water and left for an hour.
After this they may be wrapped in clean linen and kept ready for use.

With a mirror made in this way from the 'electrum magicum,' Paracelsus
says:

'You may see the events of the past and the present, absent friends or
enemies, and see what they are doing. You may see in it any object you
may desire to see, and all the doings of men in daytime or at night. You
may see in it anything that has been ever written down, said, or spoken
in the past, and also see the person who said it, and the causes that
made him say what he did, and you may see in it anything, however secret
it may have been kept.'

Mirrors made of the 'electrum magicum' are warranted antipathetic to all
evil influences, because there is hidden in the metal a 'heavenly power
and influence of the seven planets.'

The plastic and creative power of the mind is the power of imagination;
but the power of imagination is, or should be, controlled by the will.
It is not alone the mediaeval dabblers in the occult who have adopted, or
endeavoured to adopt, various means for suspending the will and making
the imagination passive.

The ancient Pythoness, as Dr. Franz Hartmann, the modern German exponent
of the Science of Magic, pointed out, attempted to heighten her
receptivity by the inhalation of noxious vapours; uncivilized peoples
use poison, or the maddening whirl of the dance; others use opium, Indian
hemp, or other narcotics--all for the same purpose, to suspend the will,
render the mind a blank, and excite the brain so as to produce morbid
fancies and illusions. The fortune-teller and the clairvoyant employ
methods of their own for concentrating their attention, so as produce a
condition of mental passivity. The Indian adept prides himself on being
able to extract volition and suspend imagination by the mere exercise of
will.

A favourite device to bring about mental passivity has always been by
staring at mirrors, or crystal, or sheets of water, or even pools of ink.

'There are numerous prescriptions for the preparation of magic mirrors,'
says Dr. Hartmann in his work on Magic, 'but the best magic mirror will
be useless to him who is not able to see clairvoyantly, while the
natural clairvoyant may call that faculty into action by concentrating
his mind on any particular spot, a glass of water, ink, a crystal, or
anything else. For it is not in the mirror where such things are seen,
but in the mind; the mirror merely serves