Divination Methods - Scrying

Perhaps the oldest way of invoking visions is by scrying for them,
it is by far older than Cartomancy and Tarot for divination. Several
methods can be employed to scry for images, the most iconic of which
is gazing into the crystal ball. Simply place a solid sphere of per-
fectly transparent quartz crystal upon a small pedestal on the table
before you, make the room completely dark save for a single candle
set just out of sight of the person divining. Then sit and quiet your
mind, peer into the depths of the ball and fall into a trance. Images
will swirl in the crystal coming in through your third eye. It takes
concentration and little else to see these visions but much wisdom is
employed in deciphering them.

Other methods of scrying are much the same though they use different
tools. The scrying bowl is a medium black or dark coloured bowl filled
with water and a candle is placed just out of sight. The water becomes
a still mirror into which the seer gazes as he awaits the images from
the Aether. Leonardo DiVinci is said to have favored this method to
give him the insight he used to create many of his great works. In the
past a dish of quicksilver (Mercury) was used as a perfect liquid mirror
though it is now known that this metal is extremely poisonous and gives
off deadly vapors.

A scrying mirror can easily be obtained now a days and again it is used
in a darkened room with a single candle. As a clairvoyant I have received
visions whilst looking into a cup of black coffee, which has to be the
simplest scrying mirror one can empoly.

The absolute oldest form of scrying has to be Smoke and/or Fire scrying.
At night around the flickering, living flames how many have sat staring
untill entranced. Today we sometimes gaze overlong into the candles flames
and see wonders. Freeflowing plumes of swirling smoke see in an errant
shaft of sunlight take the form of a million things. I have seen more than
entertaining shapes in the fire and the smoke, highly detailed animal
spirits that move naturally, the Gods and whole scenes of things.