Scrying

When learning to scry, you will find the moon's changing energies will help you. You can make a black mirror from a piece of thick glass, or from an old alarm-clock face coated with several layers of black model paint on the convex side, each set into a rim of wood or plaster. Crystal balls look more exotic but are really a quite modern invention, introduced in Tudor times. Before that the scryers would have used a bowl of ink, or a piece of shiny black stone, wet slate or even coal, or anything else which would glitter and distract the normal vision so that inner sight can break through. Often a piece of polished fingernail reflecting speck of the moon or sunlight could act as a focus in this way. As each person's ability depends a great deal on their particular mental and intellectual make-up it is best to try a few simple and cheap methods before you pay a great deal of money for a crystal ball.

Choose a night of bright moonlight for your first experiments and if you can be out of doors or at least in a room with open windows through which unaltered moonlight can pour, allow it to fall upon the scrying glass or speculum for a while so that the instrument begins to feel filled with moonlite. Light a candle and a little incense to help alter the atmosphere to a more magical feeling, and then become still and relaxed. It may take many attempts to be able to see anything in any form of scrying mirror but, like all the magickal arts, persistence will pay off. You can't force yourself into the poised form of consciousness which is vial to all successful meditational methods, but only get to it by finding the balance between curiosity and relaxation. Eventually it becomes second nature and all sessions rewarding because you have gained the knack.

As you watch in a calm and distracted sort of way you may discover the moonlight seems to have seeped into the glass and misted it, and in the midst of the swirling clouds a clear path begins to form, sometimes glinting with starlight. Once you have got that far regularly, it is only a brief step onward to the state where moving pictures, images, symbols and even dialogue into which you fully enter, or even seem to fall, occurs. It isn't easy and many people find this particular skill evades them no matter how hard they try. Usually it is at the moment when your patience seems exhausted and you begin to lose faith in the process that you somehow let go of whatever mental block defeats you and suddenly, for a while, you get a clear sight. Do go on with the basic exercises until you find that distinct and steady images of some sort happen under you control.