Through the Looking Glass

Reflections on Mirror Magic, Part One

Chris Wood

T he mirror is a wonderful thing. It allows you to see things you

couldn’t otherwise. It also creates reversals and sends what it
receives back again, subtly changed. All of these properties and more
are exploited in magical uses, from protection to divination.
Science and Illusion

A s well as the obvious use of mirrors to show what otherwise

cannot be seen, such as one’s own face, mirrors have many
mundane uses. They direct light in torches, headlights, lighthouses,
lasers, microscopes and telescopes. They are surveillance tools,
whether used to see round corners or covert, one-way devices. They
are used to mislead and entertain, as with fairground mirror mazes,
distorting mirrors and kaleidoscopes. The term ‘smoke and mirrors’
began with stage conjurors projecting ghostly images into smoke with
the aid of mirrors, and the similar, ‘Pepper’s ghost’ technique (using
light shone on a pane of glass rather than an actual mirror) is used to
great effect in museum displays.
Status and Symbol in the Ancient World

S ilvered (i.e. with a coating of quicksilver and tin), flat glass

mirrors are a fairly recent invention, in 15th-century Murano.
Before that there were mirrors made by a process invented by the
Romans (but seemingly forgotten until the 12th century), whereby
glass was blown into bowls, coated inside with lead, and then cut into
convex mirrors. Natural glass (i.e. obsidian), selenite, mica and slate
were polished and used in the Fertile Crescent, plus anthracite and
pyrite in the Americas, and the oldest known, human-made mirror, of
obsidian, was found at Ҫatalhüyük in Anatolia, dating to 6200 B.C.E.1
The arrival of metallurgy advanced mirror technology, allowing the
production of polished metal mirrors: the first copper examples are
known from Mesopotamia around 4000 B.C.E. and Egypt by 2900
B.C.E. Copper-alloy mirrors became prized items in Ancient Egypt,
both as beauty tools and as symbols of the Sun, coming together in
the cult of Hathor, Goddess of Love and solar Eye of Ra. The mirror
also appears to have been a form of the symbol of life, the ankh.2
Ornate metal mirrors with religious, magical, ceremonial and status
significance are found in ancient graves worldwide. Iron Age mirrors
of bronze and iron have been found as grave goods in Britain and the
near continent, defining women (mostly) of special status, quite
possibly those blessed by the gods as seers. Possessing an object that
allowed the owner to see how others saw them would be a powerful
thing, but these clearly had ceremonial, religious and/or magical
functions too (it has been suggested that the mirrors were to trap
pernicious revenant spirits,3 but this appears unlikely, at least in the
British cases, where they can be compared to the inclusion of swords
in warrior graves). The backs of the bronze mirrors have ornate,
compass-drawn patterns that would have shimmered and enchanted,
suggesting deliberate control of reflected light, and were kept in
special coverings that, along with some of the burial sites, seem to
reflect watery connections to the Underworld.4

1 Enoch, Jay M. (2006) History of Mirrors Dating Back 8000 Years, Optometry and Vision
Science, 83 (10), pp. 775-81; Kalas, Rayna (2002) The Technology of Reflection: Renaissance
Mirrors of Steel and Glass, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 32 (3), pp. 519-
542; Pendergrast, Mark (2003) Mirror, Mirror: A History Of The Human Love Affair With
Reflection, Basic.
2 Pendergrast, op. cit. (n.1).
3 Holden, Lynn (2008) Reflections on the Double, in Anderson, Miranda (ed.) The Book of the

Mirror: An Interdisciplinary Collection Exploring the Cultural Story of the Mirror, Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 121-30 (p. 122).
4 Giles, Melanie, and Joy, Jody (2008) Mirrors in the British Iron Age: Performance,

