Black Mirror Scrying

Every Pagan or witch is remarkably aware of our proximity to the Samhain holiday. Since August, many of us have been celebrating and preparing, embracing the slow departure from the sunny summer weather, delighting in the falling leaves and crisp temperatures. The Samhain season is our time to shine, after all. In our preparations for all things spooky, many of us choose our rituals for the day, making sure that we have everything we need and preparing ourselves emotionally and mentally for what we’ll be looking to achieve.

One of my all-time favorite rituals to perform on Samhain is black mirror scrying. The black mirror was long used to dive through the veil between the physical and spiritual world. It has been used to find lost objects, speak to lost loved ones, and even deep dive into past lives. As a matter of fact, past life readings, while they can be done pretty much any time of the year, are best done on Samhain when it becomes easier to access these long-lost memories.

Making a Black Mirror:

If you haven’t been able to find a black mirror or a black obsidian mirror is currently out of your budget, making a black mirror is a relatively simple and relatively cheap task. Sometimes taking a trip to a thrift store can lead to great finds in antique or vintage mirrors or even pretty photo frames. Either will do the trick, as long as the surface of the glass is unblemished, without scratches, chips, or gouges. If it just needs a good clean, that’s fine; you’ll need to give whatever glass you use a good cleanse before painting it anyway. Once you locate your perfect mirror, you’ll need black spray paint. Try to avoid anything too matte, as you’ll need the surface to be reflective. Putting matte paint on will make it significantly harder, almost impossible, to see any kind of meaningful images in your scrying.

If you’re creating a black mirror out of a photo frame, remove the glass, and handle it from the edges. It can help to have something set up to prop the glass up on to make handling and drying easier. Clean the mirror as best you can, and allow the glass to fully dry before painting.

If you are painting a mirror, it can help to tape off the surrounding frame, unless you’d like to paint it in the same black with which you’re spraying the glass. The color and style of the frame is entirely up to personal preference.

Make sure you are either outside in a protected area (to keep debris from flying into your paint) or in a well-ventilated room. Shake your spray paint well, and position the can about two feet away from the surface of the mirror. It is important to note that spray paint is the best possible method for painting a black mirror. Even when using enamel brush-on paint, there are often too many ridges and surface textures created by the brush to produce a clear or unwarped image while scrying. Deposit a thin layer of paint over the glass, and allow it to dry thoroughly.

If you’re using a photo frame, some like to paint the other side of the glass once the top is dry. While it’s not inherently necessary, I personally like to make sure both sides are painted. Knowing that the whole thing has been transformed into a scrying tool, and I can’t accidentally put up the wrong side is a comfort for me.

Do this 2-3 times over each side of the mirror, making sure to deposit thin, even layers over the surface of the glass. Once fully dry, carefully arrange the glass back in its frame, only handling it from the outer edges.

While this is optional, I highly recommend smoke cleansing your mirror. You can do this with your favorite incense; I personally prefer to cleanse in mugwort smoke, as it has deep ties to both protection and divination.

Storing Your Black Mirror

When storing your mirror, it’s essential to protect it from potential damage or energetic interference. Keeping a black or white cloth to wrap around the mirror is best. This way, you don’t have to concern yourself with dust or debris or potentially having it damaged.

In terms of energetic interference, unless you are explicitly doing a reading for someone and need them to impart their energy on your mirror, after which you should do both a lunar and smoke cleanse to reset the mirror, nobody should be looking into your mirror. A black mirror is meant for a single user only and should be in tune with only them. Nobody else should look into, touch, or otherwise interact with your black mirror if they can help it. If they absolutely must move it at any point, having it wrapped properly in its cloth or blanket helps, but it should still be cleansed before use.

Using Your Black Mirror

The first thing you need to ensure that you know how to do, even before you ever unwrap and set up your mirror, is to meditate. Meditation is vital when it comes to any form of scrying. You should be able to get between 5-20 minutes of meditation in without any significant disruption of thought or focus in order to scry effectively. When you begin your scrying sessions, you should have a balanced, grounded, and clear mind.

When using a black mirror, it should be set at an angle (which is where it's incredibly helpful to make it out of a photo frame. They typically already have a way to prop themselves at an angle, making it easier to use) so that nothing is readily visible in the mirror. Arrange two candles, one on either side of the frame. It should be far enough forward to illuminate the surface of the mirror in a dark room, without being visible in the mirror. If the candles are too large and keep catching in the reflection, tea lights should work fine. Colors can be matched to your intentions, or simply black and/or white.

