Mirror Scrying: Making and Using a Black Mirror

The black mirror occupies a long and rich place in the history of Western occultism. Reflective dark surfaces, including bowls of dark liquid, polished black stone, and later glass backed with black paint, have served as tools for specular divination across many cultures. In sixteenth-century England, the scryer John Dee and his associate Edward Kelley worked with a polished obsidian disc, still preserved at the British Museum, which Dee believed delivered communications from angelic intelligences. Later practitioners in the grimoire traditions used mirrors dressed with special backing compounds to facilitate spirit vision. Today a black mirror is straightforward and inexpensive to make, and it remains one of the most accessible and reliable scrying tools available. This tutorial covers construction, consecration, posture, technique, vision interpretation, and the responsible closing of a session.

Making a black mirror from a picture frame

You will need a plain picture frame with a flat glass pane. The frame style does not significantly affect function, but a simple frame in black, dark wood, or unfinished wood that you can paint or stain is preferable to ornate frames in bright colors or chrome, which can be visually distracting during use. The glass pane should be smooth and free of distortion. Sizes between 20 x 25 centimeters and 30 x 40 centimeters work well; smaller mirrors offer too little visual field, and larger mirrors become unwieldy to position correctly.

You will also need flat black paint. Matte black spray paint or matte black acrylic both work well. The matte finish is important: a gloss black surface creates sharper, more distracting reflections and does not produce the same depth of visual field.

Step 1. Remove the glass pane from the frame. Clean both sides thoroughly with glass cleaner and allow it to dry completely. Any fingerprints, smears, or dust on the back surface will show through the black paint and produce visible blotches in the finished mirror.

Step 2. Apply two to three thin, even coats of matte black paint to one side of the glass, the side that will face into the frame. Apply each coat thinly and allow it to dry fully before adding the next. Building up thin coats rather than applying one thick coat produces a more even, opaque result and prevents the paint from peeling. The goal is a uniformly opaque black backing with no thin spots or pinholes where light passes through.

Step 3. Once the paint is completely dry, reassemble the frame with the painted side facing into the back of the frame, so that you are looking through the clear glass at the black painted surface. This arrangement creates the depth effect the black mirror is known for: you see not a flat black surface but a dark interior space, apparently receding behind the glass.

Step 4. If the frame’s backing board presses against the paint, add a thin piece of card between them to protect the paint surface from abrasion.

The finished mirror should look like a window into an interior darkness. When you hold it up in ordinary light, you will see reflections in the clear glass surface overlaying the sense of dark depth behind, which is precisely the visual environment that the scrying gaze will work with.

Consecrating the mirror

Before using the mirror for the first time, cleanse it of any energetic residue from the materials and the making process, then consecrate it to its purpose.

To cleanse the mirror, pass it through the smoke of frankincense, dragon’s blood resin, or any incense you use for purification. Hold it in the smoke for several minutes while holding the intention that anything extraneous is clearing away. You can also wipe the glass surface gently with a cloth lightly dampened with consecrated or moon-charged water, though take care not to wet the frame or the paint edges.

To consecrate the mirror, hold it facing you so you can see your reflection in it. Speak aloud, or state clearly in your mind, that this mirror is now dedicated to clear and true vision, that it will serve as a faithful tool of divination, and that it will show you what is real and useful. Many practitioners call on a deity or spirit associated with vision, prophecy, or the moon at this point, such as Hecate, Ariadne, the Morrigan, or their own patron as appropriate to their tradition. Others make the dedication personal and without invocation. Both approaches are entirely valid. What matters is the clarity of intention.

Once consecrated, the mirror should be treated with respect: wrapped in dark cloth when not in use, stored where it will not be casually handled by others, and cleansed periodically if it sees regular use.

Setting up the space

Choose a room where you can create near-darkness broken only by candlelight. Close curtains or work at night. The ideal scrying environment for a black mirror is darker than what you would use for a crystal ball, because the mirror depends on the contrast between the barely-lit glass surface and the dark interior behind it. Too much ambient light reduces the sense of depth.

Position one or two candles behind and slightly to each side of where you will sit, so that the candle flames do not appear as reflections directly in the mirror when it is angled correctly toward you. If you can see the candle flame in the mirror, shift the candle position until you cannot. You want the mirror to catch only a soft ambient glow, creating a faint luminosity in the glass surface without any sharp reflective points.

The mirror can be placed on a stand, propped against a box, or held in the hands. Many practitioners find that leaning the mirror against a book stand on a table at a slight backward angle produces the most comfortable working position: the mirror faces the practitioner at a slight upward angle, which means the reflection in the glass surface shows the ceiling or a dark area above the head rather than the face, reducing the distraction of self-reflection.

Some practitioners prefer to see their own face in the mirror and use self-reflection as the initial focal point of the gaze. This is a legitimate approach and is described in several historical and contemporary scrying methods. Experiment with both positions in your early sessions to find which produces better results for you.

Clear the table of everything not needed for the session. A small glass of water kept nearby is useful if the session runs long, and a notebook and pen should be within reach so you can record impressions immediately afterward.

The scrying posture

Sit in a chair with your spine upright but comfortable. Your hands can rest in your lap, or if you are holding the mirror, in front of you with the mirror angled slightly toward your face. Avoid slouching, which tends to dull the quality of attention, but equally avoid any posture that requires muscular effort to maintain, which will become distracting within a few minutes.

Position the mirror so that when you look into it with relaxed attention, you are not straining your neck, your eyes, or your arms. If you need to hold the mirror, consider a holder or stand that frees your hands; the physical effort of holding a mirror steady for fifteen minutes will undermine the quality of the session.