Revelation and Power, in Anderson, op. cit., n.3, pp. 16-31; Joy, Jody (2010) Iron Age
Mirrors: A Biographical Approach, BAR British Series 518.
On the other side of the world, bronze mirrors represented Japanese
kami, especially the Sun goddess, Amaterasu, long before their
worship became known as Shintō. Amaterasu’s mirror (yata no
kagami) is one of the three imperial regalia (sanshu no shinki, literally
‘the three divine receptacles’), that She gave to Her grandson, Ninigi,
from whom the emperors claim their descent, with the instruction to
honour it as Her spirit. The mirror was shown to Amaterasu to entice
Her out of a cave in which She had hidden, and so is a receptacle for
Her divinity and reflects Her divine, impartial will.5
In the Greek and Roman worlds, mirrors were quite common as status
objects and as magical tools and weapons. Athena gave Perseus a
shield of polished bronze so that he could see Medusa’s reflection and
kill her without being turned to stone by looking at her directly.
Long before glass, metal or obsidian came into use, the first mirrors
were still pools: places of transformation (Salmacis) and entrapment
(Narcissus), sites of augury, and dwellings of otherworldly beings.
Divination in pools, bowls of liquid, or mirrors (catoptromancy) was
well developed in the Classical world (see Part Two of this article).
Mediaeval and Post-Mediaeval

T he polished metal mirror did not disappear completely with the

advent of silvered glass. In around 1478, an Italian medallist,
who called himself ‘Lysippus the Younger’ (a reference to the 4th-
century-B.C.E. Greek sculptor, Lysippos), made a portrait medal to
give to his lovers, with the reverse polished to be a mirror and on the
obverse his own profile and the legend: “Admire on one side your
own beautiful face, and on the other that of your servant”.6 However,

5 Bocking, Brian (1997) A Popular Dictionary of Shinto, Curzon (pp. 154 & 224); Yamada, Taka
(1966) Shinto Symbols, Part 2, Contemporary Religions in Japan, 7 (2, June), pp. 89-142 (pp.
103-5). Interestingly, Shintō shrines often carry crests, called tomoe, with swirling designs,
associated with water, therefore apotropaic against fire, remarkably similar to the basic
compass-drawn designs on British Iron Age mirror backs (see Yamada, op. cit., pp. 121-4).
6 Hill, Sir George, and Pollard, Graham (1978) Medals of the Renaissance, Colonnade / British

Museum, p. 70; Jones, Mark (1979) The Art of the Medal, British Museum Press (p. 38). This
is Jones’ translation. To him, the medal epitomises ephemeral Renaissance love.
the reference to Lysippos could imply a desire to make images of
people as they really looked. The mirror gives a perfect reflection of
nature, whilst the portrait is imperfect, so that the inscription could
actually have been addressed to Nature rather than a lover.7
Here we see the ambivalence of the mirror in second-millennium
Western symbolism. Usually, a mirror represents vanity, lust and
pride, as when paired with a comb in the hands of a mermaid. On the
other hand, it can suggest learning, accuracy or the wisdom to see
oneself as one really is, as when held by Prudence (one of the four
Cardinal Virtues) in Italian Renaissance art. She also has a serpent or
dragon, referring to the injunction to be as wise as serpents (Matthew
10:16.), and, often, compasses to indicate measured judgement. The
mirror can have direct Christian meaning too, as with the ‘flawless
mirror’ held by the immaculately conceived Virgin Mary, or one in
the hands of a bishop reflecting Her face. Yet again, to Cesare Ripa,
the mirror represents falsity, showing an apparently perfect image that
has no substance, and turning reality back to front.8
Of course, the original mirror is the Moon, reflecting the light of the
Sun, transforming it for a different kind of magic, ideal for
understanding what is not obvious in the stark light of day. Catching
the reflection of the Moon in a mirror, bowl of liquid, or a pool, is
thus doubly magical, is in general use by magical practitioners, and
seems to be the origin of the folklore of moonrakers, whereby a
special rake would be used to position and retrieve a bowl floating in
a pond so as to gather the light of the Moon.9 For much of the history
of Christianity, man has been seen as a dim reflection of God, and
woman in turn as a dim reflection of man. Whilst we now see this
perspective as false, there may be a less patriarchal resonance with the
magical act of catching in a mirror the reflection of the light of the
7 Syson, Luke (1994) Lysippus the Younger, in Scher, Stephen K. The Currency of Fame:
Portrait Medals of the Renaissance, Henry N. Abrams / Fick Collection, New York (pp. 120-1).
8 Hall, James (1979) Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, Revised Edition, John Murray,

