The only distinction between hydromancy and gastromancy was, that in the latter case the water was poured into distended vessels. Cardanus has minutely described some gastromantic experiments that came under his observation. A bottle filled with holy water was placed in the sun upon a white-covered table; over the mouth of the bottle two olive leaves were laid crosswise; three lighted wax candles were then placed about the leaves and fumigated with incense, during which performance a prayer to Saint Helena was uttered. Very soon the mantic adepts standing in the background saw forms in the water; once a man with a bald head, slightly inclined forward; a second time a man dressed in scarlet. Cardanus himself could see nothing more than a disturbance in the water, as if produced by the motes of a sunbeam, and a peculiar generation of bubbles.
The same principle lies at the foundation of onychomancy, where the thumb-nail of some suitable person, or the palm of the hand was anointed with oil and soot, and the images appeared in the shining surface illuminated either by the rays of the sun or by a candle.[26] Ink was often poured into the palm of the bent hand and divination made from the reflecting surface of the ink.
[26] The facts cited are taken from Karl Kiesewetter's essay Hypnotisches Hellsehen, in Sphinx, I, 130, 1886. Perty's work on the Magical Phenomena of Human Nature, and Adolf Bastian's treatise Psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvolkern in No. 2 of the Schriften der Gesellschaft für Experimental-Psychologie (Leipsic, Ernst Günther, 1890), may also be consulted.
It will appear from the very enumeration of these multifarious methods of procedure that the effect does not depend upon the especial character or constitution of the "magic mirror." It is a remarkable trait of human thought, however, that it first endeavors to trace all phenomena back to external facts before it seeks the cause of the same within itself: the child of nature sees in all his thoughts the inspirations of good or evil spirits, and even the modern believer finds the source of all extraordinary enlightenment not in himself but in another—the Highest Being. A very high degree of culture is requisite for man approximately to comprehend what marvellous forces slumber within him, and to what a great extent, in the truest sense of the word, he is the creator of his own perceptions and emotions. And thus it was that throughout the long space of three thousand years people did not clearly discover that in the case of magic mirrors the most important factor was the person that saw, and not the instruments of seeing. If we will use the word "superstition," therefore, we can justly do so with reference to the improper disposition of the two factors involved.
This incorrect interpretation of the phenomenon, as being necessarily dependent in its origin upon the material object employed, then called forth the fables regarding some particularly rare and miraculous mirror which was kept in a certain family as a holy relic, and whose possession admitted people to a knowledge of the secrets of nature and of the future. Countless sacrifices of money and human life have been made to these extravagant fancies. Indeed, even to-day, certain English business-houses deal in magic mirrors "manufactured after the best prescripts," and certainly derive much profit from their traffic. In all the treatises upon occult science, in those of ancient Egypt as well as in those of the present time,—and the literature of divination by mirrors (catoptromancy) fills whole libraries,—in all I say are found directions for the manufacture of especially effective glass or metal mirrors. True, in addition to this, there is now and then a presentiment to be detected of the importance of personality. Tradition prefers in such experiments chaste maidens, pure boys, or pregnant women—a choice that despite its material faultiness at any rate pursues the correct principle of emphasising individual character.
Mirror-gazing was formerly, and is to-day, most extensively practised in the Orient. We possess an account written by Lane in 1834 of an adventure he had in Egypt in company with the English Consul Salt. The magician in charge of the ceremonies first wrote upon a slip of paper invocations summoning his two Genii; and then a few verses from the Koran, "to open the boy's eyes in a supernatural manner, … to make his sight pierce into what is to us the invisible world." The slip of paper was thrown into a chafing-dish containing live charcoal, frankincense, coriander seed, and benzoin. A boy eight or nine years of age had been chosen at random from a number who happened to be passing in the street, and the magician, taking hold of his right hand, drew in the palm of it a magic square, that is to say, one square inscribed within another, and in the space between certain Arabic numerals; then, pouring ink in the centre, bade the boy look into it attentively. At first the boy could only see the face of the magician, but proceeding with his inspection, while the other continued to drop written invocations into the chafing-dish, he at length described a man sweeping with a broom, then a scene in which flags and soldiers appeared, and finally when Lane asked that Lord Nelson should be called for, the boy described a man in European clothes of dark blue, who had lost his left arm, but added, on looking more intently, "No, it is placed to his breast." Lord Nelson generally had an empty sleeve attached to the breast of his coat, but as it was the right arm he had lost, Lane, without saying that he suspected the boy had made a mistake, asked the magician whether the object appeared in the ink as if actually before the eyes, or as if in a glass, which makes the right appear left. He answered they appeared as in a mirror; and this rendered the divination faultless.
A counterpart to this in more recent times may be cited. When Seringapatam was stormed by General Harris and Sir David Baird, the unfortunate Tippoo Saib retired to discover by means of divination by a cup what the future prospects were for the continuance of his rule. After he had remained seated for a long time deeply absorbed in meditation, he suddenly sprang up and in despair rushed into the foremost ranks of the combatants and fell covered with wounds; so deeply had the fatal aspect of the image in the cup moved him.
In Europe, during the period of classic antiquity, hydromancy was especially practised. The Byzantine Andronicus Comnenus also put his faith concerning the knowledge of future things, in water. Christianity denounced the practice of these magic arts as the work of the devil. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the gift of seeing visions possessed by children, is not to be ascribed to any power of innocence but to evil influences. Despite this however the art did not perish. Indeed, in the sixteenth century, under the protection of physicians and University professors, it attained the acme of its development.
The celebrated humanist Pico de Mirandola was firmly convinced of the power of magic mirrors, and declared that it was sufficient in order to read in a magic mirror the past, the present, and the future, simply to construct one under a favorable constellation and at the proper temperature.
But the most successful of all in the practice of crystallomancy was Dr. Dee, who flourished from 1527 to 1608. His seer or scryer was a man named Kelly, who could hardly be described as "unpolluted" or as "one that had not known sin," for he had been the perpetrator of so many villainies that as a testimony of his character both his ears had been cut off. A crystal served as the vehicle of the ecstatic revelations, to which according to the conception of the times numerous spirits were attached, who made themselves intelligible to Kelly by dramatic scenes and often by sounds. The Shew-Stone, or Holy Stone, was round and rather large; it is said to have come into Dee's hands in a very wonderful manner. The large folio volume of the English mathematician upon crystallomancy was very probably used later by Cagliostro, although the latter practised a somewhat different method and used a carafe of water instead of the stone. The prophecy of the magician who predicted the regency of the Duke of Orleans through the death of the Prince, is to be noticed as the last historical case of the use of the magic mirror.