While scrying, it's important to stay as grounded and connected as you can. Some people feel comfortable with having a journal where they record the things they see, feel, or think during the session. If you do not feel comfortable breaking focus long enough to write, and especially if you're inexperienced, it can be beneficial to record your session so that you can speak your experiences without losing your concentration and connection to your reading. A voice recording on your phone or even a video can help you to trace your steps after so that you can record them down in a written journal when you're done.

If your practice suggests casting circles or protective work before readings and other metaphysical work, do it now. Otherwise, simply move forward. Light incense, preferably something slow burning to place in front of your black mirror to help you to see into the mirror. Once lit, resume meditation, placing focus on your intentions. Center yourself in your intentions for the reading; if you're doing a general reading, ask your guides or deity what it is you need to know right now, then clear your mind.

When you find you are sufficiently centered, look into your mirror with soft focus. If you're used to unfocusing your eyes, this will help to soften your vision enough; if you're not used to such an action, focusing your eyes on an area either just in front of your mirror, or just behind it can help you to train your eyes. Allow yourself to rest as you stare into the mirror.

Once you're sufficiently relaxed, you may see the mirror growing hazy or foggy. This is typically a sign that you're going into the reading. It may take a few minutes, or significantly longer, but shapes, images and thoughts should start coming to you. Stay in this soft focus state and maintain your state of relaxation while you wait for the messages to come through. Blink as needed; you don't need to dry out your eyeballs to have a proper reading or vision with a black mirror.

Please note that this takes a lot of practice. It's not as common as we'd like to have visions on your first, and sometimes second or third session. Keep practicing! Once they begin to show themselves to you, the messages become easier to recognize. Especially if you're planning on doing a Samhain reading, give yourself ample practice before approaching the mirror with a thinned veil.

Past Lives Reading

Samhain is a perfect time to learn more about potential past lives you've lived. Not everyone has lived a variety of past lives, but you'll never know if you don't search!

This is the kind of reading that I would strongly urge you to use protective and grounding herbs and stones during. You're opening yourself up to several points of existence; if you've lived many lives prior to this one, who is to say they were all benevolent? Stones like quartz, obsidian, tourmaline, hematite, and shungite are all great stones to keep on your person, attached to the frame of your mirror, or nearby during these reading. Burning mugwort, juniper, sage, or rosemary as incense can also enhance those protective and grounding properties, and be useful in the actual reading itself.

While most readings require you to be looking into a blank reflection, past life readings mean having to look into your own reflection. Test out a few angles; some people struggle with being directly face on, whether for discomfort of having to stare at themselves, or struggling to maintain soft focus at that direct of an angle. If you find yourself struggling, test the angle of the mirror, moving off center from it or adjusting your distance from the mirror until you can comfortably maintain soft focus.

Once you've found a comfortable position, focus on opening yourself to the past lives you may have experienced. Welcome those beings in while you meditate to a relaxed, centered state before opening your eyes to look into the mirror. Using soft focus, don't look directly at the reflection. Over the course of your session, you might see the face you're looking at shifting or changing; some people experience themselves changing genders, appearances, race, and sometimes even species. Take notes on the person, what they look like, what information you can gather of them. Often there are repeating cycles, fortunes, traumas, or tragedies that can impact our current lives that can be found in past lives.

Communicating With Past Lives

Communication with these visions that manifest in the mirror entirely depends on the person doing the reading, and the skill level they possess in the process. Chances are, if you and a friend were to both do a past lives reading, you may experience communication differently. Some will actively hear those who present themselves, and be able to have some degree of conversation with them. The conversation isn't always verbal; for some, it comes in the form of a mental exchange. If you struggle to hear, you may feel their messages. There might be a shift in temperature, movement in the room, or overwhelming feelings and urges passed from the being in the mirror. For others, the spirits may later on present themselves in a dream, presenting their stories and messages there. There is no single right way to communicate in these scenarios.

Final Thoughts

Much like a muscle, the more you practice, the stronger you will become in connecting and interpreting the messages brought forward by the mirror. After all, divination isn't called a "practice" for nothing. If you struggle with understanding what these messages are trying to tell you, there are resources available to help you understand the deeper meanings of the symbols you see.