pp. 210-11, 254-5 & 326-8; Perugino, Cesare Ripa (1645) Iconologia, Cristoforo Tomasini, pp.
25, 39, 114, 192 (falsity), 453, 508, 553.
9 Heselton, Philip (1997) Mirrors of Magic: Evoking the Spirit of the Dewponds, Capall Bann.
Moon, itself a reflection of the light of the Sun? After all, men and
women reflect aspects of deity to each other.
A Magical Tool

M irrors can be small, like a medal, fitting into the palm of the
hand for contemplation of one’s own image, or something
beyond. They can be fitted into lockets and, with the picture of a
loved one in the lid, when gazed into produce a powerful diptych.
Locket mirrors (along with mirrors as part of shrine souvenir tokens)
were used by mediaeval Christian pilgrims to catch an image of a
shrine or relic through the crowds and focus it on an object, usually a
piece of bread to eat or a souvenir badge, that they were unable, due
to the crowds, to touch to the shrine to receive and store its blessing.
Mirror magic solved the problem.10 Today, photography (when
allowed) plays a similar, if more concrete role.
Apotropaic Devices

R eflective surfaces shine and catch the light. Coins, sequins, glass
beads or tiny Indian shisha mirrors sown into clothing glint and
deflect the Evil Eye, fascinate and confuse malevolent spirits.11 This
is a function that crosses religious boundaries, with clay mirror
plaques, featuring very small, crude convex glass mirrors in their
centres and designed for hanging, being found in late Roman and
Byzantine archaeological contexts around the eastern Mediterranean,
in forms which indicate use by Christian, Jewish and Pagan owners.12
The idea appears again by the 15th century, with metal pilgrim badges
incorporating mirrors, produced first in Aachen.13 These combine the
functions of warding evil and capturing images of relics (see above).14

10 Spencer, Brian (1998) Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges, TSO (pp. 17-8 & 258-9).
11 Paine, Sheila (2004) Amulets: A World of Secret Powers, Charms and Magic, Thames & Hudson.
12 See for instance Rahmani, L. Y. (1964) Mirror-Plaques from a Fifth-Century A.D. Tomb,

Israel Exploration Journal, 14 (1/2), pp. 55-60.

13 Spencer, op. cit., n.10 (pp. 258-9).
14 Blick, Sarah (2019) Bringing Pilgrimage Home: The Production, Iconography, and Domestic

Use of Late-Medieval Devotional Objects by Ordinary People, Religions, 10 (6) 392 (available
at: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/6/392/htm).
As well as people, buildings are protected by mirrors. In the Chinese
geomantic system of Feng Shui, the pa kua mirror is placed outside to
deflect negative, straight ‘poison arrows’ of ch’i.15 It is usually
concave, in order to invert and neutralize the negative influence. This
ability of concave mirrors to invert the image (try looking in a spoon)
provides an apotropaic function something like the reverse of the
effect of the concave mirror in a torch, where light is focused in one
direction and a powerful beam is created. With the pa kua mirror,
what hits it is focused in, absorbed and annihilated.
In the West, by contrast, protective mirrors are generally indoors,
whether Victorian ‘witch’ balls hung in windows,16 baubles on Yule
trees, or plain or adorned wall mirrors. The surfaces of pa kua mirrors
are shaped to disperse what strikes them, as are those of mirrored-
glass balls, whereas wall mirrors are usually flat. Perhaps the negative
influence, although it penetrates through the room to reach the mirror,
is reflected back so powerfully it deflects or deters in the manner of
the danger seen in the light reflected from a predator’s eyes at night?
On the other hand, light refracted indoors attracts positive energies.17
Translucent and transparent glass, and shiny convex objects (such as
baubles on Yule trees) can therefore spread good cheer around the
room, both in optically mundane and magical senses. Well-positioned
mirrors can direct both sunlight and positive energies around a room,
and a mirrored ball in the window can disperse external influence and
redistribute internal energies at the same time.
________________________________________________________
To be continued: Part Two of this article will concentrate on mirrors
as portals and their use in divination and scrying. © Chris Wood, 2020

