Divination is the attempt to learn by reading something what cannot be learned by ordinary means. It is among the oldest of human practices, and it takes hundreds of forms: cards, lots, stars, the flight of birds, the entrails of animals, dreams. Of all of them, the one most closely associated with the left-hand path is scrying, the practice of gazing into a dark surface until it shows something.
This page describes scrying in some detail, mentions the other forms more briefly, and spends as long on testing as on technique. The Order's texts teach no divination. They do ask that anything a practitioner sees be written down before it is believed.
The Word
To scry is to descry: to catch sight of something, especially something distant or obscure. The practice is also called gazing, and when the medium is water, hydromancy. Practitioners sometimes compare the mirror to running water. The ear will hear words in running water if it listens long enough, and the eye will find shapes in a dark surface in the same way. Whether the shapes come from the depths of the scryer, from somewhere beyond them, or from the ordinary tendency of the mind to find patterns, is the question every scryer eventually has to face.
A Short History
The ancient peoples of Italy read the livers of sacrificed sheep against a bronze model of a liver marked with the regions of the sky, one of which survives. Greek and Roman diviners gazed into water. An Elizabethan court magician employed scryers to look into a crystal and a polished black stone on his behalf, and recorded their visions over years; the angelic alphabet mentioned on the page Sigils comes from those sessions. Folk practitioners in many countries read the shapes of melted wax dropped into cold water.
Mirrors carry a folklore of their own, nearly all of it concerned with death. In many parts of Europe the mirrors of a house in mourning were covered, for reasons that varied from place to place: so that the soul of the dead would not be caught in the glass, so that the dead could not carry off the living, or so that the dead could pass on without looking back. In Ireland it was said that a person who looked into a mirror at night might see the devil over their shoulder. A practitioner who sets up a black mirror is working with very old fears.
Media
- The black mirror. The medium most used on the left-hand path: a smooth, dark, slightly reflective surface. It can be made in a few minutes, as described below.
- Dark water. A black bowl filled with water, sometimes darkened with ink.
- The crystal. A clear sphere, in which the scryer looks for clouds and then images.
- Flame. A single candle, gazed at directly.
- Smoke. Incense rising in still air.
- Wax. Melted wax poured into cold water, and the shapes read as they set.
- Another person's eyes. Some practitioners gaze into the eyes of a partner, with the partner's consent, as a form of scrying.
Making a Mirror
Take a picture frame with a glass front and remove the glass. Clean it, paint one side of it evenly black, and let it dry. Replace it in the frame with the painted side facing in, so that you look through the glass at the black paint behind it. The result is a dark surface with a faint reflection, which is what is wanted. Many practitioners keep the mirror for this use only, wrapped in cloth when it is not in use, and some consecrate it before first use. A bowl of dark water does the same work and needs no making at all.
A Method
The following is the method most often described, adjusted to the Order's rules. It fits the structure of a working given on the page Designing a Working.
- Write the question. In the record, before beginning, write what you hope to see, or write that you are only looking.
- Dim the room. There should be enough light for a faint reflection and no more. One candle placed so that its flame is not reflected directly, or two candles one on each side of the mirror, will do.
- Open, and settle. Open the working, and practice stillness for a few minutes until the mind is quiet.
- Gaze softly. Look into the mirror without straining and without trying to see anything. Blink when you need to. Most practitioners find that the surface clouds, darkens, or seems to move before anything else happens, and that this takes ten to fifteen minutes, longer at first.
- Do not chase. If an image appears, observe it without trying to hold it or make it clearer. If nothing appears, that is the result.
- Close, and come back. Close the working, write at once, and then eat and drink something.
- Interpret later. Write what you saw as plainly as possible. Add what you think it means separately, and then add further notes, dated, over the following days and weeks. Many scryers find that the meaning of a session, if it has one, becomes clear only later.
Frustration is normal. Some people see images within a few sessions, some after months, and some never. Some practitioners who study the cards for years find that they never come, while the mirror does, though only after long and repetitive practice. A fair trial is several weeks of regular sessions, recorded. After that, a practitioner may conclude that this is not their gift, and that conclusion is as valuable as any other.
Candle Gazing
A related practice comes from the yogic traditions of India, where it is counted among the cleansing practices. The practitioner gazes steadily at a single point, traditionally a candle flame at eye level an arm's length away, without blinking for as long as is comfortable, and then closes the eyes and attends to the afterimage. Some practitioners scry on the afterimage itself, watching what it becomes behind the closed eyelids. Others use the practice simply to still the mind, and some recommend it to anyone who finds ordinary meditation difficult because their thoughts will not stop.
Stop at the first sign of eye strain. Anyone with an eye condition, or with epilepsy triggered by light, should ask a doctor before trying it. And never leave the flame unattended.
Other Forms of Divination
The cards are the most popular form of divination in the West today, and many practitioners of the left-hand path read them. Others cast lots, read the stars, or interpret dreams. The Order's view of all of them is the same as its view of scrying. They can be learned, they are worth testing, and the reader's skill at noticing what the person in front of them already knows is part of every reading, whatever else may be at work.
Practitioners who read for others report a particular fatigue. A person who is consulted constantly is never off duty, and several advise taking long rests from reading for anyone. The Order performs no readings for anyone, and the Statements of Position say why it would accept nothing if it did.
Signs and Coincidences
Many practitioners read the world itself as a mirror: a number seen again and again, a name that recurs in a dream, a conversation, and a book within a single week, a sign that appears just after it was asked for. These experiences are common and can be striking. They are also exactly the experiences that the mind's habit of finding patterns produces, and the habit is strongest when we are looking for something.
A practitioner who wants to know whether their signs mean anything can find out. The method is the same as the one given for sigils.
- Before looking for a sign, write down exactly what the sign will be, narrowly enough that it could fail to appear.
- Write down how often you would expect to see it anyway. Any particular time of day shows on a twelve-hour clock twice a day, whether or not anyone is watching for it.
- Record the misses as carefully as the hits.
- Look again after a year. A pattern that appears once is an anecdote. A pattern that appears under the same conditions many times is worth taking seriously.
None of this requires denying that signs occur. It only requires counting them honestly, which the Nightside Record asks of every pattern in the record.
The Limits of Seeing
Experienced scryers sometimes offer a model of honesty worth copying. Some report that after many years of practice they can see into their own past in the mirror, and have never seen the future or into anyone else's life. They neither affirm nor deny the claims of those who say they can, and they decline to insult their practice. That is the right posture. Write down what you see, claim no more than the record supports, and let others do the same.
One further limit is not a matter of evidence but of health. If images begin to appear outside of sessions, in ordinary light, and cannot be told apart from ordinary sight, stop all practice and read the chapter When to Stop in First Workings. If the images continue after practice has stopped, seek qualified medical help.