Users can communicate over great distances with one another and particularly power operators of the master-stone can bend the other stones to their will and utilize the whole web of palantiri as a kind of surveillance network to cast their minds across vast stretches of Middle Earth.

…It is such stones that allow Sauron and Saruman to communicate with one another. It is another such stone that allows Denethor to spy on Sauron.

Here’s where things get real: ‘Palantir’ is the name that venture-capitalist-turned-apocalyptic-theologian Peter Thiel gave to his surveillance firm…