15 Too, Lillian (1996) The Complete Illustrated Guide to Feng Shui: How to Apply the Secrets
of Chinese Wisdom for Health, Wealth and Happiness, Element.
16 These appear to have begun as watch balls, placed outdoors in gardens, in the manner of

mirrors at blind road corners. See Hewitt, Peter (2018) Spheres of Influence: The Magical
History of the Witch Ball, https://innerlives.org/2018/06/11/spheres-of-influence-the-
magical-history-of-the-witch-ball/ [accessed 14th May 2020].
17 Morgan, Levannah (2013) A Witch’s Mirror: The Art of Making Magic, Capall Bann (pp. 74-5).
Through the Looking Glass
Reflections on Mirror Magic, Part Two
Chris Wood

T he first part of this article, in Quest no. 202, considered the

symbolism and magical uses that arise directly from the physical
properties of the mirror – the reflection of light and other, more subtle
emanations. Part Two treats of the mirror as a device for transcending
physical sight: a doorway to other realms and ways of seeing, a portal
to otherworldly beings, and a window on divinatory visions.
Portals
rom Snow White to Alice, Jonathan Strange18 to TV’s Stargate,
F mirrors are portals to other worlds, ways of seeing other places,
people and beings. TV, computer and ‘phone screens have taken on
some of that role in the mundane world, even becoming unnervingly
like mirrors, reflecting our faces back to us along with the darkened
images of the people with whom we are ‘zooming’. It is interesting to
note that, as portable, flat glass mirrors became common amongst the
courtly classes of the 16th and 17th centuries, courtiers indulged in
frequent reappraisal of their images, leading to charges of “glasse-
gazing” and being a “glasse-fac’d flatterer”19 when adapting their
speech and body language to mirror their superiors.20 Is this not like
people constantly checking their phones, worried what people are
thinking about them, what responses their posted words and images
are getting, and that their on-line persona fits, in order to get more

18 Susanna Clarke (2004) Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Bloomsbury.

19 Shakespeare, William, King Lear, 2.ii.16, and Timon of Athens, 1.i.60, respectively.
20 Anderson, Miranda (2008) Early Modern Mirrors, in Anderson, Miranda (ed.) The Book of

the Mirror: An Interdisciplinary Collection Exploring the Cultural Story of the Mirror,
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 121-30 (p. 122), pp. 105-20.
‘likes’? However, their function as a means of access to other worlds,
a conduit for spiritual and elemental entities, and a way of viewing
other realms, is fundamental to the real magic of mirrors.
There is an overlap here with the role of sacred images. Statues and
images exist not only to allow worshippers to focus on something
concrete in order to ’see’ a deity; they also bring the worshipper into
the sight of that deity. Monotheists may denounce this as idolatry, but
it is actually no different to a church being the house of God. Images
in Mediaeval Christian churches allowed the worshipper to be seen as
well as to see holy figures and contemplate Bible stories. Saint
Christopher was often pictured opposite the main church door. Seeing
his image gave protection against dying, or dying unshriven, that day,
and from tiredness, disease or accident.21 Icons, in Orthodox
traditions, are doorways to God or at least a different, holy place.22
The image of Mary, Mother of God, holding a mirror, perhaps reflects
Her own role as a portal, “the gateway of the Incarnation”.23
In Hinduism, sight is an active, two-way process. This is darshan,
seeing and being seen by the deity, and it is the core of Hindu
worship.24 A Hindu statue that is to be a receptacle for a deity is
specially prepared, firstly crafted and set in place, then the traditional
sculptor performs the ceremony of the Opening of the Eye of the
image. This involves the final carving of eyes and other orifices with
special chisels, followed by the careful showing of specific things to
the newly opened eyes of the image, starting with a cow in some
traditions, and in others, its own reflection in a mirror.25
In ancient Egypt, the corresponding ceremony, also used on the
mummy in funeral rites, was that of the Opening of the Mouth. A
priest used an adze (of rare iron) to open the mouth and eyes of the

