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To: alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic,alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.occult.methods,alt.lucky.w From: Catherine YronwodeSubject: Re: Black Mirror / Magic Mirror Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 18:48:26 GMT Danny (danny.boy.1@comcast.net) wrote: > Hi all. I've never posted anything here before, but I thought I might hop > on to see if anyone might be interested in passing on their experience/ > opinions about a project I'm working on. > > My great grandmother was a witch and, though my parents did try to get me > into the Christian church thing, I consider myself to have "grown up > Pagan" from the summers and such I would spend with my grandmother. She > was a solitary, though would occasionally meet with others for ritual. I > learned a lot from her, being included in those rituals, and from her > teaching me everything from herbs, stones, and crystals to ritual, > anthropology, and archetypal super-psychology. Anyway, that's my > background. She passed on just a couple years ago, and I inherited her > spells and many wonderful ritual tools with her loving energy to add to my > own tools. > > For a while now, I've been thinking about crafting my own black mirror. > It's been on the back burner because I've been busy and also because I > consider divination and such to be somewhat of a weakness for me. My aunt > and I have gone through her grimoire and continue to find loose leaf > papers as well with grandma's spell work. I've recently come across some > papers for constructing a black mirror. They are somewhat incomplete, > though. Also, I tend to like to research things out and know precisely why > I'm adding this symbol or why I'm burning that herb or what have you. > > At this point, I've exhausted what the internet has to offer on black > mirrors (not too terribly much) and have read the applicable Giambattista > della Porta, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, and Donald Tyson on the subject. > I'm particularly intrigued with Tyson's ideas on fluid condensers, an idea > evolved from the theory of animal magnetism. I've studied the history of > black mirrors starting with the historical use of pools of water as > divinatory tools in ancient times. > > I've also read the simple instructions for making a black mirror which are > basically to take a piece of glass, paint one side black, put meaningful > symbols on it, consecrate/energize it in an appropriate Moon ritual, have > a Coke and a smile, and shut the hell up. LOL I think that's perfectly > fine for some people with stronger powers of visualization and whose > interests run a different course than mine. I do honestly believe that > this method can produce a more-than-adequate ritual tool for some people. > > I understand the school of thought that all the rest may not be of such > great importance and that a black mirror may be simply made without such > effort as looking into the historical background of such mirrors. If my > grandmother taught me anything, though, it's to find one's own path. My > tendancies are to need a little more in the physical plane to link me to > the inner planes and to the higher planes. My powers of visualization are > not the very best. Besides that, I very much enjoy the intellectual and > academic challenge of trying to wrap my mind around the whole of black/ > magic mirrors through history before deciding on a design that I consider > to be compatible with my own path. > > That said, my plans so far are: (1) To create a mirror using appropriate > pulverized stones/crystals and herbs as fluid condensers in both the > construction of the mirror and in its periodic recharging and (2) To > choose appropriate symbols to place on and around the mirror. I'm > comfortable with my choices of stones and herbs. My problem is this: I'm > not quite sure of the ancient alphabets / runic systems to use. I'm not > sure of the applicability of Moon symbols derived from qabbalistic > writings, for instance, or from magic squares. In some of what I've read, > the various symbols proposed for use in a black mirror seem hodgepodged > somehow. > > I understand that these are somewhat minor considerations in the grand > scheme of things and that it may seem as though I'm being "manic" about > it. More than anything, though, it's that I not only want to create a > black mirror that's right for my path but that is as "historically sound" > as possible. It's how I get my kicks. I'm sort of at an impass in my > research and am wondering if anyone out there has thought along these > lines as well. I'd love to hear from you, whoever you are. > > One of my specific concerns is about the ramifications of using regular > plate glass for the mirror. The greenish tint along the edge of cut glass > is actually an indication that the glass itself has a greenish tint. This > can normally not be detected with the naked eye because any given piece of > glass is usually thin enough that the greenish tint is not apparent. Such > "green"glass is the most common as it is the least costly to manufacture. > I'm worried about what this might mean to the success of such glass being > used in the construction of a black mirror. The fact that the glass has a > greenish tint to it means that it doesn't let all green wavelengths > through and that some of the green is actually reflected back. There is > "ultraclear" glass available which eliminates this tinting, but such glass > is 8-10 times as expensive, and I'd like to not have to go that route if > it's not necessary. > > Is this greenish tint important in a magickal sense? I don't have the > background to answer that question for myself, but I fear that it might > make a difference. > > If it does make a difference in a magickal sense, would there be a way to > construct the mirror using this common glass and then somehow compensate > for the greenish tint magickally? > > Should I just bite the bullet and pay the extra for the "ultra clear" > glass? > > Thanks to all and blessed be, > -Danny Speaking historically, and with respect to the greenish tint in most glass, the first thing i would like to offer is that you use obsidian stone or black stained glass. But i do not think the green tint is a serious issue, and i would like to offer some hisorical data to back up this opinion: Have you investigated the life and works of Pascal Beverly Randolph, the great mirror scryer of the 19th century? Between 1850 and 1875 he both made black mirrors of his own and imported so-called "Battah" scrying mirrors to America from India. He also wrote a classic book on the subject of how to work with scrying mirrors. The reason i mention Randolph is that he was a friend of the deposed and exiled Maharajah of Mysore, Dalip Singh (also spelled Daleep Singh), who lived in Paris, and who was also a user of divinatory mirrors. According to Randolph (and others) Singh had in his possession a fabulous Indian scrying mirror -- which Randolph considered the finest he had ever seen or used -- and it was not black glass, but rather a large green emerald. In other words, it was green. So obviously in Randolph's opinion, an opinion i would consider both expert and highly opinionated, the green tint was not a drawback. By the way, you mention "Tyson's ideas on fluid condensers" -- but if i understand what you are referring to, then those ideas are more generally attributed to Franz Bardon than to Tyson -- and Bardon in turn obviously got them from Pascal Beverly Randolph. Randolph makes it fairly clear, if you read between the lines of his autodidactic Victorian prose, that in the 1850s, at least, he sold mirrors of his own making and consecration in which the the sigilic fluid condenser of his mirrors was "painted" with a compound made from a mixture of hashish and other plant-derived materials combined with the mingled sexual fluids of himself and his wife Mary Randolph. Later in life, when Pascal and Mary had divorced, it can be presumed that the mirrors he sold utilized the combined sexual fluids of himself and his second wife Kate Corson Randolph. Recipes for the plant materials used by Pascal Beverly Randolph in making the "paint" for the sigils on the back of his mirrors have been passed down orally and no one is quite sure at this date what all was in his fluid condensers beyond hashish and sexual fluids -- but several sources point to lettuce sap as an ingredient. (This sounds funny only to people unfamiliar with herbalism: lettuce contains opium in small amounts.) An alternative would be actual opium poppy juice -- and in fact some recipes attributed to Randolph call for the sap of all three plants -- marijuana, lettuce, and opium poppies -- as well as the sap of other plants with psychoactive or poisonous principles, such aconite and absinthe (wormwood). As for what kinds of sigils Randolph indicted on the mirrors he made for sale, that remains unknown; they would not likely have been goetic, given his background and training. It is possible that that he :signed" his mirrors with his personal sigil of a winged globe and his motto "TRY!" -- but the sigils may also have been Rosicrucian, since "The Rosicrucian" was one of his preferred pseudonyms. If you are not familiar with Randolph, i heartily advise you to buy the biography by John Patrick Deveney, "Pascal Beverly Randolph" -- or at least get a taste for Randolph's work at the web page i have written about him at http://www.luckymojo.com/tkpbrandolph.html Also, i wonder if you have contacted Poke Runyon of the CHS/OTA? He is, in my opinion, the most erudite living authority on mirror scrying. He has produced videos on the techniques he uses and is quite helpful to people new to the subject. I am cross-posting this into alt.magick, a newsgroup Poke reads regularly, in the hope that he might have further comments on the green tint of glass and the types of sigils that are appropriate for use in mirror scrying. . Good luck. cat yronwode Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodooherbmagic.html
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