Through the Veil Transcripts

Episode 16 - Scrying

You’ve brought together everything you need.

It wasn’t hard, really. Nearly everything you had gathered could be found in any common home. And the rest was acquired over time.

The table was the small one that you keep in the corner. It does not see much use, so it seemed right that it would find purpose now.

The candles were scavenged, half-burnt already, but with plenty of life left to serve the meaning you intend for them.

The matches you had purchased, the day before. You had spent just a little too long searching around your home before you realized you had run out and had to buy new ones. They sat, the book flipped open and waiting.

The herbs you had gathered were wrapped together with three bands of twine. Their smell was strange combined all together. Alone, each was pleasant, but the grouping was heady.

The mirror… It was not ornate. It didn’t need to be. It was simple and round, leaning from the table against the wall. You tried not to make eye contact with it… because, well, it was the heart of this wasn’t it?

All there was left to do was wait. Wait for nightfall, and for the last component you could not gather, scavenge, or buy. You had to wait for darkness.

 

Scrying is known by many names, and truly means many things.

It is a magic of seeing. Of gazing into the past, the distant present, or the future. It was a method by which practitioners could hope to learn something new… Something true. With the proper ritual, and the right medium, scrying could be used to find personal guidance, receive revelations, or see at great distances.

It is the many magics of peering into the beyond and receiving insight.

Each version of Scrying can reveal different truths, and in different ways.

Whether peering entranced into the reflection of the night sky, or reading the ripples in a reflective pond, scrying is a magic art that has survived and thrived throughout history. The practice mostly fell out of style in the early middle ages as the Catholic Church grew in influence and demonized all practices that were viewed as pagan.

Scrying is an old magic. It features heavily in myths, folk stories, and popular culture.

From the old crone gazing into a crystal ball to Nostradamus staring into a bowl of water to read the future, it has been practiced for thousands of years.

It is a way to answer our questions. Even those that seem impossible to satisfy. Even those about the future.

I am Andrew Eagle, and I would like to invite you to join me as we peer into a mirror, or water, or the night sky. As we peer Through the Veil.

As the sun nears the horizon, and the time for the ritual is nearly upon you, you take a deep breath.

You light a match, the hiss of ignition - such a small sound - filling the space.

Holding the small light in one hand, you lift the bundle of herbs. In a moment, one end is smoldering, smoking.

Then before it catches fully, you blow it out, letting the strange scents build in the air as smoke billows from the tip.

You draw circles over the table in the smoke. It hangs lazily, filling the space with a haze.

The first match burns out while you smudge the space with the herbs, so you light another.

In a moment the candles flicker somberly in the shadow-filled space. The sun is almost entirely gone and the tiny flames will soon be the only source of light.

You settle onto the small cushioned stool. Staring into the mirror’s surface as the darkness falls, you try to clear your mind. To cast away all those thoughts and ideas that will prevent you from accessing the magic you seek.

And then… You wait.

Scrying is not only done while peering into a mirror or crystal ball.

The magic of seeing beyond our normal sight can be practiced in many media, and through many different rituals.

It is certainly most common to use a reflective surface- a mirror, pool of water or crystal ball.

Beyond that, scrying can be practiced by reading various different subjects.

Dropping wax onto a water’s surface can reveal symbols, images, or even words to be interpreted.

Watching clouds stretch and shift over time can reveal knowledge to the viewer.

Some believe that gazing into a fire, whether a candle flame, oil lamp, or raging bonfire, can reveal visions and information.

Perhaps related to this belief is the idea that smoke patterns can be interpreted as messages from beyond.

Generally, scrying magics require the practitioner to fall into a self-induced trance. Some say that certain drugs can make the experience more powerful and revealing, others claim that such aids invalidate the images observed.

In any case, the rituals almost always involve focusing on the central medium and allowing everything else to fall to the background such that images can be granted immediate attention.

The darkness settled into the room some time ago. The only light, the flickering pools of candle flame.

For a long time, nothing happens. There is too much movement in your mind. Too much light left before the sun fully vanishes beyond the horizon.

Slowly, as night stretches on and you lose track of time, you feel your eye-lids get heavy. The darkness and the herbal smell fill your mind until there is nothing but those sensations and the glimmering surface of the mirror.

Then something flickers at the very edge of your vision. You think maybe it was nothing. It easily could be nothing.

But then another follows it. And another, and soon the small vibration has filled the edge of your sight and took shape.

As you saw the forms it took, more images joined it in the reflection. You could see yourself. Not just your reflection, but some other version of you…

You could see other people, and someplace… other, a different location perhaps, and then…

Then…

You could see what was meant to happen next. You could gaze into the future.

Many tales in folklore involve variations on scrying beliefs.

A common tale suggests that young women could peer into their mirrors in a dark room on specific nights, usually Halloween or one of the solstices, in order to see the face of their future husband. However, this ran the risk of them seeing a skeletal visage which told them their fate was a young death.

Magical mirrors also play a role in many classical fairy tales, the most popular of which is probably Snow White, in which the evil queen uses a magic mirror and learns of the existence of Snow White, who exceeds the queen’s beauty.

In the Shahnameh, a Persion epic from the 10th century, an artifact is described that belongs to the Persian Kings. They call it the Cup of Jamshid, and it is claimed that the kings could use the Cup to view all seven layers of the universe.

Many other stories of witches and other magical practitioners posited the use of various means to offer prophecy and visions, many involving a mirror or strange brew.

Because Scrying has been practiced through the ages, it eventually came under the scrutiny of science.

There is no empirical evidence that scrying can predict the future or obtain information otherwise unobtainable.

It has been likened to hallucinatory experiences, where the visions are simply the result of delusion and wishful thinking.

One paper that was published in the journal Perception suggested that the practice of mirror-gazing scrying was caused by fluctuations in edges and outlines that affected the practitioner’s perception of their own face, tricking their mind into thinking they were seeing someone else.

Scrying is not limited to crystal balls and mirrors, but it makes sense that these stories find their origins hidden in reflections.

Asking questions of the future, of the dead, of the distant. We catch glimpses of the truth in the glimmer of a reflected flame, or in the star-filled sky.

We can see the answer in a still pond and we can find insight to our deepest questions hidden in spilled wax.

People have always sought to understand wider truths. To gain more information about the world around us. We are curious sorts after all.

And while pieces of scrying are certainly the stuff of fiction and little else, something to it has captured our attention, like a mirror caught in the corner of your eye, and a moment of realizing the face we are seeing is not entirely our own.

But with a glance, and chance to refocus, we realize the face is our own, and whatever might have been there is gone…

 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Through the Veil. I hope you enjoyed. I encourage you to subscribe to receive new episodes weekly wherever you listen as we continue our exploration of folklore, myth, and magic.

If you are enjoying the show, and have subjects you would like to hear covered, please email me at throughtheveilpodcast@gmail.com or reach out on Twitter, you can find me @ThroughVeil.

As always, thank you, for listening.

Andrew Eagle