21 Rosewell, Roger (2014) Medieval Wall Paintings, Shire, pp. 32-3.

22 Baggley, John (1987) Doors of Perception – icons and their spiritual significance, Mowbray.
23 Forest, Jim (1997) Praying with Icons, Orbis, p. XV.
24 Eck, Diana L. (1998) Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, 3rd Edition, Columbia UP.
25 Sthapati, V. Ganapati (2002) Indian Sculpture and Iconography: Forms and Measurements,

Sri Aurobindo Society / Mapin.

statue symbolically, whilst it was honoured as the spiritual entity that
it was to house. The eyes and mouth are key points of entry and
egress for the body. Vision is the sense of which humans are most
conscious, and seeing was conceived of as an active phenomenon,
rather than the simple, passive analysis of incoming light.26
Indeed, a divine image can be understood as the deity seen in a kind
of mirror. Its presence is real, if not perceived in its full splendour, but
in the only (safe) way it can be seen by human sight. As David
Morgan puts it: “Visibility is often a condescension of the tran-
scendent to the threshold of human experience.”27 So, a mirror (actual
or symbolic) can be a place to meet deities. In Shintō, the domestic
shrine (kamidana, literally ‘sacred shelf’) includes a mirror (shinkyō),
in which the devotee sees themselves in the place of the kami, making
a powerful inter-connection: we and They are not separate.
This presents an interesting angle on the display of ensouled images
behind glass or perspex, in museums or even in temples, for security,
conservation, or both. The transfer of sacred or magical power from
the image is certainly diminished, but (unless it is non-reflective) the
barrier does have the advantage of acting as a partial mirror, allowing
the viewer’s own image to be superimposed on that of the deity and a
deeper connection to be realised.
Pools and Mermaids

P ools are dwelling places of otherworldy beings, whether good (the

Lady of the Lake), bad (Grendel) or just beyond human morality.
Magical, religious and folkloric associations with water are, not
surprisingly given its fundamental importance to life, found
worldwide. Rivers are powerful, divine landscape beings, forces of
nature we cannot ignore,28 but pools, lakes and ponds have a subtler

26 Budge, E. A. Wallis (1899) Egyptian Magic, Kegan Paul, 1899 (Dover, 1971; Arkana, 1988);
Robins, Gay (2001) Egyptian Statues, Shire Egyptology.
27 Morgan, David (2005) The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice,

University of California Press, p. 48.

28 Wood, Chris (2020) A River Runs Through Me, Quest 201, March 2020, pp. 11-17.
nature, even if they are sometimes the sources of rivers. Like rivers,
pools can be ambivalent, but are perhaps more often likely to have a
dark aspect, even if, like dewponds, they are providers of much-
needed water in dry places. They may have their sirens that draw
people in to their deaths, but they are places that draw us deeper into
ourselves, reflecting the truth within, a truth intelligible only by
intuition, in patterns and symbols that point to something beyond
words and rational description.29
Here perhaps is the answer to a question that has puzzled those of us
involved in Val Thomas’ mermaid project. Why are mermaids so
frequently depicted (especially perhaps in church representations)
holding combs in their left hands and mirrors in their right? Most
people are right-handed, so that one would expect the opposite
arrangement to predominate in representation. Is it simply an
extension of the moral inversion implicit in the mirror and the
contradiction that is the mermaid?30
The comb, along with hairpins and scissors or shears, is a tool of
transformation, bringing order out of chaos, beauty out of tangle,
conformity out of wildness. Over the centuries, ordered hair has been
seen variously as a sign of a warrior elite, effeminacy and decadence,
paganism and Christianity, and bound up with rules about hair length
and the whole panoply of status, sexuality, psychology, religion and
magic, generally hypocritically interpreted for men and women. This
is a whole knotted tress to be combed out elsewhere.31

