the ability to eavesdrop. The minor stones required one to move around them, thereby changing

667-687: The use of crystal balls was often included. Crystal gazing was a popular pastime in the Victorian era , and was claimed to work best when the Sun is at its northernmost declination. Immediately before the appearance of a vision, the ball was said to mist up from within. The use of crystal balls for divination also has a long history with the Romani people. Fortune tellers, known as drabardi , traditionally use crystal balls as well as cards to seek knowledge about future events. The process of scrying often involves

696-513: The use of crystals, especially crystal balls, in an attempt to predict the future or otherwise divine hidden information. Crystal ball scrying is commonly used to seek supernatural guidance while making difficult decisions in one's life (e.g., matters of love or finances). When the technique of scrying is used with crystals, or any transparent body, it is known as crystallomancy or crystal gazing . Crystal balls are popular props used in mentalism acts by stage magicians . Such routines, in which

725-573: The viewer's mind. In The Lord of the Rings , four such uses of the stones are described, and in each case, a true image is shown, but the viewer draws a false conclusion from the facts. This applies to Sauron when he sees Pippin in Saruman's stone and assumes that Pippin has the One Ring , and that Saruman has therefore captured it. Denethor, too, is deceived through his use of a palantír, this time by Sauron, who drives Denethor to suicide by truthfully showing him

754-465: The viewpoint of its vision, whereas the major stones could be turned on their axis. A wielder of great power such as Sauron could dominate a weaker user through the stone, which was the experience of Pippin Took and Saruman. Even one as powerful as Sauron could not make the palantírs "lie", or create false images; the most he could do was to selectively display truthful images to create a false impression in

783-524: Was among the grave-goods of the Merovingian King, Childeric I ( c.  437–481 AD ). The grave-goods were discovered in 1653. In 1831, they were stolen from the royal library in France where they were being kept. Few items were ever recovered. The crystal ball was not among them. The Sceptre of Scotland has a crystal ball in its finial, honoring the tradition of their use by pagan druids. It

812-566: Was made in Italy in the 15th century, and was a gift to James IV from Pope Alexander VI . The Penn Museum in Philadelphia displays the third-largest crystal ball as the central object in its Chinese Rotunda . Weighing 49 pounds (22 kg), the sphere is made of quartz crystal from Burma and was shaped through years of constant rotation in a semi-cylindrical container filled with emery , garnet powder , and water . The ornamental treasure

841-591: Was purportedly made for the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) during the Qing dynasty in the 19th century, but no evidence as to its actual origins exists. The crystal ball and an ancient Egyptian statuette which depicted the god Osiris were stolen in 1988. They were recovered three years later with no damage done to either object. Orodruin Too Many Requests If you report this error to

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