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Obsidian

Obsidian is also known as volcano glass. It’s an igneous rock that forms when molten lava erupts from the earth and cools very quickly after coming into contact with snow or ice. It is very hard, brittle, glossy, and either a very dark bronze-green or black. Ancient people found that obsidian was highly reflective and that they could see themselves in the stone. Pieces of obsidian were ground flat and polished for use as mirrors.

One such mirror is now located in the British Museum in London. It is a dark, thick, highly polished disk with a small, hooped handle.¹ It was made by Aztecs to honor their god Tezcatlipoca (meaning “smoking mirror”) and was taken after conquest of the region that is now Mexico by Hernando Cortes in the 1520s. Of specific interest is the label attached to the mirror which says: “The Black Stone into which Dr. Dee used to call his spirits.” ²

This “black stone” was obsidian, often used in scrying. Scrying is an ancient act of divination, practiced throughout the ages by many cultures and belief systems. It is not limited to a particular ideology, but instead, its purpose is to receive information. Scrying is usually achieved by staring at an object with a shiny surface until a vision is revealed. The word comes from the English “descry,” meaning “to make out dimly” or “to reveal.”

Ancient Egyptians used ink, blood, water, and oil in their scrying. Romans used shiny objects, stones, and mirrors to scry. Ancient Greeks and Celts used crystal, polished quartz, black glass, beryl, and other transparent or light-catching objects. Ancient Persians used the Cup of Jamshid in pre-Islamic Persia (now Iran). The French visionary, Nostradamus, used a mirror in scrying, and the images he saw were the inspiration for his prophetic verse. Dr. Dee and his partner Edward Kelly would scry using a small crystal ball and a black obsidian mirror, both of which are now in the British Museum. But who was Dr. Dee?

Dr. John Dee, a Cambridge graduate, was a mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher, and a leading expert in navigation during the time of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the queen’s adviser and so influential that he was the inspiration for the part of Prospero in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Dee is one of Tudor England’s most interesting men and one of the most learned men in Europe for his time. He is credited with advocating England’s imperial expansion into what he called “a British Empire.” Dee also helped create the British intelligence service, signing his secret letters to Queen Elizabeth with two circles (to represent eyes) and the number 7, the alchemist’s lucky number.³  Almost four hundred years later, the author Ian Fleming would read about Dee and give his creation, James Bond, the number 007 as his code name.⁴

 It is not unusual that a man as intelligent and learned as Dee would believe in the occult during the medieval period—most people did. While the worlds of science and magic seem unrelated, Dee considered his many activities and interests as parts of the same quest in his search for understanding. In 1586, an angel speaking through Kelly told Dee to burn all his records just prior to a papal envoy arriving to question the pair about participation in witchcraft. Finding Dee’s obsidian mirror might have been enough evidence to send the pair to the rack or a place at the stake—especially since the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, for whom the mirror was made, was the god of warriors, rulers, and sorcerers.

You won’t need a scrying mirror to see that the beautiful Turncoat Obsidian looks nothing short of magical on your leather furniture.