29 Heselton, Philip (1997) Mirrors of Magic: Evoking the Spirit of the Dewponds, Capall Bann.
30 Perugino, Cesare Ripa (1645) Iconologia, Cristoforo Tomasini, p. 192; Pedersen, Tara E.
(2015) Mermaids and the Production of Knowledge in Early modern England, Ashgate (2019
Routledge edition, p. 13-4).
31 See for instance: Aldhouse-Green, Miranda (2004) Crowning Glories: Languages of Hair in

Later Prehistoric Europe, Proc. Prehist. Soc., 70, pp. 299-325; Ashby, Stephen (2014) A Viking
Way of Life: Combs and Communities in Early Medieval Britain, Amberley; Derrett, J. Duncan
M. (1973) Religious Hair, Man, 8 (1, March), pp. 100-3; Gitter, Elisabeth G. (1984) The Power
of Women’s Hair in the Victorian Imagination, PMLA, 99 (5, October), pp. 936-54; Wolfthal,
Diane (2010) In and Out of the Marital Bed: Seeing Sex in Renaissance Europe, Yale UP,
chapter 2; ___ (2012) The Sexuality of the Medieval Comb, in Gertsman, Elina, & Stevenson,
Jill (eds.) Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces, Boydell, pp. 176-194.
It may not be an art-historical origin, but a magical significance to
how mermaids hold their grooming paraphernalia could be that the
comb, standing for rationality and order, is held in the left, intuitive
hand, whilst the mirror, standing for intuition, is held in the right,
rational hand, reflecting the crossover between external dexterity and
the opposite duality of the two hemispheres of the brain. The purpose
of this would be to hold the balance, intuition and rationality both
being essential to perception, but also to create the magical tension
between the poles of the mind necessary to see beyond the mundane
world and to work magic.
Specifically, she holds the
rational tool, the comb, in her
left hand to restrain the rational
mind and allow her mirror to
act as a portal, to see through
the glass that which cannot be
expressed in words.
There is a primordial association between eyes and pools and springs.
This is seen very clearly at Aquae Sulis (Bath), where, in the Romano-
British era, people came seeking cures for eye infections.32 It was
(and still is, for those prepared to find the right spot, at a quiet time) a
place of visions and oracles, in the presence of the goddess Sul,
whose very name conveys Her role as eye, the orifice through which
come birth, death, rebirth, healing and vision, where the Sun His or
Herself descends to heat the waters and be reborn.33
Sacred pools can, all too often, be profaned, whether by washing dirty
clothes34 or the brutal violation and pillage committed by Amangons,
a tale of rapacious arrogance destroying communion with the gods
echoed as far away as Ladakh,35 and still being committed worldwide.

32 Aldhouse, Green, Miranda (2018) Sacred Britannia, Thames & Hudson, pp. 128-9.
33 Stewart, R. J. (1981) The Waters of the Gap: Magic, Mythology and the Celtic Heritage,
2nd edition, Arcania/Ashgrove.
34 Halliday, W. R. (1913) Greek Divination: A Study of its Methods and Principles, Macmillan, p. 152.
35 Albinia, Alice (2018) Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River, 10th ann. ed., John Murray, p. 274.
The bad luck associated with a broken mirror can be seen as a
microcosm of this breakdown. On one level, it may be a reaction to
the material value of mirrors, but more important is the mirror’s role
as magical device. Part of the viewer is in the mirror; whatever
happens to an image, whether reflection, shadow, picture or poppet,
happens to the one whose image it is. The bad luck is especially
profound if a mirror is broken during the ritual in which it is being
used, of course.
The presence of spirits in mirrors, whether the viewer or other entities
(assumed to be malevolent), is key to the widespread tradition of
covering or turning mirrors when someone has died (and even
removing pictures or turning beds over in Jewish tradition).36 This can
be rationalised as avoiding vanity and joy at a time of mourning, or a
reaction to the idea that the divine image in the deceased has been
overturned. However, evil spirits can be present in a house where
death has occurred, and these, it is feared, can appear in mirrors and
attach themselves to the viewer’s reflection. Alternatively, the soul of
the deceased may carry away those of mourners through the mirror.
Such beliefs seem most prevalent in Jewish and Christian societies,
perhaps stemming from a monotheist reaction against mirrors being
used for divination and magic amongst polytheists, but perhaps
actually reflecting a worldwide fear that a reflection can trap the soul?
In contrast, the undead are not visible; they have no reflection
because they have no souls. The (rather circular) thinking behind this
seems to be that if people recognise themselves in mirrors, then they
have self-awareness, and therefore souls. Beings without souls (e.g.
vampires) therefore have no self-awareness and cannot recognise
themselves in mirrors, and therefore have no reflection.37