Take several slow, deliberate breaths before you begin gazing. Some practitioners use a brief centering or grounding exercise at this point; others simply breathe and let the transition into the working state happen naturally. If your tradition includes an opening ritual, an invocation, or a casting of sacred space, perform it before you begin the gaze.

The scrying gaze for a black mirror

The gaze used with a black mirror is essentially the same soft-focus technique used for crystal ball scrying, but the dark surface creates some differences in how the initial visual experience unfolds.

Look into the mirror at the point where the glass surface and the dark depth behind it seem to meet. Allow your focus to soften as you would when staring into the middle distance while thinking of something else: the eyes remain open and directed at the mirror, but the precise, sharp focus releases. The dark interior of the mirror may seem to deepen or to shift slightly when you find the correct state. Some practitioners describe it as the sense that the mirror has “opened.”

Reflections in the glass surface, including the faint image of your own face or hands if they appear, should be allowed to become part of the ambient visual field rather than focal points. The gaze rests neither on the reflective surface nor fully behind it, but at a kind of middle distance between the two, which is what gives the black mirror its particular quality of depth.

Maintain this gaze without strain. Blink normally. If the mind wanders, return the soft attention to the mirror without effort or self-criticism.

Distinguishing inner imagery from projected vision

The question of what a scryer actually sees, and what the nature of that sight is, is one of the most interesting and unresolved questions in the practice. In any given session, the imagery that arises can have at least two distinct qualities.

The first is internal imagery: thoughts, memories, or imaginative constructions that arise in the mind while the eyes are directed at the mirror. These feel recognizably mental. You know them as your own thoughts in the same way you know a daydream as a daydream.

The second is what many experienced practitioners describe as projected imagery: visual impressions that appear to arise in or on the surface of the mirror itself, that feel in some sense external to the ordinary workings of your imagination. This quality of externality is difficult to describe precisely, but most scryers report knowing it when they encounter it. The image appears to come from the mirror rather than from inside the head.

In practice, the boundary between these two modes is not always distinct, particularly in early sessions. The more productive approach is not to stop and analyze whether a given image is “real” or “just imagination” during the session itself, which will interrupt the gaze and dissolve whatever is forming, but to record everything that arises and reflect on its qualities and its subsequent accuracy afterward.

Over time and with consistent practice, most scryers develop a personal sense of the difference in quality between their ordinary imaginative productions and the imagery that arises during a genuine scrying state. That discrimination sharpens with experience and cannot be rushed.

Spirit contact: considerations and safety

The black mirror has a long historical association with spirit communication, and some practitioners work with it specifically for that purpose. If you intend to use your mirror for spirit contact, a few practical considerations apply.

First, establish who or what you are inviting before you open the session. A clearly stated intention, such as that you are open only to communications from your higher self, from your ancestral guides, or from named spirits you work with regularly within your tradition, creates a more coherent working environment than an open invitation to whoever wishes to come through. Specific intent is a form of protection in any spirit-contact practice.

Second, be aware that a mirror, particularly one in a near-dark room, can be a powerful inducer of hypnagogic states, the half-dream perceptions that occur at the threshold of sleep. Imagery in these states can be vivid and emotionally intense without necessarily being informative or externally sourced. This does not make the experience invalid, but it is useful to recognize it as a physiological possibility when evaluating what arose during a session.

Third, do not use the black mirror for spirit contact when you are emotionally destabilized, physically exhausted, or under the influence of any substance. The permeable states of consciousness that scrying cultivates are not appropriate to enter when ordinary boundaries of self are already compromised.

Fourth, if at any point a session feels uncomfortable, frightening, or energetically hostile in a way that does not feel like productive challenge, end it immediately using the closing procedure below. You are not obligated to continue a session that does not feel right, and there is nothing to be gained from pushing through a strongly adverse experience.

Closing the session

Do not simply put down the mirror and walk away from a scrying session. The transition out of the scrying state is as important as the transition into it.

When you feel the session is complete, hold the mirror facing you and state clearly, either aloud or in your mind, that the session is now closed. Some practitioners say this explicitly: “This session is closed, and this mirror is sealed.” Others use their tradition’s conventional closing formula. The content matters less than the clarity of intention: you are marking a distinct end to the period of open vision.

Place the mirror face-down on the table for a moment, or cover it with its cloth. Spend two to three minutes sitting quietly, breathing normally, and allowing ordinary perception to return. Notice the room around you, the feeling of the chair, any ambient sounds. Grounding exercises are helpful here: pressing your palms flat against the table, standing and feeling your feet on the floor, or drinking a small amount of water all assist the return to ordinary awareness.

Record your session notes immediately while the impressions are fresh. Write down everything you observed, even fragments that seem trivial, along with any emotional or physical sensations that arose. Then cleanse the mirror briefly, either with incense smoke or by passing a consecrated cloth across its surface, and wrap it in its cloth.

Building the practice

A new black mirror practitioner can reasonably expect the first two to four sessions to produce little overt imagery. The mind is learning a new way of attending, and the nervous system is learning to sustain the threshold state between ordinary waking and the receptive scrying condition. Persistence through the initial apparently unproductive sessions is what separates those who develop the skill from those who conclude they lack aptitude. The aptitude is almost universally present; the patience to build the skill is what varies.

Once you begin to see imagery consistently, the most important discipline is accurate recording and honest evaluation. Keeping a dedicated mirror journal and reviewing it regularly will show you the patterns in your vision: the symbols that tend to carry reliable information, the quality of perception that precedes accurate impressions, and the modes of imagery that are most characteristic of your own scrying intelligence. That self-knowledge is the foundation of everything that follows.