E. A. Koetting - staticfly.net

WORKS OF
DARKNESS
and his eyes hungry for that which hides just behind the white cloth
and the black mirror. Rather than assigning the student with
contemplation upon psychological improbabilities or meditation upon
scenes of tranquil imagery, it is best to toss him out the comfortable
nest at the top of the tree and allow him to see that indeed he can fly.
The visualizations and sensory impressions have been, up to
this point, impressions only, filtered, calculated, and given a logical
value by the organic machine of the brain. Those things beheld in the
mind were not creations of it, but rather were symbolic images through
which the mind was able to identify an abstract with an absolute, in
the same manner that the mind interprets all phenomena - the
difference here being the depth of the phenomenon and the height that
the mind must reach to interpret it. The task that remains is to deliver
these sums and values to the rest of the organism, defining to even the
core of the nervous system the exact parameters of that which is seen,
heard, smelled, tasted, felt, and instinctively known about the specific
thing that once evaded awareness altogether.
Putting to work what has been learned hitherto, in combination
with new techniques and practices, the Sorcerer will immediately begin
to first open windows to the realms beyond. Soon he will find no difficulty
in opening doors to them, through which he may leave this plane, or
through which he may invite the darkest powers and beings to travel
into this realm of flesh and substance. The keys to infinite knowledge
will be placed in his hands, and no door will shut him out.
Gazing through a black-backed mirror into nothing will show
the Seer exactly that: nothing. Scrying mirrors are powerful tools,
however, when they are actually employed in a purpose. Before humans
learned to make and form glass into flat panes, ancient Sorcerers polish
brass, copper, silver, marcasite, and most often obsidian to a reflective
sheen. Through these earliest scrying mirrors, Black Magicians would
peer into the unseen worlds and speak with the malevolent.
While some purists insist that the Operator's mirror be made of
polished metals complementary of the astrological bodies of Luna,
Venus, or Jupiter, either crafted by the Magician himself or by a
craftsman that is indeed a Practitioner of the Arts, in all actuality the
Black Magician can make a suitable scrying mirror for a few dollars
with materials he may already have or that he can easily buy from
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