36 Useful sources include Frazer, Sir James (1890) The Golden Bough: A study in magic and
religion (Wordsworth edition, 1993, p. 192); Ron, Zvi (2012) Covering Mirrors in the Shivah
Home, Hakirah 13, pp. 271-83; Zarb, Tarcisio (1998) Folklore of an Island: Maltese Threshold
Customs, Publishers Enterprises Group, San Gwann, pp. 198-200.
37 Pendergrast, Mark (2003) Mirror, Mirror: A History Of The Human Love Affair With Reflection, Basic.
Scrying and Divination

M irrors, pools and bowls of water have long been used in

divination. Images might be seen directly in the mirror, or
arising from it. Divination with mirrors (catoptromancy) and bowls of
water or ink (lecanomancy) is well documented from the Classical
world. Sometimes the movement of the water, particularly when
disturbed by having an object thrown into it, of oil added to it, or even
the detritus floating on the surface, was interpreted. More commonly,
sacred pools would show visions following the invocation of the
presiding deity, or images would appear in the water to answer
questions. Water and mirrors were sometimes combined. A mirror
would be suspended over Demeter’s sacred spring at Patrai, so that it
just touched the water’s surface, and images indicating the prognosis
for a sick person would be seen in the mirror.38
There are various folk traditions of seeing future lovers in mirrors or
wells when the veil between worlds is thin. Saint Mark’s Eve (24th
April) is one such date, when, as well as seeing those who would die
in the following year by holding vigil in the church porch, young
women in the Lincolnshire village of North Kelsey could see their
future husbands by walking backwards to the Maiden Well, circling it
three times, then looking into the water.39 Such traditions are more
commonly recorded at Hallowe’en, when standing in front of a mirror
at midnight, combing or brushing one’s hair (and sometimes eating an
apple), the face of one’s future spouse would appear over one’s left
shoulder in the reflection.40 It is not clear whether the act of combing
one’s hair is to make oneself attractive to a lover, or to be doing
something ordinary in front of the mirror to distract the mind from
expectations of extraordinariness. Perhaps it is both.

38 Halliday, op. cit., n.34, pp. 145-62; Addey, Crystal (2008) Mirrors and Divination:
Catoptromancy, Oracles and Earth Goddesses in Antiquity, in Anderson, op. cit., n.20, pp. 32-46.
39Halliday, op. cit., n.34, p. 153.
40Hole, Christina (1976) British Folk Customs, Hutchinson, p. 90; Kelley, Ruth Edna (1919)
The Book of Hallowe’en, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, Boston Mass., pp. 161-3.
When used in scrying and divination, the mirror serves to allow the
viewer to switch off their dominant optical sight and reattune to
images from elsewhere, whether their own subconscious or from a
non-physical entity or place spirit. The best mirrors for this are not the
perfectly reflective, silvered glass variety. It is imperfect reflection
that allows the gaze to sink into the mirror surface and the mind to go
elsewhere. Dr John Dee famously had an Aztec obsidian mirror;41 a
polished fingernail is often recommended; dark pools and bowls filled
with water and a little ink work well; and ‘shewstones’ of crystal,
indeed crystal balls, have always been popular – not mirrors, but
dimly reflective surfaces into which the scryer can sink. A black
mirror can easily be made by painting a sheet of glass black on one
side, and looking into the other. A candle or lamp may also be
positioned so as to be reflected in the gazed-in surface, a variation of
scrying directly in the flame of a candle or lamp (lychnomancy) or a
fire (pyromancy). The light can be seen as a portal for the spirit
world,42 or as raw material for visions.
There are several good books which explain how to scry.43 In
principle, the scryer enters a meditative state and looks into the
mirror, bowl or crystal, until their everyday vision is at rest. Spirits or
deities may be called on to assist (or indeed appear), according to
tradition. For some, reflections in the glass become animated
simulacra, for others a deeper experience ensues, with lucid visions
appearing out of the mist. Not everyone finds this easy (and crystal-
gazing is generally considered more difficult than using a dark mirror

41 Its provenance is unknown, but such mirrors were sacred to the important Trickster deity,
Tezcatlipoca, whose name means ‘smoking mirror’, and whose statues and images they
adorned, and were carried by priests who used them in divination (see Smith, Michael E.
(2014) The Archaeology of Tezcatlipoca, in Baquedano, Elizabeth (ed.) Tezcatlipoca: Trickster
and Supreme Deity, Colorado UP, pp. 7-19). Their acquisition by Spanish traders was
therefore unlikely to have been a simple act of trade. Dee’s mirror is now in the British
Museum (1966,1001.1): https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1966-1001-1.
42 Johnston, Sarah Iles (2008) Ancient Greek Divination, Wiley-Blackwell, p. 159.
43 Green, Marian (1989) The Elements of Natural Magic, Element, pp. 46-7; ___ (1991) A

Witch Alone, Aquarian (1995, Thorsons edition, p. 147); Morgan, Levannah (2013) A Witch’s
Mirror: The Art of Making Magic, Capall Bann, pp. 76-9.
or bowl of water). The rational, adult mind is difficult to still, and our
everyday sight sense doubly so.
Children have been used by magical and religious practitioners to see
visions from Ancient Egypt44 to modern Tibet.45 John Dee was not
able to see the angelic visions for which he is famous, and he had his
son, Arthur, scry for him (as well, of course, as his mountebank side-
kick, Edward Kelley).46 The innocence of children, their readiness to
accept rather than filter out supra-mundane experiences, and the
perceived unlikelihood of their lying, has made them ideal mediums
for diviners since ancient times, although their potential for seeing
what they are asked to see can also give more desirable results!47 In
Victorian English occultism, even up to the Golden Dawn, scrying
was seen as a girl’s or woman’s job, with the male adept asking the
questions and interpreting the answers. Fortunately the Golden Dawn
had strong women who did not settle for that and happily took on the
whole operation.48
A Final Reflection

M irrors, like pools, are ambivalent, liminal things. They can

enlighten and protect, but also seduce and entrap. In as much as
they give access to the unconscious mind (individual, “reflecting the
truth within ourselves”,49 or collective), they therefore reflect the
dangers and benefits of such a journey of discovery.
© Chris Wood, 2020

44 Pinch, Geraldine (2006) Magic in Ancient Egypt, 2nd edition, British Museum, p. 89.
45 Goldberg, Jay L. (1992) Mirrors in the Sky: Tibetan Methods of Divination, in Matthews,

John (ed.) The World Atlas of Divination, Headline (Tiger edition, 1998, pp. 161-70), p. 169.
46 Woolley, Benjamin (2001) The Queen’s Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr Dee, HarperCollins.
47 Johnston, Sarah Iles (2001) Charming Children: The Use of the Child in Ancient Divination,

Arethusa 34, pp. 97–117; ___ (2008) op. cit., n.42, pp. 159-61.
48 Butler, Alison (2011) Victorian Occultism and the Making of Modern Magic: Invoking

Tradition, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 108 & 158-9. The Golden Dawn developed a technique it
called ‘scrying in the spirit vision’, which allowed the mind’s eye to travel and see remotely
or in other realms, but using meditation on tattwa shapes rather than mirrors or crystals (see
Soror, V. H. (2003) Of Skrying and Travelling in the Spirit Vision, in Regardie, Israel, The Golden Dawn, 6th
edition, Llewellyn, pp. 467-504).
49 Heselton, op. cit., n.29, p. 110.